Frosty

You guys might like this video on government vs divorce

I'm going to skip over what we seemingly agree on because if we can't cut out the wheat from the chaff I'm going to have to abandon this conversation, it's become too bloated with irrelevance, we're getting too side tracked on issues which we may or may not agree on, but have no burden on the discussion of the NAP. Yes, sorry I got mixed up, I meant 1)b), the rest we seem to agree on, universal is something that you can apply a modifier to, in order to give it scope, i.e universal within some constraint. Usually this modifier is inherent in the definition of what you're describing as universal, i.e gravity refers to matter and so gravitational forces are universal with respect to matter. I've explained already why I double up on some things, I'm not explaining again and this is a distraction from where we fundamentally disagree and so is just more chaff. Keep these observations to yourself to shorten the dialogue please. As for the definition of rape, I'll simply go by the google result as it seems reasonable: Rape - Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration perpetrated against a person without that person's consent. I don't really want to get side tracked with this issue because I don't think it's at the core of where we disagree either. Sure lot's of legal systems define it differently, some of which might excuse accidental rape (I've not studied law), but I don't agree that all legal systems are particularly moral with respect to the NAP, a large number of the laws we have are not consistent with the NAP and I consider immoral. I'm using the term rape not as a strict legal definition that changes from place to place, but in the general way that we all colloquially understand it, sex without consent. Yes I did give a definition for aggression, it was contained in the definition of the NAP, specifically quoting myself here: Yes you've pointed out that every action has at least 2 subjects and what they want can differ, we can more or less assume someone taking an action wants to take that action, however you need to consider what the subject (victim) of the action wants. Let's walk through it. 1) An act isn't aggression if there is consent to the action (i.e sex isn't rape if there's consent) 2) Consent is required by ALL parties affected by the actions, an action cannot be considered consensual if one of the parties doesn't consent. 3) Lack of consent of the victim means the act isn't consensual and therefore it can be considered aggression. Yes, the basic reasoning could be sumarized as Desire = good/want. But what you seem to immediately forget is that this is with respect to interactions between moral agents, one moral agent acting on another. The desire is in the context is relevant to whoever is experiencing the effect of the action, it boggles my mind that anyone would need this explained in a verbose way. The system does not fall apart when you consider what people want in context, moral actions exist between moral agents and you have to consider whom the action effects. I don't know why you're ignoring the fact that consent of actions (which differentiates aggression vs non aggression) requires the consent of everyone involved. You're struggling with the objectiveness of desire and I think you're just getting confused. Whether any instance of an action is desirable is not something that has an objective truth, it's subjective depending on who the target of that action is. However the fact that in any one particular moral interaction is desired by the target of that action is indeed objective, that's an objective fact of reality that at the moment they either desire or do not desire the action, and if they do not consent to the action then it's considered aggression which makes the instance of that action immoral. The a different instance of the same action with different moral actors with different desires could be perfectly moral, and the NAP accounts for that in the definitions of the words used. You go on to talk about logical contradictions and scope, I've addressed that but I'll quickly re-iterate where your reasoning is wrong, and that's for an action to be considered moral it needs to be wanted by everyone involved, there's no contradiction here, if one person wants the action and the other person untwants it then the action is immoral because there's no consent to the action, for an action to be consensual everyone involved needs to be consenting. You go on to re-iterate that I haven't defined things, I've defined everything I'm talking about, explicitly in most cases, go back and re-read my old post, the definitions are in there, you've accused me of missing them before and I'm specifically quoting where they've been defined. We've now identified where we disagree, you seem to think that as long as one person wants an action then it's good even if the target of the action doesn't want it, I've offered a correct way of thinking about this which is that the morality of the action is judged based on the condition that all involved (or affected) want it, this creates a coherent system where analysis of the action by anyone will arrive at the same moral judgement making it universal, objective, internally consistent and coherent. This will likely be my last big reply, my suggestion to you if you want to keep the discourse open with me is that you focus on the point of logic where we disagree specifically, I believe I've correctly identified where that is, I suspect you'll disagree with the logic presented, so lets focus there first, see if we can resolve that and if we can then we can move on to where else you disagree afterwards. Preferably let's discuss consent first, and what it means for actions between individuals who want or don't want an action to occur. For what it's worth I agree with you, if your moral system relied on merely what an individual wanted then you'd end up with a contradictory world view where actions were both wanted or uwanted, but that's not how morality is constructed from the NAP, it considers the morality of the action as singular and objective and can be considered consensual if only everyone involved consents, that is a judgement that can be (at least in theory) be objectively made.

