dsayers

Well done and concise.

That's fine. It would be better to pick up where it was left off then, rather than making statements as if they weren't challenged or clarified. But we're not just talking about different views here. If somebody advocates violence, you make it clear that you understand that they advocate violence, they do nothing to address the fact that they advocate violence, and you remain in their lives, you are saying to them that you support their actions. You are culpable in their advocacy of violence. This makes you morally accountable. To be clear, I'm a hypocrite in this realm. I live under my father's roof and I have tried to talk to him about his aggression and abuse. Not only was he not interested in my experience, but he defended such things, claiming they were necessary. I have chosen to stay, for the value that you mentioned above (in this case, a place to stay). However, this doesn't change the fact that I'm reinforcing his aggressive ways and doing myself a disservice by choosing that value over a morally consistent lifestyle.

I had to stop here to seek clarification. By enforceable, are you talking about defensive force?

Theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral as they require the exercising of ownership over that which is owned by somebody else. That is the totality of objective morality. That religions, governments, parents, and teachers try to pass off subjective matters as moral absolutes does not alter that morality is in fact objective ("exists" independently of the individual).

This is a play by play recreation of our conversation yesterday found here. Was there a flaw in that conversation or are you expecting different results this time? This is the part where I point out that it wasn't being talked about as a first step. That how when you sit down and talk to your friend about this, they no longer are operating out of obliviousness. Speaking as somebody who hurt/pushed away people he cared about in the past, I guarantee you that anybody with an ounce of empathy, when confronted with the possibility that they're causing harm to others, would at the very least express curiousity. If you suggest to somebody that they're advocating violence and they immediately respond with "no I'm not," it is best for your own sake to put distance between the two of you and seek out relationships where that distinction isn't necessary.

I don't know that anybody has ever said that. I know that what *I* have said, in your presence no less, is that cutting somebody out of your life that refuses to face the reality of advocating violence against others/you brings the consequences of holding such a position to them directly. Statism is not a rational conclusion. It's what people arrive at because they're told it's true and remain because social norms allow them to do so. If Statists (like racists for example) suddenly lost people in their lives for holding such a destructive position, Statism would disappear overnight. It's the most effective way we can bring about change. However, cutting destructive people out of your life isn't about them and isn't even about the world. If you care about yourself, you shouldn't keep destructive people in your life. Just like you don't invite people that wildly swing chainsaws around to hang out in your living room.

To be clear, providing a service in a way that would be better received by your customers isn't the same as being a prostitute. I don't intentionally put too much stock into appearance. After hearing Antony's voice in Stef's work off and on, I was a bit surprised when I first caught a visual. Nothing that put me off though. If anything, the way he speaks combined with his look tells me that he is both empathetic and confident. Both very strong qualities. I think (for me) that in order for the look to be off-putting, you'd have to be promoting something like organic foods. Or as I would interpret it: Promoting a lack of technology that would increase the amount of starvation in the world. At that point, the hair might inspire in me discounting your words by writing you off as a hippie. This is not to condescend. Since studying philosophy, I understand concepts like love, corporatism as evil, etc and feel like a hippie myself like never before in my life. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the message would have to have mystical, irrational underpinnings for me to be put off by your appearance. Otherwise, it's not difficult at all to look past the appearance and absorb the message. Most of the youtubing I do is for the audio anyways.

Can the two be compared? The stronger the marital bond, the more the product of that bond (child) will enhance it. For the first six months to two years, the mother and child are essentially the same person. It would be like comparing one's relationship with self.

This isn't a challenge of property rights. It's an aide in interpreting others' exercising ownership over it as being illegitimate and immoral. Make no mistake: The day is coming where the tech will be available to use electricity to control the bodies and motions of another human being. Will this mean that the possessor of that tech will have a rightful claim tot he bodies of others due to his ability to override their own control? Without this moral clarity, we wouldn't be able to answer that.

I'm really truly sorry that these people suffer like this. On the other hand, I'm glad that awareness of the immorality is becoming this unstoppable. If the enforcer class told the ruling class that they now reject their claim to be held to a different moral category despite no rational basis, we'd have a bloodshed-less revolution today. At the very least, if the enforcer class began to similarly speak out, the "support our troops" crowd would be forced to start facing the propaganda. Don't know if it'll happen in my lifetime, but it is encouraging to understand how unstoppable this is.

Thank you for helping to make the world a better place! Try next. Even something like getting a cesarean section will impact the child's ability to develop empathy. It's unreal how important the slightest things are at that age.

