Mister Mister

Well I can only go by what she says, which is that she eats well and exercises, but has the figure she has. Some people have bigger bone structures and different metabolism. A lot of skinny people are very unhealthy. I can eat lots of crap and I won't get fat, but I feel crappy and get gas. Yes maybe the makeup is silly, but otherwise looks like she has good skin, and if she is active, and feels good, I don't really see what the problem is. "Objectively, neither of these women are healthy". Are you some kind of magic doctor that can diagnose people from watching a video? I agree that childhood trauma does not give you a license to tell other people it's okay to be unhealthy. Didn't I say that? Can you point out where she does this, I could be missing something. How is it a good attitude to do your best to be physically healthy, and be confident in yourself, and satisfied that your spouse finds you attractive, and not care what mean assholes think about your appearance? Do I really have to answer that? Would you suggest she self-attacks and feels bad when some random guy says "god I hate fat people"? Anyways I agree that enabling self-destructive behavior is bad, but also this obsession with a particular kind of body-type and attractiveness is gross and stupid. Model types are nice to look at but probably not nice to bang. That's what I meant when I said we should be careful to fall into a false dichotomy.

I don't quite see what you are getting at. She seems pretty reasonable, encourages healthy eating and exercise, quite lovely and happily married, but happens to have a larger body type. And she is pointing out some real, pretty nasty and cruel bigotry out there. My major criticism is she is pretending to know the psychological motivations of mean people. A lot of the stuff on this topic is pretty ridiculous, claiming that all standards of attractiveness are social constructs, as well as standards of health. Given what we know about how overeating can be another compulsive addiction to manage pain from childhood trauma, we should have sympathy, but contempt for those who would enable them. But this woman doesn't seem to be doing that. I just wouldn't want to get caught in some kind of false dichotomy, on the side of mean people.

Hi Diki! Warmest of welcomes. So nice to hear about your kids, they are very lucky. What are you doing in Japan? I studied Japanese and have travelled there several times. I was actually just talking about a friend about the positives as well as the serious challenges of their culture and society. Would love to hear what you think about it.

What would be fair as far as divorce: - If one spouse gets the house, they should pay the other spouse half the value of the home. If they can't afford to live in that house without alimony, they should sell it and split the proceeds. - Alimony, if at all, should be paid for a short time until the spouse receiving can make other arrangements. This BS where you pay in perpetuity is crap. - Custody should be shared unless one spouse can be shown unfit to parent, or concedes custody. If custody is shared, there is no need for one spouse to pay the other to take care of the child. Accepting child support from a man while not allowing him to see the kids is so fucking insulting and harmful I don't have words for it. - If one spouse is abusive, and an unfit parent, should the other spouse be rewarded for choosing an unfit spouse and co-parent? Really think about this. Modern family courts are subsidizing poor choices with regards to one of the most important choices a person can make: the choice of with whom. to have kids. If you choose a great partner, stay together for life, you get taxed, but if you choose poorly, you get subsidized. Your mother acts as if she is "entitled" to something for marrying an asshole. If anything, they both owe you. But rather than sacrifice her lifestyle, and put extra effort into making it work for you, she just took his money. You may not get to the truth of what happened between them, but you can be certain of what needs of yours weren't met as a child, and what your parents own and what they don't, for which I am very sorry.

Why would it be difficult emotionally?

There's a thread title to get you flagged by the FBI

I would love to!

I really recommend the book "Taming your Inner Critic" by Jay Earley, an introduction to Internal Family Systems approach to Psychotherapy. I am working through it now and it is really mind-blowing and helpful.

Yes I found the whole exploration into Fisk's psychology especially fascinating. The first time we see him is in the art gallery, buying the modern art painting from Vanessa (Yowza!!!) which we come to learn is meaningful, because it reminds him of the Stucco wall he was sat in front of, when he snapped and first became a killer, striking his father with a hammer. This was when the scared, passive little fat boy became a violent . He connects with Vanessa over this painting, then takes a huge risk with her when he invites her to a private dinner in the restaurant, to witness the bombings he had planned (in my opinion the best sequence of the season, the low-point in Daredevil's crusade), which he implicitly admits to. Very interestingly, she is into it! The way she is portrayed, as an attractive woman, drawn to wealth and power, is quite striking. Then later, in a rare show of vulnerability, he confesses his childhood murder of his father to her, and his commitment to not be a "monster" like his father. He believes that he uses violence not against the weak, like his mother, his city, but against other violent men, like his father. Interestingly he is a lot like Daredevil in this regard. Another thought I had is that the two of them are kind of like the two political wings, Daredevil the Left and Fisk the Right. Fisk is corrupt but principled, somewhat predictable, and willing to get his hands dirty to keep order. Daredevil is reactive, chasing who he imagines to be the "bad guy" at the moment, in a crusade of never-ending, ever-escalating violence, with no self-reflection on the unintended consequences. Also interesting how he maintains a front of "by the books", "use the system against the system", an image of virtue and honor, all-the-while maintaining a secret violent agenda which he keeps from even those closest to him, those involved in his legal crusade.

