LancierDombre

I was recently asked why I am so angry and hostile towards the left. My initial response was that I used to consider myself a man of the left but I am not any more because I realized that they were lying to me. To which I was told that I was taking it too personally and that I should keep in mind that right-wingers lie too. Fair enough, Bush lied and people died, etc.. I was a big anti-Bush guy. However, I have noticed a difference in the types of BS I get from both. Suppose you had two acquaintances, Mr Right and Mr Left: Mr Right insists that someone who seems to dislike you is about to attack you without providing proof and that a single use of recreational drugs, casual sex, or masturbation will ruin your life irreparably forever. Mr Left assures you that a person who is on the record as wanting to kill you is perfectly harmless and insists that recreational drug use and casual sex is the sure road to a happy, healthy, and productive life. I wouldn't consider either one to be a paragon of accuracy or truth, but one can't help but have the impression that Mr Right is looking out for your best interests while Mr Left is trying to sabotage your life. Any thoughts?

I'd be interested.

Or alternatively, how would women react to a movie in which men were not only shown as being good at their traditional gender roles of provider and protector, but also superior nurturers and better with children than all of the women? How about a movie portraying a society consisting entirely of men as a paradise? Both of which are not-uncommon tropes of the entertainment industry these days.

The word racist is one of the most extreme cases of concept crepe I can think of. It used to refer to someone who believed a person's place and rights in society should be determined by their race. However, after it rightly became seen as despicable in people's minds, ambitious and parasitical sophists began to expand the definition little by little. They borrowed the negative baggage of the word's historical meaning to attack people and ideas that were inconvenient to their purposes. Now the word's meaning is so overused that anyone who believes things that are demonstrably true are routinely called racist. The word racist is like a spoiled rich heir, it might look similar but it lives off the moral content of its ancestor, contributing nothing to society or discussion. Now, it has no clear moral content. The word is just eye-rollingly boring.

Are you crying for help? If so what does helping look like to you? I'm looking for specific actions here. Hold the phone, I haven't accepted the assertion that voting is even remotely equivalent to "cheering on" a gang rape and you haven't offered up any arguments to back up such an equivalency. So please either put up or shut up as far as this emotionally manipulative language is concerned. I'm loosing track of your analogies here. Are you saying that the rape is in the voting or the resulting state policies? If the former, you're going to have to explain that one to me as I'm clearly not as sofisticated as you are. If the latter, okay, I've accepted that the state is not in a different moral category. Now what? None of that changes the fact that we're being offered the chance to give a little bit of input into the state's operations, that it costs almost nothing to give such input, that there is no implicit or explicit requirement that your input be given enthusiastically, and that you loose no moral authority in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of the population for voting. If you honestly believe that there would be no differences between a Clinton, Trump, or Johnson presidency or that there is no way of knowing, that's another discussion and I can certainly understand why you wouldn't see it as worth our time thinking about. However, if you think that any one of these three potential presidents would help you get to your ultimate goal of a free society more than the others and you pass up the opportunity to influence the outcome of the election, that just tells me you're not actually serious about getting anything done. It would tell me that this is just a vanity project for you. Have you ever considered that maybe they're downvoting you because they see you as being the one unable to provide a rational argument and that maybe you're the one acting out of emotional need? Maybe a need for attention or to feel superior to others? Take a step back for a moment and realize that if you're incorrect in equating voting to cheering on a rape gang, you're accusing everyone who disagrees with you of something truly awful. Think about it.

It just so happens that I took this very test a couple months ago. I found it insightful and helped me to accept certain aspects of my personality. I got ENTJ-T so I'm a Turbulent Commander: Extroverted: 64% Intuitive: 63% Thinking: 63% Judging: 65% Turbulent: 61% I'm going to guess that FDR listeners probably have an over-representation of analyst types.

False analogy. If you happen upon a gang rape, you have the option to call for help, or possibly intervene right then to stop it. You don't have a realistic chance of stopping the election or ending the state this year. If we're going to go with the rape analogy, this would be more like getting some say in whether or not your rapist is HIV positive or not. Also, if you really think that voting is the equivalent of cheering on a gang rape then aren't you in some way morally obligated to intervene - perhaps even with force? If you are so sure you are right about this, I think it would behoove you to at least protest the election publicly. Show up at your local polling place on election day with a sign that says "voting = gang rape" and take your case to the people. Heck, you might even get some media attention. Do you have a better idea? I am open to suggestions. Maybe starting an anti-voting protest movement is the way to go.

It's correct to say that the lifeblood of the state is its perceived legitimacy and that the way out is to change people's minds. However as far as I've seen, nobody is claiming that their vote will change anybody's mind and I have no idea how you could maintain that your vote can't contribute to freedom or that refraining from voting will in any way damage the legitimacy of the state in people's minds. I'd be interested to know where this is coming from though. I've heard plenty of true stories about local elections in which only a handful of people turn out to vote, but the results of the election held. It was a favorite trick of the school board in my hometown in fact. If a school levy failed to pass, they'd just put it up again in a poorly advertised special election. And what do you know! The voters "changed their minds" and passed the levy. Even though voter turn out was only a tiny fraction of what it was when the levy failed to pass, everyone's property taxes still went up and everybody still paid them. Clearly - in my experience at least - people's belief in the state's legitimacy is not predicated on voter turnout. I say, make the case for freedom to those who will listen, and talk to them where they already are. You won't convince the average person that the state has no legitamacy right away, but you may get to nudge them more in the direction we want. This is going to be a multi generational process so in the meantime, since you and everyone else is going to be subjugated anyway, you might as well vote if you think one master is going to create a better environment to make your case in than another. Now I have to agree with Mike here. Based on the evidence presented in the show, it does seem that the current immigration policy is working against us by enlarging a dependent class in the US whose existence - as it is - is dependent on maintaining the perceived legitimacy of the state. So I'll probably be voting for Trump.

I'll own that I could have worded that more tactfully but I stand behind the content of what I wrote. I'm pretty sure you've said in the past that you've had to give up on presentations because you didn't have enough data to make a solid video. That intellectual integrity is one of the reasons that I respect what you and Stef do here and it's a large part of why I donate. It's not a "conspiracy theory" to assume that was what happened in this case. It was a logical inference based on what I knew at the time and it seems like it was mostly correct. You said that the researcher flaked - I didn't know that this was supposed to be an interview just based on the thread - so you didn't have enough data to make a whole video about it. Do you think they just forgot about it or is there just not enough solid evidence to devote a whole video about it? Something tells me that if they had the data to make a solid video against daycare it would be out there. Does that appreciably differ in content from "the researcher flaked and I got detoured to other projects"? None of this means that Daycare is good of course. But if the data is limited that’s just where we are. I did ask about it on February 16th 2016. You hadn't replied yet. It's the last post on this thread and I replied directly to you: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39621-the-truth-about-daycare/ I know you're busy though so you may not have seen my post. I'm glad I finally know what went on with that now. I never accused you of being lazy. I’d love that source if you know where it is! I thought I heard that somewhere before but I couldn’t remember where exactly. Thank you. I’ll have to listen to the Bad Philosophy Show. The problem might be that it is anecdotal, and my girlfriend remembers the children being happy in her mom’s daycare. But maybe I could use it to help plant the seed in her mind. After mulling over what you said earlier, I actually asked her to write down her reasons for why she wants children and why she wants a career. I did the same. We’re going to share them with each other when we finish writing them out. I think it should be an interesting starting place. Not true at all, my instincts are to agree with you actually. However, I’m a data based life form. I need to know what the empirical case looks like before doing something drastic. Also, I try to argue both sides of an issue with intellectual empathy before coming down too strongly. This is especially true of subjects I haven’t thought that much about yet. I know it’s annoying to some people, but it’s how I process things. Agreed, and neither of us see money as a top priority. It’s discovering the best balance that’s difficult. That’s a very convincing argument to someone who already agrees with you. My instinct is to agree with you, but my views have been challenged by adults who actually went to daycare as children and think that it was a good thing for them. I could just dismiss it as me talking to their parents or something, but that just begs the question if I don’t have proof of harm like I do with spanking. It would also be incredibly arrogant of me not to consider that I might be the one who is mistaken here given that I have no personal experience of daycare. I don’t consider accusing people of caring more about a car than their hypothetical children to be a productive way forward.

I apologize ahead of time if I come across as argumentative here, but if I need to push back if I see an obvious counter-argument. Conversations in which everyone agrees tend to be less productive, I find. Also, it’s difficult to hammer this stuff out over lunch :-) Agreed, but it doesn't follow that we have to completely eschew any use of daycare. My girlfriend isn't saying she needs to work full time. She's certainly willing to make career sacrifices and go to part time for a while, etc... But she doesn't want to drop out of the workforce entirely. Not only that but there will be grandparents, etc… And she’d be willing to reconsider things if I can prove that this would actually have a serious negative impact on the children. It has to be pretty rock solid though. I'm aware of this. I have dated a daycare worker once, and she wasn’t too bright either. However, most is not all. My girlfriend went into daycare before her younger sister was born, and then her mom opened up a daycare in their own home because of her sister's health issues. It was one of the highest ranked daycares in the state and they're still friends with a lot of the customers. The children who were in the daycare are almost thought of as cousins by my girlfriend. I've met some of these kids in fact, they're grown up and they don't seem damaged to me. In fact, they seemed happier, better adjusted and with more opportunity than I had at their age. I didn't go to daycare, my girlfriend did. I have an ACE score of 3 (4 if you count my parent's divorce which happened after I turned 18), my girlfriend has an ACE score of 0. I was spanked when I was very little (until about 5). My girlfriend was never spanked. While I was going to public school and being chastised for raising my hand too enthusiastically and being forced to read boring stories about pre-teen girl angst, she was going to a private Montessori school where she could learn what she wanted at her own pace. While I was sleeping with a knife hidden near my bed out of fear that my older half-brother would take drugs and try to kill us again, she was traveling the world as a student ambassador. Watching TV and playing videogames were the normal after school activities in my house. TV and videogames were limited in her family, they played scrabble and other mind-exercising games - as a family. At least two of my "friends" from highschool and one close acquaintance have done time in prison and I don't really have any friends from the community college where I did most of my undergrad because I was too busy working my ass off to get noticed and get into a major tech company. She went to a college that she's actually proud to say she went to and where she made great friends and has positive memories. These are two examples of actual childhoods. One went to daycare, the other didn't. Whose childhood do you honestly think was healthier though? Why can’t I just find a good girl who wants to be a stay-at-home mom? I probably dated about 30 women - just went out with a few times, not sex - before I met my current girlfriend. She’s really the first one I’ve ever thought seriously about starting a family with. I’m going to be 31 years old in a couple of months. In my experience, single women in my age group either have careers or have made catastrophic mistakes. So where am I supposed to look for this cadre of quality, atheistic, stay-at-home mom’s? I don't know if it would be worth it is the point. You need data to make rational decisions about trade-offs. From a purely monetary perspective, probably yes in the long run. And that’s because if one of us completely drops out of the workforce certifications expires etc, and it takes a lot to get back in. Also, as previously stated, I don’t want to put her in a position in which she is completely dependent on me for income because of my heart condition. Compared to what? Being around low rent people and dealing with religious indoctrination is also extremely stressful. I know that from experience. In computer architecture there is a concept