apples and grapes

Dude, clam down 0.o

I don't know about you but I face that "I don't think I know enough, I'm just some random" procrastinating over books problem =/

Yes you said something dumb, and I responded facetiously, and what was that? My third response to you? After I did an initial critique of your article. Your desperate desire to apply polemic to people rather then address the issues they have is becoming clear to me. So now you have issue with me saying you were "running around the FDR boards"? Can you possibly be more pedantic in your attempt to ignore what my 6 criticisms were?! Your accusation of inconsistency is still sloppy thinking whether it's "running" or "waltzing" or "moving" Please stop bringing up emotional attachment, it is dumb. My 6 criticisms are, and I repeat them again in part because you ignore them and in part because I'm sure it triggers you at this point. 1. Consent is a decent test for ethics, but is not the measure 2. The term "implied consent", where consent can never be implied, is confusing 3. Coercion is the flipside of consent, not a caveat 4. Your article takes too long to deliver the title promised logical proof 5. No logical proof was provided, only an attempted refutation of a single argument 6. This refutation consists of calling the arguement insufficient Which one of these am I emotionally attached to to such a strong degree? Cause I'm telling ya, the topic really doesn't effect me all that much, sorry. You writing poor articles just doesn't pull at my heartstrings as much as you accuse me of. Then again, you only bring up emotional attachment as a way attack my person so you don't have to address my argument. But let's say I am super-duper emotionally attached to my criticisms. Does that make it any less accurate? Nopity Look. It's clear that you don't want to address criticism. I understand that now. You present long winded pseudo-arguments for the sake of posturing, then when people disagree with you, you begin psychologising. Not to convince that person, but with the purpose of having them disassociate and no longer engage with you. You are not an honest person when it comes to discussing this issue. This is all speculation, of course, but the fact we don't know each other hasn't stopped you from playing pretend-therapist in all your responses, so I'll allow myself this opportunity

Yep, he's practically Prometheus meets Jesus bearing the cross. Wouldn't want to actually have to explain yourself further then "Convince people of self-ownership", cos ya might find out you don't actually have much of a plan! xD It is interesting though, he says the alternative we should adopt is to convince people of stuff, but he is hostile to, and refuses to engage with people who don't already agree with him

I would say that treason can be analysed in two categories, assault/murder and fraud Judas told the Romans where Jesus was, knowing that they would aggress against him in some way. Judas was causally linked with the aggression taking place, and the aggression would not have taken place if he hadn't betrayed Jesus. Therefore, he holds a lot of responsibility for the immoral actions that took place afterwards. It is this action where he initiates force against Jesus On top of that, there would have been a reasonable assumption on the part of Jesus that his disciples would not betray him. If this was a written contract, it would be a clearer case of fraud on the part of Judas (selling information he had promised not to sell). In not a direct violation of UPB, it would at least be a violation of APB in that he sold information that Jesus only allowed him privy to under the reasonable assumption that he wouldn't do so So I think treason is immoral. However, if Jesus was actually a murderer (dun dun duuun), then I don't know if I'd call Judas treasonous. So if, say, the entire US army 100% from accountant to grenadier was doing horrible, evil things, and one of the soldiers released information, that would not be treason. So take someone like Snowden, whether he is a traitor largely depends on what information he leaked. Say he leaked a document that proved Pvt. Douchebag murdered some innocent disabled children, that wouldn't be traitorous. If he leaked the location of some innocent spy undercover trying to idk save innocent disabled children from ISIS, I think that would be treasonous Thoughts? =)

Have you found this to be an effective process? I mean, let's say for the past year we all tried convincing people of freedom rather then trying to get Trump in (I'll accept for now your false dichotomy). If Hillary had won, there is good reason to assume her war posturing with Russia was legitimate and 100 thousands-10s of million relatively low IQ immigrants would be given citizenship (I just picked 2 things Trump won't do purely by inaction). I don't see how your method would help things. Let's say 100 of us FDRers managed to convert 10 americans to philosophical Ancapism in that one year (practically impossible from my experience). We now have 1000 Ancaps. So we have a couple choices in this hypothetical, 1. We ignore scummy politicking and get an extra 900 Ancaps in a nation of 318.9 million, but go to war with Russia, and have the population swell with relatively low IQ immigrants who have a proven tendency towards statism. 2. We engage in scummy politicking, do not get any extra Ancaps this year, but do not go to war with Russia and keep our current demographics Why should we have preferred 1 to 2? Because even if the hypothetical is wrong, it is the choice many people expected they had. Are the expectations provably wrong? Cos is Hilly and Trump would do the same thing, I would definitely see your point much clearer Also, I remember asking a while ago if you had considered calling into the show and you might not have seen it, or perhaps I didn't see your reply. Would you? Cos I think that would be a very interesting call, especially since you are so sure of your position. I love those criticism shows, and it would be interesting to hear Steffy-poo maybe have to backtrack his pro-Trump position =)

