dsayers

That was the first thought that ran through my mind when I read your title. Do you think that the advent of the internet has served to counteract this by helping people to understand that we are all brothers and sisters in bondage? That it's not here vs there, but slaves vs masters? I can't tell if the internet is facilitating it or just making it more visible, but it seems people are frantically trying to connect with one another and figure out a way out of it all. A lot more awareness and discussion than 15 or even just 5 years ago.

I don't think bullying means what you think it means. The bulk of interactions in this thread weren't about the video, so suggesting it's due to the content of the video is misguided.

This was very touching to read. It sounds as if you're doing well without the use of aides, so keep it up! However, I realize you were asking for aides to partake of while you're doing something else (probably not the best way to absorb critical data). Here are some of my favorites: - Very long, but its starts with the basics of what is truth and how to arrive at the truth, later building from there. - A great follow up to the first few episodes of the introduction series linked above as it expands on how we think. - The first half talks about the biology of addiction, which can help ease somebody into the idea of the crucial formative years without outright calling their parents destructive (which I imagine would be a top source of resistance to any of this stuff). The Ghosts of War - Talks about the lose lose nature of human conflict. Has a groovy musical track too! - Non-FDR resource, it concisely and thoroughly explores objective morality and universal property rights.

Who is "we"? Why are you asking? The undertone of the thread is that if people can't answer these questions, then we must need institutionalized coercion (the State). Who cares who's going to pick the cotton? Slavery is immoral.

I wasn't suggesting that people who run a business for 40 years become immune to flat tires. I'm saying that 40 years of profitability provides all sorts of options. From having a nest egg so large you don't need active income, to selling your brand as a consultant with 40 years experience in business management, to things I cannot even think of because I haven't run a business for 40 years. Simply put, if you make a profit for 40 years and then your livelihood blows up and you end up in poverty, YOU made some serious miscalculations that I would describe as atypical.

So when a wolf, which is used to fighting against lesser beasts, but not supersonic lead pellets gets shot in the head, it's because the man that pulled the trigger hailed from a statist society? No, I'm not comparing the natives to wolves, but rather pointing out the overlooked technological disparity.

Pretending to not be able to know if deities exist will aide us in a fictional reality where deities do exist? If you say so. Agnosticism is a conclusion. Conclusion meaning the end of consideration. Conclusions are not tools. Tool meaning a device which enables us to something we couldn't do (as efficiently) without it. The only thing the conclusion of agnosticism (or theism or atheism) does is free up time and mental energy in considering whether deities exist. Or put more generally, the only tool role a conclusion fills is freeing up time and energy spent considering the subject matter the conclusion sums up. I think maybe if you spent less time trying to make unprincipled conclusions fit, you'd have greater mental dexterity and be able to see through some of these increasingly awful assertions you're making. You really do come across as a troll in this place.

Anybody that's savvy enough to run a business for 40 years is savvy enough to prepare for the unforeseen. You're really trying hard to make this fit.

What are you saying? Are you saying that we should believe in a deity because the risk of not and being wrong is disastrous while believing in one when there isn't is "harmless"? Or are you saying that you're going to believe in a deity no matter what and have abandoned the facade of intellectual exploration in the face of sound refutation?

No, the way capitalism works is the more value you put in, the more value you get out. What you're saying is that the muggers get richer and the victims get poorer. This isn't natural though; it's an effect of the aggression that is in mugging somebody. The problem with the phrase "structural violence" is that structures are inanimate and violence is a behavior. If you blame "the system," then you're not blaming the people actually initiating the use of force. They don't want you to focus on that so that THEY can be the ones to initiate the use of force.

Or framed in such a way as to depict that the ruling class is valid, as is them sending other people to die/kill.

I agree. Situational awareness "training," avoidance, and de-escalation will serve you better, easier, in more situations, with a much smaller bottom line overall. Even self-knowledge for the purpose of being able to read others better is more useful than knowing how to move once the fight has begun. Although there is one piece of firearm self-defense advice that I think is helpful: If you're drawing on somebody near to you, do not extend your arm. Keep in near your body to maintain control of the weapon. PRACTICE THIS at the range first since the recoil feels more like a mule kicking back when you don't have all of your arm and shoulder to assist in absorption.

