RamynKing

just gimme the damn youtube alternative already

Thanks guys. Very helpful ideas. I definitely have some work to do in this area. I agree it is connected to childhood experiences, some I can remember and some not. And some I have confronted, and some not.

damages = you put the person in an unconscious state against their will conceiving a child = bringing a human into the world against their will a person in a coma = not a moral agent while unconscious, but will be a moral agent when they wake up fetus = not a moral agent while too young, but will be when they come out and age enough

While it is a natural phase: The child feels the need to throw the training wheels off. Or to express themselves. I think we find ourselves, as a society, putting A TON of blame on this "phase" for a whole range of dysfunctional behavior. I'm still learning about it, but it seems like there's this idea from the Frankfurt School types, that says parents are bad, and that kids should "reinvent the wheel." The real culprit is bad parenting. Divorce plays a huge role, but it can be any situation where the child loses trust in their parents' ability to help them build a good life. I can't imagine Stef's kid going out and vandalizing, or getting full sleeve tattoos, or even becoming an aggressive angsty music fan. That's not an argument per se, but I've seen the non-rebellious kids first hand as well. I grew up from in a broken home, and shielded from the healthy kids in a way. I thought it was normal for one to have zero regard for their parents' ideas and lessons. I remember being really surprised when I saw other kids that had very loving relationships with their mothers, but were also not weaklings. I think I could probably say a lot more. On a certain level, this topic is massively important to me.

I seem to be very prone to a high fight or flight response when people are IRRATIONALLY angry at me. Take this story: A senior employee who is a known jerk at my company came at me in a fairly bullying tone, aggressively tapping these instruction papers at me. I had misread her instructions and handled a job according to how i thought it was, and she found out and had to correct me. I have no problem admitting when I screw up, and apologizing etc. But this woman is a bad communicator. She writes confusing instructions. I told her it was confusing and showed her what happened and she left. I know from experience I won't get her to change her ways on this issue. No apology to me for her attack. She got what she wanted. She wants there to be no chance of scrutiny falling on her for this. I wouldn't have said anything anyway. It's just part of the work process. But it's about job preservation for her. Which is understandable in the current climate, but she takes it to game of thrones levels. The problem is that it's an hour later, and I'm still thinking about it. playing every angle for myriad reasons. maybe I really was wrong? maybe I can get justice somehow? Something about her approach really set me off and put me in a defensive emotional state for a stupidly long time. Which she may or may not perceive, but I bet she loves the power trip she gets treating everyone like this and everyone being just a little scared. It's really not fair that I have to now be in a sub-optimal state for an hour or more, and she just walks away no problem. What I'd like to accomplish is to lower my emotional response in these situations, at least once I realize I did nothing wrong. It takes a long time for me to get out of this physiological state, and frankly I don't have time for it, nor do I need the stress. And I'd love to stop the bullies from winning. I hope this has been enough of an explanation. I can talk further if need be.

We are confusing several issues here. 1. The NAP compels us to move toward a free society. In liberty, you could not have centralized laws of any kind, and that includes abortion laws. I have no problem with that or Rothbard's above text. I'm sure the anarchists on the board, including Stefan Molyneux and Mike, would agree. Note: I do think Rothbard's exploration is incomplete here. We've explored that pretty thoroughly in this thread, IMO. Even reading further into the source, I think there are things he hasn't considered. 2. In the free society, you would still see abortion laws, just not central ones. You would agree to positive obligations when you entered into contracts, such as those allowing you to live in certain areas. Or you could live in an area that had none of that. 3. In our current society, under a state, we have centralized laws. Some of those laws are arguably a kind of primitive glue that we still need to keep people on the course of morality. Because people generally equate what is allowed under the state with what is acceptable or moral, we open ourselves up to the problem of overall degeneracy. If you go down that path, I believe it leads away from anarchy. The theory goes that: The more morally-robust a population is, the easier it becomes to eventually discard the state. So we are forced at this time to work within the parameters of the state, which means at least getting the law in line with rigorous philosophical morality as best we can.

Listening now. It doesn't seem to me like Sam is losing his cool even as much as he himself admits at the intro. Sam's ethics seem to be centered around "No suffering is acceptable." I'm not set on that, but he's dropped enough signals in that direction. Anyone have thoughts on that? I'm always curious about people's moral systems. For instance, at the outset of a debate, I can clearly state that my morals are based around the NAP. But you never hear non-libertarian types do that. Yet they talk of morals as if it's as objective as the sky is blue. I would think that you have to define morals up front the same way you define anything else in a debate. Otherwise the usual problems of undefined terms would surely crop up. EDIT: I'm really surprised with how much leftist narrative Sam buys into. It's like, he's smart, he takes a stand on some issues, but the rest of him is just huge swaths of Leftist programming. I guess that's how you get the funding, though.

what is it called?

Had a good read on this site and a subsequent PDF that goes into more detail about putting the strategy into practice. It's a method for disarming people who are using their Lizard Brain to engage in situations where rationality is called for. They do this because they have some unhealthy insecurity that causes them to get "triggered" in their daily lives. They "convert" the insecurity to anger and then lash at whoever they can. This person, Joanna Nicola, contends that a way to deal with this problem is this method which is centered around a specially constructed sentence. (read about it below) But basically, it get's them to involuntarily switch to their rational brains where a conversation can begin. Supposedly, this method even teaches them, over time, to cope with their emotions - a skill they were missing for whatever reason. I was thinking, what if the type of person that falls for the left is also suffering from this condition? Nicola says that this disorder is becoming increasingly common. And with the internet, it can be quite confounding to wonder why people buy into stuff that can be easily looked up and debunked, if you will. We know that arguing with a person who is acting out of pure emotion is folly, and yet we so far are sort of forced into this situation with the left. What if we looked at them in this new way and dealt with them accordingly. It's late for me, and I'm sure I haven't made my best case. But I hope someone gets curious. I'd love to talk about this more, because I am definitely planning to SOMEHOW apply this method in dealing with the left. I don't know if it's as simple as using the sentence on them. I think it needs to be scaled somehow...

I'm not a fan of the downvote system either. But it's ironic you mentioned SJWs for the reason that those people are generally super pro-abortion. That's not an argument. But to me it's a red flag for sure. If I was pro-abortion, I'd have to ask myself what motivation I had that's in line with the leftist ethos. If my answer was that I am generally against abortion, but I just want to make sure extreme cases are not overlooked in favor of keeping every possible thing alive - well... that's basically no different from the pro-life stance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think pro-lifers allow for special cases to be looked at individually.

haha! I'm excited about all of this. I was mad at Sam during the election because of his sophistry about Trump. And I remember perceiving that for all his tough talk on Islam, he became a coward when he wasn't willing to prescribe actionable solutions. I'll have to look at where he is on Islam these days, but I will say that his interview with Charles Murray really redeemed him for me. His debate with Jordan Peterson was really weird! It was like trying to plug a micro usb into an iphone jack.

But if ability to reason is the standard, then retarded people might be on the chopping block so to speak. Maybe "a desire to be alive" should be the standard. I say this because asking people if they would have been ok with their parents aborting them usually results in a "no," even if they are disabled. I agree that possessing human DNA is not a great standard either. But the rest of his argument is very good. Could you address it?

Haven't finished the video, but replying so I can mark it for later. It seems to me that postmodernism and communism are building up power levels for a big play. I can see it all starting with the election of Linda Sarsour as president in 2020..

We watched two more of this director's (Todd Solondz) movies, "Life During Wartime," and "Wiener Dog." Both feature a neat philosophical device: A child asks a parent a question, and the parent tries to give an answer that reconciles with societal norms. But these kids have like super mega brains, and the adults' answers NEVER satisfy them. They keep pulling the adults further down the rabbit holes of truth. It's fun to watch the adults squirm under the scrutiny.

I'd like to hear others' thoughts, but my understanding is that the NAP is a human construct developed for the betterment of human society. It doesn't extend to other animals normally. Maybe someday it will, after we've stopped slaughtering other humans.

My wording is unclear, sorry. I didn't mean to imply that the death penalty was needed to have high living standards. I meant that, among other things, you need justice - in whatever forms you can best muster it. The state makes it hard because we aren't allowed to experiment with our own forms of justice. As for the bandwagon fallacy...Touche! I will just say that I'm trying to make a point about society's views on the sanctity of life. Just like child abuse has lessened slowly but steadily, our view on life has taken time to build up and strengthen. It's the reason we now debate about abortion and euthanasia rather than just doing them casually. I think it's part of our journey to freedom from aggression. There are forces trying to reverse this process, and they are the same ones trying to normalize abortion. Interesting. I will.

Labels are not arguments. So, if you respond to a label with an argument, it's like forfeiting the chess game before your opponent even moves. Unless you are arguing with a real friend, the only way to gain ground on these sophists is to confidently cancel out their Ad Hominems with immediate and effective ones. I'm new to this as well, but I'd like to see someone give it a go. If someone describes a rightist as racist, he would swiftly respond by calling leftists "Bigger racists." If someone describes a rightist as fascist, he would swiftly respond by calling leftists "Bigger fascists." This would put them on the defensive, which is where they were trying to put you simply by namecalling. Now they have to bring real arguments to back up their claim, which might be a detour from their main point anyway. Meanwhile you can come back with better arguments that the left really are fascists and racists if you want, or you can use your offensive position to say that all the stuff they just said is actually stuff the left did. The rule is that if the enemy feels the need to defend against namecalling, then namecalling is a good weapon. Call them names until they drop it. Say they are "The real racists, and they don't want anybody to know." Well, it seems like a fantasy, but I think I'm onto something. The left has been beating people down with labels for a while now, and just giggling to themselves that it's easy. Ever had a kid call you a dootyface? Try any response other than "YOU'RE a dootyface!" See how well it goes. And also be amazed at how quickly the child runs out of lines of attack when you cancel out their namecall.

I don't think it is. The labor is merely a required act to unlock or start the process. It can be done without sex now. Once started, the process is basically automated. Sex is more akin to signing-up for a child, rather than actually creating one piece by piece. If a human builds a robot, I'd agree said robot is the builder's property for the reasons you stated.

