dsayers

Sorry for the confusion. I read 2+2!=5 as two plus two does not equal five. I was not aware it was a potential source of ambiguity.

For as long as we're asking how people should make use of their imaginary existence in a different, opposing moral category, we're not asking IF people can exist in different, opposing moral categories.

link I don't think the ability to differentiate between threat and nourishment as the basis for survival to be a controversial position. Yet in that thread, he demonstrated a NEED for that to not be true. As I stated above, I think I now understand why. When people tell you that they NEED for their parents to be blame free, they're deadly serious. Do you have a reason to doubt he's telling us the truth as he sees it? I'm not sure why you're asking. I haven't written him off as evidenced by my trying to provide SOME perspective. Of all the people I have seen that are so inspired by FDR that they join the forums and share their story while pretending their parents aren't responsible, I haven't seen ONE ever open up to the possibility that maybe it's not okay that the people that promised him to protect him and nurture him neglected/abused him. Doesn't mean it can't/won't happen. I sincerely hope it does because I have already conceded that I find him to be generally rational and articulate.

I keep asking how this conclusion was arrived upon. Nobody seems willing to explain how somebody watching porn is engaging in a behavior that is binding upon others without their consent. They're just throwing around words like wrong, immoral, and unethical with no rigor behind those objective claims. "Accessibility to articles has increased at a level never seen before. Reading articles is a way of killing time. Worst case, you're messing with your ability to enjoy writing or talking." Which by the way is the opposite of the truth; Were you to read more articles, your ability to communicate would actually increase. Your scare tactics remind me of an episode of Bullshit! where they interviewed this guy who made and sold these shields you could stick over the earpiece of your cellphone to reduce the risk of brain cancer. He KNEW that the waves transmitted by cellphones could not cause such a thing, but said "Why take the chance?" Since nobody will discuss how they've arrived at the conclusion, I guess it's time to weigh in with my opinion. I was raised as a Christian. When my body matured, I was tormented because I couldn't stop masturbating and I was told it was a sin. I cried, promising to God over and over I'd never do it again. I felt horrified at my inability to control... something that is completely natural, healthy, and a biological imperative. It was EXTREMELY damaging for grown folks who knew better to try and convince me of that. This is why it's very important to determine whether what's being talked about is in fact something that is harmful. Or if calling something harmful that's not is just perpetuating the same bullshit external pressure that was inflicted upon us. From my perspective, "porn" is a wide array of things, involving a wide array of people. To say "porn" without acknowledging this truism is collectivizing, which mean what's being said is almost certainly false. Unless coercion is in play, the porn is consensual. Partaking of porn isn't binding upon others. I submit that in the absence of specifics, there is absolutely no basis for suggesting that porn is harmful. If you try to breathe water, you will drown. This doesn't mean water is wrong, immoral, or unethical. It just means you have to use it right. Same with everything that isn't theft, assault, rape, or murder.

My heart sunk as I read this. I understand now why you resist the idea that safety comes from being able to call things by their proper name. I want you to know that what I read here makes me cautious in terms of how close I would allow myself to get to you. Even before I got to this part, I was going to say that I don't think that choosing a life partner before you've worked on self-knowledge is a wise move. If you were to have children before self-knowledge, you will continue the cycle of abuse regardless of how mildly and unintentionally. I don't know how much more I want to say because I have little reason to believe any of it will be received. You say there's nothing they can do to help right your life but taking responsibility would be a first step of such magnitude that I couldn't express in a single post. I don't know what "expressed remorse" looks like, but it sounds like you're an easy sell because you are accustomed to erasing yourself for their benefit. I have so much more I could say, but I'll end with a little secret about holding parents accountable for the neglect and abuse they inflict upon a child that both shortens and ruins so much of their life: Your dad is not a good guy if your mother's not a good mother. The only reason she's your mother is because HE chose her to be. Just as you lack self-knowledge and therefore cannot know if the woman you're choosing to have kids with will be somebody you can rely on to do so safely and peacefully. I am so sorry for the reality of your past. You severely limit if not flat out prohibit your capability to heal if you cannot be honest about their responsibility. I hope somebody at some point is able to reach you. I hope some day you look around and become so angry at your abusers that you hold them accountable instead of giving them a free pass. Which essentially just allows them to re-victimize you in the present and victimize others through you on into the future.