Depends entirely what you believe, remember that belief doesn't need to necessarily be valid or true for people to hold it, beliefs are often held for completely irrational or emotional reasons. The test for atheism is simple, first you test for theism (do you believe in the existence of a god?) If the answer is anything other than yes, then you're an atheist. It's a little tricky because generally speaking you're an atheist/agnostic with regards to specifics gods and it might be different for each god, it's true to say that some gods are described in ways which are logically inconsistent and so cannot exist, but others might be plausible. This is certainly one path to becoming a Gnostic Atheist regarding some gods, we can be Gnostic Atheists about other religions like Pastafarianism because we have relatively detailed accounts that it's man made and was designed to make a point rather than be a genuine religion. I don't think it matters how you arrive at knowledge, whether than be through logical deduction, divine revelation, or whatever, Gnosticism is really about what you claim to know and so is subjective. Many people claim to know things but are wrong, so in some sense (a)gnosticism is really more about how sure you are about your belief rather than anything objective. A gnostic in this sense is just someone who is 100% sure, and an agnostic is unsure. For example there are some logically inconsistent gods, I'd describe myself as Gnostic Atheist with regards to these gods, however there are other descriptions of possible gods that I lack belief of (because there's no evidence to support them) but I'm strictly agnostic about, I admit that my position isn't a certain one, it's open to further evidence. The difference between gnosticism and agnosticism with regards to atheism is what produces Weak vs Strong atheism as detailed here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

I don't know what has been replied in the thread, so this may have already been answered, It's just quicker for me to type out the basic answer I give everyone on this topic. Theist - Belief god(s) exists. Atheist - Lacks Belief god(s) exist. Gnostic - Claims knowedge of god, or that god is knowable. Agnostic - Claims god is unknown or unknowable. (a)theism addresses belief, (a)gnosticism addresses knowledge. Logically it's coherent to be any combination of these 2 independent variables, so with regards to god you're one of the following. Atheist Agnostic - Lacks belief in the existence of god, doesn't know for sure (often called weak atheism) Atheist Gnostic - Lacks belief in the existence of god, and denies gods existence (often called a strong atheist) Theist Agnostic - Belief in a god, but doesn't know for sure (belief based on faith alone) Theist Gnostic - Belief in a god and claims to know for sure (sometimes through divine revelation or some ontological argument) The issue you raised in the first post is basically a bad definition of atheist, not all atheists deny god exists, it's not a requirement that you deny god exists to be an atheist, it's sufficient that you lack a belief in existence. It all comes down to one important fact, and that's the lack of belief in any statement is not the same as the denial the statement is true. It is true that a subset of atheists deny the existence of gods, in my experience it tends to be very small segment and usually depends on various factors like how god is defined exactly and other things. You have to be wary with this issue, on the question of god's existence the theists have the burden of proof when they assert the existence of a god, and quite often in debates they'll attempt a reversal of the burden of proof regarding this assertion, and it's common this will be done by asserting that the atheist is position is to deny god either by redefining the word to suit them and suggest your only position outside of belief is denial, which is logically incorrect. If you simply lack belief in a god but you're not certain either way on the issue, then you're an atheist, don't let anyone bully you out of this position.

It would be interested to hear an account of what he actually believes and let us do an analysis of that because we might get to the bottom of where we disagree faster that way. The defence of the NAP is just as much in the incoherence and lack of universality or objectivity in other moral systems than it is about it's own strength, it's not just that the NAP meets these standards but that everything else we've seen simply fails. I have a nasty feeling this is a case of nihilism or something similar, where the response seems to be a stubborn refusal of everything, the impression that I get (which may be inaccurate) is that we could argue this backwards until we're fundamentally disagreeing on metaphysics and ontological principles which I have no intention to do. It's very easy to be lazy and just reject the validity of everything you read and simply keep rolling the conversation backwards to more and more basic principles, or get lost in a daze of interpretations of every single word, the ballooning in size of the conversation seems to be evidence of this.

