Koroviev

Just a point of clarification in case my original post came off this way, I have no problem with others being smarter than me, that is the whole reason I came here, my only issue is using "I'm smarter than you" as an argument. Other than that fantastic way of putting it, much appreciated!!

Good point! Useful for the discussion as a whole. I agree it may change the subject and others may not be able to respond to it, but it does not help the discussion. Rather it seems a lot of the time to be a scapegoat used when someone gets frustrated from the others not understanding and/or when they cannot respond to a strong counter argument.

I think the fundamental question is, does the "I'm smarter than you" argument bring anything useful to the discussion?

This is exactly my point though if it gets to a point in the discussion where the "I'm smarter than you" argument feels necessary then what good is it doing for you, the other parties involved, or the argument itself, especially if you aren't saying it to try to get someone to self reflect? In that case isn't it just like saying "my dad is bigger than yours?" *side note this is a great time for someone to say "I'm smarter than you," and it would prove how it kills a discussion

I absolutely agree that people should be self reflecting and realizing that they aren't the smartest people out there, but if they aren't already does me saying "I'm smarter than you" ever change that?

Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to say I get offended and run off and cry myself to sleep because someone I don't even know said they were smarter than me. I mean really what do I care. Simply that there are better ways of showing you are smarter than someone than flat out saying "I'm smarter than you," (not to mention how do you know for sure you're smarter than someone?) because how are you supposed to respond to that other than some form of "No you're not," which then leads to bickering about nothing. It's like going to a weightlifting competition and saying you're stronger than everyone there instead of competing.

It seems to me like any form of this is offensive. It seems to me like it completely discounts anyone else in the conversation, and more often than not changes what was or could have been a great discussion into, well, meaningless bickering.

As a pretty new member of the FDR board, I've been disappointed and a little surprised to see the number of times the argument "I'm smarter than you" has been used. In fact in two of the discussions I've had and one I've followed someone has said it. Now it's not always in this form, the first time I saw it was "I'm older than you and it's hard being young." The second was "I know more than you because I've taken some college classes and gotten all A's and A+'s," but I'm sure you get the picture. Either way it's very offensive, unacceptable, and definitely not an argument. Anyway, I mostly wanted to point this out to make sure people are aware of it, but also curious as to what others do to combat this and different ways people handle running into this situation. My tactic is to back away...slowly. Cheers!

All politicians are corrupt liars, we should group them together and put them in charge of everything!

Ugh this really is heart wrenching, and I really do appreciate you guys sharing. I can't imagine what it must be like to be in a situation where you care so much about these children, which it sounds like you do, but are relatively helpless in making the situation better. Have you tried talking to the parents, or do you think that would just lead to a worse situation for you and the children? My wife's younger (much younger) sisters are in a somewhat similar situation and we just feel like our hands are tied because of how manipulative her mother is. So the question is if you see your friends and/or people you care about heading down this path how much is it your responsibility, for lack of a better term, to get them to see what these choices almost always lead to, and what resources have people found to help get people to see that?

Interesting, strangely they left that out of all of my psychology classes (thanks State education glad I gave you all my money ).....So, basically Freud's theories are all crap and have no basis in reality?

Do you have sources for this info? All of these say there are alpha males.http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/bonobo/behav http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/125-bonobos/quammen-text http://primate.uchicago.edu/Stanford.pdf The amount of emotional value sex has for humans was exactly my point. If you weren't arguing against that then what was your argument? This was exactly my point. Also, the "relative" peacefulness of bonobos is debatable as you can read in the articles linked above. We can discuss the social structures of bonobos all day, but this has nothing to do with raising children the main point is below. I' not sure which items you mentioned cannot be met in monogamous relationships. Aside from the ability for parents to bang more than one person, theoretically, without repercussions they all seem just as likely, arguably more likely, in monogamous relationships and you wouldn't have to worry about the intricacies that would inevitably follow everyone banging each other. If I understand correctly, what you are saying here is that: 1. It is less likely or impossible for monogamous couples to live in peaceful communities or have peaceful supportive families. 2. In polyamorous relationships men have at much at stake in raising the children as they do in monogamous relationships. 3. Poly-amorous parents are less likely to abuse their children than peaceful parents. 4. Survival of children doesn't depend on biological (do you mean emotional?) bonding between their "parents" in polyamorous relationships as it does in monogamous relationships. I am not against polyamorous relationships people are free to make their own choices. If people want to bang a bunch of different people that is great, but let's be honest about it and don't use the guise of "it's what is best for children."

