Ken Cotton

Rape is a net negative because the results of it are a net negative for the people involved or observing. Human beings have a common desire to avoid being raped or to be upset when someone they love is raped. This is relative to humans though. In the human context rape is evil, but objectively rape is not evil. I'm willing to set aside the discrepencies and other failings of the trials themselves and agree that yes, they had an idea of evil and crimes as it pertained to their worldview.

He ( like most people ) recognizes that our time on earth is limited and that spending an inordinate amount of it on any individuals with which we're not deeply connected is a waste. Disdain and mockery are just the typical result of a successful person looking at or critiscizing an unsuccessful person. In this way I don't think his mockery is a lack of empathy, because he has explained many times he likes being lazy himself and gets it, but rather an overt rejection of the subliminal request of the lazy people. The lazy people require motivation or an investment of time and resources that the average person is unwilling to spend and their loafing around is sort of a subtle ask for that investment. It isn't as much that he doesn't understand the desire to be entertained as much as it is a response to their audacity. I think that in order to be fair, you have to assume references to lazy people are references to people with the capacity to better themselves but who lack the desire or courage to do so. There is a fine line between sympathizing with people and becoming frustrated with them or giving up on them. I don't think it's meant to be a sort of bashing of people who are stuck in wheelchairs or something, telling them to stop whining and start climbing Everest. More of a "don't complain about not climbing Everest if you have working legs and decide to spend all your time sitting in a chair".

It's pretty interesting. It really gives a step by step introductory exploration into the subject matter. The mind wants to just run free into the wild with assumptions and common assertions but it just keeps putting hurdle after hurdle in the way. Not in a bad way. It's interesting in that it transforms a race into something more. Forces the mind to stop and go through a mental series of checklists and rational criticisms before moving forward. I have to agree with Stefan about public school in that this rigidity is completely unfamiliar. I for one have been taught an immense bulk of information that I can regurgitate on cue without having been taught the actual framework behind deconstructing complex arguments. Really gotta hand it to FDR and Stefan Molyneux for having shows online that are engaging enough to pull someone off the net and into a book on concepts infinitely more important than the junk floating around. Maybe when his daughter gets a little bit older he'll get into his own Cosby or Mr Dressup type role and do a TV show for kids. I think it would be a game changer for entire generations of children. Sure you'd have to tone down the whole no taxes the state is bad thing, but I think it would be worth it!

I am on a caffeine high reading MORAL PHILOSOPHY Theories and Issues by Emmett Barcalow and it's like BOOM! Feels like my brain just picked up some weights and started pumping iron. I'm excited to feel my horizons expanding just by reading a more intuitive and modern interpretation of the craft. What is everyone else reading or into right now?

Good and evil are relative, yes. Can you discern net advantages for a whole from certain activities? Yes. We have pretty much come to the conclusion that rape is a net negative to human beings and we call it evil. That doesn't mean that rape is intrinsically evil, because evil is just a word we've made up to encompass things that make US uncomfortable. We don't consider the fact that animals regularly engage in non consensual sex to be "Evil" because it doesn't really bother us. The Nuremburg trials were just a display of power and a warning by the victorious powers of the war against the defeated. Human rights and crimes against humanity were just the words used to grease the wheels on the trials. I'm sure that there were many people at that time that felt genuine anguish and had real grievances, but objectively speaking it didn't have a lot of real legitimacy. How many people have committed "crimes against humanity" since and not paid for it, or even been charged on it? How many people in the Allied forces were tried with crimes against humanity for the things they did in the war? http://ironcladfuture.blogspot.ca/2014/11/principles-and-magnitude.html Guilt is the determining factor behind whether genocide is acceptable or not, not the logistical reality of the number of people who are guilty. "QUESTION AUTHORITY!" "Why?"

Figures. I knew the media would get at least one detail wrong!

I heard Brown was shot dead by a gang of police while volunteering at a local animal shelter in the middle of washing baby kittens.

