Mr. Roth

In my experience it works best to point out how insanely dictatorial and sadistic Yahweh is, by quoting him. Like Hosea 13 and similar, how he orders ripping the wombs of pregnant women open and bashing their infants against rocks... stuff like that, there's plenty. Move from that onto the ludicrously pointless mosaic laws, like how people should be killed if they were different fabrics simultaneously. Once they cannot deny that Yahweh is a psychotic megalomaniac, you can move onto the nihilistic morality preached by Jesus - and perhaps give the historical context in regards to mass slave suicide and rebellions around the time of the Nicaean council.

What does "the public good" and "the public interest" mean?

I hope the stuff you "partially agree" with is the introductory exposition only. The following conclusions are much too easy to see through. True, it's not the "usual" leftist garbage - "usual" in the sense that the leftists don't usually bother with camouflage.

Interesting how she considers it "chivalrous" to take a beating without retaliating. I thought chivalry implied concepts such as justice and compassion, not abject masochism and tolerance of aggression. It's like reading Orwell.

Right, you're referring to replication vs survival value I assume. I don't think it's equivalent at all though. A bra size is a coincidence of nature (or plastic surgery). Making millions at such a young age is an indicator of great business skill and probably very high intelligence. Also good principles, since he is producing something valuable that people are willing to buy: win for him, win for his customers. That's what moves the world forward. (I'm of course taking for granted that he didn't cheat or scam his way to his wealth.) The only way I see it as a bad opener is that he would risk attracting a bunch of gold diggers. However, in most other settings it would probably be the best opener, right? Like on your CV for instance. It's basically a shortcut to describing a bunch of positive character traits, with proof included.

Why is starting your own business and making millions from it at 23 bad?

People arguing against defoo should watch this.

Very professionally filmed, good acting, and most important - powerful message. Kudos 'sah!

Evolutionary psychology indeed. From that perspective, the male's objective is to spread his genes wherever able, and can do so at any time. The female can only do so every 9 months, at the risk of her life, at the cost of many resources, and whilst being pregnant is close to incapable of fending for herself and gather her own resources. Hence, the female must be far more selective about who she gets impregnated by. However, many studies show that women, during ovulation, are more attracted to stereotypical 'alpha male' types, both physically (such as a physique that indicates high testosterone) and behavior that reveals "toughness". When not ovulating, they are more attracted to nice guys with more feminine traits. The theory is that they want their offspring to have the "strongest" genes, but since the "alpha" males of primeval times had access to many women through superior force, these males were unlikely to commit to any single one female, except perhaps the 'alpha female', while still having sex with the rest. So the women want the genes of the alpha males, yet also require a reliable nice guy to help them through pregnancy and help them raise their offspring. So, the pre-coitus hesitancy stems from not wanting to get impregnated without certainty of access to resources. You could say that pre-coitus anxiety in females is equivalent to approach anxiety in men. Both are taking a risk. Men risk, by approaching stranger women, that they are intruding upon another man's tribe or hitting on a female who is 'taken', which could very well be lethal. For most, the approach anxiety males feel is totally out of propotion to the risk they are actually taking in our modern world, but back in the day, it was an easy way to get killed, so those who weren't hesitant probably tended to get wiped out. It's similar to public speaking anxiety which also used to be a potentially deadly risk. Of course there are many other reasons in every individual for what they feel and do based on their life experiences, but this is the evolutionary perspective.

Danish born and somewhat bred, from CPH. Vi er da et par stykker.

Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, AYN RAND! (Leonard Peikoff) Also Aristotle, Cicero, Epictetus, Aurelius, John Locke. Also have read the rest of the big names but they're only worth something if you want to stay in the cave, or maybe try and become bipolar. Btw... Great philosophers like Nietzsche? And PLATO?! That's hysterical, but you probably should let people know you're joking, lest they'll end up wasting their precious time or succumb to lunacy. Those guys are more responsible for misery throughout history than perhaps anyone, especially Plato, who also with his insane relativist notions created the Middle Ages, and hindered progress for approx a millenium.

