Matthew Ed Moran

Associating a privilege with a race, and then saying the privilege should be removed on the basis that it advantages that race, is incredibly racist (I mean unless it's state privilege, but that's not applicable to this situation since whites are disadvantaged systematically by the state).

​ That's interesting. From what I've heard Stefan's daughter is outgoing and goes up asking to be friends with strangers. I wonder if this is genetic (since after all she has half the genes of big chatty forehead), or a combination of how she has been modeled to interact with strangers (i.e. assertively, and with the security of knowing her dad is also assertive if she needs help). People (maybe more for introverts), in my experience, tend not to be assertive. If that's true, then I think that would make shyness or aggression the models that the child thinks to use in situations where there is uncertainty. Whereas a child who is aggressively raised, then dropped in daycare, might bully the children around him to create a false sense of security; a shy child will try not to be a nuisance and avoid conflict as best they can. It's just an idea, but I don't have data on this. I also think shy people can mask their insecurity by being witty or funny (which is probably a form of assertion). You actually don't have to say much to be assertive, and if you pick the right moments or say the right thing (my best use of this would be to make a joke when there is tension), you can glide on your shyness more comfortably. I actually remember I would pick moments to make a joke particularly when others were being aggressive towards one another, sort of asserting myself but in a way I was usually sure wouldn't bring conflict towards me. I actually used to ask people to make fun of me when they met me, anticipating that this would lessen conflict in the future. I remember somewhat doing this as early as 6, but more vividly around 10, where I would make fun of my Judaism and tell others they could join in. I remember a joke where I would act like I was obsessed with pennies, and would make my eyes go big and chase one if you threw it (lol). I think it saved me a lot of grief in a way. It was sort of lucky I had that ability, so I sympathize with others who felt no other option than to be shy. I imagine the lack of control feels daunting at best, and terrifying at worst. Thanks for the article and study I will probably bookmark it.

What is the difference between shyness and fear?

Yes, but unlike all those other things, I can regulate my desire to create children by rationally evaluating the effects such an action would have. I think the most abstract form of this is by arguing against the morality of having children you cannot support. I can see why that might be associated with K selection, but from what I understand that's just a description of how I came to a conclusion, and it doesn't nullify the methodology that I use to come to the conclusion. Donald Trump is highly K selected, but I wouldn't say he is the best parent; although maybe a good one, he spends more of his time gathering resources then contemplating the morality of having a lot of children. Then you have Stefan who is also K selected, but he only has one child because he spends his time arguing for the world to be more virtuous, and therefore he has to put virtue above mere resource gathering in his personal life. I think free will is much less broad than the unconscious desire to reproduce. That is present in everything. What is not present in everything is the ability to debate the morality of having children, or to judge it against the future of the human species as a collective. As someone who is also struggling through depression, I appreciate Kevin's post and I even have a hard time understanding what free will feels like. What I think of most when I think of free will are those furious or passionate moments I've had in my life to reach beyond the daily drudgery, the monotonous platitudes that fill my subconscious, and break free from them to pass over the surface like a penguin shooting out from beneath arctic ice to fly into the sky, as if its biological characteristics were dwarfed by its mere capacity to imagine an alternative existence. I have had moments where creativity made a passionate stand against my subconscious desires, and where I wanted to emerge as something completely unique in the world, in distinct opposition to a previous path I was following. I think the capacity to follow the untraveled path is a artifact of free will, and the subconscious friction that is inevitably encountered only strengthens and further emerges the will once it is continually, systematically conquered.

This is interesting. I'm guessing you don't know the author? Do you think therapy doesn't lead to physiological changes by altering your way of living? Do you think insomnia, depression, anxiety, all do not have physiological effects whatsoever? Spoiler alert: they do. One might be your low testosterone. I have no idea, but that's one theory, that your low testosterone is a symptom of these things or is correlated with them, but is not actually causing them. I also know after having children testosterone lowers naturally, but I'm not sure if that accounts for your age group too. Anyway, I'm pretty sure there is research presented on the show about the physiological and psychological benefits of psychotherapy. Check out the Bomb in the Brain and The Benefits of Therapy for more on this . Along with exercise, the research provides evidence that it is the strongest deterrent of psychological dysfunction, which my argument is, it must show up in the body. Psychology is not just about "thoughts" but about attention to traumatic or unhealthy cycles of behavior that haven't been processed and are therefore being repeated without consideration of an alternative way of living. Therapy, by breaking those sorts of cycles, will have physiological impacts, because if you can effect depression you can effect sleep cycles, and if you can effect sleep cycles you can effect grogginess and paranoia, potentially at least. What I'm saying is therapy can relieve those symptoms, and that can cause other lifestyle changes, all of which can have a positive physiological effect.

