Mister Mister

The problem here is of definitions and values. Reich bases his arguments (more like assertions really) on what "creates jobs" or "helps the economy", without defining what that exactly means, or why it should be our highest value. Also, so many of these arguments, like with regards to debt/GDP or medicare or social security, amount to something like "sure, the government is totally bankrupt and none of its programs are sustainable, but GIVE US MORE FUCKING MONEY, just a little bit more, and we can smooooooth it all out". It's like your heroin addict cousin asking to borrow money so he can straighten himself out. Give me a fucking break.

I understand. I wouldn't think the important thing with regards to your mother, would be to have a philosophical discussion about theology and metaphysics and epistemology, but rather your emotional experience with regards to your current crisis in faith. Would she be sympathetic and curious? Or do you think she would lash out or fog you with cliches?

yes personally as a fan and donator I'd just like to say I am so completely tired and bored of the determinism argument and would rather not hear more of it. anyone interested can just type it into the search bar and hear hours of arguments and content on the subject. in fact, ThinkSkeptic, I would strongly recommend that you do this before calling in, if you do. I might be interested however, if they take a slightly different angle, specifically, why they believe in determinism, possible origins in their childhood, why they put so much time into arguing it, and what impact determinism has on their life, and what a society which accepted determinism might look like. Just my two cents.

I really appreciated your honesty in a previous thread, and I greatly sympathize with what you are going through. Outside of this forum, are there people in your life with whom you can talk about these important issues? Either way I greatly admire and feel for your curiosity and desire for truth despite the obvious discomfort it is bringing you, especially at such a young age. As for your question, it is undoubtedly true that religious texts like the Bible, though they may have some truth and principles, are edited so as to serve power, or at least not to threaten it. In general, we don't have a fair representation of philosophy, historically, because of our violent, statist past. You have to understand that the world these texts came from thousands of years ago in the Middle East, was a much harsher one. Certain truths simply could not have survived in that world, because they would have been a threat to political power of the time. Either the texts would be burned and the followers killed, or the texts would be edited, or, most likely, no one would have dared to even write them down or preach them in the first place. Has it ever occurred to you, that the same government which killed Jesus, also canonized the main texts which have become the New Testament, some 400 years later? Do you know that many things were left out, such as the Gospel of Thomas? It was also translated by the Romans into Latin from Greek, from Aramaic, and then the Latin was translated into English over a thousand years later. So of course the content of the Bible as it exists today has been heavily edited, probably for political reasons. But as for the other part of your question, does god exist...of course the existence of god as a greater metaphysical question, is not dependent on the truth or falsehood of the Bible or any of the many religious texts people have believed in throughout history. But the problem is that most definitions of god are logically inconsistent, or in complete opposition of observable reality. I'd like to offer a slightly different perspective that may help. It is absolutely true that there are great mysteries in the Universe - Where and how did the Universe originate? what principles underlie Creation and where did they come from? what sustains matter and energy in constant, beautiful, though sometimes violent, motion? how did life originate? how widespread is life throughout the Universe? what is consciousness and how did it come about? We can appreciate these mysteries, and strive for better and more clear and consistent answers to these questions. We can be honest and humble about our uncertainty and ignorance in certain areas, while being reasonable about the things we can be certain of. We can gain great value from introspection, and meditation, and have powerful inner experiences that we can't explain. But none of this requires faith in something we can't prove, or which is nonsensical by definition. You are obviously a passionate and intelligent young person, and I can tel you that in time, you won't necessarily need the idea of God to have principles and ethics as well as a sense of wonder about the world.

Holy crap...I would have loved to read a dialogue between him and Socrates.

What do you mean punished for the effects of SK?

Is this journalism?

