Dylan Lawrence Moore

Yea, as soon as a warlord pops up, you now have a government again.

This is the point where I quit reading. Unless the author can somehow specifically differentiate between "blaming men" and "blaming a patriarchal society", then the rest can't help but be trash.

It might change the way you think about the situation. You could get an experiential confirmation that it was a waste of time. Or maybe it could actually have an effect in upholding gun freedom. Whatever the case, I can't imagine it would hurt anything.

You can always write it and see what happens. It's not like the gods of anarchy are going to send thunderbolts down to kill you for your heresy on the spot.

I think your responses were perfect. She's not bothering to be reasonable, why should you be? I think this is a numbers game. The more people who do this, the more it's going to approach a critical mass where people will openly fear social ostracism. Keep going and learn how to feel more powerful after situations like these. The time will come. You're on the learning curve now.

Just to add, if you're not going to celebrate Christmas, which calendar do you plan on using? The year 2015 is coming up, right? 2015 years since what?

Irimi is your triangle and drawing out uke is your circle, which square did you have in mind? In terms of neutralizing that specific incident, yes, you definitely could have done that. Human beings, like any animal, have bilateral symmetry. This means we have the ability to focus our actions on specific points. This is in contrast to a tree or a single-celled organism, which are more or less omnidirectional in their uselessness (in terms of their abilities to perform actions). And human beings, like any predator, initiate their prey by focusing the point of their bilateral symmetry (i.e. the center line/sandou) onto the prey. The prey, being wise to such things, will instinctively identify a predator and move to defend itself in whatever fashion it deems fit (fight, flight, freeze, or achieve kuzushi if they've trained long enough ). Especially with the women so angry, it would have been a breeze to have them adjust that anger to you and amplify it, and if you were aware of the space and the geometry between you two, it also would have been easy to keep yourself safe. Being able to smugly smirk while the other goes haywire at you would be a good thing for you when the cop walked in, indeed. However, this is my concern, and I hear Stef mention this every once in awhile: how do you know the child simply wouldn't have received more abuse later due to this incident? This is the Catch 22 everyone on these boards experiences when they attempt child abuse intervention: how do I know what I'm doing isn't just going to make things worse later? I dunno. That's simply a call that you have to make in the moment with courage (i.e. without fear). Your hesitation to act wasn't simply for yourself, but it was also in calculation of "will this actually work for the kid?" You did fine. Analyze it, learn from it, and do better in the future.

Awesome. Way to come up with your own solution.

Of course, what's the most telling, is that instead of making their own all-female philosophy conferences, which would render "the stereotype that philosophy is male" as false, they aim to have all-male conferences shut down. Very philosophical, I must say.

I guess that's $349 million that didn't go toward building another nuclear missile?

Precisely. You use the state all day every day. You live supremely on violence just like the rest of us, so why is it that the only time you get upset from using it is when you're doing so in an effort to stop violence?

What's that line from V For Vendetta? "Politicians use the truth to tell lies. Writers use lies to tell the truth." Don't really see how it's different in this case.

Do you have similar mixed feelings about using the roads and spending Federal Reserve notes as currency?

You can learn anything anywhere on your own time. If you take some time to practice something at home, for the sake of getting better at it, not for the sake of following orders, then of course you can get better at it. The deal with school is that what it teaches you isn't just worthless, it's designed to fill your head with crap to distract you from realizing that you're being classically conditioned to follow orders and not question authority, a la the Prussian model. The homework they give you is along these same lines, and basically extends the control of the school/teacher outside the confines of the classroom, creating insurance that the child has a much lower chance of getting any "wrong thoughts" from his or her parents, as he's too busy doing his homework.

Now where was that part of the Bible that explicitly points out Jesus' birthday...

