TDB

I was making a long reply, but my browser just ate it. I am puzzled by your response, which seems to have nothing to do with my idea. I hope I did not suggest that you hire someone to grope your child. You seem very certain about some ideas Stef has mentioned, which if they are correct at all are recent scientific discoveries and in no way as certain, well understood, or widely known as you seem to think. I am not as familiar with them, please have some patience with me. I group parents into 3 groups, those who need no help, those who want no help, those who need and want help. I include myself in the last group. And I mean actual help, which would benefit both parents and children, which is at least conceptually possible, though perhaps practically impossible. I certainly don't feel like I am ready to go into that business. I think your answer borders on a personal attack, except of course it is so off the wall I have to think its just one of those Internet things where people start yelling at each other without understanding each other. I hope I haven't given you reason to think I am a troll who came here to endorse child abuse. Please think twice before making accusations like that. Am I overreacting? . Where did I suggest external control?

I should have looked it up first, I was being too literal: "Ethics is the subset of UPB which deals with inflicted behaviour, or the use of violence. Any theory that justifies or denies the use of violence is a moral theory, and is subject to the requirements of logical consistency and empirical evidence." page 48. So he seems to be equating violence and infliction here. I am tempted to just read it as violence, because of your example. But he says also "The subset of UPB that examines enforceable behaviour is called “morality.”" on page 125. So I see that as saying a question gets categorized as ethics if either the behavior being described involves violence, or if the proposed enforcement mechanism is violent. So violence => ethics. Can't be aesthetic or neutral.Anyhow, that doesn't dismiss my original question about professional ethics, which rarely has to do with physical violence. ( Am I being redundant, or should we talk about non-physical violence? ) Here's another example. Psychiatrists and Psychologists have ethical standards regarding sexual involvement with their patients, which entirely disregard the wishes of the patients. A therapist who marries a patient has violated professional ethics, even if everyone is happy with the result. Would Stef say they're incorrect to do this, or that they should do it but use a different word to describe it? My example isn't entirely fair, as I have assumed the best intentions and outcomes, and the ethical rules are intended to prevent therapists from taking advantage of the vulnerability of their patients. Should we consider it to be a form of violence for a therapist to seduce a vulnerable patient?Related question on UPB, maybe you can help. Stef said, "Murder is unwanted, therefore it cannot be universalized to all people." Can you unpack this for me? He never mentions unwantedness in the book, I am not getting the connection. The 2 guys in a room test has always made my head hurt, I have an interpretation at I think works okay, but it is a bit tortured.

I have trouble with inflictability being the criterion for separating ethics and aesthetics. Maybe you could say something about that? For example, professional ethics should require an adjudicator to recuse himself if she has a bias that touches on the case. Yet taking the case and violating ethics would not inflict annoying, would it? Inflict unfairness?Here's another place where my interpretation seems a bit tortured, maybe you can help. In the discussion of rape on page 66, I get confused so badly I have been struggling to describe my interpretation and just failing. Why go through all the strange twists? Let me try to use Stef to improve Stef. Inflicting your preferences on someone can't be universalized, as the two guys in the room can't both be inflicting their preferences on each other at the same time. So not inflicting is good, inflicting is bad. Rape is an instance of inflicting preferences, so it's evil. This is a bit redundant, because Stef uses inflicted or not inflicted as the criterion separating ethics from esthetics. I can see the argument for making inflicted behavior as a subset of ethics, not sure there's nothing more. And of course the equivocating Statists will want to make exceptions for state agents inflicting. They don't like universality without special pleading.I hope I'm getting close to understanding. Maybe I should start trying to write a summary.Oh, I found a quote for you, on page 48: 'Although we first focused on UPB in the realm of ethics, UPB can now be seen as an “umbrella term,” which includes such disciplines as:• The scientific method• Logic• Empiricism• Debating• Language• Ethics'Language surprised me, since it seems completely the reverse of universal.

