Notsuper

It seems more accurate to say that by committing evil acts (as perceived by you), they give you reason (justification) to suspend their individual agency to some degree. Without getting into whether they consciously agreed to your rules or not (or whether they had any actual choice in the matter to begin with), saying that they forfeit their agency is like saying, 'the glass dropped itself', when in fact, it was dropped by something or someone else. You might say that Stefan does not interfere with individual agency by informing people, so long as he does not force them to listen to him (and he doesn't... as far as I know. Maybe he's secretly got some kids locked up in his basement, forced to listen to his show 24/7 - what he considers a necessary evil to raise a group of super philosophers to lead the next generation) or to take what he says as truth. On the other hand, throwing someone in jail - against their will - directly violates their individual agency. Of course, we usually assert that they knew what they were getting into - they must have known that we have rules, and by continuing to live here, they agreed to abide by them. So responsibility shifts, from "I/you suspended their agency", to "Their agency was suspended (by the system)", to "They forfeited their individual agency, since they must have known that this would be the result of their breaking the law". This goes back to the original question, I think. I'm assuming 'living the good life' is living by ones own rules, and 'good people' are like-minded people. Unfortunately, I don't think I can answer the question either, except in the most vague of terms: stick with those who think like you, avoid those who don't.

I don't think 'combat' is the right word - even if there isn't some plot to replace all meaningful language with newspeak, it seems to be the nature of language to change with the times - with that in mind, is seems more accurate to say 'adapt'. You need to make it a non-factor. To me, the obvious answer is just to confirm definitions with people as you converse with them. What sense does it make to assume you're both using the same definitions if definitions are constantly changing and the same words mean different things to different people? If you're seeking the truth, isn't it better to judge someone by what they mean, rather than what you think they mean? Obviously, you're stuck working with what you think they mean, but by making sure you're talking about the same thing (instead of assuming so), you'll get a lot closer to knowing what they actually think. As someone said in another thread... Though I had not applied it to philosophers specifically, I have held the sentiment for a while now, that reconciling definitions is an important step in any sort of debate. I was glad to see it echoed here. If I've been raised to think that apples are pears (whatever the reason, it doesn't matter), and you approach me (while I stand around with a 'pear' in hand) and ask for an apple, how do you think I'm going to respond? If you want a more realistic and relevant example, look at your exchange with DaVinci in the 'Arguing with Irrationality' thread. The entire thing could've easily been cleared up if either he had explicitly asked if you believed that a single show of irrationality is enough to define someone as completely incapable of rational thought, or if you had clarified what you meant when you said that five minutes is enough to determine if someone is irrational (pretty vague). I don't say this to attack you, but I hope you can see how he might've seen this as you avoiding the question yourself. Honestly, it seemed that way to me too, but I also considered that you might have missed the alternate meanings of what you said, or what he was trying to ask. I type out that long rant and you say this just as I'm about to post it all. It makes me facepalm, but I've put too much time and thought into this not to post it now. It's good to see yet another person say something along those lines in a single line, though.

I found the part in bold extremely amusing. You are simultaneously saying that nothing is impossible, and that nothing is not possible; and you continue to say that various things must be and cannot be, as if there are no possible alternatives, seemingly missing or ignoring one (or more) meaning(s) of what you've said. Such is the nature of making a point, I suppose, but in a discussion such as this, where the topic is such an abstract concept, I don't think there's any context on which to base the exclusion of any interpretations. It seems to me that this topic is more a matter of defining nothing than anything, so my answer will be focused on that. (All this nothing is going to be fun) I think nothing is a matter of perception. Going back to the thread you linked as proof that nothing cannot be aeturnal... Ignoring (but not really) the obvious point of 'give me an example of a real life aeturnal thing', it can be said that air and space are indeed nothing, from the perspective of the person who does not know what they are, at least. We both see the same thing, but we call it by different names. If we're speaking the same language, this means that one or both of our names has a subjective element to it (or at least one of us is just wrong, but let's ignore that for now). In this case, I think it's fair to say that 'nothing' can be taken to mean 'that which I do not know of' or 'that which I do not recognize' or (best of all, perhaps) 'that which has no meaning to me'. After all, even if you tell me there's air in that jar; to me, air still only means 'the nothing I see in that jar', if not 'just something that guy made up'. Using this definition, anything can be nothing, and nothing can be anything. It goes without saying, then, that nothing can be something, and vice-versa. ...I had more to say, but I've lost my train of thought. I'll just leave at this, for now.

So I watched the video and read through this entire great wall of text topic. I thought the video was an interesting introduction, but it really only talked about the role of a national tax in establishing value in a nation's currency, not maintaining it, which is where the topic here seems to have shifted. Or maybe I'm just not connecting the dots, since I don't really know anything about economics. Either way, it'd be neat if you made another video explaining more about how this should turn out in the long-term, and how some real world examples compare, if you haven't already (it sounds like you've made multiple videos on similar topics). I was going to bring this up too, as it seems like a problem to me. Assuming the government is trustworthy, I don't see why it's not okay for it to create debt to itself endlessly as needed, because there's no actual need to pay it off. However, if the government is instead accumulating debt to a separate entity which isn't under its control (like the 'Federal' Reserve), doesn't that mean they forfeit the ability to safely build up debt as needed? (Or am I overestimating the power of the Federal Reserve?) To put it (somewhat) in the terms used in the video, if the Fed prints money, and taxes the government for using this money, doesn't this mean that the national debt is actually a substantial amount owed to someone, rather than just an insignificant portion of a supposed infinity?