Do you see the difference between "it is wrong" and "I view it as bad"? If your answer to a question that you view as asking why you have a particular reaction to something is "I don't know," to me this would indicate a reason to begin exploring this for your own advantage and understanding. Then, once you've achieved that piece of self-knowledge, maybe discuss it with others. "I view this as bad and I don't know why" is not convincing. The case has not yet been made for porn participant = prior sexual abuse. As such, this is little more than an assertion, which is perhaps why it is so simple. Additionally, I think you have the challenge of defining "taking advantage" and why it's inherently bad. Those who work in agriculture "take advantage" of the fact that people need to eat. People who use the express way are "taking advantage" of a more efficient way of arriving at their destination. I can't speak for others, but no porn has ever been made at my behest. So how do you arrive at the conclusion that if I were to watch porn, I would be doing something to the people I'm watching? I just want to be clear since this is clearly an emotional issue (which is my point) that I haven't expressed an opinion yet. My input is for the purpose of addressing methodology. Because I suspect that most of this stuff comes from external shaming.

utopian, we have the sum of human history full of empirical evidence to the contrary. There was a time when if you wanted to make a phone call, you had to go to someplace that had a phone already, drop a quarter into a machine that could be found in many public place/street corners, or you could pay thousands of dollars for equipment and hundreds of dollars every month in access fees to be able to make that phone call with no wired geographical constraint. Would you say "Well I guess we have to force everybody to pay for this thing that's better"? Or would you say "If this is better, people will pay for it."? Creative destruction happens all the time as people choose for themselves what is better as technology advances. If it's what people want, you don't have to point a gun to their head. That's how you know if what you're seeing is rape or love making. I wonder how much of the exorbitant cost of the first cell phone technology was a direct result of State power being used to create artificial barriers and steal from a burgeoning technology.

*accidental duplicate*

Can you elaborate by what standard it is wrong to watch or how you came to the conclusion that it is an issue of morality?

Exchanging value for value doesn't always mean currency. Sharing videos, taking your TIME to share ideas that lead to peaceful parenting and a peaceful world are perfectly valid ways of exchanging value. Especially in the face of having some very real problems of your own. YOU come first, then everything that comes from you improves also. For what it's worth, I think you're very rational and articulate. Not somebody I would suspect has a drug problem or a traumatized past. I did want to ask though... What did you mean by this? I ask because I noticed a lack of reference to your parents or your childhood. If you're on page 100 of a book, there's no virtue in pretending there was no page 99. Just wanted to clarify since some people mistake remembering something with holding a grudge or even rightfully holding a grudge with being vindictive. Was hoping you'd provide a clearer picture of where you're at so that any attempts at healing don't result in failure and in turn discourage you.

"as I see it" is exactly my point. How many people do not recognize that taxation is coercion/the initiation of the use of force? How many people view those who tax them as benevolent, righteous, and necessary? Or back it up to childhood. How many people view threatening and assaulting a child as character building? If a person cannot accurately identify a behavior as coercive, they can never be safe from it. They could never be safe from INFLICTING it. People who were abused/taxed abusing/taxing others because they don't see the harm in it. From the moment you were born, you began to categorize your world for survival's sake. Suggesting that the ability to accurately identify threats isn't foundational to survival is absurd.

Quoted for emphasis. Somebody who possesses self-knowledge shares information in a shared pursuit of the truth. For somebody who didn't have the information to accept the truth isn't a "win" for the person providing the information because there wasn't an emotional investment. If somebody rejects that 2+2=4, what do I care? If I'm able to show them how 2+2!=5, I might feel good that I possess the ability to articulate ideas in a convincing manner. But I certainly didn't win anything. Ironically, I think people that look at debate as win/lose have already lost.

