dsayers

"Gravity was ok for a few points of history, but it is no longer necessary" You cannot will away reality, sir. I think you need to define your terms. Capitalism doesn't assume infinite anything. Also, you posted this in response to a request for an argument. That request stands unfulfilled. You continue to use your capital to assert that capitalism is unsustainable. How did you make it to this point in your life if you were not using the capital of your body to consume the capital of the food you've acquired by using the capital of your labor? Your life is full of empirical evidence as to its sustainability. That's three strikes in one post.

Not sure where the quote in the title is from. Also, the opening post of "you're (outward) capitalist" suggests that YOU (inward) are not. Was that the implication? I ask because your body is your capital and you made use of it to create this thread, so you're capitalist also. Which would make you opening post "we're capitalist" and superfluous.

Does it have to be one or the other? I'm sure there are people that lack empathy but mechanically imitate the empathetic in order to fit in. I'm sure there are empathetic people who behave in a way they regret later. I think this is why it's so important that we have the conversations that we have here: So more people can better understand what exactly the initiation of the use of force is. And why it's so important to live our values and have a support system that will challenge us on the mistakes we make.

Speaking of hands, I was just thinking about this the other day: In our mysophobic world, it seems odd that people still shake hands. Then again, I've always found it odd that governments offer cash incentives to be "green" but then do things like rig traffic control to make everybody stop all the time, send jets halfway around the world, etc. Oh don't get me started!

What does working it out look like? I mean, is she seeking help? Does she think there's a problem? Does she accept her own capacity for error? If no to any of these, then "working it out" could only involve erasing yourself for the comfort of others. Which would be feeding it. Or in other words, working it IN. Does your 15 year old daughter live with you? I'd get out just for her sake. True she's already done developing personality-wise, but I still think it would be good for her to see dad admit he made a mistake, treat it as dangerous as it is, and take action to avoid that danger. I would even recommending apologizing to your daughter for exposing her to that woman. Would make for a great dialog where you could see what her thoughts are as well as share with her your own mistakes that allowed for such a bad decision.

I can't find the link now. There was an interview did with a female psychologist who studies children that said that even when a parent yells at a child, they have to suspend something in themselves to make that possible. Which is like exercising a muscle in that it will be easier for them to do in the future. I'm sorry this is a flimsy satisfaction of the scientific possibility. I will say that we have what's known as mirror neurons. Ever see somebody get injured or see somebody's injury and cringe? I once jumped down from a height I thought would be fine and it really wasn't. I can be playing a 3D video game and if I take a jump off of something, I can feel the hesitation in my legs bracing myself for landing even though that's not necessary. I could also provide anecdotal evidence (which I accept isn't evidence at all). I'll never forget the first time I was forced to pull a gun on somebody. He made me do it and yet I felt so sick to my stomach, it took me three days of surrounding myself with people I care about to begin feeling normal again.

I think I hit the "mark forum as read" link while some posts were not yet live. These posts never crossed my radar. Luckily another thread gave me reason to search this one out. Assertion. For those interested in the (in)accuracy of it, Mr. Beal is referring to this thread. Note the bump for no reason other than to say, "This guy is back." Given the gross misrepresentation of this quote, I'm guessing you thought it made me look bad, as you did then. I've shared that thread with others when they wonder why on the boards I don't often allow myself to be vulnerable even though I used to and when I am, I'm honest and direct. They too were blown away, both by how such prominent members could use such unphilosophical approaches to avoid their bias and that I managed to not stoop to that level of personal attacks. Saying "X is not an argument" is not saying "the person who provided X is a terrible person." I'm not telling you something you don't already know. You word it that way not because it's honest or even because you believe it to be honest. It's a form of doubling down and throwing your weight around, neither of which are healthy ways of interacting with other people. These are things that previously I would've thought to be uncharacteristic of you, which is why I continued to hold you in high regard despite one misstep one time. I'm sorry to hear that even if your representation of that one time were accurate, you wouldn't do the same. You didn't answer my questions here: "If "theft, assault, rape, and murder is immoral" (I never mentioned UPB; see above obfuscation) is an objective claim and an accurate overview of morality, then how does saying things like epistemic vs ontological, morality EXISTS, and morality is subjective at all helpful? And how do you classify that as a bad question?" No, you don't have to care that I don't see the relevance. I'm guessing by this lash out that you do care to not be corrected. I'm guessing this is why in a recent thread, when I challenged your position that atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive, you just sort of gave up, but not as a form of accepting your own capacity for error. I didn't realize that holding somebody accountable for their own attempts at being understood was being a dick. I didn't realize that asking questions in order to understand was not taking the time to understand. I do realize that this lack of rationality is an attempt to erase another person in order to manage your own anxiety as the result of irrationally regarding somebody as if infallible. The good news is that my pointing this out gives you another opportunity to use downvoting as an ideological WEAPON against me

