dsayers

I assume the cooperation you're referring to would be like price fixing for example. It might sound good on paper, but doesn't bare out in practice. Let's suppose all providers of a certain product/service agree to sell their goods at a higher price than the market would otherwise abide because this pact means nobody would underbid them, meaning people would have to pay their price if they wanted the good. The first person to cross that pact is going to have as much business as they can handle and be a market savior to the consumers, who undoubtedly far outnumber the pact-ers. Competition and consequences are what make a free market self-correcting.

Useful how? Or did you mean "incredibly" in its denotative "lacking credibility"?

Discipline is itself a neutral word. If I stuff my gob with chocolate cake, that's my choice. If somebody else does it to me without my consent, it's assault. Similarly, the things we study voluntarily are disciplines, the act being disciplining ourselves. To discipline others without their consent is assault. @Daguras: That you're 15 has no bearing on the truth value of any objective claim you could make. There are 15 year olds who have spent years studying things I've never looked into, making them an expert compared to me. Plus, at 15, you're actually in a rather ideal position to weight in on the subject of parenting since you haven't had decades of romanticizing the experience to cloud your recollection. Going back to my original point, we have scientific studies that help us to understand where aggression comes from. This has nothing to do with you or your age. The person you're interacting with has provided a conclusion. His methodology for arriving at that conclusion was to assert that he turned out alright, therefore everything his parents did was infallible. Even if the conditional that he turned out alright was satisfied, that it means everything his parents did was infallible doesn't follow. Of course I would argue that somebody that condones and even speaks as if child abuse is necessary did NOT turn out alright. The problem you're going to face though is you're trying to use logic, reason, and evidence to change somebody's mind when they didn't use logic, reason, or evidence to arrive at their conclusion. If you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out Stef's Bomb in the Brain series. You cannot change people's minds until you understand WHY they think the way that they do. The person you're interacting with likely NEEDS to believe that violence is necessary because then he doesn't have to go through the world-shattering (from his perspective) process of facing the fact that his parents were sadistic and he was the instrument of their twisted delight.

What does "seem false" mean? Humans have the capacity for error, which is why we must reject what things seem to be when that contradicts the real world. Logic is derived from the real world. Specifically, the consistency of matter and energy. You're essentially asking if up has ever been proven to be down. No, it hasn't. Any proof that SEEMS to say otherwise is flawed. I once had a geometry teacher that had an elaborate proof of 1+1=3. However, upon examination, his proof presumed division by zero to be defined. Nobody else in class saw this though. Is that the kind of thing you mean?

He made this claim already, complete with threatening to abuse children. I guess it didn't get the fanfare he was expecting, hence this thread. I guess blaming people that understand that Santa Claus isn't real helps him not hold his parents accountable for modeling subjugation for him.

When I write something, I'm taking an idea from inside my head and putting it into your head. What you do with your copy of that idea has no bearing on me whatsoever. I cannot see how anybody would think it could be binding unless they started from the presumption that ideas can be owned. But this has been addressed for you so many times recently. Do you think that I think that if I address your "intellectual property" misgivings a 10th time, it will have a differing outcome from attempts 1-9?

Stating a fact or even just an objective claim is not selfish, even if you benefit from it. In the context of self-ownership (and therefore property rights) being valid, how can you claim to not know what to do about the property of others and why? If I make use of your car, it is binding upon you because you cannot make use of your car at the same time that I am. If I make use of my car, this is not binding upon you. If I'm in the same room as you and I take a drink, this is not binding upon you. If I'm in the same room as you and I yell, this is binding upon you. Does this answer your question?

I think the person meant to say monopoly on the INITIATION of the use of force. It is not true that property owners have a monopoly on the initiation of the use of force. If you are my guest, I do not get to initiate the use of force against you. Also, there is a huge difference in the State and property owner because the property is owned! Anything done in the name of the State is under the assumption that the State (anthropomorphism aside) owns everything and everyone within its borders. What part of them making exclusive use of their body to make this claim requires the State? They're not talking about capitalism if they think the State is a requisite. It would be like looking at a rape and saying that love making requires threats, screams, and tears. Capitalism is just another way of saying you own yourself and the effects of your actions and so does everybody else. When somebody uses the coercion of the State to erect artificial barriers to entry for example, this is not observing that would be competitors own themselves and the effects of their actions.

You tried this same bollocks over here. It was challenged before you created this 2nd thread on the subject. I asked you to clarify. Why did you not? One of the requisites of moral consideration is other people. To be moral, a behavior must be binding upon another and NOT violate their property rights. I see you repackaged it as self-interest instead of selfish, but how do you arrive at that conclusion? If you cannot provide sound methodology, the conclusion is meaningless even if you guess right (which you haven't).