I just want to say that's awful what happened to you, and I'm so sorry that people you tried to share it with acted with such callousness and antipathy. I don't have such experiences, but I have tried to talk about these topics in general, and people, especially women, tend to shut down in the same way you described. Not to excuse it, but we are dealing with overwhelming emotional, biological, political, psychological defenses when we try to talk about male victims of female violence. It just doesn't compute for people.

Ah, now i understand. I think the confusion might be over the word trivial. It used to refer to the "trivium" of grammar, logic, rhetoric, which was the basis of all other disciplines, therefore trivial meant fundamental or basic. For some odd reason, it has come to mean the exact opposite, at least in America, where it often means meaningless, excessive, and so on. That's why I was confused. Are you perhaps from another country? Yes, sometimes economic principles are demonstrated by looking at how a man on a desert island would behave.

I don't know quite what you mean "a good starting point would be the trivial one". What is the trivial one? Do you mean you could define a school of economics by a situation in which it is useless? I would characterize economics as the study of human action, human choices individually and in aggregate. It is not the study of the cause or motivations of those choices, which is the realm of psychology. Slavery is not a case of "inaction", it is a case of extreme coercion and limited choice. However, Austrian economics could still be applied to describe that situation, for example it might predict that slaves would have an incentive to do as little work as possible without being punished, and that slaves would enforce rules horizontally, and on their children, as often they would all get punished if one slave disobeyed.

I think it was in the call about the young man who was struggling with coming out as gay to his religious family

this has to be a joke, right?...it reads like an article on the Onion. If this is true, it is incredibly contemptuous, encouraging people who want to self-harm rather than trying to protect and understand them

I would just like a place to meet with people and sing together once a week

is this just an exercise in logic, or do you really believe this is true? If it's just a logic exercise, this is a fun one as well! If you really believe this, how do you account for: the Ancient Greek Eratosthenes' experiment with different shadows at different latitudes the same time of day, film of the round earth rotating from space, and satellite technology which you probably use? Also, if this is true, what is its utility for the average person?

About the preference for women in STEM fields. I have heard the opposite, in a study done with fake applications for doctorate programs I believe. Are there conflicting findings in different studies, or different interpretations of the same data?

How? If I "outcompete" all the other energy companies, and am able to offer clean electricity at $5 a year to the average household, who am I leaving behind? Can I ask do you subscribe to a utilitarian approach to ethics? It sounds to me like you do. To me, it is a fool's game to try to weigh all the people who benefit vs all who suffer, from one person's actions, let alone an entire system, especially if you include the past, the present, and the speculative future.

The last two were fantastic, I especially found the one on Letterman interesting because my parents were big fans, we used to watch the taped show from the night before almost every night. It makes sense in that much of my family, especially on my mother's side, enjoys the kind of petty, knock-you-down-a-peg humor that was Dave's trademark., I intend to send a donation and recommend a few more I'd like to see, particularly The Truth about John Lennon The Truth about JFK The Truth about Native America

right it all sounds good except there is kind of an implication that you deserve such a man because you have a vagina

Can you elaborate what you mean - "in the framework of a religion". Religions teach ehtics through conclusions, usually backed up by threats and lies. UPB is a methodology based on the human mind's natural ability and tendency to Universalize standards and principles. It doesn't need to be taught "explicitly", only demonstrated, as part of a conversation, rather than a lecture, and kids will get it. Does that make sense?

But given that most atheist intellectuals are relativists, can't we have sympathy for this sentiment?

I completely understand where you are coming from. Given where the world is now, it is so hard to see how it can transition to Peaceful, Rational Anarchy. The great thing about freedom however, is that no one person has to know all the answers. As Milton Friedman demonstrated, no one person in the world knows how to make something even as simple as a pencil. So asking how a free society would work is basically impossible for one person to answer. It only happens when enough people understand the principle, and act on it with passion, sensitivity, intelligence, and creativity. So the idea behind this show is that you see where, in your life, you can expand freedom, peace, reason, and understanding.

There are no philosophically valid unchosen positive obligations. You can't sign a fetus into a contract. Don't have to waste too many brain cells figuring this out.

