dsayers

Aren't you assuming that my pointing out the inherent violence means I disagreed with you or didn't understand the material? An ironic accusation since the conclusions I've arrived at came after the consideration of the ideas while your conclusions come from no consideration even in the face of repeat, resolute challenging. Democracy is mob rule. It is the majority initiating the use of force to bind those who do not consent. This is violence. Communism is a small group of people owning all of the means for production while denying most others the means for production. Read: illegal. Meaning that if you make your own loaf of bread, you're getting abducted, caged, and/or murdered. This is violence. When you call things by their proper names, things become clearer and the truth is easier to discern. Like your continued use of RBE, which is socialism, which is also violence.

No need to apologize for the length. I for one don't mind. In fact, I read over the thread again and something stuck out as a possible source of confusion. That is that there are absolutes alongside matters of discussion. For example, I pointed out being morally identical while acknowledging that there is a gradient of damage. To which you say moral status isn't the only consideration that matters. And that's fine as I never claimed it was. The other example of an absolute alongside a matter of discussion IS important though. A person owns themselves. To this, you've said "He violates the self-ownership of others, it wouldn't make sense to respect his." & "Allowing a known murderer to walk freely implies that he is an exception to the rule, since he is allowed to violate the self ownership of others while preserving his own self ownership." These things don't address that whether we like it or not, they own themselves. This means that how we treat people who have engaged in an immoral action is important. Earlier, I agreed that a serial killer/rapist is fair game for treating as if a wild animal on the loose. However, upon reconsideration, I cannot logically get there from self-ownership. Even though it might feel like retracing steps at this point, can you make that case step by step? Additionally, there is the matter of people who are not serial offenders and therefor do not readily convey that they are void of personhood. I am still unclear as to how we go from self-ownership to being able to arrest somebody's freedom of motion for the purpose of inflicting a brain scan upon them. Just to help clarify where I am, I accept defensive force as justified. In fact, I argue that this is inherent in the statement that theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral. I wanted to point this out since your modified quote made a logical error: "I think the moment you say it's okay to assault somebody, even for very good reasons like protecting yourself" If somebody attacks you and you fight back, your actions cannot be described as assault. The terms theft, assault, rape, and murder denote the initiation of the use of force. Which does not accurately describe defensive force. The main point of contention between our inputs seems to be that I do not view somebody who has murdered/raped before (again, outside the serial category) as posing an immediate threat and therefor cannot be acted against from a defensive position, while you do. Though to reiterate, I would agree that those in the serial category do pose an immediate threat, though I cannot make a logical case for this conclusion. Thank you so much once again for your patience. I do realize this is such a marginal consideration. However, it is the question I get asked the most. And while I realize they're doing it out of confirmation bias or in preparation of moving the goalposts, it's important to me that I have a firm grasp of it. Especially since if you can make the case for treating people who are not threats in the moment as if they're morally eligible for the initiation of the use of force against them, I feel this is an argument against anarchy, which makes me very uncomfortable.

This claim is not consistent with pacifism. This is a claim that violence is not fundamentally wrong, but misusing violence can be.

I don't know what you're talking about. Self-ownership isn't a want, it is literally inescapable. I do know that you have thrice asserted the exact same claim that it is the use and not the item that is immoral. Are you interested in the truth or furthering a conclusion even if it's false? If the truth isn't what you're interested in, then I'll leave it be. If you are interested in the truth, you have to recognize that the truth value of your claim is now for a 3rd time being challenged. Please explain how theft, assault, rape, or murder can be used in a good way.

I struggle with this constantly. I've lost track of the amount of people that reject self-ownership (despite the self-detonating nature of that action being pointed out) because they know I'm using it to build the case that disproves their bigoted conclusion. Since you didn't give an example and I personally struggle even with fully understanding what epistemology is, is what I'm talking about here something that you could apply your suggestion to? When I debate with people about these types of things, I could care less about "winning" or "losing." My interest is in the truth and if I'm wrong, I want to know and if they're wrong, I want to help them find the truth too. Or at least admit to themselves that they are intentionally avoiding it.

