yagami

Well I have something to get off my chest. I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now and the more I think about it without speaking to the community about it the more it upsets me. I want to talk about those that aren't donating. Now I am not convinced by Stephs' argument that we should donate to his show because we are consuming a product and should pay for it what we think it is worth. The reason I donate is much different. I donate because I have been convinced that this is the best way (by a large margin) to get us to a free and peaceful society. I can talk to people about peaceful parenting and all that but my contribution will be limited the people I know and am actually able to convince. I think we can all agree that Steph is very convincing and articulate and can probably argue the message of peaceful parenting better than any of us. So I believe donating to the guy who speaks the best and has the platform to do so only makes sense. All you people out there who have been convinced that peaceful parenting IS the best way to get us to a peaceful society and you believe FDR IS the best vehicle for that and you still do not donate when you can are the problem. It is people like you that are keeping us where we are. You might as well be a statist if you are going to just sit on the sidelines when you KNOW society is falling apart around you and you know how to fix it. If you are one of these people you really shouldn't be complaining about the faults of statist when you are are holding us all back. Of course this only applies to those that can donate and dont donate and have been convinced FDR is the best vehicle for spreading the message. If you fall into that category shame on you! Those are my thoughts anyway. What do you guys think?

On my first point I guess I assumed what you were assuming. You dont mention there is the option of walking away. The reason I assumed this is because you seem to believe that people would rather choose to take the risk rather than walk away and take no risk. Your question states that you "must choose". If that is the case then you are being forced. You cant just will that part of the thought experiment away. That is a key part of what im trying to say. If I cant choose to not choose then I am being forced. I dont agree with you that morality is anything more than binary. You are either immoral or not immoral. There is no such thing as more immoral. There is however more benifital or greater utility. But morality does not work on a sliding scale. I looked up the definition of morality for you and here is what I found: mo·ral·i·ty məˈralədē/ noun principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. synonyms: ethics, rights and wrongs, ethicality More a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society. plural noun: moralities "a bourgeois morality" the extent to which an action is right or wrong. "behind all the arguments lies the issue of the morality of the possession of nuclear weapons" As you can see no where do you see more right or more wrong ,Less right, more wrong, more good less good, more good , more bad ect. This is something that is well established in the world of ethics that morality is completely binary. It is possible to make a choice that gives you more utility than another choice but that doesn't make the choose more right because more right doesn't exist. Only more utility. I felt like we were getting off topic when you brought up a different scenario ( although somewhat related) which is why I said you changed things. Something fails the morality test when you cant have the action done simultaneously by everyone. This is why rape murder and theft are considered immoral. It has nothing to do with whether everyone would rather rape steal or murder given the scenario you laid out. Even if everyone were to choose to do any of those things we would still consider them immoral. I really dont mean to come off as rude stuck up or a know it all but have you read UPB? This stuff is talked about extensively throughout the book. I cant imagine that after reading the book you would believe that UPB means what everyone would do if given the choice. That has nothing to do with UPB at all. The scenario that I came up with was just something I came up with off the top of my head. The point of what I am trying to say is utility does not determine morality. In the example I gave I came up with the most harmless thing I could think of (poking someone) and I put that action up against something that would give you great utility (curing of a disease). You can replace whatever you want in those two categories but it doesn't really matter. The point is to illustrate that no matter how much you get from a particular action you cant violate someone's property rights and say your actions are not immoral. People in Africa rape virgins in the hope of curing aids. We obviously know that that wont work but given their level of knowledge they believe this will work. Do you believe their actions are not immoral due to lack of knowledge or do you believe their actions are immoral? Your last point falling into the not an argument category. It adds nothing to the conversation and I'd rather you stick to arguments that move us foward.

