dsayers

I don't know where you're getting the first half of your post. The content of what you say to somebody is not binding upon them without their consent. As for the second half of your post, I am not a UPB guy so I can neither accept nor reject what you've put forth. Assuming it's true, great; That means that people who want more than "theft, assault, rape, and murder are internally inconsistent" have material to consume. But as I've said before, many who do seem to walk away with less clarity, not more. So I will continue to put forth this true, objective claim as it's a fine, concise, passes the 5 year old test, cliff note version of how to measure inter-human behaviors. Which is what the world seems obsessed with INFLICTING upon one another, so I know it's not as of little value as you are describing.

What does this even mean? Like if I said to you that somebody doesn't believe in unicorns, but allows them for practical reasons, would you have any idea what I was saying? Show me one person that doesn't believe in property rights AND LIVES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THIS BELIEF. Otherwise, I must reject the scenario you are painting.

I don't have to. Because of the logical inconsistency, the person engaging in the theft, assault, rape, or murder are TELLING YOU that what they're doing is wrong. It's not up to me how others SHOULD behave. However, with objective morality, when person A tries to steal person B's bike and person B punches them in the face to dissuade them from doing so, it's easy to see who's in the right. With 7 billion people on the planet, many of which are trying to control others out of historical momentum, this sort of clarity is invaluable. It's like saying to me that I haven't explained to you how a hammer can measure the length of something. That's not its purpose, sir.

How do you know? Violence achieves the opposite of one's stated goals. We have millenia of empirical evidence to the contrary of what you claim here.

My first post was entered in before your second one, but didn't go live until after it. So please excuse the way in which it is redundant. Let me help you. I don't know what you mean by "monopolize guilt," but if it has no evolutionary benefit, you can bet on it not being innate. But the phrase "my propensity" makes it sound innate. What is probably more accurate is that such a position was inflicted upon you and/or you were forced to adopt it to survive adverse conditions of a traumatic childhood. If you're looking to place blame where it belongs, paying close attention to the way you word things will help this. I've read the accusation now. Were you ever alone with your accuser? If so, I would say that's something that could be done differently in the future.

I think it's one expression of it. I'm not a UPB guy. To me, objective morality is way simpler. And before I could read it, I saw many people struggling with it. The bottom line of objective morality is "theft, assault, rape, and murder are internally inconsistent." The end.

No it doesn't. This is precisely why it's useful to view the initiation of the use of force as a voluntary creation of a debt. I don't know what you mean by the word punishment. That comes from a statist mentality and the topic is about a stateless society. Restitution is the same as any other initiation of the use of force: The amount of damage done plus whatever it takes for the victim to recoup it.

So we disagree in the definition of terms. Here, you say "Morality is the expression of..." when you mean SUBJECTIVE morality. As in the things that religions, nations, and other manipulators utilize. But as pointed out, no amount of preference will change the fact that theft is internally inconsistent. As this true statement is provable independent of individual consciousness, it is objective as opposed to subjective. Saying objectively rational in place of objective seems like a distinction without a difference. Kind of like self-sovereignty vs self-ownership Actually, I don't. The definition of the suffix -able is well established. If you have a cell-phone that has a user replaceABLE battery, this does nothing to indicate whether or not the battery has actually been replaced. I've made no such proposition, so it is not me that you are agreeing with. This serves as evidence that perhaps you're bringing a different conversation to the table instead of participating in the one we are having. The OBSERVATION that I've put forth is that theft is internally inconsistent. I don't even know how you can make this claim considering we appear to be in accordance that subjective morality is useless. The only reason to reject that theft, assault, rape, and murder are internally inconsistent as a sufficient measure for what we are capable to uphold in others' lives is if a person were interested in dominating another. I don't wish to interact with such a person. Does this describe you?

The ability to hijack control of another person is a good reason why it is important that we help people to see the world in terms of property rights. I'm not sure what you're saying here. How is there increased competition over control of me just because other people are standing next to me? @neeeel: You didn't answer my question as to how you know that it is YOUR challenge. Also, I would wager that you are unwilling to give me your worldly possessions. And if I were to try and take them from you, you would take exception to this behavior. So if nobody owns you, how did you come to believe you rightfully own the things that could be described as your worldly possessions? You are demonstrating self-ownership as you make the claim that it is made up. Multiple pieces of evidence here that you in fact accept self-ownership because it is inescapable.

I don't see the value in the question. If word X's only purpose is used to shame others, then we should be working towards preventing that which inspires people to shame others, not exploring how we can distribute the shaming more equally.

Sadly, the best answer is to pursue self-knowledge and process the trauma of your childhood BEFORE having children of your own. Also, the basis for social interaction is going to come from the children's interactions with their parents, which will pre-date any relationships the children have with other caregivers and/or peers. I didn't see any mention of your spouse/the children's other parent. What are their thoughts about your situation and what you perceive to be an issue with the children? Most of what children learn is from imitating the people they look up to. So modeling most of this should be sufficient. Also, what do you mean by table "manners"? I only ask because it seems to me that most of the time, the word manners refers to conclusions arrived upon by others that get inflicted. For example, if they chew up some food and then display it on an outstretched tongue, you could let them know that this sort of things will bother most people. And while catering to others isn't a good base standard by which to select our behaviors, optional behaviors such as that are easily edited out for the benefit of not breaking social ties I think. Overall, I like Stef's approach of talking as if equals and demonstrating that just because you're a parent doesn't mean you're perfect or always right. You might find that when having such discussions, they offer interesting objections or counterpoints. Then you can wade through it together and even share your findings with others

What were the allegations? What were the circumstances that allowed for the allegations to be credible? What is your level of self-knowledge and your wife's level? There's just not enough information here.