Isn't posting a video on youtube using the free market to share ideas with others? He's not living his values!

What do you mean by rules? Private property is the product of the capacity for reason. The only differing moral categories are with and without the capacity for reason. You don't know that there will be a need for DROs, but there's no reason to expect that people would pretend they're in a different moral category. Also, there's nothing wrong with making mistakes. What's important is having rational thought, striving for win-win negotiation, and an acceptance of one's capacity for error and the property rights of others. With these things, any mistake we make can be corrected because mistakes wouldn't look like taxing an entire domestic population or terrorizing an entire foreign population like we see today. Suppose something like Bitcoin had been a mistake. Well, people will either alter it to fix the problem or withdraw the value they've stored in it. Even at a loss, this isn't something that would require us to figure out everything in advance. Not saying there isn't value in considering this and that. But the minutia of what the world might look like after everybody is freed from the cycle of violence is nowhere near as important as freeing people from the cycle of violence.

It's not necessarily about nomalizing pain. Once the wound is inflicted, you experience an endorphin high and the site is quite warm for some time. You may have noticed that not many people have just one tattoo these days. I think this is why.

Yes, I am aware that emotions are biochemical and therefore comprised of matter and energy. The point is that there's no "your suffering" without YOU. If you have a traumatic experience, that's within YOU, not the place you happen to be at in the moment. If you die there's no longer such a thing as "your experiences." You're trying to explore the possibility of spirituality from the starting point that spirituality is real. It's called begging the question. Your use of animal kingdom references to prove how creatures with the capacity for reason interact is of no use. Aggression is inefficient. No need to take my word for it. Look at your own life... You eat to stay alive and you live in a tax farm (country). Let us suppose for the sake of argument that your tax farmers steal X% of your productivity and it just so happens that you spend X% of your productivity on food. In order for the people who offer food (restaurants, markets) to get X% of your productivity, all they have to do is provide the food that you want. In order for the people who want to steal that X% and not risk harm to themselves, they have to set up an elaborate system whereby they mangle the language, control the minds of children, trick the adults into dependency, threaten all of the above with violence, build large buildings within which to punish those who do not submit, prop up themselves and their agents as being in a different moral class... One of these approaches is significantly easier AND inspires you to continue to engage in it if you had the choice. Let's look at what we know of space travel. When State space programs first began, they had the boon of the initial theft of their tax cattle (an unsustainable practice). Due to this, they had remarkable results at first. Fast forward a number of decades and State run space programs are being blown away by their private sector counterparts. So much so that here in the US, the State space program is availing themselves of private space efforts because it's already being developed. Please note that this is not some parallel since space travel is exactly what you're talking about.

Forgive me if this isn't the place to make such an inquiry, but this sparked something I've wondered for some time now. I don't fully understand Bitcoin myself despite numerous attempts to grasp the basics. What stops the blockchain from bloating ad infinitum? Didn't it grow in size at rates larger than anticipated due to unanticipated popularity? And this is just while tracking money; Wouldn't the inclusion of contracts, etc exacerbate this issue exponentially? Has anybody designed a way to truncate the blockchain every so often i.e. "as of X, this is the state of the blockchain and everything before it is culled for the sake of size." If so, what if somebody wanted certain records to persist? If such a mechanism was incorporated, what would stop people from flagging every single transaction as persistent?

Would such evidence be possible or necessary? By possible I mean that the capacity for reason comes from the brain, which completely degrades. I suppose cranial space would be an indication, but don't we already have such evidence? By necessary, I mean in terms of a logical exercise. If I described to you a square circle, you wouldn't need to challenge me to produce it in order to know I was lying. We know that today, we have the capacity to interact without violence. We know that violence continues anyways, in a cyclical fashion. Does it not follow that it had to begin SOMEWHERE? The only hole I see in my consideration is that a time when "humans" lacked the capacity for reason doesn't necessarily mean we dominated one another. I often argue that the initiation of the use of force is antithetical to self-preservation. As such, I accept that it is possible that such a consideration could be instinctive and not the product of an upper brain. I am fascinated by the possibilities. Allison Gopnik's discovery that present day, we are naturally empathetic is extremely important. It would be nice to understand how long this has been true. Especially since many supporters of the State assume human nature is savage (even though that argues against the State not for it).

