SirJamesIII

Envy and jealousy turned into anger and violence. Mental health issues are obviously part of it, but often people say that to insulate themselves from the notion that these things can be caused by some sort of cultural blowback (think Waco). It's not as if his complaints about women are unfounded and also isn't necessarily the case that his misogynistic attitudes prevented him from acquiring a mate (at least until he went completely off the deep end and got into some hardcore men's rights stuff on the internet). At a young age men who are underdeveloped (short, looked pretty young for 22), have mental health issues and divorced parents are unfairly treated by their peers. As much as I like to say the parents are entirely to blame, you still have to understand that schools nowadays provide places for kids to grow without parental supervision. I think we still live in a time where even good parents can have trouble maintaining open communication with their children, especially when your kid is socially successful, you may not have a great incentive coach your kid on things that may pertain to things like being polite and respectful. So long as your kid is happy, who cares how your kid treats other kids. Your kid may be big dick and you don't even know about it. Here we have a kid who's sense of entitlement got warped into a sense of justice. To Elliot, he should've gotten that first slice of birthday cake because it was his birthday. Ultimately he liked to play the victim while neglecting his own path to self-realization. Narcissism is just a side-effect to compensate for this. However, it appears in his manifesto that he openly talks about his insecurity. It doesn't appear like he's pretending to be all great when he really isn't. He just thinks he's never done anything wrong to hurt anyone, so why does he feel so shitty and alone? He compares himself to the men who do have sex and then he uses that to bootstrap himself to narcissism. And its not like the kid is wrong, he's just going postal over dumb teenage girls. It's just petty to me. Women became so idealized to him that he became fixated on just one small part of human relationships and became overwhelmed that our sexually repressed and backwards culture didn't satisfy him. If only he knew how much he wasn't missing. The kid was surrounded by perfect hollywood types in his family. He probably thought he was going to snag a blonde babe by birthright. He even mentions how much he empathized with the character Prince Zuko from Avatar. He felt that he was a Prince who had everything taken from him and he needed to restore himself to the status he deserved. He was a child of divorce, so I can see the connection. From a guy who's been a sorority girl boy toy before, yeah girls pretty much select guys based on how many likes their photos get on instagram and facebook when posing with their bfs. I have a lot of disrespect for young women. But how can he still be upset at not receiving attention women he doesn't respect? That's the great mystery to young misogynists to me. Probably projecting the hate he had for his step mom onto all women.

These are nice. You can sleep on your side with the wax ones. +Melatonin

Wasn't it David Ricardo's theory anyway? Ultimately Marx's knowledge was limited to what was available to him at the time and this was before the marginal revolution in economics when subjective value became a thing. He was stuck criticizing the classical economists, who's theories aren't correct either.

Have you guys heard about this incident with this Nash Grier kid? It's pretty much what I was talking about in action. However, it isn't about men not having their preferences acknowledged, but that they shouldn't be allowed to have any all together. http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/nash-grier-vine-youtube-sexist-video-backlash/ There are some mirrors of the original video. Admittedly, the kid is a bit immature and his expectations probably aren't going to guide him in the right direction. But that's shit culture's fault.

Well I'd like to see solid evidence of Stef making that criticism before you put the words in his mouth. So far you've resorted to mental gymnastics to try and say that what Stef said implied all these things. Libertarian socialists have false moral beliefs? Didn't I just point to examples showing why the initiation force is not a requisite for such societies? Although having false moral beliefs sure made it a lot easier for these societies to accomplish their ends, but it wasn't intrinsic to their system IMO. In an Ancap world I'd bet there'd be a bunch of commie cranks dying to homestead some newly state forfeited land and it can all be done peacefully.

Stef criticized Chomsky for being an opponent of peaceful parenting? Peaceful parenting and libertarian socialism are incompatible? I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here.

Exactly why we don't take kindly to name calling. FreeEach wasn't being very philosophical despite the walls of irrelevant text criticizing libertarian socialism. Anyway, a "libertarian socialist" society can exist without the initiation of force. 18th century communist utopias in America are examples. These societies didn't have the greatest living conditions and they often employed extreme rules of exclusivity through religion and other unsavory social norms to compensate for an extremely homogenized lifestyle (eugenics was quite popular in these communities). Ultimately Mises' calculation problem holds these societies back. These societies had to maintain free-trade in order manage costs efficiently (much like the Soviet Union needed to stay connected to external markets). So they ultimately still depended on markets. The Shaker's, for example, made furniture.