I've just finished Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents," and although he brings up some very interesting points I find myself disagreeing with a lot of his premises. The main idea is that because civilization places rules and laws restricting some of our basic desires (murder, promiscuous sex, rape, etc.) we are made guilty and become anxious which leads eventually to neurosis in individuals since they are caught between what is right in the eyes of civilization and their base desires. My thinking is that the opposite may hold more true to reality. Since the majority of people are raised, and have been raised, in ways that we are just recently finding to be harmful for children, these children are raised learning these desires and discontents, and therefore need a parental figure, usually in the form of government and/or religion, to show them right vs. wrong. Because peaceful parenting and the study of what is best for children did not come around until recently it seems that Freud would have been working from, for lack of a better term, "dysfunctional" population base. What are your guys' thoughts? If Freud lived in a world where the benefits of peaceful parenting were known do you think his theories and ideas would be different?

I definitely can't claim to be an expert on bonobos, but everything I've read (although limited) has said they are alpha male troops. That doesn't mean that males are in charge in fact most of the alpha males'...alpha-ness(??) comes from it's mother backing it up, however they are still considered to be an "alpha-male" society. You say that sex carries the same emotional value for bonobos as it does for humans, but how could something that is equivalent to a hand shake or a dollar bill be as emotional as sex is for humans? Bonobos do have predators. Although not many, assuming you aren't counting humans, saying there's no predator hunting them is false. http://a-z-animals.com/animals/bonobo/ http://www.allaboutwildlife.com/chimpanzee-enemies Most if not all of the parental responsibility falls to the female bonobos since the males cannot tell who is the father. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo Also, it's not only polyamory, it's everyone having sex with everyone. The only exception is, sometimes, mother bonobos with their adult sons. My point is how do we know that the reason for their relative "peacefulness" (note relative is compared to other apes this does not mean they are entirely peaceful and even this fact is highly debated) isn't the fact that their all having sex with their children? Finally, I did not say that poly amorous relationships could not work. The original question was "is monogamy really the best way to raise kids." This would imply one would have to compare the best case scenario of monogamy to the alternative. Thus far this has not been done. Not to mention all of the benefits that have been mentioned for polyamory can be gained without everyone sleeping together. In order to say monogamy is not the best thing for children something must be better than the best of monogamy. All of the parenting issues brought up with monogamy could (and I'm sure do) show up in polyamory so how is this solving the issues?

Don't bonobos live in alpha-male packs, where there is a single male with a lots of females and their offspring? Also, everything I've read seem to say that the bonobos become more sexually active in captivity than they are in the wild. It does still show up in the wild but they are spending more of their time gathering resources than they are in captivity. Bonobo sex usually isn't for mating as well instead it seems to be used more as communication, tension relief, bonding, oh and of course greeting, and payment, and usually it does not lead to orgasm. It seems to me that polyamory is mostly advantageous when women feel like they cannot rely on men. Either because men could/do die at any second, due to war, hunting accidents, etc., or because men simply aren't reliable, usually, because they are too busy sleeping with other women. For humans, sex carries with it a lot of emotions, which it does not seem to for bonobos, and although some people are good at hiding those emotions, or seem to become numb to them, I don't think those emotions can or will go away. Also, I still don't see how any of this is best for raising children. All of the arguments to this point seem to be more that it is better for children than being raised by crappy monogamous couples, or it would be better for the parents because the responsibility would be shared. No one has shown how it is better or could be better than being raised by peaceful, monogamous, parents. If it is not better than peaceful, monogamous, parents then shouldn't we be spending our time on that rather than rationalizing a less optimal solution? Unless we're planning an FDR sex party (and even then, no offense ) I don't know enough people who want to raise children the way I do to even consider polyamory. Also don't you get those same "tribe" benefits in a good community without sleeping with everyone?

Not to mention if you don't know who your parents are how do you know who your siblings are. If, as is pointed out above, you have so many people related to you, how do you know if you're sleeping with someone related to you or not? This would undoubtedly lead to way more birth defects. Also, what are the men doing when the women are pregnant, or raising kids. They're most likely out sleeping with other women. This seems like it would lead to women getting the short end of the stick and men having lots of sex with lots of women. What if a disease gets introduced? How would that be stopped if everyone is sleeping together? None of that seems very beneficial for children. I think Stefan did a call in show where this topic, and this specific book came up. I don't remember which one it was though.

