thebeardslastcall

That's a yes, you are assuming there are no females here. What is my point? Or I don't think the joke matters. Change my mind from what to what exactly? What do you think I'm rejecting that you think I know as true?

Are you assuming there are no females in this discussion? Also manipulation can be externally judged and doesn't require being in the other person's viewpoint. Generally it's easier to judge manipulation externally, because the person being manipulated doesn't realize it, as that's kind of the point. If they realized it, the effect might be negated. Does a female need to put herself into a guy's shoes to realize breast implants deceive a guy and can make her more attractive? Talking about penguins isn't a fair comparison, but if you observe them enough you could guess what makes one more or less attractive to the opposite sex. Likewise you can observe what works for other guys and judge what will make you more attractive. Whether or not it "works" is independent of whether or not it is manipulation. Also how exactly are you determining that people are imagining themselves as women to come to their conclusions? Also if you practically tell us some of what you are doing is manipulation by how you describe the behaviors we don't need to guess or imagine anything. If you tell me someone is lying to a woman I don't need to put myself into her shoes to see if I feel like I'm being lied to or not, as that's irrelevant, as is whether or not it makes the guy seem more or less attractive to the woman.

Ah I took it another way. You're just saying it opens your eyes up to the problems with most of society and this makes you care a bit less about society as a byproduct. Imagine discovering something akin to part of this at the age of 4. My parents also divorced at a young age. I've been on the outside my whole life. I think it's why I have no Game and don't much desire it, it's kind of disgusting to me how a lot of people interact with each other and the resulting disharmony a lot of it generates. I rejected it a very long time ago. It's also why I've been anti-religious since early childhood. I'm not saying there aren't some truths to be had in PUA stuff, I'm just saying I don't like the game it promotes people to play, so I tend to reject it. I want a beautiful game or no game at all, never been a fan of ugly victories.

Well that about sums it up for me. That's a rather peculiar view to have given you're trying to say this is a worthwhile "product" to people who care about morality and decency. I've got no Game, nor do I want it. Maybe that's my problem, maybe it's my deadly pride, or maybe it's my saving grace. Time has told, eventually I'll get to hear it.

That's having game, that's not the game. You definition and this answer tells me about 'having game', that is, how you play the game and how there are different ways to play the game depending on your target. It doesn't answer my question of what the game is. What the end game is or what game you are playing, as different from how you play the game. I'm not asking how you do what you do, I'm asking why you are doing what you are doing. What's the goal of your game. So some woman has 5 kids and you're going to 'provider game' her to have sex with her? Are you going to actually help the woman at all or are you just classifying the type of game by the vulnerability of the woman, being a chameleon to whatever you think she's looking for to get whatever it is you are after? If some stranger did that to me I'd have a serious "wtf" reaction. If I saw a guy do that I'd think less of him and if it did it to some other woman and it worked I'd also probably think less of her. I have trouble imagining two mentally healthy virtuous people being on either end of that equation. Specifically you're violating the space of a stranger by touching them and it seems a bit degrading as well. If you knew them already it might be different and a playful thing to do, but for a stranger (which this person is as you're needing to read their nametag), it seems like it would only work on someone with issues. Which seems to be what most of PUA is about, finding people with issues and instead of helping them with their desire for an asshole you're making yourself into an asshole to prey on them. Like, "Not my job to fix this person and her issues, might as well get some sex out of her by playing on her issues!". I mean if a woman has 5 kids are you even considering what this does to them seeing some guy come in and out of their life, with no intention or interest in sticking around, and treating their mom a certain way? You saying there is material for "relationship game" just makes me think you're selling a package like the Bible. "There's something for everyone, pick what you like and roll with it! Pay no attention to all the stuff you don't like! Nothing wrong with the book!" You also presented this as the last type of game, your final saving grace, targeting what you think I'd be most accepting of. I'm trying to dissect the package and point out why people are rejecting it, not be wooed into accepting the package because it has some useful elements. I don't care how nice a guy is 98% of the time if he beats and derides me the other 2% of the time. My original point was dealing with the potential immorality of the package. Pointing out the good is kind of missing the point. I'm suggesting a repackaging of the moral stuff without the immoral stuff and coming up with a new term for the package to differentiate it from the packages that are clearly immoral. If you want to bring this stuff to a philosophy forum that cares about morality then I think you need to remodel and rebrand your package for the different market. This also requires you be able to differentiate the immoral from the moral parts. And if you think the entire PUA package as various people present it is amoral then I'm not sure what to say to that.