Ok let me try to understand your position. Stef said: And in podcast #87 he critiques Chomsky. If Stef accused Chomsky of advocating the initiation of force in his critique , then Stef is contradicting himself. So did he? Does "crazy lefty"= advocate of force? Whenever Stef criticizes someone, must it always be on the grounds of NAP violation? I think that is a stretch, but I haven't heard the rest of the podcast. So far I still find the premise of the thread to be off base, but at least freemankind made an attempt. OP was just name calling.

So basically OP is saying that if someone with an alternative viewpoint isn't debated against on the show, then Stef doesn't have integrity even if they talk about the things they do agree on. Although I guess I didn't care much for the reference to the Spanish anarcho-statists

They're a good example of an artist who can survive without mainstream airplay and pop media attention. They have no trouble selling out Madison Square Garden. Flight 666 is a great film if you want to see how well they run their tours. Their frontman flies the tour plane, which they custom retrofitted to hold all of their crew and equipment.

As an "artist" (I'm a musician), I often feel very ashamed when I see people who use art as a means of persuasion. It really only takes one to write about vague moral platitudes in song/poem form in order for one to be able to influence people into becoming political about things that they hardly know the facts about. Exactly how educational was this video? Not really. This particular poem also appeals to insecurity. It puts the viewer in a position where they are made to feel guilty of unconsciously doing things that hurt others. Also, it is accusatory as well as politically incorrect IMO. It is essentially saying that by virtue of my gender, I am guilty of oppression. The guy also appeals to the silent bystander argument, but twists it into saying that men who are silent bystanders to rape jokes are guilty of vicariously causing rape. This of course implies that since he himself is not silent, as demonstrated by his poem, that he is righteous and is helping prevent gender violence. I can say with a relatively high degree of confidence that this video has prevented exactly zero rapes. So this video is incredibly disingenuous because of the opportunity cost of fixing a problem by focusing on things that have relatively no impact on the grander scheme of things. Trying to stop gender oppression by making viral spoken word videos is a waste of time.

From what I've learned reading feminist literature in college, there wasn't even a consensus among feminists in the 70s on whether patriarchy actually existed. Gayle Rubin, for instance, explained that patriarchy couldn't possibly be an explanation for all the hegemonic forces reigning over kinship relations. It was simply too narrow of a view. Rubin uses the term "sex/gender system" instead of patriarchy and that is what I use as well. Rubin even went out of her way to justify forms of pedophilia. This was definitely way before rape culture became all the rage. Feminists are far from what they used to be. I'm curious on why you think sex-positive feminists have caused more insecurity among women. I'd think that to be the case of anti-porn feminists. Sex-positive feminists seem more focused on taking away definitions of female sexuality as opposed to imposing them. But I may just be referring to academic sex-positive feminists. From what little knowledge I have, sex-positive feminist bloggers focus more on how "patriarchy" controls female sexuality even when some earlier sex-positive feminists deny patriarchy outright.

What is especially sad is that while we lament the condition of men in the post-feminist era, this does not bode well for women either. I think the state of black women currently is an omen for the future of all women to come. I think the MRM should focus more on how feminism hurts women.

I'm not describing a world all women want. I certainly hope that the majority of women don't want a world like that. I'm just saying there is a particular group of women (and some men) who are trying to create a world where there is no penalty for women who indulge in the heartless objectification of men. Personally I've only been objectified on rare occasions and it's not really an issue. I think sexual objectification gets blown up a bit. What has been more damaging to me personally, is the solipsistic attitudes women have about male sexuality. Women will prefer to stay blissfully ignorant, than to find out what men actually like.

Of course. Key word is product. In an ideal feminist (although not actually feminist) world, women can shop for men like they shop for clothing. Apps like Lulu are proof of this sentiment.

