Ken Cotton

Instead of having long debates the entire divide can be summed up simply: Free market enthusiasts are objectively indifferent to structural violence. Free market enthusiasts reconcile this by adhering to the NAP, which does not force action on any unwilling participant, and reasons structural violence to be the result of personal failure. The UPB and peaceful parenting initiative aims to end the ojective indifference toward structural violence by advocating charity and so on. PJ believes that structural violence can be stopped by violating the NAP, and anarcho-capitalists believe that the violating the NAP is unacceptable regardless of net benefits. I think this opens up an interesting question about self defense, and whether or not the poor are entitled to defend themselves from the rich. If we assume that the poor are simply poor due to laziness, stupidity, bad luck, etc, are they entitled to fight back? Is the runt of the litter entitled to find alternative means to getting the resources if the accepted form of competition will result in their demise? PJ wants to be the even hand that comes down from on high and separates the more competitive pups from the teat and gives the uncompetitive ones an equal amount of resources. In essence, he wants to foster weakness because he cannot bring himself to terms with the reality of struggle - that the weak die and the strong survive. His ultimate goal is to invent unlimited resources and ensure all people win. While this might be possible ( though I'm unsure ) for basic needs like food and water, there will always be another layer of needs to resolve. Sexual partners, happiness, acceptance, etc. There is no reason for PJ's solution to end at labor and money when human suffering exists across every level of needs/competition where there are winners and losers. Therefore, rounding back to the original premise, PJ simply believes that either stasis or dictation of higher authority is more important than individual freedom. This is... the same debate that's been going on since the beginning of capitalism vs communism. PJ is just a communist that is going to remove the objection of hard work not being rewarded fairly in the sense of labor by automating labor. The free market enthusiasts are still eugenicists. It's a fundamental divide.

That's very interesting Blackfish. How did you disentangle yourself from the peer pressure and that culture? What was the inspiration for you to withold violence? Reading your story reminds me of the way the motto "protect and serve" is used, compared to "law enforcement". I suppose there are police who want to help people, and police who just want to enforce regulation. Did you have to learn that sort of empathy or was it a character trait you just exhibited naturally?

Emotions (suffering and misery) are completely physical. It's a complex phenomenon, and I'm not a neurologist, but there are doctors that understand the mechanisms of human emotion. If I hit you with a rock and that causes you pain and suffering, it's because of a series of physical actions and reactions have occurred to matter. A "haunted" location in this agnostic preternatural argument isn't a place that is occupied by non-real entities, it's a collection of subtle clues that cue fear or agitation in the human brain. Smell is a completely physical sense for example that is a lot harder to record than other sense indicators. I'm not saying people shouldn't learn, I'm saying we should take a more nuanced look at it. Aggression isn't inefficient. Lions eat zebras and that's plenty efficient for them. There's no reason to assume that an alien race with the capacity of interstellar travel isn't going to be like a lion. A lion can run across the land and chase down a zebra. If an alien species is an imperialst species or something like a virus there's no reason to assume that it won't try to subjugate the earth. If a zebra could speak to a lion that wouldn't necessarily stop the lion from eating the zebra.

Belief in gods then would not be an act of faith, it would be an act of deference. Traditionally more basic religions or belief systems didn't need to have faith in the concept of a god, the presence of the god was just well understood. The sun for example was considered to be a god and no one had to have faith in the sun's existence, they just had to abide by the cultural norms and structures established around the sun. The sun is a bad example for worship and sacrifice however, because it does not exhibit desires or issue directives. Classic pantheons however, displayed thinking ability and personality. People wouldn't need to have faith if Thor appeared in front of them in order to follow the tenets of their belief system, they would just have to obey the orders of the god. In this way, god based belief systems are a survival mechanism akin to those of slaves or prisoners. Deference to authority while individual sects or people chisel away at the power and mystery of the gods, until either escape or revolt occur. Human beings are keen animals and one of the oldest elements of our nature is the idea of ascension. Throughout all of human history people have been enamored by the idea of human ascension to a state of godliness, from the earliest humans working stone tools and forming clothing to the most advanced modern transhumanist enthusiasts. An alien race visiting earth with immense power and unrelatable technology could therefore assert itself as a god. The personality of the god would dictate the way it interacted with people. If it were a cruel or vain god then atheism would be a suicidal idea. The tyranny imposed by the god and the belief system structured around that tyranny would afford human beings a chance to observe their new god more closely. To learn about that god and one day overcome it. Gods then, as they have always been, are dictated by the amount of power they hold. It is possible we might encounter aliens well beneath us who reverse us as gods, and it is possible we will encounter the opposite. We should be prepared to measure our defiance relative to our capability then. In pursuing an atheist society, we must not learn the true lesson at the heart of early religion, which is caution. Spirituality is just another expression of this. People who avoid haunted houses with a "better safe than sorry" attitude might rely on religion, but they also might rely on emerging scientific or metaphysical explanations. An argument can be made about how much of our aversion to allegedly haunted locations is socially constructed. However, human instinct is at times powerful, and the sensation of prickling hairs and subtle unconscious clues profound. Is it possible for a location of a brutal mass murder to be imprinted with the emotions of the event? In the way that radiation can cling to and be absorbed by things, can a concentration of human suffering and misery be absorbed by a place? Is that physically possible? What pheromones, thought patterns, subtle clues, etc can be left in a location to warn others of what occurred there? In this way we see how there is a -possibility- that will naturally separate the curious from the cautious.

