TheFreeMarketIsAnarchy

Hi Olaf, sorry to hear about your negative experiences seeking therapy, the last thing you want when you're trying to explore childhood difficulties is to be hassled to take a bunch of drugs. I was lucky to find out someone near me (Scotland) who does great counselling/life-coaching. His name is Antony and he has an account on FDR, username LovePrevails - https://board.freedomainradio.com/user/15255-loveprevails. I have found seeing him over the last three months to be really helpful as he is really empathetic, and especially good because he gets concepts like peaceful parenting and voluntaryism, which isn't too easy to find! He has been very supportive throughout our sessions, and never someone who would side with abusive parents, or encourage you to take those drugs. I know he does sessions over Skype, so you wouldn't necessarily have to travel. Just thought i'd give you a heads up so you know its an avenue you could explore. Good luck on your journey!

Hey y'all! Just wanted to share that yesterday evening I had an amazing experience meeting Antony Sammeroff (username LovePrevails on the boards) for a first time life coaching session! I'm in the early stages of my self knowledge journey and I can genuinely say that for anyone in a similar position who is looking to explore their emotions and who need a source of empathy and support then Antony is highly recommended. I have felt relived and uplifted ever since our conversation and knowing that he understands the values that are core to this community made it especially easy to communicate with him. The advice he gave was fantastic and is already being put into practice and we will definitely be meeting again. Give him a message if this is the kind of thing you could do with right now (as I'm sure it is for many), he would be happy to help. https://board.freedomainradio.com/user/15255-loveprevails/

Thought I would share this here rather than start a whole new thread but last night I heard a child loudly crying in distress fro the street outside my house. I looked out the window and saw her in a state of distress and her mother standing over her coldly speaking to her, not kneeling to talk with her or hugging her or anything. The dispute was clearly that the daughter didn't want to go where the mother was taking her. The mother then proceeds to walk away from her child leaving the poor girl standing and wailing on her own in the dark street. The cries that the child was making when she did that brought me to tears and I began to panic and grabbed my shoes. The mother turned around however after walking a good way up the street without her child and simply beckoned with her hands for the child to catch up as if she was a dog. The child did not move and continued to cry. The mother then walked back to her daughter and stood over her again saying some words and then repeated her walking away without her daughter. At this point I had my shoes on and was in a state of panic desperate to help but wondering what I could do. As I put my shoes on I watched the mother turn again and go back to her daughter. She eventually picked her up and her child began to throw her fists towards her mother and shouted 'I don't want to be carried' over and over. She then took her into one of the stairways further up my street which I assume is where they live. Watching this happen was incredibly distressing. My question is related to this thread - when do we intervene and when don't we? The trauma that child was experiencing was horrific and brought up many memories of my own childhood. Should I have ran down to the street and confronted the mother? I would love to hear what other members feel they would have done in the same situation, the feeling of powerlessness to help that I experienced was upsetting so if there's something i could have/should have done it would be great to know for the future. I just can't believe that any mother could think that in that situation simulating physically abandoning her child is going to make the child want to run after her. If you need to physically abduct your own child to come home with you something is very very wrong with your parenting.

If it was your choice to take on this debt from said exuberantly immoral group though, there are other ways of getting an education, not necessarily saying they are as convenient but you are responsible for paying back the debt because you didn't have to enter into it. This fact is separate from the moral status of your lenders because you were either aware of their immorality but willing to enter into the contract anyway, or somehow weren't aware of their immorality, in which case you can only alter future decisions but remain liable to meet the terms of a contract you entered into (naively) in the past. The principles behind why you should meet the terms of a contract that was entered into by choice still apply if the lenders are cronies because the contact itself was not forced on you.

It was definitely reasonable to be concerned about getting the race card pulled. It sucks that that is the case though, this is what happens when we have media/culturally driven race divisions. It gives people a shield to hide behind so that they can disregard your perfectly justified criticism of them as being racially motivated. I mean as if it isn't an objectively awful thing to abuse your child! It's the same way feminists don't listen to any male criticism about their beliefs and actions because you know, we're just evil white men trying to preserve the patriarchy so they can just disregard our thoughts straight up. Convenient card to pull for people who have no interest in bettering themselves but oh so frustrating for those who simply want to make the world a more peaceful place.

For me it was also Stef's answer to Jon Stewart's 19 Tough Questions for Libertarians! I saw in it the related videos to a Daily Show clip that I was watching on Youtube. I had been exposed to Voluntaryism once before through the awesome facebook page 'Freedom is a state of Mind' but after watching this video of Stef's then everything clicked. It was a total eureka moment, like all the anger and frustration that I had towards the government could now be put into a clear and rational philosophical framework! No turning back since then!

