Ken Cotton

I'm a high functioning sociopath. The main difference between me and any other killer is the fact that I can lead a relatively normal life and that I don't have a pressing need to kill people. People to me are more or less like any other animal. I can imagine myself at a butcher table with cows and people with little functional difference. That doesn't make me inclined to kill people, it just means that I don't view other people with any special value. There are a variety of hurdles to overcome with hurting people, such as the immediate physical reaction, the social risks, and the personal risks. When I see films of people being killed, in car accidents, blown up, etc, it doesn't trigger feelings in me of fear, anger, or sadness. If a superior alien race of robots or bugs shows up and subjugates the earth, demanding servitude and reverance like the old kings appointed by gods... people will need to offer that up in a convincing manner. The state ( a bunch of violent parasite control freaks running a docile herd of servitors ) has managed to subjugate this much of the known world, I'm not sure what makes the idea so unbelievable. The state and traditional power hierarchies are closer to establishing a single world government than any other force known to history. States have made further progress into space than any private enterprise. The idea that the free market can do better than the state at the idea of interstellar domination when the state can't even muster the strength to exist on a single planet is absurd. You're choosing to ignore the thought experiment or suggestion about power dynamics and how to formulate a survival and overall overthrow strategy to focus on personal details about myself. If you feel as though my suggestion of agnosticism as a convincing form of false theism being a valuable tool is wrong, feel free to come up with a convincing reason as to why and post it. Otherwise, I advocate having as many tools available to society as possible to combat a number of varied threats.

No, I'm not. If you look at that debate, Stefan says that the appearance of a deity would be "just a dude". If you tell a vain, vengeful deity-like being that it's just a dude, it will probably kill you. Our historical accounts of deities implies that telling them they are "just a dude" would result in them killing you. Our historical evidence of mortal, human kings shows that if you tell them they're "just a dude" many of them will kill you. The only method of confronting a deity without a drastic loss of human life is fostering agnosticism. The common belief among mankind that a deity ( with a revised definition to the preternatural, not supernatural ) can exist. Not telling an alien "you're just a dude" and getting killed on the spot. Not telling an alien it's the god of the universe and it should be able to freely kill us because we're just pond scum compared to it. Telling ourselves "I don't know" and bending to the whim of a vastly superior entity, long enough to learn its habits and traits.

A typical soldier is a person employed by the state. You might mean a mercenary to be more specific. However, in a society of peaceful parenting I am not sure that you can weaponize human beings to the same degree as a state. My understanding of military training is that they use very specific means of control to form soldiers. Depriving people from immediate family/support, sleep deprivation/interruption, starvation, drills, etc. These things combine to essentially break down the individuality of a soldier and form a baseline disposable killing machine. This would be unethical in a NAP/UPB society as far as I can tell. Even if the NAP/UPB society DID have a standing army, they wouldn't be able to ethically pursue programs that hurt the general population for the same of the army. Budgets that starve the general population to boost the military effectiveness for conquest, budgets that factor in the benefits of work camps, etc. Furthermore, can a NAP/UPB society pursue dishonest or unethical means of warfare? Can they engage in chemical, nuclear, biological warfare? Are they able to target medical facilities, population centres, and other areas of non-military infrastructure? I'm not saying that honesty and virtue are bad, I'm asking serious questions about the strategic weaknesses of moral people. I don't think a NAP/UPB society would be competitive in these fields. I think that unless the entire world laid down its arms and converted to the NAP/UPB all at once, they would be destroyed by a more ruthless enemy.

No, but it doesn't hold to logic that people adhering to the NAP/UPB are going to be shooting each other very often. They might carry guns everywhere, but they won't actually be firing them at one another. If you carry a six shooter for 10 years and never have to fire it, then there's a Beretta available, why would you buy the Beretta? You've never really needed to fire your six shooter, so the higher capacity faster firing rate weapon has no realistic uses. Meanwhile, an organized enemy state has been at war with other states. They've needed to develop assault rifles and the like. I'm not saying that NAP/UPB people won't be able to defend themselves, I'm saying that as a virtue of their society they'll have to do so less and less often. The less they need to, the less they will. The less they do, the less capable they'll be. Can you state a reasonable scenario where a NAP/UPB society is matching cutting edge human killing/espionage technologies, and why?

Reducing women's personal responsibility for their safety is a disservice to women in general.