A common thread amongst feminist thought is of course the objectification of women. While I agree that the systemic sexualization of the female body has unnecessarily affected the self-esteem and consequently the lifestyles of many women, I tend to disagree that the sexualization of women is a result of appealing to aggressive male sexual behavior. Since most marketing is targeted towards women due to the fact that women control most consumer spending, the supply of hyper-sexualized ads is mostly determined by the consumer behavior of women. From personal experience, I rarely see sex being used to sell beer (at least not anymore), cars, or electronics, while sex is used liberally for marketing in the garment industry. While the common stereotype is that men are easily manipulated by sex, from a marketing point of view, it is women who are most vulnerable to sex in marketing. A PSS study showed that women's response to sexually charged ads depended on the perceived worth of the product being advertised. The cheaper the product, the more distasteful the woman will find the ad. Sex is quite a useful tool in this light because sex is desirable to a woman if it is rare and special. Sex in ads can convince women that a certain product is special and therefore desirable. Of course this can't be the case for all sex in marketing. A woman still has to be able discern, which products are valuable and which are not. Less valuable products may still attempt to use sex to appeal to women, but if the product does not accurately represent her contrived ideal forms of sex (namely being rare and special), then she will not be persuaded by the ad. I don't think these observations entail a "ha I told you so" moment towards feminists since I do think the sexualization of women today is detrimental to the state of women in society. But it does run contrary to the mainstream neo-feminist agenda. It is not only men who are responsible for degrading women, but also women themselves. This is no surprise because in traditional courtship settings, it is common for women to try to decrease the value of other women to make themselves more appealing in the sexual market. The sexualized world of female consumerism has institutionalized this behavior. Women can assess the value of each other by seeing who has all the trendy products and who does not. To me, this is practically cannibalistic behavior since the average man doesn't actually care much for these things. But the trend is that men's tastes are actually drifting in that direction, at least among young men who are slowly becoming feminized. Would I face social pressure if I dated a girl who wore skirts below the knees and never wore heels as opposed to a girl who wears American Apparel? Of course I would. The return on investment from female beautification with regards to being found desirable by men is horrendous. The beauty/garment industry only has contributed to hostility among women competing against each other in the sexual market. "Slut-shaming" has created a way for women who are insecure about the lack of return from beautifying themselves to black-list women who attempt to figure out the sexual preferences of males directly. Or "slut-shaming" may be used by women who dominate the sexual market to fend off competitors. From what I can see, there is definitely a "beauty bubble" where there is a severe misallocation of sexual goods and services. Essentially plenty of people who should be in relationships and having sex are not because there has been too much investment in certain sectors, which result in overvaluing certain goods. Women purchase these goods with the expectation that they will be rewarded but they are not because there is mismatch between the value of these goods and the preferences of men. The state of black women in society is a shining example of this. I remember walking in Harlem and stopping by a beauty store on Malcom X Blvd just because I was curious. Never mind the fact that there are dozens of stores dedicated the beautification of black women in the area, if you just take a minute too look around, you will be in awe of the variety. Black women have had incredibly bad luck in the sexual market. No one wants to marry them anymore. Black men have been distanced from black women. There has been a vicious cycle between phasing out the black man's role in the family through welfare and black women trying make themselves appealing to black men when the economic incentives imply that it is better for black men to stay away from marriage. Regardless if superficial tastes are shifting among men, acknowledging what men find sexually/romantically preferable is taboo. Those who participate in the MGTOW movement (men going their own way) are doing so because of economic incentives as well as the cultural aversion to prioritizing male sexual preferences. The MSM sees this as being a defect among men. Women are crying that all the "good" men have disappeared. But women have been conditioned by consumer culture to view men as products that have to prove their worthiness to women. To hell with the preferences of the man. All he wants is sex and it doesn't matter what shape or form it comes in. The entire rape-culture conversation is predicated on the fact that women's preferences about personal space are not being acknowledged by men. I'd maintain that women's sexual preferences are put onto a very high pedestal in society today. Women acknowledging the sexual preferences of men rarely happens. And it isn't just that a man can't find a decent handjob anymore. Men are just as vulnerable to unwanted sexual advances as women are. It just doesn't happen as often because women who initiate sexual acts are looked down upon. I have experienced many cases of women grabbing my ass (sometimes with both hands) and inebriated women trying to make out with me when I'm around my friends. I would never get any sympathy for complaining about this, although I tend not to make a big deal out of these situations anyway because I was never taught to project fear onto unwanted sexual advances since they do not always imply direct physical danger (and some people tell me that I do not respect myself for this reason). Women have not even come remotely close to acknowledging my sexual/romantic preferences. The story still being pitched to us is that we have to pay closer attention to women's sexual preferences. The Dworkinites point to porn addiction among men as a rise of men viewing women as sexual objects. Men have turned to porn because they haven't had their sexual preferences appreciated enough and they are frustrated with participating in a rigged sexual market that will probably end in financial ruin. Feminists complain that men don't see the woman behind the vagina meanwhile it is socially acceptable for woman to use dildos and vibrators to replace a man's sexual services. Men who use fleshlights are losers and hate women because they don't want to go out and get a real pussy. The arrival of cam girls and tumblr porn is proof that men desire a woman behind a vagina. Cam girls spend a lot of their time having normal every day conversations with their incredibly lonely viewers. People have turned to tumblr for porn so people can post their own amateur material and interact with other tumblr users who do the same. Tumblr has an appeal precisely because it brings personality to the table. Feminism has turned many women into sexual-solipsists. They even have smartphone apps, like lulu, which contribute to this anti-social behavior. They don't understand that each individual man wants to be treated differently than other individual men. The time and effort women put into attracting men does not ever get allocated towards figuring out what the individual man finds attractive. They all assume that he just wants "sex" because we're all hungry potential rapists. So women dawn their "slut-costumes" (they aren't asking for sex of course. just like we can reasonably expect that someone wearing police uniform is just wearing a costume and not actually a police man) and they march onto the sexual battlefield. They get drunk so they feel less vulnerable and they pray that by the end of the night, the man who takes advantage of them is a "good guy." This is the current method that women use to attract men my age. I'm definitely not a victim blamer, and I certainly don't think these girls are "asking for it." But the issue is that they actually think this is responsible behavior. They think that this is how you attract a man. This is how you attract a sexual predator. Of course if the man who does take advantage of them is not a "good guy" then the woman can plausibly deny that she intended to have sex and could consent because she was drunk. Most of the time it doesn't get that severe, but they often blame beer goggles (That's also an excuse used by women when they cheat). Some women choose to attract men like this not just because they don't want to be vulnerable to cultural criticism, but more importantly, because they don't have to be vulnerable to criticism. But the costs of escaping this vulnerability are dangerously high. The whole feminism movement itself has to acknowledge the costs of playing the victim, especially since a lot of this victimization is entirely fabricated or misunderstood.