Jesus man, why do you even bother writing articles? I'm serious. I went to the effort to do a paragraph by paragraph critique of your article and you never address my concerns! I don't care about your pseudo-psychologising about why I need to believe x or y, why would I? We are strangers on the internet, not each others therapists! The critique of your article was self-contained. It stands regardless of my position on the matter (the fact you pretend to know my position is weird btw) You wrote an article. It was poorly structured, way too long, and didn't deliver on it's title promised logical proof. Learn to take criticism without jumping to accusing people of emotional manipulation, bias, and all that jazz. If you don't want feedback on your articles, just write them in a diary and don't bring them to the public forum 0.o The most glaring thing is that I never said I disagreed with you about voting, and haven't proposed any pro-voting arguments. My posts here have not been about me and what I believe. I offered a critique of your article, and you are desperately trying to change the subject to picking the brain of someone you've never had a conversation with before in your entire live Oh and it wouldn't be inconsistent of me to not go around accusing people of telling others it's okay to enslave their neighbours because I am not convinced they are. I am not convinced of your definition of voting, nor of the conclusions you have reached due to it. If I did accept your definition and conclusions, then you would be correct to accuse me of inconsistency. The communist isn't inconsistent when he accuses capitalism of being evil, while not accusing communism of being evil. He doesn't do the latter precisely because he is pro-communism. This is just sloppy thinking.

So for us slaves, fools and liars. What is the alternative?

Damn guys, he called what I said a strawman, guess I lose the debate -_- Let me rephrase then. "On the basis of this pathetic philosophical analysis (and I know you have other articles, I have read them), you take it upon yourself to run around the fdr boards calling peoples behaviour immoral". Better? I didn't read... Right... Cos out of the guy who did a paragraph by paragraph critique versus the guy who just took random quotes, it's the former who didn't read... xD I don't even know what you are saying with the coercion stuff. I never said it wasn't important, and if fact didn't even say much about coercion at all. The entirety of my point was that if you base ethics on consent, then the concept of coercion fits more as the mirror of that basis rather then being made a mere caveat. Like if you base a theory on internal consistency, then internal inconsistency would not be a caveat of that but a part of it. It is a fairly minor point, like with the "implied consent" thing. Yes, you are correct. You did address the assertion further in the next paragraph. And the address you made was just a one sentence re-assertion that you found the argument insufficient! "I do not think the fact that the candidate could decline is sufficient because a reasonable person would expect that they will". This "implied consent" thing is a non-issue. I have no issue with the principle, just the name. That's why I provided alternatives such as "reasonable assumption of consent". The man unconscious is implying nothing because he's busy being unconscious. You can, however, make a reasonable assumption that he would consent if he could. Hence, "Reasonable Assumption of Consent". Saying he "implied" something while in an unconscious state is not correct. Don't get so worked up about this buddy. Now this is the part I hope you read. I gave a 6 point, succinct, list of my concerns with your article. 1-3 are minor gripes. And it is 4-6 that are important. Your article is too long, with at least 4 paragraphs which could be deleted while doing zero harm to the content. You claim to provide a logical proof which you never deliver on. And what you do provide is a poor refutation of one argument pro-voting isn't immoral. All leading to my original ending point: The title of your article is misleading.