He already seemed to be on the defensive. So I was wondering what he was defending exactly. I'm not really that familiar with PUA and the little exposure I have had to it from outside of this community does give it a negative vibe. Perhaps it is a marketing issue with using the term for two different styles of getting women and for two different games. Also the game for PUA is usually stated to be getting laid, not building a relationship with the woman or preparing for the possibility to have children. I tend to associate game playing with just beating a level or getting a high score. This is a rather narrow view of the objectives of the game. Life is far more complicated than that and you are dealing with other people. So calling it gaming old ladies or the like is what gives it a negative vibe for me. I am saying the way you talk about what you are doing to actual people is what turns me off to it. Like you are just trying to push just the right buttons on people to get the desired output. I didn't see you encourage dishonesty or trickery, but in claiming amorality you are also not encouraging moral objectives either and given that you are interacting with another person and engaging in sex with them it makes it feel like you are framing the whole game as some exercise in partnered masturbation, outside of any notable moral issues. Which seems to encourage two people to play the game of just treating each other as utilities for this function. I am sure the videos have some usefulness and make some fair points and help people. I just do not like how it is framed personally and I guess I am a bit down on the high promiscuity of people, which leads to a lot of unintended consequences that seem to produce a lot of strife and disregard for people's feelings. Disregard in that you are okay with just a neutral or amoral interaction. I would rather encourage a more considerate and non-masturbatory approach to sex and relationships with other people. My reading things this way I will again note is due to how you framed it and not a direct rebuke of any of the particular points in the video. Having game is useful for getting past the defensive wall to build a relationship with a person, but if you frame it as just having game to get laid that is where the deviation lies. It is the end game and what you do once you use your game to get past the initial barriers to interacting with the opposite sex. I do not necessarily see anything wrong with using what could be classified as PUA to get past initial barriers, but where it leads is what I am questioning, which is why I was trying to get past the ideas of it being manipulating or not manipulating as not the relevant question or points for me. So perhaps put more concisely into a question, what is the game?

Yes, I equated it similar to calling someone an idiot in that it's specifically negative and disrespectful in a way. I see satire used most often against people the author specifically thinks dumb and not worth debating. So they just mock them with satire instead of pointing it out in a more positive manner. Perhaps when they say useless they really mean they don't like its use. That they think it has no 'positive' use, since it's a negative vote. The difference between something being useless for good and just useless in total. Use implies a purpose and thus saying something is useless implies it is useless for some unspecified purpose in this case. I don't think it means generally that it doesn't do anything as that would not be useless, but ineffectual or of no effect, which is also useless, but that's different. I would compare that to someone saying "murder is useless!" and then the reply being "then why are you upset over the murder!". Getting back to the difference in understanding of what they mean by useless. Out of time, will reply more later.

Do you think a lack of manipulation makes an action okay? I mean, manipulating people can said to be bad, but that doesn't make actions that are absent manipulation good. If two people decide to rob a bank I'm not sure it matters too much if one didn't have to manipulate the other to get them in on the heist as to the end result's morality. People call this stuff artistry, I sometimes wonder if it could be classified as a dark art. Using the word "gaming" to describe the methods also seem to suggest it's a non-empathetic method for getting sex. People can say it's okay because they're playing the same game going to bars and such for this type of stuff, but again having another bad person that's okay with doing something immoral doesn't make it right. I'm not saying you shouldn't have sex with people, but the way you talk about the whole process (in your post, I didn't watch the video) seems to encourage dishonesty and trickery. If you're talking about manipulation, then you're talking about morality basically, but it's trying to pretend morality because you did one thing without a particular immorality, without having greater morals for the overall situation. I mean I don't have to defend the morality of not killing someone by saying I wasn't manipulated to not kill someone.

I think I'd be more concerned with the insane conditions that would be required for him to get elected (it's not happening), than what he'd do as President. I'd assume we'd be in sort of extreme apocalyptic situation. He'd be ruling over a few dumb survivors and the remainder of us would get to do what we wanted probably far removed from him. So the consequence would be you'd have to learn how to live in a dramatically transformed world and that would be before he even gave a single order. I'm guessing you meant President of the United States or whatever is left of it.