I'm not applying a stereotype, I'm applying the basic logic behind technological improvements. There aren't any vast technological improvements being made regularly behind manual clothes washing things like washing boards, because people don't often do laundry by hand. If people don't have a pressing need to advance a field they won't advance it. If firearms are generally only used for hunting, you are unlikely to develop assault rifles or machine guns. You're unlikely to develop aircraft carriers, fighter jets, or nuclear weapons. America spends ( I think ) billions of dollars a year on its military. Do you think you could convince the area of the USA in NAP/UPB society to spend billions on military development? If not, what would stop Russia/China from eventually outpacing American defense? What would stop them from developing drone technology that can supersede typical home defense measures? Do you own an anti-aircraft or anti-tank weapon? Do your neighbors? Do you plan on buying one? Do you know where to buy one, how to maintain one, etc? If not, what will you do when a Russian/Chinese aircraft or tank comes through your neighborhood?

The circumstance presented is that another state is developing advanced weaponry. As with weaponry, there's little reason to assume a NAP/UPB state/region will be advancing espionage skills or surveillance technology. There won't be much use for these things in that area because people won't be spying on one another. This means the ability to spy on other nations will be diminished. Those nations might continue domestic and foreign spying by developing satellites, NSA programs, etc. Let's simply the problem. Let's assume the NAP/UPB society never kills people. There's no logical reason to assume they will be very good at it or advance technology for that purpose. Let's assume there's a non-NAP/UPB land, which we'll call EVIL-STATE. EVIL-STATE has a domestic genocide of say, blonde people, so they can continue to perfect the process of killing humans. When EVIL-STATE decides to invade and take over the resources of the NAP/UPB geographical area, EVIL-STATE will have a guaranteed advantage in terms of killing ability.

Kevin Beal, sorry for not addressing you specifically I was on my way out of town. I did watch the video in its entirety, Though I thought that Johnson or whatever his name was wasn't addressing my point. He seemed to stress that there was an unknowable unknowable. A 2+2=5 because of some magic that can -never- be known. My point isn't that there is a magical 2+2=5, my point is that we need the ability to live in deference to that which is not understood. We cannot arrogantly proclaim to a higher power that 2+2=4 and be destroyed, if confronted by a 2+2=5. Nor can we succumb to the fully blind worship of 2+2=5, forgetting our logic and learning ability. Agnosticism, or the professed not knowing of the unlearned or unknowable, is I think the best answer. We cannot say with 100% assuredness that deities in the preternatural sense don't exist. Nor can we say 100% that they do exist. An agnostic is asked a question about deities and says "I don't know.", when you don't know the correct answer, I don't know is a good answer.

Sure. I enjoy playing Devil's Advocate, because I enjoy conversation. So, PJ has a bunch of complementary designs that will be financed by... no one and everyone! This isn't as imposslbe as it sounds, because there are numerous state offers for progressive science projects. He might have something in mind like tiered water wheel style farms, and who buys them? The state I suppose, or maybe just people with a cultic obession with his vision. Cults have been known to build entire compounds off the sweat of their backs just due to the insanity of their collective quest. Now, PJ's utopian computer is... more or less impossible. What's not impossible is a dystopian computer. We have the raw computing power to meet the basic needs of multiple people. PJ is going to offer a perfect computer, and make a good computer. PJ's vision of the future is a computer that beams steaks to you every day. The reality is probably a computer that renders you gruel every day. He thinks that everyone will get their own mansion to live in, but the reality is probably that everyone will live in a cramped apartment the size of a cargo container. Is his idea of a computer-run human farm possible? Sure it's possible. Not today, but the capacity for that is inevitable. We already have almost fully automated farms and greenhouses, so regulating human beings to a similar lifestyle isn't impossible at all. People shouldn't mistake my understanding of his vision and ideas as agreement with them. I understand what he's aiming for, but I also understand what is more realistic. He's made frankly absurd claims like "people will only have to work 3 hours a week" which is... stupid. Unless we get these seemingly mythical androids that can do everything humans can - in which case the extinction of humans is inevitable. Can we provide food, water, and energy for the entire world? Sure it's possible, but only by stepping on a lot of toes. Are there certain movements ( religious frenzy ) historically that can make a mass of people operate against conventional reason? Sure. It's possible. We should hope it doesn't happen, but, a nuclear crusade where we kill 90% of the world's population and then consign ourselves to LSD-laden iron maidens is only one inflammatory cult or mind-altering virus away.

