Matthew Ed Moran

August it's great to hear back from you so quickly. I'm glad you found my post engaging enough to write back, even if it was true that I was describing experiences more personal to me. Sure, it's a possibility. But in your reply it is interesting that you said "I wouldn't call what I felt terror." I might not have been completely clear on this point, so I appreciate you bringing it up. What I was writing about in my post was what I thought was relevant for you to understand, but which also might be a new perspective for you. I did not mean to comment on one particular event, but I was trying to identify a trend that you might be able to see your life according to. I understand if you do not feel terror now. In fact, that would be evidence of exactly what I was talking about. Terror is experienced by children especially. It is experienced by all children who are traumatized. The terror is there to manage the threat of abandonment. If a child can in any way influence his or her own actions to keep their care giver from abandoning them, they will do so. The terror I am talking about I would say is not even a conscious experience. It can be. You may have memories of terror, or you may not. It depends when we first are facing the threat of abandonment. If you are extremely young and perceive any threat of being abandoned, you will adapt to minimize the threat in any way you can. A part of minimizing the threat is to become dissociated from the terror, and instead of experiencing terror directly at your caregivers and expressing your concern about being abandoned, you are forced to let out your terror only where it is safer. A child will experience terror of ghosts or monsters when they are old enough, but since these things do not exist, and since we assume terror has a real function in influencing our actions, then it would be clear the children do not really face monsters and ghosts of the supernatural, but that they are captive to real life monsters or ghosts who ignore them, scare them, threaten their very existence. They can't stop their captors from doing this. And they want desperately to survive as a biological creature. So they adapt to their environment. They manage their threats, they dissociate from their terror; and this causes confusion as an adult. You are experiencing confusion it seems to me. And I can see it in your post. You are confused that neglect is not terrifying. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. I really am. But I also know that it can be healthy to acknowledge the true source of terror. And if you were left alone often, you were in a terrifying situation. Even if you were able to manage it. Even if you somehow got through it without really understanding how terrified you were. But the truth is, we are biological creatures with evolved senses of threat detection. If your parents were willing to neglect you and leave you home alone, that is not only a potential threat in itself, it indicates many other threats you have to face. It indicates you do not have someone to rely on were you to encounter difficulty, or danger. You could not trust in the bond between you and your parents in some fundamental sense if they were willing to do that to you. And let me be clear, I am really sympathetic towards that. It is very difficult to deal with and get a grasp on how it has effected you. The truth is you are a warrior and you survived something no child should ever be inflicted to, but now as you are developing the ability to think critically and philosophically and rationally you have some new tools. Now you can manage threats in a different way, in a conscious way. Now you can be more in control, and when you are safe you can let go and enjoy life. But if you are around abusers your psyche will adapt to scream about the threat. It is being reminded. I know that is strong imagery, but what I am describing is a base of the brain reaction. That is what it deals in. It tells you when there is something wrong, and it does what it has to get through to you, even if it is in a marginalized way such as creating fog. You are quite amazing at thinking critically and rationally and philosophically already from what I can see. I think you are on the right path. I'm sorry if my post is startling in any way, but I trust in you to be able to understand that I am not saying anything that is any more terrifying than what you have already been through. If I am correct, then I am only pointing out what is already in your life and in front of you. I am pointing out that there is a threat still, and that a part of you will always respond with terror whether you are conscious of it or not. It is simply the base of the brain reading your environment constantly and trying to still manage your first threats which you faced earlier in your childhood. It is a messy system, but it was essential for you as a child. But now clearly you are left with a mess now that you are older. I'm pissed about that August. You should be enjoying life right now. But you didn't have an ideal child hood, to say the least. It was not ideal for you to be left alone. It was wrong. That is not something you should have been forced into. You should have had the best friends and loving parents who were there to enjoy life with you. I sympathize with that, and I hope if there is anything I can do it is to tell you what was wrong about your past so you can pursue a more wonderful future away from abusive people. I do not enjoy every moment, but I enjoy many more moments just from pursuing the self knowledge I have gained. I have a lot more to pursue and a lot more difficulty to face, but I think it is encouraging that philosophy and therapy and freedomainradio are here to tell and show us how we can heal our trauma and pursue a new more everlasting existence. I guess what I am trying to say to you is that there is light at the end of the tunnel, we just have to be looking in the right direction to see it.