I'll start by saying I'm an agnostic, just to get that out of the way. I generally tend to put forth the argument that atheism is silly, and has been co-opted by a movement directly opposed to capital G God. The judeo-christian God that exists as a monotheistic element of culture. There are many "non-believers" who form an entire non-belief system around God himself ( Himself I guess, hahaha ) but not around other supernatural elements like spirits, souls, etc. I think this is why a lot of Christians tend to think that a number of atheists they meet are just bitter. None of that God stuff matters though, becase my argument has nothing to do with that god. My argument is more about classic pantheons of multiple gods, pagan type arrangements, worshiping powerful spirits, etc. In the greek and norse pantheons the gods weren't really like God, infinitely powerful and infinitely insightful. The gods were pretty mortal and flawed when compared to one another. Compared to human beings their fantastic abilities were more preternatural than supernatural, which means seemingly magical but simply not understood. A good way to envision a preternatural event is with the senses of some animals, or even an illusion done by a magician. Supernatural abilities are more powers/events that fundamentally defy physical laws, which can be called true magic. True magic doesn't exist, of course. Magic is really just a word people use to cover things that are fantastic that they can't understand, just like miracles. The idea of preternatural gods and magic can lend itself to the theories of alien life involving itself in human affairs. I don't particularly believe that intelligent aliens have visited earth, but I am intrigued and attracted to depictions of the gods as aliens. The recent Noah movie for example that features God and the angels as effectively aliens wielding super advanced technology is a pretty cool take on a scientifically hollow story. The purpose of me mentioning this isn't to wrangle people back into religion or make excuses for religion by merging science and religion, it's just a personal observation. I arrive then at my conclusion, which is that a god can simply be an entity whose nature and power are beyond understanding. The sun used to be a god to many people, because it was all-powerful and not well understood. We understand a lot about the sun now, but it is still pretty much the most powerful object we can relate to. Similarly, if ants had the capacity for reverence and worship, I think they would probably regard human beings as gods. Our capacities exceed their understanding and ability to change the world by so much that we are like the greek and norse pantheon compared to them. "Playing god" as a saying is given meaning because of sheer power and scope. Deities then, should have their definition changed from supernatural entities to preternatural entities. This would satisfy the requirement of gods existing as physical forces in a physical universe, and also provide a reasonable rebuttal to atheism itself. Atheism would then be less about believing in spirituality or miracles, and more akin to whether or not one believes it aliens. Atheism wouldn't be a matter of not believing in the concept of gods, it would be believing that no entities sufficiently powerful or misunderstood existed in the universe worthy of that designation. Let me know what you think!

You felt sick? I don't understand. Do you mean you felt sick as in, you went into shock? If that's the case you should be able to reason that shock is a completely normal biological reaction. I am really repulsed by spiders, and one time when someone went to throw a spider on my face I blanched and got all quesy feeling and shaky. That was just a biological reaction though, one that I worked through that only lasted a handful of minutes. Looking back on my personal experience with violence, I've never felt that feeling in connection with a violent act. I've felt pretty much nothing except for clarity, a sort of... brief falling out of the world and into another place of extreme calm. I can remember one time I threw a chair at someone at school in a fairly impressive fashion, the instant it entangled in their legs and took them down I did feel a momentary spike in fear - fear that I had gone too far and something would happen to me - but then we all were laughing about it and that fear vanished. I've always found it extremely difficult to think outside of my own feelings and experiences. I would never have imagined that someone would feel bad about committing an act of violence, as long as it was socially justified. I've of course heard about people who felt bad about having to take lives but they've always existed as a kind of anamoly to me. From my youngest days I've always known my grandfather didn't want to talk about his experience in the war, but it was a kind of learned respect, an emulation of the solemness and sensitivity of those around him. On my part I've always been very curious about what happened and wondered how a many so strong and noble could be made so quiet so easily.