I'm not using 2 terms in the sense that I rely on that for the argument, I'm differentiating between those terms and saying that the NAP is objective in the 2nd sense which is to say that it's objectively true because it's true by definition, that to be otherwise would be a logical contradiction. The use of the first (you call normal) sense, is merely to stop a common deviation in the argument towards subjectivity of peoples preferences. Your definition in 1)a is what I take issue with, things aren't universal through happen-stance, universal would refer to all cases not just present but future, and it's possible for future tastes be that not everyone prefers ice cream, in which case that preference isn't universal. Yes, it's a repetition to say that it's objective and doesn't come from human opinion, but I point this out again to differentiate it's objectivity, you have to understand that many of us have explained this to others in the past and it's just easier to address the common issues in peoples response which is to tend towards aggression being some kind of subjective preference, but it's not and that's dealt with in the way we define these words. Gravity is universal because this sentence has scope, when we talk about gravity as defined as interaction of physical forces we inherently limit the scope to physical objects. It is for example not true that 1+1=2 in all scopes because that assumes certain things like counting systems such as decimal, in binary 1+1=2 doesn't make any sense. So in that sense we can say that in fact 1+1=2 is universal but it's universal within some scope that is defined by meaning of these symbols. To define "universal" otherwise would mean nothing could be truly universal and the term would be useless. Objective truth and universal truth are similar but not synonymous, they're both required in a moral principle for it to be logically coherent and internally consistent. Your comments on vibrations get's at this point of scope, if we define a rule to specific, then we can say it's universal within the scope of the rule, but the same can be said for definitions, when we use a word like "gravity" what we really mean is what gravity is defined as, which is physical force between matter. Sexual penetration without consent even by accident is still rape, in fact one of the rape cases that made the news in the last few years was of just that, a man who supposedly slipped during vaginal intercourse and penetrated the anus. Rape is sometimes used because it's about as close to unambiguously wrong and evil as you can get, so there's little room for error in the discussion regarding examples. Use whatever examples you like it doesn't really bother me, the NAP applies in all cases of assault/battery/rape. Regarding the phrase "aggression is evil", I claim this is reasoned from first principles, I've given my account of this in my 2nd post. You've reached the conclusion that the 2 positions of good and evil are not consistent because you've ignored the scope of the issues, you've completely ignored the fact that one (or more) person/people are committing some action, and another person is the recipient of that action. And so who wants what matters. Of course we cannot say that things are moral just because the people taking the action want to do it, we have to consider the consequences of that action and who that effects, and their position on whether or not that action is wanted. When you take this into consideration there is no logical contradiction. Libertarians do not omit the above, it's contained within the definition of aggression, we inherently understand that the initiation of aggression is between moral agents and that there's an aggressor/aggressee paradigm associated with that. The NAP doesn't need to be that verbose as long as we agree on definitions, and near as I can tell we do. In an attempt to condense this conversation I'm going to skip over responding to some parts and just go for the meat of the matter where we seem to disagree. Firstly, all moral agents involved in some interaction need to consent in that interaction before there can be considered consent, when I say the wants of the aggressor aren't relevant it's because we understand that the aggressor want's to aggress, otherwise they probably wouldn't be doing it, but because logically both the aggressor and the aggressee need to consent for consensual action to occur we only need worry about one person not consenting. Oh and additionally, simply not wanting something rather than opposing the action (the opposite) is sufficient to meet the conditions of not consenting. You conclude that the NAP is a subjective standard because it relies on the desires of someone, but desires are objective, they're not subjective. Objectivity hinges on truth, and if someone genuinely desires something, lets say ice cream, then it's true to say they objectively desire ice cream, and I'd go out on a limb and say we could in theory scientifically demonstrate that desire to be objectively true through a sufficiently advanced understanding of the brain and with a brain scan. No ones opinion or feelings on the evidence of that desire alter the fact that the desire is something that objectively exists. It's even true to say that the person who holds the desire's opinions don't alter that fact. Take an example of a man who is physically attracted to an aroused by other men and not by women, we can measure physical attraction, dilation of the pupils, increased heart rate and blood flow, increased sweating, arousal. But that persons opinion of his own sexuality might be that he's straight simply because of the social pressures, and this happens in real life, people have denial of their own desires. You have to really get a grip on the difference here, back to the ice cream example for a moment. You can objectively say that someone has a desire for ice cream, a subjective opinion that person might give is that ice cream is the best food. That would be subjective because it would depend on the feelings or opinion of the person experiencing what it's like eat ice cream, we can't assert objectively that ice cream is the best food, even if everyone subjective opinion happens to align at that moment. We can however assert someone has a desire for it, and we can be objective in that statement, and the opinions and feelings of moral agents don't alter that fact. Remember that wanting something is objective, consenting is a decision that's made that's objective, people can have opinions on these things that are subjective but the actual actions themselves are objective, they're fundamentally true.

It might be easier if I backtrack and attempt to basically provide the step by step reasoning that the OP was asking for, I'm not going to get into metaphysics and nature of reality, it's beyond the scope of this argument and quite frankly if you disagree on any of these ideas then you can simply say so, I'm making basically the same metaphysical assumptions that most of us make day to day (I exist, you exist, reality exists, objective truth exists, etc) First definitions, these are just common day to day definitions pulled directly from google: NAP (Non aggression principle) - is an ethical doctrine that states that aggression is wrong, aggression being defined as the initiation of physical force or fraud against persons or property, or the threat of the same. Objective - (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. Bad - not such as to be hoped for or desired; unpleasant or unwelcome. Right - morally good, justified, or acceptable. Moral - concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour.synonyms: virtuous, good Immoral - not conforming to accepted standards of morality.synonyms: unethical, bad, morally wrong, wrongful, wicked, evil Consent - permission for something to happen or agreement to do something. The basic argument is this. 1) Actions can only be aggressive when they're unwanted by the subject(s) of the action. 2) All initiation of aggression must logically be unwanted, therefore all initiation of aggression is bad (synonym: wrong) 3) The determination of consent is an objective truth because it doesn't depend on opinion or feelings of whoever determines it. 4) Something that is wrong is immoral since morality deals with what is right and wrong. 5) Violation of the NAP must be objectively immoral. Some things to note: Consent isn't an opinion, it's a decision and something that's factual, the determination of that fact does not depend on the opinions or feelings of the person determining the truth. An action for example sexual intercourse can be either considered aggressive or not depending on the consent of the people involved, without consent it's considered rape and with consent it's just sex. Another example is taking someone's property is not theft if the owner of the property gave consent to transfer ownership. That's kind of fast and messy but I think it conveys everything you need to know.