@dsayer On phone so can't quote sorry. The context of the following is your response to mine What impatience? My concern was with the name you gave the caveat, I know what the context was, what are you even talking about? How the hell does someone say "a term you used was confusing, maybe find another term such as x or y" translate to you as "defining terms is tedious?". Did you actually read my criticism? My criticism was self-contained to your article. I don't care what people on this thread say about taxation. You never mention taxation in your article, and I never mention it in my critique. Why are you responding to me about stuff others are talking about instead of responding to the stuff I said? Your responses seem almost like you didn't read my critique! Hardly "responsible and effective communication". I find it funny that you acuse others of not reading/processing things due to bias, while you don't seem to have read/processed what I've said (you definitely haven't addressed my core issue which is that the title of the article is misleading) "Isolating ideas in order to make your refutations seem accurate is disingenuous" Huh? Isn't that what you're doing in this article? Isolating a single pro-voting isn't immoral argument from all the rest to make your refutation seem more plausible? I was quoting you! You made an assertion with no follow up, I'm not isolating anything when you make a single sentence proclamation. And as for my criticisms which you claim have already been addressed, I don't think you know what they are. Succinctly thet are; 1. Consent is a decent test for ethics, but is not the measure 2. The term "implied consent", where consent can never be implied, is confusing 3. Coercion is the flipside of consent, not a caveat 4. Your article takes too long to deliver the title promised logical proof 5. No logical proof was provided, only an attempted refutation of a single argument 6. This refutation consists of calling the arguement insufficient Now, to add one last thing. Upon this absolutely pathetic philosophical analysis (and yes I know you have more articles, I have read them) you take it upon yourself to run around the fdr board calling other people immoral!

You mustn't want to know all that much about him then xD I for one want to know more, like what economic and foreign policy will he follow. And him wanting to ded Snowden doesn't tell me that =)

Yep Again yep, with such a volatile title I'd suggest getting to the point much quicker but to each their own Trying to do much of anything without clarity tends to be challenging. Prescriptive ethical principles cannot pass the test of universality and so are wrong, sure, but depending on who you're talking to you'd either need to spend more time proving this or it would be taken as a given and wouldn't need to be said. We don't think in a vacuum anymore then the mathematician does, we construct thought experiments to isolate variables which we then test by deducing from a core axiom... Unless that question about vacuum thinking was rhetoric... What would have to be performative contradictions? The moral actions? That's what the paragraph structure implies. Or do you mean that would be how we could test moral principles in our vacuum? Anyway, three paragraphs in and I'm waiting for the stuff on voting to begin. Consent? Can't we just point out the performative contradiction? Because that seems to be a much more useful measure. "Is the action, applied as a universal principle, self contradictory?" Now it could be contradictory due to a lack of consent, such as the situation of theft, but could also be due to other factors (such as the lack of choice rendering a nonactor immoral in the "Coma Test", which is contradictory because the concept of morality doesn't work without choice). Consent can definitely be one test in our analysis, but it is not the measure we use to evaluate behaviour. It seems akin to building a theory of mathematics on the principle of addition. Sure addition can be a useful part, but it is not the part. But yeah, still waiting for the voting stuff. Well this is one way of dealing with entire tons of "life boat scenarios", and not entirely without merit. However calling something "implied consent" followed immediately with "consent cannot be implied" ought to be cause to take you back to the drawing board to name this caveat better. "Timeframe of ethics", or maybe "Reasonable assumption of consent" might serve better and be less confusing. But again, to each his own. I don't see how coercion could possibly be presented as a caveat of a moral theory measured by consent. Coercion, to this Consentionist theory would then be the entire flip side. "What would someone be non-consenting of if not coercion?". It's like saying "I'm gonna build a theory of mathematics based on addition, with an important caveat of subtraction". I apologise that so far I've basically just been reviewing paragraph and argument structure, I'm still waiting for the logical proof. Finally, SEVEN paragraphs in and we've finally mentioned voting. ... So you accepted voting as immoral... Then changed your mind... But you've changed your mind again... Riveting. The argument for the non-immorality of voting is interesting, but I'd agree it's insufficient to me. That's why good theories have more then one argument backing it. If you only had the one confirming the non-immorality of voting, then of course you would find this insufficient. That's a fault on your part, not on the part of the argument. Eight paragraphs in, where is the logic? "Voting is a credible threat to bind others" is an assertion, not a logical deduction. "I do not think the fact the candidate can decline is sufficient..." is an opinion, not a refutation. Okay, so nine paragraphs in total and you don't at all provide a logical proof that voting is immoral. You ramble on for SEVEN paragraphs until finally saying that you found ONE argument against the immorality of voting insufficient. Then wrap it up with the vaguely paternalistic "Remember guys, it's important to question your conclusions and make corrections" which isn't a new concept to people. You should change the title of article, because logical proof it most certainly is not!

How is voting consenting to the state? Is a prisoner voting for better conditions necessarily consenting to their imprisonment?