I work as a private investigator who mostly does security work (patrols, alarm response, bodyguard). When I'm patrolling a property or responding to an alarm on a property, it's at the behest of the property owner. It's their property, they have the right to protect it, so they have the ability to give that right to others. This is really important to understand because I get asked from time to time how I can regard police as institutionalized aggression when I perform what they feel is a functionally identical role. I haven't seen the movie, but I have read the posts here. "DRO" is undefined, so a discussion about it wouldn't be very useful. As I understand it, it would sort of be like an insurance company. Obviously insurance companies are more profitable the less they have to pay out. So for example, I've heard of car insurance companies that charge less for non-smokers. The idea being that if you're not chasing an errant cigarette butt, you won't be taking your eyes off of the road. This incentivizes motorists to not smoke, which leads to them having to pay out less overall. Since I mentioned my line of work, I'll give an example from my own experiences. When I'm doing an ATM run (providing protection for an ATM technician), they want my firearm and badge to be overtly displayed. At night, they even want me wearing a fluorescent vest. While I'm equipped to handle the eventuality of the tech being attacked, these steps are taken to incentivize people to not even try. It would be a lot less costly for all involved to avoid an attack than to survive one. What all of this means is that somebody somewhere has crunched the numbers and decided that they make more money having ATMs than not, even including the expense of an armed guard during servicing. This happens today, even in the "presence" of a state. Which is another reason why I'm not sure as to how productive a conversation about a currently fictional entity (DRO) is helpful while present day versions are already in place.

Welcome to FDR. I've read your post and have some thoughts I'd like to share. Before I do, I wanted to share some of my own experiences. I've had live-in significant others in the past. I lacked self-knowledge at the time we had moved in together, which I think was a terrible decision. It led to problems that I was unable to identify and unable to escape. I too looked for ways of "making it work" instead of accepting that maybe that person wasn't the right choice for me or that maybe I was (part of) the problem. Have you given much thought as to the potential that you're trying to make something fit that doesn't? What does love mean to you? What does love mean to him? (I'm not asking that 2nd question for the sake of completion; It's a question you should be able to answer.) Have you felt loved before? What did it look like? I'm sorry if this isn't very helpful. I've read your post a 2nd time and can't help but see my own live-in relationships from the past. I keep wanting to type things that would be things I'd like to have been able to tell myself back then.

The first problem is that if it's voluntary, it's not government. The second problem is that "think that a government should do X" is a work of fiction and encouraging people to pursue that is anti-rational. The third problem is that the amount of permutations between what a government should do and how it should do those things outnumbers the amount of people that have ever lived. Meaning that the people alive today could theoretically hold unique positions. Meaning that the expectation that there would be two people with identical ideas of EVERY issue and EXACTLY how those issues should be handled AANNDD that those two people would find one another is nigh on impossible. The fourth problem is that this is a lot of work to make something fit that doesn't fit. Meanwhile, "theft, assault, rape, and murder is immoral" is simple, objective, and binding. I just got done going couch shopping. In my travels, I met a lot of people, entered a lot of places of business, made use of a lot of roads, etc. None of my fellow slaves initiated the use of force against each other, yet we were all meeting our goals. What "teams" we "represent" had no bearing on this. For that matter, I would argue there's only one way to meaningfully divide people: Those willing to initiate the use of force to achieve their goals and those who will not. You tried this once before. My response was: "The behavior of eating an apple IS the acceptance of private property. The person doing the eating is exercising ownership over their body and in turn, the food they are consuming. This is important to understand because like you've done here, I frequently see people talking about property rights/morality as if they're optional or can be avoided. Eating an apple isn't the best example. Since apples occur naturally, the existence of an apple isn't necessarily proof that it belongs to somebody. Your attempt at counterpoint would've been better served using an item that doesn't occur naturally." You even agreed that apple wasn't the best example, yet you're doing it again here. Did you anticipate my response would be different?