I've heard Stef use the metaphor of IQ relating to horsepower in a car, and philosophy as the ability to drive. If you have a fast car, but are a shitty driver, or have the wrong directions, you're in a much worse position than if you have an average car but know where you are going and how to get there. Having philosophy and self-knowledge gives you a huge advantage in this world I think, in some ways more than IQ. I think of all the really smart people who lost themselves in alchemy, or figuring out epicycles in the Ptolemaic system, or debating whether Adam had a belly-button, vs. the person of average intelligence today, who has a much better understanding of science. Similarly, so many smart people are lost in academia, either dwelling in useless mundane details and abstractions, or worse, immersed in relativist and Marxist delusions and propaganda. It takes a real luminary genius/hero like Galileo, Newton, Ayn Rand or Mises or Rothbard, to blaze new trails, but once they have done so, anyone of reasonable intelligence can get where they got to, and further.

I really enjoy your videos and commentary, especially the one about the complex pyramid structure of the modern political system. Is there some reason you chose not to do graphics on your latest vid, aside from the time requirement? Anyway just wanted to give my positive feedback.

Another interesting thing, WontStandforIt, is that you think people need a government to restrain their behavior, but when I point out that government is people, and ask how we can restrain THEIR behavior, you invoke something called "The Rule of Law"....So people need to be controlled with force, by people called the government, but the government, which is people, can be controlled without force, through "the rule of law". Are you beginning to see the problem?

Sorry, now you've jumped from preventing crime, to "just war" theory. You didn't answer my questions really. HOW does government actually stop murder? And are you convinced that it does so in the best way possible. Furthermore, once we give people this power and call it government, how can we stop them from unjustly killing people?

Hi, interesting question. I think the differentiating factor is not the IQ of the mother, but the genetics of the child. See the "Truth on Crime" presentation - criminality is associated with what is called the "Warrior Gene", but only when there is the environment in childhood, which signifies a dangerous, war-like, win-lose environment to the genes, to activate this behavior. So in other words, based on the genetics of the child, there are different responses to the same parenting methods. Neglect could produce insecurity and neediness in some, bitterness and resentment in others. Abuse could produce paralysis and terror in some, or violence and paranoia in others. I think in general, abusive environments tend towards hierarchy, where a few alphas compete for dominance over everyone else, while the majority of betas cower and placate and follow and obey. A more peaceful environment tends to produce a more egalitarian system, though some will rise to the top of their respective fields, most everyone can independently pursue their own ends without dominating or being dominated. So you are right to point out that the breakdown in family leads to both increased violence in some, as well as increased passivity in many others. But these are not opposite, rather they are complements. It is the Warfare/Welfare State, they are two sides to the same evil coin.

lol, I'm really not sure this is the best place to put our energies

I don't see why this is a problem. If you have a friend who is on heroin and you use social and economic pressures to get him to stop doing heroin...why is this a bad thing? This doesn't mean they can't incentivize and dis-incentivize certain behaviors. If you don't smoke, your healthcare is cheaper.

How do governments stop murder? How do we stop governments from murdering?

Yes I would be honest. Tell them you enjoy their company but disagree with their beliefs. Most Christians are open to talking about their beliefs, as well as respecting disagreements. Even the nasty ones probably won't take your head

Hi August, that's quite a story. I'm not sure what your question is besides "is it a good idea to read psychology", "does this seem at all plausible", and your opening request for "perspective". I'm not an expert in psychology so maybe I'll leave those questions for others. It kind of strikes me that the scattered and somewhat confusing nature of how you've told your story is a reflection of your state of mind at the moment, which is totally understandable. Would you answer some questions? Are you still living with your father? If so, why? You mentioned your father as abusive...can you tell us what you mean specifically? Can you elaborate on your conflict with him? Why do you think your mother chose your father? Have you ever talked about this with her? If you leave Mexico, would you come back to the US? Do you have citizenship? Where else might you go, if anywhere? Can you be more specific about what you think are your talents, and list for us some of your goals? It's completely natural to have bigger ambitions than the world will allow, this is just the economic reality of human desires always exceeding available resources. I like to think that even if technology had eliminated scarcity, and medicine had cured death, we would still regret there not being enough time for everything. But you can start to negotiate this by evaluating the costs and benefits of your various ambitions I hope that's a helpful start, and I'm sorry for what you've been through and commend your commitment to making a better life.