My wife and I found this over last weekend and I thought it was shareable. It's a documentary about midwifery in the US by Abby Epstein and Ricki Lake (yes that Ricki Lake). They talk a lot about how the once revered practice has all but disappeared, in the US at least, and the effects that has had on birth and rates of birth defects. It also sheds some light on some of the questionable practices of modern day hospitals specifically pertaining to pregnancy and birth. Highly recommended for anyone who doesn't know much about midwives, which seems to have a very similar mainstream reputation to homeschooling. Full movie is on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvljyvU_ZGE http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/

I think we've all heard, or been told, "don't believe everything you hear," or possibly it's other form "don't believe everything someone tells you." It seems to be a phrase usually thrown around by people believe everything their pastor or preacher reads out of an ancient mythical book (with questionable sources to say the least), as well as people who generally believe that although all politicians lie, the government (a group of politicians) has their best interests at heart. As I've been thinking about this it seems like this phrase, more often than not, gets misconstrued. Although, I agree that you should not believe anything someone says simply because they are the ones who said it, that seems to be very different from agreeing with a lot of, or even everything someone says if they have good evidence and rationality to back it up. In fact it seems to me that it would be more harmful if you disagree with someone who has good evidence and rationality to back up their claim simply because you've already believed too much of what they put forward. Now, I am in no way saying that no one should challenge what they hear other people put forward, in fact this is very much encouraged, but, isn't the whole point of learning and doing research is to pass your knowledge to others so they can build off of it in a way that plays towards their strengths? Not everyone can be full time researchers. What do you think? How do you decide whether or not to agree with something someone says? Am I just making up excuses because I agree with a lot of the evidence backed arguments certain people put out?

Looks like the U.S. is yet again another shining example of freedom and intelligence. Reports are now coming out about proposed insurance premium increases for the year 2016. Since this will be the first time under the Affordable Care Act the insurance companies have real numbers to make cost projections, we will finally find out how "affordable" Obamacare really will be. Many state's insurance companies are asking for premium increases of between 30-50%. Just like the American Freedom Act how could anyone vote against "affordable" healthcare for "everyone?" https://ratereview.healthcare.gov/ http://waysandmeans.house.gov/roskam-opening-statement-rising-health-insurance-premiums-under-obamacare/ http://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Press-releases/2015-Press-releases-items/2015-06-01-2.html - If you're not angry, you're not paying attention

How about entirely obsessed with a man/frog who doesn't really like her but always comes to her rescue whenever she gets into a situation she doesn't feel like handling herself. Also, does the fact that Mrs. Piggy doesn't really have any redeeming qualities say something about...well at least about the feminism award.

That is exactly the issue. With what you are proposing there there is no way to tell if what you are doing is moral. The Nazis were doing something moral because they were doing what maximized the Nazi "meta-self" but then it turns out, simply because they lost, that what they were doing was immoral. If they had won guess who would still be considered the shining example of morality. Therefore ego-utilitarianism is of no help to them. How does ego-utilitarianism help me to decide whether or not I should take an action if there is no way to tell what effect my actions will have on the "meta-self," which you CANNOT know without reading the future. If a tiger is running lose the tiger is neither moral or immoral it is simply a tiger. It cannot make choices it cannot understand the consequences of it's actions therefor it is not morally responsible. The entire point is to help people who want to be moral make moral choices. It does not matter what I tell the tiger it will still not choose any differently. Science is the study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science From everything you have provided ego-utilitarianism does nothing to help people make choices, decisions, or provide any insight into how or why things are the way they are. Instead if you have to consider every possible consequence of every single one of your actions you'd never be able to make a choice at all. Now you can use ego-utilitarianism to look back and say the Nazis were immoral, and you will find out they were, just as long as it doesn't turn out they were right, in which case all of a sudden what was immoral now becomes moral (don't take this out of context I'm not saying the Nazis were right just an example). I can't see how this would be helpful at all in day to day life. Principles should not be broken, yes. However, this does not mean they cannot be broken or that if they are broken that does not make them not a principle. If this is still confusing please see the definition I provided above. Now, if you want to change the definition of principle that's a different discussion (that honestly I don't want even to try to talk about), but a principle is not invalid if someone chooses to violate it. Again, even if your definition of a principle is correct (it's not) ego-utilitarianism can be violated as well which would make it invalid. As for the topic of murder, once again, if you are murdered your are decreasing the "meta-self interest" which is the opposite of what is moral (increasing the "meta-self interest") therefor it is immoral. Now I'm sure you can come up with some hypothetical situation where it increases the "meta-self interest" but that does not negate the point. I agree that morality is not subjective which means it does not change based on the outcome or the reasoning behind it. If murder is immoral for one person it is immoral for all people. This does not change no matter who wins, this does not change no matter how much time has passed. To make moral decisions you need principles to guide you in deciding what is right and what is wrong, and you need to be able to make those distinctions in the moment otherwise it is of no use to you. Finally, I hope you weren't using the "I've taken a couple college classes, so I know better than you" argument because guess what so have I and this is definitely not the place for that argument. I really do hope you can use some of what you've learned from those courses to do something good in the world instead of what appears to be simply trying to tear down the few people who actually are. Good Luck!

Also, according to what you are proposing it would be immoral to get murdered, get hit by a drunk driver, not study for a test, or to grow old.