Here's another quote from Human Action that will help elucidate things a bit: All conscious action is committed because an actor has a reason for doing so. That is what Mises means as "rational." Suppose we have a scientist who performs an experiment to try to prove his hypothesis, but the scientist is unaware that his hypothesis is incorrect. Then suppose we have a girl who is behaving emotionally and breaks up with her boyfriend, but regrets it later. Categorically, the two examples are no different. Both actors performed an action "unsuited to the end sought." One sought to prove an incorrect hypothesis and the other sought a healthy relationship. However, in colloquial terms, most would consider the scientist as rational and the emotional girl as "irrational." One may say that the scientist couldn't have known that his hypothesis was incorrect given the available information while the girl did have available information that could have pointed her in the right direction. One may also say that there exists no means in reality that can achieve the end sought by the scientist because it is impossible to prove his hypothesis while there does exist available means to the girl for the purposes of attaining her desired ends. These objections, however, are not relevant to praxeology and economics. Firstly, all action implies uncertainty on behalf of the actor. Rothbard says: There are no scientific means of establishing whether or not means employed by an actor will bring about desired results because even if one could predict with total certainty the outcome of every action, no one has the authority to say whether or not that outcome is desirable to the actor until the actor has actually experienced it. An actor's values are in constant flux, which means we can perform actions whose sought ends are in contradiction with actions we may have performed in the past or will perform in the future. For all we know, the scientist may have figured out that he really enjoys trying to prove impossible hypotheses.

