Wuzzums

Humans are social animals and therefore they seek the company of fellow humans. What better company is there than people similar to yourself? Looks is just one of countless factors people segregate by and it's by no means specific to women. Why do guys that like football play football with other guys that like football? The answer to the question is in the question itself.

On your first point, the morality of UPB revolves around passivity therefore an action can be immoral if it violates UPB and if it does not violate UPB then it's just an action outside of the moral spectrum. If an action can be classified only as moral and immoral then whenever I don't do a moral action I'm automatically being immoral. This cannot be UPB because not all of us are capable of performing all actions each of us can do, it's the man in a coma test. UPB assumes a person is moral from the start therefore they can only become immoral through action. By defining morality as something active you immediately define a person as immoral from the start, it's the exact opposite, that's why UPB cannot tell you what to do to become moral. Wanting to be murdered is a contradiction of definitions therefore murder cannot be UPB. The two men in a room test does not put forth two separate actions, it's the same action performed simultaneously by 2 parties. A victim cannot accept to be murdered otherwise they wouldn't be a victim in the first place. It's an "and" logical phrase, like "a=1 and a=2" (which makes no sense) not an "or", like "a=1 or a=2" (which makes complete sense). On the last point, I'm afraid I'm at a loss because I'm not exactly familiar with the math terminology you're using so I might be understanding your point exactly. If you're saying that rape without murdering the victim is not murder, and not murder is moral, then therefore rape without murder falls within the purview of a moral act, then it's easily resolved by looking at the definition of rape. Rape does not imply murder, therefore the "without murder" bit can be, and must be, ignored.

OR it could be that she's a great actress that manages to get the desired emotion out of you. I've seen that movie, you're supposed to hate her character, or at least get a negative reaction from her.

"As long as the people who kinda wanna go kill other people are going to go kill other people who kinda wanna go kill other people, you're killing all the right people and opening up all the best parking spaces." - Doug Stanhope on people that join the army voluntarily

I think that the election season is close.

When you're talking about your empathy score, are you referring to this test? I took it and got a score of 20. However I don't see how accurate it is to measure empathy since some questions are such that the more you let yourself be manipulated by other people's emotions the more empathy points you get (39. I am able to make decisions without being influenced by people’s feelings.). Furthermore it doesn't distinguish between actually having empathy, i.e. I know what the other person is feelings, and having the impression of knowing what the other person is feeling (22. I find it easy to put myself in somebody else’s shoes. 44. I can sense if I am intruding, even if the other person doesn’t tell me.). Some questions only have one answer seeing how they are scientific facts (5. I dream most nights.). And what does impulsivity have to do with empathy (24. I like to do things on the spur of the moment.)? Lastly, the answers are very case dependent. I'm a lot more empathetic towards someone I know rather than a total stranger.

This is great. Reminded me of "Messed Up Bible Stories". Same satirical take on religion except with christianity. This one's my favorite:

I think you're right about this. If we're not honest with ourselves we can't be honest with other people and we invite other people to be dishonest with us. We choose a reality and trick ourselves into believing it's the truth to avoid an unpleasant consequence. We know the truth is important, but what's important is not always what we want.

Eye contact for humans is very important, it's a form of connection. It's a well known trick that in order to manipulate someone or lure them into a false sense of connection you mustn't break eye contact. For me constant eye contact has always been a red flag. You're underestimating psychopaths if you think you can spot them by their body language. They practice that stuff in front of a mirror and can change it on a whim.

An accident is not the initiation of force. If the brakes on my car suddenly stop working and I run over someone I am not a murderer. If I happen to find a wallet somewhere on a bench it's not theft. If I wait around till someone forgets their wallet on a bench and then take the wallet I am a thief. It all boils down to having a choice. I cannot be held responsible for something beyond my control. If there's someone's contact details in said wallet then I'm suddenly faced with a choice, if not then the wallet's all mine. Basically in a free and moral society in order to never lose anything just label everything you own with your info. Wouldn't that be nice.

I raise you a

Step 1 Apply for a grant for the following studies: Smoking is good for you Obesity is sexy USA #1 White males are dumb and evil Whatever you're doing, you're right in doing it Beings progressive can stop global warming and asteroids You're a victim and everybody else has to pay You're smarter, sexier, taller and wiser than everyone It's OK to exploit others Step 2 Cash in. Step 3 Bro down.

