Mole

I've already started doing this. I'm up to podcast 295. Definitely interested in joining the Skype group to ask questions, as I find some podcasts particularly confusing. I'll pm you my skype.

Any history?

Being just one young guy, it is difficult to get a real understanding of just how screwed up my environment really is. I have to constantly make sure I'm not projecting. I know the grass is greener on the other side. I see beauty in my dreams and in art. I can see beauty in my relationships, even if it is occasional and may last for only a couple seconds. I know something is very wrong, that is obvious. Not all ideologies can be right at the same time. The statistics indicate something is wrong. Off the top of my head, 1/4 people will have a mental illness this year, 80% of the world lives in poverty, 90% of parents hit children, 90% of the population is religious. These statistics indicate something is very wrong, but it's also very abstract. Perhaps the only way to understand the world is to first understand yourself and contrast the world to yourself. However, I hope I can reach some empathy with the world so that I can connect to it instead of living in a constant state of mild paranoia. Are there any books that talk about mental illness? The matrix? More sad statistics? Love and emotions? I understand the economic and political theories. It's time for me to understand the social theories, but this is something that I think this is not really talked about in the greater sense of things. We can talk about depression or spanking children, but what does that mean for my culture?

I've sent a requestion

I misunderstood you, and I agree. With a topic such as dreaming it is something to be talked about openly. Sorry. She hasn't had much to say about the dream. I asked her if it would be okay to put it on the forums and she said it's fine. Since posting this, I have come up with some interpretations that I think are well supported. I told her that I have some new interpretations and she's really interested to hear it, but I've been really busy this week. I will find a time where I can talk to her about it. I am not surprised that I lack that ecstasy. In fact, I feel the same as I was before I met her in general.

I really appreciate your reply and I agree with you except for some minor points. For example, I have great skepticism over the 9/10 of communication is non-verbal statistic. I'm glad we have shown agreement. What I'm trying to do in this conversation is understand your position more clearly to see whether it really does apply to me. I'm not sure how to use the reply options so I'm not going to quote you directly. About the temporary thoughts thing, what I'm saying is that it is perfectly healthy for people to think about stuff without real meaning or consider views without adopting them. An example is perhaps your friend woke up with a massive pimple. They turn their head around and you just go in your head "That indeed is a massive pimple". Are you really going to spend time talking about it? Sure, you can but the other person is probably going to think you are implying something because people usually don't bring up something unless they want to exchange ideas and get feedback. That is communication. I agree with you that it is important to understand thoughts and judgements, and especially feelings. But I'm not talking about feelings. Another more serious example is questioning what is love. "Do I love my sister?". You can only know the answer if you critically think about it. After a quick think you will say "Of course, I can bring up many examples of when I was really happy with her and times I admired her virtue". I think the words I used in my other post suggested I meant more of a feely, unconscious bias judgement thing which is not what I mean. I would consider it very important to bring up something like "I felt anger when I saw my sister", or "I don't want to cook for her". I think those things exist in a different category to the skeptical nature of the mind which questions and considers everything, which is perfectly healthy. If you went to your sister and asked, "Do I love you?", she will assume you have some doubt. You don't have doubt, even if you were thinking about the question. I'm very skeptical, so I'm constantly asking such questions and I think it's a great thing because it shapes your understanding of concepts. "SO did she really not pick up on the fact that you were facing periods of depressive symptoms and feelings of low self-worth?" I don't know. She has said that she had one friend before who told her she had depression and she had never guessed. I may be stressed and sad at times, but when I talk to my girlfriend, that is something that is always part of the conversation because maybe I can be stressed and sad and interested in something at the same time. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I do find it difficult to imagine why she would think I'm depressive at the early stages of the relationship. Right now she can tell when I'm down or when I'm anxious and she has told me which shows she does connect to me at the moment on a level. Other times I'm not, and we really enjoy being with each other. She always says she likes the happy me, so why should I think she's attracted to the sad me? She often finds it hard to relate to me when I'm sad and when I tell her I have low self-esteem and I think it's reasonable to say that she has not faced these issues at the same level I have. "SO why don't you present your definitions of love and falling in love?" I should have given a definition in the original post, but the reason why I ask you this is because I think we probably would disagree on the definition given what you have said. My understand is that loving someone is the involuntary response to virtue if you are virtuous, but that this only grows over time and is a kind of sense of admiration, mutual respect, trust, support, likeness, etc. As I understand it, falling in love as it is often called is a deep hormonal response in the 'honeymoon period'. The big three. Lust, attachment and attraction. I don't see why those have to do something with virtue necessarily. From what I have read in RTR "The love bomb" and talking to others, this does not necessarily happen only to virtuous people. Perhaps I am wrong in that, but if I am, I want evidence or reason for why I should believe I'm wrong. Perhaps I misunderstood RTR, I'm only half way through. Thanks again.