Thank you for asking. I didn't want to get involved in the conversation at first so as not to cloud it with my bias (any more than I already had). Many thanks to everybody's feedback. Some background: The friend in question is also a mentor of sorts as well as my boss (his security company) for 8 yrs now. He is former military, claims to be non-religious, but does believe in the necessity and legitimacy of government, armed forces, etc. That said, he is a very kind and gentle older man, though most of the conclusions he comes to are based on what feels right. The short answer to your question was that when he provided that scenario, I answered him that no, one does not have a moral obligation to help the injured. He either heard "you shouldn't help them" or "I wouldn't help them." To which he responded, "Well then, find your island, dude." Upon exploration, I learned that he was telling me that I should secede from society because he believes that as a "tribe" we are required to look out for one another. I tried my darnedest to make it clear that I was not saying that one shouldn't or that I wouldn't, but that there exists no moral obligation. By time all was said and done, I couldn't really tell if he accepted the clarification or the ramifications underneath it. It just really bothered me. Because even if I had said what he interpreted me as saying, I don't find prescribing going and living in isolation (after a life of grades of isolation due to abuse) rather than making the case for compassion as being very friendly at all. The long answer has to do with the conversation that led to the above. A few months ago, he and I were hanging out at a restaurant (we're regulars there). I believe it was a Saturday night, almost as late as when bars let out. We heard some yelling up front, but couldn't tell if it was obnoxious horseplay or actual aggression. One of the waitresses came back to us (they know we're armed guards), terrified. We went up front to see what was going on, but the involved parties were already outside. In the foyer (inside) was a woman. Just outside the doors, facing the parking lot was a smaller guy. Several feet in front of him was a guy who was pretending to try and kick his ass, with his own friend "holding him off." After a couple moments of no change, my friend opens the door, puts his hand on the guy's shoulder and steadily pulls him indoors. I won't go into details beyond that because they're not germane to the story. Once back at our table, I voiced that I disagreed with his course of action. Not in a "we need to talk about this" sort of way. He explained himself anyways, certain that all was well because all turned out well. The next day, we were back at the same restaurant, with a mutual friend there as well. One of the waitresses was hanging out with us and they were talking about it (I was looking something up on the laptop). He misrepresented to the others my objection. So I had clarified that because the man in question was not initiating the use of force against anybody (and clearly choosing to remain in a situation that I would agree is unwise), to put his hands on him and pull him inside was immoral. I can't stress enough how big of a deal I had NOT made of that night. He hadn't hurt anybody and meant well, so I didn't hold it against him at all. The only reason I had thoughts on it at all is in my line of work, that sort of moral clarity can go a long way I think. Anyways, he's brought it up a couple times since then, including a couple nights ago when he brought up the person breaking their leg in front of you scenario. After spending 15 minutes talking with him about that, and how his remark made me feel, I came to the conclusion that the communication disconnect was rooted in the word obligation. From his perspective, he said he felt it was his moral obligation. I tried to explain that he was describing compassion and that what he was doing was choosing to help, not fulfilling an obligation. I tried to clarify obligation, that involuntary positive obligations aren't ethical, and that for my claim to be false, it would mean that somebody had a greater claim to his time and effort than he did. I will be following up with him about this. Primarily because what he had said to me was quite disconcerting and if it's indicative of a deeper contempt, I need to know about it. I did tell him that night that it was uncomfortable to me to think that a friend of mine would be less comfortable with my having an improved moral clarity. I will post updates as I have them if anybody is interested.

Call me anything you like except late for dinner

I share that video with people all the time. It helped me sort through a lot of this stuff.

Do you see the irony in his trying to help others with their inconsistencies before sorting out his own?

Welcome, Kason. Please feel free to lean on this community for support during your difficult transition. I for one admire your conviction to the truth. I hope you're able to help her.

Do you still feel that way now despite the logical challenge that has been offered?

I'm glad to hear you were able to break free of the propaganda of your childhood and that you found the important of self-knowledge Do you and your spouse have children? The only advice I have is more of a PSA for others. Namely that this is one of the many dangers of ascribing any importance to beliefs. For example, if God exists and living virtuously will get you into a paradise in the afterlife, great! Without proof, it can be very irresponsible to make life and death decisions on such a basis. Having been raised and anecdotally convinced myself of Christianity once upon a time, it would've been very key for somebody at that time to impress upon me the importance of accepting fallibility. Have you had an empathetic discussion with your spouse? Obviously you can understand where they're coming from. I think the main problem is that true believers view non-believers as having been tempted away by Satan, prophesied about, etc. I remember once, my father was exceptionally physically brutal to me leading me to stay away from him awhile. When I finally, erroneously let him back into my life, he had the audacity to refer to me as the prodigal son. As if my distance was just something that had to happen and wasn't the result of his intense physical assault. Talk about insult to injury!