I read your entire first post. I feel like I am facing a mirror. When I read your post I experienced familiarity. In my teens, I began to become extremely depressed. The self attack was brutal, raw, and punishing. I was terrified of confronting it. In all my relationships, my feeling of worthlessness was being reinforced. I became more dissociated from my terror. I am not sure if this decreased my suffering. I've had this confusion for a long time, and perhaps only now have some insight into it from afar. Terror can be a liberating experience. But I think what I have excelled at is avoiding confrontation with my terror. I was dissociated, like I said, but the results of this were worse emotions than terror. Instead I faced depression, vanity, hatred, jealousy, shame, and a general feeling that I'd rather be dead than living most of the time. But the terror was my first experience, and all these other experiences and emotions followed as I tried to avoid terror. The terror itself was not what I was avoiding. I was avoiding terror as a means to keep my parents near me. Because as a child, avoiding terror if your parents are the cause of your terror is absolutely necessary. Children react to trauma like a light reacts to the flick of a switch. They break swiftly in the face of danger from their parents, and they have adapted to over evolutionary history as a mechanism to survive. If they can grow and pass on their genes, how much trauma they carry with them is irrelevant if the only other option would be genetic death. Understanding this was and continues to be important to me, because it is describes empirically the workings of my self. Every self I ever was, was an adaptation and direct result to the environment I was in. And every interpretation I had of my environment was based on years of history of experiencing and adapting to trauma. Additionally, in a sense the fundamental purpose of the psyche from an evolutionary stand point is to manage the outside environment by adapting the inside environment. The ultimate result of being in a traumatic environment and continuing in it year after year is the eventual succession of the psyche to dissociate. It is much easier to treat all problems as the same if there is only one specific problem you are most concerned about. If the idea of your parents abandoning or rejecting you is a worse fear than anything else, then it makes sense to focus your psyche to adapt itself to the trauma you've been inflicted with. I think fog is a very specious method of treating all situations as the same, by refusing to look beyond the present so that you can never see past your chains of parental abandonment and rejection towards a very different sort of life. Philosophy is the cure to this in my opinion, but it is a slow cure. Philosophy fundamentally is about looking towards the future I would argue. Philosophy itself looks at principles. But the principles are used and implemented to effect the future. Where your evolutionary adaptation is responsible for the overwhelming portion of your desires and feelings, the grand nature of philosophy is that it can see past you being overwhelmed in the moment towards a greater overall happiness in the future. And the glory of it is to provide you with the certainty and clarity you need to encounter something like terror, become accustomed to it, and then heal yourself of your drive to avoid it. That is my completely amateur opinion so consider what I said with that, but hopefully there was something of value provided at least towards understanding the difference between philosophy, the nature of truth and virtue, and the obstacles that are necessarily encountered in pursuit of being true, philosophical, and virtuous - after all if these are the path towards happiness and fulfillment and love and harmony, then they are relevant towards deciding your course of action in your more immediate future.

I wish I could help you more than just to say this, but I have a feeling you are not healthy enough to enter a relationship. You are still viewing a relationship as for the woman, not for both of you. This was so clear when you said "we are waiting until she is ready to have sex," as if you are just the giver of sex when your other is ready, regardless of your own needs. That is a very white knight approach to sex don't you think? Guilt is what happens when we are unable to hold those accountable who did us wrong. You spoke very little about your past relationship besides that it was bad, which I think is telling since it is the real subject of your post. You said you talked about it with you current GF to ease her concerns. What about you though? Did she express empathy for you, and ask about why your parents didn't intervene to keep your heart safe? Was she angry for you at those who didn't act to help you avoid this heart break? If you don't process your last relationship, get therapy, and hold those accountable who let your heart break, then your guilt will remain to squelch your self empathy and it will not allow you to be emotionally available for your current girl friend, which will harm the relationship in the long run. If you are serious about the relationship I think your capacity to be as honest as possible is key, and to get help with that if you are struggling knowing what your true emotions are (which definitely seems to be the case here).

This is not worth a response as it is. Please try again, and if you want to say anarchy won't work or might not work, please provide clear context to how these patterns effect anarchy and please be more specific than pointing to 3 books. If you want people to invest time into reading these books, you should invest more time in showing with logical argumentation how they are important instead of begging the question.

