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Thanks for the reply Marius. I don't know why the link doesn't work for you. I just tested it and it works for me. Can you tell me what's happening for you when you click the link?

I doubt you can seriously look at my page on NVC and claim I have a surface understanding of it. I assure you I have far more than a surface understanding of it. I am sad when I think that you dogmatize NVC like a religion that, in itself, is a solution to everything and then, at the same time, use what actually is a surface understanding of it by robotically repeating the NVC language while failing to truly connect with the spirit of what someone is feeling or experiencing. Your intentions seem good, but you really seem stuck in a very narrow box of NVC and I wish you'd broaden to include other viewpoints, as well.

Welcome. I actually linked directly to my specific posts in those threads. Can you post the link to the YouTube video you mention?

I completely agree. This is pretty much exactly what I was trying to say in the combination of both parts of my post here and perhaps also some useful info toward this end here.

SBRFS, I think the more important thing brought up by your question is the old deontology vs. consequentialism. It makes sense to me, on strict voluntaryist principle, to say that nobody can ethically be forced to associate with another person who is chronologically an adult. Even if this person is very hurt by ostracism, it still seems at least to have some merit to say it's wrong to then use force to make others connect with them to make them feel better. However, this principled stand has consequences. If the person's pain is similar to the pain of being attacked, then in terms of improving the world, it has an impact that can't be ignored. I've been thinking about this problem for a long time. We have a ton of hurt and abused people who are extremely needy in the world. There is no practical way this can fail to have a major impact on the state of the world. Yet voluntaryism would say none of us are obligated to help these people. Even if that's true, how can the world be improved if they are not helped? Basically no particular person, according to voluntaryism, can be held responsible for tending to these wounded people's needs. And yet if nobody does so, we all suffer the consequences of a world filled with people with such untended wounds, which are enormous. I think this is a dilemma voluntaryists must struggle with. And I don't think Cherapple's responses help much. It's not true that anyone who is ostracized must have deserved it. In an unethical system, people are often ostracized precisely for being more ethical, not less. And I also think it's unreasonable to expect human beings - social creatures - to just transcend being affected by social ostracism or shame. Perhaps some can do it. But I don't think, from a public health perspective, that is a sensible strategy. Humans evolved to be sensitive to these things for a reason and being hurt by disconnection from those around you is something I think is understandable even for a healthy mature person.

My interpretation of what Peter Joseph is really trying to get at is that the state is not the root of the problem but a symptom of the fact that there are underlying incentives to use force and violence to gain competitive advantage. The problem is that he keeps saying this comes from "the market," seemingly referring to the economic free market, which doesn't even exist today in most places. In my view, he should be saying it comes simply from evolutionary pressures. In a sense, evolutionary pressures are the ultimate unfettered, anything-goes "market." With that correction, his main point becomes more important though, I think. We have to address the underlying incentives that drive the choices people make about using force and so on. And my take on what he is trying to achieve is to change the nature of the schema of incentives. For instance, if we somehow made sure everyone had the basics to support life, it would be a radical end-around on removing a huge source of incentive for violence and coercion. Simply removing the state does not change the underlying incentive system from which it originally sprang. I would really like to see Stefan and Peter talk again, but with someone else there to help focus them effectively on issues like this. Forget the "free market" talk. The key issue is this: "What is the ultimate root of our unsustainable activity?" Stefan thinks it's how we raise our children. But, as you point out, Ray H., parents treat children this way because there are incentives to do so (as well as disincentives. It's a negotiation they make within their own minds). What Peter is getting at, I think, is that we need to go even deeper and do things that change the nature of those incentives in order to change the ethic that emerges to predominate.

kaki, Check out this post and the link to Rosenberg in it. I think you'll see that you're very much on the right track. Also, I think you're very astute to recognize how something like NVC can be used to manipulate others by narcissists, psychopaths and the like. I wrote a lot about this very thing on my own page about NVC in a section called The Limits of Nonviolent Communication's Effectiveness. I just wanted to reinforce the feelings you seem to have surfacing because I think they're rooted in important insight.

Any responses to this? I think it goes to the heart of the matter.

Gut feelings: the future of psychiatry may be inside your stomach Perhaps the ills of the world really emerge from bad gut microbes? Imagine how that would change strategy haha.

But what is child abuse and mistreatment of children an outgrowth of?

MarkIX, What do you think of the chicken/egg issue I raised here? I think we may be pointing out something similar and, if so, I'd love to see Stefan and PJ discuss that point more openly in another talk. Actually the more I think about this, the more it seems like a "first mover" kind of issue. I think Peter is trying - poorly, in my view - to point out that we have to go back to where the state came from. If Stefan says the state emerges from poor parenting, then where did the poor parenting come from? If it's in human nature to be voluntary and peaceful, why did parents start abusing their children, thus setting them up psychologically to support the emergence of states? Stefan never gets to the root cause. Peter is trying to get to the root cause underneath all this. I'm not sure if he succeeds, but it's something we really do need to consider.

