Hawkland

My parents' relationship has been one long and happy story, actually. However, my father is not a very touchy feely guy and he has always been slightly awkward with physical touch, both with me and with my mother. Plus he is very much like me in that he is not that good at being naturally thoughtful. The same goes for his brother as well as my mother's brother. I never really learned that language of caring and love from my closest family because I never saw it in real life. My grandmother's relationship to men. Okay, I don't really know much about that dynamic in the family, except my father had a fairly christian upbringing, but I don't really know of any particular dysfunction there.

I don't really have any expectations of feeling this overwhelming head-over-heels thing. However, it does worry me that I seem to not even get the slightest of butterflies in my stomach before I meet her for the first time in a while, let's say. It's problematic that I can't seem to be getting any guidelines from my emotions. I am really just split 50 50 on this.

Thanks for the replies, people. I will respond to a few of these now. When it comes to virtues, I didn't define both myself and my GF as virtuous people; I was rather pondering the possibility of me not being a virtuous person. Because if we go with Stefan's definition, that could very well be the conclusion, I would say. I am actually not ruling it out. And I think, as mentioned also in this thread, that there may be something to the idea of self-sacrifice and that love is a function of the virtue that is self-sacrifice (of course not talking about pathological self-sacrifice from a place of insecurity). As for her virtues, her top 3 are probably honesty, loyalty and kindness. I am what you can call radically honest in my relationship with her, and so in this particular relationship honesty is definitely a strength of mine, although I am not too good at being forthright with people in life in general. Identifying my own virtues is actually proving to be a little hard once I want to start listing them. But I would list friendly, reliable, fairly self-disciplined. I am sort of a renaissance man who has a very wide range of different skills, and I am also very curious about almost all aspects of the world and a strong hunger for knowledge and understanding. Not sure what virtue that is, but perhaps it is engagement. I am of course also self-reliant, but the question is, am I too much and too independent? If I am too independent, then I have to work on balancing it/scaling it back because I want to have a family and not die alone. Either way, to answer your last set of questions: Yes, we are very open about this to each other, and she is well aware of all the things I am outlining here.

I have really been wondering lately if I am simply incapable of loving someone. I have been with my GF for about a year, and I am strongly considering moving to the city she lives. For me, that would mean giving up a lot where I live at the moment, but I would probably try to set up a branch of the start-up business I am involved in, so it may become a brilliant career opportunity that I might not have started had I stayed where I am. There is a problem, though. I am not sure I love her. However, this was also the case with my first girlfriend, and I always kind of thought of it as normal. It is even the case with my close family members. I don't really feel anything that strongly, except an appreciation, of course. But it is far from overwhelming. I am struggling to find out whether I should just accept this, get over with it and make love arise out of making an effort to improve myself and commit in my relationship. I had a very good childhood with a stable family. I was even possibly a little spoiled with love, in the sense that I might have learned taking it for granted. Now my father was perhaps not the best at showing affection to my mother or to me. He absolutely loved, but he would just be a little bit awkward about showing it. And so am I when I am with my GF, plus I am not good at being thoughtful and caring and all of those things. It's especially when I am not with her - my mind and soul just wanders off onto other things, and I never really feel a strong need to talk, even though we talk on the phone most days of the week. Nor does it easily strike me to do something for her, surprise her etc. When we meet after having been apart for a long time, I also don't feel anything particularly strong when I see her. It's like my happiness level is stable around 7 and then when I see her, it's like ... still pleasant. I often do have an awesome time with her, but since I am pretty much always pretty happy and satisfied about things, going to an 8 or a 9 isn't that overwhelming for me. She tells me that for her it's horrible when we're apart, and that she thinks about me all the time. I feel bad for not reciprocating the emotion, but I really don't know how to take responsibility for that because I can't will an emotion into being. Pretty much everything about her is awesome. It's like I love her to death - but logically. I am saying to myself: I should love this woman to death. But still, I really don't feel much. Now, take Stefan's definition of love: The involuntary response to virtue if you're virtuous. What does this response look like exactly? Is it a feeling/emotion? Is it something you do? Now what if the woman in question is clearly virtuous but most of the time doesn't invoke any strong involuntary response in me, does that mean I am not virtuous? I really have no idea what to make of my seeming incapability of experiencing this. I am thinking I could either stay with this girl and commit to becoming a more thoughtful person and hope that love will come out of us living at the same place, building something even stronger together. The other alternative is, I don't want to be someone who occupies her if I am having all of these doubts. I should therefore set her free, and myself free. But ... then what? If I don't have the capacity to feel love, I will have to rise to the same challenge at some point anyways and make a commitment to someone. So, if not now, when? Committing to her will give me the biggest challenge of my entire life, but it is honestly a challenge I cannot be sure I will succeed at because I don't know if I will ever be able to give her in return what she gives me. I am not sure if she deserves that. Breaking up now, however, seems easier in many respects. But I am not sure I should choose whatever is easier if all that means is that I will have to face a similar dilemma in a couple of years. Please let me know what you think of this. We have decided to give this decision until the end of August. I am in a hurry. I am looking for love within myself. But I don't know how to look for it and what standard to set within myself.

