dsayers

I don't know what Dawkins did or did not say. I just wanted to point out that, "it is immoral to bring a child to term with down syndrome," cannot be a true statement. This becomes evident when you rephrase it to, "If your fetus has down syndrome, you must abort." Unchosen positive obligations are unethical. Furthermore, "bringing to term" is a biological function. The claim being considered would basically be applying a label (immoral) that applies to behaviors to a non-behavior.

You cannot posit a cricket that can jump in two directions simultaneously because it's internally inconsistent. Your introduction of the unknown unknown does not refute omniscience, it begs the question of whether omniscience is possible. Your claim of logical impossibility is based on the assumption that the unknown unknown disproves omniscience, which it does not. Where does 2^n come from? Is that a way of expressing that "this tablecloth is red" also asserts that the tablecloth has the capacity to be not red? If so, then I think an omniscient being would have the capacity to understand this. @topic: I agree that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually exclusive. As for whether omniscience is even possible, my first thought goes to size. As in, how big of a storage facility would be needed to encase all knowledge? Especially if time cannot be considered to be finite? It doesn't seem possible, though I accept that this could be a limitation of my not-so-omniscient mind.

Do you mean to ask what we are to think of people that claim that dead people talk to them? Talking to dead people is easy enough A claim of "ghost sighting" is to simultaneously claim that there is such a thing as a ghost and that it can impress upon our sense of sight. Meaning it could be measured, documented, and proven. Without this, the claim could indicate a lack of understanding that such a claim would require it. Most of these things can be boiled down to a lack of acceptance of one's capacity for error. If they're not asking themselves "how do I know this to be true?" and satisfying it with logic, reason, and evidence, then we can discard their conclusion.

Let us unpack "NAP." It's the abbreviation of non-aggression principle. Which is shorthand for "theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral." Which is a conclusion that follows the concept of self-ownership as those behaviors simultaneously accept's one's own self-ownership while rejecting the self-ownership of another. This rejection of ownership by another is the voluntary creation of a debt. Meaning that the settling of that debt was inherently agreed upon by the person who created it. In other words, saying that that the initiation of the use of force is immoral is to also say that counter/defensive force is righteous (which is accurate). I think this is what you're trying to say, but isn't attributed to what you're referring to as the NAP. It should also be pointed out that identifying those behaviors as immoral is not a prescription (ought), but rather a declaration of their internal inconsistencies. @topic: I would argue that verbal abuse does not violate property rights so long as they could not be interpreted as a credible threat. For example, for a parent to verbally abuse a child by saying they will leave them at the store if they don't choose to leave is literally threatening a dependent creature with a death sentence. On a side note, I have sensitive hearing, so I've always been fascinated with the exploration of whether noise pollution is a violation of property rights. Like maybe a protester saying somebody that works at an animal shelter is a murderer would not violate property rights. But if the person were to follow them around, perhaps shouting it out at their home, leaving the proposed victim with no escape, I think I would consider that a violation of property rights. I've always had difficulty taking a formal position in that debate due to my heavy bias on the subject.

Theft, assault, rape, and murder are behaviors where the assailant simultaneously accepts their own self-ownership while rejecting the self-ownership of their victims. That is to say that anybody that commits one of these accepts the "rule" in their very act of violating it. Any other rules would be voluntary based on property rights. For example, I own this road, you can use it in exchange for X, but you have to stay on the right side of the road to accommodate motorists traveling in the opposite direction efficiently.

Then you're going to need to define communism. The moment your definition involves people being placed into two different moral categories, coercion is present. If nobody wants to do the work but need the work to be done, then the people who do the work are going to be valuable. If somebody fails to negotiate for a higher wage and/or allows themselves to be negotiated into a wage lower than they'd otherwise be worth, then their wage will be what they're worth. One's ability to negotiate is part of their worth. Without a State to groom individuals to give it more power in exchange for resources, I don't agree that the world will always have a dependent class. It may have dependent individuals, but this will be case by case and will likely be provided for by A) the people they've provided value to such as friends and family and B) their own stored value. One of the larger ugly side effects of a State is that people don't have to be friendly and productive to survive. I certainly wouldn't include children as part of the dependent class. Their dependence is chosen by their parents and therefore their parents' obligation.