Yes murdering two people is worse than murdering one. They are morally identical though as they both require exercising ownership over that which is owned by somebody else. I think where the communication breakdown lies is that I don't think morality is analog. Any given behavior is either moral, immoral, or amoral. Stealing a pencil is immoral. Rape is immoral. Genocide is immoral. Of course the extent of damage of those compared to one another aren't even in the same ballpark. Yet I maintain they are morally identical in that they are each immoral as opposed to moral or amoral. Going back to the capital punishment paradox, the paradox exists even in lesser terms. If "we" imprison people that murder and we imprison an innocent, then we are all guilty of assault. If somebody is suspected of murder, "we" seize them, subject them to a brain scan, and realize they're not damaged, we are guilty of assault. What if somebody is accused of murder and it turns out they were abused and have a swollen amygdala, but were innocent of murder? What if they've gone through therapy and worked through the abuse of their past that has left a physiological scar? I think the moment you say it's okay to assault somebody, even for very good reasons as arresting the freedom of movement of a murderer, you open up the door for abuses, up to and including the imposition of a state. For this reason, I think it's important that we re-examine our propagandized notion that a person fundamentally doesn't own themselves the moment they violate the self-ownership of another. We have to be able to address this objectively and consistently, lest we become the aggressors. I'm really sorry if I haven't vocalized my dissatisfaction with the responses thus far in a way that is helpful. I know it can be frustrating. Thank you for your patience.

All you did was contradict what I said and reassert the challenged claim. These things you're talking about violate self-ownership. If it doesn't violate self-ownership, then it's not a government. If it's a "way to organize society," then it violates self-ownership. There's no such thing as good rape.

Your "philosophy" isn't sound at all. Note the challenges that have gone unaddressed. Which by your standards here means that the challenges stand, which usurp your "philosophy."

You continue to leap over the moral consideration. While you're working on that case, I have a question or two that might help you arrange it: 1) How much of your life has been achieved by way of you initiating the use of force against other people? This includes job, money, home, friends, etc. 2) Of all that you've achieved in your life without the initiation of the use of force, how much of it did you only do by way of voluntary means because you believed that using violence would be punished? The reason I ask is because you're basically saying that we need to force glove manufacturers to make six-fingered gloves for the occasional six-fingered human. And you're saying this in light of the fact that you've only ever come across five-fingered (or fewer) humans. You are saying that we need people to steal from us and have a monopoly on the initiation of the use of force (that none of us have to give in the first place) to protect us against theft and initiations of the use of force. I challenge you again to provide the case for how violence is acceptable so long as you agree with how it's used.

Some food for thought (pun intended). If I want a burger with all the fixings, I can go to the local McDonald's and pick one up in less time than it would take me to get out the grill and such. The latter requiring the forethought of picking up all the elements ahead of time. To grow and make all of which would be even more inefficient. Now I'm not saying that the burgers in question would be comparable, or even that eating burgers is a worthwhile pursuit. It does seem however that total self-reliance is unattainable in today's world. I mean, who would want a world without internet access to the sum of human knowledge to save a few bucks and/or be able to achieve total self-reliance? I'm not trying to discourage your thoughts or you sharing them. I am fascinated with the possibilities myself. Plus there's certainly value in like minds exchanging ideas. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on self-reliance not necessarily being "good" and interdependence not being "bad." In fact, I have made the case for our interdependence as proof of peace as the default. Going back to my original example, it seems far more efficient (and environmentally friendly) for McD's to serve burgers to 100 people than it would be for 100 people to get out their grills. Which would be more efficient than people getting out their own grills AND raising the cows, mustard, etc for themselves.

Isn't open-sourced government what we have now? There's a great big gun in the room and people continue to rewrite everything on a whim to be able to aim that gun in ways that are beneficial to them. It's the fundamental flaw of government. When you have government, you have all against all because there's a fictitious 2nd tier of personhood to ascribe to. You can't really model valid contracts onto coercive interaction.

A thief that doesn't stab you because you didn't prevent him from grabbing your wallet is not providing a service in exchange for money. It's more efficient for me to sell something to you directly than it is to use an intermediary such as ebay since I wouldn't have to pay a 3rd party to facilitate the transaction. If I am within arm's reach of you, I'm not consenting to you punching me in the face. Not to mention this argument presumes that government's claim of ownership of all land and peoples is righteous. If it's what people want, it's not a state. I think understanding that the thief's claim is illegitimate comes ahead of fleeing the thief and/or carrying less in your wallet. I see a lot of conclusions that aren't based on logic, reason, or evidence. I think it would be easier for you to present how violence is acceptable if it's only in small bursts and/or achieves goals you agree with (subjective).

In other words, either I agree with you or I didn't read what you wrote. This is removing me from the conversation. "2+2=5 is false" is true even if I do not provide 2+2=4. Besides, saying violence will not work IS proposing the answer: not violence. Akin to saying, "since we've always had slavery, we're always going to have slavery." There are different ways for peaceful revolution and the enforcer class saying no is just one of them. Not that they're required as you stipulate, but there has been examples in history. I'm not like Stef and cannot pull such examples off the top of my head. The point in time which you're referring had two sides with equal level of technology. As opposed to drones, advanced surveillance, etc. Not that penning a document that leads to the single largest, most destruction force in the history of mankind could be accurately described as "worked."

