Jamiroquai

Jpahmad, I understand that you've described exactly why the store owner feels victimized, but isn't it more important to determine whether he was actually victimized, and by whom, rather than how he feels? I may feel victimized by my boss when I am paid less than another employee, but that doesn't necessarily mean my boss has victimized me. The store owner was forced into paying cigarette taxes by the state -> The store owner is compelled to do something, and is a victim of the state, empirically. Eric Garner did not pay cigarette taxes, and the store owner did -> The store owner feels victimized by Eric Garner, but was not. There is no empirical evidence that shows Eric Garner actually victimized the store owner, regardless of his feelings. The position that Eric Garner victimized the store owner can only be taken by those who also believe there is force involved in free market capitalism.

I'm confused as to why Stefan refuses to treat the Eric Garner case like he did the Cliven Bundy case. It seems he was backed into a corner in this conversation and didn't want to admit the glaring error in his logic. Stefan, like you say quite vehemently and on many occasions, taxation is theft. Please realize that Eric Garner's death was the fault of the state, not Eric Garner. If Cliven Bundy was killed by the state, you would make a video defending his actions and condemning the state, so you should treat the Eric Garner situation equally. And unlike Eric Garner, Cliven Bundy actually resisted the state's violence with the threat of violence, while Eric Garner merely had the natural reaction to an armed kidnapping - resistance. Hell, he didn't even take a swing at any of the cops, he merely defended himself.

Ah, ok I see what you're saying. I thought what you meant was that the choke hold was irrelevant. Where do you make the leap from an anarchocapitalist (and presumably a supporter of the NAP) to siding with non-questioning, militarized law-enforcement agents? Eric Garner didn't initiate any sort of violence, whatsoever. The police officers, however, did initiate violence. They came to arrest and detain him against his will, and at the point of a gun (if it had escalated). I don't see how any fair viewing of the situation can have any an-caps siding with the cops on this, but I do understand that it's not a tough job, and they are human as well, and prone to mistakes. The problem is that in order to wield this much power and force over regular citizens, we should expect police officers to be perfect. Obviously the more desirable solution is no state at all, but the transition to a stateless society is just a notch under impossible, in the "highly unlikely in at least the next 20 years" category. In the meantime, we should do everything possible to try and decrease the frequency of these tragedies.

Wasn't she the one that was a physicist? If so, and if I remember correctly, she didn't want you teaching the children that the state is evil, she wanted them to come to their own conclusions about it. If that's the podcast you're talking about, I didn't see a problem with her stance, and it isn't too surprising that she'd want the children to come to their own conclusions about the state/religion/whatever else, seeing as how she has a science background and supports the use of logic and proof versus public school-style indoctrination (indoctrination is too harsh a word, but I can't think of another at the moment). I don't see the problem in allowing children to come to their own conclusions. It gives them a real-world situation in which they could practice using reason and evidence rather than believing what they are spoon-fed by parents/other adults. Understand I'm not saying that's what you wanted, I'm just basing everything on the parts of the call I've heard. I hope I'm not talking about another couple entirely.

Saying that the choke hold didn't kill Garner is a little misleading. The medical examiner specifically listed it as one of the contributing factors in his death, in conjunction with the constriction of his chest/heart problems and the fact that he was generally unhealthy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you also seem to be implying that Garner showed disrespect and that he resisted arrest. I've seen the entire video a few times, and at no point does he actually resist in any way which would allow that type of force to be used. If you watch the video again, you can see that Garner was arguing vocally with the cops, but when they actually approach him and put him into the choke hold, he doesn't actually resist, just backs away a bit. Once he actually is put into the choke hold, people have said that he resisted, but he actually acted the way most people do when they are being put into a choke hold. That's a natural reaction to having your passageway blocked and not being able to breathe. When I was in my teens I was placed in many, many choke holds (usually some drunk rough housing on the part of a caretaker) and trust me, your hands don't just drop to the side and go limp. I've only seen that happen if you're put in a sort of sleeper hold (though I've never actually seen a successful sleeper hold put on anybody). It's one of the reasons you'll be hard-pressed to find any videos on YouTube or anywhere else where a person that's put into a similar type of choke hold does not act the way Garner did.

I think it is only a harmful addiction if it interferes with your work life, which it has if I've understood your post correctly. I'm also a massive car enthusiast, so I think I know what you're going through. Before I got my car, one of my favorite things to do was to scour sites like bimmerforums to read up on the car I was looking at (my first car was an e36 325, if you know what that is). If I wasn't doing that, I was on Autotrader trying to find pretty much any car in my price range that struck my fancy. After a while I started dumping more and more time into this, and it never really subsided until I finally got my car. From what it sounds like, your obsession doesn't seem to be a huge problem right now, and I wouldn't really consider it an addiction. Personally, I would suggest buying a car with cash and within your means. A word of caution, though. Once you buy the car, your obsession will probably turn to reading about your particular car and what mods you can make to it. I must have dropped at least 2k into my first car when I had it (ahh, how nice it was to have extra cash and no rent back then). Sorry if I started to talk about cars instead of your predicament, as you can see it's not a habit that's easy to kick. Now that I re-read your post, it seems you might be thinking about buying the car before you get the job, and I would strongly urge you not to do so...work as a programmer is slim pickens pretty much everywhere, and the last thing you need is a car note to pay with no money coming in. I apologize if that wasn't a very helpful post, I seemed to have drifted off track a few times (lame pun intended).