Not breaking our children? An empathetic person CAN'T initiate the use of force. A rational person has no reason to. Also, "forest" is a concept not reality, but it describes reality. "Theft, assault, rape, and murder is immoral" describes reality. "God" does not. Saying that they're comparable because they're both concepts is not useful.

You have to define terms. Words like "government" and "citizen" inherently mean involuntary. Also, people would disagree as to what all falls under the jurisdiction of a government; some might just say transportation, others might say transportation and healthcare, some might say healthcare and food supply, but not transportation. The amount of differing possible combinations (keep in mind that we're still talking about the mythical deciding of what all it's okay to initiate the use of force for) could be as numerous as the amount of people alive today. We'll call that undefined number Y. Assuming that each of these issues were binary (having only 2 possible solutions), people among the set agreeing on what all things a government should do would come to 2^X conclusions on how their shared government should do things. In other words, the total number of possible panarchist nations JUST OF PEOPLE ALIVE TODAY would be Y^(2^X). This number is surely larger than the total number of humans that have ever existed. All this and to even consider that equation, we have to accept the idea that morality is subjective, which it's not. So rather than going through all of that, it is much simpler to just observe that theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral as they are internally inconsistent in that they simultaneously accept and reject property rights. That's not a matter of opinion and anybody with enough capacity for reason to understand what it means is bound by it.

How did you arrive at that conclusion? I disagree, but I'm interested in how somebody gets there. I ask because my bias is that people are far too obsessed with corpses. I went to my first open casket a few years ago and was horrified that so many people think that such a thing is normal or meaningful. We recently got hired to track down an indirect relative to exhume the body of a shared relative in order to creamate them and scatter the ashes somewhere. I can't help but think that if we got past the (what I'm guessing is) the religion-based idea that corpses hold sentimental value, we can begin to approach them for the value they do have.

If you said to me right now, "I'm going to shoot you!" it would not be a credible threat. Those WORDS mean nothing amid circumstances where you'd likely not be able to carry them out even if you meant them for logistical reasons at the very least. Now if you said those words to me while in the same room as me while pointing a gun at me, those words would be a credible threat. But it would be the pointing the gun at me that's the initiation of the use of force, not any words. Or what if we were in the same room and you said those same words while chuckling and offering me a hug. The words don't match the behaviors and the behaviors are not the initiation of the use of force, so the words couldn't be.

You're referencing something other than words. Also, self-knowledge and rational thought protect against being manipulated. People who lack these were victimized by their parents. It's a hard line to draw. I've argued before that outside of the parent-child relationship, it's logically impossible for one party to be more responsible for another person's actions than they are themselves. So while it may be a dick move to take advantage of somebody who lacks self-knowledge and rational thought, it's not the initiation of the use of force.

But as HordOfTheFlies pointed out, words alone cannot make a threat credible. There has to be an attached behavior, which is the initiation of the use of force.

Them who? You are assuming that the people he got the loan from are the people subjugating every person in a nation. How can you make such an assumption when we do not know the details of his loan? All we know about it is that he agreed to the terms (so there's no need to put positive obligation into quotes) and he is choosing not to make good on it. Theft. Making assumptions as to the details of the loan is, as I already pointed out, adding to the equation for the purpose of trying to make a prejudice fit. Since this is continuing after being pointed out, it's now not just prejudice, but bigotry. You mentioned "this place," so I should also point out that to try and make a prejudice/bigotry fit while not acknowledging that this is what you are doing is a profound lack of self-knowledge.

