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@Eudaimonic It's true that he probably had those feelings that what he was doing was wrong primarily due to the fact that he had indicators of harm being done via his siblings being bruised/crying/pleading for him to stop. I think aside from those indicators there wasn't much that would have indicated the morality of his situation. He lives in the United Arab Emirates so I'm not sure Dr. Phil would be playing in any coffee shops. When you're surrounded by a lack of knowledge, I don't know if just gut feelings are enough to warrant full moral responsibility. Also consider that societies everywhere thrive on people who've been beaten out of trusting their gut.

I was listening to Podcast 2254 and in it the caller is confessing to physically abusing his siblings from when he was (I think) eight to early 19. The caller is able to see his lack of total responsibility when he was a younger teen, but when he mentions that he still inflicted this abuse when he was 18, Stefan mentions that it was already a habit by then. When he says this it feels like he's absolving the caller of some responsibility for his actions. This may be the case and this may be true, but I can't pinpoint the reason why habitual abuse holds the abuser less responsible than just abuse in general. My gut tells me that since his environment was so severe, he had no external indicators that what he was doing was wrong, and that knowledge of alternatives (arguments against what he was doing) were not easily accessible, his only line of defense which would be that shred of empathy that his parents were beating out of him was all that stood between him and abuse, and naturally that fell. Now abuse to him would become commonplace. He'd get used to it, his mind would be warped by it, and as he aged it would become a part of life. I think the key here is when you start abusing. If he would have started when he was 18, he would not have been desensitized to the violence as he was. With more maturity he certainly would have had a harder time starting considering it wasn't something he'd become accustomed to. It would be like bringing this alien into his life he'd never seen before. Another thing to consider is that right when he found FDR he stopped. UPB was that alternative that helped him see his abuse. It shined a flashlight on this thing that nobody had ever shined light on before. What does everyone here think about this? Moral responsibility isn't always a black and white ordeal as we know, but is it shifted by habitual abuse that started when the mind was much less mature that alternatives weren't available for?

I think so. I think it's a sign of his subconscious either knowing otherwise or knowing a detail that his conscious mind still hasn't discovered. Since his subconscious pretty much has the whole thing figured out, feelings resonate from it which conflict with the conscious mind's conclusions. Like you can keep saying a red ball is blue but no matter how many times you say that you know you're lying to yourself.

To me positive affirmations are a form of anxiety management. Like just saying "you're a good person" and "everything's gonna be alright" are just meant to calm someone down. I like affirmations when they're productive and based in fact but as a method of anxiety avoidance they can be pretty hokey. I think the best type of positive thinking is reality-based thinking because despite the bitterness of honesty, it's all there to help you get closer to happiness. Basically if your affirmations aren't lies, then they're good.

This has always been a huge issue for me. I posted a while back about the challenges of being a gay guy when you wanted to have a family. Who's DNA will be used to have the child? Will lack of breastfeeding be an issue? Will the female carrier get attached to the child? If we both had our own sons/daughters would we both fall into favoritism with our own kids? Would the lack of a female be detrimental to our kids? Hetero relationships are what nature intended because both parents share genes with their kids and both a mother and father provide the balance a kid needs to comfortably grow fond of the two sexes. It's a messy topic that I have no conclusions on. That should certainly be a show some day.

@_LiveFree_ No I don't. If you feel like you've done un-restitutable wrong (which could be true self) but you're driven to derive emotional comfort from those that have done you the same (possibly worse) harm, then what is that? Why would the true self be allowing you to run towards your abusers when you were almost free?

Hey guys. I have a question about guilt and trying to decipher if it's true self or not. My guilt I experienced a while back about a certain situation that was my responsibility but hadn't hurt anyone had actually led me back into the arms of my parents. I hadn't left them yet and I was about to but the guilt put my life on hold. I had to try to right the situation as much as I could. During that time period I was crying on my mother's shoulder and seeking comfort from both my parents. In all of your opinions, if the guilt I feel leads me to seek emotional comfort from those who abused me, is the guilt necessarily all true self then?

@Spenc I never thought of it from that perspective, that the holes are me poking holes in peoples' hypocrisies and the people swarming me angrily are the people in my life who don't want me to be asking these questions. I can't see how this ties to the night before where I almost got poisoning though. And I don't know if this is relevant but I feel like it needs to be posted. I basically had a breakdown in the car tonight before coming home from work. It was a fully fledged panic-attack. I don't know if moving out is going to alleviate this guilt. I wanted to talk to Stef about this on his show but I messed up the set-up with Mike. I'm so scared right now. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I have nobody besides this board and I don't know how long I could last out there by my own. I could use the extra money I make in this new job to get me therapy but what if that doesn't work? I feel helpless and trapped again just like in the dreams.