I'll need to bookmark this thread. I get fed so many things. Sadly, the most recent large example has been (paraphrased) "I spend my time doing more important things than you so I'm right and you're wrong."

And the post you made it as a response to wasn't spending more time on the title of the forum, it was time spent addressing what I felt (and continue to feel given escalation of the same) is manipulation. Here, you're implying that lack of brevity denotes emotional reaction and that emotions are somehow bad. I've been forthcoming with my emotional experience, while remaining rational. On the other hand, you are trying to use that against me while continuing to not answer a single question I've asked of you. Meanwhile, you're suggesting I stop and figure out what's going on when a) I've already done this and b) you don't appear to be willing to. It's contradiction after contradiction and I think it's beneath you. Also, what insult? If saying you did not answer direct questions and provided no counter-argument is insulting, this has nothing to do with me. Meanwhile, I think putting forth "it's not important," "why is this (non-problem) a problem," and "why spend more time on this" is dismissive, and therefore insulting. What about that? Can you answer this or will you maintain the double standard? If you are unwilling to have a discussion here, what reason would I have to suspect that a phone call would go better? This isn't subject material that is private. In fact, I thought the audience was part of your motivation. After all, I highly doubt I'd be getting downvoted for putting forth that challenges to you that I have if the person I was challenging said the things you've said and didn't have a staff badge. I realize that is highly speculative, but being called to task and wanting it to be moved into private, complete with a veiled order to be silent certainly lends credence to that theory. Again, I ask of you, James, directly: What is the purpose of offsetting/marginalizing my input? If you did not care for my suggestion, you could go about your day. You made several efforts to quash it without merit, so it's important that you're able to answer that question.

To what end? I'm secure enough that I can withstand personal attacks. I only bother speaking on it at all because in this place, I think the need for integrity, honesty, and rational discussion is paramount. I think those who resort to personal attacks or pretend to refute rationality irrationally need to be held accountable, if only by it being pointed out that "who cares," "why spend more time," "I spend my time more productively than you" are not arguments and cannot lead to understanding the truth value of an objective claim.

If you don't mind me saying so, I think your post is full of supposition. From the beginning: Calling coercion motivation doesn't change the fact that it is coercion, and therefore immoral. You say in capitalism, people would not be able to do the jobs they want to do. How do you know? I think you'd be surprised at how little people would have to work in the absence of a State suctioning off of everybody's labor and stored value. If you wanted to do something that people wanted others to do, you would be able to make a living doing so. This is true up until the point that supply surpasses demand, which is in constant flux. You say people do jobs no matter what the pay, but this isn't accurate. People are paid what they are worth. The lack of clarity comes from State coercion artificially altering what people are worth. The reason this appears bleak is the amount of value NOT being instilled in people who go through government schools, which are paraded in front of society as if that's where education (the growth of human capital) comes from. Finally, the reason people think they can do nothing and be provided for is because underneath a State, they can do nothing and be provided for. This is true for as long as the sum of the working class outnumbers the sum of the dependent, ruling, and enforcer classes.

I had wondered about lost Bitcoins too. However, I think it's a leap from acknowledging that this happens to suggesting that the tech is doomed outright. I'm no Bitcoin maven, but it is my understanding that they can be meaningfully divided to X decimal places. If the day should come where 1/X^10 is too valuable to make small purchases with, people can just adapt the standard to go to more decimal places, dividing it up further. Also, you mention the rate of loss as being constant, and I question where that idea comes from. It makes sense that as Bitcoin is more widely adopted the ways in which people who will be increasingly informed can and will protect against loss would increase, thus decreasing the rate of loss. Finally, I view the acceptance of crypto-currency but rejection of Bitcoin to be contradictory. As I understand it, there's nothing a Bitcoin competitor could do that Bitcoin couldn't incorporate. While I accept that tech might come out in the future that would supersede crypto-currency, I think that one would have to identify a shortcoming of Bitcoin before it could be superseded.