Love as "the involuntary response to virtue" is not exactly a definition of love, it's more of an explanation as to why you love something. For instance, if you're a virtuous person then love is the feeling you get around other virtuous people. Or put in another way, when you're around virtuous people you will feel a certain way, and that certain way of feeling can be defined as "love" for lack of a better word. Thus when Stefan uses the word "love" he's implying a certain situation. Still, he's usually very strict on definitions. If he didn't define the words beforehand it's safe assume he's using the literal definition.

If voluntarism becomes the norm then people will start policing the fake "voluntarist" state themselves. The phrase "I didn't agree to those terms" will become the ultimate defense against any scheme the state might try to pull. If they shut down your electricity and you say that you didn't agree to those terms then others will see that as the initiation of force and the state will have to deal with some severe backlash. The initiation of force does not imply violence necessarily,

IQ is not deterministic, there's still choice, not every tall man becomes an NBA player and not every high IQ person becomes a genius. For instance, Einstein had an IQ of 160 and Marilyn vos Savant has an IQ of 228. Having the capability/potential of doing something does not mean you're already able to do it. An actor with a 200+ IQ is not capable of beating a chess grand master. Skill is not innate. Skill however requires some ingredients, and those ingredients don't always depend on IQ. I need to be tall to make it in the NBA regardless of how many hours I pour into playing basketball. No matter how hard I try and how bad I want it I must accept my limits, and this is the true importance of IQ I believe. If IQ has a predictive value in job outcomes this does not imply that having a certain IQ will land you a certain job. You must look at things in reverse, if a job requires a high IQ then people with high IQs will get that job. I have a working set of hands, I'm not determined to be a guitar player but I can safely say that all guitar players are determined to have a working pair of hands. IQ is not the ticket to success in certain jobs, it's the currency you need to buy that ticket.

My mother tongue is romanian and there's also no equivalent of "libertarian" in it. English is a very versatile language, I find it very difficult to express myself without resorting to it. I owe a lot of what I am and know to the simple fact that I can speak english. The amount of information out there that's available to an english speaking person is staggering. When I argue with people I find them to be very dense, they usually dismiss what I say as something I made but whenever I direct them to a source they ask me if there's a romanian version to it. There's usually not, therefore all they have to go on is my word. I get into debates about economics and mention capitalism only to realize that they don't understand what capitalism means. I get into a discussion about philosophy only to find out they don't know what objectivism is. I get into a conversation about the free market only to see they have no idea what the "free market" is. Honestly, my father owns several businesses and he's relatively competent and he believes that the "free market" is a term I coined. Or "fiat currency", there's no romanian translation to that. Stuff gets crazier when I have to explain to psychology graduates terms like "mirroring", "projecting", or "psychopathy", and this is all because there's either no direct translation of these terms or the direct translation has a different colloquial meaning. Also I've noticed a very powerful trend in my own life and outside. There's a direct correlation between blind patriotism (redundancy, I know) and being able to only speak the mother tongue. The people I know that aren't fluent in any other language have a very strong sense of themselves as being part of the nation and they even sometimes define their values as "romanian values". They put the country's interest above the people's interest (I have no idea what that means too but it's something I heard them say). This is all in contrast to the english speaking folk I know that find the idea of a romanian patriot to be ludicrous. To them the concept of patriotism is just something that shows up in movies, like elves and warlocks. People's identity is closely related to their mother tongue, or the tongue their inner voice speaks in. If you can tie that language to a specific geographical area then you won't ever need fences to keep the livestock in.

I agree with the guy that says "They're promoting racism by not promoting racism". In order for racism to disappear, skin color should hold as much sway as eye or hair color. Sometimes we don't even know the eye color of some of our closest friends, it's just not a factor in the relationship. Putting an emphasis on eye color will force us to notice. We're wired to find patterns, even where there are none, so we'll inadvertently notice a patterns in blue eyed people for instance. We'll then develop unfounded expectations of blue eyed people. Those unfounded expectations will lead to a modified behavior when dealing with blue eyed people. Even when a blue eyed person behaves entirely different than expected we'll just catalog that as "uncharacteristic blue eyed behavior", which is in itself a form of discrimination.