@Spenc They split up not long after he and I did. I had one last talk with him a few months later (just to get closure with how I felt about my decision) and he said he cut it off because she wasn't "making him happy". He got together with a new girl right away I believe. Said he couldn't stand anything Stefan said now. He didn't have any rebuttals and I pressed him on that, but he said "if you follow these values, you'll be totally alone". That pissed me off because he was telling me that I didn't exist to my face. The fear brought him down and that's when I knew that I didn't have the relationship with him I thought I did. Like anybody in my life, it would take a lot of talking and work but I could let him back in. I was very patient with him because I knew how hard it was, and he was actually getting the hang of it quickly. Yes, I did know better than drinking, but it was to help me "get along" as I learned about philosophy and worked on moving out. I thought I could handle it but it turned out it was just an opiate for the pain of being around my family. I think I knew that from the start so yea, it's fair. In the dream he was sitting down behind me watching me shoot into the woods. He seemed interested, even amused. He wasn't trying to stop me. When it went from 3rd person to first person is when I dropped the rifle and ran into the woods. He didn't follow behind. I was totally alone in confronting the damage I had done. And this last part of what you said: Before I went to the cops I sat down with my parents multiple times and expressed my grief and guilt about the situation. I did this even though I hadn't been speaking to them for months. It was like I was using this to get sympathy or at least some kind of emotional support. I felt like I needed some kind of connection even though I despise who my parents are. Like I said, I have 0 people left in my life who wanted to come with me on this journey so I was going to take any emotional scraps I could get. Also this question is for you personally, what do you think of my situation? What if I just stop here and assume nobody's stuff was damaged in any major way and just left it at that? Because that sounds like a coward's way out to me. It doesn't violate the NAP or UPB, and I didn't intentionally victimize anyone, let alone victimize anyone at all it seems. It just seems like such a huge scar on my past that I feel I can't look away from without sacrificing my soul. And thanks for reading/responding to all this. I know it's a lot but you and Matt Moran are helping me out of a storm right now and I need this so badly.

That's what I recently theorized my guilt was. A last call to action. Stefan talked about how his insomnia was his true self's last push for him to start living his values, and I have a hypothesis that this guilt I'm feeling is my true self saying: "If you're so dedicated to virtue, why are you running around in circles with this year-old bullet ordeal and doing nothing about the fact that your parents are still in your life? Why is THAT not your value conflict of focus?" I also thought that the dreams might be a warning, that staying with my family would lead to more disastrous isolation, and that I needed to get out as fast as possible. My greatest fear though, is that after I move out I will still feel this guilt and it will be so debilitating that I won't be able to function. Of course being out of this place and assessing the situation is much better than assessing it from within. What do you think? Your conclusions match mine in a lot of areas so I think we might be onto something. (Also, I just got confirmation that I have a job and a place to move out to, so I'm feeling extra anxious.)

@Spenc I was friends with him 8 years and it ended about 8 months ago. He and I were both set on living philosophically and he was the only person in my life I could talk about this stuff with. He was probably the truest friend I ever had and I knew him for 8 years. Life satisfaction back then was getting better because of finding FDR, but I was trimming my relationship tree so it was really stressful. As for my relationship with mom and dad, bad, and I was addressing it with them to no avail. I talked to my friend about it all the time, as he was doing it with his own relationships too. He wasn't as deep into the books and podcasts as I was though. He and I eventually stopped seeing each other because of a girl in his life that these convos were coming into conflict with. The decision was mine though. I bought the booze because I wanted something to help me deal with being in this house after wanting to leave for months. And yes it was Vodka. I own a few guns because I've always loved them since I was a kid. My father hates guns with a passion. It's a hobby I had to totally pursue myself.

It was more a thing about getting total closure on my end that I hadn't damaged anything or hurt anyone. Closure feels like the right thing to strive for. As much as I can.

@Rventurelli I don't feel guilt about the accidental discharge itself, but rather that there could be damage out there somewhere that someone hasn't discovered yet. I would at least want to exhaust every reasonable method of trying to remedy the situation via talking to residents (which I've tried and got the cops called on me because of a misunderstanding) or asking for some advice from the local police. I just have this tightness in my chest that something more has to be done on my end or else this is going to feel like one of those unforgivable things that is going to stop me from achieving virtue, if that makes sense.

That's a priority but not number one right now. I think moving out and getting a full time would do me best. I thought about it and I think that distancing myself from my abusers would help me clear my mind and think. I know the "defooing" process is gonna be riddle with fear and vivid dreams so I think through vigorous self-analysis I can come to a cleaner conclusion about what my feelings are. I hope that made sense cuz this stuff can get really messy when I try to put it into words. Also, I'd like to know what you personally think would be the right thing to do in this situation. Just off the top of your head if you could.

@Matthew Ed Moran First off thanks for your response. I like how concise you are. You're right that they would have ganged up against me. I know that because before I went to the township, I told my parents about it and they advised I let it lie. The point wasn't about avoiding legal consequences, it was about taking responsibility for what I had done no matter what the consequences. Them being the people they are, they were worried about looking bad and being inconvenienced while I was worried about doing what was right. I felt total isolation just like you referenced. The prospect of the world coming down on me scared me into hiding (though if someone was hurt I would have taken responsibility). Curious though, how did you come to the conclusion about the isolation? I'm guessing the dreams and my folk's dis-concern with the alcohol thing?

