thebeardslastcall

Is it common knowledge among cops that people under the influence of certain drugs are highly sensitive to micro-expressions? Meaning if you feel any fear around these people they're likely to pick up on it even if you don't know you're giving off signals and will in turn react violently when they wouldn't have otherwise.

Thanks, I took it out of curiosity. Hadn't taken one in a while and some of them are definitely inflated. Seeing as this one is right on par with giving me the lowest score I ever remember getting (age could be a factor here too). I'll say this one doesn't appear inflated like some of the ones I've taken before, which surely were (I've gotten scores over 20 points higher before). Given that a non-inflated result won't sit as well with the ego it's natural to understand why people tend to prefer the ones that lie to them. I certainly didn't get an ego boost out of my result.

You seem sure it is working. I think this needs a clarification on what you mean by "works". What exactly are you measuring? If I beat my son and he becomes submissive, but then 10 years later he rapes a woman because of what I really taught him, did this work? It feels like your measurement is very short sighted and looking at the wrong metrics, without full comprehension of the behavioral and understandings you're imprinting onto your child by hitting them. Hitting someone is saying they already know and understand, they just have to accept, and that hitting them is the way to get them to accept it. If my son is struggling to understand a math problem me hitting him doesn't teach him how to solve the problem. If I hit him, tell him the answer is 8 and he writes it down in compliance, did that work? To understand why hitting your kids works or doesn't work you really need to define what "work" means and how you are measuring it and what you've really accomplished and taught with your actions. Accepting an answer forcefully given and knowing how to get to that answer and why it's the correct answer are two totally different things and the child will never learn how to do the math this way. They may eventually figure it out, but hitting them didn't help things along. One of the byproducts of this treatment is the bully who beats up another kid to get them to give them the answer, because this is how they learned to get answers. Don't confuse obedience out of fear from obedience out of understanding. If I might get hit for speaking up, getting hit just teaches me to be quiet, it doesn't teach me how to speak without getting hit and it assumes the kid meant harm when speaking up instead of simply not understanding why what they were doing is wrong.

I didn't mean to suggest that. I was assuming he loved his kids regardless of whether he staid or left, as opposed to leaving simply because he was a troll. I meant it, if he was still reading, to encourage him to stay despite the hostilities, for his children. If he's already gone (and wasn't a troll) then I've already failed for my part in pushing him away.

I haven't watched the video yet, sounds like an interesting story. I just hope people don't miss the real point in this story. That is the wisdom of the kid's mother who stood up against bad advice coming from the 'authorities' and saved her child. She saved her kid from a miserable and deficient life. Props to her.

I think the problem here is that you tried to negotiate after you'd printed documents instead of setting terms ahead of time. Thus you'd already committed to a cost on their end and then challenged that cost. I think the better approach is to set terms ahead of time if you think you're going to challenge them or to print a small amount and "take the hit" and then go elsewhere to print more if they won't correct or compensate you for the poorly printed pages. Proper trade negotiation is all about setting terms ahead of time, otherwise you will inevitably run into problems. You have to be on the same page and you clearly weren't. And if this was a government worker all the more reason to not expect standard customer service and customer appeasement for future "business".

You make some fair points MMX2010, I'll have to think about this some more. I could discuss some of your points some more, but I see that's where I went wrong in this thread. Instead of accepting TheFuzz's answer that he was satisfied with his position I felt the need to challenge it and drove focus away from what he may be willing to work on, that is far more important, which is peaceful parenting. I did learn some things from this "derailment", but I do apologize if I've helped drive him away from learning more about peaceful parenting. Hopefully he's still lurking and open to learning more even though some of us put him in the "hot seat". If he loves his kids (which I assume he does since he was here) I hope he'll push past these discomforts and hostilities and continue studying the topic.

What I love about that response is the fundamental pivot in interpretation of the quoted "from those I do serve, they pay me". If I interpret his meaning he was suggesting he serves the people (as it would make less sense to ask for thanks from his boss) and the people are the ones paying him (ignoring the middle men), but you interpreted the same words (as I understand it), as serving the thieves who give him his paycheck and that he needs to thank the victims of the thievery. It shows the difference in belief of who is actually being served, which is kind of the crux of the matter.