Morality can only apply to beings that can conceptualize morality otherwise you would have immoral cancer cells and moral sharks. The reason for this is that sharks and cancer cells do not have the ability to reason and make choices instead they just act on their instincts. the morality of ego utilitarianism does not exist because ego utilitarianism does not say whether or not things or moral instead it says you may think one thing is moral but most likely it will turn out to be immoral. There is absolutely no methodology behind it other than do something and hope it works out in your "meta-favor". The difference between physics and ego utilitarianism is that physics uses past evidence to predict future actions and reactions. if it said anything could react in any way and you could not predict ever predict how something would react using physics then physics would be just as unhelpful. What you are proposing is future observation which as far as I know is not possible. My example just took your definition of "meta-self" and followed it to a conclusion. "Meta-self" - an objects "definition" and "any set of criteria that describes an object" and the "concept of an object or ANY other object." so you are moral if you are maximizing your "meta-self interest." this means that anything that decreases your "meta-self interest" is immoral. since "meta-self" is "any set of criteria that describes an object" and something that describes someone in a group I am associated with also describes my "meta-self" I am being immoral because someone else in my "meta-self" group has lowered the "meta-self interest." Where'd ideas come from I thought we were defining memes and the criticism was you were contradicting yourself and had an inaccurate definition? Now onto the main "point" of your topic. From what I understand you are saying the NAP is invalid because someone can choose to violate it. This is obviously not correct. A principle is different from a law you can choose to break a principle you cannot choose to not be effected by gravity. And, even if your argument was valid that does not mean we should all "reject the NAP immediately." Not to mention, I can also choose to do something that is not in my "meta-self interest" which by your logic would say we should reject ego-utilitarianism immediately as well.

Right - being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right Wrong - an injurious, unfair, or unjust act : action or conduct inflicting harm without due provocation or just cause http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wrong (odd that the definition of wrong lines up directly with the N.A.P.) First off, morals and principles only apply to humans. You cannot say a shark is moral or immoral for killing a fish just as you cannot say it is moral or immoral for killing cancer cells. I'd like to see an example of how nature does not favor the NAP. I think you misunderstood my test scores example I was not saying comparatively anyone was smarter or dumber I was saying that because a third party to a third party (sixth party?) formed a criteria that described a group that a person belonged to that person would be immoral even though it had nothing else to do with that person. "Meta-self" - an objects "definition" and "any set of criteria that describes an object" and the "concept of an object or ANY other object." Basically what you are saying is that no one can ever know for certain if they are being moral or immoral since no one can ever know all of the effects they have on themselves as well as their "meta-selves," which in turn would mean ego-utilitarianism, although an interesting though, is completely useless. Lastly I still fail to see how NAP is not a principle (it still seems to meet all of the criteria) or why anyone should "reject immediately" the NAP. Also, your definition said a meme was an element of culture...

Ethic - a : a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values b : the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group<professional ethics> c : a guiding philosophy d : a consciousness of moral importance 3 : plural : a set of moral issues or aspects (as rightness) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic Moral - a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ethical <moral judgments> b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior <a moral poem> c : conforming to a standard of right behavior d : sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment <a moral obligation> e : capable of right and wrong action <a moral agent> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moral Principle - a : a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption b (1) : a rule or code of conduct (2) : habitual devotion to right principles <a man of principle> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/principle Right and wrong are themselves the objectives, it's the entire point of philosophy. We are discussing what is moral and what is immoral, what is right and wrong. Whether an individual has an objective of being right or wrong is irrelevant. N.A.P. says initiating force against another is immoral. ego-utilitarianism says initiating force against another could be moral or it could be immoral depending on how it later effects your (an object) "definition" and how it effects "any set of criteria that describes you" and the "concept of you or ANY other object" (as stated by your definition of "self" or meta-self). So, ONLY things that positively effect your (you being an object) "definition" and how it effects "any set of criteria that describes you" and the "concept of you or ANY other object" can be considered moral, and EVERYTHING else is immoral. An example would be if you are a student in a class and another student in a different class but the same grade does poorly on a test causing a third person to think students in your grade are less intelligent you are being immoral since that negatively effects a "set of criteria that describes you. I don't know how one would make any decisions or get anything done if this is the decision process they must go through with every thought or action. Also, what if I do something that is immoral say kill someone in a way that doesn't benefit me then it turns out in 50 years to benefit my "meta-self" since that person did not have the negative effect on someone he would have had wouldn't that mean that immoral act now becomes moral? Also, if "each variation within a species is a meta-self" if someone with brown hair does something immoral doesn't that mean I am being immoral? Blue eyes? I have a scar isn't that a variation? Now if you want to redefine terms I think it would be a better idea to state that up front so that we don't all show up expecting to play chess when you're playing Cones of Dunshire ;P and just for giggles after watching you read your numbered list on "Self": Meme - : an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture