DaviesMa

Thanks for the advice guys, I suppose my real question is how much sympathy should I feel for my fellow tax payer? (I realise it will make no statistical difference but it is a matter of intergrity for me.) Almost all UK tax payers are statists, which is most likely caused by indoctrination and ignorance, however without explaining anarchism to every one of them I am unable to see if they would fail the 'against me' test'. I.e. do I have the right to follow my beliefs without coersion of any kind? Maybe I will claim it a donate a weeks worth of benefits out of a month to liberty related shows, (about $120 dollars worth) which would please me and which will hopefully benefit them in the long run. Any other ideas on this or a bit more of a methodical approach would be welcome.

If women like rough sex then it suggests that at least in certain circumstances there was an advantage to it. Just some speculations on some genetic advantages: More dominant men are less likely to be considerate, (power corrupts) therefore it may be a mating signal that the man is high status. Women may have developed a reflexive arousal to rough foreplay to prevent damage during non consensual sex. It may be that women piggyback this reflex to enhance their pleasure. (If she is going to be raped anyway, then best to minimise the damage.) It may have been dangerous not to submit to forced sex, which may also have programmed a reflex. In a tribal setting, only the most dominant of men may have been able to force himself on a woman without having other men attack him or white knight the woman, therefore it may have been advantageous to have the alpha male's genes. It may also have been ideal for the women to keep an existing provider male from blaming her and still providing for her by putting up credible resistance and claiming victimhood. It makes sense that if the woman's biology believes that she is in a traumatic environment and that pair bonding is less likely that she would be more inclined to want the benefits of an Alpha male and that non consensual sex would be a more effective reproductive strategy, therefore ironically, would be more desirable from a genetic point of view. From personal experience, a lot of women like to be slapped and thrown about but I do get the sense that the more insecure the woman, the more she likes rough sex.

It could be argued that a voter is merely trying to control the direction of coersion in a coersive system and since he cannot leave this system, voting himself priveliges is self defence. To be very simplistic, if 10 people put 1 pound/dollar into government and each voted to get as much as possible out, they would all get a dollar back. In a representitive democracy of millions of course, this is hugely diluited and distorted but the principle could still apply. The average voter is most likely not even aware that they are a part of coersion, as they probably believe in the social contract, so if you are not aware that the goods are stolen, can you be morally responsible as a thief?

Hi guys, I am looking for a sense check here as I realise that my self interest may very well cloud my judgement here. Part of me wants to claim unemployment benefit as I feel royally screwed over by the state however I am still debating as to whether it is moral or not. I realise I have no loyalty to the state but I wonder if I am parasiting off the tax payer when I don't need to. My brief situation: I live with my 14 year old son in the UK I have no need to claim unemployment as I have sufficient savings to live for 2 years or so and could easily get a job if I wanted to. I am going to start a business however it will take some time to research, test and implement my plans and was planning on claiming in the interim. Seeing the full horror of Government in the UK makes my skin crawl so I have no wish to be noble towards my nation, however I wonder if I am being unfair on tax payers who will ulitimately pay for me. Any input would be appreciated guys.

I was reading about QE today, very interesting and depressing. Basically it appears to be a tool for economies that can't reduce interest rate anymore and instead pump money in to provide economic growth. I am not a whizz on economics but it seems to be that this will just provide economic growth with a commensurate rate of inflation, meaning that people overall are no better than they were before. It would be interesting if anyone else had a more informed view on this.

He talks about co operation, altruism, pro social behaviour and then altruistic love but cannot be a realistic solution to the way humans interact. If both parties to a transaction are altruistic, this is reciprocity, or exchange, which is not altruistic. By definition there must be one party who recieves the unearned. Many instances in life are a nil sum game, such as going for a job interview or dating and attractive partner, so if we choose to be altruistic then we will be punished accordingly. This creates a disincentive for following a supposed moral ideal. With a non nil sum game, co operation can allow both parties to enjoy more benefits, however this is not altruism, this is rational self interest and capitalism. If people exchange value then they both have an incentive to co operate. In this instance in order to be altruistic, I would have to give the other person my share of the proceeds, again punishing me for being altruistic. It always surprises me that people don't think of what it is like to be on the end of 'altruism'. I would feel deeply uneasy recieving something that was unearned and I cannot imagine not feeling indebted to someone if the helped me in a significant manner without reward. I would find it highly immoral to not do my very best to repay the person who had helped me, as not engaging in reciprocity feels deeply immoral to me. Matt