Epigenetics also play a major role here. The DNA molecule is mostly made out of junk DNA but some of that DNA was once used by some ancestral creature. A shift in the conditions of the environment leads, or may lead, to activation/inactivation of such genes thus we do not always need to wait for genes to mutate for a species to adapt to the environment, the genes required might already be there from the beginning of life. For instance, in the Madagascar there are several species resembling other species found everywhere else on Earth BUT the Madagascarian species aren't directly related to any other species outside of Madagascar. The species have a resemblance because they evolved under very similar environmental conditions. Or fish for example. The species "fish" simply does not exist even though they all look the same. One species of fish can have as much in common with another as do giraffes and humans even though they're look incredibly similar. They look the same because they live in the same type of environment. If we were to create a colony of humans on the Moon after just a couple of generations we would end up with something quite different though 100%human. The lower gravitational pull of the moon will lead to much taller humans, they will probably have a paler complexion and harrier bodies due to a lack of heat, I'm just speculating here of course. Like it was emphasized above, changing one animal into another isn't that far of a stretch if we just look at dog breeds. A different looking animal does not imply a different species, corgis and grayhounds are still both dogs. Furthermore the fossil records can be misleading because a lot of animals have developmental stages. Future paleontologists might categorize a human baby to be of a different species to a human adult. This is what happened to several species of dinosaurs that were proven to not exist, they got recategorized into earlier stages of development of other existing species. Or a more extreme example are butterflies and caterpillars. Same species, "different" animals altogether.

My question had to do with the child, not him. You explained fully what his consequences will be, I'm more interested to know how you came to the conclusion that the child is better off with him leaving. So far from the child's perspective there are two outcomes as you explained: living in a mormon community with a father that has to constantly lie, or living in a mormon community without a father. Why is the latter option preferable when both of us know that there's no worst risk factor for negative outcomes than living in a one parent household?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9gC1GiSDDA I'm sorry but I couldn't resist. I'm curious however to know your reasoning behind your statement that it's better for a rational philosophical parent to abandon their child to a bunch of people that worship superstition rather than stay close and set an example to the contrary.

I remember being a child in a museum looking at paintings then my mother asked me if I wanted to also see the modern art exhibit. I was very excited because I expected to see paintings of comic book heroes, robots, Mickey Mouse, etc. Boy was I ever confused and disappointed...

I don't speed read but I do speed listen I'm actually being serious. It was a forced transition for me from the written word to audiobooks but well worth it. Reading is pretty artificial and archaic if you think about it. You're using your eyes to form sounds in your head so why not skip the first part and just listen to the words? After consuming a copious amount of audiobooks, I listened to one that was about brain plasticity in which it explained how the brain adapts the sound it hears to "normal speed" (as in you're able to comprehend it without any strain) whether that sound is sped up or down. I apply the same principle to audiobooks and can finish 400 pages in about 2h or so (with not much difficulty). This is not some learned skill like speedreading, this is just something you're already capable of without any prior preparation. Try it on YT with one of Stef's vids. Speed it up to 2x the speed, you won't be able to understand much at first but after 5-10 min you'll forget it's even sped up. Also try just to listen to the audio, it's harder for the brain to adapt to sped up video than audio.

As I remember Stefan picked name from a generator or the like that he liked the sound of.

NASA's spaceships also run on incredibly primitive technology. It's not because they're lacking in some area or another, it's that new ideas come at the cost of human lives to implement and it's far safer to use something that they know works 100% then try something new. I think it's the same with air traffic controllers. Ever since the ATC system was implemented, how many air traffic related accidents have been recorded? Airlines are an anti-fragile system, meaning with each new accident the airlines as a whole become safer and safer because we learn from the mistakes. ATC stood the test of time, in 80+ years of operation it had only 23 recorded accidents (worldwide). To think that a system like that can be easily replaced by some smartphone app is absurd.

You said you had several bad habits before getting into video games so I think you're on the right path. Kicking off a habit has to be done by replacing it with another habit, you probably know this far better than me so I don't think I can give you any pointers except for suggestions. Have you tried going for a creative pursuit? Sculpting, writing, drawing, composing, etc, all qualify as being stimulating, exciting and require a great deal of mental effort. There's never a dull moment when you're creating something because there's no repetitive algorithm that you need to follow, every new creation (whatever it may be) is a new puzzle with a slew of new solutions AND it's never ending.