Not on of these questions are relevant. The driver initiated the use of force by engaging in a behavior that was binding upon another without their consent. Colossus initiated the use of force for the same reason. Yes, it was in response to the same, but I've already covered how the disproportion makes it clear that it is not the settling of the initial debt, but a creation of a newer, much larger one.

As I had JUST stated, my initial post outlines the ways in which objective morality is not illusory. To post after that, without addressing that, is still intellectual sloth and at this point bias confirmation. Preference/value IS subjective. Nobody argued otherwise. (Not) liking vanilla has no bearing on the fact that theft is internally inconsistent. I'm not a UPB guy. But I think another mistake you are making is conflating preferABLE with preference. They are not the same. But for simplicity's sake, let's leave the complex stuff aside and address the simple truths. Like theft is internally inconsistent. When you can prove otherwise, you can then claim that objective morality is illusory without it being an assertion.

People with self-knowledge would only get married to and have a child with somebody of similar virtue. This alone would keep the passion higher than either of them could get elsewhere. Add to that the child, and I can only presume that anybody that would think they could get more passion elsewhere lacked self-knowledge. I'm more interested in why would anyone destroy their child's life after only one day of deliberation and without including their partner in the consideration.

It is saying "I am free to make use of my property as I see fit, but you are not" without a fundamental difference between the two that would put them in different, opposing moral categories This is an assertion. One that was made immediately after it was outlined, but without any acknowledgement of that burden of proof you take on with your assertion. That is intellectual sloth.

How do you know that it is YOUR challenge? It's NOT like saying "America is a concept..." because that is describing something that was made up. THAT is an assertion. What I have put forth is backed up by observable, universal, empirical evidence. Who owns you?

Objective morality is easy. Theft is using one's property to deny another the use of their property. Assault and rape are using one's body to deprive another the use of their body. Murder is using one's life to deprive another the use of their life. There is no escaping that these four behaviors are objectively internally inconsistent. The person engaging in theft, assault, rape, and murder are simultaneously accepting and rejecting property rights. The consistency of matter and energy tells us that something cannot be itself and the opposite of itself at the same time. It is true that value is subjective. Anybody that thinks morality is subjective does so because religions and governments have co-opted the word in an attempt to manipulate people into doing what they want. To those entities, morality is subjective. But such a morality would be meaningless.

I was referencing complexity. To me, objective morality is quite simple whereas UPB is complex. Meanwhile "NAP" is shorthand for "theft, assault, rape, and murder are internally inconsistent." I think if you're trying to understand a new idea--especially using words like irreducible--it might be helpful to keep things simple. Even if it takes longer to type, I think it would be helpful in avoiding what looks to me like a communications breakdown. I'm not sure what you mean by prove self-ownership. It seems self-evident to me. Axiomatic if you will. It's not even something you would have to argue because EVERYTHING that's put forth as if it were morality or a method by which to "organize society" are all predicated on property rights being valid. If everybody already accepts that property rights are valid, self-ownership is a given. Or if you don't think that it is, it would be helpful if you could identify where the disconnect comes in. Forgive me if I've already shared this video with you, but the first bit in it does a good job of explaining an easy way of arriving at self-ownership by process of elimination:

Do you think that is what free-rider means? The questions ARE bogus. The nice thing about objective morality (apart from it being accurate) is that it simplifies everything. We don't have to assume Colossus here. Person A steals a candy bar from person B. Person B shoots person A in the head. The value of a candy bar versus a life is disproportionate to the extent that no reasonable person would see them as comparable. Therefore person B's action was NOT defensive force. It was retaliation, which is the creation of a new, larger debt. Person B is actionable.

I think this is putting the cart before the horse. This sentence reads to me like "is 2 just a concept we have because it is a natural consequence of (insert some complex calculus here)?" Self-ownership is a concept we have because it accurately describes the real world. It has only ever been obfuscated for the sake of coaxing people into subjugation with less resistance. If you can trick people into thinking that nationalism is a virtue for example, it's easier to swallow the ways in which the government of the nation you're in purports to own you for example.

This does nothing to address that the current "solution" is in fact an exacerbation of the stated problem (pun intended) and not a solution at all. ...and therefore we need to pretend people can exist in different, opposing moral categories and give all of that destructive power to a select few psychopaths and issue death threats to everybody else that would try to do the exact same thing. Sorry, but there are numerous logical steps missing here. I acknowledge that you're playing devil's advocate and hope you recognize that I'm talking to ideas here, not about you. That said, the inherent flaw in the very question is that it begs the question of State validity. It's like saying the slaves already pick cotton, so how will we pick cotton in the absence of slaves? The answer is that it doesn't matter because the answer has no bearing on the truth that violence is immoral. I don't care how the collective of human consciousness (which is WAY bigger than my own capacities) figures out how to address a world where nuclear weapons technology is realized; the State is still immoral and has no reason to be advocated, supported, or tolerated.

I'm glad you pointed that out. While not something I worry about, I know a lot of people newer to the ideas of a stateless society worry about such things. I had lost touch with the fact that without national level of mass theft, such things simply aren't realistically possible.

This is a good point. Ever since I began my self-knowledge journey, I've been SO thankful that I wasn't born female. I would've banked on my body/looks, taken every handout I could get my hands on, etc. The problem with that is that with decreased resistance, our muscles grow weaker. Reducing resistance for any group is only going to coddle that group, not empower them. Yet another unintended consequence of State power: The belief that humans can wish away reality.

You don't solve the potential problem of a single person getting a nuke by handing a large group of people many nukes and the perceived legitimacy of deploying them.