I think I could devise scenarios in which you would enage in rape, but maybe I'm just creative. Unless, I suppose, you're saying that that's a foundational principle for you around which your entire being revolves. You wouldn't rape someone to save your life, to save their life, to save your kid's life, or to save the entire world. If that's true then I applaud your moral fiber. However, you seem to have missed my point, which is that I agree with your practiced decision making but stress the reason for its necessity. There is no reason to slow to a stop at a red light besides other cars or pedastrians. There is no reason to practice restraint sexually except for encountering others. As varying levels of understanding in basic concepts of law and sexual reproduction show, people cannot be entrusted to freely teach these lessons to their children. There are other scenarios to be encountered that require different lessons. You might choose to die for the NAP, but I will not, nor will my children. I will survive at any cost, and I will teach my children to survive at any cost. My children will not be as the natives of north america, trampled underfoot and exploited by colonial forces. I have seen the effect of naivety, ignorance, and pacifism. I have seen what happens to people who are ignorant of their enemy, who do not acquire and refine arms, nor engage in manipulation or espionage. The result of disarmament is invariably death. Your blind dedication to the NAP and UPB will be an exploitable weakness now and for forever. Learn to stop your car. I will learn to stop my car, and also learn to accelerate it and run over anyone who threatens me. Versatility and adaptability are key to survival, and survival is more important than anything else.

I do support cultivating a strong personality, code of ethics, and self control. However, I think that even in the example of the car driving you are faced with the threat of pain. In that case it is the objective reality that a car accident can cause you or others immense harm. This is the same kind of phenomenon you get from learning not to touch a hot stove. It is my opinion that by intiating force you can provide this phenomenon where it might not otherwise naturally occur. For example, if I turn on the stove and it gets red hot, I can bring my child to the stove and explain it to them. I can hold their hand near it to teach them what dangerous heat feels like without burning them, and explain the lesson to them. Because this dangerous level of heat is naturally occuring in the world I make the decision to force this lesson on them, even if they are interested in doing something else. This patronizing approach extends itself into other preparedness classes, such as military training. By simulating violence, pain, discomfort, you are able to train people to be more resistant to these natural occurences. This requires force however, with a rigid structure that permits few freedoms. In the same sense that I don't bring my child near the stove without holding their hand, neither do you freely let people onto a firing range with guns at their peril. Training human beings then is of penultimate importance. There can only be a few true goals to any mass movement. The goal of the movement itself, like the goal of any other massive human endeavor, is ultimately to bring prosperity and happiness to the people. In order for people to be prosperous and happy, they need to abide by a set of rules. In order to learn rules they need to be taught. Statism simply brings people toward a single standard, depending mainly on the quality of the state. To be concise, my offer ( if I was president of the world! ) would be a deal with the devil. How much better off would the world be if Stefan's work and the work of other philosophers was mandatory reading? How much better off would the world be without smoking? How much better off would the world be with any number of controls? If we rid ourselves of the most corrupt, reined the most ambitious, and set our sights on the goal of human happiness what glory could we accomplish? Could there be any limits to our successes other than those of envious states? When we are pushed to the very brink of losing ourselves to our animal impulses, there will arise from within the state those few who walk the line between man and animal, those with the will to seize power and use it for better or worse. They and their followers will be judged by the caliber of their character and the aim of their movement. I am here to tell you that we are increasingly pushed to the point where the insepid nature of liberal democracy will fail us, and without embracing purposeful and designed reform of the people, will condemn us to a dark age of ignorance and isolation. I have seen the face of the poor, the increasing mass of the welfare state underclass, know them inside and out. There will be no noble savages among them when the yoke of the state finally breaks. They will consume you orgiastically, utterly incapable of processing the reason you spout with your dying breaths.