I think I understand what you're saying. I just am not sure Stef would agree. I seem to remember him saying he never makes decisions for Izzy. I think it is assailable on the basis that it is an analogy, and we are not discussing language acquisition. Your analogy depends on their vulnerability being a learned aspect of their personality, but an alternative hypothesis is that some vulnerability is inevitable, and it is the defenses that must be learned. By surrounding children with truth tellers, they may become *more* vulnerable to liars, they might fail to develop skepticism and be too trusting. Stef may be right in his hypothesis, and I hope he is, but I think that needs to be tested. You are claiming to understand something that is new and not well understood yet, if at all. I want to be more cautious. I think you misunderstood me, or I am misunderstanding you. I don't understand your reply. My idea was that someone could teach parents to be better teachers of rationality for their kids and/or help kids learn to be rational and resist social pressure. I was crappy at it, could have used some help. But I am fairly devoid of self-knowledge.I had also intended to point out that not all social pressure is negative, but I forgot. When you're trying to do something brilliant and your friends encourage you, doesn't that count as social pressure?

UPB isn't about water. Near-universal sounds to me like making exceptions to universality. It means that someone, sometime, someplace is entitled to violate a rule that applies to everyone else. Properly understood, I don't think Stef needs to make any such exceptions, but maybe I am misinterpreting him. On page 56-57 Stef discusses universality and exceptions. Or that is the section title, but the actual topic is more like, does the fact that I'm more willing to steal an apple than I am to starve to death mean stealing should be UPB and property rights should not? But I don't see is as an exception to universality. It's just an admission that given a choice between dying or violating UPB in a trivial way, no one is likely to choose death. Certainly he would be willing to apologize and make restitution, which to me means the rule applies but he violated it, not that he can make a valid exception.(Does this relate back to discussion of coerced choice?) On page 92 he says, "UPB allows for exceptions based on objective and universal material or biological differences," but I don't think that's what he meant by near universal. In that section, he discusses exceptions made for infants and persons with brain injuries, etc., who are incapable of the sort of thinking required for understanding and following UPB. The only other place in the book where he mentions near-universal anything is in a discussion of social prohibitions against murder and theft.Here's my interpretation. UPB applies to anyone who makes moral claims, whatever their age, species or condition. They opt in by developing and using their capacity to make moral claims, and they opt out if/when they lose it. By elegant accident combined with foresight, those who lack this capacity usually also lack the capacity to violate UPB. No exceptions required.WRT Stef's syllogism, I must not have made my point clear. I distinguish between broad UPB, which includes things like "you must breathe if you want to live" and so applies to many (all?) organisms, and moral UPB, which is the stuff Stef came up with including the coma test etc. Clearly "organisms" in general do not make moral claims, so line 1 is irrelevant. Either Stef is using propositions about broad UPB (maybe science) to prove something about moral UPB, which deosnt work, or he's trying to claim that moral UPB is responsible for the progress of humanity. How can this work?If Stef is using the history of humanity as evidence of the efficacy of moral UPB, that means we've had some informal, primitive, but pretty effective version of moral UPB operating for centuries, and Stef's book is more like a naturalist coming along and giving a name to a species that existed previously. (That's what I meant by "unimportant tweak." ) This seems to contradict when Stef says that historical moral philosophy is mostly non-UPB and a negative influence on history, used by religion and the state to control people and dominate them. If I try to rewrite Stef's syllogism, I come up with:Good philosophy and science caused the advance of humanity, Good philosophy and science can be categorized as UPB broadly speaking,UPB broadly speaking is analogous to moral UPB, or moral UPB formalizes and improves on it,so moral UPB will also cause humanity to advance and is correct and "valid." This is still too vague. I would need to show that I have not left anything important out of moral UPB that may have been the actual cause of humanity's success, and not added any mistakes, and that's still inductive, as what caused success in the past is not guaranteed to do so in the future. Also, correlation vs. cause, confounding factors, etc. The conclusion is an empirical claim."we all accept UPB, since exposing hypocrisies and debate both imply UPB." Exposing hypocrisies and debate both imply broad UPB, but do they imply all the specifics of moral UPB, the coma test, 2 guys in a room, choice, moral reasoning, particular interpretations of universality, inflicting, avoidability, etc.?WRT math, logic, and science. I think Stef said, "if you want to know the truth about the world, you must use the scientific method" or something like that as an example of UPB, and "if you disprove UPB, you disprove science." I am paraphrasing. Logic is part of the norms and methods of fair argument, basis of UPB self-detonating arguments, etc. I don't think I've heard Stef claim math is part of UPB, but he has used it as an analogy, there is only one math and only one UPB, both are universal and objective. I promote it to UPB because if you want to know the truth about numbers, you must use math. If science is UPB, why not math?WRT binding, the question was, do you see a difference between "binding" and "applies to" or would you use them interchangeably? I think you're saying interchangeably.