Reading "The Creature From Jekyll Island" right now. It's perhaps the best history of the Fed I've read yet. The origin story is so diabolical it's almost comical, like it came from a movie.

ermagerd I've facepalmed like 5 times on this point already. The definition I'm working with is not observer dependent. It's just understandable and knowable if an observer is there. The distant stars were detectable regardless if we do or do not have technology to detect them. The star's detectability did not magically change once we invent the technology. They just weren't detectable by us but they were and always will be detectable even if every observer in the universe died out. The star was still possible to detect before the telescope. It's not like the star went, "oh shit, they invented a telescope now! Now I have to become detectable!" The physical state of the object does not magically change once we have the technology to detect them. The distant stars were detectable as long as they existed precisely because a photon can interact with them. Like I said earlier, you are taking the theory of relativity and taking it to erroneous philisophical conclusions. With respect to velocity, yes the quantities measured in experiments are subjective to the obsever. These relative quanties can still be objectively compensated for. It is not as if scientist A performs experiment x and scientist B performs experiment x, then the two scientists can never come to an agreement on what they observe. If it wasn't Galileo didn't perform his experiments on gravity then someone else would have found a quantity different than 32 fps^2 for the acceleration of gravity.

ermagerd I've facepalmed like 5 times on this point already. The definition I'm working with is not observer dependent. It's just understandable and knowable if an observer is there. The distant stars were detectable regardless if we do or do not have technology to detect them. The star's detectability did not magically change once we invent the technology. They just weren't detectable by us but they were and always will be detectable even if every observer in the universe died out. The star was still possible to detect before the telescope. It's not like the star went, "oh shit, they invented a telescope now! Now I have to become detectable!" The physical state of the object does not magically change once we have the technology to detect them. The distant stars were detectable as long as they existed precisely because a photon can interact with them. Like I said earlier, you are taking the theory of relativity and taking it to erroneous philisophical conclusions. With respect to velocity, yes the quantities measured in experiments are subjective to the obsever. These relative quanties can still be objectively compensated for. It is not as if scientist A performs experiment x and scientist B performs experiment x, then the two scientists can never come to an agreement on what they observe. If it wasn't Galileo didn't perform his experiments on gravity then someone else would have found a quantity different than 32 fps^2 for the acceleration of gravity.

Same problem though. Things cannot "pop into" existence upon detection (magic). If I discover a rock, it sure better exist before I trip over it. It's irrelevant if later on, we say "Oh, but the rock in retrospect was detectable! Therefore detectability is the new criterion.". Many people claim to have observed god's will, and detected zero-dimensional (shapeless) particles. What do these "things" look like (hypothetically)? No idea! But they're proven and true all the same, according to the believers. We cannot understand, so we have to accept in good faith. I say no! Show me the money! The rock's detectability is not dependent on the fact that someone has to be there to discover it. The rock was detectable before the person discovered it. The rock did not become magically detectable once the person discovered it. Detectability is not an ex post facto rule. If a photon can interact with something, then that thing is detectable and therefore exists or if the effects of the phenonmenon can be observed through the behavior of other objects', which are detectable because likewise photons can interact with objects, then that phenomenon exists as well. This also doesn't mean that anywhere that photons don't exist, then the objects in this place don't exist. Because of the laws of physics, we know that photons can interact with objects, and the laws of physics are valid regardless if an observer is there to think them up. The act of detection does not make something exist, but rather, if the thing can possibly be detected then it exists. If some universe is full of objects that are detectable, but there exists no observers, that does mean that these objects aren't detectable, that just means that no one knows that the objects are detectable. The definition does not require that anyone know that phenomena is detectable. You seem to be imposing memory into the definition. The definition does not require the existence of an observer. It just requires that if an observer is there, then the observer has to be able to detect it.

I've said this several times already; I'm not saying that the things that aren't being observed don't exist, but anything that can be observed exists. If the phenomenon can't be detected then it cannot exist.