I'm just going off what he said, fuck the nazis, fuck the communists, fuck this and that. A lot of Nazis at the end ( and during ) WWII were butchered or tortured simply for being German citizens. The vast majority of Germans were less aware of the concentration camps and intricate details of the Nazi regime than modern Americans are aware of Guantanamo Bay. As a result of that basic, craven "FUCK THE NAZIS" style of revenge thought many relatively innocent people died for things they were both unaware of and not consenting to. If it's "fuck nazis lol who cares" in a flippant manner like an expression of their irrelevance or "who cares" that's a lot different from "FUCK NAZIS" or an expression of hatred. There are kinds of people who will show up at neo nazi rallies in this day and age and like, throw bricks at them and tell them they're scum who should die and all that. Now, I'm not saying that because I think they deserve pity. I'm saying that to show how hatred ( even against nazis ) can result in people wanting to infringe upon basic freedoms in America. Many antis quoted will say that they don't think X people should be allowed to speak Y. That's pretty dangerous for a nation whose original character was liberty and freedom. I think you'll find, in the end, there are always disagreements about what is and isn't evil. You have principles about evil and realities about evil. Stefan said himself that your relationship with advanced physics, the universe, dark matter/energy etc is all really irrelevant. The same is ultimately true about your relation to good and evil in an immense universe of indestructible energy. You have no real enduring connection to the core universal principles of good and evil, only a fleeting and subjective connection to the human beings around you. The laws of gravity seem universal and unavoidable, and yet human beings have developed cheats to bypass the places where gravity inhibits us. We can fly planes around the world not because we escape gravity, but because we bend the rules and tilt and the table. The state similarly can be designed to afford us great heights, pleasures, and successes not by ever escaping your definition of evil, but by flirting with it. I for one think this is a very interesting development.

Also, once you have enemy factions within a culture reason is a lot less important. A business that chooses to take no stance suffers from the typical "in the middle" strategic position of being smashed by both sides or torn apart. A business with no position on an issue is just like North America during the colonial period of history - pretty much untapped resources waiting to be taken advantage of. The business that takes no stance on gun control in favor or against is more likely to lose all 10 ( or even just a majority ) and so going for one group of 5 is a safer choice.

Boycotts are an option, but only insofar as you have a cohesive culture. If you have 10 people, and 5 of them agree with gun control and 5 of them don't, a boycott won't work. You don't have a cohesive culture where the 10 people or even a strong majority will dictate the business. You just have 5 vs 5. The business can go either way, and then it will just boost its market. Boycotts are never going to have an effect in a culture where a strong enough buyer base will continue buying because there is no reasonable gains to be had.

It's a blatant reference to rape as a display of power and sexual subjugation. There's no way you can say "FUCK YOU" to an idea without completely removing any human element of the idea and reducing it to something much more base. It's an instinctual, meat driven instinct behind virtually every inhumane atrocity in human history. Destroying someone or their idea in a dispassionate and reasonable way is decidedly impersonal and universally less evil. When you kill a violent psychopath that is attacking you or you take apart a falsehood its regarded as an expression of reality, like gravity. When you cross the line and say FUCK THAT CRIMINAL or FUCK THAT IDEOLOGY you aren't protecting yourself anymore. The male interpretation of fucking is inherently aggressive. Whether that invasion, aggression, and conquest is welcome and enjoyed or non-consensual and terrible is the difference between people enjoying it and hating it. When you cross into the territory of saying FUCK IT you aren't repulsing it anymore, you're trying to get into it. You're trying to assert yourself in the format of inserting yourself into your enemy. You want to destroy them from within and plant your own traits in them or their land, and raise people in your image. FUCK RELIGION, raise reason. FUCK THE STATE, raise free men. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK. Kill the men physically or intellectually that oppose you, steal their women, and raise kids that are more like you. It's decidedly base and universally human.

At last we arrive at the core sentiment behind it all. Violence forever. The eternal struggle. FUCK YOUR ENEMY! You are me if I push you hard enough. You always were, you always will be.

Indeed. That, or they just buy throughout the year at a reasonable rate using sensible saving and buying strategies. I guess for some people though, it's kind of like a sport or tradition and they're there just as much for the frenzy of the sale as the sale itself.

I'd tell them to stop being African American and just be American. Live as whitewashed a life as you possibly can. Eat mayo and complain about rap lyrics being harmful to THE CHILDREN! Go to church. Watch news at 11pm and drink hot water. Have barbecues occasionally with a few beers. Engage in passive aggressive tactics of dominance and ostacization at work. BOOM! One day you'll wake up in a tidy house with car payments, a wife that nags you for leaving socks laying around, and 2-3 kids. THE AMERICAN DREAM.

On the plus side, slightly shorter lines. LOL. Not really. 99% of these hipsters are gonna cave after 10 minutes of loitering around and try to make the sales.