People who smoke a lot of marijuana sometimes report not remembering dreams/not dreaming as noted above. I'm not sure if that applies, but it seems to be a common thing.

Upon closer inspection, I should amend my earlier statements: Evil is never necessary, but increasingly attractive. I think it stands to reason that animals aren't evil because they are unconscious of morality. Human beings have an "animal brain" that can kick in in times of extreme duress. In situations where the higher functions of the brain aren't working, the lower functions of the brain will take over. This can be considered action that is unconscious of morality and not evil. Therefore, when acting in that fashion one is not exhibiting necessary evil because the actions are objective, unconscious, and neither good nor evil. As a person is driven closer and closer to this point, evil becomes increasingly attractive. I'm sorry for being difficult. I find it extremely hard to look at things in a principled fashion instead of a consequentialist fashion. Necessary evil cannot exist in a principled binary format, only in a commonly understood fashion. My mistake was putting the commonly socially acceptable amount of selfishness ahead of the absolutely acceptable level of selfishness.

1. The initiation of force IS universal. By this I mean, all animate things exert force on other things. Objectively speaking this is all tracked by action and reaction, and has no overarching meaning. Tilling the land and killing a human being cannot be shown to be objectively moral or immoral actions. They are simply the movement of matter by animate objects which is a universal occurrence. 2. Morality is subjective. The human experience and consciousness is what dictates morality. To suggest that the human appreciation of morality is the ultimate authority on morality is supremely arrogant. Human beings derive morals from the way that actions make them feel. 3. Yes, I believe that evil is a willingness to engage in selfish acts with awareness of alternatives. If there is 1 apple and 2 people, and they're starving to death, it would be understood to be evil to eat the entire apple oneself and let the other person die. This is a win-loss scenario, contrasted by a cooperation win-win/loss-loss scenario like splitting it in half. ( Depending on if you're a cynic or an optimist ) 4. Evil is present in win-loss arrangements. I do aim to win at any cost, which is a direct result of deeply rooted selfishness. The degree of evil or selfishness is measured by the need for it. Using the above example, I am inclined to consume the entire apple except in instances where I feel as though I can afford to share, or sharing is ultimately more beneficial. A willingness to use violence ( taking the apple by force ) at the expense of another person only compounds the matter. 5. Evil is necessary. As all resources are finite, all living creatures must compete for resources. Animals are exempt from the assumption of evil because they are unaware of morality. Human beings have the capacity for morality and empathy, but are animals. They simultaneously aware of morality and unaware of morality, as different portions of the brain are responsible for different actions. 6. Good and evil are subjective in that they are tied to human consciousness. A human being that is unaware of the consequences of their actions and right and wrong cannot be reasonably regarded as evil. Since evil requires a certain level of intellectual capacity it is by its nature subjective. 7. Empathy is the key to establishing the human understanding of morality. A typical human being does not kill another human being in the same fashion an animal might kill another animal due to advanced empathy. For example, the vast majority of people would regard the act of infanticide to be deeply immoral. However, animals routinely engage in infanticide and even the cannibalism of their own young. Objectively, we do not regard an animal killing its offspring as an "evil" act. By being able to disable empathy you are more capable to view things the way an animal typically does, which is in a rudimentary, more objective fashion.