To which I added the challenge that what you're referring to are not moral arguments. Observe... That quote is immoral as early as "The US." Country is an immoral concept. It claims ownership over people and their property. The only difficulty in ascertaining this immorality is the amount of propaganda that goes into trying to legitimize the concept of "country." This usually only succeeds in the realm of no critical thinking or moral consideration. The moment moral consideration is on the table, the immorality of that supposedly immoral claim isn't difficult at all. I disagree. If I understand you rightly, you are saying that because some people abuse the moral consideration, it is inherently uninmportant. I would argue that the abuse of the word "moral" throughout history makes moral clarity that much more important.

One will suffice. I anticipate that like I've already said twice, that it wasn't moral. Also, if somebody has a hard time figuring out what morality is, I don't think that perpetuating the idea that it is subjective (or difficult) is very responsible. The correction should've been foreseen rather than resisted.

@jpahmad: If somebody doesn't understand the subject material, then they have no business standing up before the whole world to make truth claims on the subject. If a friend talks to him about how his words are advocating violence and he rejects it, he no longer gets to operate under obliviousness. Also, please do not put words into my mouth. I never advocated writing somebody off as a first step (except maybe in the case of direct childhood abusers). However, it is a sensible second step if the first step of trying to help them see the error of their ways is ill-received. The phrase "writing somebody off" is also deceptive as it places responsibility on the person reacting to the stimulus instead of the one providing it. If somebody doesn't want people avoiding them, they can behave in ways that isn't off-putting to others. If I promoted rape, it would not be the fault of those who distanced themselves from me for holding such a position. @cheddar: If somebody said to me that you have to take the good with the bad, I would ask them one of the most important questions you could ask anybody: How do you know? It's that old adage where if they can get you to ask the wrong questions, they don't care what your answers are. If group A is violent and group B is violent, but less violent perceptually, choosing group B and saying you have to take the good with the bad because they're less violent bypasses the question of having violence present at all.

Obviously in that video, the message is what's important. However, I'd like to repeat the lighting recommendation above. Even if you cannot afford to upgrade your camera at this time, increasing the lighting will help your existing camera not blur the image too much trying to compensate for the low lighting. If you do have ~$150 to put towards production quality, you can get yourself a cheap HD camera with a backlit CMOS. This would not only bring you into HD, but also deal with lower ambient lighting. If I had my way, people would focus just on the message. However, I think people that are not in agreement with you before the video might use the apparent production quality to discount the message. Do you have access to such a camera? What do you think about how this might change the videos in a way that might reach a larger audience?

I especially appreciated the part where you mention how keeping unreasonable people in your life is rewarding them for their anti-social behavior. It's an element that I think even people who value self-knowledge tend to overlook because it can be a very uncomfortable truth to accept. Or perhaps to put more innocently, a VERY hidden cost to the decision of keeping them in your life just because they're already in your life, you have history, etc.

Appeal to emotion. The truth is that people who oppose aggression want for everybody (including "uninsured babies") to not be aggressed against. What he's saying here is that if two people choose to have a child, then they've just entitled themselves to a little bit of everybody else's property. As in literally inflicted an involuntary positive obligation on EVERYBODY ELSE. Clearly this is irrational. I do not agree that you HAVE TO try and convince this guy otherwise. If you can, that's great. To do this, you'll have to understand how he came to that conclusion. It wasn't by rationality as evidenced above. Have you checked out Stef's Bomb in the Brain series? We cannot influence the minds of others if we do not first understand how they work. If the person is uninterested in the truth, then no amount of effort will change this. To answer jpahmad's question of what going your separate way would accomplish, it would disassociate you from somebody who supports violence (including against you) and would bring to them (hopefully) very real and meaningful consequences for holding that position. That IS a way to help humanity escape the shackles of perpetual violence. See, the reason so many people support violence by proxy is because there's no consequences for doing so. Supporters do not have to satisfy the bill, so they welcome it with open arms. Losing people they care about in their lives suddenly places the consequences of advocating violence at their own doorstep. This will help them to see the gun in the room and if they choose it over you, it will make them aware of the expense they've suffered in doing so. This is very powerful and should not be underestimated.

I had just pointed out that morality isn't subjective. Continuing on as if this wasn't said isn't productive. You own yourself. People are not fundamentally different in a way that this wouldn't be true of everybody, so everybody owns themselves. If everybody owns themselves, then theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral as they require exercising ownership over that which is owned by somebody else. Put simply: theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral. The end. Not hard to determine at all. As I pointed out before, what you're talking about isn't morality. When somebody says, "I'm okay with guys pointing guns at my neighbors' heads and pretending to give the money they steal to the poor," it is not a moral endeavor even though it pretends to be one. So... Yes I am. Aggression is immoral. They are not incompatible. You now know the logic behind this. If you could make a case to the contrary, it would be more useful than simply repeating yourself in the face of a challenge.