I don't think so. I think it does an excellent job of pointing out that words are not inherently violent and that it's the accompanying action that is the initiation of the use of force. I stand corrected.

Many years ago, when I first learned of FSP, I was bothered by the fact that I couldn't afford to make the move at that time. In retrospect, I'm glad I wasn't able to as I too would've become mired in ideas such as minarchism, the Constitution, and political activism. I wouldn't mind being a part of that community since that would likely be the ripest batch of people to encourage to take the final steps towards freedom*. However, I do believe I would rapidly become an outcast there since I wouldn't be participating in any activism and would disagree with ideas such as voting to effect change and/or changing the system from within. *

Language that is used to form a credible threat is in fact the initiation of the use of force. As is any language or other use of a person's senses to harm them.

No. The topic assumes that buying body cameras is positive reform. There have already been numerous measures undertaken to "keep police honest." Every one of them is predicated on the assumption that they will follow their own rules. By "they," I'm referring to those in power. Buying the body camera will not guarantee it is used. Wearing it doesn't mean it's recording. It recording doesn't mean the cop, his boss, a judge, etc won't tamper with or disregard the information it contains. Besides, even if it is used, recording, not tampered with, and is able to capture the specifics of a righteous shooting, this will not stop the leader-serving media from trying to incite slave on slave violence to protect the masters who steal from and assault all of us from scrutiny.

"Drowning in a world built on lies, illusions, mysticism, and tyranny" doesn't place us in a separate moral category where theft is moral. OP voluntarily created a positive obligation and refuses to satisfy it. If you try to add to the equation, you're essentially trying to make the prejudice that theft is moral fit.

Could you be forthcoming please? You went from asking what's the difference between forced and consensual to asking if an article of fiction is voluntary or not. I don't know what you're asking. It almost seems as if you're coming from the supposition that society must be organized from the top down. Present day, car insurance companies offer devices you can put in your car to measure how you drive. If you meet a certain set of standards, you pay less for your insurance. You don't HAVE to utilize this device, you're just going to pay more if you don't. So from my perspective, you first asked what's the difference between this arrangement and legislation (command back by threat of violence). Then you asked whether or not putting such a device in your car voluntarily is a rule that some people agree to. Assuming my interpretation is correct (you offered no feedback after my last expression of confusion), then I guess the answer to your question is: No, fulfilling certain criteria in order to demonstrate lower risk and therefore pay less in insurance is not comparable to some 3rd party that doesn't know you or have any claim over your property threatening you with violence if you do not comply with their arbitrary commands. I apologize if this comes across as frustrating. The differentiation is so simplistic in my mind that I can't help but think that either I'm not understanding where you're coming from or you're not communicating where you're coming from. Does that make sense?

The psychopaths that steal from and threaten ALL OF US desperately need us to focus on each other so that we won't talk about them stealing from and threatening all of us. And that's exactly what I would tell anybody who wanted to focus on such things. They perpetuate a system that threatens millions of people every day while stealing from the unborn. But hey, let's focus on a couple people that interacted one time, and only this, for months on end, making generalized statements about inconsequential minutia therein. Or if there's nothing so dramatic happening, let's focus on breakfast cereal flavors or what the beautiful people in Hollywood are up to, etc etc. ANYTHING to keep us from talking about whether or not humans exist in two moral categories where it's okay for one to subjugate the other. The part of all that I find to be the most depressing is how easily people who can see through it all are goaded into it by people who can't.

What rules? The only rules in a free society would be rules property owners have with regards to others using their property. So I guess the answer to your question would be that the person creating the rules owns the property and the people the rules apply to voluntary chose to abide by them in advance. I mean, isn't consent what makes the difference between rape and love making? Maybe I don't understand the question.