People think currency is evil because evil has controlled currencies for so long. Bartering, while necessary, is incredibly inefficient compared to currency. In bartering, if you have A and want B, you have to find somebody that 1) has B, 2) wants A, and 3) values A and B the same as you do. We use tools to accomplish tasks beyond the limitations of our bodies. We use vehicles to travel beyond the limitations of our bodies. We use currency to barter beyond the limitations of our bodies. Civilization would not benefit from doing away with currency any more than we would benefit from doing away with tools and vehicles.

You're right. It doesn't need the plurality of wordS. If a good portion of the enforcer class said, "no," we'd have a revolution without a drop of blood being spilled and we could have that TODAY. You are favoring wishful thinking over empirical evidence. You wouldn't achieve your stated goal by way of your prescribed methodology. If you're one guy surrounded by eight people that think their numerousness shifts the ownership of you from you to them, your understanding of the truth won't save you. People cheer when one person's unsubstantiated claim of a plant leads to one person's arbitrary blessing to a paramilitary force coming in like well-coordinated home invaders, killing a baby, and imprisoning somebody trying to defend themselves for life. These people are not going to let you have a club off to the side that denounces violence while they believe that violence is an answer and therefore violence to force everybody to cooperate is noble.

It is true that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with fire. Sure you could burn your neighbor's house down, but you could also cook a life-sustaining meal. That is to say that the object is neutral and its use is good or evil. I don't think this is the case with democracy, communism, or RBE as they require the initiation of the use of force.

TSA, NDAA, drones, nationalized health care snafu 3 layers deep, and the upcoming lack of SS funds, pensions, fiat currency collapse, etc. Just look at how many people take the media seriously to understand that people do think the state is functioning. Even by way of improper reasoning, such as viewing the recent "shutdown" as failing the people. THIS isn't going to cut it. Collapsing it before people realize that the foundation was unsustainable only to rebuild it all over isn't going to cut it. Saying that the right answer will take generations, so patch it to get us through our time isn't going to cut it. In fact, it's one of the inherent flaws that got us so deep that it will take generations to fix. Willpower doesn't influence the real world.

I've been poor all of my adult life, so it was understood very early on that I couldn't afford much. I did still get gifts here and there. Once I rejected Christianity, it declined. Now, I'm fundamentally opposed to engaging in consumerism just because a calendar tells me to. Plus I'm a minimalist in my own possessions and had a hyper-material mother, so I'm just not big into "stuff" either way. That said, I'm happy to take people out to dinner for their birthdays or other special occasions. This is money spent, food imparted, and most valuable of all: time shared. That said, my step-mother makes good money and she likes to shop. One of the ways she keeps that going is by shopping for others. So in the battle of "don't get me anything" vs "what do you want?" I lose every time. Though in that case to lose is to win sort of.

I did not speak about having children. I spoke of birth. Yes, we have contraception. Yes, we have abortion. This does not change the fact that once a sperm couples with an egg and that zygote attaches to the uterine wall, gestation and birth are autonomic biological processes and therefor amoral. By the by, in this thread, I have yet to share an opinion.

Good luck to you. I too was raised Christian, though it sounds to a lesser degree than you had been. When I first considered the possibility of there not being a deity, I was so panic-stricken that I'd be punished for my insolence. In the end, guess who it was that validated my doubt? George Carlin. I don't know the exact gap from when the particular material was recorded and when I heard it, but I think over a decade would be a fair description. After I had rejected theism and well before I began to study philosophy, I understood the absolute nature of the word belief. I summed it up by saying that anything somebody could describe as believing to exist, doesn't exist. The easy way to explain it to others is ghosts. Let us suppose that ghosts exist. They will either impress upon our senses or they will not. If they do not, then whether they exist or not would have no distinction. If they do, then we could measure and prove them. Either way, belief never enters into it. As for material, it is my understanding that Richard Dawkins is the author to read on the topic of atheism.

Thanks for sharing. Watched both parts. Subscribed to the channel. I used to watch Penny Arcade's Extra Credit series but was heavily alienated after they stepped out of their realm of expertise for their 1 2 3 part series on how we need to better incentivize thieves, batterers, rapists, and murderers so that they'll victimize us more gently. This after they've indulged in similarly unfounded and dangerous truth claims concerning parenting and child development in the past. Maybe this other channel will be more consistent with reality while covering a guilty pleasure of mine (gaming).

If you are somebody who is improving your life, you will be perceived of as a threat by anybody who has room for improvement (humans are fallible, so this is everybody) and prefers the more instantly-gratifying not bothering to improve. That's why they behave the way they do. If they are hostile to you for no reason other than you understand or speak the truth, I wouldn't edit myself for their benefit. I would distance myself from them. If they decide they'd rather be without you in their lives than having you and your acceptance of truth, this would be a form of improving yourself.