Safety comes from honesty. If you see a grizzly bear and call it a grizzly bear, you're safer from it because you will take the necessary precautions and actions to remain safe from it. As opposed to snuggling up with it as if it were an oversized teddy bear. All religions are characterized by beliefs and rituals. None of which accurately describe the real world. In this way, I would argue all religion is dangerous. By extension, this means that characterizing religion X as a "religion of..." is dangerous because you're addressing a symptom and not the problem. The problem is a lack of rational thought. Also, the moment you begin to hold concepts accountable, you stop holding individuals accountable. "Muslims" is a concept. It describes an aggregate of people with a similar set of beliefs. If one of them doesn't initiate the use of force, what difference does it make if some entity tells him to? Likewise, if one does initiate the use of force, what difference does it make what their motivation was? The aggression is the problem.

This is an unprincipled conclusion. To see it, just replace society's laws with society's bars. As in literally a cage. If society protects you with a cage, you should conform to that cage. Regardless of consent. Meaning we're talking about an unchosen positive obligation, which is unethical. If I give you a sandwich, I don't get to say you owe me anything. That's the bizarre part to me: If society truly cared for and protected children, they wouldn't grow up wanting to manipulate people. So there'd be no expectation that young adults owed society anything. Similarly, those same young adults would probably contribute voluntarily. Even if it's just to the extent of division of labor for their own survival, as long as they weren't initiating the use of force, you couldn't fault them. Anybody interested in more on this should check out Stef's recent video

This is begging the question. It also ignores what I said since I pretty much proved it's NOT stealing.

If I strum a guitar, I haven't created anything. If you strum a guitar in the same way I did once, your behavior isn't binding upon me. Furthermore, if I strum a guitar, that doesn't mean other people MUST value it.

In the US, most sodas use high fructose corn syrup and have for decades. Does the information you provided still hold in light of that correction? My understanding is that glucose (sugar) is better for you (obviously not in excess) than fructose. And in fact the effects they have in the brain within the context of being able to identify you're properly nourished. I've read that HFCS is actually one explanation for obesity for this reason.

The byline to the article is "Bill Gates explains why the climate crisis will not be solved by the free market." The only thing you can achieve with violence that you cannot achieve without violence is violence. Spot on! It's important to remember that when people speculate with generalities, they're projecting.

I'm not sure I see your point. The implication is that stats are useless, but then you use a stat! Fire can destroy, yet we are also able to harness it for energy, cooking life-sustaining nourishment, etc. Understanding that numbers tend to bypass some of our natural scrutinies doesn't mean they're inherently deceptive or useless. If the media calls anybody who mentions ethnic disparities a racist or xenophobe, they are clearly communicating that you cannot talk about such things. In fact, most of your post was just repeating yourself as if I had made no effort to challenge/qualify. So I don't see how saying "yes, the violence is the problem, but pointing out how those seeking to benefit from this makes not wanting them to come over NOT a racist/xenophobic motivation" a third or fourth time will be of any use.

I don't mean to diminish your experience, but it sounds like somebody has distracted you. A phillips head screwdriver is only ~2% different from a regular screwdriver, yet that's all the difference in the world. The difference between humans/chimps/young children is reasonability. All the difference in the world. The people you reference as being irrelevant, you attribute this to their lower IQ rather than what's actually responsible: coercion and aggression. Which leads to a suppression of rational thought. Another example of this is Top 1% of what? You go on to list examples of coercion and aggression. A rapist's primary characteristic is their willingness to initiate the use of force. Where they can be found on any scale that might put them in the top or bottom 1% isn't relevant. This is important because you reference "what they do to us." You could say that Stef makes me look bad because what he's done for the good of humanity compared to what I've done. But all of our actions/interactions are voluntary, so it would be misleading to say he's doing that to me. Whereas the Fed, etc ARE doing things to people by initiating the use of force. I understand that in a world that wants to believe we're not responsible, it's not easy accepting one's responsibility. Something to keep in mind is that part of the reason some people reject this responsibility is because of the momentum of the past. Right now, it's still fashionable to support institutionalized violence. If we just pretend to be like them for the sake of conformity, all we'd be doing is pushing back how soon it will be when it's no longer fashionable to do so. Sorry if that doesn't seem empathetic. I rather enjoy the struggle. When people slap you with an appeal to insecurity, it tells you that you're doing something right. I think it's fun having the extra challenge of trying to survive in a world where people will shun you for being honest or courageous. I realize this runs contrary to our biological imperative to reproduce, but I guess that's an "upside" of being abused. Throughout history, the early adopters have stood up for some pretty basic truths that we take for granted today. Back then, the stakes were literally life and death. We have it easier than that, so I'd hate to see anybody who can see the truth deny it just for comfort's sake.