Hello, Just Chillin. That's a very interesting question. What does it mean "more fascistic"? Of course you realize that's not an argument, just an adjective, right? I wonder how much this could relate to emotional defenses around childhood trauma. Most children prefer physical abuse to neglect, and will act out knowing they will get yelled at or spanked rather than be ignored. Just something I thought of. Are you close enough with this person that you could investigate this? One strategy when breaking these things down for people, is to look at interpersonal ethics at a more individual level, and extrapolate from there, before speculating how a whole society of millions of people might be organized. Do they recognize that, at a personal level, economic and social ostracization is perfectly legal, while physical force is not? Would they rather date someone who was openly willing to use force as a consequence for disobedience (only as a last resort of course), or someone who was merely willing to withdraw contact from them, and try to persuade others to do the same? It is in some ways a legitimate concern, that people will unfairly ostracize someone and cause immense distress to that person. But that is not ONLY the problem of a free society. That happens today. A child might be kicked out of their home at 15 because they are gay or renounce the faith of their parents. Scores of people have lost their jobs due to hysterical SJW campaigns, over a quote taken out of context, or a slight difference of opinion, such as 80 year old Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt who made a joke about women in the lab being a distraction (referring to how he met his wife), or the Mozilla CEO who was fired and remains unemployed because he had donated to an organization which was anti-gay-marriage, at the same time that Obama and Hillary were still anti-gay-marriage. So is this person you're talking to at all concerned with this kind of fascist economic ostracism? So it's true, economic ostracism is a weapon, like physical force in some ways, that can be used for good or for evil, regardless of whether we live in a free society or not. That's why we have to push for reason and voluntarism. As for the difference between DROs fees and government fines, there are two big ones. One is the question of whether the laws are just, and the punishments reasonable. We aren't advocating for DROs to kidnap cocaine-addicts, bust prostitution rings, enforce school curricula, mandate business licenses, and so on. The other thing is that a government fine is completely arbitrary, while a DRO fee would have been agreed to beforehand, and like most competitive market prices, is a constantly adjusted calculation of profits and losses, risks and rewards, costs and benefits. A good example is government parking fines, where you could have your day or even week or month RUINED because you parked 2 minutes longer than you anticipated, and now have a $120 fine. If I keep a movie from the video store 2 days longer than I said I would, they don't subject me to those kinds of fines, because if they did I would never shop there. But the government has a monopoly of course. So you made a reasonable argument about something very important, and your "friend" throws some very strong insults at you. Has it occurred to you that these insults could just as easily apply to him, and may in fact be projection? If you are paranoid and crazy for accurately describing violence as a consequence for disobedience to the government, is he/she not paranoid for imagining unprecedented disaster as a result of commonly accepted business practices by a hypothetical security company in the future? At a certain point, when you are discussing these things, a person satisfactorily demonstrates they are committed to irrationality. When you know this for sure, there is no longer much benefit to arguing with them.