Word salad, dressing on the side. The initiation of the use of force is either immoral or it is not. How on earth is he arriving at the conclusion that government is reducing the occurrence of this? What individuals would be detonating nukes, ordering drone strikes, unleashing depleted uranium shells were it not for the governments stopping them? Is he not aware of the statistics for democide vs non-State initiated murder? He's repeating the narrative, disregarding empirical evidence, and accusing you of disregarding something. If you feel this person is worth your time, I'd start by asking him if truth is more valuable than falsehood and go from there.

Not exactly this, but that's a fair starting point. Gender doesn't just encompass men's issues and feminism, it represents them without bias. As we saw earlier in the thread, some people view men's issues/feminism as positive and others as negative. I think it's compounded by the wording disparity: It doesn't say men's issues and women's issues; it doesn't say masculism and feminism. This provokes one's bias even before entering and to what end? On a side note, I had asked a friend of mine who's not particularly philosophically inclined what he thought between the two options. He said that both sounded like they were talking about gay's rights or sex-change operations. So it could even be argued that my suggestion isn't particularly clear either. The problem is that no counterargument has been offered at all. Thank you for weighing in on the personal interactions. In my defense, in response to a rational case being made, I was met with "I spend my time more productively than you," "why is it a problem/why spend more time," and "who cares?" These are not rigorous, so I reject the claim that I'm obligated to listen when somebody is talking about a square circle, or otherwise not addressing the topic at all. If you'll look closely, none of them answered a single direct question of which they had many to choose from. This sort of makes me chronologically immune to blame, yet I maintained a dignified position just the same (up until the y'all flatter me remark). Furthermore, I've been forthcoming with my feelings and have not been met in kind. Double entendre intended. I know that I have not been acting passive-aggressively and I know that even if I had, it would not be as important as the personal attacks that provoked it. The claim of passive-aggressive was an appeal to insecurity in lieu of addressing the topic/case at hand. I have a history of passive-aggressive behavior, so I'm adept at preventing it and identifying it. Do you not agree that it is a square circle to be claiming to know what somebody is thinking while holding it against them for what is perceived to be claiming to know what somebody is thinking? Or accusing somebody of putting somebody in a catch 22 when the one being accused had bee placed in the catch 22?

So when I share my interpretation of what I'm seeing, I'm presuming what others are thinking, but when you share your interpretation of what you're seeing, you're not presuming what others are thinking? Even though to say that I'm presuming what others are thinking is presuming what I'm thinking? This thread is almost like a black hole of consistency. You put forth the standard that people have to care about something in order to have a discussion about it. I pointed out that whether or not somebody cares cannot change the truth value of a statement. Somebody else spoke up saying that they cared. You continued as if no correction was made. The only time I've seen somebody behave in this manner is when they're on the attack and landing a blow is more important than being honest. And here come the downvotes. Kind of like getting a youtube channel shut down instead of making a counter-argument. I really nailed it when I observed the bias in the title and the potential for emotional responses in lieu of productive discussion. Arguably the top three members of the community resorting to ad hominem with my position remaining unassailed. Y'all flatter me.

I currently use Chrome as well as the Disconnect extension. As such, I was notified of WhiteHat Aviator and DuckDuckGo. The former being a privacy-based internet browser that works with Chrom extensions. The latter being a privacy-based search engine. Does anybody have any experience with these?