This is an hypothesis, not a known certainty, especially in the absolute form you have put it. At another point you mention the research of Alison Glopnick, is she examining this specific hypothesis, or is this a speculation you've picked up from Stef? My wild guess is that both parents and children will need some training to make this a reality, and even then it may not be perfect. I admire Stef's ability in this area, but I think he is a bit unusual both in basic ability and his determination to focus and work on this area. Speaking as a parent that experienced a lot of failure, I think this is a bigger problem than your statement seems to say. In fact, I think it would be a hell of an entrepreneurial opportuni if someone could figure out how to teach these skills effectively. I'd be very curious to know Stef's response about "power over." I think he would probably flatly disagree.An alternative to "age of consent" would be some sort of "rite of passage," where a young person could demonstrate her/his eligibility and maturity, with age not factoring into it (though presumably, it would disqualify young women who have never menstruated or men who have never ejaculated). I have no idea how such a thing could get started or what it might look like, or how parents or other onlookers should respond in cases where the norm was not followed. But I can imagine that forming a bright line between "unusual but sincere" and "unusual and creepy." Obviously, the only ambiguity disappears if both parties do not consent. In some sense, the rite of passage would be a claim on the part of the young person to be entitled to consent. I'm actually fairly ignorant of the anthropology involved, but I'm not going to let that stop me. Many such rituals from traditional societies have religious aspects, but I imagine that secular versions could be devised and could fulfill useful purposes to pseudo-objectivize things that otherwise seem arbitrary.

Sometimes it may be a valid excuse, other times invalid, but always an excuse.You've provided a couple of examples on each side of the line, but no explanation of how to know where the line is drawn, how to know which side something is on if it's close to the line. Let me try. The threat must be serious and credible. But that seems like a judgement call, not objective.

You ignored this question: ' Do we understand "binding" the same way here? I see it to mean that a rule applies, but not that any consequences are necessarily implied. Yet it seems to have a stronger meaning, when I don't stop to think about it, as if there was some magical cop who would come to enforce it. "Binding" sounds stronger than "applies to." Is there an actual difference?'

WRT capacity for moral reasoning, are you just saying moral propositions cannot apply to animals and rocks?WRT evidence: "an ethical theory that contradicts empirical evidence and near-universal preferences also cannot be valid." (UPB page 32, see also page 28) (Snarky aside, how can preferences be near-universal? Stef needed a good copyeditor.)Unfortunately, the forum software ate your quote of Stef's syllogism, and my iPad won't let me copy-paste it. I think it is very confusing and full of irrelevant details (e.g. mankind is most successful by what criteria? Does the conclusion in any way depend on mankind being most successful? Etc.) But if I give it my most charitable interpretation, I still end up with a proof about one sort of universally preferable behavior (what all organisms use, roughly = cause and effect, breathing, eating, metabolizing, behaving on instinct) that says nothing about the kind of UPB we really are interested in, ethics. Ethics is the subset of UPB that deals with inflicted behavior among moral agents, which may or may not have anything to do with the success of humans, especially since Stef sees conventional historical morality as corrupted by religion and the state. That is, unless UPB morality is an unimportant tweak to conventional morality, it has nothing to with the success of mankind so far in history. Stef has defined UPB so broadly that in some sense it includes logic, mathematics, science, fair argument, and survival mechanisms of organisms. But these are different enough that proving something about one of them has no obvious implications for the others. What is the common element among them? Point is, I have a choice that Kevin denied. Maybe it's another nitpick, but I am trying to figure out when I can/can't use that excuse. Drop me naked out of an airplane, okay, I have no choices. Threaten me, I still have a choice among bad options. How bad do the options have to be before morality is no longer binding on me?Care to give a hint where the discussions vis-a-vis adult/child were? I searched for "objective" and "child", got lots of hits. As for saving UPB for later, that might be a good thing, because I find the book very confusing. Here's my version of UPB in a nutshell: If some asshole is guilt tripping you with some rule but makes exceptions for himself or the government or some other group of humans with supposedly magic essences, tell him he's a hypocrite. Use that and ignore the gory details.