I do talk about it openly, and I hope you understand that being too open can be hurtful to any relationship because temporary thoughts can arise that after more consideration you don't actually mean it, realise you didn't communicate it properly or was being controlled by your unconscious mind. Don't take my word for it, Stefan the lord and saviour has said so himself that it is a bad idea to say everything that comes to mind in a relationship (I don't mean that in a patronising way). So, when you say you hope I have a relationship wherein I can discuss these topics openly, I hope you consider this perspective. I have already been too open with her, and it ends up in a mess of misunderstanding and being LESS able to empathise with each other. She says I'm one of the most honest and frank people she has ever met. I have thought about the proposition that people have low self-esteem because they lack self-knowledge and that people of low self-esteem may attract each other and not really love each other. I believe this is what you are trying to say and please correct me if I have misunderstood you. I'm trying my least to make assumptions. It is brought up again and again. However, it is not something I connect to. In fact, most of the things brought up in this community, I don't fully understand and can't imagine how it applies to my life. She did not know I was depressive until I told her so why would she reject me? She has explicitly told me she did not consciously know I have low self-esteem until I told her. Why does that say something about her own self-esteem? You say women have a keen eye for these things. You do understand that I'm not always depressed and don't always have self loathing. From my limited, humble perspective, she has very high self-esteem. She claims to have great self-knowledge and I cannot find evidence to doubt that. In fact, I only have reason to believe it given her life transformations and incredibly high self-determination. Does my low self-esteem come from low self-knowledge or something more trivial like my sociability? And what is falling in love? Perhaps our experiences are too different. Your hypothesis is beautiful, but I'm having trouble understanding how it makes sense in my life mate. Either other community members are naive and take what is said in this community for granted, they find it applicable in their lives, or my understanding is defective. I spent 3 bloody hours last night just trying to figure out what the hell the unconscious mind is. I admit it, I don't know anything! It's extremely frustrating. It could be a proof of my lack of self-knowledge. I guess I could have a better idea by asking you this question: are the concerns and questions I have raised above at least possibly reasonable in your perspective? Maybe I only have a very surface level understanding of what you are trying to say.

Something about a Japanese Buddhist and playing bollywood music to a taxi driver over the phone.

Some background information. I have a girlfriend. I love her although I haven't fallen in love (no nirvana). She's my first girlfriend and we have been together for about 5 months. I wish we saw each other more once or twice a week, but it's not practical to do that. Every time we get together I feel deeper for her, I think it's a great thing. Despite this, I do have depressive symptoms (not depression) and I do sometimes feel inferior to people around me, or at least to what I should be. My father ran away from his daughter when he was 18 and ran away from me when he was 45-50 and when I was about 7. I am now almost 20 years old. So he ran away twice, keep this in mind. On to the dream... I am at the local beach with my girlfriend, although, I call my girlfriend my daughter in the dream. I think it was some time in the evening but I can't specifically remember if it was really night time or if it was day time. She turns her back away from me and I run away from her as fast as I can. For some reason, I had the desire to lose her. I run right along behind the bushes which run parallel to the beach. She looks through the bushes from the other side and sees me running away from her. She catches up to me along the footpath that's next to the beach but on the other side of the bushes that I'm running along. She gives me a big hug and I say "I'm not good enough". She turns her back and I run away again. She's faster than me and she catches up to me again. Then the dream totally transformed into something else. This dream is short but probably has some very powerful meaning! There are so many ways of looking at this. Is she superior because she runs faster than me? Is this a sign that my dad felt inferior? Am I actually the daughter -- Should I try harder to find my dad? Why is my girlfriend also my daughter? I am not smart enough to figure out this dream on my own but I'm pretty sure this dream means something. I have no desire to run away from my girlfriend, even though it's true I sometimes don't feel 'good enough'. It should also be noted that I occasionally used to have very powerful dreams of falling in love with strangers. Pure ecstasy. I always wonder if that feeling could ever happen to me.

I've noticed he puts his fingers up to his mouth. I can imagine it. But I can't remember any time I saw him biting his nails.