I disagree. In the perfect stateless society where the UPB and NAP are in full swing, your likelihood of actually firing your weapon is really low. In that circumstance you probably won't have a lot of room for improvement. The iPhone gets regulate updates and advancements because it is used all the time. Personal firearms ( rifles, pistols ) advanced rapidly in the 1800s because they were used regularly. Otherwise, you're a weapons manufacturing paying to improve something people don't use. Why would you improve the firing rate of a weapon if no one is firing it? Why improve the stopping power of a weapon that isn't stopping anything? This can even be seen with melee weapons. The constant structured warfare between European countries lead to advancements in swords, polearms, and body armor. These technological improvements wouldn't have been made without the necessity of constant warfare.

Please outline how a vastly superior alien entity cannot exist.

Well compared to a human a deity would definitely need more than a suit of armor and a gun. I don't think ants would be inclined to deify beetles just because they were a bit bigger and a bit better armored. With Cortes, if you have theists saying YAY ITS GOD, agnostics saying I DUNNO LETS CHECK IT OUT and atheists saying HE'S JUST A DUDE DON'T LISTEN TO HIM, I think that the middle ground is the safest option. The trend seems to be that new atheists are very vocal and adament against deities in every way shape and form, which is what I think presents the most risk. I don't know if human beings have ever been visited by aliens or not that said they were gods or were perceived as gods, but I do know that deference is a useful skill in the face of a superior power.

Not really. You can run all kinds of things and then smash into unexpected scenarios. People run mills for years, and then one day there's a sawdust fueled explosion. People run ships for years, and then one day there's a leak or it strikes a rock. People run musical careers for years, and then one day the trend changes. The music one is probably the easiest to relate to. If you are a classical artist and one day rap or rock becomes the big thing, you probably aren't equipped to change all your instruments and lyrical structures to the shift in trends. People tend to get old, get distracted, make mistakes. You can definitely run a business casually and be unaware of market changes or other events until its too late. You can also double or nothing and lose. That's not anything against the free market or betting, that's just life. PJ just thinks he can change the rules of life.

Given that ISIS has threatened to kill pretty much everyone that disagrees with them, I think it falls under self-defense to kill ISIS. I don't know enough about the NAP to know if you're allowed to hurt peoples' feelings or not. If someone goes to kill your family member for example, that's going to cause you a lot of pain and anguish. Are you allowed to stop them by force from hurting your family member in that case, or is the family member obligated to do it themselves? It seems to me at least that you should be able to intervene on the behalf of people that consent to your involvement. They kind of have that here in Canada with medicine. In a first aid situation, you are supposed to anounce who you are and your intention in doing first aid. A person has the right to deny your assistance if they want. If they are unconscious, then their consent is considered to be assumed until they regain consciousness. I think a similar rule for international conflict resolution could be generally agreed on. You show up, and you ask if they want your help, and if they do then you help them. The sticky wicket is figuring out how to help a whole geographical region if say, 10 people say no. Do you just override their lack of consent? Do you kind of just, avoid driving on their property or over their airspace? Is that voice of opposition considered collusion with ISIS?

Kind of? I'm not entirely sure that's actually the case. There are amazing advances being made in technology, and a strong transhumanist movement. The fictional history of the Matrix is obviously fantastic, but not impossible. For those who don't know the backstory, the idea is that human beings create an underclass of automaton workers. Those workers are bestowed with increasing intelligence until one day an action causes revolt. The machines secede from human kind and form their own city called 01. 01 continues to refine itself and build increasingly awesome technologies and products. Humanity boycots 01 and refuses their entry into the United Nations. Inevitably, humanity and the machines go to war. As the war turns against the humans they decide to blot out the sun. The machines manage to overcome the humans in spite of the tactic. Now, obviously that's a science fiction story. However, it's not an impossible story. If the technological singularity can be achieved and self-replicating/self-enhancing AIs can be created, there's not a lot stopping those kinds of things from happening. Living creatures are essentially cyborgs that can create more cyborgs, if you take the view of life originating from mud struck by lightning. A robot with the ability to make another robot would have the same ability to reproduce as an animal. If that robot was ever bestowed with human levels of intelligence, it would be able to learn how to mine raw materials, form them, then reproduce itself. If it ever learned how to write its own code, there doesn't seem to be any reason to assume it couldn't make enhancements. Because human consciousness and will are decidedly physical and exist, there is no logical reason that an artificial equivalent cannot exist. It may only be a matter of time. If human beings can subjugate one another, improve themselves, and evolve, there's no logical reason that artificial consciousness might not be able to do the same.