Arguing is fun, but it's probably not very effective. I'm not saying you ought or ought not do anything, just I want to think about marginal result per marginal effort. I'm trying to think of more effective ways of helping people see what their choices are in other ways, maybe bitcoin, etc. Stef's anti-spanking campaign has a similar flavor. He's not saying "treat your children nicely, so they will create anarcho-utopia." He says "treat your children well, so they will be happier and smarter." It still involves arguing, just not arguing in favor of the ultimate goal, but in favor of something desireable in itself that seems likely to bring us closer to that goal. Something innocuous, easy to argue for, hard to argue against. Something that is easier to study scientifically.

According to UPB, there are no positive obligations. Also, serving and birthing are not inflicted, so they would at most be aesthetically preferrable actions, not morality. (That is, not inflicted on the person being served. Hmmm, not entirely true of the child being born. The woman serving is not inflicting anything on anyone, perhaps her husband is inflicting something on her.) But Stef uses the word "morality" in an unusually specific and narrow sense, only inflicted unavoidable actions are in the domain of morality. "If you want freedom the moral thing to do would be to join Washington's army." No positive obligation. And again, by Stef's definition, I don't think the word "moral" should be in that sentence. What moral proposition is involved? "You must want freedom?" "You must reject British tyranny?" "War is coming, you must choose a side?" What is being unavoidably inflicted? Certainly, "join Washinton's army" has nothing universal about it, so it would need to be derived from some universal proposition. I am not coming up with a good candidate. "If you are in a location where a civil war is happening, you must support the least tyrannical side by joining the army if eligible or in some other way if not, rather than running away, supporting peace, ignoring the whole thing, etc.?" Yankee doodle vs. tory vs. apathy sounds like a personal preference, by Stef's criteria. This seems like a big loophole to me. How risky does something have to be before you can use survival as an excuse for doing something you'd otherwise rate as immoral? Doesn't this break universality? Can a rule apply to you but not to me, just because our circumstances are a bit different? Is it just survival that gets me off the hook? I like this answer, but... I have a choice, even when the gun is at my head. That is, I can obey or call their bluff and see if they actually kill me. Not a good choice. Am I just nitpicking here? Do we understand "binding" the same way here? I see it to mean that a rule applies, but not that any consequences are necessarily implied. Yet it seems to have a stronger meaning, when I don't stop to think about it, as if there was some magical cop who would come to enforce it. "Binding" sounds stronger than "applies to." Is there an actual difference? I think I listened to the intro way back when, didn't really give me much help. I should go review it. So, do you derive UPB from self-ownership, or self-ownership from UPB, or are you just ignoring UPB? Ah, a UPB skeptic! When people talk about morality, the language tends toward absolutes, even among those who deny it. Is this a flaw of language, or a weakness of our brains/philosophy, or a hint that something else is going on? I'm not sure there is a standard. Only a few forum members seem interested in discussing UPB. Of those, most have a positive take on it, but some of those don't seem to understand it very well. I include myself in that group, the only thing that is unusual about me is that I know I don't really get it yet. I suspect a lot of FDR members just take UPB to mean "Assholes who exempt themselves from moral propositions but try to give you a guilt trip are hypocrites and wrong," and leave it at that. That's a pretty good place to start. I second the request, define morality. As I said above, I think Stef uses the word in an unusual way, apparently on purpose. I haven't quite decided yet whether I think he's done something like Rand did with "altruism," taking a word in common use and redefining it in a way that makes a large fraction of common useage nonsense. On one, hand, such a distinct meaning calls for a distinct word. On the other, maybe Stef really does think most talk about morality is nonsense already. How about the line between adult and child? Consensual sex between adults, no problem. Adult and non-adult... err... How to draw the line objectively? Can it just be arbitrary? UPB declares moral propositions to be false when they contain a logical contradiction. But what does it mean for a moral proposition to be true, beyond "contains no logical contradiction?" Is that all? There's also the question of evidence, but that confuses me even more. Does Stef really use evidence in testing moral propositions? How do we separate good evidence from cultural mistakes?

A child having Leukemia is not a moral proposition. UPB tests moral propositions for logical inconsistency.

I haven't been taking notes, hadn't thought about it much until I saw the post I was responding to. I thought it was a bit strange when I first saw the OP of a thread get so many down votes that I had to click on whatever it is to unhide the post. And maybe it's just the fact that hey, this is still the Internet, people tend to make hasty jokes and snark or answer when they don't know what they're talking about. To get the signal, you have to take the noise. But if someone has a proposal to actually improve things, I can imagine benefiting from that. In fact, maybe it wold protect me from some of my impulsive behavior, like that unfair snark I tossed you the other day. I went back and edited it, by the way.

