MarkIX

I don't want to help you debunk it. In fact I kind of like it. I've said elsewhere that "The structural violence inherent in the family results in the violent structure of the State " is a reasonable restatement of Stefan's position. My feeling is that you don't like that phrase because of the leftist connotations that tarnish the similar phrase "social justice" would I be correct?

Sorry if I'm not being entirely clear in making my points they are reasonably new to me. Would you say say that you accept the legitimacy of violence if used in self defence? If that is the case, How would you respond to somebody who described your willingness to use violence in certain circumstances and not others as an example of cognitive dissonance? Would it be fair to say that at least some frameworks of ownership are flawed and therefore cannot result in legitimate violence? Would you describe the killing of trespassers as the legitimate use of violence if the trespassers were obviously unaware of the ownership claims? How about if they merely didn't accept the ownership claims? What would be the way to establish the truth of said ownership claims? Sorry if I seem to be asking too many questions but I have had discussions before where it is obvious I have not understood the other persons position which resulted in each talking past the other. I think your Indian example would be construed as "structural violence" by Peter Joseph. Structural violence is a term I was introduced by this debate but it makes a lot of sense to me. The obvious example of structural violence is of course the State, being as it is a structure of violence but if you accept that the State is only possible due to certain majority held attitudes regarding violence then it is not a big stretch to say that these attitudes will manifest in other ways within a culture. In fact I don't believe I would be wrong if I stated "It is Stefan's position that the structural violence within the family is responsible for the State". I feel the need to say something about my relationship with TVP. Truth is I don't have one, my only exposure to Peter Joseph before this debate was the first couple of minutes of a rebuttal he did to one of Stefan's videos. I din't watch it all because the first few minute were not compelling. What surprised me about this "debate" was that two people who agreed on so much could then spend so much time arguing about it. The thing about voluntarism especially baffled me, PJ was talking about things as they are now, where it is apparent that voluntarism isn't enough to overcome the problem of structural violence, a problemof which the State is just a part.While Stefan was talking about the way things will be after the peaceful parenting "revolution", admitting that things have to change before voluntarism can be the prime factor in social relationships. It seemed to me that Stefan was arguing against a "communist" that unfortunately wasn't Peter Joseph. Due to the nature of the free market it cannot be free of the ills of society, the free market can only be as free from violence as the society of the people who participate in it. If violence is legitimised then you will get violent frameworks like the state that reflect the actions of the people involved in the market. Isn't that Stef's whole point, when he says that the State is a reflection of the family? I'm not wedded to PJ's solution but I think your eye analogy is flawed a more proper one would be that PJ's solution is either for strong corrective lenses or to bring everything into your near field vision, depending on how extreme you take his position to be. Stef's position could be described as Lasik surgery. Thank you for the information on the history of "structural violence". I'm practically brand new to the term but by my understanding it has better descriptive power than "social justice" and even the State in regards to the problems facing a free society.

I've come to the conclusion it's not just illogical ideas that are developed this way. Take the example of Stefan himself He only successfully achieved independence when his mother no longer had power to adversely affect his life, i.e. when she could no longer exercise violent authority over him. Now what is his solution to improve the world "End violent authority,end the State". Peter Joseph said that his mother was a social worker (iirc) who therefore would spend her working time caring for others, and therefore have less time to care for her son. Does this reflect on his solution to improve the world, a supercomputer that will care for everyone all the time? Of course when we talk about the psychology of other individuals they tend to end up as us in a mask, perhaps this reveals more about me than about the individuals I have directly referred too

The point was that Legitimised violence is not solely within the framework of the state and is developed within those deeper psychological reasons you talk of. As to the last part it's not cognitive dissonance it's extension of legitimate violence. It is acceptable for the person in charge to use violence because that is what anyone would do in the same circumstance. Why then is violence not used all the time? because violence is used to achieve desired results and certain results aren't achievable through violence and other results will run counter to the violent desires of people with superior capabilities in using violence. These two factors usually ensure an individual's personal life involves little use of violence even if their professional life involves lots of violence.

I have considerably refined my position since this post, but it still has the same direction. In answer to the point about whether the market created the State or vice versa. It matters more to PJ than Stef in terms of the effect on their solutions. Stef wants to remove the cause of the creation and therefore doesn't have to deal with it at all while PJ's solution requires the control of those causes. This means the knowledge is important to TVP, you could say foundational. If you thought that Stefan's position was simply that getting rid of the government or state would bring about a free society then you are mistaken. If your only exposure to Stefan was this "debate" then I fully understand how you may have come to this conclusion. It has been Stef's stated position for at least the last several years that the acceptance of State power is an effect of family conditioning/child abuse. He has also stated on many occasions that the current corporate structure is a function of State granted monopoly, and not a free market entity. I don't have much to say about the Joe Rogan interview, I found it entertaining.