I'm a Nidan in Aikido from a very interesting school. I don't like to brag about it, but I can't shake the knowledge of my experience that I've never seen another Aikido school that was even remotely as good as where I trained. I have to mention this because most Aikido I've seen outside of my school and delineations of it have absolutely sucked. The core principles I learned at this school (drilled into me the first day I was on the mat) are almost completely void in any other dojo I've trained at, exceptions sometimes being made for the teacher and possibly his senior student. Our school is so radically different that I (and I'm sure most of the other students there) have at one point scratched our heads and said, "Are we really the only ones doing this right? Or are we just doing something else and Aikido is an entirely different art from what we're doing?" When I read the core principles laid out by O'Sensei (the guy who founded it), I think we follow them quite closely. This only adds to my confusion. I stated that because I want to be clear that when I say Aikido, I mean something a bit different from what you're going to find at your nearest Aikido dojo. Training in Aikido is what threw me full-blown into journey of self-knowledge. It shattered my personality onto the concrete and built me up again. It made me discover my awareness, my presence, my importance, and ultimately my voice (although this had more to do with the Shinto rituals associated with the Aikido than the training itself). I understand those terms are vague, but I don't think I can properly communicate what I want to by just saying, "I learned to stand up straight and look people in the eye." With it I was able to train the will to do things which terrified me. I also learned how much more control I have over my own body (especially in terms of sympathetic and parasympathetic systems) than most people believe is possible. That is to say, it was probably the most important event that ever happened in my life. However, as a tool of self-knowledge, it is very dangerous. It does not provide a moral roadmap, as much as the "spiritual teachings" seem to imply. The ideology that comes with Aikido (and virtually any martial art) is entrenched in hierarchical bullshit, which is particularly nasty as it's of Japanese variety. The hierarchical command structure is in direct contrast to its own teachings, many of which derive from an off-shoot of Shinto called Omoto-kyo, which preaches a universal "everyone's right so don't judge anyone" attitude. In fact, it can be easily argued that Aikido is simply a Shinto exercise (I believe this is the case), and Shinto openly proclaims not to be there to deal with moral matters. Aikido is a great engine for self-knowledge, which is to say it can create great power to apply to self-knowledge, but it does not make a good driver. The simple fact of the matter is that past trauma takes residence physically in your body, generally in the form of tension. You cannot do Aikido with any sort of level of effectiveness while being tense, and the training works to release these tensions. This in turn forces your mind to deal with the drama associated with that tension. However, you never learn WHY that tension was there. You just simply "get over it" and it bugs you less in the future. Real self-knowledge requires philosophy, which Aikido is not. May you have good training.

BAMF!!

I don't really know what you mean by that. "I'm going to shoot you!" references something other than words as well. In fact, words that reference themselves are generally in the realm of discussions on grammar, yea? I'm aware of that. Things like self-defense training and/or weapons training can protect against being physically attacked, too. But what about the parent who trains/imprints his child to self-attack, and continues to press that button throughout the child's adult life? Totally agree on the first part. I'm hazy and foggy on the second. Like I mentioned before, I get the feeling that there are levels of violence, where there is an obvious discrete line at the initiation of physical force, a less obvious line at the initiation of sophistry used unaware (sophistry used with awareness clearly being more "violent", if that turns out to be the correct word to use), and all sorts of more vague lines in between.

What about passive, manipulative language used to hide violence? Say I know that our man around the corner who's going to jump out and threaten to shoot you is there, and I (intentionally) quite casually, politely, and positively get you go to around that corner, knowing exactly what is going to happen? That is, talking about something completely different which gives you the idea to go around the corner yourself, without me even suggesting it. At face value, the language is the absolute opposite of violent. However, the intent isn't. What about someone who knowingly uses sophist techniques to manipulate you under their control. There is no physical threat, outright or otherwise, but the sophist is still able to dominate you. While the quick answer to this may be "not violent", remember that most sophists will escalate the instant you start questioning and calling out their bullshit. If the sophist never crosses the line of physical violence, is this still violent language? Dunno. I've been thinking about this for awhile now and I've been formulating the hazy idea that there are discrete levels of violence; direct physical violence being the only line which is easily discernible. Other than that one, I don't seem to be able to find where to draw the line between different types.

Just wanted to point out on the reviews on that book linked. Most of the reviews are 1 star, but there's a whole bunch of 5-star reviews, which, as far as I can see, are satiric. At least most can see it for the garbage that it is.

Fuck yea! Is the BTC address still good? I'll make a late donation.

Just a quick thing in here... I don't mean to be rude but I have to point something out: I'm assuming this is a public school, yea? Even if it isn't, it's still based on the original Prussian idea of schooling, right? That is to say, the classrooms are laboratory-zoos and the teachers are behavioral psychologists trained at little more than pressing the electric-shock button. Is it strange that your son is exhibiting animal-like behavior when you bring him to a zoo every day?

That picture cracks me up every time.

I didn't get a real appreciation for history until I started reading Carroll Quigley. Tragedy and Hope and the Evolution of Civilizations are incredible, as he is the one history professor i know that openly tries to impart understanding, not knowledge.

Sounds like either one or both of his parents wouldn't believe him/take him seriously if he were sick or upset about something. And now he's considering being a professional killer. Yay.