You're right I did switch the wording a bit. Sorry if you feel I mis-stated what you said. I think from my point of view I was trying to imagine things from the kid's perspective and additionally I think of kids as people so it was a natural translation in my mind. I realize one is a subset of the other, but it's also an artificial distinction and the some (most?) kids translate things in their heads into personal terms like "me", which is free of any age bounds. In trying to imagine things from the kids perspective and I'm not sure they are going to make the same distinctions and groupings as you and interpret things the same way. Just as I did, they will translate what you said into their own terms. The kid is going to wonder, if he makes the distinction, where this artificial boundary of age groups changes him from to a safe kid into an unsafe non-kid and is going to see people clearly are getting jailed for crimes that aren't so serious as you said was necessary for children. Likewise it may give the child a false sense of safety around cops, who have killed kids for playing with toy guns. Many cops I've met have the "better him than me" attitude and some (a not insignificant minority) are clearly unable to separate a child who play with guns from this attitude, real or fake, even if the kid doesn't have any real idea what they are doing. I was thinking and trying to address how the kid will develop with these ideas in their head, not just how they will act in the short-term. Does that make sense and clarify my response?

I'm not sure if it's because some of my posts got moderated and people missed them, but I do not think this is a fair assessment of my stances here. It's TheFuzz who has argued he is trying to improve his station and the like and suggesting we should get laws changed. I'm not suggesting he change the system as an external thing. I'm only suggesting and pointing out his personal responsibility for his personal actions as a member of that system and suggesting the byproduct of this personal responsibility is, as I conclude it, to weaken the system, whereas participation in the system strengthens it. I'm not suggesting he alter other people's behavior to "fix" the system or anything like that, only his behavior as he is an element of what could be called "the system". That's an important distinction I think; I'm addressing a tree to change itself and that the forest will naturally be different by consequence and not suggesting he change other trees to accomplish this forest change. I did ask TheFuzz questions relating to his parenting and spanking his children. I have not seen any replies to those questions yet. I must admit it got harder for me to be empathetic with talking to him once his nature became more apparent, which is perhaps why I should leave the rest of that discussion with him to you if you think you can help him help his children. I did respond to this post and tried to help a little. Although I also admitted it was a very difficult situation to put yourself in, which is why I have trouble imagining any peaceful person being a cop, because they force themselves into situations where they must be the aggressor or are in a position of power for good, but do not exercise it. I tried to give some suggestions and I consider my conversation with Merrifield to still be ongoing as I haven't addressed his latest post and he seemed to still be working on more responses as well. I think the increased heat around TheFuzz has made this secondary related conversation with Merrifield a bit harder to carry on. Merrifield seems more genuine and open to me, even if I disagree with his position I feel we can learn from each other. Whereas TheFuzz seems to have done a bit of a "bait and switch" of sorts that got people's hopes up and then crushed them quickly when people realized his "flip" in attitude. My natural inclination due to personal experiences and philosophical positions is to be repulsed by cops, but I realize they are people too and I don't want to make the mistake of de-humanizing them as some do, but want to understand why they put themselves into these "impossible" situations.

Society has shown a very bright and narrow light on many of these people, specifically the good parts. I think the point is to turn the light around and show everyone what they've been missing. This is biased for the point of balance. People already have had the "good" parts hammered into them. They need the opposite side of the coin shown to them to complete the view. This means a focused light on much of the negative that hasn't been addressed well or has been specifically ignored by the public media.

In response to Thomasio: You're defining ideally as some sort of equality and then arguing against equality in an overly simplistic manner and saying equality is not ideal and concluding there is no ideal world. You introduced circular logic to argue against all potential ideal worlds as if this generalized equality (which is how I'm classifying it, but what you call it exactly doesn't matter) was the only possible ideal.

Let me change that for you to show you it from another perspective. "Just because you believe a serial-murderer rule is unjust does not exempt you from punishments of said serial-murderer rule. If you want to undo an unjust serial-murderer rule, ask serial murderers nicely for it to be stricken from the serial-murderer rule books. Until you can do that, I'm going to keep killing people, in compliance with the serial-murderer rule book." Your basic contention with people seems to be you believe in the social contract and that it gives you authority over others. So long as you hold this view there's no point in debating with you about freedom, because you're bring a gun to the debate and claiming your government (you) has legitimate domain over everyone. Also he is lobbying. Instead of pointlessly lobbying in the political system he's directly lobbying the person with the gun as they're the one making it a law. There are no laws without enforcers, enforcers are the law. Your quirks of when to insert yourself and to what degree are the relevant effect of any law book. He's saying "please don't shoot me" and you're bringing out a holy book and saying "but God told me to, if you want to change things, take it up with God!" Edit: of note, I have 2 moderated posts that haven't been approved yet.