I may have misunderstood, but I thought you were taking on the definition of existence requiring detectability and critiquing it, and I thought you strawmanned it when you said detectability requires an observer. What I'm trying to say is that anything that has shape and location can be observed and that means the object exists. If the phenomenon can't be detected then it must not have shape and location (or we can't infer its shape and location in cases of energy). Existence still requires detectibility as a criterion. Also a self-aware universe would transcend the observer-observed dichotomy anyways. Anything that can be observed is also an observer. Self-awareness means that someting can detect itself. Perhaps the universe can detect itself too. I guess a sensory insturment is just something that can recieve information from sensory inputs. And I do mean non-physical information, and not an interaction between physical objects. They're my own words. Perhaps a sensory instrument is just something that is aware. In the double slit experiment, we must conclude that subatomic particles have these qualites since they exist as waves of probability until they are observed resulting in the collapse of a wave function creating a physically observable particle. Perhaps this is an even more concrete reason for believing that detectability or observability must be integral to our understanding of existence. QM is the notion that on the deepest level objects are possibilities until they are observed. An even better illustration of this would be the quantum entanglement experiment and "spooky action at a distance." The "only objects exist" explanation couldn't possibly describe the phenomenon of non-locality as physical objects cannot exceed the speed of light. In quantum entanglement experiments information is exchanged instantanously and the entangled particles stay polarized with one another a hundred percent of the time. So somehow, the particles know each other's physcial state. If information doesn't exist, then non-locality would be impossible, but bell's theorem demonstrates that no physical theory can predict the outcomes quantum experiments. Does non-locality imply that something can exist and not have location? I don't know. Perhaps this flies in the face of Stef's assertion that concepts only exist internally, but I like to think that maybe the whole universe itself has an internal world. You are correct in that concepts are either logically consistent or not and that their consistency does not depend on the existence of something conscious. But formalized thought still requires a thinker. Euclidean geometry was valid before Euclid, but euclidean geometry was not known before Euclid. If there are no thinkers present in the universe, then there would be no way to validate whether or not your definition of existence is true. Your definition of existence may still be consistent, but that's not what we're trying to achieve. I can contrive a formal system that is logically consistent, but if the axioms and the theorems they produce are not isomorphic to reality, then it is still a useless formal system despite being a valid one. Truth is not analogous to what is logically evident. Truth has to conform to reality, not just to axioms and one still needs a concious entity to verify this truth. It is improper to call Euclidean geometry a completely true system of formal thought. The parallel postulate rests upon assumptions that are not provable. Euclidean geometry assumes definitions of lines, points and circles not because they appeal to reality (or at least not completely), but because they appeal to the intuition. There are no infinitely small points or infinitely long lines in the universe. No system of formal thought can completely describe the universe unless supplemented by some other system. This is a deep philisophical reason why one needs some self-aware observer to verify the truth. Perhaps the most concrete explanation of this would be Godel's incompleteness theorem, which demonstrates that there are true statements within number theory that are not theorems. Godel's string, G, essentially says, "I am not a theorem." It can't be a theorem because that would be contradictory, but since it declares that itself is not a theorem, then it must be true. Godel employed the tool of self-reference to create a truth that is not provable within the system. I won't go into explaining why, but even if you make G an axiom, that system will likewise be Godelized and incomplete. IMO the only way one can arrive at a complete view of the universe is if conciousness is included into the equation.

As I have already stated earlier, gravity does not refer to a relationship between two objects, but rather how a single object warps spacetime. Spacetime is not an "object" and since you admit that tranformations happen, then you must admit time exists because a single object can't be two different objects at the same time. Light has no mass, yet it is still sucked into black holes, so you must admit that spacetime exists as the only explanation for light getting sucked into black holes is that the curvature of space changes such that light travels through an event horizon where it does not come back out again.

Your example of fusion could be explained in another way: Suppose that we have two hydrogen atoms. They have location and shape. Moments later, we now only have one helium atom. The previous two hydrogen atoms no longer have shape or location. The new helium atom also has location and shape. Did some kind of transformation occur? Yes. Does that transformation itself have location and/or shape? No. Is that transformation detectable? Only vicariously as a consequence of comparing the current state of a system of objects to the previous state of a system of objects. A consequence of having location and shape is that the entity is also detectable. Detectability requires location and shape, but introduces a dependence on an observer for existence. That dependence is unnecessary in order to explain existence. Detectability does not require an observer, but a potential observer. If I am to take what you say literally, then something that isn't being observed doesn't exist, but that is not what I'm trying to say. You essentially commit to the same mistake as the OP when using the telescope reference. If all conscious beings died out, that doesn't mean that nothing exists any longer, that just means that there is no knowledge of any existence. In order for the concept of existence to exist itself, it requires a conscious being to exist in order to think it up. Since I am talking to you on the internet, we know it is possible for something conscious to exist, and therefore we know it is possible to detect something. To be more speciffic, detectability requires a potential sensory insturment. Quantum mechanics tells us that the smallest components of the universe are sensory insturments themselves as demonstrated in the double slit experiment.