S04

There is a lot in here I have a hard time understanding. For example I still don't get what you mean by Ego. However I'd like to stay at your criticism of UPB. So let me ask some questions regarding that. "The consequences of moral living are only relevant within a society." Isn't that just saying that the subject of morality is the action or interaction of moral actors. So no moral actors (no society) -> no need for morality. How is UPB missing that? "Also, in a state of nature, nobody cares about non aggression. In fact, it is encouraged. But we don't live in a state of nature when we belong in a society." What is a state of nature? How does it encourage aggression? Do you mean anarchy?? How is an anarchic society not a society? Have you read any books on the practical application of anarchy? Saying following UPB would destroy civilization is an argument from effect. I would prefer to stay on the argument of morality. I hope you do as well. "Premises 6-7-8 are total fabrications" Are you agreeing on the other ones or did you just decide to focus on those three? "Truth is better than falsehood - FOR WHAT? WHEN? TO WHOM?" Truth is better than falsehood for you, when you want to use morality. "So it doesn't matter whether there is free will or not in order to have consequences within a society for immoral behavior." A shark attacking a surfer is not a moral agent. Do you disagree? Is the real issue free will vs. determinism? So my point was, that using morality requires the acceptance of these premises and that you use morality all the time, when you are part of a society. I now realize that I should actually put it another way, since you already accepted the 8 premises for debating. Unfortunately, I'm running a bit out of time now and I will not have much time to write again in the near future. So this is my final question/remark for now: Using morality is the exact same thing as debating. If not what would be the difference between the two?

As far as I understand it, the argument is that no concept exists in reality. Exist means that you can somehow measure it in the real world. There is a difference between the things that exist in our head and the things that exist in reality. A physical entity which is matter or energy or the properties thereof exists. That definition includes me as a human for example. The concept of numbers, the scientific method and UPB however don’t exist in the real world, but only in our heads. So now the question is, if a group of people or a society is some sort of of physical entity or only exists in the heads of its group members. Do you agree so far?

Thanks for considering. I do not really understand what you mean by the relationship of the individual to the collective. The collective is a concept that doesn't exist in reality. Only individuals exist and can be interacted with. Why is UPB making Ego the God? What do you mean by "Ego" in this context? And don't you think murder, rape and the likes of it should be banned by a moral theory? Regarding the previous conversation: Now that I have slept a night over the issue, let me come up with an idea. The assumptions of UPB (the premises listed below) are not required for life. I give you that. A plant doesn't need any of these premises to be alive. Similarly the life of a man stranded on an island certainly doesn't NEED all the premises of UPB in order to survive. (His life would likely be much more successful, if he considered at least Premise 1 and 2 to be true). However if this man is interacting with another individual, it's different. As soon as this man is making some sort of statement about UPB, he accepts a good number of these premises below. If he even makes a moral statement (a subset of UPB), he accepts all those premises (at least as I see it). My point is that the premises of UPB may not be required for life itself, but they are required, if you want to use morality at all. And using morality is very well required for living our current life, since you need to interact with people. (not required for sustaining life in its essence though ; ) PREMISE 1: WE BOTH EXIST PREMISE 2: THE SENSES HAVE THE CAPACITY FOR ACCURACY PREMISE 3: LANGUAGE HAS THE CAPACITY FOR MEANING PREMISE 4: CORRECTION REQUIRES UNIVERSAL PREFERENCE PREMISE 5: AN OBJECTIVE METHODOLOGY EXISTS FOR SEPARATING TRUTH FROM FALSEHOOD PREMISE 6: TRUTH IS BETTER THAN FALSEHOOD PREMISE 7: PEACEFUL DEBATING IS THE BEST WAY TO RESOLVE DISPUTES PREMISE 8: INDIVIDUALS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS I hope this helps.

Hey Will Torbald! I'd find it pretty awesome if you did call into the show. I personally can't think of a good rebuttal to your objection right now and it would be interesting to hear what Stefan has to say about it. The worst that could happen is that you could say "I told you so". On the other hand you could really learn something yourself and/or help a lot of people to be aware of this issue. Please give it a shot (if not for yourself, then for others)

To me Mike Maloney has made the most convincing case for the next and probably biggest economic crisis in our history and how it will look like. If you haven't done so already, you really should check out his 'Hidden Secrets of Money' - series. A new episode is coming out today. Here is his preview:

