Dylan Lawrence Moore

Das Experiment (Find English subtitles)

The free market will supply tape measures.

The first thing you might want to put on your reading/listening list is The Origins of War in Child Abuse by Llyod DeMause. Stef has the audiobook for free in the Free Books sections at the bottom. Religion made a hell of a lot more sense to me after that.

Yes, it occurred to me as well. Although for me it was with Christianity. I was raised by what I like to call a "wannabe-fundamentalist Christian" mother. This meant that she believed in being fundamentalist, but in reality it was too much work for her to do. However, she was going to be damn sure that I would be doing it. Leaving out the details, my mother just used it as another form of abuse. Of course, when you're 5 years old, you believe whatever you're told by your parents. Thus I considered myself Christian, even though I despised church, only read the Bible under coercion, felt really stupid and uncomfortable when praying, was never interested in getting baptized, and generally didn't get along with others who identified themselves as Christians. However, I was terrified of God and my mother constantly made sure that I should be. She would regularly go through my things and what I was doing to explain to me how the devil used things like books and video games (the two things I enjoyed the most) to get into the minds of young children. I had the Lord of the Rings taken away from me when I was 10 years old because they involved characters who did "magic". I got to the point where I thought I was damning myself with all my activities. I thought God was constantly looking over my shoulder and judging me because I didn't like going to church, because I didn't like reading the Bible, because I didn't pray unless forced, and because I hated my mother. When I was 13 I threw up my hands and told myself that I no longer believe in such shit and that I'm free. Of course, I did this more out of spite for my mother rather than any firm beliefs, and the guilt and fear tugged at me for at least year afterwards. To make matters worse, when I was 14 my mom decided we needed to go to some Christian seminar by some fundamentalist bigwig. I can't remember his name, and I wish I did so I could a.) show you all what a bigot he is and b.) write him a scathing letter. It was a week long, four hours a day, where I was forced to sit in a freezing cold room with my mother sitting next to me. She would yell at me or hit me the instant she thought I wasn't paying attention. I considered this the most brutal trial of my life. If my mother wasn't bad enough at convincing me how satanic I was, this guy, four hours a day, went into excruciating detail on just how Satan was perching his fortresses on the map of my soul. And, of course, he worked the crowd like any standard Hegelian trickster; he had all the answers and Bible verses ready and waiting to explain every situation and example he brought up. I considered it the worst week of my life. After the seminar was over I went into despair. My reason told me that it was all a bunch of bullshit, but I was just too fresh out of the Christian mindset to let go so easily. Looking back, I think the only thing that saved me and gave me the will to pull through was at the very end of the seminar when all stood up and sung a song (I had to sing too or I would get hit) that included these lyrics in the chorus: "Trust and obey, because there's no other way..." Without the logical capacity to explain why, I just knew that that was bullshit. Anyway, sorry for the long post. But to make a long story short, I remained non-Christian and everything has been all the better. You just have to stick it out. The feeling goes away and you'll feel a lot better. I would recommend studying something like logic and listen to lots of Stefan Molyneux in the meantime. -Dylan

Almost 70 years after the "democratization" of what was still more or less feudal-mentality Japan, and the whole country still suffers from heinous collective trauma. Damn.

Welcome aboard, Toren! From what little I understand about Russia and other Slavic-speaking peoples, you guys need FDR and an FDR-related community bad. Is your English good enough to translate any of Stef's stuff into Russian (did you notice my improper use of an adjective in place of an adverb? )? Hope to see you hanging around the chatroom and reading your posts. -Dylan

Word.

Everyone seems to have looked over the fact that the mother gave the child a death threat. I don't feel like watching it again to get the exact text, but she said something like "if you don't come to eat on time, I won't feed you". This is precisely when the girl starts crying and puts the blanket over her head. How 6,000 people are unable to put together that "I won't feed you" = "I'll kill you" to a small child is beyond me. The child understood it instantly.

Found your comment. I just had to search for your name. My Facebook name is Delanos.

Sophist was the word that came to my mind. I would lead by example. If she wants to sick in the feces of moral relativism and claim its virtue, at some point or another she won't be able to handle the comparison of you on green pastures.

Huh. I don't see yours, either. Hooray for the organization of Facebook!

You could always bring a friend over to her house and start taking valuable stuff. When she gets upset, just say, "Woa! 66% > 33%. What's your problem?"

I left scathing comment. I recommend others do so as well, including relevant FDR links if possible. Oh, and it would be cool if you guys "liked" it, as well as each others' posts, so we don't get drowned out by the delirious mutterings of shitheads.

My mom used to make me do shit like that. Ick.

American is an oligarchy, not a democracy: Looks like the world isn't the way it is according to your sister.

How much money are we talking about here?

I can only offer a few links to start: http://www.gnosticmedia.com/wheatismurder http://www.gnosticmedia.com/an-interview-with-david-asprey-pt-1-bulletproof-coffee-revisiting-fat-and-health-166-2/ http://fourhourbody.com/

Jesus fucking Christ. If you wanted any more evidence that schools and prisons are becoming the same thing, look no fucking further. I just finished reading the Gulag Archipelago and the parallels aren't just uncanny. The proper term for this is "punishment cell".

Oof, right, sorry, I totally understand and didn't mean to question that. While not wanting to derail your topic, I wanted to bring up a completely different question based off this scenario that you experienced, which is, what would be the proper action of a father who witnessed this done to his son (assuming it didn't happen from negligence)? Is the simple answer that the father should have never brought the child to a place where something so dangerous could have happened at all? Hm...

Not to derail the topic here, but I want to bring up the question: what is the most appropriate and most effective way of dealing with a situation like this? If a 14 year old dropped my 8 year old son on his head, I have a very hard time imagining having a different reaction from your father.

http://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipelago-Aleksandr-Solzhenitsyn/dp/1843430851/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402205543&sr=1-2&keywords=gulag+archipelago

"You know, I find this behavior very manipulative." From my mother while I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown shrieking on the floor. Is there such a thing as recursive irony?

<in a screeching voice> "Do I have to show you my caesarian section scar in order to get you to do <blank> for me?!"

I as well.