called Amdahl's Law, which describes the theoretical improvements in latency that can achieve by optimizing certain parts of the architecture. Basically, the lesson is that you shouldn’t waste resources optimizing something that will have less of an impact over something that will have more of an impact. Stef himself admitted during his interview with Charles Murray (I think it was) that the data shows that genetics seems to contribute more to life outcomes than anything, so long as the parenting is “good enough”. My girlfriend has an IQ that is over 3 standard deviations above the mean (higher than at least 99.8% of the population). As we know, IQ is one of the best predictors of life outcomes and has a heritability factor between 0.5 and 0.8. So here is what I'm looking at with my girlfriend: High IQ: Check Atheist: Check Supportive Family: Check Not a Lefty: Check We enjoy each other's company: Check We have high level conversations: Check Physically and emotionally healthy: Check She’s seriously considering starting a family with me: Check Wants to be a stay-at-home mom: Not quite, but willing to make career sacrifices and acknowledges the importance of breastfeeding. I can’t control what she does and I don’t want to. I can only control why I do and my options are to make a rock solid empirical case that any use of daycare will cause serious long-term problems for our hypothetical children, break up with her, or mitigate the potential damage. You’re assuming that it’s binary, but my discussions with people my age who have been to daycare and who have been successful in school and careers suggests that this may be a false dichotomy. Raising children in human tribes has always been to some extent a community effort. Granted, just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s ideal, but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. False dichotomy. I frankly don’t care much about money itself. I do care about being surrounded by intelligent people though, and I can’t help but notice that highly intelligent people tend to cluster around places you need money to be a part of. Really, is that true in all situations? And compared to what? If we both quit our jobs we’ll both be around the kids all of the time. I assume that’s not what you are getting at though, so we’re back to managing trade-offs. Children need a lot of things to grow up to be successful adults. The trick is figuring out what the optimal mix is. Read this thread: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39621-the-truth-about-daycare/ Don't you think it's a little odd that Mike put out the call for researching a "Truth About Daycare" presentation in 2014, said it would be done in a few weeks, and two years later it still doesn’t exist? Do you think they just forgot about it or is there just not enough solid evidence to devote a whole video about it? Something tells me that if they had the data to make a solid video against daycare it would be out there. Again, I bought the Great Courses two series on "Scientific Secrets to Raising Kids Who Thrive" and "Scientific Secrets to Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids". I haven't listened to all of the lectures yet but I haven't found anything in the outlines that takes a strong position against daycare - they do take a strong position against spanking though. In the first lecture, the professor - an expert the area of childhood development - says that if there is an area of parenting he doesn't talk about in the series it's probably because the research provides no clear guidance on the subject. Stef also says that in order to achieve and maintain a free society, high IQ people with a propensity for seek truth and the K gene-set need to breed. He also says that if you like life you should “pay it forward”. My girlfriend and I are much better qualified to have children than my parents were, and I’m still happy they had me. I like existing. ============================== I see your post Matt. I'll get to it I promise. Out of time right now though