That is a horrible story I mean where I live it would have been perfectly legal for someone of her age to drink, I can't believe they shot her. Things are so bad with the police force it is definitely the responsibility of the citizen at this point to realise that resistance is inviting them to escalate to potentially deadly force. The police know fine well that they can get away with it. Scary times.

From my experience at university which I still have a year and a half left (i'm studying philosophy) I am regretting even going in a lot of ways. They are pretty much like left-wing indoctrination camps. Like you said here, I took a few classes of Sociology and that's the worst I've had of it so far - literally just a place for feminists and marxists to sit in an echo chamber and have their ideologies re-affirmed to them without ever having to engage critically with the core concepts behind what they believe! Which is NOT education. It's really really sad because a lot of smart people go out there into the world thinking more taxes and more government welfare programs are the path to revolution. EVERYTHING has a socialist spin on it, even in my Philosophy classes whenever we are doing stuff about ethics we only ever talk about these State supporting trolley problems in which perpetuates these utilitarian views of sacrifice some for 'the greater good'. I mean I've gotten the chance to write from a Libertarian stand point this year with my Aristotle class but the actual students and lectures are of an awful standard. Can't wait to get out of there and do some proper learning

Anyone else a Calvin and Hobbes fan? I used to read it a lot, always remember this one! On a more serious note I have always been upset by the idea of lying to kids about Santa, definitely not something I want to do if I ever have kids of my own. I think it is used as a way to manipulate children into having to be 'well behaved' (defined by whatever the adults want them to do) during the holiday season through using the threat of no presents as a punishment. Pretty awful stuff but is treated as if it's all just a bit of fun to directly lie to children because its framed as if its all for their own enjoyment. As if there isn't enough for kids to enjoy about the holiday season without making them believe in myths? Its messed up too because the parents when perpetuating the Santa story to their kids know fine well its all a lie but tell them it anyway which is even worse in a way than the religious stuff (not making excuses for this whatsoever) because at least the parents often believe that stuff themselves when they pass it on. I think its confusing for the child to find out it was all a lie and their parents knew that and didn't believe it themselves but told them it was true anyway. There's a sense of betrayal and mistrust that goes with that I think.

I am inclined to want to agree with this. I wish I had never read the post, in doing so I feel confused, disturbed and upset. Did this happen before the poster called Stef? If so is the dog mentioned in the call? Only deep issues with anger/violent impulses and lack of empathy can produce behaviour like this I think because it was NOT necessary in any way. The dysfunction of the relationship and your girlfriend cannot be blamed for this. The problem could have been dealt with in a million ways, the dog was not the problem. This is sadism with an excuse. This has upset me substantially, especially the graphic detail of the account and then the sudden ending of the post. This feels like a horrible way to inflict the traumatic nature of these events on members of the board without any reconciliation with them after they have been described. To the poster I really hope you can find out where this is coming from before anything like this happens again.

Wow this is fantastic, really useful evidence to have access to, thanks for the share!

I agree this stuff is horrible especially because of how often parents seem to do it. So many parents seem to think that they don't have to listen to their child's description or expression of how they experience things like stressful holiday plans. It's a strange almost Orwellian thing that says I am the authority over you to the extent that my opinion on what you experienced is more valid than your own actual experience. This is crushing for a child's sense of self and independent worth I think. It makes them think 'Why should I bother ever expressing my true emotional reality?' because it will simply be denied or overlooked (or even used against them as a bullying tactic if it is particularly inconvenient to the parent). I've never heard the specific term gaslighting used to describe it before, thanks for the article share Rainbow Jamz!

I like this a lot, good job dude!

Of course it could be possible for other species to evolve to be reasoning creatures so that in that possible world they would be subject to morality. However this does not mean that this is relevant to how we view non-human species currently. Because babies have the capacity to acquire reason within the life-span of an individual member of the species then this is ethically relevant. Evolution is a long process. Perhaps I am misunderstanding your concerns? I find the concept of non-reasoning animals having self-ownership to be strange. If a given species isn't a candidate for morality then to say it has self-ownership is arbitrary, because the logical consequences of self-ownership in humans are the capacity for property ownership and moral concepts just as privileged access that property based on consent. If we concede it is not logical to ascribe these consequences of self-ownership to a given non-human animal then I just don't see what insight can be gained by assigning them self-ownership.