Chapter 2 of my book The Beard's Last Call: For a New Hope (a work in progress) has been released on Wordpress.com: Wordpress site: https://thebeardslastcall.wordpress.com/ Chapter 2 - On Truth and Understanding: https://thebeardslastcall.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/on-truth-and-understanding/ Refer here for my previous post about the book: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44350-the-beards-last-call-for-a-new-hope-a-full-size-book-in-the-works/ Feedback welcome, thanks for having a look.

satire: "the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing,or deriding vice, folly, etc." "a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule." I can see how the post was meant to be comical, but I don't see very well how it succeeds in being satirical. That seems to imply, given the timing, that you are mocking the people in the downvote thread. Except you hardly touch any of what they are saying and when you do it isn't even clear how exactly they are wrong or deserving of such derision. I guess that's what confused me about the post, it came off as comical at first and certainly that is how some people replied, but it isn't clear who you are mocking and why, nor did I find it funny, because of this lack of clarity. Challenging the rep system seems perfectly valid to me and you are mocking them for it? Also it is nice to get a smiley face next to an A+ for a kid, stating the teacher is happy the kid did well, earning an A+ for getting correct answers. Seems pretty clear what those are for and I don't see how that correlates well to the "correctness" or "incorrectness" of a post given by someone you don't know with no clear rating metric. Like getting a upvote on a Youtube video could be because they liked that the video was posted, while they hated what the person in the video said, but were glad someone shared it. Not clear at all what the case is there with an upvote, as it could easily be misconstrued as agreement with what was said in the video. Getting uninstructed votes anonymously cannot be clearly correlated to a smiley face from a teacher for receiving an A+. Nor do I see why we would presume people are rational and fair in their votes. How is " I think their should be a feature built in that allows for anonymous feedback. " satirical for example? Technically anonymous feedback is already in place, since you're classifying ratings as feedback and the ratings are anonymously given. So basically I got that your post was meant to be comical, but it didn't seem to succeed in making any relevant points as to what was wrong with the criticisms against the current voting system. Thus I wasn't inclined to respond in the comical fashion, since I didn't enjoy the joke and unwarranted derision that also would seem to point at myself, since I took part in the downvote thread. I mean does not satire mean you're calling someone an idiot basically? Perhaps as one of the idiots I'm not supposed to get it? The post with this comment in the downvotes thread got 2 net upvotes. It's also one of the posts you seem to be mocking. Also in regards Kevin Beal's first reply, who would claim mob rule when it's a minority that have voting privileges? Did someone actually suggest that in the downvote thread? I find being serious in a thread meant to be comical quite annoying for me, since I like to take part in the joke and feel I'm instead the butt of the joke. That's the worst part of this thread for me. And given all the upvotes for the the first post and the posts that maintained the comical nature I can only guess that people agreed with the sentiments against criticisms, but if I try to discuss that I'm back into idiot territory perhaps and going against the first post. Thus I stand confused. But I'm always confused anyways, so I guess I'm fine. My first reply was up and down voted and I can't see that after the fact. I've got a post with 0 rating... what does it mean!? I could take this as a neutral post, but some bastard stole my smiley face! I need vengeance! I offer a 3 upvote bounty for whoever finds the thief!

I'm also curious what the point of a reputation system is if it doesn't spare you from having posts moderated (which is jarring to conversations and the flow of posts). Also as far as I can tell it prevents a potentially negative post from earning someone any negative reputation if a "bad" post gets moderated away. I'd figure a post that gets held back by moderation would get some sort of warning or feedback, but I've already had two posts get deep sixxed and gotten no feedback about why, nor have I gotten any negative rep points or warnings. Why does a reputation of 100+ or 200+ not spare people from being moderated or am I making an incorrect assessment?

I think the biggest problem with the rep system is it's pushing away more than just trolls. This site doesn't seem to have very good user retention and I think the rep system is partly to blame for that. I see some posts getting tons of down votes while others just as bad or worse go under the radar and get none and vice versa. People seem to be rather unguided with how to use their votes. This site definitely needs to experiment with some alternate systems if it wants to do better. I feel a notable lack of community here and the people who are here seem almost hyper-sensitive to any possible negative behaviors, which gives a sort of "uptight" feeling preventing people from relaxing and just discussing things. I don't feel expecting a 180 from people is fair or wise if you want to grow the community. Good meaning people need time to adjust to the higher standard of the site before you just push them out for not coming in with the ability to avoid all passive-aggressive behavior and the like. I mean is this community here to help raise people up or to just filter out all the people who don't meet some "high" standard right off the bat? The reason religions do so well is because they're all about the community and helping as many people as possible. I'm not really sure what the goal and strategy for these forums is considered to be in those regards. Curious to hear if other people are satisfied with user retention, what role they think the rep system plays in this, and whether or not they're satisfied with the current way members are treated. Is the rep system specifically for trolls or is it confused by having multiple purposes that drives people away that could grow into productive members?