I didn't realize public school was on the table. That is definitely a serious and worthy matter, and I appreciate you thinking about it ahead of time. I think anything you can do to keep your son out of public school will be worthwhile. I guess I was confused since you were bringing up representation to your wife, and that to me seems like a trivial topic compared to something like public school. I think if you are pushing up against your wife's defenses on anything which isn't essential, that is risky because it will harden her to you and you will lose credibility with her. To me, it does not seem completely honest to bring up things in the manner you're doing. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see what emails about political representation and motivational interviewing are but an unclear and misguided call for understanding. You have some significant concerns about your son's future because of new information you have learned. I think a quick reaction to something like that is difficult. The new perspective will reveal a lot about your old self. Why are you only learning about such essential information now? I am not blaming you, but what I am trying to point out is that usually when we act on incomplete information we make decisions which are worse than we could have made. It is really important to taking time processing your history and even connecting with regret you might feel. I am not saying you should completely regret marrying your wife, but if you do have regret and you are trying to hold her responsible for changing based on your decision to marry her, that does not seem completely reasonable to me. With my clearer understanding of your situation I think marriage counseling or something as serious in nature is required for a resolution, if one is possible. If one is not possible, then you have a different issue to manage and it will be important for you to prepare for your son to know that your wife has chosen not to agree with you despite your efforts to do what is best for him. It will really be important if you are going to take the role of disagreeing with your wife, that your son can have credibility with you and understand why you are even married to his mom in the first place if she is not brave enough to sacrifice her emotional comfort for the benefit of her son. But I don't see how talking about political representation will be effective at all. That was what I was trying to get across in my last message, that you seem to be avoiding the issue with her and being passive aggressive. This is not to justify her denial or to say she is not being passive aggressive at all. I wanted to make that clear to you, since I think your considerations are admirable in the highest degree and I hope for you to be able to influence the safety and integrity of your son's environment. Thank you so much and I hope what I said is helpful. If it was not I am happy to try again after taking some more time to process what you have said.

good video! hearing that woman would be a lot more insufferable without you logically deconstructing her fallacies.

I have a post awaiting moderation but this is relevant consider there is a claim that 20+ hrs in daycare signals maternal rejection:

Of course the question is "good" compared to what? I think a reasonable position on this matter since there is a lack of data, is that if you are higher IQ, more invested, more well read on philosophical parenting, then there is going to be a significant drop off in the quality of care between you and a day care worker. Do you dispute that your IQs are going to be on average higher than daycare workers? Do you dispute that you are more invested in your own children than they are? Do you dispute that as a consumer of FDR that you are more well read and attuned to be philosophical parents? If not, then you do not dispute there will be a significant drop in the quality of care between you and a daycare worker. I think after so many points have been brought up here and we have dwindled down the consideration to its essence, it is this question then that you are left with. It is not an unclear question, it does not actually require you to do any research on daycare besides what is readily knowable that I have already pointed out. So the question is, do you acknowledge time spent with daycare workers will be a significant drop off in the quality of care you will be offering to your child, and to what extent are you willing to enter your child into a worse situation of care compared to you staying home with them? You are great at arguing and I mean that in the best way possible, but I would like a direct acknowledgement of the choice you are making here with regards to daycare or staying at home. I think if you at least see that you will be sacrificing the quality of care, then it makes the absence of data a bit irrelevant, since you'd be putting them in top daycare for limited hours anyway is the impression I'm getting from you (which would require very specific research). But the point is even a top daycare will be a drop in the quality of care. So if it is true that daycare will sacrifice your child's quality of care, then you can balance that against being in a better neighborhood or having more money for school. In general, the morality of parenting consists in giving choices to your children, and making the most reasonable choices for them when they are in ages 0-5. I don't see any basis to claim that something is more important in the first 5 years, whether it be living in a certain neighborhood or saving for school, than you being with your child for as much time as possible in the first 5 years. If you have a reasonable claim to say something else is worth sacrificing the care of your child in their developmental years, I think you should share it to at least have the certainty you're calculating the risk/reward from the perspective of the child in the most virtuous way possible, because you will be held accountable to your child if you made sacrifices in the quality of their care which were not necessary. If you don't think daycare will be a significant drop off in the quality of care compared to you and your wife, then I must ask, why is your opinion of yourselves as parents so low? Thanks for the consideration

So there is such a thing as a person, but there is no such a thing as a dishonest person. Why is that? And what is different between a person and a human? Obviously a human is a description of biology, so what would the word 'person' be describing if not characteristics of human personality?

