LovePrevails

2 minute clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYxEMIz7ZzM

Nice side stepping the point of my post there which was the suffering of animals and the fact that there is a direct line of cause and effect between the action of buying meat and causing unnecessary suffering to animals on a particularly dreadful scale this is something I see the meat eaters do a lot in the debate on animals on this forum, they want to switch attention from the suffering they are responsible for to calling you not liking animals suffering a subjective preference like a preference for ice cream of a particular flavour well yes, it doesn't please me that people eat animals it also doesn't please me that people hit children but it's not really about whether it pleases me or not it's about the suffering these actions cause (one no less real than the other) are you familiar with logic? do you know what an argument by analogy is? the child doesn't want to be hit, the animal doesn't want to be locked in a cage its whole life the fact the child can later reason has absolutely no relevance to the question at hand, no bearing on the question whatsoever this is just the god/state "of the gaps argument" How does this particular thing happen in anarchy? oh you don't know? well then anarchy clearly doesn't work Oh look we've found one "gap" - a distinction between humans an animals - capacity to reason - that's a really convenient factor to make it ok to cause them suffering so we can enjoy eating them, even though it is irrelevant to measure the suffering that is being caused. Omnomnom. you eat, shit, piss, have sex, propagate yourself, the animals eat, shit, piss, have sex, propagate themselves, people have a developed capacity to reason (although I often question that capacity on this issue) animals have a more limited capacity to do so, however, it has no bearing on the question of suffering and whether they have clear preferences. They do have clear preferences. I wish meat eaters would just be intellectually honest and say "I know my diet causes unnecessary suffering to animals, but I just don't really care about that. I want to eat them anyway so that's what I do, quite regardless of whether they suffer or not." That would be far more intellectually honest than all this post-fact rationalizing to avoid the issue, i could respect that and say - fair enough, that's your value judgment, lets move on.

Ask questions "So you are asserting x ?" "So do you you agree that y ?" "So since x and y, does it not follow that z?" "Well since not z then x cannot be true,"

any talk of rights etc. is not necessarily productive I think we should just focus on the empirical reality that purchasing meat (especially factory farmed) causes a great deal of unnecessary suffering it seems to be a bit callous to do this on a very regular basis, a little cruel the cost benefit analysis is like years of suffering for 20 or 30 minutes of enjoyment, why is this necessary? just because the animals can't speak up for themselves doesn't make their pain any less real I say this as someone who ate meat for most of his life, I'm glad i stopped. I've never looked back. I think it's an excellent lifestyle choice.

that quote from Lao Tsu sounds like Nietzsche or Molyneux saying that morality is a tool wielded by the strong against the weak what are your proposals for acting justly?