Australia is oookkkaaayyy. But it's almost impossible to get a gun, we have socialised medicine (so try not get sick), and we have all the multiculturalism is teh bestest claptrap. On the other hand, at least for now, we have decent immigration policy. We've just come off of a terrible bout of a Labor government (replete with a disastrous coalition with the Green party, and lots of backstabbing for the PM spot), and now have the Liberals in (Republican-esque). So maybe there's some hope to hold onto some non-Globalism. imo, you may be better off going to a more Republican state of the US. Australia doesn't have the history of Liberty that the US has, I think I've met exactly 0 people familiar with terms like Libertarian and I live in a fairly Liberal state! Most people are conducive to the idea, but culturally it's just not there. Hopefully when Trump gets in, it'll help push Aus towards a better path.

In your initial response to me you said you aren't interested in why someone would vote, but at the same time you repeatedly say the reason why someone votes is because they want to own you or transfer ownership etc. Which one is it? Are you just certain of the reason behind someone voting to such a degree that you don't even think it worth while considering different perspectives? That's not me asking a stupid rhetoric question as some piece of sophistry (like when you question welfare and someone says "do you want people to die in the streets?"), I really want to know And calling something "passive-aggressive" isn't an arguement. Besides calling you out for posting something which added no value to a thread, shitposting, seems more assertive then passive-aggressive to me. So what do we do instead? Especially if Hillary gets in, what do we do to end the enslavement? To be fair, I put some effort to my first post and hoped for constructive criticism. And Dsayer read less then a paragraph before telling me I was wrong and something to do with already having spent too much time with company that doesn't listen (the irony of complaining about people not listening to him, while not listening to more then 1/6 of my post isn't lost on me). I don't know about others in the thread, but I have neither intimidated, misrepresented, nor have a grasped for straws. I accused him of spamming because what he posted was spam. And for anyone who gets a bad taste from reading someone call someone else out for a shtipost, there's probably at least one other who appreciates it. =) Again can't speak for other peeps, but I think at least in my case this is better directed at Dsayer since he didn't even bother reading past one paragraph of mine because ordaining I was wrong. =/

I find it odd that you think people want to own you, but I agree you aren't interested because if you did take the time you might *gasp* find that people actually don't know who you are and aren't interested in owning you. If you can't even get past one paragraph then why even respond to me? Go to /pol/ if you wanna shitpost m8

I'm not even sure that being interested in movements like Trump is going against Anarchist principles. I'm sure that most anarchists who if given the choice between Trump and Ancapistan would choose Ancapistan. And I'm sure anarchists who are voting for, or if outside the US are supportive of, Trump aren't doing it because they want to twirl their evil mustaches and utilise political force to get what they want done. Rather they are because the alternative is much worse. A prisoner who votes for 5 lashes a day instead of 10 isn't doing it because he thinks getting 5 lashes is a moral ideal, or because he thinks the guard has some right to lash people, but is doing it simply because he would rather not have those extra 5 lashes. (As an aside, a lot of these anti-Trump anarchists seem to jump to weird psychologising, telling you why you are really voting and what your act of voting actually means) Now it may be the case that this prisoner, if set free, would be willing to get someone to whip everyone 5 times a day (maybe it's his kink, whatever). And sure then he would be being immoral, and if he considered himself an anarchist, he would be going against his principles. But we cannot know for sure because he is in a state of coercion. Same with the political process. The anarchist is behaving under a state of coercion, so we can't say he's acting immorally or against principle. We can only speculate whether the anarchist would go against principle in the absence of being under coercion, perhaps if the anarchist was hitting their child. I guess my point is, if it's about principle vs practicality, I'm not convinced the anti-Trump anarchist position even is more principled! If you won't take the 2 minutes it would take to join me in the prison voting booth to reduce our lashes by 5, then despite your rhetoric you are helping the 10 lashers. And if I'm evil for going against my principles and supporting 5 lashes, then what does it make you to be supporting 10?