You're welcome. It's superfluous but I used it like that to give the context in which it was meant. Yes we agree that objective essentially means "truth independent from opinion". The vast majority of the uses I adopt are just the common definitions of these words that you might find in the OED or google dictionary. In this case we're talking about a principle, the principle describes interactions between potentially different moral agents and so there could potentially be different scopes, for example which specific moral agents, how many are interacting, etc. I was being superfluous merely to give context in which the words are being used to it's more clear how I'm using them. In this case I was trying to differentiate between 2 different ideas, that something could be incidentally universally true because it just happened through chance that all moral agents agreed on something that they may otherwise disagree on, contrasted against something that is universally true because it has been reasoned using logic and is impossible for it to be any other way. The NAP falls into the later category, it's universal in the sense that it applies to everyone in all possible cases. Objective truths are true independent of opinion or feeling, or more generally of who is observing, even if there's no observers at all. And so it logically must be true that objective things are also universal. What would it mean for example gravity to be objective fact of reality, but also not universal? If it's not universal it means someone somewhere doesn't experience it and thus it fails to be an objective fact of reality. Gravity is defined as a physical interaction between objects with mass, that's contained within the definition of gravity and so the universality of gravity has scope because gravity has scope. It doesn't apply to logic because logic isn't an object with mass. But gravity is universal within its own scope, which is for all objects with mass. This is a recurring theme here, that the definition of the actions matter, the definition of rape in prior examples has a scope because the definition contains the requirement that sex occurs specifically without consent, I feel this is where a lot of confusion with the NAP comes from, because some people (not necessarily yourself) fail to coherently understand how people with subjective preferences can have universal rules, well it's because the rules themselves have some scope and specifically account for things like preference or consent. You've generalised a bit too far with my 3rd and 6th paragraphs, people want all sorts of things but that's not necessarily a source of good or evil, you might want a donut but my failure to provide you with one isn't bad for example. This is within the scope of aggression that unwanted aggression is bad and therefore evil, and really the words bad and evil, as per their definitions. Most of this stuff is definitionally true. I argue that it's an objective standard because it has been reasoned logically from objective first principles. As already discussed different moral agents have different preferences and consent to different things, so things can be both wanted and unwanted by different moral agents but never by the same moral agent. Again this all has scope that needs to be considered, but the principle remains coherent, non contradictory and universal. Regarding you example/scene it's fairly simple. Objectively we can indeed say the battery transpired. We can say that Herakles initiated aggression against Theseus because Theseus was not aggressive prior in any way that would warrant self defence. Herakles wants to punch Theseus however Theseus does not want to be punched hence he doesn't consent to this interaction, in this case we can say objectively that there's no consent for this action, providing we had the necessary tools to determine Theseus's state of mind. The thing to remember is that had Theseus theoretically wanted to be punched (maybe he felt like he deserved it in some way) then this would not be an act of aggression. For it to be aggression it has to be unwanted, by definition, but unwanted with regards to whomever the action is being taken against. The measure of morality is a measure of the action being taken and it depends on the target of the action as to whether they want or don't want the action (basically whether they consent or not), whether the action is wanted by the person taking the action isn't relevant to the morality of the situation otherwise you'd have a world where any action is morally permissible providing the person doing it wanted to do it. You'll note in your example that if you do abandon objective morality and embrace a subjective morality then you run into moral contradictions where the same action could be both good or bad depending on who's opinion you consider.

This is something I've thought about a bit in recent months, the biology of sex especially regarding evolution. Before we had the ability of self awareness and complex thought, our behaviour was primarily guided by impulse created by chemical moderation in our body such as being horny or hungry. Now we have the intellectual ability to decide to have children and pass on genes but we're still left with this urge to reproduce, it's just a function of our body and that's how I've come to think of it. If you think about it, sex and masturbation require work and they produce positive feelings, all the reward chemicals we like etc. However despite having access to an essentially infinite amount of porn, or in a steady relationship regular access to sex, we don't do it all the time. If the positives of ejaculation and the feeling of intercourse or masturbation outweighed the benefits you'd expect it to naturally occur more than it does, however when you think about it, most of the time it happens when you're horny and your body chemistry is signalling to you to engage in this behaviour, which then subsides when you're done. The comedian Louis CK has commented in the past about how this cycle is really just "maintenance" and in some sense for a single male it's just a burden that needs to be done. I've often pondered as a single male if I had the opportunity to take a drug to temporarily eliminate that urge, would I take it? Probably. While we do have these kinds of hormonal urges to have sex, porn remains a useful tool for satisfying that need fast and efficiently so we can get back to doing whatever else more productive and/or inherently enjoyable.