Thanks a lot for the article, dsayers. It definitely gave me some new input. I’m still trying to figure out what to think about voting. I’m just trying to bring some of my thoughts evoked by the article to the table and am curious as to what I can learn from your feedback on this. To me Voting is clearly not the deployment of force. Otherwise I would morally be justified to use force against voters. It could be argued that voting merely encourages the use of force. Whether the force will then be deployed or not is not up to the voter but to the politicians and the agents of the state. So voting can not be considered to be self-defense in that sense. However couldn’t you argue that voting can be used to encourage someone to use force in order to defend you from whatever the alternative would be? Isn’t this bringing back the argument from self defense through the backdoor? I see that trying to legitimize immoral actions and creating opposite moral categories for human beings is completely hypocritical and destructive. The perceived legitimacy of the state is what keeps us from a free society as dsayers pointed out. What I haven’t fully understood yet is the following. How is someone who votes agreeing to the implicit premise of voting that the winner of the vote has the legitimate power to rule? How is that someone accepting their enslavement rather than resisting it as dsayers wrote in his article? I do get where you are coming from, but I am still far from convinced. In the current world we live in the state is commonly accepted and legitimized. I think we can agree, that If that wasn’t the case, there would be no voting. People would just stop this madness right away. So I think that voting is rather caused by this acceptance and not the other way around. I guess that if only 10% participated in voting, while the majority still accepted the premise of voting, there would still be a state. I do see that a high participation is encouraging and a low participation is discouraging the common narrative of the legitimacy of the state to some extent, but I do not see how you can say that each voter has accepted the premise of voting. With the Brexit vote for example someone who actually wants to get rid of the state could help to eliminate some proportion of the state with just one vote… On a little side note: I happen to jump around quite a lot between the new stuff Stefan puts out and the older content. I think that on some topics you can observe quite a change of view over the years, especially concerning voting. Just today I watched „The Truth about Voting“ from back in 2008. It seems to me that Stef went from „voting is useless and somehow pathetic“ to „if voting can somehow rescue Western Civilization by keeping incompatible cultures out, I’ll take it“. To be clear, this is merely my perception and I’m not saying that Stefan actually has these views right now. I’m not quite sure what his stand is today, but it would really interest me if you could point me to a podcast where he clarifies his current stand or even the evolution of his thoughts on voting from back in the day.

Then there is one particular question: Stef called the attacks in Paris 'Muslim Attacks'. He didn't differentiate between islamists and 'regular' muslims. I don't really understand why he did that. I know that islam is not just a religion and that most muslims are peaceful only because human beings are usually peaceful and not because islam promotes peace. Yet I find the generalization somewhat unjust in this case. Don't get me wrong. I really don't have a strong opinion on this topic yet and my goal right now is more to understand the view of Stef and/or some other people here on the board. Again I'd really enjoy some replies and hints where I can find the right content to dig into. I also wonder what you guys think of this video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzusSqcotDw

Hey! I've been having a very busy time lately, but I still have listened to a lot of podcasts und just this weekend I saw two presentations of Stef at some libertarian conference. Right now the question about where my career is gonna be heading and what kind of job I'll be doing later really puzzles me. The goal for me so far was finishing my studies of physics with a phd, but now I am really questioning whether this is the best path. I really want to contribute some value through my work and I always thought that this contribution would be in research or working at some innovation of some kind. My strengths are certainly in that field, but I fear they are wasted in some government institution. So I'm just gonna write down some questions I have on my mind: - Where in the field of science and innovating new technology can I provide real value. - Is it alright if I do my phd in regards to my integrity with my values as an anarchist/voluntarist? (Phd, because what I do is interesting me and it's really good for ones career) - What about working in some bank or maybe for some consulting group? Aren't those only high paying jobs because they benefit from an immoral system? - Do I need to "invent" a new job for me? Do I then even need my degrees and am only wasting time right now and so on So please help me on this. What are your thoughts? Are there any conversations on FDR which might be useful for me or any podcasts/videos?

#rosencrantz Schalke is basically my hometown. You don't have much of a choice when you're born there What team are you rooting for?

#Anuojat Thanks; and yeah I've had way too much time between the semesters... #JanneW I spent almost 10 days in total in Berlin this summer, but I don't have any plans to be around anytime soon. I'm living in Aachen right now which is a bit far off, but I would love to join a meeting one day.

#EuanM Yes. I'm currently really into finding out how to increase my personal freedom, since Stef convinced me that this is the only path to a truly free society. I've read every e-book except The Handbook of Human Ownership and the two parts on anarchy. Does anyone of you know when the third part called Achieving Anarchy comes out or how I can get to it, if it is already written? This would be even more interesting to me than the other unread e-books, because I've already got a good idea of how anarchy will work. Currently I'm checking in on the early stuff from FDR with topic like 'An Introduction to Philosophy'. Are there any recommendations to episodes I really gotta check out? For some time I've been asking myself which career path to take. I'm certainly gonna finish my studies with a master degree later on, but after that there's currently just a big question sign. Getting a phd and maybe going into research was my goal for quite some time. But I really wanna bring some value to this world and I can never know whether that is truly the case if people are forced to pay for my services. I'm still trying to somehow find a line between my principles and practicality, since in this current society there is no avoidance of the state.

Hey! My name is Nik and I’m a physics student from Germany. I first came across the idea of libertarianism/anarchism about a year ago. At first I had my doubts about the practicality and it took me some time before I actually became an anarchist myself. Although I heard about the philosophy behind Libertarianism and could relate to it immediately, I’ve never really understood the power and value of philosophy until I came across FDR. Looking back I was too caught up with the argument of efficiency and the belief that we somehow needed to get rid of the government before we can be truly free. I am thankful that Stef showed me another way, the right way. By now I’ve read almost all free ebooks and they already had some impact on my life. I am now trying to learn more about philosophy and how to live with more integrity. So I am thrilled to be part of the conversation. If there's anything you wanna know about me, feel free to ask.