Hey dsayer, have you thought of calling in and chatting with Stef about this? You're likely to have greater reach since very few people who watch FDR spend time on the forum. Especially now that Mike says he's gonna vote for Trumpy-poo

If all people are evil, then surely they are evil. But by what standard? Surely it cannot be because people violate UPB, because not everybody does; So those who violate UPB are in the same category as those who adhere to it. A rapist is synonymous to a non-rapist. A = non A. It would also not make sense logically for them to argue with you given the evil of people as surly if all people are in the same moral category of evil regardless of actions then 'Save animal over human' is synonymous with 'Save human over animal'. Obviously this is silly, but I'd imagine it is super useful as an emotional defence. i.e. My parents/siblings/self/etc. cannot be considered wrong because, you see, evil is the natural state for everybody. The detachment of moral nature and actions is also interesting, akin to people who say they love x but do not love the way x acts. I don't know how you can have much success in helping someone out who thinks that you're evil, that they're evil, and that regardless of our actions our race is deserving of hatred and extinction. They seem to be in serious need of therapy and perhaps you could suggest it as a possibility. Other than that, I'd suggest not discussing the 'evil of people', 'people should all die' stuff with them as it turns too much to the abstract from the probable pain they had inflicted upon them as children and instead discuss the pain. Like how in FDR2600 Descended From Extraterrestrials... - Sunday Call In Show January 26th, 2014 where Stef wanted to focus on a callers history with distant parents rather then discussing his theory of how aliens aided our evolution.

No, you don't get in trouble for spoiling your ballot. The ballot is simply considered void and not counted into the vote, but you won't have to pay a fine or anything

I've yet to have the fun, joyous time of voting (I'm 18), but I'm Australian and we've had mandatory voting since 1926 or so. It's a hassle if you wanna vote, redundant if you do. It's also a good example of the 'wisdom' of statism, if I go to the polls and scribble "I like cheese" next to a crude drawing of a cat on a ballet paper, all is good. But if I don't go, then ignore the fine and escalation, then rape-rooms and death is a viable moral result. The difference between 'good to kill' and 'not good to kill' is, under the logic of the system, whether I make a cheese related cat picture on a ballet paper. Sounds legit So have fun donkey voting once every now and then

To my understanding the argument works the following; When you increase the supply of what Mises would call Fiduciary Media (or what we bundle as 'Money' today) at 100% distributed proportionately throughout all those who use the medium, nothing changes. Instead of purchasing an apple for $1, you purchase it at $2. Each unit of the particular fiduciary media (hereafter we'll call this 'currency) will fetch you less but that's okay because the about of unit you have makes up for it, ergo the value of the money the currency represents has not changed. With this knowledge, we can now examine the effects of when distribution of the increase is not proportionate, a more realistic circumstance. Were we to increase our units of currency by 100%, but then only give the new units of the currency to 10% of those who use it, we then would see a change in the value of the money. The new money would be pumped into the system of exchange by only that 10% of people, while the other 90% remain with the amount of units they had before. This disproportion will create a lag in which it will take some time for the market to correct for the 100% increase, and this lag is the incentive for the 10% to get this disproportionate increase in currency units, but let's presume (to keep things simple) there is no lag between the increase in currency units and the change in value of the money. The 10% can now buy their apple at $2, but that doesn't bother them because they hold vastly more units of the currency. The 90% now have to buy there $2 apple but since they still only hold the same amount of units of currency, they find there units to have dropped 100% in value. These are examples of imaginary constructs, or static analysis which economists use to determine truths about economic phenomena where experimentation cannot be done. We can deduce from these analyses the following law; Ceteris paribus, if you increase the amount of unit of currency, the value of the money the currency represents will either stay the same or fall. It is by equal proportionality of the increase in units that the Austrians can explain how money value can remain the same when an increase of the unit of currency takes place. And where there is a disproportion in this increase, the value falls. This is equally true for State money and private money. The difference is that the State holds a monopoly on the money supply which you are forced to use (legal tender laws, need to pay taxes in it etc), while private money holds no such monopoly. In the hypothetical wherein the State increases the units of currency which is then distributed disproportionately, money value goes down, but because they hold a monopoly, we must just grit our teeth and except the devaluing of our money. Were a private currency to do the same, people would just move out of that currency (they would still have lost money, but hopefully they'd now be more cautious and move to a money whose supplier won't pull the same trick, perhaps by contract). So while this is a problem for the 90% under the Statist paradigm, it would not be as much so in a state of freedom wherein people can simply move out of the devalued money. When Stef says that inflation is a result of 'overprinting', I would presume it is shorthand for this state of an increase in currency units which is disproportional in distribution to the users of the currency. If not, then he is incorrect in saying it. If that's the case, it doesn't really matter all that much since it is the same shorthand used by many Austrians when describing inflation. The reason for this is that the first instance where units are increased by 100% but the new units are distributed equally won't occur. To be more precise it could occur, but would be very rare. It would cost quite a lot to perform this increase, and it would service nothing. It would be detrimental to someone trying to make a profit (investing resources in an act which will change nothing about the value of the product), and would only be performed if the supplier wanted to perform the action for the actions sake (an act which is fine praxeologically, but would be punished in the free-market as not being consumer driven). I hope this wasn't too long, and may possibly clear some things up