What I mean by "objective" is simply that the truth of the proposition doesn't rely on personal subjective experience, it's true irrelevant of personal experience and hence it's true in all cases. Something that is universal simply applies to everyone or everything and so is a requirement for being objective, something cannot be objectively true if it's not universally true. Take for example something more strongly defined and measured like gravity, we know it's objectively true that gravity exists and what it's properties are because it doesn't matter who measures it, we get the same answers. Gravity is universal in the sense that it's consistent everywhere and for everyone and it doesn't change value between person A and person B. I think how you've phrased it is more or less how I think of it, where "bad" is just something which is unwanted or undesirable, and where morality has to do with "right and wrong" or "good and bad" behaviour. This squarely puts aggression in the "immoral" camp and it does it using definitions to which we can all agree and are consistent and non-contradictory. It doesn't change from person to person and more importantly cannot which makes it both objective and universal. Bad is really just a synonym with evil. Most actions can both be bad and good, but never in the same context because either an action is desirable or it's not. Remember that morality regards the interaction between moral agents and so the judgement of moral actions requires context with respect to the specific moral agents interacting and their preferences and more importantly consent, at the time. Some actions are defied with the issue of preference or consent as an integral part of their definition. So for example rape is defined as sexual activity to which the victim specifically does not consent, and so rape under this system of definitions is unambiguously immoral. Same goes for theft, murder, etc.

The NAP satisfies the conditions for being an objective moral principle because it's internally consistent, non contradictory and it's also universal. And it's not universal by happen-stance or luck, it's much stronger than that, it's simply true in all cases by definition. It's a true fact to say that nobody wants other people to initiate aggression against them. Aggression is typically defined as physical assault, coercion (threats) and lying (fraud), it's understood that aggression by definition is unwanted, if you say that you want aggression against you then it's not aggression, so for example it's not theft if I want you to take a cookie I baked. So from unwanted we go to "bad" and from there we go to "moral" and we can say that it's objectively immoral to initiate force against other people, for the simple reason that everyone logically must agree. It's also worth considering the alternative principles and how that might look, can you construct a different moral principle concerning aggression that is both universal and non contradictory? You'll find that no you cannot, you always return to subjectivity. From the NAP and the principle of self ownership you can get property rights and go on to construct basically most of the moral system we have today (murder, assault, rape, theft are all bad etc) Stefan sums this up in his book called Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB) which is essentially an extrapolation of the NAP.

The hysteria around rape is uniquely overblown and I'm sure that's mostly down to feminism. It's a crime like a million other crimes and it's dealt with rationally and seriously by law enforcement, why do we need videos out there to tell men not to rape, how come there's no videos telling us not to steal or kill in the same fashion. There's this pervasive lie that men rape because they don't understand what they're doing or that they somehow don't understand consent, in fact some universities now how mandatory consent classes because of the hysteria around this crime, yet we don't have the same classes for stealing, murder, copyright theft or a million other illegal activities. Quite frankly I'm sick of seeing rubbish like this, there's no evidence it's doing anyone any good or preventing rape, it's just helping to fuel the hysteria that now surrounds rape.

My approach to this is very apathetic, first and foremost my MGTOW lifestyle means that I will have no progeny and so no one I am directly responsible for, so the idea of "leaving the world in a better state than found it" or really any long term concerns are moot points for me, the question really becomes why should I care? Especially when the vast majority of society is so fundamentally based on violence (statism, democracy, etc) I think you could probably make minor positive change (minor, on a global scale) over an entire lifetime dedicated to trying to cause change, but this is one of those problems which can only ever have an inter-generational solution, which is why I suspect Stefan targets peaceful parenting as much as he does, that's the most "bang for your buck". I find it really hard to care what happens past my death however, I'm not religious, I don't believe there's anything after and as much as I want peaceful cohabitation with society, I don't see any rational reason to concern myself with long term multi-generational changes that I'll never see the benefit of. I think not having children is an important factor in this, if you want to have children and be responsible for another human being, then there's more encouragement to make sure the future is better than the past.

I'd be interested in chatting with like minded people. To answer your questions: Q. What is your name (First Name is fine), age, and country of residence? A. Sam, 32, UK. Q. What’s got you motivated to join a group such as the Young Philosophers? A. I like to discuss ideas and lack like minded people to do so with, forums such as this are slow to engage with typically so real time chat is better. Q. When and how were you first introduced into FDR? What’ve you learned from your experience with FDR? A. At least 3 years ago, maybe more, I've learned way more than I can possibly express. Q. Have you ever tried to develop self-knowledge through therapy, journaling, or other practices? A. No Q. Tell me something interesting about yourself that nobody would suspect at first glance! A. Well I work in IT so I have a deep interest in technology but most people don't know that I do a lot of hacking in my spare time, some of that is penetration testing systems as a 2nd income, other times that's just because I like helping out other people in my own way.