Hello, I would like to give FDR a sort of open letter about what I consider to be the nature of evil. For the purpose of this I will define evil as a willingness to engage in selfish acts at the expense of others. In essence, evil is inherent in win-lose situations. From this we can determine what things exist in the world as "necessary evils". For example, most people agree that things like a standing army are a necessary evil. My perspective on this issue is formed by the fact I am fairly sure I suffer from narcissistic personality disorder or NPD. While I have not been clinically diagnosed with it I exhibit many of its symptoms. One of the obstacles of the situation is the fact that I don't want to be officially diagnosed because I feel as though it would hurt my career options moving forward. I set forth as a principle of this good-evil arrangement that nothing is objectively, mathematically good or evil. Good and evil are therefore subjective. For practical reasons we can assume that good and evil in relation to humanity are what matter primarily. It is important to keep in mind the objective reality however, because creatures acting without empathy are more inclined to act in a way that can be regarded as objectively. For example, we don't generally regard animals as being good or evil. *We generally regard animals as fancy robots that simply reproduce ad infinitum. From this simple exercise we can determine how someone with low empathy is able to view actions. I would argue that our templates for evil robot overlords who dispassionately act with no regard for human life are directly tied to the natural phenomenon of low-empathy human beings. We have learned what a robot MIGHT do or be capable of from what robot-like humans can do or be capable of. ( *I think there's an interesting train of thought to be explored where living creatures are a sort of cyborg by default, with traditionally understood living elements forming from traditionally inanimate objects, ashes to ashes and dust to dust - but I digress ) Taking our initial purpose to be simple reproduction, we must explore different forms of reproduction. In this we need to also establish priority. Each person is going to prioritize things differently. Forms of reproduction can vary from the base ( children ) to the more esotetic ( ideas ). We can see in examples of Nobel Prize winners and geniuses people that have reproduced through ideas, but have not had children. In a way that borders on the spiritual they are able to transcend physical limitation as we commonly know it and transfer their defining traits via book, radio, TV. For a person who absolutely prioritizes their mind and ideas physical relation can be more abstract. They can die without children and leave behind a legacy that is picked up by someone on the other side of the world. That person can then become a "spiritual successor", or grow up on those ideas and experiences, a child of that person in the context of ideas. The much more common means of human reproduction is fairly basic and consists of sexual reproduction. A well understood and complex process in its own right, but comparatively basic. ( And maybe this incredibly loose, incredibly basic web of idea-sharing is the stirrings of transcendance, and those engaging in it are neanderthal equivalent for future technological singularity transhumanists, a breed all their own, who knows! ) Different forms of reproduction therefore have different reproductive strategies. Not all reproductive strategies are effective. Human beings have evolved advanced empathy, which has served us well, but that does not inherently make empathy a superior reproductive strategy. A divergent creature with similar intellectual capacity but no appreciable empathy might be able to reproduce at a faster rate. Reproductive strategies and evolution are can be looked at as a gamble, or perhaps just things aimlessly tumbling around a dryer - a reflection of matter tumbling endlessly and recklessly through space. Reproductive strategies are also keyed to environment. In an environment with scarce resources altruism might be an ineffective strategy. In an environment with many resources violence might be an ineffective strategy. An additional risk of all these reproductive strategies is the fact that they might ultimately prove too effective. It is certainly possible for creatures with no natural balancing factor ( predators, disease, etc ) to overpopulate an area. My reproductive strategy has been labelled by some as parasitic, though I prefer to think of it as symbiotic. At my core I am engaged in a multi-leveled competition with other human beings. Traditionally, human beings are engaged on one level of competition. My first level of competition is the same as anyone else, I am against other human beings competing for resources. This can be healthy competition and does not necessarily require violence. The second level of competition is against other narcissists. I am driven by my nature to gather together a host population, and to afford them the benefits of my existence in return for their cooperation and consent to my presence. The primary advantage I offer my host population is insight into the "enemy" and protection from that enemy. There are other perks, such as organization and productivity, the objective view, the will to power, etc. It's important of course to understand that I, like anyone else, am fairly unique. There can be different levels of narcissism present in a person, different levels of willingness to engage in good/evil behavior, etc. When push comes to shove, I will pretty much survive at anyone's expense by doing anything necessary. Being self-aware of this fact but having a desire to do good/have a good world, my self-serving interest becomes insulating myself from those circumstances. It becomes in the mutual best interest of myself and others for me to build them up, to acquire resources, and to shield the collective against threats. If I can be thought of as a conquerer, an entity that asserts its existence at the expense of others, then it stands to reason that I would demonstrate this quality in all relationships. I am inclined to conquer the people I meet, to accurately gauge my limitations and act within them, and to expand my resource base whenever possible. Impaired empathy, like most forms of brain damage, is practically impossible to fix. Damage however, is not necessarily indicative of a decrease in capability reproductively speaking. A sword is a damaged piece of metal, one that has been sharpened by grinding the edge. A human being can be transformed into a weapon in a similar way by calculated damage. The result can be the creation of a creature exhibiting different reproductive traits than its peers, superior or inferior as determined by the long view of history. Naturally occurring and ideologically occurring reproduction can operate with each other, against each other, or alongside one another. One way of looking at this is to take into account circumcision. Men throughout history have been crudely referred to as "cut" or "uncut". If human beings routinely and institutionally damaged themselves for a long enough amount of time its possible that their evolution might reflect the practice. A people that exists in an environment of perpetual militarization for thousands of years might internalize those traits. This has become a lot longer than I expected. I suppose I want to say, I would like to be a better person as its commonly defined. I think that in the broad view of good and evil, I am the kind of evil person that yearns for a suicidal moment of redemption. The sort of person that craves a moment where I can betray my nature and take self-defeating action to the benefit of others. I am incapable of doing this in the long term repeatedly. The kind of selfish evil that has trouble getting along with others long term, but has useful traits for those that can abide by my existence. I have been described as "working like a machine" many times for example, for my willingness to subject myself to hard work without distraction. Not as the result of a learned work ethic, but as the result of my nature. I do not actively seek the pain and misery of others, I simply do not have the same obstacles when it comes to utilizing necessary evils. I hope that one day I am surrounded by people willing to utilize my gifts and give me what I need in return. I am here to learn as much as I can from you anarcaps, and I hope that one day we have nations ( or geographical areas if you prefer ) that can exist peacefully alongside one another. I sincerely hope that circumstances never pit us against one another. Wishing you the best, Ken