I think this raises a new question. Why out of these multiverses was it possible for at least one to be able to sustain life? I think the argument is circular. We explained that earth is so special because there are thousands of other planets out there and that wasn't good enough for us. Now we are saying there are thousands of other universes out there. It still raises the question, why should a universe be able to support life at all? We used to ask, why water, the sun, bacteria, etc with regards to our planet. Then we asked why gravity in the way that it is, why the elements, why the big bang with regards to our universe. And now we may ask why gravity at all, why energy, why consistency, why quantum fluctuations, why consciousness with regards to the multiverses. As I understand it, all the different universes have different behaviour (different forces, different units, etc). But they still abide by logic. They are not impossible worlds, just very different to ours. So it raises the question, why is logic itself able to sustain a multiverse which has our universe in it, which has our planet in it. (Maybe this is a silly question? Indeed, perhaps the multiverse theory is itself illogical) Not much can be further on elaborated on in my mind because to be relativistic about logic is to contradict the very form of your argument and of your being. To say there are universes where logic doesn't exist is to say they don't exist by definition.

With regards to violence, for me, this is just a matter of semantics. The initiation of force is immoral. If this means violence, then so be it. Violence could also be defined within the context of self-defence. It totally depends on your definition of violence. A better word to describe immoral behaviour would be aggression. Aggression being the initiation of force. This fits in with the non-aggression principle. A person acting in self-defence is not necessarily being aggressive. As for physical force, this is not necessarily aggression. It isn't necessarily the initiation of force. It could be in self-defence. In your example, the person you would be stopping is the aggressor. You are not an aggressor because you are acting as third party self-defence. As third party self-defence, you have made the judgement that without your intervention, vis-a-vis physical force, the initiation of force would have occurred. Therefore, you are not the initiator, i.e., the aggressor. We can deduce to aggression, or rather, the non-aggression principle as a natural law. To see how this is done, consider argumentation ethics or universally preferable behaviour.

It's funny you bring the book up because I'm wondering about this AFTER I just read the book! I remember one chapter contained an exercise you can do with your parents: Firstly, ask them what is the capital of Madagascar is. They probably won't know. Secondly, google it and let them know. Thirdly, ask them what is goodness? I find it assuming, to say the least, and if not, downright cynical that Stefan says: "I absolutely guarantee you that there will be an instant chill in the room - there will be an enormous amount of tension, and your parents and probably you will feel a very strong desire to change the subject, or drop the question." I don't think the answer is so simple but we do have some general rules. Such as telling the truth is good. Showing respect is good. I think most parents would agree if we gave specific behaviours. If this question should be so easy to answer, surely the FDR community would know. So I'm asking. So are you saying it is different for different people, but for the FDR community it's countering social metaphysics as an example? It seems contradictory to say goodness is defined by personal judgement when I thought personal judgement is defined by goodness.

I'm sorry if I've glanced over it. There are so many podcasts. It can get messy and confusing. I'd like a concise definition and explanation. Thank you.

I just had an idea. Have you considered dating girls from another culture? I know western society is heading for the swamps. My girlfriend is Chinese. They hold strong family values.

Who can stop them? I don't know the biology behind it but I think it's irrelevant. They think they are men so kind of by definition, they think they are entitled to use a man's restroom. If they put so much dedication into it, why would you be concerned about them going into a men's restroom? A part of acting like a man is not staring at other guys dicks while you're in the restroom. If you can't help yourself, why did you becoming a trannie? The restroom isn't a doctors clinic where biology is actually important. It's a community run service in my mind. If they use it wrongly, and people start complaining, jokes on them because then they know they aren't really a man and their whole entitlement argument falls apart. It's just a risk for them, it's up to the community whether they will tolerate it. But by looking at those photos, who's gonna know anyway. If they are semi-trans, then unless they are going through the transition, they aren't fully dedicated and they don't really think they are a man they won't think they are entitled, so it's fine to keep them out. Everybody is happy in my mind. The biology is irrelevant because it is a social dynamic. It's what people think that matters. If nobody thinks you're a woman, it doesn't matter. If there are a lot of Muslims in the area, expect a lot of prayer rooms. Don't be mad at the capitalist. Expect the prayer rooms regardless of whether Allah is great or not. A restroom and a prayer room are social constructs. You're begging the question.

