RamynKing

I liked when morgan freeman said we need to stop calling people black and white. It's insane to me that modern people even see these as useful terms still. It seems insanely counter productive to race relations at the very least. I'm familiar with the arguments that white people are not allowed to seek color-blindness. But It seems like a no-brainer that people would have naturally stopped using such inaccurate and basically toxic terms by now.

Great reason to catch up. I had become leery of these guys lately because of this video: I was really taken aback at this whole criticizing of "Neoliberalism." It sounded like a fancy word designed to marginalize free-market people aka free-people.

Hello! I don't spend enough time on here, but it's good to see a semi local person. I've been craving a real life hangout just to riff on ideas. The video chats don't really appeal to me. Anyway, good on ya for being smart enough to land at truth at age 18! This forum is certainly quirky but it's an oasis nonetheless!

I find that feminism is also pretty ..shaky.. in a lot of women. It ranges from sort of a default viewpoint like: "I'm a woman so it makes sense to support other women" to "feminism means equal rights for all, right?" all the way up in degrees to man-hating. The lower-rung default fems are the easiest to pick off just by being a sort of alpha male. Most of them are not strong enough in their illogical convictions to pass up on a real catch. I think underneath a lot of feminist facades there is hiding a natural woman who would love to take care of a man and follow his capable lead in creating a family.

Watched with my wife. Very heart warming! Thanks. I couldn't help but think the boy was automatically better off because his father was in his life at all. But maybe this will be an inspiration to would-be absent fathers.

Lifeboat scenario that isn't exactly analogous, but I'll bite. I doubt someone in the position of the gunman is so noble as to abide by your decision. You can tell the psycho "shoot her toe" and he could blow her brains out anyways. He's the one with the gun, he's the one willing to use force against peaceful people, he's the one that doesn't really give a wet fart what you want. He just wants to show everyone his power by making you play the game. Trump can't solve these problems. The state can't solve these problems. Violence never solves problems. You can demand compliance with your boot on someone's neck, but you have to keep it there forever. The moment you lift it up and look away you've got a larger problem. Tyler H, on 18 Jul 2016 - 6:06 PM, said: . Some really good points here. I definitely agree with your solutions to the scenarios. They're almost like that movie saW, yea? The purely immoral person holding you hostage has removed all non-violent options, and expects you to choose one of his psychotic ones. He is betting that your life-preservation instincts, lack of advanced moral training, or just fear, will compel you to choose the perceived lesser of two evils. He knows that all of his options are equally bad for you in the end. The trick is that he makes some seem less bad. When you choose one of his, it has a legitimizing effect on his brain, and possibly to onlookers. He gets positive reinforcement. And the onlookers' sense of helplessness increases. They see no example of an alternate solution, or at least no reason to start being brave. Terrorists lose their power when regular people are brave together, but the masses have been castrated in this regard. It seems to me, the optimal way to deal with a sAw situation would be to reject his options along with completely losing your mind in protest. You have to effectively lift yourself out of the situation mentally and send obvious signals to onlookers. If you lose your mind in righteous anger, you strip him of positive reinforcement. He might try to cut your hand off or threaten to kill you in order to regain his ground, in which case you have to be strong enough to keep up your protest. I'm thinking a way to relate this all to the election is to combine both views in this thread. •We have a TON of smart people who agree that voting for Trump is a step in the direction of freedom. I think it would be silly to say we know better than all of them simply because most of them are statists. So, using the input of all these smart people, it might be reasonable to bet that Trump won't be a world-exploding wildcard, and that voting still has some effectiveness, at least in the case of Trump, who seems to be able to break existing systems. •On the other hand, while ticking the Trump box, we should not campaign for him, but rather pour maximum energy into spreading Ancap ideas. I think it's a great argument that right now we have extremely fertile ground to sow those seeds. We know that ultimately the state will prove a failure no matter who is elected, and we want to be there to say we told you so when the people clamor for the next step.