I think one fundamental difference between freedom of will and freedom from aggression, is that aggression requires will, but will does not require aggression. Another way to say that is you can have the capacity to make choices as an effect of consciousness, whether you are under the threat of force or not. That you cannot exercise a capacity in any given moment does not mean the capacity does not exist in general. The government initiates the use of force or threatens such, but this does not erase the capacity for free will, but it changes the effects of certain actions compared to a situation without a government. And for someone to initiate a threat of force requires that they have free will, because it is a deliberate choice unless they are also under threat of aggression, in which case someone still needs​ a will to threaten the initial act of force. It's hard for me to say someone who hasn't processed their child hood trauma, or who hasn't discovered philosophy, has the capacity for free will. That said, it's just as hard to say they never ​had the capacity, because people do come into contact with values systems radically different from their own, and are likely to reflect on this at some point. People are obviously very skilled at deceiving themselves when it is convenient, so it wouldn't surprise me people come into contact with their capacity for free will and use it when it's convenient, and ignore or deny it when it's not. It's not like I've never done that either... So my experience at least tells me it's possible. I think the capacity for free will can be demonstrated by valuing rationality, because rationality is not the same standard as biological self interest. I think rationality as a value could one day be the standard of biological self interest, but it's not now and I see no reason to necessarily think it is so, because being rational in an irrational society does not seem to be a very successful strategy on average. But it might be, so I'll leave that for anyone else to figure out because I could be making children rather than figuring this out. I'm working on my communication style so I'm sorry if it is still a bit esoteric or distant, because I'm discovering that is one of my verbal ticks and I definitely want to improve on that. After I make some more children I mean. I think it's something every one could work on, after all Stefan has put a lot of work into his... communication style (no children were created as a consequence of this post)

You said he's a 'bathroom buddy. Look I made a joke and ignored an argument. If Trump didn't say fact, x wouldn't have happened. Look, now I'm arguing against facts! If Hispanic people feel threatened, (popular) white people should stop saying facts. Look, now I'm being racist!! Yuck. Edit: I seriously misread your post and it caused me to misrepresent what you said, and then by accident I called you out on things based on your post that post you didn't actually do. Sorry about that. I'll be more careful next time.

First, I want to say anyone who has a bad child hood deserves tremendous sympathy. That said, if you love someone you don't need to ink your own flesh to say so. That's not what connection is. Connection is about sharing intimacy and emotions. If that's not possible, it's because some person you claim to "love" is actually not emotionally available because they were abusive (being complicit in abuse is a form of abuse) and never apologized for all the harm they caused. If that's the case, then virtuous love is not possible. If this cannot be acknowledged, then all the pain that is due to the lack of connection cannot be acknowledged; a tattoo being passed of as a symbol of "love" for an abusive person is but another symptom of that inability to acknowledge the suffering they wrought. The idea that you cannot judge a tattoo as a tattoo is to say you cannot judge self harm as self harm. Sometimes you don't need more context to judge an action, because there is only one purpose for it. The purpose would be for a tattoo to communicate unacknowledged suffering where intimacy is not possible. If you are a healthy person, you share connections, not scars. You only share the scars as a means to connect once you have processed why they are there. Virtuous love will never, ever be an impetus to voluntarily scar oneself, because self harm is not rewarded in virtuous love, and instead is replaced by intimacy, compassion, and empathy. When you have intimacy, compassion, and empathy for a person, you are against them voluntarily inflicting pain on themselves, because it hurts you just as much.

Yes, I was trying to point out that neither statements in the form I gave were actually arguments. They were assertions. An argument needs to have premises that lead to the conclusion for it to be considered valid. I cannot just say the initiation of force is immoral unless I'm making an assertion. I also cannot just provide a tautology.

It's almost universally misunderstood, yet gives no guidance other than to vaguely suggest somewhere on Youtube is the correct explanation. lol According to Wiki, heritability measures the proportion of variation in a trait that can be attributed to genes, and not the proportion of a trait caused by genes. I'm pretty sure that accounts for your problem. For anyone interested in this subject, a two minute video has an overview and meaty description in the text below the video about what research has found about regression to the mean in IQ. It's called... 'IQ & Regression to the Mean - explained by Professor Philippe Rushton'

I'm no expert (to say the least), but I don't think regression to the mean in statistics is the same as regression to the mean in IQ. I think the difference is that regression to the mean in IQ is an observed phenomena.