I think I get what you're talking about. I too have a skill that I know I'm good at and can get better with but I feel an internal push-back when working on my own personal projects. Tell me, say you're about to sit down and work on your own thing. What is the train of thought that happens when you begin to work. Like what does the voice actually say?

Hi all. I would appreciate some perspective from other virtue-minded people on an internal struggle I'm dealing with regarding an accident with a firearm. As a foreword to the topic, I've reported my incident in full to my local police and it carries with it no illegality. A year ago I had an accidental discharge with my carry pistol in my room and the projectile shot through my roof/wall and up into the night. It was at a 45 degree angle so it wasn't going to hit anything with full power, but where it came down is where it could have done damage. The minute it happened I got into my car and drove down into the area where it would have landed, and there was no commotion. What I should have done that night was contact the police immediately, but I didn't due to my fear of my father's anger and whatever consequences might accrue legally (again, the police now know and it carries no illegality). After a week or two I informed my parents about it and since no police came they decided to just seal up the hole. About 8 months passed and it hadn't crossed my mind. I'd landed a job and was building my assets up to finally move out. Everything was going great. One night after work I'd bought some strong alcohol (I don't drink) and the next morning I thought I had alcohol poisoning. I rushed myself to the ER and it turned out I would be fine. When I told my folks they seemed not to be too bothered by it. That night I had two dreams, one where I was late for work and was probably fired, told my parents, and they turned a cold shoulder to me saying I deserved it, causing me to have a meltdown. The second was where I was watching myself fire a rifle into my back woods accompanied by a friend I used to know. When I went from 3rd to 1st person I stopped in horror and rushed into the woods to make sure nobody was hurt. I emerged in a parking lot where cars and walls were riddled with holes and people were coming out all angry and yelling at me. I kept searching to make sure at least nobody was hit but crowds of angry people just swarmed me. From the minute I woke up I was overwhelmed with guilt and fear at what I'd done. After vigorously analyzing my two dreams and the circumstances surrounding, I decided to follow my gut which was telling me to report what happened and take full responsibility. I went to the cops, told them every detail, and all they did was make a report (since nobody reported anything). I thought the fear of the cops was what was bothering me, but after I cleared it up with them, the only thing that disappeared was the fear. The guilt still sticks and it feels like something is still wrong. I still feel it in the bottom of my stomach right now, though it's not debilitating. So... how do you perceive my guilt from an outsider's perspective? I would really really appreciate some help with this as I have nobody in my life right now I can really explore this with, and the one thing I want in life is to be a good person. This could be my true self pointing me in the direction of virtue, or historical trauma, and that's what I feel I need to figure out.

I don't get scared that I could change someone's mind as much as I get scared that they'll choose to throw it back in my face and scorn me from there on out. The cool thing that I've gotten out of FDR (the whole point of FDR) is a methodology for interacting with people based on curiosity. If I tell my co-worker that the welfare state is a core component to the downfall of black America, instead of thinking "i hope it goes this one way, oh god please go this one way", I wonder how he will react. Will he ask for proof? Will he sneer at me? Will he try to get me fired? Will he agree? These outcomes tell me all the relevant things I need to know about this person. But the thing I noticed is, and I'd like to know if you notice this too, is that I've basically already got a pretty strong feeling as to how a person is gonna react, especially if I've known them for a little while. Also, very nice Vercetti Pepe.

This is the cartel argument and cartels are only effective with government. If five guys wanna fix the price of pens, the first guy to break with the cartel and sell for a lower price will make a killing. In this situation you'd just buy from the guys who sell cheaper milk (because they aren't killing their cows). Plus they could use the fact that their competition kills cows as a moral case for why you should buy their product instead. The cost of upholding a cartel is only feasible if you can offset the cost to taxpayers. Imagine Wegmans funding a military operation. Would last maybe... 12 hours.

I'm confused. Can you come up with a simple real world example?

Ho'd up. You stopped studying ethics and philosophy to follow Trump? Can't you do both?

I'm not a therapist so enter at your own risk, but I have some questions I need clarified before I can respond with what I've got cooking so far. 1. What was the time gap between your current girlfriend and your last ex? 2. What is the narrator saying as you watch these unpleasant fantasies in your head? Just stream of consciousness. Doesn't have to be articulate. 3. Could you give some examples of these dangerous situations you say she was in? 4. Why is virginity a virtue for you? Would the same standard apply to a woman who'd lost her partner to an illness?

For anyone who's interested, Reason.tv did a small series about anarchy in Detroit. One of the focuses was Threat Management Centers, a successful private defense company operating in the city. You'll just have to watch for youself because the main guy gives some really good info on why their operation is superior/more effective than police operations.

He wouldn't partake. I think that answers it.

Hmmmm well firstly I would get a sense for how curious they are about new ideas. Do they ask you about yourself? Your ideas? Do they talk talk talk and not ask for any input from you? If so then they're married to conclusions instead of a methodology. FDR will probably enrage them. If not and the former is the case, then yea, show them some podcasts because they'll probably bite. Also, is your son a leftist?