dsayers, I am going to prepare an exploration of this in another thread. Thanks for making me think about it.

Yes and no. Might is necessary for right to succeed and thrive. I don't believe that someone is in the moral right just because they overpower someone else. Rape for example is not a moral thing to do. I think there is an ideal human condition that dictates a framework for society with minor adjustments, systems with various pros and cons. I also think that violence is inseperable from the human condition and a fundamental part of our nature. To be concise, my stance is that if you're right your might is right.

Credit score is an interesting method of management. I'm glad to consider it. I'm all for exploring creative solutions to different problems. Whether its tax reform, justice reform, immigration reform, and so on. It's my core opinion that society is best served by multiple views, "everything in moderation" as the saying goes. To make my original point clearer however, it is property rights and personal freedoms that condemned me. The same way that Ariel Castro was able to keep those girls locked up for years. The same way that any kidnapper or hostage taker is able to obscure their activities with privacy rights and private property laws. I'm not interested in fairy tale solutions about a utopia where there are never sick people again who excessively beat, starve, sexually abuse, or otherwise mishandle their children. I am interested in practical ways of combating the reality we face today. I was saved by the state. Infringment of property rights and personal freedom rescued me. The state clothed me, the state fed me, the state educated me and the state freed me. My family failed on multiple counts to fulfill their responsibilities and obligations. Any number of reasons or conclusions can be drawn from why they did what they did, but those things are in the past. They are dead and gone and well beyond my changing. All I can do now is look at society and see where the incessant push for selfishness in rampant freedom causes unregulated misery. Inevitable human misery and suffering that can be placed upon the demonstrably guilty and not randomly distributed among the innocent by chance. Considering my stance villainy can only either be an illogical reverence toward liberty or collusion with murderers, rapists, and thieves. From the high ranking bankers that sell out entire markets for personal gain, to multinational corporations with no particular allegiance to the people they exploit... from violent psychopaths to sex offenders. Aligning yourself against me in their defense is treasonous to virtue itself. Remember vigor. Remember action. Remember passion. Break free of the shackles of modern society and rise up in force. Let the state flourish around you, not as a method of control, but as a singlular driving force! Through voluntary cooperation let the spirit of the greater community show itself, and let fascism emerge from democracy as the will of the people! The action of the people! We will punish the wicked and expel the saboteurs. We will use violence against those who would seek to undo our work, who wish criminality and deviance to run unchecked among us. There can be no love without hate. No life without death. No coexistence between good and evil. All I ask is that you look within yourself and find truth. As truth cannot permit falsehood, neither can good men permit evil men - only be surrounded by them, twisted by them, or emulated by them.

Knowledge is power. I certainly intend to learn as much from my enemies as possible. However, there are many places where my beliefs overlap with those of others. I think that if I am successful in a political career I can help bring back the sort of traditional society we're sorely lacking. The roles of people in society, the nuclear family, and proper justice can all be restored. Vengeance will be a satisfying byproduct of the reinvigoration of the state. No amount of reflection or self-knowlegde can undo the way I view the world - it is who I am. All that remains is to weaponize the people against evil and purge it by force.