I'm sorry to hear about your concerns! I think that MGTOW can only do harm to sex relations. Imagine if people stopped being friends with blacks because of high crime rates and what not. We must remember that the end goal is to become closer, not further apart. Rather than justifying feminism by discriminating against women, it is better to prove them wrong and show them that a healthy relationship is possible. They will be envious of it. If you go MGTOW, good women will be discouraged and feel discriminated against. They will have no incentive to be good. Feminism will inevitably get bigger. It just makes logical sense. Women aren't going to disappear. They are needed for reproduction. The obvious answer to your fears is to find a woman you trust, right? I think if you don't trust a woman with the legalities, how can you trust her with your life and your children? Virtuous women, that is, women you can trust, are attracted to virtuous men so to attract women, you got to work on yourself. Even if you are not actively dating online or whatever, they will come. Why? Because everyone is looking for a relationship but good relationships are not ones you can mould to your liking. All you got to do is be around single women, whether it be through work, study, groups or clubs. I met my girlfriend in a philosophy club. She was the only girl there! But that kind of selective factor made it much easier for me. The majority women are not good, because if they were, you wouldn't be having such a hard time finding them. So ask yourself whether you are putting yourself in a situation where you will meet the lowest common denominators. I think online dating would fit into that. Luckily as a guy, you have more time to spare. Lifelong marriage and having children is such a great and crucial thing, ask yourself how much effort you are willing to go through to get it and ask yourself what would being virtuous mean without it. I really hate the word dating because it implies you can know the future. Never make it your intention to enter a relationship because love is involuntary. I am much younger than you and don't know your situation but I hope you found something useful in my post.

Feelings care about facts.

Maybe you don't, but some people might care about my reasoning followed by my perspective because they sympathise with it, and therefore know there's a greater chance that their feelings are justified. Like when you go to see a therapist, regardless of the evidence you already have. That kind of sympathy is important because people don't always react the same in the face of evidence. People aren't perfectly rational.

17:24 He did not say Stefan said that. He said that Stefan believes that "global temperature has always been stable". Perhaps stable was an ambiguous word, however, he's really saying Stefan believes that global temperature variables are not greatly interdependent and thus, stable. That's why he brought up times Stefan vaguely suggested that, and that's why he argued against that. He did not say Stefan said earth's temperature hasn't changed, he did not give examples where Stefan suggested that, nor did he argue against it. 10:30 That's a valid argument, Mike. He didn't let Stefan make the argument for the magic multiplier, however, if memory serves me right, the argument I have heard come out of Stefan's mouth is that it is rare to have positive feedbacks in the natural world. Other than that, he's had guests such as Christopher Monckton claiming to have evidence against it. potholer54's argument is still sound. He did not say everything Christopher Monckton said is dismissable. 4:50 That's a true statement but that's irrelevant to his argument. He did not argue that this is why Monckton is wrong, or that it discredits him. His argument is that it does not give him credit. To be fair, Monckton never claimed that it gives him credit. 2:50 I assume by X you mean a conclusion about the physical world. "Now clearly there's something wrong when everyone's measuring average global temperature, and only one measurement is way out of line. Even Roy Spencer agreed there had to be something wrong with the RSS data." Since he uses the word 'agreed'. his suggesting that there's something wrong with the RSS data because of the consensus. Your argument is valid, however, I would be careful not to dismiss potholer54's whole argument. Another user in this thread linked a video by potholer54 suggesting why this is an invalid argument. If you aren't open to immediate feedback after your argument by your opponent, then you have not made an argument because your argument is no longer subject to falsification. Every argument about the physical world must be subject to falsification. Not an argument. I have been a loyal FDR listener for four years. I know this show is not friendly towards conspiracy theories. But from my perspective, this climate change conversation has many parallels to conspiracy theories. Firstly, the misrepresentation of evidence that can be verified by as Stefan calls it, "a quick google search". (I don't think the best science fiction author could have made it all up). Secondly, the interviews with these people who most definitely believe in conspiracy theories such as the New World Order. And thirdly, there's an underlying narrative, namely government corruption. If these things are true, I think you could empathise with how I feel. Please show me how I am wrong or misinterpreted your rebutal, because my perception of your mistakes doesn't support the notion of philosophical rigour in this conversation. I know many great thinkers such as Thomas Sowell and Christopher Hitchenst can have a certain level of cognitive dissonance, I hope this isn't an example of it.

Wow. That's exactly it.

Recently, I have been thinking about visiting a mental health youth centre. I would go through a 1 hour interview, and they would show me their services. Some of those services are free. I definately have some emotional problems. Thanks Mike.