PJ seems to be of the opinion that yes, denying an unproductive or less productive person resources is an act of structural violence. He seems to be of the mind that if you and your friend go fishing, and you catch 4 and your friend catches 2, the resulting advantage that you have forms structural violence. If you two keep fishing and don't catch anything, your friend is going to starve before you. PJ discounts sharing because he defaults to the assumption that if you share you'll be at a disadvantage, because somewhere someone else won't share. On another island maybe they catch 4 and 2, but the one guy kills the other guy and now has 6/0 to your 4/2 or 3/3 if you decided to share them. Again I want to stress that I'm just interpreting his point of view based on what he put forward in the video.

North American aboriginals are a pretty good example of what can happen to a stateless society when a state crashes into it. If a non-aggressive society separated from aggressive society right now, I'm not sure they'd be able to maintain their edge. The main problem of putting down weapons in a stand off is that you're never 100% sure that you aren't going to get shot on the spot. It takes an incredibly brave person to be willing to put their life in the hands of someone else. In a stateless society advancing weapon technologies seems like it wouldn't be very profitable and wouldn't be pursued. Other states by contrast would continue investing in weapons technologies simply because they can derive a profit from win/lose arrangements.

I appreciate the distinction between the free market and current markets. I think the structure that PJ is talking about is deeper than the government structure. I think what he's getting at is the core nature of a consumer market, which presents certain realities the same way that gravity does. My understanding of what he's saying is that if you spend 40 years running a business like a carrier pidgeon business and then someone invents the internet, you're out of luck. You're probably 60 years old or something and can't be competitive by trying to go into an internet messaging market. As a result people stop buying your services/product and you spiral into poverty. And it doesn't have to be something as silly as that. Maybe you're a fur coat salesman and a PETA wave hits society, making fur coats suddenly unfashionable. The idea is that as a natural result of the economy people will be bumped down in socioeconomic status, many into poverty. He also asserts that automation will increase the number of people losing jobs and thus getting into poverty. I think the thing that he's saying is, sure, there are going to need to be mechanics for machines that cut hay. However, you probably only need 1 mechanic to work on that tractor/bailer, and you used to have 100 people gathering that crop. More than that, those 100 people don't have any of the necessary skills or experience to go for that mechanic job. Again, this doesn't mean that we should stop advancing automation, it's just an effect of it. He's proposing an airplane in the face of gravity. I'm not sure its a plane that will work, and I'm not sure of what the consequences of it will be. I think we can agree that people shouldn't be forced to board it, but I don't mind if people voluntarily consent. The only problem with PJ specifically is that as a zealot of this super computer communist utopia he has explicitly global ambitions. He wouldn't really be satisfied with Zeitgeist-land, he'd need his resource gobbling central computer to requisition the world's resources at will in order to feed the out of control population within. ( Or liquidate them, but that seems to against his overall design. ) TL;DR He wants to build the Matrix. It has pros and cons.

I'm saying that if an entity with deific qualities shows itself, we need to be able to emulate genuine worship until we know enough about it or have enough power to unseat it. If you do not have agnosticism as a tool in the toolbox, you have less options for resolving the power dynamics between deities and mortals. Suppose that in 100 years, religion no longer exists. The capacity for religion no longer exists. People have forgotten how to worship the same way most people have forgotten how to milk cows and stuff. Then, an alien being arrives with seemingly magic powers, able to do amazing things beyond our understanding. If the human race asserts to that being that it is mortal, irrelevant, etc, they might face extinction. The reasonable voices that assert this could be completely destroyed leaving only a mentally feebler element of humanity that is driven to blind theism. Human beings who legitimately forget rational modes of thinking or are raised in captivity to regard the being as a true supernatural entity and not a preternatural one. With agnosticism in the toolbox, people will be able to obscure their rational breakdown of a deity with feigned reverence. The same way that if you are a prisoner, you need to obscure the fact that you're watching the guards or forming an escape plan. Simply running at the gates or openly oogling the guards and their guns is a sure way to get yourself killed or isolated. Agnosticism is the tool that can allow you to steal glances and formulate a plan.