A government election takes place. Two candidates are running. Candidate H says that all the problems will be solved by increasing the power of the bludgeons used to beat the people. (there is whispering that further bludgeon enhancement could irreparably damage the population's bone structures) Candidate T says that we need to go back to the time when the government was only allowed tiny pocket bludgeons. (this candidate reserves the right to switch to ultra-spike bludgeons if he deems it necessary) A philosophical citizen has realized that we don't even need governments to be happy, and more, that the very concept is evil. He vows to try and end it. But unfortunately, most of the population has been bludgeoned so much they are afraid to imagine another possibility. The philosophical citizen chooses to note vote at all. In this way, he is not condoning the evil, and maybe some people will see what he did and ask him why, which will give him a chance to explain the evil. Candidate H get's elected, and passes a law where little spike ball drones may fly around and try to crash into people's mouths who say wrong things. (As promised) The righteous philosophical citizen is about to explain the benefits of freedom to a curious peer when he is struck in the teeth by an exploding spike ball. The conversation is abruptly cut short. Eventually the remnant of philosophical citizens is systematically silenced by new smart bludgeons. A few elections later, the citizens get to choose between a super bludgeon the size of a star destroyer, or remote controlled auto-bludgeon implants that directly beat you from within your own body. A heated debate ensues. The citizens vote from their hospital beds. . . . (Sorry for worst allegory ever. It is definitely full of fallacious assumptions. But I felt like having a bit of fun here)

Before this thread I was convinced that voting Trump in this particular election was a necessary evil. But some of the ideas expressed here, along with watching the political climate unfold over the past week, have definitely given me pause. It does seem like Hillary's imminent failure as president would be just the nightmare younger people need to wake up to the fact that the left is not their savior. This would definitely push a great many fence-sitters into searching for new answers. Whereas a Trump presidency could possibly become such a legendary circus (because the elite can easily engineer this) that we'd have to wait for a new lefty paradigm to come and save the people and then be given a proper chance to completely fail before our next window where people's minds are fertile again for anarchy. Now that would be my bet if an alternate turn of events didn't also seem plausible. One in which a Hillary presidency actually ends the West as we know it, plunging us into a dark age where the fight becomes about restoring democracy within the state rather than ending the state. That seems a tragic leap backward. And rather than Trump becoming a harmful farce, maybe he, combined with congress, ends up at least producing a stalemate where free speech still exists, so we can continue using the internet to spread good philosophy etc. So as far as predicting outcomes that are good for me in this scenario, I'm stumped. As far as the morality of strategic/defensive voting, the prison analogy does come back to mind. I apprecited Tyler's posting of the Stefan and Wendy McElroy Roundtable (@40min). Their basic point is that if we are in a prison, we can eat the food to live, and try to a dig a hole and escape wherein me might kill a guard in self defense, but going beyond that would be putting our stamp of approval on the system itself. But is there there not a more subtle way to look at it? For instance, if you act like a good upstanding prisoner in order to gain the favor of the guards, do they not grant you more autonomy, which you can then use to dig a bigger hole so you can ensure your escape when you finally betray them, and maybe fit a few more bodies through there on the way out? If you are expected to vote on a new top-killer within a violent system you find yourself imprisoned in, and you vote for the one who will use his killing power in ways that obstruct your escape even a little less, how is that violating your principles? Either way, a killer is going to be elected, and if one of them turns out to be a Hitler, as they are wont to do, it doesn't mean you approve of that Hitler personally.

The sticking points as I see them: To preserve or not preserve the West: Can the goal of a free society only be pursued within the historic framework of Western values that have been built up and eroded over 1000's of years? -Some argue that we don't even have the right to make this decision. We are alive and freely thinking today because of the massive bloodshed our forefathers offered up. So we have now a duty to fight for the chance they gave us. -The other side of the coin is to let that fall apart and let the smart people start from scratch and do it right this time. If the West does matter, is it actually in danger? This comes down to a reasoned prediction using the evidence of history. -If we can be sure the West will strongly march on indefinitely, the traditional Anarchist boycott of the system is logical, since we have time to make our case and slowly transform our world. -But if that course becomes a risky gamble with everything on the line, it would seem then logical to take the position of preserving the west however possible, which may include forming temporary alliances with some statists and deists. Does Hillary, Trump, or some form of Abstinence give us the best chance to preserve the west? -Clinton will continue directly attacking the West. This could lead to a regrettable irreversible plummet toward dystopia, or it could piss new people off enough to actually get a bigger freedom movement going. -Trump could fight for the west, and best case, actually restore some freedoms, further enabling Anarchists to make their case in the midst of a restored economy and Western pride. Second best case would be he preserves a sort of stalemate where the conversation at least continues. He could also become yet another agent of the same political machine, which could be a Trump-card as it were to the ruling-class. His failure could cement growing anti-Western sentiment, making it even harder to make the Anarchist case in the future, and possibly dooming us all to said dystopia. -Finally, abstaining, boycotting, protesting ect: While this action is a statement of commitment to the NAP, is it a robust, consistent or forward-thinking one? Is your choice to abstain made in the midst of your supporting of the state in more important ways? For instance, would it not be a better protest to go to jail for tax-evasion? The founders of the USA, though statists, were also philosophically aligned to the NAP. It could be argued that their dream of limited government was a logical stepping stone toward lack of government. Today that stepping stone has largely been avoided, leaving us with the power-mad monster of the modern state. But does that mean it was the only possible direction? Or can we have a second chance and learn from History? A vote for Trump could mean that we start to inch back to that first stepping stone and use what the founders set up to our advantage this time.

Stef just used this Plato quote in his recent WPMOA, and it seemed relevant.

Episode 1 of the show Black Mirror illustrates this perfectly. In summary: A modern western nation faces a crisis. And while trying to mitigate this crisis, the government is viscerally aware of the Twittersphere's fickle opinions on the matter. Those in charge feel that they must be sensitive to the ever-shifting whims of the masses in order to make optimal decisions. The terrorist behind it all seems to be taking advantage of that fact. The events play out and in the end, the Government completely fails to make any good decisions at all, and bumbles every step of the way, even though they are following the wisdom of the majority. The results of the particular scenario are hilarious and entertaining, but it's clear that if the stakes were higher you'd be watching a massive disaster unfold. I'm not sure how aware of this the writers were, but it's an amazing illustration of how flawed Democracy inherently is. The presence of social media allows an already democratic nation to become a fully realized mob-rule nightmare. And it seems that the mob is simply incapable of clear-thinking ect.

Good points! A+ thread!

Hmm! OK there is definitely a percentage to derive here. One amazing thing that he did was sort of "power-level" me, for lack of a non-gamer metaphor. I think since about 2005 I'd been taking in free market ideas. And then got into rand. and alex Jones stuff. I supported Ron Paul based on Constitutionalist and economic policies. I think this loose conglomeration of decent ideas was unsustainable in the face of leftist ideology in my peer groups. I lacked a solid philosophy from which to derive my convictions. I was always of the opinion that I was street smarty enough not to need any philosophy education. The noise from the left became great enough that I ended up tuning out politically for a number of years. Strangely it was my quest to better understand women that brought me back. I went from Pua stuff to redpill stuff and eventually YouTube started suggesting Stefan videos. The German rape crisis was my first one. His videos quickly changed everything for me. He somehow brought all my previous notions together in one fell swoop. So I guess my point is, I'm not sure how perpetual my floundering would have been had Stefan not fell on me like an anvil of reason. That.. was a lot of hoopla!

I'm a recent but passionate Ancap convert since January. 100% Stefan-Induced. After watching tons of his videos, and starting to keep up with the podcast, I've started dipping into these forums. The forums are great! You people are great. This might be the only oasis of rationality on the internet. If anyone from my area wants to get together for deep discussions and refreshments, I'm game.