But this here isn't talking like you have an idea what I'm thinking, is that right? From my perspective, the ugliness actually began with James's first response to me where he said he doesn't view it as important. Being important isn't the standard by which people are ALLOWED to discuss something. I didn't address this at the time. What I also did not do is accuse James of being manipulative. I told him that what he said struck me as if it were manipulative. I didn't phrase that as an accusation because I accept my own capacity for error. What I did do is express the discomfort I felt. I was also open with how *I* felt as if I was a damned if I do damned if I don't because I could either let him control the narrative, claiming it was a problem, or I could respond as if I was the crazy guy getting bent out of shape over nothing. As far as I understand it, this is an example of RTR. James did not explore this with me and it doesn't appear that he spent any time considering that maybe he was wrong to marginalize my input by calling it unimportant or wrong to call it problematic. He didn't answer any of my questions before, during, or after our exchange, including not addressing that his (what I viewed to be) provocative question had been answered before he asked it. Instead, HE doubled down with the putting me in a damned if I do damned if I don't position by making it sound as if investing any further time would be irrational. All while ignoring the contradiction of his own further investment of time. Speaking of ignoring contradictions, am I to understand that it is your position that because from your perspective, the ugliness began with me, that it is okay for Mike to try and shame me rather than addressing my words or ignoring my suggestion altogether? Is it your position that I need to know exactly what you're thinking in order to understand that you didn't actually address what I've said and instead talked about the effects of what my saying them might be? How is that NOT an appeal to insecurity? I'm genuinely curious because if you'll re-skim the thread, one constant has been my feeling of helplessness in the amount of time people are willing to spend talking to me without actually talking with me. Even though I've expressed curiosity and made the case for my position every step of the way. I don't know if you noticed my last edit, but one of my motivations in suggesting a more precise approach is to avoid the potential misgiving of bias. Given the amount of emotional responses I've received, I feel I was right to recognize that potential. In case I wasn't clear about it before, I'm a man. Therefore I'm a benefactor of having a gender subforum being named as if it is meant to favor men. I still don't want it as such because I view it as imprecise, not productive, and perpetuating the failures of the last time gender issues were described by one gender alone. Can you show me the flaw in my logic?

Appeals to insecurity aside, WHO is alienating me? WHO needs to pick their battles? Look again. I made a suggestion. That's it. The suggestion has made a couple people uncomfortable to the point of trying to alienate me; to the point of stopping to battle an idea that they could just as easily walk on by. My participation beyond the suggestion itself is to engage in conversation with those who respectfully disagree and answering what I view as bias-motivated attacks by those who disagree not so respectfully. Mr. Dean was able to disagree with me without getting nasty. As was Wesley with regards to the parts he disagrees with. corpus mentium isn't biased in such a way as to miss the point or otherwise need to marginalize the provider of the suggestion. How do you know they're the ones that are wrong and those not providing productive interaction are right? If you could explain that much, I'm open to it. The problem continues to be that people are bypassing this step to go straight to addressing me personally. You asked who cares, but what difference would that make? "Gender Issues" either encompasses "Men's Issues" and "Feminism" or it does not. How much anybody cares about it won't change this. The real question is who cares so much about division and inconsistency that they would make a sizable effort to obfuscate and keep things thrice as long as it needs to be? If being rational and consistent alienates me, why do you suppose that would be a problem for me? Pursuing self-knowledge and philosophy in a world teeming with coercion already alienates me. It's a point of pride that I have integrity enough to withstand such social discomfort. Though I will say it's troubling that it could be found here of all places, and in increasing frequency I'm sorry to say. [EDIT] Ironically, my suggestion was also for the purpose of not invoking these types of emotional responses.

Coming from very manipulative parents, I found myself constantly annoyed by pretty much everything. Once I began to pursue self-knowledge, I realized that most of the reason crap annoys me is because it's indicative of people "getting away with it." Whereas I was never able to and was constantly managed. The problem for me is that knowing this doesn't make most of it any less annoying. It only serves to make me less likely to rant about it.

I chuckled. I'm a big fan of exposing the gun in the room so I too often make parallels to rape. Statists often have lots of obfuscated reasons why they're not the same, but it's too late. I've already planted the seed whether it will grow or not. Sorry I can't help you with the specific podcast it's from.

Humans have the capacity for reason; The capability to conceptualize the other, consequences of actions, and comparing those outcomes to ideals. This is the basis for self-ownership as I understand it. Humans are not fundamentally different in this regards, so everybody owns themselves. Therefore theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral as they require exercising ownership over that which is owned by somebody else. This is the fairly basic case for objective morality. One I've repeated many times and have yet to receive a correction. What do you think? As a bonus, I've always found a great deal of comfort in the simplicity of self-ownership. It clears up SO MUCH of the obfuscation our subjugators utilize. At any rate, definition is important. Governments, schools, religions, and even corrupt parents pass of a subjective set of standards or values that they call morality in order to discourage dissent. However, if it cannot be applied to everybody, everywhere, all the time, it is quite useless given that it is an ought. The truth must be consistent because the real world we are bound by is consistent. If gravity turned off every other Tuesday, then maybe there might be something to subjective morality.