That sounds fantastic, I will definitely get that! Thanks a lot for the reply Hi, thanks a lot for your honest comments, I'm trying to play devils advocate with myself to make sure I can rationally justify the relationship, so this really helped. I have definitely shared your experience of having to disassociate with those kinds of people! Lots of obnoxious people which I am happy to leave behind. That sounds rubbish about your ex-girlfriend, thanks for sharing though. I guess if I contrast that with my experience despite me and my girlfriend both having difficult upbringings in various ways her capacity to empathize with my experience and to understand the value of self-knowledge and philosophy seems very genuine to me. Although that is held back by some photo-copier of history style dysfunctions (as it is in myself) I am sure that those capacities are genuine. And recently talking stuff through and being fully honest with each other/with ourselves is making it easier to feel mutually supported and to interrupt and negotiate with those dysfunctional elements so hopefully this will continue. Also the being in college/different cities thing we talked about the other night. We made the plan to move in together next year for that last year and she can commute to class because our two colleges are only an hour bus ride apart. The justification for this is that it will be easier to mutually support each other and work through employing RTR and other things like the book recommended by Kaki if we can have conversations not just at one limited time-frame each week. I hope moving in together will be a good ground to really test our compatibility. I hope it doesn't come across as if I am just dismissing your concerns out of hand, as I said i'm trying to keep a debate going with myself.I guess I made the positive case for the relationship but I do want to be realistic as you said that if it isn't clear that we can make progress through self-knowledge together effectively then we should split. I also understand that I have an emotional bias to stay together because of the pre-existing attachment/dependency. I want to keep this from influencing my attempt to make rational decisions. The thought of breaking up with her makes me feel very unsafe and anxious and so I want to keep exploring the root causes of that. Do you/does anyone have any thoughts on all that? Thanks again or your comment I appreciate it

Yes this is good advice, I think I should go back and re-listen to the empathy hostages podcast. I feel as though I do have a tendency to offer myself up as an empathy hostage because my mother would often use me to help her with her emotional issues, making me feel as though my emotional reality was insignificant to hers. We're trying really hard to work through it together but I agree with you that we need independent sources to confide in to reduce the burden on each other. Thank you for your response Alice =)

Yes exactly these sorts of things! Rather than just feeling the pain try and work with it and explore the root causes of why you are feeling it. I'm trying to start writing stuff down more which seems like a helpful thing to do. Wishing you good luck!

I agree that the feminist narrative on victim blaming is ridiculous. How is the concept of victim blaming automatically a bad thing? Are victims never responsible for anything which led to them being victimised? Apparently so as long as you're a female victim. However as a man walking around dodgy parts of Scotland at night I will take a route through a safer area if it means a longer walk home - men get beaten up in the street all the time around here. Do I sit and moan about how I should have a path of daisies with no danger follow me around everywhere so I don't have to think at all before I act? Of course not. We all need to open our eyes, accept reality and act accordingly, which is rape culture according to feminists.... sigh.

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HI there Alice, just to say I'm really sorry to hear about all these things that you are going through. A lot of what you are describing personally resonates with me so I thought I would chime in. This is a really important point. That state you described as 'neutral' in which you crave feeling the emotion you previously felt is something I experience regularly. It is usually a day or so after I have an intense negative emotional experience. I feel it is like retreating into a safe shell of numbness where you are cut off from the pain you just felt because the thought of feeling that pain again is unbearable. Working on processing the pain when it comes out rather than just spilling it out and then running away is how I am trying to tackle this issue. I have a habit of spilling my emotions and then retreating into that numbness. Does any of this seem plausible to your experience? If so I also want to say that I also have self-harmed by cutting myself and i'm so sorry you feel the need at all to do that. Just to try and state my experience with it in case it is helpful, I found that when I was in a position of feeling helpless in the face of the pain i was feeling (no emotional support from parents, friends etc.) then I had the option to either go numb to it as mentioned above or take it out on myself or something in my environment. So it is the lack of any healthy alternatives which can make you do such a drastic thing. My experience in high-school was filled with many similar experiences as you described in your last post. I remember a part of me really wanted everyone to see my cuts so that they wouldn't be able to overlook the sadness I was feeling anymore - like you said about wanting the diagnosis. You need not feel embarrassed about this as Robert already mentioned. It is a natural response to desire others to notice our pain and suffering especially if our primary care-givers have been overlooking our emotional reality as we grew up. I also am very familiar with the issues of harmful sleep patterns and procrastination which you described and I am trying to battle those things myself. Know that there are always others out there going through similar things. This is really important I think. Thanks Robert and Kevin for the great points. A cycle that I was caught up in before I set on the path for self-knowledge (I still am in many ways fighting with it) was to avoid thinking about and taking action against the root causes of my depression/self-harm etc. By not focusing on questions like those above I was shielding myself from the full force of intensity of those feelings, which are only now surfacing as I push on with such questions. However just because questions like that make us feel worse in the short run they are the only path to healing. Because I would simply tell myself that once I reached a 'neutral' (disconnected) state of mind then that is a sign that I had 'gotten it out my system'. This was of course never the case and the emotions and impulses to self-harm would resurface eventually. I would then do the same again, wait for it to be buried and then move on, never actually spending time focusing on why all of these feelings were happening and what I should do about them in terms of healthy solutions. Know that your feelings have not magically vanished - do not let yourself accept this conclusion. Probe for deeper causes, find people around you who you can confide in and you will learn to access your emotions and push beyond that numb state without cutting yourself or anything like that. Don't get me wrong though, I have not achieved these goals yet myself, I just wanted to share my perspective with you and the direction I am trying to take myself.