I agree that this whole debate might be better served if the phrase "free market," which has become so loaded with baggage that people can't even understand what it means anymore, were replaced. Imagine, for example, a dialogue that was framed as being about the relationship between a Resource-Based Economy and a Voluntary-Interaction Based Moral System. I think this would help avoid some of the distraction caused by focusing on misunderstandings of "free market," it would clarify that the latter is an ethical viewpoint, not just a market or economy, and it shows much better that these ideas are not in direct opposition necessarily, but one is a particular methodology that could exist within the paradigm of the other. Probably the most frustrating thing for me about this debate was that there seemed to be a central argument going on but it was never really clearly articulated. Peter kept trying to articulate it but not doing so very well. Perhaps a wise moderator would have been able to focus them in on this. What I saw was a chicken/egg debate. Stefan says that all of the ills arise from the state. Peter says - though not in these words, so frustratingly it never seemed to become the focus - that the state itself didn't arise from nothing. The state is a symptom, not a root cause. The root cause is that which led to the state coming into being in the first place, which, in his view, is an ethical paradigm that values dominance and competition. In his view, as long as that desire for dominance and competitive advantage is valued, even if you got rid of the state, people would re-create it or something like it (just as it was created the first time around so you can't claim that can't happen) or use other means to enact those values. Stefan says the state is used as a tool to gain advantage so we should get rid of the state. Peter "says" - far too verbosely and unclearly - that the underlying ethic values constantly seeking advantage, so the state was brought into being to serve that purpose (and is not the only thing used to serve it). Stefan sees the state as root cause of the problem. Peter sees the state as the most powerful, but still just one, outgrowth of a dominance-minded ethical viewpoint. I would really like to see these two talk again with a moderator well-versed on these topics and who has a particular talent for noticing core leverage point areas in the discussion that are being overlooked so they can be focused on those better. One more point. I have constantly mentioned the book The Evolution of Cooperation on these forums. This whole debate just showed once again how crucial the science in that book is. Both Peter and Stefan want cooperation to flourish. But they differ in what it takes to bring it about. Peter even brings up game theory and evolution. That is what that book is all about. Perhaps it could inform any future discussions.

All I can say is that, as far as I'm aware, you can't know with 100% certainty what anyone believes. It's questionable if you can even be 100% certain of what you yourself believe. You can and do, however, make your best educated guesses at people's beliefs. The question is why that isn't enough for some people? The question is why some people insist on certainty where it isn't really feasible. Our visual system lies to us. There are optical illusions. It's not perfect. But its approximations are good enough to get us through life pretty well in most cases. The same is true with our perception of beliefs. We can keep trying to improve it, as we do with glasses and contact lenses and telescopes in the case of vision. Innovations can improve our belief perception abilities. But it's not 100% and the important thing is that's ok!

What specifically did/do you want to do and how were you not free to do it? Who or what barred you from doing that which you wanted/want to do?

I don't think belief is "primarily a conscious realization." In fact, I think many of the most deeply held beliefs are held unconsciously. Of all places, FDR is one where surely people realize this. People are constantly talking here about issues that exist due to the unrecognized premises that drive people. If you are talking only about beliefs that people hold consciously, then we are not talking about the same thing. Look at things like Implicit Association tests, which reveal biases that a person may not have even realized they have. The rest of what you say, about exactly how behaviors and beliefs match up and what we can and cannot infer about beliefs from behaviors, is a very complex subject. There are many ways that people's behaviors can either reflect or contradict their actual beliefs.

Again I don't think agnostics are all the same in their views. All agnostic means - as far as how I'm using it - is someone who believes we don't and/or can't have complete certainty regarding something. When it comes to probability, one agnostic could believe there is only a tiny tiny chance of God existing and another could think it's 50/50. So agnostic alone isn't enough to tell you, which is why I'm always harping on it being more useful to just ask people what their estimate of the probability is. That one number tells you more than verbal labels. I didn't post links to all the previous threads because I don't have the energy to go search for them. You can do searches and you'll find them. You can also google these things and find entire websites about them. I think the difference with God vs. Santa is that nobody has been able to explain the origins of the universe. This leaves open the possibility of a God. The concept of a creator God, for instance, fills a role that really does exist to be filled. The concept of Santa is completely gratuitous. We already know with a very high level of confidence how presents get to children. There is no need for any extra explanation. But we don't know with a high level of confidence many answers to questions about the origins and nature of existence, so speculating on God is not quite as absurd as when it comes to Santa. You can at least understand a "God of the gaps" mindset. A "Santa of the gaps" mindset makes little sense because it isn't filling any gaps since there aren't really any in that area (other than for small children who don't yet know answers the rest of us already know.) There is a theme in this thread of people ignoring probability for some reason. I agree, we can't know with 100% certainty what someone's actual belief is. It's questionable whether people can even know with 100% certainty their own true beliefs as we learn all the time when people suddenly realize they've held a belief for years without realizing it. However, that doesn't negate the fact that if someone acts in consistent accordance with a belief, it's more likely they hold it than if they constantly contradict it, for example. The relationship between indicators and actual belief held is not 0. So, as with all else, we do our best to estimate and assess the likelihoods of things and act accordingly. As far as I can see, that's all humans can do, along with trying to find ways to improve those estimates and assessments.