Hi thanks for the response. By a rejection, do you mean morally? I assume you don't just mean personally, because you are talking about what applies to everyone. All forms of hierarchical organization? What about between parents and children? There is a natural imbalance of power here (a central idea of this show is how to prevent abuse of this power). I work part-time as a teacher, there is an inherent authority in the relationship, because I have knowledge and expertise. So what about the hierarchy between teacher and student? Between doctor and patient? Between a 10-year employee of a company and a newly hired one? This is why libertarians make a distinction between violent, coercive, involuntary authority, and voluntary or peaceful "hierarchical" relationships. Do you agree that there is a moral distinction here? If not then I don't know what to say. But if so, then the next step is to determine where property owners fit into this distinction, yes? Sorry, I thought I addressed this, and here you're just restating it. Do you mean that all actions of any human beings with choices are at the expense of others? This is quite chilling, and speaks to your view of human nature and maybe your history. How in this interaction, are you working to further your interests at my expense? I would hope that we are working together to come to an understanding of what is true and false, right and wrong, not that one of us is manipulating the other. But it is clearly not universally true. Two people having consensual sex are pursuing their own interests, at whose expense? I enjoy playing music in front of people. Other people enjoy listening. They also enjoy eating and drinking. Certain businesses enjoy the fact that I bring people to their establishments to enjoy music, where they buy food and drink. So everyone is working to further their own interests, but not necessarily at others' expense, in fact we know this because it is voluntary. So there is an assumption that what would be fair would be to give each man an equal portion of property. Who is doing the giving? Sorry, but it kind of seems to me a child's view of the world. There is a birthday cake called property, and the parent (i.e. State) is responsible for giving each kid an equal portion, otherwise it's unfair. But not all property is equal. A house on the coast of California is not equal to an acre of swampland in Louisiana is not equal to a steel mill in Detroit is not equal to a highrise in Manhattan. Also, life is not a game that starts and stops, it is a continuum. People are born, people die, and they make different choices in between. Even if we distributed all the money in the world evenly, within a year it wouldn't be equal anymore - some would gamble it all away, some would start failing businesses, some would buy stuff, some would save, some would make wise investments, and so on. So I don't know what that means. Yes, some people own more than others. But you speak as if there is some objective standard for how much everyone in the world should own, I don't know how you would begin to determine this. Lockean Proviso - I had to look this up, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockean_proviso The idea is, Locke argued there should be limits on ownership, that you can only justly homestead land as long as enough is left for others, is that right?. That's very interesting, I think I will need some time to learn more about, and process this. But like I said, Common Law and other conventions have come up with solutions to these problems, and more solutions ought to be forthcoming in the future. I believe it looks something like: If a tract of land is not developed within a certain amount of time, it reverts to a State of Nature, if individuals "Squat" for long enough on unused land, they can own it by law, and so on. But you say this relates to real problems in the world - can you give an example? If they are real problems, then why resort to extreme scenarios about oases in the desert? Sorry, maybe I wasn't more clear. My point is that Property is a standard, a principle, which is either valid or invalid. If you want to argue its' validity, fine. But to say it is harmful to some people, or that some people disagree, has nothing to do with anything philosophical. The Theory of Evolution is harmful to fundamentalist religions. A society that protects children is "harmful" to would-be pedophiles. And a propertarian society may be harmful to those who want something for nothing. But I think it is true what Ayn Rand said, that "There are no real conflicts of interests between men who do not desire the unearned". So what we really are aiming for is to raise human beings who are rational, peaceful, and understand self-ownership, that when they reach adulthood they take responsibility for their own lives and don't believe others are obligated to take care of them. Sorry, I have to call you out - "reeks of authoritarianism" is not an argument. The fact that you can smell "authoritarianism"- kind of a vague word which you are implying equals "immoral"-in an argument does not invalidate that argument. Again what is "a fair share of the worlds limited wealth"? What is a "fair share"? Is there an objective way to determine this? And why do you say wealth is limited? Have you ever heard of the Subjective Theory of Value? "On the grounds that they would either not want it or do better if someone else owned" - do you mean that you ought to be able to take something from someone else if you can do better with it? What does it mean to "do better"? Is there some objective measure for this? I am quite a skilled guitarist, but I don't own a very expensive instrument. Should I be able steal a more expensive one from someone who is less skilled? One last thing - do you recognize that we don't REALLY live in a private property system? Sure, people are allowed some property ownership, but only so long as they pay taxes for what they own. In other words, we are all "renting" from the government. Also, most of the land in the world is "owned" by governments, which isn't like normal ownership, which, as I explained before, entails risk and responsibility, instead the risk and responsibility is passed on to others, usually the young. They also can, and often do, claim private property by Eminent Domain, or sign off on projects like Oil Pipelines which have a direct effect on peoples' property, without their consent or consideration. And finally, there are a multitude of laws controlling what kind of property you can and can't own, and how you are allowed to commit it, i.e. gun laws, drug laws, trade restrictions, licenses, regulations, and so on. Also, are you aware of economic problems of NON-ownership? If you're going to bring up this topic, you ought to address things such as the problem of the commons. Thanks for the debate, I am enjoying it very much.