Is it that you can't answer these or you won't?

Gosh, it sure would be nice if the post I made in this thread 12 hours ago could make it live already.

What are you talking about? Behaviors that are moral are binding upon another person but do not violate their property rights. How is not violating the property rights of others selfish? Morality begins with self-ownership and universalizing that to everybody owns themselves. That means 7 billion people that you recognize that you have no claim over. How is accepting that you only own 1/7 billion of people selfish?

Basically, it's "if you don't do what I want you to, then I will make you." The author of the app and the article don't interact with other adults in this way. Only defenseless, dependent, not-there-by-choice children. How appalling is that?

I can't answer for him, but I believe the answer is talk therapy. You're not fucked. Maybe you were fucked over, but if you internalize that, you won't be able to overcome it. Instead, you will just continue to seek answers to a question you can't read. Step one is calling things by their proper names. Like if your bedroom was a total mess, you wouldn't be improving things by putting your socks in your pants drawer, etc. You must first identify it as a sock before you can put it in its proper place. If you were abused or neglected and your takeaway is "I'm fucked," then you don't see the person that harmed you as the source of the problem. Which means you won't understand WHY you do this or that, which means any attempt to change them will be a crap shoot. Talk therapy can help you identify the source of the problem, the problem itself, and ways of processing it so that it doesn't have to be who you are anymore. Also, what is "worse problems" than adults abusing weaker, dependent, not-there-by-choice children?

"efficient political" is a contradiction in terms. Violence is inefficient in the long term. So nothing that is political can be described as efficient. Even if politics were not violent, it would be inefficient since there's now a 3rd party in a two party transaction. This means you're not only paying for the product/service, but also the administration overhead. It sounded as if the person who was asking the question was trying to make freedom fit into the current container of violence. You can't fault him for that. We're so used to the State being present in so many aspects of our lives, it can be challenging to imagine what it would look like outside that paradigm.

This language is vague if not misleading. What do you mean extract? Did the parents give/lend the money or not? Whether the answer is yes or no, the word extract wouldn't accurately describe it. Theft is taking something that belongs to somebody else without their consent. Was the sexual orientation/religion a presumption or an enumerated condition of the money being given/lent? If somebody invests in something without researching it (presumption), that is not the responsibility of others. If however, both parties agree that X is a condition of the transaction (enumerated condition), then to take the money while not fulfilling that condition would be theft.

Why do you ask? This is begging the question. "Is abusive tactics abusive?" Manipulation is being dishonest for the purpose of altering the behaviors of others. Those behaviors are still voluntary, so it's not the initiation of the use of force. It is pretty pathetic though and people will react negatively since there are more honorable ways of accomplishing the same thing. Not to be mistaken with coercion, which is defined by the initiation of the use of force. "Give me your wallet or I'll slit your throat," is not manipulation even though it's designed to alter behavior. The threat of violence IS the initiation of the use of force, which is why this is coercion.

Like him, you're misrepresenting the chain of causality. If I cannot convince somebody that 2+2=4, that's not a reflection upon me. His parents would've been the ones that taught him that 2+2=5 is dogmatic, or exposed him to those who did, or generally did not instill the capability to arrive at what 2+2= for himself. If you'll look again, you can see that from the very beginning, he had his prejudices and an unwillingness to alter them if they were revealed to be flawed in any way. To then later claim that others are responsible for his closed-mindedness is misdirection.

I totally rolled my eyes. I know that as I'm walking down the street, the most important thing on my mind is that every ant I walk past reveres me for the thorax-crushing potential that I wield such that should they not, I will take time out of my day to squash every last one of them. /sarcasm So a deity's default position is to kill, an alien's default position is to kill, violence is part of being human, violence against humans is okay and differentiating them from animals is arbitrary... How is that you're posting here instead of killing everybody you can get a hold of and/or fending off the murderous advances of everybody whose line of sight you cross? You're not living your values which means either you're lying to yourself or you are lying to us.

I think it would be more accurate to say your awareness of the so called justice system is becoming heightened. It's been a joke for as long as it was involuntary. It would be like you and me agreeing that you can fly, but then thinking that you would only fly in accordance with reality. You cannot limit the fantasies of others. You can't say to somebody that they have the power to steal from everybody, assault everybody, cage everybody where they will be raped, and murder everybody that resists and then expect them to use such a thing responsibly. If you believed you were bulletproof, you would think and behave differently than when you're e pluribus unum susceptible to bullet people.

