Pod

You could effect the forest but a forest isn't an instance. A tree is an instance and can be directly physically effected.

Can you break a tree without breaking a forest? Can you break a forest without breaking a tree? I think that's what he means.

Are we getting a trickling of anons lately or have I just not been around enough? Anyway I think the focus should be to find a woman with a rational methodology for resolving disputes. That's something that I would assume you won't learn on the first date, but about a month or so into it you should get an idea. How long have you been listening to the podcasts? And have you been going chronologically or whichever one looks good?

I think I have something to add on this. When someone yells AT me, I feel a certain way as opposed to someone yelling FOR me. If you and I are standing face-to-face, and we're talking, it's understood by both of us that we're communicating fine and neither of us has to raise our voices. I can tell because we're going back and forth and neither has expressed a difficulty in hearing what the other is saying. Yelling as a form of amplifying your voice, that's fine. Nothing un-UPB about that. You'd prefer others do the same thing if you traded places. BUT... yelling AT someone is a form of conclusion. It is not curiosity, and it is not UPB. The UPB thing is super simple. Imagine you, the yeller, are a mugger, and you hold a knife to your victim. This isn't UPB because you prefer the victim NOT match your aggression. Your goal is to enforce your will and get his stuff. When you yell in a conversation, your goal is to shut the other person down and solidify your POV as the valid one. You don't want the person to raise their voice/retaliate. You want your argument to be the conclusion. I've never had anyone yell at me and ask for my experience of something (rhetorical questions obviously don't count). It's super super simple. If you're in a gunfight, you want your shot to be the last. Therefor, yelling in a conversation isn't UPB. Does that kinda work for you?

"Hmmm wonder who this Stefan Molyneux guy is..." *hall of the mountain king starts playing*

More stuff you can't control dude. Just make sure to pack ur closet full of tasty snacks in case the dollar crashes.

Was she hot or something? Something had to give her the benefit of the doubt because "feminist" is code for run.

@Danske I think he was shooting back, all I remember was him wielding his gun around. I didn't see who he was shooting at though. For all I know I really can't tell if he was pulling triggers. Also sorry that these responses take longer than normal. Gotta have them approved.

@Danske I did feel trapped. I had no clue how to get out which is why I followed the kid who looked like he knew what he was doing. Before I woke up I felt despair because even though the exit was right there, I couldn't enjoy the freedom because I'd killed this kid and the guilt was all over the place. After I woke up I was intensely relieved though.

I think I had a dream that might be very helpful to some people if it means what I think it means. I was lost in an airsoft arena (for anyone who doesn't know that's paintball but with plastic bbs) that was more of a plywood maze than a coherent arena. I had one of my real steel guns with me (I'd been shooting the day before) but it had no ammo. I wanted to find my way out, but I had no clue where I was. I decided to follow this kid, a 10 year old boy in full gear who navigated like a pro, and as I followed him I'd get lit up by players who either didn't see my hands up or just wanted to shoot at me because I was defenseless. Another thing, I only had shorts on, no protection so the bbs stung like hell. We were making our way very slowly, and I had taken a lot of shots and was getting irritated. Finally I started searching around on the ground for airsoft magazines that would fit my gun and still had some bbs in them. I found a small magazine with odd looking bbs. They had the shape of practice rounds for police training courses, like little pills cut in half. I loaded them and let the bolt chamber a round, but it discharged and accidentally shot the kid in front of me in the head. The sound was deafening and everyone around us stopped. The kid in front of me collapsed to the ground. I threw my gun and picked him up. I saw there was a hole in the back of his helmet. I'd somehow loaded live ammo. I checked his cheeks to see if any blood was trickling. There wasn't any flowing, but I knew he was dead. I started to cry. I could feel myself crying, but I could only hear ringing. And right in front of us was a huge hole in the wall, right around the corner, that lead to a park with a calm pond, sunny and beautiful. I think the dream represents my journey through FDR so far and how I've been backsliding into forms of verbal abuse online. The arena represents the world. The airsoft bbs/guns represent dysfunction and abuse. The child who leads me is my true self/inner child. The arena/world is a place of uncertainty and fear where dysfunctional people can pop out of nowhere and attack you at any time. Me having my gun means I have the capacity for abuse, but keeping it unloaded means I choose not to participate. Wearing only shorts means I'm very vulnerable, which makes sense considering striving for virtue requires vulnerability. My child self is the kid in all the gear picking players off and slowly advancing towards the exit. But when I pick up bbs that I can fire back at these people, they aren't just bbs. They turn into real bullets. That's why I had a real gun. I realized how deadly and corrosive this abuse can be, and that's why I kept it empty. I still have the capacity to abuse, but I choose not to. And that explains why everyone else had bb guns. The shots didn't hurt like bullets, they only stung like bbs because I'm becoming immune to abuse. Everyone has real guns and real bullets. The abuse is 100% deadly, but only if you shoot back. And that explains why I shot the kid. By loading what I thought was just bbs, in truth I was loading 100% deadly live ammo, because abuse is perceived to the true self as just that. Live fire. And when I loaded my gun, I was choosing to abuse. And the only person an abusive me hurts is my true self. That's why I accidentally shot him in the back of the head. The second I choose that path, my true self is dead. And freedom was just around the corner. Is anyone else struggling with resisting the urge to be snarky or "clever" in comment sections and discussions? I can resist it to the point of seeing it for what it really is and losing the urge but sometimes things slip through.

Have you brought up the argument from morality with her?

It's so strange to see memers on Stefan's board. It's like a strange collision of fun and personal stuff.

This problem's bugged me on and off so I wanna run past you guys before I'm 30 and panicking. I'm gay and I want to have children some day. Lots of them preferably, all raised peacefully. The problems I foresee are lack of female influence, conflict in who's child should be given birth to, and if we both have a child the problem of favoritism by genes (racism kinda). 1. Female influence. A stable nuclear family is crucial to the healthy development of children. Both fathers and mothers bring characteristics that acclimatize kids to the sexes and help balance each other out. Also women have boobs which helps with breastfeeding and IQ. (I think breastfeeding boosts IQ. Don't know if that's true.) 2. Who has the kid. Adoption is out of the question. Has to be my genes and has to start from square one. If I decided to have one kid with my partner, conflict may arise with who's sperm gets into the egg. This is a non-issue with a nuclear family. Which leads to... 3. Genetic favoritism. If both of us have surrogate children, favoritism by genetic origin could cause conflict. This I have second thoughts on, because virtue trumps bloodline, and children raised virtuously can't help but mirror that virtue. Has anyone else had thoughts about this situation? Any gay guys on here had this dilemma? I don't wanna raise a kid in a naturally dysfunctional environment and I wanna take care of this concern now. I feel like the answer is right in front of me but I can't see it through my caution. I feel like I'm operating on broken biology.

It's all strategy baby. You gotta do what Stef does and play 3D chess.

I think I've heard this before. The ban on guns is unconstitutional because it violates the 2nd amendment. The immigration ban is neither constitutional or unconstitutional because the constitution doesn't apply to non-US citizens.

I don't feel like your post was directed at me but at the thread in general. Is that the case? Cuz it felt kinda hostile.

I like your new icon. Also I don't agree that it's a way to see how seriously someone takes themselves. By that I'm guessing you mean seeing if someone has self-respect/confidence. There are plenty of ways to gauge that. Like how they talk about themselves/others, eye contact, body language, etc, and if you're already their friend, you've decided they have self-respect or are working to get it (which is self respect). Of course you'd only do this if you yourself took yourself seriously. I used to engage in it and it can be really fun but now it just stinks of something I can't pin down.

8 mins into "Where Social Justice Warriors Come From"

I've heard Stef say men verbally abuse each other to help acclimatize each other to verbal abuse. That strikes me as the "we bullied you in high school in order to make you stronger". Bullies don't bully for your benefit because I don't remember mine doing post-game surveys and asking me for feedback. It's 100% sadistic. When I started going hard in the FDR a year ago, my self attack habit totally vanished. I used to do it at least 3 times a day and now I can't even imagine self-attacking. I got rid of my "friends" who were verbally abusive and with the friends I had remaining I never again made passive aggressive remarks or insults out of "playfulness", and none of our conversations dithered in value. They turned more serious and whole. I can see honest no-sugarcoat feedback as the closest thing to what he's talking about but I can't make the leap into "verbal abuse can be helpful". Was this just a colloquial hunk of wisdom Stef was giving out or does it have some rational backing?

Here's something fun. Tell those other friends what you wrote here about them. Be honest about your dissatisfaction with what you talk about and see how they respond. If you post what they say here I think that can help us answer your question.

Every event after he refuses to open the door is a result of coercion. This is the mugger argument.

I found this book and it's absolutely mind-blowing. It's like someone took a chunk of Stefan and put him in a Dane. The book is about the psychological manipulation of collectivism that has Scandinavian countries in its tentacles. I think this is really important because one of Bernie Sanders's main talking points is "Ooooh look at Denmark they're the happiest country in the world! Socialism!" and this book pokes some serious holes in that commonly held belief from the eyes of a red-pilled Dane himself. The site where you can get the PDF or audiobook is http://manipulism.com/

I remember when I was lost in abstraction land like this guy. All this "give back to your community" and "explore the world and make friends" stuff is just shallow. It puts your salvation in the hands of others which is sooooooo dangerous. At least he sorta hit on the "me +" thing. You should send him some of Stefan's stuff.

Don't you just feel an intense joy when you're alone at your house? Like when the parents leave you just scream hallelujah and for that couple hours you feel like yourself?

So something having to do with wanting to get somewhere, being blockaded by something in the present, while something even worse is creeping up behind you. Sounds like my day to day life.