Want to note upfront I have a moderated post above my previous one that has not yet been approved. This is what I'm aiming to do. The problem is the government you forcefully represent claims right to all the land in that they say it's yours if you pay for it but its under their domain. I can go live off of my land, but your laws will still claim to apply to me and you will not stay off my bought land. I am a fairly happy person, but people like you make higher levels of success much harder because you insert yourself into the business of others and claim authority even if none of the involved parties gave you that authority. For example if I build my home and it's a nice home and I'm happily living off my land, let's imagine completely independently for this, and then some government person tries to come assess property taxes and I refuse to pay or let them even on my land to make this assessment what will happen? Suggesting someone should leave is like suggesting they should give up their land to the bully and go to another land... magically free of bullies despite the success of being a bully that easily steals land. Why don't you leave? Both people are unwelcome, but one isn't pushing people around. You say it like people want to be beat up because they don't want to negate themselves and yield their life to every foreign claim over their life by running or submitting. I'm not making any threats here, but let me take this to an extreme a bit to make a point, let's say I go onto a person's land and shoot him and kill him and take his land. Then I get taken to court for murder, would it be a valid defense to say "Well if he didn't want to get shot he should have been somewhere else, he knew I was coming to kill him and take his land" ? You seem to be missing that you are asking why someone isn't happy while you're directly working against the happiness of people. You're beating people up and talking like "well all you have to do is leave and you can be happy, completely retract from trading with anyone and I'll leave you alone I promise, totally doable!" The only way to be free is to resist evil. If you yield to evil every time it pushes evil gets everything with ease and leaves no place to be free of evil. My hostility towards you has gone up a bit in response to your "be gone and I won't bother you" type talk. I'm pretty sure if someone came up to you and your family at your front door and told all of you to leave the country because you weren't paying a made up fee you'd see that as pretty ridiculous and a heavy assault on your property and family. Maybe you're right, maybe we should be kicking out all the government agents from the country? I'm also a bit confused with the implication that you're happy. Really? What you're doing doesn't bother you at all? Do you enjoy locking people up for non-compliance with all the laws you represent?

I think this is also my issue. We can call it gray, but it feels pretty clearly black when you're the one being arrested and put in jail and having your freedom denied for a lack of compliance with an unjust system. Then you have people who tell you they love you and want you out of jail, while at the same time supporting the same system that put you in there, which sounds eerily like "I love you, but I support God, who is sending you to hell." And no I don't smoke cannabis (or deal with any other drugs), as if that mattered here. If you can't give the straight truth to a kid it's usually a sign you're doing something sketchy, because kids tend to have the moral clarity many adults have lost. If a kid would repulse in confused horror at the truth what do you think that says?

I think it's the opposite. I think gray is easy to see and being able to separate the good from the bad is difficult. For a cop as example you can't see how you can do the good that you feel you are doing without also doing the bad, so it becomes gray. People think if they don't vote they're letting someone more evil get into office, so they bind the white of non supporting voting with the black of a greater evil getting into office. I think it's very difficult to make issues black and white, in that you can actually mentally separate them. People seem to become cops and voters because they don't know how to help and fight back evil without also throwing themselves into the lions den and doing some evil themselves. When everyone is willing to do some evil to do some good it makes evil extremely pervasive and thus any attempt to do good without evil that much harder. As for answering kids you'll have to consider each on a case by case basis and consider whether or not you're willing to risk your job to tell them the truth, but just remember they're going to realize later you lied to them if you do. Either that or they aren't going to realize and they're going to become blind to the evils of the state and think of that nice cop they met as their defense that the state is good. It's a tough situation to be in no doubt, which is why I said I couldn't put myself into it. If you're really in the position to do some good then you should see it as an opportunity to tell the kids the truth for once. I'm not saying you need to lay it on thick and heavy, but be straight with them if you think you can handle the risk (like the child following up with a tough question to parent that offends them and leads them to taking action against you). If you do give them the truth I urge you to subtly fit in that you do not support the state system (if that is your position) even though you are a cop. Lying to kids is what religions do, pretending they are being helpful, while causing a craziness inside of them that then is left at odds with reality, often difficult to reconcile or root out. Going to jail obviously doesn't require anyone to do something very, very bad, so I'd consider that a lie and the first time they see someone go to jail for a lesser crime (which they may be morally confused about) they're going to get confused and get scared. Kids are pretty intelligent in many ways, don't underestimate them. Saying cops only arrest "really bad" people is equivalent in many ways to the story of hell that scares children. It really twists them in a mental knot. It's not just the kid is being given a sort of death threat of being separated from the parent, but that the parent is the one making the call to God or state to do it. How messed up is that? Frankly the kid would probably be better off without that parent. We always seem to regret that we didn't know the truth about things earlier and had to figure it out later when we were adults. Now we're the adults and we're delivering those same lies. One thing you can probably get away with is planting the seed of imperfection into the idea of the state and separate it from the idea of a moral God. With something like "I'm a cop because I want to stop bad people, but the system isn't perfect so I have to fight injustices in the system as well." Making yourself as an adult seem vulnerable to a kid is very revealing thing. Of course seeing the system as even more powerful than parent and cop makes it even scarier in some ways. It's a difficult situation, no doubt. The fact that you are in these moral back and forth thoughts is part of why I said I couldn't do the job. If you're a cop you're making it gray because you can't separate the good from the bad. You can only separate good from evil as a free agent willing to take the hit of being at odds with the rest of society. I struggle with this issue too in my own way, but I'm on the other side of the fence, wondering how I can survive without entering myself into these situations. I don't want to be the evil guy with good intentions, but I want to survive as well and do some good in the world. I wonder what the world would look like if over the course of a day or week every "good cop" quit and became an independent agent for good. Can't you help the kids without being a cop? I'm not as successful as Mr. Molyneux, in that I don't make a sustainable living at the moment nor do I have a family to support, so take that into consideration when reading my views. In that way I feel like I've already taken a bullet for not playing the game of gray very well as many do. I'm currently working on a book to try to be a bit more successful like Mr. Molyneux and am working to find ways to be more successful on my own terms. Good luck and I'd be curious to hear how things go for you if you'll share your future experiences on the board I'll keep an eye out for them,