Where is the anger, and when is it directed at you?

Not sure if you're making a general statement or referring to my post Austin, but as for superimposing, that is hardly what I would term the raising of questions about moral dilemmas in a public chatroom on this type of site. As far as elasticity of expectations, I hope that any thinking person here would feel obliged to raise the ongoing conversation to a certain standard (conceited as that may sound), when the topic being discussed was shit (I use this word because it was literally the topic). "Curiosity is key to avoiding disappointment in human interactions"; I certainly agree, but one's curiosity really... really has to stop way before detailed discussions on fecal-matter (again, literally). I feel vulgarized for even relaying this information. _______________________ - Agreed dsayers, with respect, but if a person's intuition tells them that another person is being 'pretentious' just by asking a question, isn't it more constructive and fair to tell that person in private, rather than making it a public statement followed by schoolyard ridicule? Perhaps sharing this is pointless since you'd have to take my word for it.

I'm of course reserving judgment (it would be reckless and foolish not to) and was not referring to the community at large, yet it can't be denied that first impressions always make a significant impact. The reason I was trying the chat was because it is real-time - the best philosophy was always produced in conversation rather than in correspondence, is it not? However, the humble and well-phrased responses from the above gentlemen have restored my optimism as to the mien of this community - especially thanks for the reminder concerning the 'traumatized', must somewhat shamefully admit I had not taken that into consideration.

Mr. Morris, I too am new to this community, and almost instantly recognized the same problem to which you are referring. I posed a question in the chatroom, pertaining to the moral issues in withholding information for one's own benefit, to the detriment of others, a topic discussed in Cicero's 'On Duties', and also by Demosthenes and Antipater, who each held different opinions. This was instantly met by the accussation that I was being "pretentious", and I confronted the accusator to explain to me how it could be perceived as such - which was then followed by a sarcastic apology, and a "whatever". It is a petty issue, I am aware, yet I was rather in shock, or perhaps disappointingly surprised I should say, mostly because it was 4 people more or less "tribally" ganging up - bullying actually. I realized that I perhaps I set my hopes grotesquely high, and that this was the reason for my disproportionate disappointment. Hence, I retreated temporarily, upon which the chat among the rest of the users went onto the topic of "cookie enemas", which lasted about ten minutes. So I asked "Do people use this chat for philosophy?" - then I was called arrogant for my "implication". Well yes, perhaps I was implying something? I'm a newb here, but to my understanding this is a philosophy site, is it not? One person then attempts to twist my (actually very mildly expressed) frustration with the -uncalled for- initial accussations, to make it something about my childhood, in an almost mocking manner. Now, I am by no means against the idea that childhood experiences very often lies at the root of emotional reactions, however, to this particular instance it was an obvious attempt at demagogary, sophism, and bullying. Should one simply bow in the face of collective bullying, for posing a serious question about morality on a PHILOSOPHY site? If this comes across as self-pity, then perhaps it slightly is, but it's moreso righteous confrontation with bullies, a behavior which I am against ignoring, however irrelevant it may seem, because ignoring it for the sake of harmony breeds an atmosphere of passive-aggression and pathetic little heirarchies, where people who know eachother can conquer a philosophy chat and flood it with conversations about, I quote, "enemas", "fat bitches", and "dragonball z"... Since I assume we're all libertarians, I realize that nobody should dictate what the chat or forum is used for, except perhaps the owner of it, so my bottom line is - I hope you do not leave this forum yet, but instead, those (I'm starting to reckon FEW) rationals that are on here, and are actually serious, should unite within the community itself, for our own sakes, but also for the respect and obligation that is our due; to the cause of philosophy, objectivism and reason. In the name of Socrates, let us defeat the emotional manipulators, the pathos bullies and the trivia flooders and reclaim Molyneux's forum and return it to what it was intended to be.