Trivium_method_man

"Animals do not have the capacity for reason, which is why they do not own themselves." Right now I am just trying to figure out Steph's statement, "I own my body because I am the only one who can fundamentally make it work." I completely agree with this statement, yet I find that he fails to fully universalize the premise. Are animals the only ones who can fundamentally control their bodies? If so, then they do own their bodies. Please explain how this is not the case.

I will admit, the way I am going to speak may seem very strange but the words we use matter. I'm trying to be very specific. Because sometimes the simplest concepts get muddied up because of opposing definitions. So here goes... First lets define two terms... Simple put: "Wrongs", are actions which cause harm to others. "Rights", are actions which cause no harm to others. If you are ever unsure about your rights just think about it personally in the apophatic sense. "Would I feel wronged if someone did this to me?" If so, it's not a right, it's a wrong, it is incorrect and immoral. And NO ONE has the "right" to do it. What we just did is called "affirmation through negation". By understanding what something is not, we come closer to knowing what it is. In the same way, by knowing THE FEW things that are wrong for us to do, our near infinite amount of rights (right/neutral actions) become blatantly apparent and are not in need of mention. I understand and practice UPB, but I feel that such a deep proof is unnecessary. I think it's wonderful but unnecessary. If people (general public.. this doesn't apply to psychopaths obviously) looked within themselves and honestly thought about what is wrong for them, AND THEN ACTED WITH INTEGRITY, the same, if not a better conclusion than UPB seems to come about. Lets look at a few examples, then the rebuttals can come pouring in.. Ex. 1 If you think it is wrong to be killed or eaten by other living beings And it makes you feel wrong or bad inside when other living beings kill and eat you Then that action is not a "right" to you, it is a "wrong" to you, by your own admission. So now if you take an action that you think and feel is wrong you are the definition of a hypocrite. You will always have the choice (not "the right to") to take such action, but will never be right/correct/moral. Regardless of the situation if you think and feel something is wrong internally, you do not have the "right" to take that action. Ok, Trivum... what if someone is trying to kill me? Do I have the "right" to kill him? NO! But you do have the right to defend your body and property. And if in the process of protecting your right to life, liberty and property the aggressor inadvertently dies, that is not your fault. To think of it in terms of Tai Chi, There is an initiator of force and a reflector of force. Self defense only requires the deflection or reflection of force being initiated against you. You don't have to overpower an attacker, you simply have to keep him from overpowering you. That's why I use the words reflect and deflect. Self defense doesn't mean getting away only to sneak up later with a baseball bat a give him a whack! Tried to get the self defense question out of the way.... Anyway, To live with integrity and be a fully conscience, unified being, our Thoughts, Emotions and Actions must not be in contradiction. What I am referring to here is known as the three aspects of consciousness. Everything we are, EVERYTHING, manifests in one of three ways: What we think, what we feel, what we do. I threw that seemingly random part in but it's actually crutial to understand. If we think violence is wrong, feel that violence is wrong then we cannot act in opposition to that. Otherwise cognitive dissonance occurs and chaos and uncertainty begin to manifest externally because internally we are at war with ourselves. Kinda like Steph talking about personal freedom before political. "Deal with yourself and your family.. then deal with the state". I would put it this way, if we at all hope for a free society we must all rise in consciousness and live in a state of non-duality. Which means aligning our thoughts, emotions and actions and knowing what are Natural Rights are by knowing what is naturally wrong to do individually. If these three things are not in harmony/unison/non-contradiction, the only thing that can follow in the world is chaos. Ex.2 If you Think it is wrong to be taken from without your consent And it makes you Feel bad when people take from you without your consent Then to live in non-contradiction you Actions must not contradict your Thoughts and Emotions. Your action must always be to not take without the owners consent. The examples could go on forever. Basically all it takes is a look within... Rights aren't granted, they are inherent in nature. Animals have the same rights as every other being by the very nature of their existence. Steph once claimed that I own my body because I'm the only one who can fundamentally make it work. Well, same applies for animals. By stephs own logic, animals own their bodies. Now if we wanna go deeper for the next one.. lets use steph's fav.. the scienific method. Ex. 3 What happens when you go to kill an animal? It crys, shreaks, runs away, fights back... Go all around the world, see if you get the same result... Go in space, see if animals do not try and escape death.. So far we see that animals Universally Prefer to NOT die. Otherwise, why would they run from death? Hmmm seems about the same things we as humans do. So if for no other reason, why not utilize the sensory data coming in and make the simple relation to the pain and fear both our species experience in similar situations? This sets us up for the fourth example. Ex. 4 "I'm noticing that as I try and kill this animal it is producing the same reactions I would." "How do I feel when experiencing those emotions?... If I recall, I don't like being scared or cut open." "Hmm maybe because I don't like feeling that way, I shouldn't cause others to feel the same." Ex.5 I don't think I'd like to be shot in the head with an arrow instantly making my children orphans. I feel great pain and sorrow at the thought of someone hunting and killing me and leaving orphans. Therfore my actions will reflect what my mind and heart are telling me. Regardless of how tasty venison is. Basically UPB is awesome, but the golden rule can suffice as long as people live with integrity or another way of putting it is: just to live in non-duality. As the ancient saying goes, if One suffers, All suffer. I apply that saying to the state as well... if there's even one state, we all suffer. I'd love to hear any responses to this but especially I like to hear what Steph thinks about my take on rights... if he never responds eventually I'll just call in.. I know he's busy