I am not asking about universality, the point is that some universal moral propositions that pass the coma test and 2 guys in a room test etc. are aesthetic and not enforceable (e.g. "be on time"), others are ethical and enforceable. I am having trouble understanding how Stef draws the line. He has plenty of discussion in the book, but I am still confused. I was hoping someone could paraphrase or summarize the idea briefly. I want to look at examples of stuff that is sort of in the middle, and see what the process for deciding is.Does proposition X, once it passes the universality tests, get classified as UPB automatically because it prohibits behavior that is violent, or because the rule must be enforced by physical force? Could there be a universal moral proposition that described some trivial initiation of force and categorize it as APA? We started out discussing and example of the opposite, where we have to torture the semantics to get certain sorts of theft to count as violent, yet theft is definitely UPB. This is an interesting digression, but my original question is about how to separate APA and UPB. So, is car stealing a UPB violation or an APA violation, and what objective process should we use to make that decision?

I agree with what you say in general, but I am not asking about ownership, etc. I am asking about the criteria Stef uses to draw the line between aesthetically preferred actions and universally preferred behavior. Stef says it has to do with stuff being inflicted or avoidable. Now that I think of it, he himself uses an example where someone leaves their wallet on a park bench and walks away, on page 52. Doesn't really clear things up for me.Your last paragraph uses "violence" in an unusual way, as in I can use force or violence on you without touching you or nearly touching you or threatening to touch you or putting you at serious risk of being touched. Do you think Stef intends that same meaning when he uses that word in the book? I think this is unusual enough to deserve a definition and a bit of discussion somewhere. I am not clear on the line between the inflicted and the avoidable, which seems to be the criterion separating UPB and APA.

I've been reading stuff by noesis and haplo that criticizes Stef's ideas, but they don't get voted down. I think this is because they themselves stay calm and also show that they have done their homework and know what they are talking about, compared to the OP here who attacks what ounds to me like a straw man. Still, I agree with your general idea that it would be nice if there was less hostility. Can you think of something we can do to encourage this, beyond what you've already done?

On page 69 of the UPB book, Stef says, "Since APAs are not enforceable through violence – you cannot shoot a man for being late – then rape cannot be an APA, since rape by definition is a sexual attack enforced through violence." Does this mean that the violence in the act of rape determines that moral propositions about rape must be in the category of UPB instead of neutral or APA? Previously I had thought that the victim's justified response made that determination. "morality is defined as an enforceable subset of UPB" page 76. I was reading "enforceable" as "victims can defend themselves with force," but in the context of page 69 it seems it can also mean any time the violator has initiated force. So how about theft then? In some cases, a sneak thief can take your stuff without touching you. Someone tried to grab my friend's purse once while we were in an outdoor cafe, she had it on the ground next to her chair. UPB or APA? Similarly, fraud often involves no violence or threat. UPB or APA? What criteria does UPB use to categorize moral propositions describing nonviolent crimes as UPB, if there are any?