I'm going through a critical time in my maturity. I am 19 years old. I'm experiencing things I've never done before. I'm finding out how to interact with the world and what is appropriate. I found this show much earlier. I started listening when I was 16 years old. Iv'e listened to at least a 1000 shows by now. I am an anarchocapitalist, I am an atheist, I have no unchosen obligations, and I'm very happy with the people around me. Am I happier now? No, I'm more depressed. How should this be possible? I think I made a grave mistake... I have a bunch of different emotions running through my head. It's these emotions that reflect my desires, that is, the true self. Rather than accepting that I have no free will over these emotions, I tried to rationalise them using logic. I tried to justify my behaviour. Should I kiss her? Is that in line with monogamy? What should my career be? Is that in line with UPB? Can white lies be justified? Do I have a moral responsibility to inform others about philosophy? The list could keep going on... I believe what I have done is conflate morality with the true self. When Stefan speaks, it is kind of assumed that you are a functioning human being who knows what makes you happy. For example, if someone calls in with a very particular topic about something happening recently in their life, it's unlikely that they will delve into self-knowledge, because if that was the problem, then they would most likely bring that up. Topics such as, how many times a week should you have sex or is it okay to drink alcohol don't come up. These are, catagorically speaking, aesthetic questions, and only now do I realise that these aesthetics are completely uncontrollable and subject to the true self. Morality attempts to dissolve what impedes upon the true self, rather than justifying the true self. It is impossible to escape the true self. If you try to rationalise your behaviour, you will inevitably rationalise your emotions, and when you start rationalising your emotions you will fail because emotions aren't subject to being universal. So you will create these theories which will try to attempt to explain your behaviour and feel intuitive. For example, men make bigger risks in gambling when a woman who is on her period is standing next to them rather than a woman who is not on her period. This level of behaviour is far below anything the conscious mind can percieve. The man might justify his behaviour with these complex theories such as it is moral to bet more when a woman is nearby because it makes her feel good and that is an exchange of value, or some other weird theory like that. He won't ever understand why he really is behaving the way he is. (Please pay attention to this example, it summarises my whole points ^) I believe it's my wanting to justify my behaviour that lead me to this show in the first place. I have always been obssesed with philosophy. Albeit, it has not made me happier. I feel I am becoming more detached from my true self as these rationalisations start overwhelming my pure emotions. This insight into myself is huge. Please don't mistake this as a criticism of any sort. From an intellectual standpoint, I am grateful to learn what I have learned. Even if I have used philosophy to bury my true self, I know it is also a part of my true self and a part of my inquisitive nature. That part will stay with me, and I'm sure that it will prevent myself from coming in contact with toxic, manipulative people in the future. So what now? I have a number of big opportunities ahead of me. I believe these opportunities have actually driven me to come to this realisation about myself and write this post. A way of my unconscious mind sort of saying, "Hey, these decisions are important. Are you sure you know what you are doing?". Thanks, unconscious mind. I will go head first into these opportunities, and I will allow my emotions to guide me. I have learned that it is perfectly safe (and necessary) to do so as long as I follow my moral principles on a very strictly, moral level. Forget applying it to the aesthetics. I am very, very lucky meet the people I have met, and have the opportunities that I've been given. It should not be squandered. It is not a coincidence that I am where I am. It is not a coincidence that I have befriended the people I have befriended. It isn't a coincidence that I'm doing the course I am doing. My true self was nudging me the entire time and I have just made it a struggle for myself. This is how I know I am on the right path, and it's okay to let go.

There is no point in having an opinion if you don't know how to come to your own critical opinion in the first place. Stefan's videos and podcasts are great, and Iv'e listened to at least a thousand of them. Though, I think they would be of much greater value if I could critically analyse them. When I debate with people, when I interact with people in general, I feel a great lack of empathy from myself and people around me. Arguments are usually misunderstood, and emotions can flare. Sometimes I will go into a debate but then find out Iv'e misunderstood a single word at the very start, and I will find they they have also misunderstood what I have said. I have always had this suspicion that the world just generally lacks empathy, and people don't even know it. A suspicion that if only I could learn some core empathy, my ability to reason would go into hyper drive. People think they are social and intellectual geniuses within their own culture, but as soon as they clash with a different culture, they feel anxious and lost. I want to get rid of these cultural barriers, I want to learn the one thing that makes us human. Empathy. Where can I learn it? Is it something you get from therapy? Self help books? Can it be learned from logic and philosophy courses? Perhaps FDR has some series on how to think?