Unless you sign a contract. Once you have a contract with somebody, then it becomes aggression if you don't fulfill it. The contract with children is that they will be cared for sufficiently until they are able to care for themselves. But how do we know this contract exists if we can't see it. We know it exists because when we have sex at the right time, a baby appears in the world a little later. That baby is expecting nourishment and security - not out of some selfish desire to create unagreed obligations for us. It's expecting those things because genetically, it has been told that the parent is where those things will come from. But a child can't sign a contract, especially not an unborn one. True. In this way, procreation is more akin to kidnapping. But most people will say they are glad said kidnapping from the void happened. So, maybe it's more like winning a lottery that someone else entered you into. But even if it is a kidnapping, that still doesn't give us the right to worsen the situation. For example, if you force someone onto a boat, and take them out to sea, you've already aggressed against them, but is it then morally neutral to throw them into the ocean?

When it comes to murder, we make very careful exceptions as a society. Again, we make similar exceptions for punishing criminals with the death penalty. We do this because, under the state, it is the only allowed avenue we have to achieve justice. You need to have a certain amount of justice in order to have a civilization with the living standards of the west. These exceptions are far from arbitrary. They are constantly argued over. However, the state's laws can be quite arbitrary, such as Roe v. Wade. Yet, the debate rages on, because the sanctity of life is a cornerstone of our society. People are extremely hesitant to chip away at it for any reason, lest we go down a slippery slope toward a more casual regard for (mostly human) life. The NAP and Abortion. Somebody breaks into your house and leaves an illegal bird inside with a note: "Take care of this bird until I return in 2 months. Give him this special food. He will die without it. He can't survive in the wild yet. And the authorities will kill him if you turn him in. I'll pay you a large sum for your service." Sorry for the awkward scenario, but I'm trying to illustrate here a situation where the NAP allows for the killing of a life. You might be a mean person by kicking this bird out of your house, but it came to be there because someone made a choice to violate you in the first place. I believe the same logic applies to pregnancy from rape. The rapist violates the woman's body and places there a life that she must now take care of, or it will die. A horrible scenario to be sure, but one that only exists because of a rapist's choice to violate the NAP in the first place. In the bird scenario, it's possible the bird will be no trouble, which makes the person who expels it look like "a dick," as Stef has put it. But in a rape scenario, psychology tells us bringing the child to term would likely be a very traumatic thing for the mother. It would be an extension of her initial violation all the way, unless the mother made peace with it, which is fine. But she isn't required to under the NAP. If we forced her to carry the baby, in favor of a strict view on murder, it would lead to a marked increase in overall injustice in society. Rapists could start impregnating women and enjoying the fact that they had offspring in the world, though they themselves were in jail. The resulting resentment would be an incredibly destructive force on the very fabric of society. But, in the paper from earlier in the thread, we see: Fact 2: As demonstrated above, the human embryonic organism formed at fertilization is a whole human being, and therefore it is not just a "blob" or a "bunch of cells." This new human individual also has a mixture of both the mother's and the father's chromosomes, and therefore it is not just a "piece of the mother's tissues". Quoting Carlson: "... [T]hrough the mingling of maternal and paternal chromosomes, the zygote is a genetically unique product of chromosomal reassortment, which is important for the viability of any species."15 (Emphasis added.) So mises.org may be wrong about when life begins, which would negate their resulting arguments. But the parent's have signed a contract in a way. They made the conscious choice to create the life. From the moment of conception, until some years into the child's life, it has no a ability to survive without the care of an older human. The child did not put itself into this situation, the parents did. Therefor the obligation falls on the parents to fulfill their contract.

...not an argument. It makes logical sense to me. Care to break down why it's incorrect, then?

What exactly is the "it" you are referring to here?

I agree, it is inconsistent on the terms you've laid out. But as far as I know, generally the Pro-life argument includes exceptions for "Hard Cases," such as rape, or danger to the mother. This is consistent with western society's views on the sanctity of life. We do kill sometimes. We have the death penalty. In a free society, I suspect we we would see convicted rapists killed more often.

This article did a great job of clearing up a lot of the common arguments for abortion! Thanks. Not true. Becoming pregnant from rape is involuntary. So not only did the rapist violate the mother, he implanted a seed of his genes into her. I think an argument could be made that anything that grows from that act is an extension of said violation. If we follow common criminal theory, where justice can include at least erasing the fruits of criminal acts, then it is logical that the mother be allowed the choice to erase the fruits of her rapist. I think that's a better angle than invoking euthanasia as a good. I'd love to read what this forum says about that, because I've seen some convincing arguments on why euthanasia is in the same moral category of abortion.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1690455/?ref_=nv_sr_2 Just wanted to share this thought-provoking movie. It's an exploration of a man in his 30s who seems to be stuck in a childish state of mind. It's quite cringy as his life catalyzes over the span of the events of the film. It offers some welcome commentary on parenting in an age where this kind of critique is somewhat taboo. I'd be interested to hear what others here think of it. Despite it being fiction, I found myself desperate to find out how the character got this way and how things would turn out. This man reminded my powerfully of myself and people I grew up with. It was startling.