My subjective opinion hinges on the details. I prefer to have an informed opinion. My ethical stand, my position, is that the death penalty is an appropriate measure for a society to take. I think it is unconscionable to force society to subsidize the living of certain kinds of criminals. I derive my standards and measures from my own personal experiences and my willingness to act on my beliefs, or as its more commonly known, the will to power. 30 million people died in the largest genocidal period in history. Interesting. Their guilt is of profound importance. If they were all demonstrably guilty then there is no cause for concern. I don't know any Chinese people, but, I'll make sure to keep this tidbit in mind next time I get a chance to talk to one.

I don't know. What was the end result? Were the 30 million people guilty? Are people happier now? 30 million doesn't mean anything to me. There's no appreciable difference between 3 and 30,000,000 except logistics.

The Tribunal explicitly relies on force. There's still a governing body behind the tribunal. Also, you need to have an ID in order for the entire system to work. If you can just freely make unlimited accounts then the tribunal will not be very effective. And... well as a League of Legends player I can say there are still enough trolls on it to ruin a game. Fairly often. lol

Ethics completely revolves around maximizing human happiness. It's unethical to kill someone because it makes someone else feel sad, upset, hurt, angry, etc. There is nothing unethical about killing someone if it doesn't make anyone unhappy, the same way there is nothing unethical about destroying a chair. People throughout history have been able to kill other people by dehumanizing them, which makes killing them ethical. There's also nothing unethical about vandalism unless the vandalism makes someone unhappy. This has actually been explored in art many times. You can see written work and movies about people who can't die or people who regenerate doing completely horrible things to one another. If you arm could regenerate very quickly and losing it wouldn't make you unhappy, it could become ethical for someone to cut your arm off. If having your genitals cut off was just a minor inconvenience, it could become increasingly ethical for someone to cut your genitals off. We don't condemn people who bump into each other for assault because it is incredibly minor and doesn't generally lead to unhappiness, even though the principle of force against a person without consent has technically occurred. Genocide for example has been viewed as ethical in many societies. It is only by making minorities in the society or majorities in other societies unhappy that it gains a label of unethical. There's nothing inherently unethical about genocide or extinction, because ethics are wholly subjective, and that subjectivity basically amounts to the total of happiness/unhappineess generated by actions.

I apologize, my name is Ken Cotton. I use my likeness as my avatar and its plainly available on other sources like my main email address and blog. It's a force of habit to use usernames instead of my real name on the internet. I think that's the case for most people, and something I am interested in working against.

The conclusion that it goes against human nature to enslave other human beings is completely arbitrary. Human beings are animals, and humans have domesticated all domesticatable animals. There's no reason to think that humans would not domesticate other human beings. The argument cherrypicks the benefits of business competition and the drawbacks of military competition. Introductory portion of the video shows people working together for example, and then the cost of war. It does not show however uncompetitive businesses collapsing, technology replacing jobs, or other negative results. Similarly, it does not show the positive results of war such as increased economic booms, resource acquisition, and other invigorating aspects. Argument suggests that mass war and mass business are the result of a special class of inviduals and not common people. This is nothing short of bigotry, and extends into racism if you choose to believe the subspecies argument for the traditional ruling class. The argument inherently scapegoats all the negative effects of human organization onto a select few. Not only is this intellectually poor and morally reprehensible, it's also extremely patronizing to the common person. It seems as though the core of the argument is that humanity is naturally too stupid to recognize that it is being directed and simultaneously too stupid to direct itself. Negative effects of human existence are placed on "institutions" and "politicians", completely ignoring the fact that tribal hierarchies are inherent to the human condition. Anthropological evidence shows that even the earliest tribes engaged in rudimentary forms of warfare and social arrangement. Furthermore, the argument puts forward the fallacy that animals exist in nature in some kind of preternatural balance. This is a naive view of evolutionary history and not supported by fact. Many creatures have gone extinct well before the industrialization of human beings, from things such as climate change to evolution itself. Creatures with no natural predators can and often do reproduce to the point of destroying their own environment. While the most recent examples of this have been largely caused by human beings, there have traditionally been other causes. Water levels can recede or rise, land masses shift, natural disasters occur, evolution occurs, etc. If you take a virus or some forms of bacteria for example, you can see them display a lethality in humans that ultimately causes their own destruction. Human beings didn't create every single virus that kills them, the same way they haven't created through action or inaction every other animal that destroys its environment or overbreeds/underbreeds itself to extinction. The argument that all of this hinges on human development is completely false. 20 minutes onward, the argument misunderstands the basic premise of political power. Politics is at its most basic form relationships. Power is power. Political power is power gained from relationships. Using our tribal example by looking backward in time, we can see the evolution of rudimentary family structures. Inevitably the parents have more power than the children, and it stands to reason that men had more power than women. A single patriarch likely exhibited the most direct power in the tribe, similar to most primate structures we see today. The first form of political power would then be personal relationships with the tribal patriarch such as immediate family. Looking at modern standards there is little reason to conclude that this same mechanism is not at work. Politicians are our modern leaders and have a lot of power, but that power extends to their immediate family as well. There's no logical or political reason for a politician's family to enjoy special considerations or protections, but they do as a perk of political power. This is because the protection and consideration of these people makes the politician happier, and the entire mechanism of political power hinges on relationships - you generally have a good relationship with someone when you make each other happy. 24 mins argument completely ignores the fact that the superior capacity to commit violence is a resource. Ignores the fact that money is a resource. Money does not work on people with money, the same way that violence doesn't generally work with an equal capacity for violence. In the example where a dollar is offered to have the cat box cleaned, the author puts forward a positive. Then with the mention of the gun, puts forward a negative. There's no reason this argument can't be inverted. You can threaten to use the dollar in one's posession to big against the person, or offer to use the gun in one's posession to shoot someone that the other person doesn't like. These are all just different resources, just means to the same end of a clean catbox. I'll continue the second half in another post.