I found this to be one of the most emotionally stirring films I have watched in recent memory. I was pretty speechless after seeing it in the cinema. I love 'Being John Malkovitch' as well. The way Spike Jonze explores the nature of consciousness and human connection in his films is magnificent. To anyone who has seen it, what did you like/dislike the most about it?

Yes this is a great point. I like to respond to anyone who makes an argument against universal property rights by asking them to give me their wallet and see what they say

I have always found this a strange concept. If an Anarcho-Communist system is voluntary then people must be free to opt in or out of the commune and have private property without being threatened with the use of force. Thus it is simply a voluntary market transaction within an anarchist free market. If this is not the case and those who pursue alternative systems that recognize private ownership will be threatened with force then it is Anarcho-communism which is now acting as the new government and is thus a contradiction is terms. Nobody, not even on their own property can initiate the use of force if it is not in reasonable self-defense against an initiation of force. Government is predicated on the initiation of force outside of self defense - it simply is the act of taking property at gun point from those in a given geographical area. To say that owning ones body and the effects of ones actions is equivalent to this is ridiculous. It is like saying sex is rape because they both involve genitals rubbing against each other. I do not force others to pay for my property or force others to obey rules which violate the N.A.P. I can ask you to leave my property, but this is justified in the same way it is justified that I can ask you to not touch me or take my stuff. It is predicated on self-ownership, not on the initiation of force. No person will own a land which instantiates rules which would violate a persons individual rights. Plus you are just as free to own property as the next person then to call other peoples right to private property around you the use of force is like saying that my success is stealing from you. This is ignoring the fact that no rules on which my property ownership is based on will be different to those which apply to you or anyone. A government however apples rules on others which don't at the same time apply to them. If anything Ancomm systems are a contradiction in terms as I already mentioned because if you enforce a rule which says that owning property is immoral then you are violating the consent of others thus acting as a state. If you allow others to own property and the effects of your actions then the Ancomm system is just like a business model offering a service to people which they can opt in to voluntarily thus it simply a type of system within a stateless free-market.

Just sent you a friend request there, my name is Ruaridh, sounds exciting! Good to see other people nearby who are into this stuff.

In general I would agree with the above although I do hold that manipulation, specifically the act of purposefully lying to someone in some circumstances does effect the way we view the actions of agents in terms of responsibility/voluntarism. For example if somebody wishes to murder me and does so by poisoning an apple and then leaving it in my fruit bowl it is not my fault that I die here, assuming I have no good reason to suspect this is the case. Say further there is somebody who knows that the apple is poisoned and is in the room as I eat it but decides to say nothing this lack of action is a murderous behavior, even though there is no direct physical coercion or force. The agent eats who eats the apple is only voluntarily consenting to eating a normal apple, not a poisoned apple, because at the time of eating it their ignorance is the reason they do so. So them eating the poisoned apple is not a voluntary act in a sense when we look at the knowledge states of that agent, because their actions would be reversed (most likely) if they did know the apple was poisoned. Now I do not think that where there is manipulation or lying of any kind then moral responsibility automatically does not apply, because we are in lots of circumstances responsible for the very ignorance which guides a mistake we make and so it is our own fault that we make this mistake. My argument is intended to show that the in some cases ignorance of the circumstances of an action will reduce the responsibility of an agent and thus the sense in which we would call there actions voluntary. Is manipulation the initiation of force? No but it can be similarly morally abhorrent when employed in ways such as the poisoned apple case above. What do you guys think of my arguments? They are pretty much based on Aristotle's epistemic condition for voluntary action.