Regression to the mean: according to the concept of regression toward the mean, parents whose IQ is at either extreme are more likely to produce offspring with IQ closer to the mean (or average). Since the mean IQ of immigrants who are African, Indian, Arab, or Mestizo is lower than Europeans and Eastern Asians, then any African, Arab, or Mestizo who has an IQ of 100, 115, or 130 is more susceptible to regression to the mean, because their IQ is about a standard deviation lower than Europeans and Asians with a similar placement along the bell curve. In other words, an IQ 100, 115, or 130 African, Indian, Arab, or Mestizo is much more "extreme" on the bell curve compared to their European and East Asian counterparts. If a European couple who both have 130 IQs have kids, their kids are likely to be higher IQ than the children of a 130 IQ Mestizo couple, because the former is two standard deviations away from the mean while the latter is 3 away, and thus much more rare on average. I don't have any clue how what you said relates to regression to the mean problem as it relates to immigration. Regression to the mean is not a concern among Asians, because their mean IQ is not a standard deviation below Europeans, who make up the majority of Americans.

An argument about morality is "x is the initiation of force, and therefore x is immoral" An argument about effect is "x will lead to y" In either case, you have to actually prove the premises lead to the conclusion before the arguments can be considered valid or invalid.

Hopefully it was what you were looking for. You can't vote me up because you haven't donated

Podcast 3228 (first call)

So it puts a lot of bureaucrats out of a job, a lot of corrupt world leaders out of power, and a lot of corporations out of artificial profits. It sounds like something I might adopt, and others like me who are frugal and responsible might adopt, but which there is currently huge vested interest against on the part of all those who benefit from global redistribution of wealth, under the guise of solving world poverty. I'm guessing you aren't the first person to realize the potential benefits of this technology, so why isn't it being adopted right now?

Good summary. What do you think would change if Person A accidentally locked himself inside the basement?

You can never know what actually happened, but that which can be proven by evidence. The rest is left to informed speculation. You can't prove that person B didn't know person A was locked in the basement for certain, in my opinion. The precedent of this type of particular situation would suggest that forethought and planning was involved, since friends do not simply extort each other on whim, completely out of the blue. If it could not be proven that forethought was involved to extort person A, then person B would be seen as a psychopath, rightly so, and as soon as this information was available to the public, he/she would be ostracized. Charity would be available for person A's losses. The only way this wouldn't happen is if A and B had a history of odd disputes, in which case they would both be ostracized as creeps. That is my take on it.

I think he also said he wants to get rid of the department of education in more candid moments, but I don't have a source right now.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-trump-idUSKCN0YN35S

I love that video. That mother shouting inane things like "mommy's right here" when a gorilla has her child and she's 50 feet away (and someone, maybe her again, yelled "No!".. I'm sure that was helpful) strikes me as managing her own anxiety and putting the child in even more danger.

And I believe Kant got this from Plato's "realm of forms." I love this stuff I think Aristotle explains it by saying that what a concept delineates is the "essence" of something. Concepts are derived imperfectly from reality, but there is usually something (or a group of characteristics) which, if you subtracted it, would no longer be recognizable as the same thing. So to say "object in itself" is begging the question in my opinion. If a concept is valid and describes something that does or could exist in reality, and we acknowledge it is imperfect and meant to point out relative differences, then what an "object in itself" is, is not clear to me. And I wonder why would that be a useful way to think about things? Suppose we have a unique concept for every single object in the universe - would that be a more correct understanding of reality? Would it facilitate or falter the gathering of knowledge if everything were considered completely unique in itself? Because technically every thing is unique in its place in space and time at any moment does not mean concepts are any less useful or any less about reality. A way I think about knowledge is to put like with like and subtract the differences. There is a thought experiment discussed on the show about the concept of a baby. If you saw a baby, you would be able to identify it no problem. If you saw a blue baby, you would say "what the heck! a blue baby!," and then if it had three arms you would call it a "three armed blue baby." Eventually as you kept adding characteristics to it, at some point, you would no longer even recognize it as a baby. You would say "oh my god... that.. thing! what is it?" I think this is supposed to show that the concept of a baby can go so far while adding characteristics to it, before it becomes something that is completely different from a baby altogether and you would need a new concept for it. It's in the "Introduction to Reality" video probably explained way better than I ever can. This is definitely not intended to be conclusive, but just some thoughts and arguments I wanted to put forward.

This is a terrified, screaming wake up call to anyone who is still oblivious to the left's true nature.

It's from Pornhub (an academic institute) statistics that women search for lesbian porn 132% more often than men (on an individual basis I'm guessing). I haven't seen the data first hand, but lesbian porn is only the 6th most searched for porn by men according to it. I hear you, I wish there was more rock solid data... Apparently men are 70% of the adult content market according to Risky Business, a movie about the adult entertainment industry. What that means exactly, I don't know because I haven't watched the movie. Pornhub is not an academic institute, please do not go there at work. Edit: Sorry recent posters for going off-topic.

According to a quick google search, women are 130% more likely to watch lesbian porn than men.