I was researching The Laws of Logic and came across this... Found it slightly humorous, but mostly frightening. In some places I think he is using Aristotelian logic to disprove logic. And in another place he uses the fact that more than one system of logic exists as proof that all logic is relative. Let me know if I am correct in thinking that this guy is a well trained sophist. It's a a bit much for one person to try and digest. Below is the first little bit of a long article, here is the link to the actual article: http://fatfist.hubpages.com/hub/There-are-NO-Absolutes-There-is-NO-Absolute-Truth INTRODUCTION Some people may be surprised to discover tons of self-professed Messiahs of Philosophy on the Internet, especially on YouTube. What is not surprising is that almost none of them have bothered to educate themselves on the 2500-year-old Philosophical concept called the “absolute”. These Priests of Philosophy have no qualms about claiming that there are “absolutes” or “absolute truth”. What kills their claims is that they cannot define the key words that make or break their argument: ‘absolute’ and ‘truth’. They are merely parroting what they heard from the grapevine: “ummm, duh,....are you absolutely sure there are no absolutes? See, gotcha....there are absolutes. Also, that there are no absolutes, is an absolute statement. Ha ha, gotcha again, I win!” These Priests of Philosophy are quick to break out the bottle of champagne in celebration of the argument which they won in their own mind. But, they are quite embarrassed when a member of the audience stands up and asks them to define “absolute” and “truth”. What is funnier is that they cannot even give a single example of a statement which resolves to absolute truth. And more embarrassing for them is that their silly childish questions are not even arguments....THEY ARE TRICKS! These trick questions have a very simple ANTIDOTE. Click on this link to see their tricks exposed: http://fatfist.hubpages.com/hub/ABSOLUTE-TRUTH-Is-it-Absolute-True-there-are-NO-Absolute-Truths This article exposes the Religion of The Absolute. You will understand why the "absolute" is the Hallmark of Religion and the Opium of Fanatics. We will explain why the word “absolute” ultimately resolves as a synonym of the word RELATIVE. Furthermore, you will understand why these Priests of Philosophy don’t want you to read this article and understand the critical analytical issues behind the words “absolute” and “truth”. Your ignorance is their blessing. After all, they have surreptitiously fooled you into having FAITH in absolutes; so they do deserve some credit. WHAT IS TRUTH? The word “truth” is a concept which has been conceived by humans for use as a conceptual label of validation on statement types known as propositions. Propositions are statements which propose an alleged case or scenario. This anthropocentric concept of truth is unwittingly used by many people to intentionally decree a label of “validated acceptance” (i.e. true) or of “validated rejection” (i.e. false) to propositional statements. But since truth ultimately stems from the validation of propositions, it necessitates an observer who must VALIDATE the proposition before they can label it as ‘true’ or ‘false’. It is obvious that the word “truth” is ultimately dependent on a dynamic process that an observer must perform before labeling a proposition as true/false. This process of validation is called PROOF. A proposition labelled as true/false is always dependent on a human observer’s ability to use their magical powers to validate it as such. Q: So how do humans validate or prove a statement as truth? What magical powers do they use? A: Their subjective and limited sensory system! Since the concept of truth is ultimately dependent on a human’s subjective use of their limited sensory system, it is easy to understand why all truths are subjective; i.e. opinions. Truth is an observer-dependent human-related concept that is inherently subjective. As such, it necessarily resolves to none other than opinion! This limited anthropocentric concept cannot possibly be objective. What is TRUE to you, is a LIE to your neighbor! Your Priest may have convinced YOU of the truth for God, dark matter, black holes, warped space and energy, but he hasn’t convinced your neighbor. Truths are inherently biased. Truth is what is dear to YOUR heart & soul, only. Truth means that the Priest had his way with you while you were in the confession box. For all intents and purposes, you can use the word “truth” as a synonym to the word “opinion” in every scenario, and you will not change the context or meaning of your dissertation. Just try it and see for yourself. Remember: TRUTH = OPINION. Those who disagree, all they need to do is answer the following questions for the audience: 1) What magical means do they use to resolve their statement as being TRUE? Do they use their sensory system? Do they vote on the issue? Do they ask their Priest, God or a higher authority to decide? 2) Is it TRUE that TRUTH is correct? What standard does one use as a benchmark for testing and evaluating TRUTH to be correct? They obviously cannot use truth!!! Anybody wanna step in the lion’s den and answer these questions for the audience? Are you scared to answer because you will expose your Religion of Truth, or because you don’t know? Be honest with yourself.

I agree. My little model goes like this: Consumer>Deliverer/Liaison>Producer. me wait staff resturant I want olive gardens food olive garden doesn't sell food directly to the publicolive garden hires people at low cost to sell and deliver the food to patrons, at a slightly lower cost (usually) depending on how efficient, satisfying, and pleasurable the experience was (not just the food) the customer can compensate the wait staff accordingly because a portion of the wait staff's income comes from the customer, they have incentive to provide quality service if quality service is produced, the restaurant becomes busier and profits increase all around looking at it from that perspective, I like the concept of tipping. (slightly lower price on food and quality service)Is it immoral to not tip? I don't believe so. People voluntarily become servers. They sign up knowing part of their income depends on others, but there is still no obligation to tip. But if quality service is provided, and no one ever tips, the system falls apart. Restaurants lose money, and close or fire people and raise the food cost and keep servers pay the same. Ultimately forcing one server to do the work of three, which further lowers quality, and it just spirals down to destruction.

Once we are free and thriving, we will just keep thriving.Our driving force will be our innate creativity, and our ambition to continually improve every aspect of our existence.Once we are free, we can all focus on thriving and improving at which point I feel knowledge and technology will improve at an exponential rate even greater than that of the present day. (if we were free, no body would be suppressing technology from the masses anymore)

I agree, it sounds like nationalistic propaganda. (pro collective/state)"Whether you are oppressed or the oppressor, you must believe in nationalism" (Hegelian Dialectic/Artificial choice)"But actually true internationalism" (don't be part of the small state, supporting world government is the way to go) = Agenda 21that's about all I got out of it