You realize that this IS participating in this thread, right? Is it your argument that if you spend your time more productively than I do, I'm automatically wrong wherever we may disagree? Is it consistent to take the time to set up a subforum, title it, solicit feedback, then speak as if titling it is a waste of time or feedback is bothersome to the point of resorting to ad hominem? Wait a second. YOU spent more time on the name of the forum by adding to it, claiming it's a problem. When I pointed out that it's not a problem and asked you questions, you ignored that you put words into my mouth, ignored my questions, and are now asking me why spend more time on it, the very act of which is spending more time on it. I know you guys have more integrity than this. I'm not staff here, so disagreeing with me doesn't even require a conversation. not that what you're doing is actually disagreeing with me, which is curious. What purpose does it serve to offset/marginalize my suggestion?

I'm having a hard time choosing how to respond to this. It strikes me as manipulative. I feel I've been clear with my CRITIQUE (which doesn't denote a "problem") and have asked if I'm wrong and/or for the case to be made for the current title. So far, the only reason given has been that that's the way it is. If my observation is in err, please correct me or share with me in what way I've been unclear. Asking what the problem is seems like a way of saying, "Look at the crazy guy getting bent out of shape over nothing!" Hyperbolic, I grant you, but I hope this conveys why this quote has made me uncomfortable. What would you think if a math textbook presented itself as being about 2, 18, and numbers? I would think, "Wait, 2 and 18 are numbers, aren't they? Why didn't they just say numbers?" After three and a half decades of being subjugated by people who manipulate words to obfuscate the truth, I highly value precision. I don't think that is ridiculous. Earlier in the thread, there were already two opposing interpretations of "Men's Issues and Feminism" as 1 - the best of men and the worst of women and 2 - men's issues is negative and feminism is positive. I would say we are both rational people, so this demonstrates how the extra words don't add anything to the title other than imprecision. Why is my suggestion a problem?

If you click on the link in my sig, you can get those audio books chopped up into tracks that are CD and MP3 player friendly. Fair warning: One of the hardest parts about the journey for self-knowledge is having to come face to face with the truth about your parents, teachers, clergyman, politicians, etc. For those who might accept this, it has the combo punch of those people being confronted and only doubling down, revealing that they weren't misled but actually sadistic. People who lack self-knowledge can identify themselves with any number of symbols, and this frequently includes things like family ties. Nobody can know for sure how the transition will play out, but I hope as their friend, if you're introducing them to this material, you're able to make yourself more available to them to help them through that potentially difficult transition.

I usually look for inconsistencies and contradictions. All three posts speak as if humans cannot be trusted and must be controlled, but skip right over that what they trust/advocate is human. If somebody cannot be trusted, they're the last person you want to give an army, nukes, and "legitimate authority" to. This guy went on to talk as if 2+2=4 cannot be true because people value things differently. For example, I value scientific research over blind ponitification. He's putting forth the objective claim that objective claims cannot be made. He's doing this by pretending to be speaking the truth while making no effort to determine what the truth is. The science is in. We have a large understanding of why people are "that way" and the best part of it is that it's not the default. There's no reason for him to suspect, but all the reason in the world to actually follow his pretend curiosity since it's tantamount to the salvation of the human race. I don't know that you could debate these people productively. There's a reason why these people need for their ideas to be correct even if logic, reason, and evidence contradicts them. The last guy was kind enough to reveal that his religion is the template he uses for determining that ruling over people is righteous. What they're all not telling you is that their parents controlled them and didn't treat them like individuals, help them to critically think, or empower them to be able to make rational decisions on their own. To accept that humans are not fundamentally different from one another would mean that everybody in their lives they looked up to or trusted lied to them to be able to subjugate them. But this wouldn't be the end of the story they see it as since the people that did this to them had it done to them also. They could use that discomfort as motivation to help break the cycle in their own lives by not continuing to support coercion as the solution to problems.

One of the most irritating parts about taking the red pill (for me) is being subjected to entertainment outlets covering serious topics. Rarely if ever is there any transparency with regards to their own capacity for error or lack of familiarity with the topic before making finite statements in front of a large audience. To me, any presentation that assumes the gullibility of its audience is patently false.