Thanks. I appreciate that. I find civil conversation on points of disagreement to be generally productive and interesting. I am here primarily to learn after all. My personal experience with freedom comes in two major arcs I would say. The first arc is in personal freedom or household freedom. The inability of social services or police officers to make meaningful investigations into private property enabled people to abuse me and others. Due to the government being legally unable to do much about my situation it continued longer then it had to, and a variety of tactics could be utilized to prolong it. In this way I was shown the inherent weaknesses of the present system and some of the potential side effects of freedom. The second major arc of freedom I've seen has been growing up with the internet moving into the mainstream. I was born in 1987, so during my teenage years I was active when cable internet emerged and it became more common. Growing up with the internet in a form more closely related to its current incarnation I have seen the wide range of effects that occurs with anonymity. Anonymity is a form of freedom that generally leads to negative results. Anonymity encourages or allows for increasingly bad behaviour, which is supported by a variety of psychiatric studies. Anonymity, a form of freedom, divorces people from accountability and facing the consequences of their actions. By removing the negative sensation linked to inflammatory or hateful speech ( misogynistic, uneccessarily violent, etc ) of public shame or ridicule you remove one of the main barriers to those actions. With the second issue specifically, I am driven to support the nationalization of the internet and the creation of WebIDs. A WebID would function like any other form of identification in that it would link the real person using the internet to their online activities. Websites would be forced to collaborate in using this system, as would ISPs and programmers. The use of violence would force the internet and computer community to construct the necessary framework, enforce it, and put internet users into it. The result? An internet where people do not have the shield of anonymity, and thus a drastic reduction in death threats, misogyny, unecessary violence, child pornography distribution, etc. However, this security apparatus would never be able to exist without the underlying threat of violence keeping people in line, whether that's something simple like a fine or something more intense like jail time.

A bomb went off in my brain and now I view the world like I'm one of the people in the Matrix, watching all the other people run their lives in blissful ignorance. They go around seemingly completely unaware of the insidious and violent nature underlying their world. It's things like UPB and NAP that make their eyes glaze over and leave them susceptible to exploitation. Dark powers utilize their naivety to maneuver for increased social decadence and inevitable collusion in the creation of a New World Order. As a fascist I am directly opposed to globalist pacifism. I have seen the true face of unchecked freedom and it cannot be permitted to exist. Virtue and ethics are incredibly important in the creation of a pure state, but they must be tempered by reality. Humanity cannot afford to lose its edge and become fully domesticated. The state must initiate force against the incapable or unwilling in order to mobilize the masses in the the pursuit of a penultimate goal - the creation of a stable geopolitical region in which the people can then flourish.

It is universal, because I have an equal chance of being on the receiving end of the violence. An acceptance of violence as a means to an end is like playing russian roulette with someone. You both universally concede to the parameters of the game and have a roughly equal chance of winning or losing it. Only one of you will win, and you both hope that it's you, but there's nothing contradictory about that. A result doesn't have to fulfil the desires of everyone. Violence by its definition only rewards winners.