My problem with cops like you is I fear you are blurring everyone's vision. You're introducing white to black and then everyone is left seeing gray. If we broke this mentality then everyone would see the black more clearly and we'd be able to address the issue. Additionally, as the previous poster brought back up, which I appreciate, you're still hitting your kids, and I don't think that's unrelated to your job. It's not just that you haven't accepted peaceful parenting, but that you haven't accepted peace. You're willing to do some evil to do some perceived good and you think it's some scale that balances. As if saving a few lives makes up for killing a few people. I know that seems extreme, but it's this blurred moral vision that seems to just blur everyone's vision about the system. You're giving them a "good cop" to point to and justify the system as not so bad. It's this grey thinking that is the pervasive logic in the world, and you can call me an unfairly black and white person, but it seems like a cancerous logic to me when you're willing to forcefully take away people's freedom or stand idly by when someone's freedom is being taken away. What's the point in pointing out an evil a coworker is doing if at that point you're going to let someone else take the bullet of injustice? Seems like the blind leading the blind to morality to me. I'm not denying you're doing some good, what I'm wondering is how much evil you're willing to do to do your good? Sorry if that seems harsh, but it's my current reasoning for not wanting to support your efforts. I have trouble differentiating you from all the politicians who go in to do a little good, but just end up conforming and letting evil have its way while at the same time giving people hope in the situation and moral confusion about its agents and thus the system as a whole. I do commend you for coming here to open yourself up to criticism and to seek further help in learning about peaceful parenting, best of luck with that even if you stay a cop it would be a significant improvement for your kids to intentionally inflict pain upon them less. Take care, Edit: Since it was pointed out to me no one has asked it I thought I'd add in a critical question. The above poster asked what you consider egregious, but that I've seen no one has asked you why you spank your children. You are not convinced in peaceful parenting, why are you convinced against it? And if you aren't convinced against it, why do you default to hitting your children as the perceived solution to your problem?

I don't see anyone complaining about the lack of movies with guys giving birth. It was a woman who was pregnant in The Avengers 2, how sexist is that!? I mean, there's only one movie I know of where it gets this gender equality issue right and the guy is giving birth for once. Is this not outrageous!? I think the real issue is many people confuse the need for equality of rights with the need for actual equality, which doesn't exist between any two people regardless of their race or sex.

Not only is it a debt forced upon slaves, but the debtor also gave money knowing the unjust conditions of the society. The debt isn't ours and those who get 'stiffed' have only themselves to blame for trying to receive wealth stolen from us. I'm not going to feel bad for the thief or the one directly accepting stolen goods because their slaves escape and deny their 'obligation' to work the fields. It's just a heinous trap to keep the animals on the farm with mental enslavement. It would be more morally correct to say they are obligated to pay us. They're the 'assholes', not the people in false debt, and this inversion of responsibility and morality they try to beat into the minds of slaves is evil.