The article drops the ball in the title. By saying pragmatic, he's telling you that he's leapfrogging over the moral consideration. He might as well be talking about the usefulness/dangers of a unicorn's horn because a unicorn is just as fictitious as talking about humans existing in different moral categories as if that's an accurate description of the real world. Also, he fails to define Libertarian. That's one of the problems when people use labels/shorthand instead of being clear about what they're saying. It seems as if he equates the minarchist position with liberty, which I think is clearly false. There's no liberty in being stolen from. The problem isn't how the money's being spent, it's that the money is stolen on a grand scale in perpetuity under the guise of being righteous, necessary, and benevolent.

Whoops! The presentation completely hit the wall at about 3:05. When explaining exoneration, he points out the fallibility of the person giving forgiveness. Then turns around and says that we should accept fake apologies if the relationship matters to us with no acknowledgement that a relationship with somebody who would offer a half-apology after hurting us mattering to us could be a mistake on our part. He made a critical error at the beginning though and revisited it when he talked about release. Namely the harm in failing to process trauma. He opens by talking about grudges and vendettas, but this has nothing to do with "not forgiving" but rather not processing. Processing mostly includes being honest with yourself about what happened, why, and so on. It is a crucial component to self-knowledge. I am very aware of the abuses of my childhood and the way they deformed me during my formative years. While this opens up a world of possibility for me in the present, I will never have the life of somebody who wasn't abused. Being aware of this is not the same as holding a grudge. I will give it credit for briefly emphasizing that forgiveness is something that is earned. However, since it started with the premise that forgiveness is something that can be given, it only glossed over this while mostly saying you should alter your perception of reality for the sake of your own happiness, which I think is antithetical. If we hold people accountable for their actions, we improve the quality of those interactions. "Forgiving" somebody who does not accept the harm they did to you is what allows them to re-victimize you.

The "market" is comprised of people, people's labor, people's goods... If the people aren't free, then the market isn't free.

Yeah, examining how you can avoid bad things happening to you isn't the same as accepting blame when they do. It's reducing risk, which is something we do every day in ways that are so habitual, we don't even notice them. If I'm getting out my keys when I'm near a drain grate, I hold on extra tight to make sure I don't lose them. If I drop something on the floor, I make sure there's nothing I can bump my head on before I bend down to pick it up. And so on.

Maybe there's something lost in the translation, but this sounds like a limit from without rather than learning that actions have consequences, the deferral of gratification, etc. If she ever saw you frustrated while being open and accepting about her frustration, then you could have a talk about it when it happened. Ask her how she's feeling and why. Point out that you've noticed that when you stay up too late, you wake up the next day feeling drained and find yourself more easily agitated. There's nothing fundamentally different from 8:25, 8:30, and 8:35. Saying be in bed by a specific time would actually be harmful in this regard. If something has captured her mind or she has a little extra energy, trying to force herself to go to sleep might just make her sleep rougher. If you want to watch a sunset, you have to be there at a specific time. If you tell a friend you're going to meet them by a specific time, it's relationship enriching to keep your word. Other than things like this, I can't see any benefit to pretending specific times have inherent meaning or value. You wouldn't set a bedtime for a co-worker. If you wanted them to be to sleep earlier, you could make the case to them. If you fail to convince them, this COULD mean that your position is flawed. Which would encourage you to examine and refine it, accept your own capacity for error, etc. All of which would be more beneficial for her to see than just adhere to lights out by X cuz mommy said so!