History is just a cycle of trauma. Look where the most traumatized people are, and there it will be worst. Some of the German population is so traumatized that they literally have been convinced to prefer rapists to racists. That is an astounding level of dysfunction. World War 2 was approx. 76 years ago, but still the effects of that horrendous charade are alive as ever today. I think what is still to be ultimately answered is whether there are Germans who made enough progress in their parenting that they didn't raise yet another triage of terror. For some reason I don't think Muslims are in danger, though. I think Europeans' only danger is other Europeans. I don't think there will be civil war, and in some ways I am oddly optimistic. But it is a faint optimism considering what is in front of me today. To conclude, I think the cycle of trauma will escalate until it reaches a breaking point, and then I think a new trend of history will occur marginally better than the last one. For 2016.. Hmm I think there will be an escalation of the pressure on America to adopt the policies of Europe.

Your wife already vowed to never agree with you on this issue. Why are you ignoring her and continuing to pursue a conversation with her which she doesn't want to have? It would be different if this was an essential issue, but it's not. If your wife is a good mother otherwise, then pursuing this conversation in this manner is passive aggressive on your part, selfish, and petty. Sorry to be blunt. You already made a commitment to your wife for the person she was before you had a son with her. Arguing with her now is just a really convoluted way of arguing with your own decisions. If she doesn't want to be rational about this issue, you can't force her to. You can be passive aggressive, but that is only going to grow her colder to you for expecting her to change after you had a son with her for the person she was previously. So you can argue with your wife which already is not leading to good results, or you can argue with yourself about your own values. I bet you will have greater results being self critical than criticizing your wife since you are directly in control of yourself. If this was such an important issue for you, why didn't you bring it up before having a child? Why did you chose a woman who would not be open to reason and evidence on this matter? What can you do better in the relationship now that you are more aware? Expecting your wife to change because you have, when it is more difficult for her and you already committed to her is not fair. It's like buying a chicken at the store, and expecting it to turn into duck when you get home. That decisions has already been made. Your wife being a libertarian might be important for you now, but you are now secondary in preference to your son, and if your insistence on this issue is creating a more hostile environment for your son then you should consider that and find a new approach based on controlling your own actions. This probably won't even be an issue for your son for years, so there is plenty of time to prepare. Good luck and thanks for reaching out

That's a really impressive article, Kathryn. I really liked reading it I have this weird fascination with your phrase "little parts." For some reason I just picture walking up to a tall burly man and asking him if he is being gentle with his little parts today.

There is no such thing as the virtue of honesty if it is not applied to the decisions which hold the greatest moral weight. Creating a child is a moral act. To do so with a dishonest person would be to sacrifice the value of honesty, and would leave a pit of foul odor where integrity used to reside. I will never trust people who openly chose a dishonest person for their romantic interest when honest people are available. It is incredible to believe they truly are committed to honesty. Instead, they are scam artists flickering in the false light of impossible virtue.

"People say "I'm a social democrat" or "I'm a libertarian". This creates an unnecessary difference where both may be just mindless robots... But seriously, that says nothing about their quality of reasoning or method of getting to our position." ​ Hold it right there, Amritage I think to point out they might both be mindless robots is to plant a red herring. Are you saying whether someone is a libertarian or social democrat has absolutely nothing to say about their reasoning and methodology? I find that hard to believe you would lack the ability to discriminate between Marxism,feminism, and multiculturalism , and American libertarianism which is none of these things. Also just on an IQ basis, libertarians are higher. So I don't think it can honestly be claimed that a position says potentially nothing about the quality of their reasoning. Maybe there is coincidence, but there's obviously a lot more than just coincidence going on here between these two groups. This is just empiricism. I experience a lot of terror thinking about telling people what I believe which is so deep and personal as morality. It's something I have from trauma and need to go through therapy for. So I empathize a lot with having difficulty telling people what you believe. It can be very painful in my experience.