I agree with all of this. Would this mean that arresting somebody's freedom of movement for the purpose of inflicting a brain scan would be morally acceptable? What if it is somebody who has only been accused of murder? If we accept any of this and it is mishandled, are we then morally responsible for the act of immorality? An example would be a present day consideration in the case against capital punishment. If murderers are to be put to death and "we" kill somebody who is innocent, we are all murderers and the human race would be extinct. Is not immorality the exercising of ownership over that which is owned by somebody else? Are not stealing somebody's pencil, raping somebody, and dropping a nuke on a populated city all examples of exercising ownership over that which is owned by somebody else? This is my case for the claim that they are morally identical. I am open to the case for extent of damage assigning a gradient to morality. However I must caution that I'm skeptical since it would be predicated on value, which is subjective. I agree with your remark about academic exercise. I ask that you indulge me as I get asked this all the time by people who do not understand that they're asking how we're going to deal with polio after people are vaccinated against it. I am relatively new to thinking for myself and seek to hone my technique. Thank you.

That they were lied to or are lying. Either way they are lying as they are passing off as truth statements that which they do not know to be true and in fact know cannot be true. In your first example, this simply is not possible. I don't recall the exact amount of time--I believe it's ridiculously low, like 3 minutes--but the brain cannot survive going without oxygen for very long without suffering permanent damage. In the second example, we know that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted. In order for the metal plate to be gone, either somebody would've had to extract it or it would've had to have been converted to energy. I'm no nuclear physicist, but I'm guessing the only materials we know how to control the yield of from matter to energy conversion are not materials that we implant in humans for medical purposes. If I may ask a personal question: How much time has elapsed from the time you first accepted the case against deities to the time you shared this with others? I ask because you mentioned reading materials as a requisite for discussion. That's not necessarily a problem, though there are two ways I would expect it to be problematic. The first being that religion is not the result of logic, reason, and evidence. It is typically inflicted upon young children, backed by enormous threats to discourage scrutiny. As a result, you will not be able to dissuade them using logic, reason, and evidence. The second reason it is problematic is that if you are not prepared to make the cases the reading material makes yourself, you will come across to them as a feeble-minded parrot simply regurgitating data that allows you to shirk your responsibility to God (from their perspective). I waited a good six months from the time I first started studying philosophy and pursuing self-knowledge to the time I shared this with others and I wanted to wait longer. By this time, I was able to argue against common propaganda without having to resort to quotes and/or linking materials, even if doing so might make the point more succinctly. A buddy of mine, as a result of my asserting that philosophy finds government to be false, was open-minded to the possibility. He chose to research it randomly starting with John Locke's case for the social contract. Off the top of my head, I was able to construct a logical deconstruction that hit the myth on like five fronts or so. That doesn't mean I'm right or that Locke's case is faulty, but I'm sure it was a lot more convincing than saying "hey, once you're done with that, watch this hour long video and/or read this book." Contrast this to earlier on, when I first was exposed to self-ownership and the NAP. I was so liberated by it that I couldn't wait to share it with statists. Unfortunately, I was so underdeveloped that I ended up getting distracted by propaganda or otherwise acting as a bad advertisement for the truth. Wasn't too big of a deal since the people I was talking to were not in my life and were operating out of confirmation bias anyways. There is one exception and this is Stefan Molyneux's series called An Introduction to Philosophy. On youtube, it's 18 parts and just shy of 11 hours of comparatively bad audio quality. But it steps you through how to start with first principles. I recommend it all the time and go over it again myself from time to time to calibrate the most important tool I have: my mind. It covers a lot of common thinking errors. In the case of what you're about to go through, it very succinctly points out things like how omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible and how the claim "God exists" is actually making numerous claims simultaneously, including ones that are statistically impossible, require a great deal of proof to claim, or are literally self-defeating. Good luck to you and may the FDR community be an aide and a respite from the battlefield.

Thanks, Bulbasaur. I can resume my position of philosophy as objective with improved rigor. I will continue to be mindful of the possible misuse. I like ice cream would then become substantiated. It cannot be objective since the definition is independent of the individual (roughly). Relative to what? Dog is objective in that it is independent of the individual but subjective in that people who speak other languages have a different word that is also independent of the individual. That's my thoughts. It's an interesting question though. I have a friend who likes to argue for the sake of argue. I default to 2+2=4 when I'm trying to help somebody put implications of personalization to facts. To which this friend of mine replies "not in base 3." Which is a good point. Two of something added to two of something is four of something, but how it's displayed is not consistent. Would this make it objective or subjective?