thanks for these charts i have not seen them before

Thanks for the feedback Ok this is not my experience, people what to know that practical alternatives work, the moral argument comes second, they make the lesser of two evils argument "Yeah, force is bad, but it's less bad than if..." However, your points to actually meet the layout of the book - in the next section (following) which I'd be happy for your feedback in as it is a work in progress I lay out the moral argument. I am not going to hammer home the moral argument throughout the text, because if you are basically telling people they are immoral if they disagree with what you are saying then they see you as oppositional and are less likely to listen to you./ More likely to think you're just arrogant or using rhetoric. The main thrust in the book is showing that if you have the right mindset you can think of solutions to every problem in anarchy, all you have to do is understand the basic principles which are "put in place the incentive structure that whoever solves the problem the best gets the most rewards, the system constantly self-optimises, and if anyone does any damage they retain the entire moral hazard - then every problem will solve itself!" Choose a problem, figre out one way to fix it, and a thousand people will take your solution and find ways to improve it in a free market - that's it. Ok, here it is: Voluntarism - the principles of our everyday lives. In our everyday lives we understand well certain moral principles: do not kill unless in an extreme of self-defense, do not assault, do not kidnap, do not rape, do not steal. In the public realm there is a tendency to think these behaviours are acceptable if we call things by different names, eg. War (going over to other peoples lands and killing them) or Tax (forcing people to pay for things under threat of locking them up in a cage with murderers and rapists) or National Debt (buying things that the unborn will have to pay for instead of the living.) If we are to discuss whether War or Taxation or are ever justified, we should first have the honesty to call these things by their real names. For example, perhaps we will say "well it is fair to force people to pay for things even if they don't want to, because they accept services from Government in return," but if we are not willing to have the honesty to say that that is what we mean rather than apply euphemisms, then we perhaps have something to hide. Perhaps it is the fact that this statement is somewhat akin to saying that a slave is consenting to slavery for a meal provided to him by his slave master, which was only provided by removing the product of his labour from him (the government has no money of its own, only that which it has taken, borrowed in someone else’s name, or printed.) I don't want to get overly bogged down in the moral arguments for or against statism at this point. (A list of popular ones and objections to them are printed in Chapter/Appendix: Popular Arguments for Statism and Objections to Anarchy.) First I want to provide the alternative for you to see, and judge for yourself whether it is better or worse that what is in place. If you agree it is a far superior alternative to running society by coercion, the penultimate section is a discussion of what you can do to set up systems based on the principles of anarchy in the world, so they will serve as an example to others of what is possible, some of whom may wish to copy or improve upon your model. If we want to change the world we must teach by example. People want alternatives, not merely idealist concepts, that is why we have to invent them and put them on display. This can be done in your family, within your friendships, romantic relationships, with children in your care, or in business or non-profit organisations. thanks for these suggestions, I am encouraged to see that some of them I thought of too which means my thoughts on what people might need to see are echoed, others I will keep in mind security is one of the first sections I started, lets see, this is all I have so far: Most peoples main concern about how we could have a society without government is who would provide security without government? In order to have a balanced view on this issue we must first be aware of the ways that government does not make us secure (more to come) Do you feel more or less afraid around cops? Secondly we may realise that most things which can keep us secure (locks, alarm systems, cctv, pepper spray, &c.) did not come out of government but in fact innovation in the sectors of society that were not controlled by government. Government can only react after the fact, so for instance a crime is committed, and then you contact the police, or someone gets in an accident and then you call the ambulance Government is not incentivised to solve problems, because any government department which solves a problem makes itself redundant – it is no longer needed. On the other hand, if they do not solve problems they can blame a lack of funding and grow. Therefor the incentive structures are such that Government is very unlikely to solve problems, by its very nature. In order to have security we only have to set up the correct incentives for security to happen. The rest will take care of itself. In this respect, on all counts, Anarchism is more about prevention rather than cure The best solution will prevail a lot of work needed there

spawned of debates, here in Scotland almost everyone is on the left, but I don't think most libertarian literature is written with the left in mind. being a former liberal I know how they think and trying to write this in the way that younger me would be most likely to be like hmmmmm a good point there so this is written to the left, not to free marketeers here is just the intro you tell me if you want to read more Anarchism In Practice All over the world people are searching for alternatives to the power-based structures which have dominated our world for so long. We have see the damage they have done: war, corporate welfare for the wealthy, bailouts from the public purse for powerful entities such as banks, the printing of currency at the behest of the ruling class which devalues the money of those who have saved their earnings robbing their income from them, concentration camps, and all sorts of other programs we may disagree with but are forced to pay for through the tax system at the behest of the state. Yet, people find the idea of a society without Government idealist or even utopian. Anarchists have long since preached that it is people who think a state could ever work who are the utopians, because states run based of force or the threat of force. It seems hardly possible to fund a war voluntarily, one must compel people to pay for it. The same goes for most of the other abhorrences we have discussed. People resist the idea of anarchy though, because they can imagine how an ideal state might work, but they cannot imagine how anarchy will work. The purpose of this book is to provide some insights into the principles of how anarchism can work in practice in the hope of not only allaying those concerns, but providing a model should the state ever collapse (as it did in Detroit in 2013) so people have means to practical alternatives to domination systems which work based on mutual cooperation and voluntarism rather than force.

yes when we send it to the head we should say "please pass this short resource on for the consideration and argumentation of your ethics professor" so it would be being handed down from an authority to the particualr professor and he might think oh gosh I could write something on this and people would read it - yay me! you know how keen people are on their opinions

great idea! Why don't we try a pilot project? I'd say that perhaps more than 10 because it's one of these jackpot games where many may ignore it but if it reaches one person who is really right for it it can spark of great results

Why do you say that? At least it gives them an excuse to rage for a while and then they have to think about it and try to rebut the arguments I think academics like being challenged a lot more than you think, many love debating.