Between these two circumstances: 1) Immigration with a state and welfare 2) Immigration with a state without welfare it is true that 1) will necessarily include a greater initiation of force, if everything else holds equally. However, this does not mean that 2) does not imply the initiation of force also. It is true that if someone were simply moving to a location where a job was, that this does not imply the initiation of force. However, state immigration does imply the initiation of force any way you slice it. Therefore, the only possible arguments are consequentialist arguments for or against open borders. Does that make sense? It would be interesting to me if you could imagine a counterexample where immigration did not imply the initiation of force against inhabitants of the country who were opposed to it. I can't think of one, hence the only arguments I could imagine for or against immigration with a state are consequentialist.

For you to be able to let go would mean he never would have entered your life in a way that could harm you so easily in the first place. I think I know why you feel bad: maybe it is the regret you feel for enabling him to enter your life and verbally abuse you in front of your peers. It sounds like you could have seen this coming, and hoping that everything would "work out" does not sound like the most conscious plan. I don't know if you expect to feel good after realizing you made a significant mistake in your personal judgment, but if you're trying to move past the regret by forcing yourself to have unrealistic expectations of an abusive lunatic, you're not going to feel fulfilled - just frustrated and depressed.

"Mere articulation of a blizzard of questions suffocates, rather than illuminates, a discussion." Nice word salad without providing any example. So can this math equation tell people how they should spend their money or not? If not, then it's not telling you anything practical about price. Nobody cares about what a replication of price is in math, they want information on how to satisfy their desires for consumption. That is the only reason investment exists in the first place. People don't build businesses to capitalize according to some predetermined calculation which they are just trying to maximize, you dork. Businessmen find new ways to create wealth. Every time a new business enters the market a new opportunity for customers appears for them to potentially profit from. Their decisions to chose some products overs others is the basis of price and why price fluctuates and never stops fluctuating. New information enters the market everyday which the old prices couldn't possibly have captured. The idea you have some math equation which knows how to maximize human wealth is probably the funniest idea I have heard in a while. You crack me up. I guess it makes a nice hobby to be passive aggressive on the internet about some math problem which you claim has figured out how to completely optimize wealth but which isn't already being incorporated into the market is.... well frankly you'd have to be a giant conspiracy theorist. And honestly with how poor of a communicator you are to say things in plain english, it wouldn't surprise me.

Donald Trump has relationships with private people in every capacity - rich people, smart people, blue collar people, celebrities, the media, industrial contractors. What matters in politics is what public opinion does. If you have the support of enough people and they are active enough for you, anything can be achieved. Sure the odds may be great, but many people know and have credibility with Donald Trump, who stand to benefit from his election. That is worth something. Technically he would be the chief executive of the military, and if they stand behind him, he can practically do anything he wants with executive orders. Obama does it so why couldn't he?

Price in economics is not synonymous with historical data that are called prices. Price in economics is an abstract theory. Economic calculation is not a problem in reality. It is a scientific description of what money does. Money fluctuates relative to the desires of people and the opportunities they see. If there is a formula which can tell people what the prices will be in the future, it will then be used to create new prices. It won't ever falsify a theory of economics. Economics is an abstraction. What exists in reality are numbers depicted through signs, paintings, LED lights, TVs, poster board.. and fiat paper designs which are traded.. Numbers are abstract, and prices are an even more abstract category.. Economics explains what the numbers and symbols represent from a scientific theory standpoint. It explains in abstract theory why the numbers are there in the first place. If you have a mathematical way of doing it that is probably obtuse, and it certainly isn't a replacement for individuals making decisions in reality. That would be like saying because I can accurately define "price" in abstract terms, then I necessarily know all the ways people should spend their money.

I think it is a moral concern. You can't be positively sure as you can as a stay-at-home parent that the child will not be abused at daycare. Children are extremely delicate, especially in the early years. Why would you hand over a living breathing china doll to strangers? You take your own risks, but when you have a child you are managing risks for someone who is helpless and infinitely more vulnerable than you. You are there to maintain their safety at all costs, because if you don't, or if you fail to... would you really want to be that guy? If there is any available option which is both do-able and minimizes risk for the child of being abused, besides all the wonderful things that will come from it in the long term ( great relationship where lots of time is spent with one another), then are you really going to stare your daughter in the eyes when you are older and say with humility that you chose money over being with her in her most primary years of growing? If you are wrong that it was the right thing to do, then you will lose credibility with your child. I had a small idea, maybe you can show her Isabella (Bad Philosophy Show!) to let her see the delight that exists in the voice of a child raised with stay-home parents. If her reaction is negative, you could console her about her childhood. But if she is defensive to that it will be a big red flag in terms of unacknowledged trauma. I have another half to this post which you might want to digest separately:

