DaVinci

What is?

But do people get that you can't push into the world without it pushing back? If someone is bullying you, and shoves you to the ground, and you shove them back, they don't just *poof* into a cloud of dust to never be seen again. Violent agressive people have a tendency to get more violent because you defended yourself, and if the violent aggressive person is also sophisticated enough to manipulate others they can use you defending yourself as "proof" that you're the bully and gather up a crowd to get you. This is exactly what is happening right now with Trump. All these people who hate Trump/the alt right/whatever, doing all of these crazy things, aren't just doing it "just cause". They clearly have a "reason". For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I see lots of people saying "voting Trump is voting for freedom from tyranny" and "If you point out problems with Trump you're the enemy" and all these types of things. Meanwhile, the left hasn't gone away. Maybe the bully has been shoved down for now, but they aren't just going to go away. I've asked before what is going to happen in 2020 when the left wheels out some extreme far left guy Hannibal Lecter style who is way worse than Hillary in terms of ideology and/or way more squeaky clean in terms of scandal, and all I get are these "Alex Jones, Stef, and Milo will be there to break down 'the narrative'" responses. Guess what. All the people who hate Trump will still be voting left next time, and there is a good chance all those voters who swung right to vote Trump this time won't come back. Even Obama didn't do as good the second time as he did the first. Trump could just be a short term aberration in the model of human suppression. I think if you want to keep Trump in, and keep freedom going you can't just stay on the "Trump is great for white heterosexual western civilization" bandwagon because *surprise* that message isn't winning many people on the left over, and those are the people who are still upset, still angry, still hate Trump, still hate what he stands for, and are going to come back hard and bring their friends.

Instant teleportation to what though? Isn't anarchy completely a hypothetical at this point because no one knows how it will work? What argument is being made that politics and voting will lead to an anarchist world? Isn't that like arguing that voting will lead to heaven?

Okay. Thanks for answering that for me. I just wanted to make sure I understood.

So, basically things you might say to try and minimize someone or their concerns?

He talked about moralizing? What video was that from?

If it doesn't then what does that mean about the power of government? You would think if anyone would pass that it would be Republicans who just happen to be in control of everything.

What are you trying to tell me? ...That I can make bullets? Isn't it weird that you can make your own bullets but you have to wait 7 days to get a gun and even having a gun in your car in some states will get you arrested?

Are you describing an ideological battle? If so, how is it working out, and how do you know that? Aren't protests and push backs against what you are describing going up and not down?

So then I should be investing money into a supply of booze, bread, and bullets instead of gold?

Sure, I've seen very rich people who have a varied portfolio including gold, but the message here is that fiat money isn't money. Gold is money. 99% of people who make this type of thread bring up that you can't go into a grocery store with a lump of gold and buy food, which is true. I'm sure there is probably an exception or two out there, but the norm is paper money gets you products. So if gold is just a way to retain value then why not play the stock market? Because that too would disappear if the economy tanked? I know some people would say that if the economy went under gold would become useable for barter, but I view this scenario the way I view the "if they drop an EMP on us I've got my non-electric car to drive into the mountains" scenario which is that being the only person to have gold is going to paint a huge target on your back. You don't need a non-electric car in the apocalypse, you need a non-electric helicopter so you can actually escape the mob. The same is true of having gold in the SHTF scenario. And no, "I've gotta gun to protect my stash" isn't a guarantee of anything. My point being, I see the value of gold in a completely civil society, but right now or if SHTF, it doesn't really make sense.

What I still don't get is why invest in gold when you could invest in the stock market, or go to Vegas to keep the value of your money?

And that work is what?

Long term the lefties are going to come roaring back with an even more extremist lefty in response to Trump. What's the point of Trump winning if we still lose in the long run? Well, we beat the forces of Mordor guys... hey what ever happened to that Ring? ...Oh crap. In other words, I hear lots of people who are happy Trump won but no one has really pulled out the spy glass to check out the horizon.

What qualifies something as an insult? If I say "Person X is an idiot" is that an insult? What about "Person X is very cynical."? Is that an insult? Aren't both of these words (idiot, cynical) conclusions about behavior? Are these words meaningless as descriptors of behavior without evidence to back them up? Where do I get that evidence? Also, when you say that someone is "posting a paragraph of insults" how do you know that? Isn't what an insult is subjective and dependent on the person who is being targeted with words to be insulted? Isn't it up to the target to decide whether they are insulted or not? As such, how can we say that he posted a paragraph of insults?

You're probably right, but I'm sure your goal wasn't to push people further left. The question is how do you know if you did that or not? I also talked to people about Ron Paul back in 2008, and most people just shrugged or laughed about him. Even conservatives we're "meh" about him even though he was almost exactly what they said they wanted. The fact is the left leaned Obama because they hated Bush. Hence "Change" and "Hope". In other words the right created it's own demon. Now we have a reaction to Obama in the form of Trump, and I highly doubt that the left isn't going to go in for some super-leftwing radical next time. The 2020 election for the left is going to be "who isn't Trump" but it is primarily going to be "We need someone who can undo/fix all this Trump garbage". If Bush to Obama was bad, what do you think Trump to Whoever is going to be? Maybe I'll be surprised and they will pick someone more moderate like Sanders, but I wouldn't be shocked to see someone who leans way way way more to the left. Maybe moderate political action results in good, but I'm not convinced that these extreme swings back and forth are good in the long run.