As I noted in my introductory post ( https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44172-hello-world/ ) I am currently working on writing and editing a full size book. I recently made a Wordpress site for the book, where I am currently planning to release the first few chapters for free to garner support and interest and for some feedback while I continue to work on the book. The book is still heavy in the editing process which takes a lot of time and work and I'm not sure when the book will be 'done'. https://thebeardslastcall.wordpress.com/ I've posted the title pages, table of contents, and the first chapter "On Language and Words" so far. I will likely post the following two chapters soon. As the book is still a work in process the writing is subject to change. Any feedback is welcome here or on Wordpress if you can comment there. Financial support is also welcome, via bitcoin: 1NBA1GQiVZ73W2FyzHeTAffywbYx66PeH8 I'll make a new post when the 2nd and 3rd chapters are posted on Wordpress. Thanks for your interest and any constructive feedback you can provide!

I just downloaded the Bomb in the Brain series and will listen to them soon when I have a chance. I think the point to note on spanking is that it's just a symptom. If you address the cause then the spanking goes away. This is the real solution and addresses many bad parenting practices, which can all be very traumatizing individually and are usually a package deal that leaves children scarred. However, if you don't address any of the causes and merely use force of heavy social coercion to prevent just the spanking, then you aren't really solving much and may be falsely thinking you've solved something, as many in society don't seem to realize. The parent will still have many other outlets for abuse without spanking, which are very traumatizing. While some parents are quick to hit, many hit as the end of an abusive chain of maltreatment and neglect. Usually the obvious point of offense is just the end of a single and repeating set of chains. Like when a parent gets super frustrated and tells her kid something like "I wish you'd never been born, it's all your fault." A statement like this is very hard for a child to hear, but the parent has likely already expressed this sentiment many of times in other ways leading up to this verbal outburst. Children are told many feelings and thoughts with the parents actions long before they put it into words or spanking actions. Parents will tell the child they're evil before they try to beat the devil out of them. They'll treat them like they're evil before they'll say it. It's a harsh upbringing living with an abusive parent, whether or not they spank. The good part about this community is that people here are trying to address the causes of bad parenting and not cheaply pretending to solve problems by merely addressing symptoms, as much of society does.

I agree with this. I tried to make this point with my final separated sentence, but thanks for elaborating and clarifying the point.

Free market is getting out of hand and people are learning to efficiently get themselves around on their own! Must fix it!

I'm a bit confused by this and would appreciate some clarification so I could understand what you mean better. Are you saying anyone who hasn't done professional therapy doesn't take the ideas of the show seriously? Exactly which ideas are you saying this precludes them from taking seriously and why do they need therapy to take these ideas seriously? How do you define "long term listener" and does this statement continue to be true of new "long time listeners" or just the original ones? Are you assuming both that every long time listener has been deeply abused and that they therefore must need therapy to be serious about the show's ideas? I'm not disagreeing some people could use therapy, I'm just curious for clarification on why you think this is a litmus test for all listeners to identify their 'seriousness', as you say it's a 'good test' (why not great?) and then seem to presume it's fairly definitive in its conclusion.

You can't get what you missed, but you can have a kid and give them all the things you missed out on. Getting the approval of a well raised kid may give you a much greater satisfaction and pleasure than what you missed, assuming you can pull it off. Also he wasn't disappointed in you, but himself. That's why he was a drunk. He made poor decisions in life and blamed you as if it was at all your fault, when it wasn't. Don't let someone else's failures rub off on you. If you can have a kid and give them a great father and raise them well. I'm sure that will provide real and meaningful approval and you can remember it's not the child's job to earn the parent's approval, but the parent's job to earn the child's approval. Or if you don't want to have or can't have your own kid you can always mentor another person's kid and help fill in a gap they may be lacking from their own parents and teachers. It's much more enriching to provide meaning and value to the life of a child than it is to a cranky and defeated parent. You also may want to look into why you feel you needed his approval. There may be some deeper issues here to solve.