Daniel is right. The sentence means: "Neither individuals nor businesses are willing or able to pay for everything that's useful, when they're spending their own money." You negated the "not useless" to mean "useless", while only rephrasing the first half, not negating it. By doing this you change the meaning of the entire sentence. If this is a grammar exercise, I'd assume you should focus on the "not useless" part, not the first half. By the way, I think that comma before "when" is unnecessary.

Kevin, thank you for the detailed post. I looked over what you wrote, and I think you may be right, that I incorrectly used the fallacy fallacy. Still, I'll clarify where I was coming from: My reasoning for it was because the definition I came across was, "Presuming that because a claim has been poorly argued, or a fallacy has been made, that the claim itself must be wrong." The reason why I thought he committed this fallacy was because the argument I was making in the initial post was that posters in this thread were taking offense to the subject of the video and not its substance: that they were subjectively criticizing the video instead of objectively criticizing it, as evidenced by some posts discussing the intentions of the OP instead of the video itself. However, because I put the qualifier "I feel" before my statement, I was met with the reply "not an argument." Now, while I do concede that this may not necessarily fall under the argument from fallacy fallacy, I still stand by the position that WasatchMan was being pedantic, in that he made no attempt to actually address what I posted, but instead said my post was "not an argument", though what I actually meant in my post is stated quite clearly. This is an internet forum, one where posting one's feelings are encouraged (a la RTR), and that in conjunction with the fact that he did not point out any other members' posts which fall under "not an argument" led me to the conclusion that he was being pedantic. It could also be true that WasatchMan was referring to something else in my post, but with such a short response with no explanation, I chose the obvious and only mistake I see in what I originally said. This is one of the reasons why I find "not an argument" particularly irksome, because it [in my experience] isn't very productive or useful in helping correct the mistakes the arguer is making, but instead it just comes off as snarky, at least when it is not accompanied by any sort of explanation whatsoever. Stefan's words from the "Monkey Steals a Peach" video come to mind, "Give me something specific, give me something that I can use, give me something that can help to correct my perspective." Again, thank you for taking the time to give a detailed response, Kevin.

Yep, it's gone. Though I wonder, was "Black Woman Abuses Child" the title of the video or just your title? Seems irrelevant what race she is. It'd be like saying "Mother Abuses Blonde Child" or something to that effect.

Ever heard of the fallacy fallacy? I'd rather you address what I posted rather than resort to this level of pedantry.

Exactly...I feel like people are sort of bullying the guy who posted this video, just because it was poking a little fun at Stefan. If there was a puppet show about TZM or Peter Joseph, and it was posted here, I find it to be very likely that the only responses would be posts of laughter and "this is hilarious". People are getting overly defensive in this thread.

Why are you focusing on the fact that time travel is impossible, though? That is completely unimportant in the OP's example. Perhaps a better way he could have phrased his theory would be to say that they played a match, and played another match the next day with the same exact conditions, same level of fatigue, and all other controllable variables. The fact that they time traveled doesn't really matter, it's just the mechanism by which we can have the same exact conditions as we did the first time in order to answer the broader question. The problem that I do see with the OP's question, though, is that it is nigh impossible for a human to accurately replicate a tennis swing, even if he/she analyzes the speed of the ball and attempts to use the exact same spin, it's just too difficult to get the same result. The same is true for pretty much all sports. You can analyze the speed and velocity that a tennis ball is coming at you from, and calculate in your head exactly how hard you want to hit the ball and whether you want to slice it/lob it/whatever, but even when you do, even if you hit the ball with the same exact part of your racket, you do not have the capacity to perfectly replicate your previous stroke. It would be like throwing dice, getting an 11, and attempting to throw the dice in the exact same way and at the exact same speed as you previously did...humans are not capable of this level of accuracy, even if they make the same exact decisions as the initial attempt.

The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premise. The Muslim citizens of the ultra-conservative theocratic government can be principled and moral, all the while being unwittingly subjected to the immoral theocracy. It would be akin to saying that Stefan has no principles just because he lives and pays taxes in a country that uses the initiation of force to achieve its immoral purposes. Stefan can't be blamed for the state's immorality. Similarly, the citizens living under a theocracy can't be labeled unprincipled based on the government's actions. In both examples, there is a decent majority of people who conform to the ideas of their government, (statists and Muslims), but this majority does not mean we can paint the entire population with these broad brush strokes.

I saw this and also enjoyed the debate. The comments are disappointing, though...everybody wants to talk about how Sam Harris "owned" Cenk, or launch insults at his intelligence, but I think Cenk did a good job, and I'm glad they actually got together after having the disagreement. As for the actual subject matter, I'm inclined to agree with Sam Harris in that Islam is causing more harm and suffering to people in today's world than the other religions are. Still, I think Sam makes a mistake in saying that violence is more ingrained in Islam than the other religions, because in the past, the Inquisition and other horrible religious atrocities have occurred, and at those times, Islam was actually much less violent in comparison. I think the violence by current Muslims is more a reflection of the ultra-conservative theocratic governments than Islam itself.

Though I agree with you to an extent, what if you look at it from more pragmatic-colored lenses.For instance, suppose you support a political candidate who opposes the initiation of violence (sort of a paradox but humor me), wouldn't that be a moral action? Trying to rid the country of unnecessary violence, or at least getting a step closer to achieving that goal, do you think that action would also be immoral? Because I think if we turn your question on its head, the immoral behavior could be not supporting even the possibility of less violence in the world. Perhaps we're getting too theoretical at this point, but what do you think? I think looking at everything through strict morality can often leave you running in place, at least when it comes to changing the world.