Thanks, guys! My plan now is to show up and learn as much as possible until August. I already have a significant equity, so even without the income, I have money saved. Hopefully, I will be able to be provide true value when I have immersed myself in the company for so long.

Last fall, I invested in a blockchain startup. Now, I have a goal of creating a paid position in the company within a few months. There looks to be some very big investment just around the corner, and they are launching an extremely exciting product within a couple of months. I do not have any concrete skills that are directly relevant and that can be easily monetized in the company - yet. Therefore, my intention is to learn by showing up. Basically being at the office pretty much every day and absorb. I have money for spending for a few months to come, so I can afford to be there without getting paid for a little while. Plus, of course, my equity may do a job giving me an "income" as well. So, wealth will most likely increase anyway, but I of course need some income to pay bills etc. While showing up is usually a great way to learn stuff in general (and I have good experience of this), I think I may need a strategy for exactly how I should be showing up in this context. Does anybody here have experience immersing yourself in a new business? What is my best strategy here, be as curious as I can? Ask questions as often as possible? Help brew coffee as often as possible? Be as critical (constructively, of course) as possible? Etc etc Advice would be much appreciated

Thanks for your reply! Not sure if we have a etiquette authority, but I will try to think of one

Hey guys I am currently translating UBP into Norwegian, but there is a reference to Ann Landers on page 50, which I am not sure what to do with: "There is little point writing a book about personal preferences – and we can turn to Ann Landers for a discussion of socially preferable behaviour – here, then, we will focus on the possibility of Universally Preferable Behaviour. " Does anybody know what Stefan means by this? I have looked up Ann Landers, but I am not sure what she has to do with socially preferable behavior, so I am not sure if there would be an appropriate equivalent localized to Norway.

I have heard Stefan several times stating that Germany did not go through an enlightenment age. Does anybody know what exactly he means by this? Because surely there were numerous enlightenment philosophers that came from Germany, and frankly I have not heard this statement anywhere else. To the extent that it may be correct, I would find it very interesting to do a discussion on how that may have played a part in developing a German parenting tradition, which to this day is extremely different from parenting in, say, Scandinavia. While Scandinavian parenting today is probably the most peaceful in the world, German parents - even though I am not sure if they hit their children more - demand to be treated with a much higher degree of respect and deference. An example of this is how you shold never use the informal second person singular "du" to people who are older than you are, except your parents and grandparents, basically. I have a German friend who told me his girlfriend's parents once invited him home for champagne to mark that after three years, he was now allowed to call them "du". Even though this essentially is a cultural phenomenon and not a particularly moral issue, I still think it may be a symptom of certain aspects of ideological and/or philosophical history, which would be an interesting aspect to explore.

I was planning to, but something came up :/ I will definitely try to attend in April!

Well done, man. What do you think of Sam Harris, btw?

Was fun discussing last time! I am going to another meetup next Friday (March 11th). More people should join

I am heading to a local bitcoin event in Oslo on Friday January 19th. That would be a pretty good place to start, wouldn't it? http://www.meetup.com/Oslo-Bitcoin-Meetup/events/228231293/

Thank you. I get it, even though it is easy to confuse consequentialism and empiricism. Now is UPB to be defined as deontology?

Hey everyone I apologize if this has been debated before, but I did not see any threads on this. And I am very new to writing about and discussing philosophical issues, so bear with me if I present some of the premises unclearly. The question I want to ask is what seems to me as a utilitarian aspect of Stef’s philosophy: An example that is often referred to as analogous to the immorality of the state is the immorality of slavery. Based on the fact that slavery is inherently immoral, it did not matter who would end up picking the cotton or any other consequences that would follow an abolishment. Likewise, the state is an inherently immoral institution, and whatever anarchical society structures that may follow an abolishment … well, fun to discuss, but fundamentally secondary to the core moral issue. Now I am having difficulty understanding how empiricism can fit into this: In the Introduction to Philosophy podcast series there is a segment on how one can empirically verify moral questions. For example, if you argue against property rights, then you have to explain why societies that have respected property rights generally have done better throughout history. Sure, I accept that following the non-agression principle empirically has positive outcomes for all parties (win-win), but I fail to see how using empiricism does not fall into the category of utilitarianism. Not that there would be any problem with positive outcomes, of course. But then using empiricism, I guess, you are conceding that it does kind of matter what will be the likely consequences of an abolishment? Anybody want to help me clarify this? As far as I can understand, Stefan rejects utilitarianism, but I have not heard him put a label on the philosophy that he is putting forward, that is - neither deonthology nor virtue ethics. Is it a combination of the two latter? Thank you