Sorry I know some people have already hacked at this particular sentence, but I wanted to take another angle at it. This question presumes omnipotence. If you were king of the world, this might be a reasonable question to ask. But since we are merely philosophers, all we can do is to acknowledge what is true and false, what is right and wrong, and try to the best of our abilities to live our own lives accordingly. - If we are to have moral obligations, those obligations apply to all moral agents. - Governments are simply a conceptual label applied to certain people, but don't have objective properties that make them different from other people. - People generally object to the use of force, teach their kids "don't hit, don't steal". - Governments prohibit the use of force, i.e. they have laws against assault, theft, rape, and murder. - Governments rely on theft, and threats of assault and murder. - Therefore, government is simply a concept which assumes and imposes opposite moral rules on different groups of people based on nothing but a concept called government. This is inconsistent, irrational, and hypocritical. Having accepted this basic truth, the questions you have I think boil down to how could a society without a government enforce moral rules? There are two facets to the answer I think. One is through private security agencies, which is a more complicated aspect which we will get to another time, but more importantly is through social forces. Human beings are incredibly susceptible to social forces. For example, there is no government law against using the word "nigger" in public, but people generally don't, because it is likely to have negative social repercussions. This becomes even more true, the more economic power one has. Look at the Mozilla executive who was fired and remains unemployed because he funded an organization which was anti-gay marriage, or the hysteria over the pizza parlor in Indiana that said they would hypothetically refuse to cater an imaginary gay wedding. Stef has long argued that we can use these kind of social and economic pressures, which are generally applied these days to cultural hysteria and censorship, towards encouraging virtue, peaceful parenting, honest business dealings, and discouraging evil and nasty behavior. Hope that makes sense. Thanks for the question and welcome to the boards.

ya Qe7 is not a bad play, though it concedes your rook for white's knight, a loss for black. A better play might be Bg5 forking the King and Queen, then you trade queens after that. That will get you out of some trouble, but you still have two pesky knights bearing down on your king which is not great. But you do have the 2 rooks to his one, so I think you could grind it out. I will say, if I was playing with someone and found out they were consulting a forum for advice on moves, I might be a little annoyed. Not sure if that's really rational though. I'm Rosecodex on chess.com, happy to play any time

No because race doesn't mean skin color. It means a group of people who have genetic similarity based on having lived in a certain area for a long time. See Stef's latest interview with Charles Murray. Intelligence is one of the similarities. Height is another. Penis size is another. Susceptibility to certain diseases is yet another. A doctor who ignored race could be charged with malpractice. How can a study be immoral, or perpetuate ignorance. Acquiring knowledge can only help. I don't know what ridiculous means in a philosophical conversation. If I understand this argument, which I've heard before, it is: "Scientific racism was used by some people in the past to justify slavery. Therefore any scientific inquiry into biological difference between the races is racist and evil and meant to justify slavery". That is so intellectually lazy. You are begging the question, just assuming that you are right that there is no biological difference between races, and trying to scare people from thinking clearly about this challenging issue.

Sorry I have no idea what you're talking about. You can say any price is "correct", nobody really cares what you say. The question is, is someone willing to sell at that price, and is someone willing to buy at that price? If someone offers me a price, and I think I can get a better deal, I make a counter offer. I never thought to negotiate a price with someone by saying "sorry, that price is wrong. the calculations of my obscure economic theory actually say the CORRECT price is $4.72". Do you realize how absurd that is? AE says there is no such thing as objective value. If you want to disagree, the burden of proof is still on you to prove that. But otherwise you are just saying AE is wrong because it doesn't go about trying to discover objective value, which obviously you prefer because, if value is subjective, then socialist theory falls apart. Which is to say that you a have a preference for theories which support the idea of objective value. But again, you haven't proven that the Austrian description of subjective value is wrong. And you can't. Because it isn't.

My understanding, is that the classical civilizations had SOME semblance of these things, but not as we would recognize them today. Basically only the Patrician class of propertied men and women had what we'd consider rights. Below them were the Plebeians, and below THEM slaves. So these were still very hierarchical civilizations, but among the upper classes they started developing basic ideas of Law and Property.

my understanding is that microwaves work by vibrating water molecules. so the rate at which something heats up is dependent on how much water is in it.

Recently I was wondering about the wage gap, how it would look with a comprehensive analysis, factoring in all the money transferred from men to women by the State, as well as the men on the low end of the IQ Bell Curve who might not show up in the official "work force". In other words, if you factor in taxes and welfare - with men tending to pay more than they get out of the system, and women vice versa - as well as the homeless and unemployed (mostly men), as well as the men in prison, as well as alimony and child support, if you wouldn't actually see women "earning" more in aggregate.