I've seen this many times over. It's really sad to behold. I lament those who lack self-knowledge and those who are oblivious of that lacking.

Then we'd have to focus on whether every molecule was in the same place and the participants' memories were completely wiped of the prior 24 hours, and the memories of the people who did the wiping would have to be wiped... It's unattainable. Kind of like trying to derive truth from fantasy.

No, because emotions, suffering, and misery are neither physical nor external. Let us suppose that ghosts exist. If ghosts exist, then they can either imprint upon our senses or they cannot. If they can imprint upon our senses, then we could measure and substantiate them. If they do not impress upon our senses, then for them to exist or not exist would be functionally identical. Everything you're talking about can be summed up as "don't understand, so treat as if understood." This is anti-rational. If you think you know the answer, you stop looking for the right answer. Also, aggression is highly inefficient. To suspect that a race could co-operate to the point of achieving interstellar travel and then try to dominate another planet doesn't follow. If they didn't come from Earth, then that means we'd have SOMETHING of value for them and they us. Learning how to communicate and trading would be far more beneficial and sustainable than trying to subjugate from light years away.

What does belief have to do with anything? Can willpower alone directly influence the physical world? If somebody says "I believe in (G/g)od(s)," they're saying to you that they think believing in something is enough. They're also saying that either don't understand that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, or they are unwilling to think about/examining something before forming an opinion on it, which is intellectual sloth. Which is how I view the conclusion of agnosticism. "How can I know that a 2D object can't be a square and a triangle simultaneously?" Please. How do you compare aliens to deities/spirituality? Aliens would just be more of the same. The idea that in a universe so large that we would be the only intelligent life is virtually impossible. Whereas deities/spirituality is in direct opposition to everything we DO know about the universe. How do you liken the two?

It's true. The first time I had to pull a gun on somebody, I was sick to my stomach for three days straight. I'm up to having to do that four times now and my hands are still shaking once everything is said and done. I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it right now. It's necessary, it's preferable to the alternative, but it's no picnic.

There is no car. The point was preparation in advance leads to practiced decision. If the light turns yellow, I don't have to fumble in the moment for whether to proceed or not. Regardless of circumstances, I don't have to fumble with whether to initiate the use of force against another moral actor or not. This is important to understand because somebody that thinks aggression is an option is only going to engage in non-aggression when it's convenient for them. Let us suppose a person looking for sex. It takes time, effort, expense, and risk of rejection to woo a potential partner. Whereas rape is quicker and (in the context of superior might/guile) easier. If a person thinks rape is an option, they may attempt to woo for the sake of conformity, but the moment they are resisted, they will just rape. THIS person might have a "duress" moment where they have to decide on the spot what to do. Regardless of level of duress, I personally will never be fumbling with whether to rape or not because I've invested the time in advance to understand universal property rights. Is it clearer without the mention of cars to serve as a distraction?

Practice how you will perform and you'll perform how you've practiced. I'll give an example (and I accept that anecdotal evidence is not evidence). When I was learning to drive, my father taught me that while approaching a street light, to tell myself, "I can stop, I can stop, I can no longer stop." This way, in the moment the light changed from green to yellow, there would be no "duress". One way we can perform with greater intention in the moment is to prepare in advance. This includes consistent rational thinking and a principled grasp of universal property rights. Habit (even genetically) and modeling during formative years can play a huge part in this. Check out Alison Gopnik's The Philosophical Baby. I doubt it was always this way, but present day, it would appear that 1) Empathy is the default. This includes recognition and reward. 2) Epigenetics and nuero-elasticity allows us even to overcome trauma.