"Take this parachute, put it on and jump out, the plane is going down!" "But I can't see where I'll land, is there food down there? Has this parachute been tested?" "The plane is going down, you need to jump!" "But I don't know how we'll survive down there!" "The plane is GOING TO CRASH MAN!" "But..." * BOOOOM * ..... And now for the ideal future... "The plane is going to crash, grab this parachute and jump!" "Holy crap, you're right!" * grabs the parachutes and jumps out * * both people land safely and begin their search for food * "Hey I found some mangos!" "Hey I found some papayas!" * they trade a couple with each other and sit down for a fruity meal * * promiscuity ensues, children are had, fruit trees are grown and traded, peaceful fruity society begins *

The mind accumulates self-reinforcing habits over time that solidify each other in the mind making them harder and harder to change. The mind works, functionally, to learn where to give focus and attention. This is a filtering system, which has a tendency to narrow scope of vision over time if the person isn't actively working to prevent this. If you could override or lose learned behavior and habits too easily it would be kind of dangerous and lead to dysfunction. Habits are a necessary thing for the mind to function in the world, but this has the byproduct of making people increasingly more rigid in their thinking as they age. If you've believed something for 50 years it's going to be deeply interwoven into all your ideas, whereas if you've just accepted it, then it has a small mental presence and interweave making it easier to change and 'root out' of the mind. This is also why religious ideas beaten into kids heads from early age is so powerful, because all these ideas interweave into all future experiences and separating this belief out to change it is very difficult.

Thanks and you are correct, it is non-fiction. Discussion seems like it is basically the same as one of the confusion points to do with free-will. That is to say some people want to define intangibles, which clearly exist, as non-existent, because they don't materially exist in the same way. This is one of the confusions I hope to clear up in my book.

Have you posted your disagreements anywhere on the board that you could point me to allowing me to read up on your positions and the related discussions? Saying you have a disagreement with existence is so vague it makes me curious what your disagreement could possibly be about exactly.

Welcome to the community! I'm new here myself. I remember, back in 2009 when I was considering jobs, a friend suggested the idea of becoming a cop to be the 'good cop.' I couldn't morally justify it to myself and being a cop was far outside of my natural behavior range so I did not pursue such a career, even though it would have paid quite well (monetarily) and I would have surely been less bad than other cops. Though frankly it was so far from what I could do I'd just get fired for non-performance pretty quickly (or simply wouldn't be hired). I'm wondering, based on your bold introduction that was also a bit excusatory, if you came here to seek support and confirmation for you views that you are doing a 'net good' and to back up your choice or if you really came here so we could call bullshit on it and talk you out of it? Do you think you are considering quitting for a more moral job or do you feel like you are satisfied with your choice to be less immoral than your replacement would be? By being a cop you are also confirming to all your coworkers, young and old, that there is something acceptable about being a cop, that there is a way to justify it that makes it okay, are you not? How long have you been a cop and why did you become one? When did you start questioning the morality of being a cop? Was this approach you are giving now your justification going into the force or did you adopt this view after you started listening to FDR podcasts and similar ideas elsewhere?

Thanks, call me whatever works for you, as I'm 'anonymous'! Ambitious indeed! It has grown into a larger book than I at first thought it would be and continues to expand as I edit. I may have to cut some content to narrow the focus at some point if it gets too large. The interesting thing about teaching the teacher here is that I realized both sides are students and teachers, since we're all trying to learn here. Makes for a very different dynamic than it was back in grade school. And yes I read the forum guidelines before I started posted, which is why I made specific note that I didn't want to discuss it here and now. I also felt that I wanted to be honest about my intentions and that if I could give it the respect it deserves my efforts would be allowed. As for being on opposite sides you didn't seem too confident in your assertion and I don't know your current stances, so it remains to be seen. In that avenue I was actually thinking about eventually down the road, around the time that I'm ready to release my book, doing a carefully crafted survey to see what people's views are going into the book and then again when they are when they come out. To see where the book is effective and ineffective in changing people's views. Also would help to clarify other issues. Listening to podcasts on the topic (which I'm in the process of doing) have helped me refine my understanding of other people's understandings, which I intend to use to help me refine my writing and express my ideas more clearly and to root out some of the core issues I see with the debate. I listened to podcast 286 which was comically entertaining at times, but got a bit ugly at the end, which illuminated some of the reasons I imagine the topic is discouraged here. When I'm ready to start sharing chapters this is one of the first places I'm likely to start sharing. It's still in a rough state in many ways. This also means I'm holding back my stance on determinism until I can more clearly express it through my book. I did provide a very rough categorization of my position however in my original post. I take more of a holistic approach to health and nutrition myself! I've been a type of raw vegan for over 5 years now and also get plenty of exercise, sun, and sleep. Not easy getting many people to change their life style ways for sure! There are definitely many open to it though if you simply expose them to the information, like with stateless societies, you just have to find the people with the hunger for health and truth. Thanks for the responses,