I suspect that how engaged you are at your computer depends on what you're doing, I use a computer most of the day which ranges from gaming to reading, learning, watching TV, work as head of ICT, and a huge number of other things. I think the brain shutting down ability to logically process data is more to do with passivity, TV shows you're spoon fed and don't generally require any thought to consume where as most actions at a computer require some kind of interactivity and response which requires thinking. My main tips would be to study how to think, it's a skill like just about everything else and that's something you can learn about and study to improve your thinking. I would advocate studying scepticism to help you question new information, study formal logic and formal arguments which is how you construct arguments and the errors (fallacies) in logic, this is vital for spotting bad arguments. Study epistemology to understand the sources of knowledge and potential limits on knowledge. definitely study science and establish for yourself a standard of evidence required for belief. I'd worry less about meditation and state of mind type approaches, once you have a clear methodical approach to parsing information you don't really have to worry about that kind of thing, it just takes practice. Lastly I'd say you need to train yourself to be comfortable with being wrong and be comfortable by admitting that you simply don't know some things, so your emotional state is less of a bias with regards to your thinking, study your own biases and be wary of them.

Exactly right, either there are biological processes that lead to other mood and behavioural changes or there isn't. You don't get to pick and choose when it suits your argument, like excuse treating other people badly one day but then deny any kind of irrationality in an argument. I watched a good TED video on PMS recently which expanded the small amount of science done on PMS and took a much closer look at it and for the vast majority of women it's not nearly as pervasive or bad as they thought, that post hoc reporting of feelings are over inflated numbers and when a diary is actually kept of feelings during the menstrual cycle it's a much more mild issue. I don't want to deny what people feel but there is an obvious issue with measuring these things concerning subjectivity, confirmation bias and lack of good definition for PMS. You could always just call a woman out for being irrational in a discussion while suffering PMS but quite frankly I think that'd be met with an equal amount of vitriol as if you just asked "are you on your period?", I think it's the inference of irrationality when the question of PMS comes up rather than the PMS itself, after all it's not something women can do much about.

Probably a better question would be why would you want to work for someone who holds values that oppose your own? Presumably they were looking for socialist type workers and probably don't have any issues acting immorally to get what they want. I'm struggling with an employer at the moment after asking for a raise and they're struggling to even give me one to adjust my wages for inflation and they use very socialist type arguments which makes me just want to leave and find another job, so I've started looking to work elsewhere. If you have valuable skills you should be able to get similar work at similar pay elsewhere?