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I posted this on my blog at http://brimpossible.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-u-in-upb-universality.html, but I hope it will get more response here. I've been thinking about some questions and quibbles from my discussion of UPB with Stefan Molyneux, from FDR2549, Evil is a Confession of Inadequacy, recorded December 6, 2013. http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_2549_Thursday_Show_5_Dec_2013.mp3 The discussion starts at about 55 minutes into the show. I have a full transcript at http://brimpossible.blogspot.com/2013/12/stef-upb-elevator-pitch.html In this post, I want to think about universality. Stef says, "All moral claims, claim universality." "All UPB does is say if you're making a moral claim it has to be universal, if it fails the universality test, it's an invalid moral theory. The UPB framework validates moral propositions by demanding that they be internally consistent and universal in terms of time, place, and individuals." What does Stef mean by "universal?" What would break universality? If X is true now, but it wasn't true last year, it is not universal. If it applies to you, but not to me, it is not universal. If it is true in Texas but not in Tahiti, it is not universal. At first this seems clear. Imagine some person making a choice at a time and place. Any moral restriction that applies to one particular person, time, or place must apply to all of them. But who do we mean when we say "all of them?" One obvious complication is that this cannot apply to some persons (infants are the most obvious example, perhaps those with brain injuries, etc.). On the other hand, such persons tend to face practical limits that prevent them from being placed in a position where they face a serious moral choice. So UPB does not apply to all persons in the same way. How does Stef argue in favor of his universality requirement? Having one moral rule for some and another for others is like having two different sorts of mathematics. The only two mathematics we can imagine are correct mathematics and incorrect mathematics. These are analogous to UPB and non-UPB. I suppose Stef's opponents would say that morality is more like language, there can be more than one. If universality did not hold, a skeptic should be able to give an example of a plausible moral proposition that breaks universality. Can we think of an example of a tempting candidate moral proposition that fails as a result of universality? How about, "Killing is wrong, except in self-defense?" We can interpret that as applying to all persons, times, and places, so no problem. That is, specifying exceptions based on circumstances (other than who, where, and when) does not violate universality? How about, "Agents of the police may do some things that others are not allowed to do?" Stef clearly would reject this both because it fails universality and because he believes the state is not legitimate. Many ordinary people would accept it. Perhaps this is one of the surprising results Stef promised. How about "Adults should not seduce children?" At least some children are mature enough to be considered moral agents and have UPB apply to them. Must we amend this statement to make it universal, as in "No one should seduce children?" Keep in mind, the children include those who are seventeen years old. It works well as "no moral agent should seduce someone who is not a moral agent." There are other age restrictions in society, some quite arbitrary. Must we abandon them all? Lets go back to "Killing is wrong, except in self-defense." Clearly Stef believes something like this. In the book, he often uses the word "murder," as in 'Don't murder' is UPB. But this just pushes the problem into the semantics of the word "murder." That is, our decision about whether killing in self-defense is acceptable or not will determine whether self-defense will be excluded or included from our definition of "murder," and both cases satisfy universality. Maybe we can generalize this semantic sleight-of-hand to other situations, and redefine our words to describe crimes in a way that implicitly excludes circumstances that absolute universality would include. E.g. Refraining from theft is UPB, but we might define theft so that it excludes taxation by a "legitimate" government agency. Going back to the special moral proposition regarding police, what if we define kidnapping so that it excludes seizure of criminal suspects by the police? I think Stef would want some sort of restriction requiring universality of time, place, and actor in such definitions. How do we resolve this? I'm not sure. Could propositions in the following form pass the UPB universality test? You will be punished if you don't do X frequently enough. Vague. You will be punished if you do X more than Y times. Arbitrary. Can we restate these in a way that satisfies universality by redefining terms? That is, could we include some idea about frequency or locality in the definition of X? I'm chopping off the last few paragraphs, because my thinking there is even shakier than above. Point your browser at my blog if you want all the embarrassing details. Thanks in advance for any serious replies.

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I misunderstood you when you said, "Sorry, I haven't read every post in this thread, but has somebody commented on the fact that Tadas is assuming we are human in order to debate the issue?" You mean, nowhere in Stef's description does it say anything about UPB applying only to humans, that in fact it applies to anyone who makes a moral claim, has nothing to do with defining human beings. I feel stupid now.

I will ask questions when I'm ready. Actually, I asked back in March, got no response to speak of. That may be because I was so far off the mark. http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/35664-upb-faq-attempt/ I should probably update that again, my understanding has changed. Or it may be that no one who actually understands UPB is willing to discuss it on the forum much any more. Stef seems to be disappointed with discussions of UPB on the forum. http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/23092-debating-upb/ My point in responding to this thread was to say that I thought the criticisms raised by the person mentioned by OP where accurate in some cases but shallow and unimportant. The critic took only enough time to find some things that looked like errors to him, did not bother to understand the basic idea Stef has. I think some of the identified errors are actual errors, others are misunderstandings on the part of the critic. I don't care if the expression of the ideas is imperfect, I care whether the ideas work or not, and none of the criticisms helped me out with that.

In other words, "don't make me think, I just want to use my intuition."

I agree with many of the criticisms. But given that, I still want to know whether that means Stef is just wrong, or Stef is onto something but needed a few critical pre-publication reviewers and a good copy editor to help him clarify his meaning. That is, until I really understand UPB, I don't know whether I think it is right, flawed but fixable, or just wrong. The most immediate problem with the book is that it is disorganized and confusing. But that doesn't mean it is necessarily wrong.

Dude, at least read the first post. [edit] I misread his post, the comment makes a valid point. So I should say to *myself*, "Dude, read carefully before making snark!"