I think those are some interesting thoughts. I'd like to explore them more. When you say that in free market negotiation that both parties can be honest about perfectly natural selfish interests without guilt or shame, what does this mean? In a free market where you would buy things with money if someone is buying a can of corn from the store and handing a cashier money that must mean the customer wants the can of corn and the store wants the money, right? In this case what the customer wants to buy is clear as the product has to be scanned and logged into a system in order to be purchased, and what the store wants is also clear as they have registers at the front for a reason. The man probably doesn't feel shame over buying corn, (but I suppose that depends on what he is going to do with it,) and the store doesn't feel guilty for taking money for their advertised products So how does this same idea apply to a "free market" between friends or romantic partners in relation to being honest? For example, if a man tells a woman, "You're just a sex doll" or a woman tells a man "You're just a baby batter provider" and this is them being honest about what they want, how is that fundamentally different from them just thinking those things without revealing them? You might say that a man who says "You're just a sex doll" to a woman would drive away women he otherwise wouldn't if he kept that information hidden, so there is a difference for the women who might be looking for something more than that, but for the man in both scenarios his goal is the same. Find a sex doll. To the topic, does it fundamentally change the idea that people views others as obstacles/tools if they are honest about it? If I'm honest about using a hammer to drive nails into a board, it doesn't change that I'm using it for my needs. Can being honest change mutual utility into something more than just that? You also brought up the idea of economic transactions disguised as intimate relationships. Isn't this the way many businesses operate? "At XYZ business we care about your needs" Aren't they doing exactly what you are describing? Dressing up economics as caring? Because if they just went "Yeah, we're a store. Come in if you feel like it" would that really grab people? Isn't the reason they have found that this works to drive business is because there is a biological basis for dressing up economics as relationships?

I'm sure there are liberals gnashing their teeth. I see it too. What I don't see is this paradigm shift of people who are now seeking to limit government power. If anything I see liberals retreating further into liberalism because of Trump, or best case scenario staying the same. Now maybe that's just my experience of it. I'm not sure what your experience of it is beyond what you've said here. You say you are talking to liberals and making points, but do they listen? If so, what caught their ear? I'm confused by what you are trying to say with your second paragraph. If you want government power to be limited, then why vote? Aren't we right back to the conundrum of trying to infiltrate the mafia and change it from within? Can you show me that this is now a viable path? What's changed in the past few years?

He describes that behavior as selfless. If it isn't, then what is it?

Do you really think all these people who don't like Trump wake-up, eat their corn flakes, and then go "Oh, you know Trump has made me realize government power should be limited"?

Didn't he do that from Canada? I guess the question is, can you understand the issue of migrants, unskilled workers, and non-tax payers and still think Trump wasn't the answer? When I ask myself that question my own immediate response is, "Well he's better than Hillary", but that answer sounds like something I would have said 15 years ago. "Well, Bush is better than Gore" or something like that. A response I would have made when I was still caught in the web of politics. I also think Trump is largely a response to 8 years of Obama, who was a response to 8 years of Bush. Stef describes Trump as "unprecedented", and guess what, so are all the protests. I think there is a danger that Trump is fueling the rise of a much more extreme left-wing candidate that will be a response to Trump. They won't be wheeling out Bernie Sanders in four years. They aren't going to pick a moderate. They are going to pick someone so hard to the left that they are breaking through the wall, and all the angry lefties are going to mobilize to vote. I think the short sightedness of voting Trump could come back to haunt us.

How do we know that those taking care of children with down syndrome aren't using them as tools? What is the difference between a doctor using a patient as a tool to gain money and a care-taker using a patient with down syndrome for some end. Neeeel is saying there is no such thing as a selfless action. If so, is that a universal?

So does the word selfless have no meaning then? Is it not accurate?

Why does it not mean you are using people? Why is it not wrong?

For example, Man A is lonely, so he gets together with Woman A as a tool to remove his loneliness. Or Woman B is lonely but Man A is interested in Woman A, so Woman B finds a way to push Woman A out of the picture as she is an obstacle. Are these the only two possible ways that a person could view another person? Is it just a biological drive to think this way? A man lying sick in the hospital views the people helping him as tools/obstacles to getting better. A doctor views patients as tools/obstacles to money. Is human society built solely on people using each other? Is this "wrong"? Where does free will play into this? Yes, Man A is using free will to choose to go after Woman A, but If you know that interacting with others is you using them as a tool or is you removing them as an obstacle, then aren't you aware of your own biological drive, and thus responsible for that behavior? Shouldn't someone who understands that attempt to not engage in that way? What other way is there? Are "free market" win-win interactions basically just two people using each other as tools?