I went through this article and basically destroyed all the points one at a time. It just highlights how modern 3rd wave feminism is so fundamentally detached from reality, there's an awful lot of denial of the biological realities that exist between males and females, denial of science and rational thinking and also a prevalence of expectations that people all behave in ways which protect the sensitive emotions of women, there's this implicit suggestion that it's some kind of crime to say something, express an opinion or even infer something that might lead to emotional distress of a woman. We saw this all culminate recently at the UN with Ms Sarkeesian and Ms Quinn where we're seeing it suggested that cyberbullying (that is text transmitted over the internet) is as bad as physical violence and how can we work to essentially eliminate this, a disgusting attempt to erode free speech. Anyway my comments are below. 1. Compliments That Come At The Expense Of Other Women “I didn’t expect a girl to be very good at this, but you’re doing great.” In many cases sexual dimorphism makes men and women better at certain tasks, if you have good reason to believe that a woman might be bad or below average at a task because sex is a factor in competence at the task, then it's normal to be surprised when that person shows greater than average skill at it. 2. Concern Trolling "For example, if a man tells a woman that he’s concerned about the way she’s dressed on the pretense that “I’m just worried that other guys will get the wrong idea,” what he’s really doing is slut-shaming her. He's drawing attention to her (from his point of view) promiscuous clothing on the pretense that he’s trying to protect her. That’s patronizing and rude." Studies especially in cases of sexual assault and rape show that women dressed more promiscuous ways draws greater attention to them by sexual predators and so it's only rational to have more concern for someone who is at a greater risk of sexual assault. These kind of statistics are often dismissed by feminists as victim blaming, they're so fast to react against any kind of suggestion that they change their behaviour to improve their safety that they ignore the facts and deny reality. 3. Slut-Shaming Strangers "So if a guy tells his female friends that other girls look “slutty,” or insults someone (even a celebrity or a fictional character) for being what he sees as “promiscuous,” he’s implicitly saying “And if you do that, I’ll think you’re slutty, too.” Regardless of its intended target, slut-shaming tells women as a whole that their value is contingent on their sexual conduct (real or assumed), that their sexuality is shameful, and that other people have the right to judge them for what they do with their own bodies." Actually everyone has the right to judge others based on any criteria they see fit and they also have the right to freedom of speech to convey that judgement to whoever they please. If a man has a criteria for women, e.g that she not wear X or he think she's slutty, then that's his personal judgement, he has every right to make that judgement. What this amounts to is what a lot of the modern 3rd wave feminism amounts to, and that's no one is allowed to have an opinion that upsets someone else, because being upset is the same as physically being beaten (read up on the recent UN findings on this, sarkeesian, zoe quin, et al). And guess what, women judge men, they judge us on things like our shoes, whether we're funny or not, and they're perfectly within their right to make those judgements and perfectly within their right to voice that opinion to other people, and I defend this right irrelevant of gender, so do most people as it's one of the pillars of modern society. 4. Using Gendered Language To Describe What Is Good And Bad "How many times have all of us heard the word “pussy” used to describe someone — male or female — as weak? Or conversely, the phrase “man up” to push someone into being strong or brave? This kind of language is so deeply ingrained in our culture that a lot of people — men and women — use it all the time without thinking about its implications for gender and worth. But when we use words like these, even in jest, we’re perpetuating the cultural standard that femininity is weak, undesirable, and bad." Again, humans are a sexually dimorphic species, the men and women have very obvious differences when aggregated across the population so much so that things like greater upper body strength is almost always unique to men and cowardice is almost always unique to women. I'm a 6'1" man who most women would be extremely quick to avoid getting into any kind of physical altercation with for very good reasons. And guess what It's mainly the men who step in when it's time for a fight, time to do any kind of protecting, we're the people who get the rat or spider out the house. And there's good and rational reasons for this caused by evolutionary history, in partners where women looked after children and men protected them both they had greater chances for survival and thus passing on the genes for women to avoid conflict and men to embrace it. Like it or not femininity is associated with being weak in certain specific ways, but it's also associated with attractiveness, gentleness, empathy, loving, caring, these are all things that are rationally tied to femininity for the same reasons cowardice and weakness are. 5. Speaking Over Or Interrupting Women "Research has shown that women tend to be interrupted more often than men, and when they do speak frequently (especially in professional situations), they’re often perceived negatively for it. “Manterrupting” may be an awkward term, but it’s a real thing. Most men probably don’t even realize they’re doing it, but when they routinely interrupt or speak over the women around them, they’re sending the message that these women don’t have the right to speak — and even worse, that what they have to say is worthless." Testosterone makes men more assertive, that's why we're more assertive in negotiating raises for pay and a whole slew of other things, again sexual dimorphism. The perception that women don't have the right to speak or what they have to say is worthless is an issue of perception that exists inside the mind. Female brains are faster to react with emotions rather than with logic which again is just a biological reality, it's not mens fault that when you interupt us we can handle that without having a mental breakdown but when the reverse occurs your self worth plummets. 6. Acting Like Menstruation, Pregnancy, And Childbirth Are OMG SO HORRIFIC "Look, I get it. Some aspects of the human body are squicky. But when guys freak out at the mention of tampons, pregnancy issues, or having babies, the message they’re sending is that the female body is disgusting. I’m not saying that dudes need to know every detail of their lady friends’ periods, but the “EWW GROSS” reaction shames women for their natural biological processes, perpetuating the feeling among women that they have to keep these aspects of themselves hidden. Women shouldn’t have to feel ashamed or embarrassed about completely normal aspects of their reproductive health." Now re-read that above statement and replace female bodily issues with gender neutral issues like having to take a shit, everything is exactly true about that but it's perfectly normal and understood that no one wants to see that because we're bioloigically repulsed by it, and that's perfectly normal. Again this speaks not to problems that men cause but rather the ability of women to see the world with a clear perception that's not blurred with emotional irrationality. If you feel bad because someone reacts to something in a way that is bioloigically pre determined then that's a mental issue inside your own head you need to tackle and not something the rest of us need to tip toe around. 7. Telling A Woman She’s Being Shrill Or Overemotional "When a woman is angry or upset, a common response is that she’s being too sensitive, hysterical, or melodramatic (or worse, that she’s “just being hormonal”). These kinds of comments invalidate and shame a woman for her emotional responses. The men who say this stuff might simply be trying to diffuse a tense situation, but the message they’re sending is that a woman’s emotions are illogical or simply not real — and that they therefore shouldn’t be taken seriously." Again the thought that men are implying the emotions aren't real is an issue with female perception and not male intent. The problem is that the world is a rational place and when you're in a discussion or more likely an argument in this circumstance then you cannot argue facts and logic and make rational arguments with irrational emotion. Bridges don't stand up to the immense forces acting on them because it would be upsetting if it all collapsed and being upset is a valid emotion to have. They act in ways which we've logically established through being rational and studying and understand reality, there is a time and a place to discuss emotions but when you're in a rational discussion then emotions are irrelevant. If you don't like being told that fact then it would behove women to avoid rational discussion when you're incapable of being rational, it's kind of like starting a game of chess with someone and then making the argument you can move all your pieces like the queen because you'd be upset otherwise, no one who is interested in chess wants to play with someone who can simply do whatever they like because they feel like it, in the same way people interested in rational discussion don't want to deal with someone who is incapable in that moment of being rational. 8. Shaming Men For Being "Feminine" "In our culture, one of the most common and severe ways one can insult a man is to tell him that he’s acting like a girl — that he’s weak, emotional, prissy, or feminine. That kind of attitude is incredibly damaging to men and boys, holding them to a standard of culturally constructed masculinity that punishes any type of deviation. Too often, men are told that their worth depends on how well they can conform to masculine ideals, and that stereotypically “feminine” behaviors therefore devalue them." Insults really just fall under freedom of speech, so not hard to debunk this. But to reiterate, humans are sexually dimorphic and not only does that mean men and women are different in some very fundamental ways (on average), but also the things we value are also wildly different, and generally speaking men value having masculine traits and women value having feminine traits and that's a biological reality that comes from evolving to adopt these beneficial roles. Men like it when they act masculine and don't like it when they're treated as feminine, and the same is generally true when flipped on to women, most women do not like to be treated as if they have masculine traits, if we accused a woman of "thinking with her dick" for example (in reference to being promiscuous due to bioloigical reality) then that's something she'd almost certainly be defensive about, because males tend to be promiscuous and females much less so. If you told a woman she had a manly jaw, manly arms, a chest like a young boy, all these things would diminish her femininity and almost universally cause offence.