I've been fishing lots of times. I don't really get what you mean. I think it's important to remember that I'm not siding with PJ and his insane idea of a supercomputer running the world. I'm just explaining what he's talking about. Generally speaking capitalists concede that those who fail suffer the consequences of failure. To put it a different way, a drug user suffers the consequences of using drugs. PJ's design seems to be an apparatus that will let people use drugs without suffering the consequences of drug use. Your typical eugenicist or capitalist will say that the realities of life dictate that drug users must suffer the consequences of drug use. PJ seems to be arguing that by overriding personal freedom an apparatus can be made that supersedes that reality. I think that if you want to be honest, you have to concede that structural violence exists. After that, you can say that you want to work to limit the amount or effects of structural violence. There's nothing inherently wrong with structural violence any more than there is something wrong with gravity making objects fall - it's just a reality.

That's... not entirely true. You can put a lot of value and effort into something that just doesn't work out. A lot of product lines and businesses fail. It can be something as simple as cultural trends, like clothing styles. Structural violence is just the fact that when you fail, you have less resources because you invested resources into a failure.

If enthusiast offended you I apologize, that wasn't my intention. Structural violence as explained by PJ there is in essence, the consequences of failure or uncompetitiveness. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer is generally the way that capitalism works, outside of human empathy. If you just looked at capitalism as a machine it would operate in that fashion which seems to be his source of objection. PJ discounts charity and all that when looking at the economy. As with nature, the strong have better access to resources and grow stronger, and the weak have less access and get weaker.

Well I'm not god or anything, I don't have the perfect answer to these kinds of questions. My answer can only be another altenative with pros and cons. Let's say I advocated for a more centered position where you had both state control and a measure of freedom, like a liberal democracy or some other system. It wouldn't satisfy the zealots or extremists on either side, not that I say that with disaparaging intent. You mention gravity and falling, which is in essence the core of eugenics. Eugenicists believe that the process of the incapable falling is inevitable and that the capable won't fall. In a vacuum this is survival of the fittest. Eugenics is a loaded term because of the things done by fascists in the past, but it was a fairly commonly accepted field of science before WWII. I'm not saying that eugenics is inherently wrong, I'm just saying that people have different priorities. PJ prioritizes human happiness and survival before truth and freedom. He wants to create a systemic, world-spanning white lie.

I agree threebobs, and that has always been the central fault of any socio-economic structure. Ideally, all of these things work out in a fashion that has either acceptable pros/cons or just generally is to the net benefit and voluntary agreement of mankind. Different people have different... uh... gods that they think will save their system. PJ has this monolithic supercomputer that will one day impartially dictate society to the benefit of mankind, and Stefan has peaceful parenting. I don't say that to be derisive or anything and I'm not saying that those ideas don't have merits, I'm just saying both sides have their own inspirations. I think an unwillingness to concede faults is intellectually dishonest. I understand it, because we're talking to sway public opinion more than the opposition, but it's still there. PJ's computer will discriminate and supersede individual human will. The free market will stratify human beings and is essentially the survival of the fittest eugenics at play. PJ will advocate for some kind of morality programming that stops the computer from committing genocide, and Stefan will advocate peaceful parenting which will advocate charity and other voluntary measures that insulate the uncompetitive from the consequences of failure. I suppose if the two sides worked together they might form some kind of amazing hybrid, but I'm not sure that's possible. People who adhere to principle in the face of consequences are probably going to be unwilling to work with their opposition. Maybe I misunderstand the two sides, but it seems to be that they're both saying that capitalism and communism are more important than human life or human will.

The idea of cargo cults is interesting. It's a fascinating phenomenon. I think in essence what I'm suggesting is that we as a race and society retain the capacity for religion as a precautionary tool. We might one day encounter a situation where we need to feign ignorance, which requires practice. It is not so much the suggestion that religion in the sense of believing falsehoods is intellectually valid, but rather that a structure of appeasement to a higher power is pragmatic. For the sake of posterity I do not believe we should concern ourselves with things disproven, but that we should bide our time against threats that proven. Even the nicest god or most benevolent dictator is defined by a power disparity and the willingness to decisively crush opposition. Therefore, we cannot allow ourselves too much pride and arrogance in unfettered atheism, lest we forget deception.