Mr. Cotton, do you beat your wife so that she'll be better prepared in the event that somebody should want to beat her? You're not even willing to test your theory or think it through. Of all the nations NOT being invaded right now, how many of them would be invaded tomorrow if they ditched the State (so no tax structure to take over) and instead were individually armed? As it is right now, we live in a world that believes that if you siege Paris, you own France. In a free society, if you dominate one person, you own... that person, kicking and screaming, with anybody that witnesses it acknowledging that it's wrong. In other words, risk/effort skyrockets and perceived gain becomes negligible. States only work because their perceived legitimacy leads to slave on slave violence.

As a man who is allergic to brevity himself, I must say that it's hard to take you serious because you never seem to be able to say something directly. A kind of mysticism if you will. NOBODY is suggesting that we know everything. The conclusion of atheism is one that best describes the real world. If tomorrow, testable, provable, repeatable evidence substantiates the existence of a deity, then atheism would no longer best describe the real world. When you wake up in the morning, you can't know for sure that the floor is suddenly not solid, leaving you to fall to your death just getting out of bed. You get out of bed anyways because until such an occurrence, the consistency of matter has been a constant to you for as long as you've had the capacity to interpret such things. You're essentially saying that it is certain that nothing can be certain. Performative contradiction aside, you would essentially become Buridan's ass, perishing from indecision.

So it's okay to assault your children, but if people don't give you a satisfactory answer on how to address assault happening half the globe away, 2+2 no longer equals 4? Your parents made you skeptical about libertarianism by inflicting authority upon you for their convenience, which you've normalized to avoid facing the truth of your abuse. You've demonstrated in your every post that reality is of no interest to you and you are willing to discard any portion of it that doesn't conform to your prejudices.

So what? If people aren't using something, why would the something they're not using not getting innovated be a problem?

Hello, Nutrigirl26. Welcome to the forums. I would be interested in hearing how you came to find this forum and how familiar you are with it. Also, thank you for sharing this story. I don't know you, but I have read your story and have some thoughts I'd like to share with you about it. I don't know if self-knowledge is something that is of importance to you. I think you could benefit from more of it. Reading your story, it is clear how you feel about your father and why. However, it is not clear how you feel about your mother. On the one hand, you spoke of having enough emotional distance to not let her problems burden you. On the other hand, you spoke of spending time with her and playing games together. An important component of self-knowledge and wisdom in general is calling things by their proper name. It's important to understand that however you feel about your father, your mother is also responsible for. The only reason he is your father is because she chose him to be the father of her children. Which makes the act of her complaining about him to you ever worse since she chose him while you did not. She could've escaped him while you could not. She was basically saying to you that he is not fit to be a father, she put you in his charge, and what she's focused on is how that is bad for her with no consideration for you. This is an act of re-victimizing you for her benefit. It sounds as if these people did not have the capacity for EARNING your trust, love, and devotion. To compensate, they employed the socially acceptable trope that "family equals virtue." They couldn't earn your loyalty, so they taught you that it was owed to them at an age when you didn't have the intellectual fortitude to resist such indoctrination. I think this was most apparent when you said: People don't choose to be a sister, so I would argue there's no such thing as a good sister or a bad sister. Your parents created a voluntary obligation to him when they chose to have him. To be there for him is their job, not yours. The guilt you are experiencing is because it was inflicted upon you that "family equals virtue." Guilt is something that we experience when we are not living in accordance with our values. Only "family equals virtue" isn't YOUR value. It was implanted in you by people who were willing to subjugate you for their own gain. This is extremely important to understand because it seems to be the root of the agony you're experiencing. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to help him if you're able. I'm saying that it doesn't sound like you would be able to. If he fell off of a boat, jumping out after him wouldn't be helpful to him. You'd need to have sturdy footing and a firm grasp on the boat yourself before you could offer him a helping hand. I don't know how much of the things I've said to you so far were things you had already thought about yourself. If I'm right and it was news to you, then I think your time would be better suited pursuing SELF-knowledge. It sounds like you've had a couple decades of trauma and abuse. If you don't process it, you're not going to be able to help others in the same situation. I understand that being subjected to the same abuses and abusers, you feel a bond with him and maybe that's something you can re-visit at a later time. However, I would hate to see you not get the help you need because you're too busy trying to help somebody else because you were told that's the right thing to do. I hope this has been helpful. If you have any questions or if I haven't done a good job explaining this or addressing what you're feeling, please follow up.