I've found I have this, it depends on the community and what they expect. Forums like this I generally treat with a lot of respect because discussion is typically civilized and mature. At the other extreme I'll also post on 4chan where people perpetually troll each other for the lulz and I'll be less likely to engage in any kind of serious discussion. Then I'll post in other places like youtube and game forums which are semi-serious. I just try and respect the community and their ways, some are tolerant or even accepting of more lewd and disruptive behaviour, 4chan has pretty much no rules and you post anonymously so people expect it to be a hive of trolling and immaturity and it's fantastic there is a space for that.

It was organized by avoiceformen so it would be best to check their site as they reported on the incident themselves with details. From what I remember the event organizers (AVFM) were asked to pay additional fees for insurance and to cover additional police presence for the period of the event because there was threats called into the event prior. In the end they moved venue and had to cover the extra costs through donations, the behaviour of radical feminists in this instance was just disgusting, funny how they've become exactly what they are trying to fight, oppressors.

I think probably because people don't want to risk being responsible in a fragile situation should anything bad happen due to their advice, I think that's a normal thing to be worried about. That's why my advice is to go to a GP immediately, explain the situation and they can probably prescribe short term drugs to help with the depression and keep you functional and refer you to see a therapist to work through your issues.

Major respect for sticking to your principles at great sacrifice for yourself. Just be careful being too self sacrificing since in many cases these positions are just filled by someone else and the cycle of violence continues anyway.

I play all sorts of PC games on and off, I've recently got into GS:GO after a huge break from any kind of competitive FPS game online, I enjoy dabbling here and there with multi player in more of a casual way, but all my old instincts and reflexes from doing it a lot as a kid kick back in and I can't help but be a bit competitive. I actually started a youtube channel with a few friends where we get drunk and play predominantly PC games, we're called the Drunken Gamers and you can find us here if that's your kinda thing, we have lots more content on the way and have stepped up production quality since our first vids with intros/outros and better mic and whatnot. The content contains swearing and generally is politically incorrect, so fair warning. If you can help us grow by subscribing and sharing our content with people you think might like it, that would help us a lot. Oh and if anyone wants a game of something some time then PM me your steam ID and we can arrange something there some time

I'm not conflating theory with observation, I'm simply saying that theories are only good to explain observations as long as you don't have a conflicting observation, and we can't observe everything all the time especially if it hasn't occurred yet or is outside of our ability to observe. Theories based on observation and evidence from experiment are as reliable inversely proportionally to the amount of tests we've done to falsify them and failed, the more tests we do to try and disprove the theory the more become convinced they're accurate, but it's never conclusively proved. I don't really think the term hyper skepticism is very helpful, it's still just regular skepticism but you just have to acknowledge the degree to which you're unsure of something, it's perfectly valid to hold a belief that something is true but acknowledge that your belief is not absolute but sits on some kind of scale that you're extremely confident it's true but it'd be intellectually dishonest to suggest it's absolutely true. The great thing about science is that usually the degree to which you're certain about something is actually part of the process, acknowledging that you've measured something to a given degree of accuracy.

We can be certain of the results of changing laws in the universe only to the degree that we're certain of the laws to start with, which is to say we're very certain, but we're not absolutely certain because our knowledge is always tentative, it's open to be changed if we learn something new about the universe that contradicts it. What is your evidence for the first assertion? If our knowledge is flawed or incomplete then we can potentially in future find corrections or new evidence that invalidates something we previously believed to be true, this is why we can say we understand some things to be true to a high degree of certainty but we can't be completely certain. Yeah it's interesting if you study physics what you have to come to accept is that the classical laws of physics like the laws of motion and things like this, while accurate to arbitrarily high degrees of accuracy, are just general forms of quantum mechanics which ultimately is what describes the universe. Quantum theory does actually break classical logic, for example the order of operation in classical logic doesn't matter, A or B is the same as B or A, also, A and B is the same as B and A, but in quantum mechanics where results are probablistic it actually matters what order measurements and logic operations on the results come out, you get different answers. I watch a lot of Leonard Susskinds free lectures call thetheoreticalminimum which you can find here http://theoreticalminimum.com/and addressing logic specifically you can find the lecture here http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses/quantum-mechanics/2012/winter/lecture-2