Great post, very interesting topic. I dare say that you already know that he is wrong and trying to weasel out of it with emotion based rationalisations so I won't go into detail here. I wanted to comment on your 2 fears and give another perspective: Fear 2 - most people are too afraid to be truly evil as they are kept in check by the consequences of society. I would not worry about your friend becoming a bank robber or hit man any time soon, however don't be surprised if he short changes you on the bill for the restaurant, cheats on his wife or hits his kids. Fear 1 - I think you are mistaking the benefits of your study of philosophy. The journey is about changing yourself first so that you can live with integrity and studying philosophy is a way to become more and more certain of those principles. You have also correctly identified that he is not a person of integrity. This is a MASSIVE benefit as it informs you of how much to trust him, how much to value his opinion and how much to follow his example. This is a big advantage in protecting yourself against people who are not really your friends. If you wish to hang around with him for company, then be aware of the limits of intimacy in your relationship with him. Just as important, if you recognise someone without integrity who will not change, then you will recognise someone with integrity who will change. This will inform you about who you can truly appreciate and build connections with in life. If you are young, then it will also inform you about who to marry and how to parent. If philosophy can help you to see who your friends are, how to fall in love and how to raise happy, lovely children, what more can you ask for? Changing the minds of others is just a tertiary benefit. I understand it can be lonely when you start to de-normalise the appalling morality of many people around you, it can seem like you are destined to be alone and it would be great to have another sane person to support you. From personal experience, I am in the process of cutting some of my 'friends' as I am finding it increasingly distasteful to hang around with bad people. The deeper my understanding of philosophy and the more I commit to the truth, the less tolerance I have for low integrity people and the more I love the people in my life who are good people. I have at 3 people who I have hung out with in the past who have cheated on their partners and although I have enjoyed their company in the past, it just feels wrong to hang out with them now. It makes me realise that if the can betray the person they allegedly love, (and I am sure I am less important than their partner) then they have no love for me. I am just amusing, entertaining, social proof or whatever, anything other than someone that they can empathise with and love. I would continue to work on yourself and see these people socially until you feel like you don't want to. As Stef says, ask your emotions what you want to do. For me, reading and examining RTR was a watershed of my understanding about people and myself. Don't worry about being lonely as you will start to see the virtues in the good people in your life and start to find people who are capable of virtue as time goes on. Matt

I would suggest that you are fighting on too many fronts at once. You a core thread of an argument, i.e. men are oppressed just as much or more than women, but she has brought up a lot of fog and not provided much evidence. She brings up other societies, which has no relevance to the west, she brings up a court case where male politicians were accommodating female voters, which again proves nothing. She says 'just because men face problems too, that doesn't mean feminism is useless'. This is an attempt to sweep away the evidence that you have provided by saying that your evidence isn't relevant, to feminism. Essentially, she is saying that men and women have problems but only women have the right to complain about it, because only female concerns are valid. If she ignores the importance of inequality towards men, then it is easy to see how she feels that women are the victims. You could approach this by asking her to define the goal of feminism, if she says that it is to have equality of the sexes then she must surely agree that areas where men are subjugated are also important. If she doesn't agree at least to this then she does not believe in universals, so unless you want to try to convince her of the merits of universality, I would end the debate. You could skip this bit and ask her to define patriarchy and to provide evidence for this. Once you get onto singular hard facts then it should be easier to see what evidence she provides. The burden of proof would be on her, as she is the one stating that a cultural phenomenon called the patriarchy exists, so there should be hard evidence for it. This is not a debate on 'do men or women get a worse deal in society.' It is her putting forward a hypothesis that there is a society wide oppression of women, for which she should be able to provide evidence. Of course, if there are huge disadvantages to men as well as women, this would go towards invalidating the hypothesis, so she should try to explain why the patriarchy isn't alive and well for instance in the family courts, in the sentencing of prisoners, in the Armed Services or in the media. If she talks about other countries, then remind her that we are debating whether the patriarchy still exists in the West. I suspect that she holds men to a different and more disposable standard than women. If this is so then you can point this out to her and she may become annoyed, but unless she is incredibly fair minded, you will not change her mind.