The call was "Is Morality Subjective | Nihilist vs Philosopher" The caller's argument went something like this: preference for life is a universal preference. Since for any end to be pursued, the person must be alive to pursue the end, then living is a universal value; it is a means which must be present to pursue any end. Stefan's counter-example was to point out that some people commit Jihad or suicide. In these instances, life is not valued, since the end being pursued is death, and the means to achieve it is suicide. The caller insisted that until the moment someone actually is dead from committing suicide, they value life. This would be like saying that for no time before purchasing a latte do I subjectively determine I would prefer a latte to $5. But this actually cannot be true as I argue below: Since an end must be logically chosen before a means to pursue that end, it must be true that there is a time at which the preference for the end exists, and it must be before the means is chosen. To apply this to the case of suicide, it must be true that before the act of suicide is committed (if not immediately in the moments before), life is deemed not valuable and is not preferred, and instead death is preferred to life, and only afterwards are means taken to achieve this chosen end of suicide. Therefore life is not a universal preference. By his example a person could spend weeks planning his/her suicide and be considered "valuing life" at this time. If valuing life is to mean anything objective at all, then for it not to differentiate between someone who is happily enjoying their life, to someone who is at the brink of committing suicide there is something severely indiscriminate between this "value for life," and it would be a kind of circular argument/tautology which provides no philosophical truth. If this were not true, then suicide could not be considered an action. It could only be considered an impulse (because impulses aren't chosen, they are spontaneous, so there is no differentiation between means and ends because it is not consciously chosen behavior). But I think it would be a hard case to say that all suicide is not consciously chosen since people clearly plan their suicides on some occasions and it is not always spur of the moment. Does that make anything more clear at all?

Elliott Smith's "Between the Bars" fits this category really well. It's a dark and sad song People you've been before that you don't want around anymore who push and shove and won't bend to your will I'll keep them still https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4cJv6s_Yjw Going to edit in some analysis when I get the chance

Do people discriminate against me for being white? Well, do you think they see me as a white person and treat me as if I wasn't a white person? How else would they discriminate against me. I guess they could say I'm rich, or entitled, of which I'm neither compared to the average white or black person, but how would I know they are not discriminating against me? Is there some magic expression which will light up on their face when they don't hold a single thing against me to spite my race, creed, or color? Of course I've been discriminated against in many different degrees. Sometimes I would bet it's because of my race, but I don't see any indication I would know I was being discriminated against unless it was completely overt, which has also happened. I don't see why I should share those with you though, if you even thought it was surprising I'd been discriminated against because of my race. If you think people don't necessarily discriminate against or for one another because of their appearance, including but not limited to their race, then I honestly have no idea how you think that. Why wouldn't we make judgments based on relevant factors? That'd be like choosing my brain surgeon but not discriminating for if he has a degree or not. I guess I could try really hard, but it wouldn't work. It's really hard to deny facts once you are aware of them, and the fact is there are differences between races. Man, so would you also have to ask an asian or a mexican if he's been discriminated against or is it you think that white people are less prone to being discriminated against because.. because low IQ people are always sooo rational and rarely are ever bigoted Of course you're also ignoring institutional discrimination, but I think I see a trend here...

Edited this into my first post

I think people make a mistake sometimes and confuse logic with philosophy. Philosophy is empirical; it deals with events in reality. Logic deals with events in the mind. I think for philosophy to be possible we need logic. Just like for science to be possible we need logic, and philosophy. Would you bring this form of argument up against science? It would be just as erroneous to bring this argument up against philosophy. And just to be clear, that is where your post becomes misleading, because you are bringing this up with regard to UPB as if it is relevant, but you didn't actually make the case: "it seems like UPB[...]" I hope I made that more clear to you regarding the difference between ethics and logic, and how a valid criticism of UPB would not include phrases like "it seems like" if we're going to maintain the rigor that is absolutely necessary for the topic.