Try this: If you go down to the ghetto at night, get drunk and start flashing money around and then you get mugged, who's responsible? The mugger or you? Morally, the mugger is responsible. However, I still reserve the right to use your story as a cautionary tale to others.

I'm not sure that there is a whole lot of evidence showing that the way a woman dresses has a direct causal relationship with her probability of being raped. I could be wrong though. It may well be the case that this correlates with other psychological dysfunctions and the type of crowd she hangs out with though. And those things may increase her chance of being victimized. I'm just speculating here so if there is actual data on this, let me know. Is it really the case that you get upset when your girlfriend dresses sexy because you're worried she'll get raped, or do you just find it disrespectful to you? I'll be frank, I think there comes a point where it's disrespectful. Dressing sexy is a type of passive flirtation. She's advertising to all of the males around her in case a better deal than you were to show up. Like a lot of things women do in the dating market though, there's a certain plausible deniability about it. Depending on the circumstances, it would almost be like her catching you with an active dating profile, complaining that you might get conned by someone online and then you responding that she can't control what you view or who you talk to online - as if that's the issue.

I listened through the philosophical parenting series. It's nice but I've heard all of these theoretical arguments against daycare before. Theory is great but if you don't have solid empirical evidence to support that theory, it is a much weaker guide for making decisions. My girlfriend and I are both engineers, so results matter and we think in terms of trade-offs. ​In this call for research thread ( https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39621-the-truth-about-daycare/) a user named cab21 cites research that suggests I may be overreacting here. Generally speaking, the studies suggest that there is no difference between the emotional and social development of children who receive day care and those who stay at home, as long as the day care service is of good quality and the families offer reasonable levels of attention to the children. Regarding intellectual development, day care attention seems to act as a protecting factor for children from lower socioeconomic level families who are at higher social risk. I also did a quick search of the course guidebooks for the Great Course's series on "Scientific Secrets for Raising Kids that Thrive" and "Scientific Secrets for Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids". From the outlines, neither course seems to say much about daycare other than that Montessori approach is preferable. Is this proof of anything? No, I still have a lot of reading to do yet. So some examples of trade-offs worth considering are: Both my girlfriend and I are 30 with masters degrees and careers. I make significantly more than her but she still makes a decent amount of money. If she were to drop out of the work force completely for a few years it would mostly destroy her human capitol in a way that even switching to part-time wouldn't. If the above cited research is accurate, provided we could find a quality provider in our price range, it might be better off in the long run to have the extra income because we could afford better schooling for later in life. Not only that, but it would mean that the family wouldn't be in as much financial jeopardy if something were to happen to me - which isn't an insignificant concern considering my congenital heart problem. If just living on just one income would mean that we have to live in a worse neighborhood. What effect would that have on the children's well being and how would that compare to some daycare? Let's say my girlfriend and I come to an impasse and break up over this. What if the only women I could find that would be okay with the stay-at-home wife thing were very religious, had a lower IQ, or for some reason were just less compatible with me than my current girlfriend in other ways. Would that really be better for my hypothetical children? Is it worth being with someone who I might otherwise have less respect for just because they are willing to stay home with the kids? Sure, maybe I might find someone better if I broke up with my girlfriend but that's far from certain. In past discussions, my girlfriend has said that she would have been a lot more open to being the stay-at-home mom for a while in her early 20's. If I could turn back time and rearrange my life so that we would have met then I'd do that, but that's not an option. We didn't meet until about a year ago, and now that she's been through grad school and finally has a career going, it's really hard to blame her for not wanting to give that up. We're in the situation we're in now, and we have to make the trade-offs that make the most sense. I appreciate all of the Google searches and things that I've found today, but the problem is I'll need to scrutinize them to make sure their methods are appropriate and the conclusions are valid. I was hoping Stef and Mike or someone had a body of work that they already vetted but so far no luck. As Mike has said in the past, there is an awful lot of junk science and advocacy research out there - especially in controversial issues like this - and we need to be weary of confirmation bias and group think.

Thanks Calling in is a possibility. She was actually thinking about calling in on a different but tangentially related question. I'd like to actually have that discussion myself though. It's just aggravating though. I care enough about this that I'd be willing to be the stay at home parent, except that I'm doubtful that she can support us on her income. The tragedy of it though is that if I pursued a career that would earn me more money and be less personally satisfying because I knew I'd be expected to be the bread winner. She definitely could have gone for a higher paying career - she's certainly smart enough - but chose one that she enjoyed more.

I have to admit, it shocked me a bit too and I wasn't quite prepared for the conversation. I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised though. I guess I'm actually going to have to put my foot down on this one. One of us will have to sacrifice career for the kids if this is going to work, and I make a lot more money than she does. Unless she can prove the alleged positive effects of daycare she thinks exist, she has to either pick which one of use will be the childcare provider or we'll just have to admit we're at an impass on this. :-( What you presented looks promising but I was hoping for something that has been verified as being solid research. I'm going to have to dig into these to make sure these are trustworthy results.