If we could get an idea of how much it would cost then maybe we could assess how worth it is

thanks! this is a very important topic for me!

No that's Marc Moini I'm not in any way against it, I just don't think it's always useful - paticularly when trying to practice conflict resolution. I think anything that sparks more widespread discussion of an anarchist-friendly moral theory can only be a good thing.

Would there not be considerable value in making a project of sending a hard copy of UPB to every philosophy professor of ethics in the country? At worst it will end up in the libraries of most of the universities for students to stumble upon, at best some professors will incorporate it into their courses - either critically or with enthusiasm for it - I wouldn't be surprised if many wrote an article about it or posted rebuttals online which would be useful if Stefan ever wanted to write UPB 2nd Edition with an appendix of common objections which he wanted to rebut based on his experiences on the show since he first wrote it. The best way to get people talking about UPB is in things like the uiversity system where youngsters love to chat and debate everything and anything over a beer or game of xBox - even if it is presented very critically there will be fascination from some quarters. I am willing to throw some shekels at this project if it is adopted.

Hi thank you for raising this question, I very much looking forwards to hearing our communities response to you you can find a channel on this subect here www.youtube.com/theprogressiveparent

then I apologise, please correct me in these two cases

great idea

this is truly important observation

Broke cell wall chlorella is good for taking toxins out the body I generally think the ingredients of health are lots of filtered water (get a water filter jug off amazon cheap, there are three main brands) to wash out the body, breath deeply and get lots of fresh air, sunlight whenever you can manage, raw vegetables every day to contain all the nutrients rather than to cook them out (organic is best), and sweating is another way the body purges toxins, exercise obviously For suppliments Viridian is the best brand as they use top ingredients and neer include magnesium stearate unlike most suppliments, which some say is a bad compound to put in your body, they fill their capsules up with spirulina which is meant to be extremely healthy - but viridian tend to be more expensive as well so it depends on income hope this helps in some way

Again I get thumbs down instead of a reposte to my arguments, that is so immature. If there were parents on the forum who hit their kids that is exactly what they'd do every time someone made an anti-spanking post. Grow up people.

Xelent you act as though both these goals cannot be pursued at once, that is just nonsense, blame shifting and passing the buck onto future generations. Improving the world for animals is very easy. DON'T BUY DEAD ONES. Everyone can do this and it creates market incentives that make the business of making animals suffer less easy. You can pursue peaceful parenting at the same time. The fact is this is something that can be acted upon in day to day life, like peaceful parenting, focus on what you can change. if you don't want to give up meat at least buy game, monetizing factory farming is the height of carelessness.

can you expand on irritated? I don't mean to say "shame on you guys" I'm just saying I didn't see any need to be unkind to Marc in this thread he's not a bad sort really I give it to Marc when he deserves it, but he hasn't aggressed against anyone he was just expressing some difficulties and peple seem to be picking on him

I'm not even making a case that eating animals is unethical yet, I'm just pointing out that these particular arguments don't work good point sir, perhaps Wednesday! Dear sir, this is not an ad hominem, because I followed it with reasoning it is only an ad hominem if I said "that is a crap argument" in place of any reasoning Saying "if we allow gay marriage it won't lead to people marrying animals, thats a slippery slope argument you dolt" is not an ad homimem, but: "if we allow gay marriage it won't lead to people marrying animals you dolt" is

I love how two people thumbs downed my post but didn't care to point out how my reasoning was innaccurate, that's maturity for you. This is correct. In logic there is something called an argument by analogy, it goes like this you eat, animals eat you shit, animals shit you procreate and have sex, animals procreate and have sex, you take care of your kids, animals take care of their kids you have sensations, animals have sensations you see pleasure and avoid pain, animals seek pleasure and avoid pain and on and on we go animals do have some limited capacity to reason, for example a dog can follow a scent up to a fork in a road and deduce that because it doesn't go up one way it must go the other but that is clearly irrelevant, because it is not one of the factors that comes into the act of killing it's not like "Is it ethical to commit fraud on a cow?" -- it's irrelevant to commit fraud on a cow! a cow can't reason! a cow can however suffer, feel pain, wants to live and doesn't want to die, it has preferences those are relevant factors, not whether it can reason or not. I'm ringing up with this on Sunday perhaps because it's such a dull argument. I don't mean dull as in boring, I mean dull as in poorly reasoned.