I don't think the rabbit knows the difference of whether it was filmed or not and why. The videotaping of it can give extra value to the rabbit's death, but I don't see how it makes the killing of the rabbit more immoral, if you assume it's immoral. If it's not immoral without the videotaping then adding more value to the rabbit's death would be a sort of service to other animals (in theory). His desire to videotape the killing of an animal did make him kill the animal a bit crudely however. So the videotaping itself wasn't the issue I see, but that his desire to videotape had him lower his standards for execution to make a point becoming part of the problem. If he really cared about the rabbit he wouldn't have killed it and volunteered it for such a sacrifice "for the cause". He'd have, as someone suggested, gone to a slaughter house or the like, to show how it was done. I also think people focus way too much on the actual moments leading up to death and forget that many of these animals live in misery and discomfort for their entire lives due to industrial farming practices. If you eat meat from these places it's kind of sending a mixed signal, like "we should do something about this, but I'm going to keep eating my rabbits and burgers." He's expecting others to be more moral than him while also pretending to be an agent for morality. In that respect I don't like what he did, but I can't say it's any worse than most burgers or chicken meat eaten in America. He at the least had the guts to show it and not hide what was going on like many farmers and slaughter houses, which hate cameras anywhere near their businesses.

By the lack of responses can we conclude that yes, it is still a thing, and people don't want to touch this topic with a 20-foot pole? The more places you poke the more likely you are to find a sensitive topic for someone. What do you mean non-Christians are a protected group? Do you include atheists with this? If you gave examples of each that would help clarify how you think each is protected and open the door for something to discuss. Also you missed the biggest one, statists!

I'm not against down voting or the reputation in general, but I was wondering if the way it works is good? In that it seems to hide all posts ever made, even positively rated ones, by the person once they fall below a threshold. Would it not possibly be better to only start hiding their posts made during the period in which their reputation was below the threshold. The system could also possibly make exceptions both ways for specific posts that meet a certain threshold (+/- 5 or something like that), showing a well upped post from a poor rep member and vice versa. The current system could have someone doing well for years and then falling from grace and suddenly all the posts they've ever made are a bit hidden. Possibly some way for people to have more personal control over this stuff? If we're going to build an anarchistic society where reputation is extra important it seems like we should put extra work into a good reputation system and give individuals as much control as possible to help show how it can be effective and fair. Like if it's just one or two people who are being bothered by a specific person, but everyone else liked their posts, the system wouldn't be blind to that and could also potentially take the rater's reputation into consideration. Why have all votes be equal?

I think the test had like a 15 point deviation, don't worry, I'm sure you're as dumb as you think you are and just got in some lucky guesses! Seriously though it's important to remember this is only measuring (imprecisely) one specific type of intelligence of many different types and says nothing of other important factors in one's intelligence and character.

Isn't this basically what people do with morals and responsibility? We expect saner and more intelligent people to act more responsibility than others. This goes right in with the sanity defense where someone can basically get away on some level with doing something crazy, particularly the "temporary insanity" defense, which may allow someone to actually have some sort of life afterwards. This type of 'double standard' seems pretty prevalent throughout how people treat each other and hold people responsible. It's also why people have trouble holding their parents responsible, because they just downgrade their agency and hold them to a lower standard. It's pretty hard to think of a retard as not trying hard enough because you have such low expectations of them. Whereas when people think of smart people they just open their mind up to the world of possibilities and 'potential' and compare them to all the other successful people in the world and find something lacking. Many people have this notion of 'wasted potential' and it's much easier to apply to a smarter person. Another similar thing is going from being the richest person in a neighborhood to the poorest one, not by making a different amount of money, but simply by moving to a richer neighborhood. Then all of a sudden you seem to be lacking and deficient even though you are equally successful in a way. To many people it isn't about how successful you are in fact, but related to other people and to some imaginary potential for success they give you. It's all about perspective and where people put the goal post for you and the more you succeed the more they will want to shift it forward. Going 5 more meters when you can only go 50 is very different from going another 5 meters when you've gone 5000, even if it's infinitely harder. The greater your success the more distorted expectations become. Edit: Also made me think of how some people might suggest to Mr. Molyneux that he isn't doing enough for the cause. Same idea I think.