You will have to give me a specific quote. But I do believe you can replace not immoral with moral in most if not all cases. Im not so experienced and bold as to make that universal statement. But at the same time I cant really think of any situation where it wouldn't apply. The only reason I mentioned this is because if you know that one person is planning on killing others or yourself then ensuring his death would certainly be acceptable. I just didn't want to argument to be muddied by a random X factor like that. I stand by my earlier assertion that you are not obligated to do anything given this variation. I say automatically because the "correct choice" is really meant to mean moral choice. As I already pointed out there is no moral choice only not immoral and immoral. So I can decide to choose to do nothing in which case lets say group A dies. Or I can choose for group B to die. Im thinking about this problem more and I think I actually want to change my answer slightly. I dont think it is immoral walk away but at the same time I think it would be immoral to set actions in motion that would endanger a group of people that would otherwise not be harmed. To me this actually seems like a violation of NAP. What do you think?

I disgree on a few of grounds. For starters you are assuming that you are forced to make a choice. If you are forced to make a choice then morality doesn't apply. What I said earlier is that you can choose to walk away. This is the equivalent of not paying for life saving medicine. There is also no such thing as a moral choice. There is immoral and not immoral. There is no positive morality. That being said I think we both can agree that there is no immoral choice here. So the only thing we are left with is a not immoral choice. Not immoral choices can be the more rational choice, the more irrational choice or just a random choice. But you certainly cant make that leap in logic as you did and say that one choice is moral. You are trying to equate morality with rationality. They have nothing to do with each other. You also take the situation and completely change what is happening. If I had the choice to cure myself of a life threatening illness and all I had to do is poke you gently in the shoulder I would probably do it. But if you dont want to be poked then I am doing something immoral. You cant then say well if the shoe was on the other foot everyone in the world would do the same thing therefor it is universally preferable and immoral. The only thing you can assume from this example you gave is that every single person is willing to take a chance that they aren't the one that is going to die. You cant make the leap and say everyone is willing to kill or be killed. This would only be the case if you say that everyone is a willing participant. If they have no choice but to choose then the person forcing them is to blame and the participant is not committing an immoral action.

I disagree. The reason this is an invalid question is because the "correct choice" would mean one of your choices is moral and the other is immoral. It would be no more moral to kill the person with cancer than it would be to kill a healthy person. The argument could be made that killing the 5 people who were planing to kill everyone is doing so in self defense but that really isn't the issue. The question really is centered around is it better to kill one group of people not violating the NAP or another group of people not violating NAP. At the same time as someone rightly pointed out above someone tied these people to the train tracks so they are to blame in the end. Walking away isn't immoral because that would be the equivalent of me saying not paying for your life saving surgery is immoral. So since there are no immoral choices there are no correct answers. Another reason this question is invalid is because there is no such thing as positive morality. There is no such thing as something that is moral. There are only things that are immoral and things that are not immoral. So when the question ask what is the correct choice the question automatically thrust itself into utilitarianism. This just means which choice gives you the most utility. We can say choice A and choice B are both not immoral to chose but we cant take that giant leap to saying one choice is moral and the other isn't. One last thing please dont call people retarded or stupid here. Maybe to an experience philosopher this stuff is very clear but many people are just curious. Your strong words were just a little off putting to me.

I only mention it because the word utopia annoys me a little. It is used so often to demonize libertarians an make them seem like naive idiots (not that I believe you were doing anything of the sort). I also believe the utopian is an inevitability once we get a free society in place. Best practices for parenting will rise to the surface and eventually people who dont conform to these practices will be ostracized. Eventually all aggression will be bread out of humanity. God I wish I could live to see that. Maybe before I die we figure out how to make people live forever lol.

Hey Bryan glad you have decided to join us here on the forum. My name is Presley and it's nice to meet you. I actually am from Florida myself. The forums are definitely a good place to talk about ideas. I've only recently began posting myself and I've had some really fun debates and conversations. I hope you can enjoy the forums as much as I have.

Oh well yea in a free society the thought of polluting would never happen. In a free society the competition will be much more fierce. If you were to do something like pollute and word got out that you were doing that you could be risking everything. I dont think it has to be a utopian society for this to occur just a free society. The same really goes for everything in society in regards to business. Competition would be so fierce doing anything that could bring your business into a negative light would be very dangerous. One last point. It always bothers me when people say utopian society when most of the time they are really just referring to a free society. Those two things are very different. We will have a free society long before we ever have a utopian society. Utopian implies everything is perfect which most if not all libertarians realize is probably impossible. Just wanted to point that out. Try not to use the work utopian in place of free society if you aren't actually trying to say something in regards to a perfect society. If this was indeed a "peaceful utopia" as you say there would be no polluters because as I've made the case above pollution is immoral.

While I agree that ostracism is probably a good solution to something like this the question is asking is this an act of aggression or not. When you dive into the world of solutions without acknowledging the question of morality you fall down the rabbit whole of answering every possible scenario someone can come up with. Given that though whether pollution is considered an act of aggression or not if people dont like it the polluter will not last long for sure.

It is only a perceived benefit. That doesn't mean you are objectively better after the transaction. Stephan never said both parties are objectively better. I believe the pencil is worth the dollar but that doesn't mean it actually is.

Well I think part of the reason is just because you are human. If someone you know and cared about at any point just dies I think it would affect anyone. It doesn't sound like you had a major fall out or anything so I can imagine it must hurt. There are plenty of people I haven't talked to in years and I would be quite sad if I heard news like that. Other than that there could me lots of other reasons why. We really would need to know more information about your relationship with him and possibly some childhood stuff. Not sure if you are comfortable talking about all that here though. I wish I could be of more help. Im sorry for your lose.

I looked up a couple of definitions and I dont see anywhere where exclusivity is a part of ownership. Even if we are to say that no one owns the air then you can say you own the air when you homestead it. If you mix your labor into the air which I would argue pollution is doing then you own that air and must take responsibility for it. I cant beat my dog in my house and then unleash him into the world and claim no responsibility for the actions of that dog. In the same way if I own air then I cant pollute that air then unleash that air into the world that can and most likely will hurt others. So either both parties own the air in which case you are responsible for getting consent from all parties or only one person owns the air in which case you are responsible for unleashing your property into the world and harming others. I agree with ProfessionalTeabagger. If someone washes my car without my consent it can still be wanted bu it does have my consent.

As far as owning the air is concerned I dont think there is much to talk about here. Remember that when there is no choice involved morality doesn't apply. So if I have no choice but to breath then even if I am breathing and taking your air (assuming you own the air) you can say I am acting immorally. Both of us own the air. In the same sense that if we both jointly own a harmless butter knife it would still be immoral for one of use to sharpen that knife and lace it with poison. The next time I use that knife I could be killed from the poison. Since there is more than on owner you cant change the object in question without the consent of all parties. It works the same way in business and relationships and everything else. All parties must agree to the change before it can be said no immorality has taken place. I imagine in a free society this would be dealt with by parties who are being effected negatively by this would go to court and plead their case. From a businesses perspective it would be much cheaper to put in measures that would prevent any pollution than to deal with lawsuits coming in constantly. Another thing is that in a free society people will not be able to hide behind the shield of a corporation. The owner of will be held personally responsible and you cant just push the cost onto your business.

The key word in your "counter" is "should". No one here is trying to tell people what to do. It's just a matter of perspective. If your goal is the world a better place then in my opinion it would be more efficient to solve other more impactful problems. If you find this problem worth solving go for it. But as I explained in a previous post this is actually an unsolvable problem.

Man im sorry to hear that. Wish there was something I could do to help. Something Steph said in one of his podcast really stuck with me. Competent people will always rise no matter what the job is. Try taking that into your next job no matter what it is. Be on time work hard and you will get noticed. Before you know it this will all be in the past and you will be glad you got kicked out. Just keep your eye on the prize.

I would respond to this but I and im sure many other have already had this debate several times on the board. You really should do a search for these things first. You probably will get a lot if not all your questions answered that way. Here is a debate I had with someone you can look at. My first post is unrelated but from then on im talking about the whole animal rights thing. Hope this helps. https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/40851-vegetarianvegan-questions/page-6

My point is he had a limited amount of time and only wanted to talk about indisputable facts. Just like you said someone can come up with their own rules about anything but we aren't dealing with children here we are dealing with adults. While adults can also make up their own wild and irrational conclusions about the police the more solid a case you build the less likely you are to get these crazy conclusions. I suspect his strategy here was to give as much information as possible about the subject that gives the most impact and is the most convincing. Something like "the police dont play by the rules" is a conclusion that is formed through your experiences and many people can easily just say well that's just your opinion. This would be like you say making up rules. It is much harder to make that claim when he list examples of cases that actually occurred and examples of what the police are legally allowed to do given your statement. Im not saying the corruption of the police is not an important subject but who cares if they are if you just dont talk to them. You aren't going to change the corruption by knowing about it.

I got to the first 3 minutes of the first video and couldn't watch it anymore.

I dont think he talked about the police not playing by the rules for one out of respect for the officer in the room and two because it's more speculation than fact. I too believe the police do not play by the rules but I think he just didn't want to muddy the lecture with information that wasn't crystal clear to the students.

That's true he doesn't say anything about the victims side of things. At the same time this video made me realize just how naive I was when it comes to talking to the police. I wonder if there is any good advice about reporting crimes to the police from a legal perspective. I am extra cautious now.

I found this video very informative and felt I have to share this with as many people as I can. What do you guys think? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc&feature=youtu.be

I think the discussion has moved a little away from the original question. In the case of the trolley problem there is no force involved at all here (unless you want to add a magical force that compels you to make a choice). If there is no force then walking away from the situation is not immoral at all. That's like saying it's immoral to not pay for a poor persons healthcare. If you are forced to make a choice through some magical force then you cant be held up as immoral because there was no choice involved. No offense but I can now see why Stephan doesn't answer this question anymore. I did enjoy talking about this topic but I cant imagine having to go through this every time a new person wants clarification. Especially when it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. As long as we focus on what is going to have the greatest impact on society that we can do the most about problems like this will be the absolute least of our problems.

Lets take this in steps. Person A held a gun to the head of person B. Person A tells person B you must shoot one person in a crowd of 100 people. Would you say that person B is morally responsible for his actions? If your answer is no then let me ask you this. At what number of people would person b have to shoot in order to be held morally responsible? This should make it clear as to why personal preference and scale has no place in philosophy. It is of course much more tragic the more people that are killed but Philosophy is a science as personal preference has not place here. I know you said you are knew to this but this is not just my opinion. This is as known in the world of philosophy as gravity is known in the world of physics. If you dont agree with the argument you need to point out where the logical inconsistency is. Just because you say you have a problem with this doesn't change anything. You can say you dont agree with condoning someone throwing a bomb into a crowd but if you cant actually make an argument as to why then you are just stating your personal preference and not a philosophical principle. Also one last question do you believe there is any circumstance where taking the life of someone else would not hold you the taker morally responsible? If so please explain why and under what principle do derive such a conclusion.

The question is the exact same as if someone puts a gun to your head and says shoot the some random person on the street. You can "choose" to refuse his orders if you want but there is a gun in the room that we cant ignore. If I choose to shoot that person then no I am not morally responsible the person that forced me to is responsible. Going to war is the same thing just on a larger scale but philosophy cares about the principle not the scale. It may bother you but it really isn't any different. The principle here is if you are not the person that put yourself in this situation and you dont have the capacity to remove yourself from the situation you are not morally responsible for the choices forced apon you. Now personally I would rather rot in prison than kill people but doesn't mean I've made a more moral choice it only means I have made a choice under the threat of being killed. Same would go for the person that decides to go to war. I mean there are no good options and you may think well one option has greater consequences than the other but again scale does not matter when you are talking about philosophy. If a woman could cure all disease in the world if she is rapped one time it would still be immoral to do such a thing. You just cant rely on scale to hold your argument up.

I feel like you completely ignored what I posted. I clearly said you dont actually have a choice. If you are to be fined just $50 and you choose to not pay that $50 and you resist arrest for not paying that $50 you die. All orders from the government are death threats. This sense of proportionality doesn't exist here. If I had my freedom of choice I would not go to war and not pay anything. The only reason the $50 dollar or jail option has any weight at all is because if you dont accept those terms you die. You cant just ignore that fact. If you want to continue with this line of thought you must at least acknowledge this objection and see how it fits into your argument.