It honestly was not my intention to come across as sarcastic.Could you show me were I did come across in that way for future reference? Also, I never said you didn't present yourself clear enough, hence me fully accepting responsibility for my misunderstanding and apologising. My contention that all instances are abstract stems from it requiring an act of isolation, in which the particular aspects of the instance of a tree are differentiation from those aspects of instance rock, cup etc. This act requiring a process of abstraction, ergo me saying that all instances are abstract. Abstract in so far as it requires a process of abstraction, isolation, to recognise the instance. I completely agree. Though I would add the caveat that it can be difficult to prove the invalidity of the concept Government to some who don't understand how the Government is a concept. Say those who would respond to us saying it is with "But what about the Government building, surely they exist. Therefore it's silly to say Governments don't exist". This is were the "Government is a concept, concepts only exist as mental integrations, therefore Government exists only as a mental integration" argument comes in, which then can follow into the argument invalidating the concept.

So the proposition is: The Government does not exist as it is a concept, and concepts are only mental integrations. However: There is a difference between the concept Government and instances of the concept Government. Therefore: To say that the Government doesn't exist because it is a concept and concepts don't exist is not appropriate. I don't know what "not appropriate" means, if you could explain that'd be great. If you meant incorrect, I'm then not sure how it logically follows. Obviously there is a difference between the concept and the instance, like the difference between Maths and the particular instance of 2+3=5, I don't see how this difference makes the argument invalid. I'm not sure what you mean by saying Mathematics only has abstract instances. All instances of concepts are abstract, as in order to speak of them we are required to separate the particular aspects of the instances which relate to the concept. My point of bringing up Mathematics was to show that with the removal of a connection to instances, a concept is invalid. I was trying to show that your proposed argument for disproving the existence of Government did not disprove the existence of it but rather invalidated the concept. I wasn't saying that an invalid concept could not exist in out minds, ergo, I was not intending to interchange validity and existence. I thought that was clear given my criticism of your argument on the basis that it invalidated rather than disproved the existence of the concept, I apologise if it was not though. I was under the impression that your argument was to show that the concept "Government" does not exist, a la forests, though now I'm thinking it was to show how the concept was invalid. If that's the case, I apologise for my misunderstanding. I completely agree to the first half. I don't see, though, what Stef's argument against the validity of the concept "Government" has to do with his argument regarding the existence of the concept "Government".

Perceptual concrete concepts don't exist in reality though, as they too are mental integrations. The only difference is the level of abstraction. A tree possesses specific distinguishing characteristics, such as it being a solid rather than a liquid, however there is no "tree-ness". The "tree-ness" of the tree is only an epistemological category, rather than a metaphysical one, a la Aristotle's essences. It is correct to say that a forest is an abstraction from the concept tree, and so doesn't exist in empirical reality, as long as we understand that the concept tree is too an abstraction and so too does not exist in empirical reality. So when Stef says "Government does not exist", he is correct as by definition a concept is a "mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted" (Introduction to O'ist Epistemology again). The "Government" is another highly abstract concept, like a forest, as so does not exist in perceptual reality, like a forest. Given that Stef's justification stands, I'm not sure why a new justification is needed. The issue I have with this is that it doesn't prove the concept Government only existing as a concept, which is Stef's position, but rather that the concept "Government" is invalid and has no meaning. To explain, let's replace the concept "Government" with "Mathematics". Now we say there are no concrete perceptual instances of concept mathematics. This is obviously incorrect, 2+3=5 would be an example of an instance of the concept "Mathematics". If there were not such an instance, we haven't determined that "Mathematics" only exists as a concept but instead that the term is meaningless, as if it lacks any instances, it's not a valid concept. Similarly, if there were no instances of the concept "Government", then the term would not even exist in conceptual reality (like the concept Durj987, which I just made up and which lacks any instances) but would be meaningless. If I've made a mistake, please correct me