People don't usually debate whether something exists if they find it highly improbable, even if there is a tiny chance it's possible. If Bill Maher admits a tiny tiny possibility that Santa exists, however miniscule, he can still find it absurd for someone to act as if he certainly does exist. What you're not getting is that greatly overestimating the probability looks silly even if the probability is not absolute 0. It would be like me betting everything I own on something with a 0.000001% chance of happening. That's still a stupid bet even if it's not 0% chance. I think there are two different reactions to parents who act with certainty about God. You could become equally certain against God and thus be an atheist. Or you could react with disdain for certainty itself and become agnostic. Both are understandable reactions to dogmatic parenting. Your other arguments are old classics discussed ad nauseum for centuries. Look up "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" and you can read all sides of that discussion until you fall asleep. Again, people act on probabilities EVEN IF they are less than 100%. If your company doesn't see your check, has no evidence of it being sent, they don't need to say with 100% certainty it wasn't sent. 99.999% certainty is good enough. We don't require 100% certainty in life. We can still make decisions and still label many choices absurd or outrageous even without certainty simply based on terrible probability assessment. I think that's all there is to say on this topic. It's been explored to no end in previous threads and all around the web and throughout philosophy. No new ground is going to be broken here, seventwentyseven. Your arguments are very common ones that have been dealt with countless times.

You are correct. Since we can't prove anything 100% not to exist, anything is possible. Perhaps not very probable. But possible. It seems some people just can't accept that fact for some reason. I don't think all agnostics act the same. I can speculate that atheists are more likely to be militant and aggressive about debating religious people. But I think agnostics can be too. Bill Maher is an agnostic, for example, and he is quite aggressively anti-certainty in religion.

1) Probability isn't a "rational position." It's just a truism that the human mind assesses probabilities and acts based on them. What else can it possibly do? Are you claiming otherwise? 2) I've never made any statement of my position on the optimal size of government.

I don't believe you can prove the absence of something with 100% certainty - which is precisely the point agnostics are making.

All you've proven there is that we act based on probabilities so even when the probability of something is less than 100%, if it is close enough - and what is close enough differs for different things depending on our values - it motivates us.

Someone's answer when asked directly about their beliefs is not at all a reliable way to determine beliefs. People lie. People also have unconscious beliefs that are reflected in their behavior even while they deny them (something people on FDR are surely deeply familiar with.) They even can have two conflicting beliefs at the same time coming from different parts of their psyche. Ultimately, what someone believes is an internal factor. We can try to figure it out from various external indicators (their verbal responses to questions being just one of those and not always, or even usually, the most effective). Perhaps one day neuroscience will give us ways - for better or worse - to identify beliefs directly in some manner. More importantly, I find it very telling how atheists bend over backwards to AVOID specifying capacity for belief as necessary or qualifying the definition of atheism in any way. Even if you were right that it's not necessary, it can only help to be more precise. But atheists often don't want to do that because it starts to chip away at their constant refrain that it's just an absence of belief that is sort of the default position.

But how many of those Republicans believe in the devil because they believe Obama is him?

That piece of "folk wisdom" refers not to the ideal age, but the minimum age that is supposedly socially acceptable.

I believe things related to the ethics of US policy in Syria are closely enough related to the thread topic to be justified. I would actually appreciate if you did stop responding as you are continuing to distract from the topic at hand. It's actually quite surprising you'd spend so much time posting these types of posts since I have no idea what your goal is. As mentioned, I've posted 4 quite legitimate questions related to the ethics of intervention which I'm happy to discuss with people (and did enjoy talking about with the couple people who actually wanted to talk about the topic). If you aren't interested in talking about them or about the ethics of Syria I have no idea why you keep posting in this thread. I don't know what you are trying to accomplish. I stand by the questions and look forward to discussing Syria with those interested. Those not interested or "offended" by the topic should probably just post on other threads they find less upsetting. It seems as if you don't like these questions being raised so you're trying to force me to stop asking perfectly legitimate questions. Again the questions I asked are: "When is it justified and/or morally imperative to intervene using force when someone else is being violated?" "What about when chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons are involved? Does this change the calculation?" "What about when children are being killed? Does this change the calculation?" "What is the relationship between the morality of intervention on the personal level, for example if you witness someone harming a child in front of you, vs. on the social scale, for example if a nation's government far away is harming children?" If you think these questions are unrelated to the topic of the thread, I disagree. If you think asking these questions is making the thread personal, making accusations or trolling, again I disagree.