You ignore the possibility of a situation without the monopoly of violence but still the legitimization of it. warlords being an example. But even your restatement doesn't change my position. Whether it is the only framework that is possible or merely part of a set the existence of the State is only "allowed" by the legitimisation of violence. The only difference I see between Stef and PJ is that Stef believes that violence can be de-legitimised universally, whereas PJ seems to believe that it cannot, this obviously explains the difference in their solutions. I don't know about "gaming mentality" but the legitimisation of violence certainly extends into libertarian thought. How many libertarian or An-Caps would agree with the following statement "If a person trespasses on my homesteaded land I have the right to kill them" most will agree with this statement, with perhaps the justification that the response should be proportional. In this case a framework is established where violence is legitimised by the simple expenditure of labour.

If your position is that violence in the family produces the violence of the State, I find is difficult to see how you could disagree with the concept of Structural violence. One is saying "Violence is legitimised by our childhood experiences" and the other is saying "Legitimised violence will lead to frameworks for effectively inflicting violence" in no way are they contrary, one is merely a logical extension of the other. That Stef failed to notice this surprises me. As I regard him as abnormally insightful and I'm in seeming disagreement with him I participating in every thread on this subject I can find hoping someone can point out my errors. So far no one has either because I have failed to communicate my points effectively rendering effective rebuttal senseless or painful, or I am in fact correct about what I have said. Can you think of another possibilty? Or it could be boiled down to "The legitimisation of violence is the problem the manifestation of violence in the form of the state is a side effect" and " yeah but it doesn't matter about the factual evidence about how the state corrupts the market any framework that uses legitimised violence as a reference would have the same effect" It seems interesting to me that Stefan's solution entirely fails to address the State directly. In his proposed solution the State is not important enough to address directly, when he is "debating" PJ its existence is a used as a rebuttal to, it seemed to me, every point that PJ made.

you're obviously a TVP enthusiast do have you seen my various comments on the various threads about the debate? If so I was wondering if you thought my interpretation of PJ's position was accurate?

Upon reflection and participation in, now 3, threads on the subject, I have reached the conclusion that Stefan didn't do well at all. If you asked both PJ and Stef ; "Do you think that the reason we do not have a free society now is because certain individuals regard violence as a legitimate method of securing their desires?" I think the answer would be some version of "obviously yes" If you asked the follow up question "Do you think that the Free market has an effective counter measure to these certain individuals?" I think the answer would be from both "obviously no". Why do I say that they would both answer no? Because both are proposing solutions to the current situation. It is in these solutions that the divergence occurs Stefan's point could probably be summed up as "removing the legitimacy of violence will result in a free society" whereas PJ's is probably "Maximising people's ability to achieve their desires without violence will result in a free society" When the the differing sides of the "debate" are characterised like this it is easy to see that Stefan failed to address PJ's point, it is perhaps understandable as PJ didn't express it well. In this light Stefan's insistence that the State is the locus of most or all of the violence that PJ called Structural violence misses the point. If violence is seen as a legitimate means of securing your desires then the existence or non existence of the State is irrelevant, those with the power to do so will develop some framework to use violence in the "legitimate" pursuit of their desires, while those without power will accept this framework, because they too see violence as legitimate. It seems that in this "debate" no body had any curiosity, which is a shame. It was obvious from his introduction that PJ is sick of being called a communist, when he doesn't see himself as one. It is just as obvious that Stef was "debating" with a "communist".There is not going to be a satisfying conclusion to such a setting.

Your'e not really being pedantic, because a pedant would have noticed the qualifiers of "he obviously thought that the explanation was self evident" and " because to him voluntarism is self evident " I was talking about their perceptions of their positions as being opposed whereas I have explained why I think their positions are very similar at least in this area, only their conclusions differ. Why do their conclusions differ when they are working from the same of similar start points, well I would say pre-existing factors brought about by their home life. As I said in another thread I find it interesting that Stefan's experience with his family, the kind of abuse he suffered had a logical end point when he grew to large to physically dominate. I think that PJ's experience was with a less crazy less finite abuse framework. This could be just my pre-existing factors driving me to erroneous conclusions but if that is the case then it just my conclusion that is wrong not my implication.

9 - If the kid misbehaves in school, make a big deal of the teacher's incompetence in educating your children. So what's your point that teachers can't be incompetent?

Are you refering to the "debate" or to the thread. I would say that the state can only be competitive in a world where the "subjects" believe they can get something from it whether this is a lack of threat from the state and other violent entities or an ability to profit from the structures of the State. The State is an obvious attraction to the rich as their capabilities decline, it would also be attractive to Sociopaths who would have a socially acceptable outlet for their more violent impulses while the "subjects" would benefit from the control placed on said Sociopaths in a violent world the lack of threat would be a boon. It could be said that as time has passed andf the world has gotten less violent (see Steven Pinker) the State has less to offer and so is less attractive to "subjects" perhaps that is the reason people are turning away from it. I think that a "Company" in a free society will in no way resemble anything called a "company" now, that being said if there is a situation where people are capable and willing to accumulate extreme wealth then there will be among that group a subset who will be willing to use extreme techniques to ensure that wealth remains with them. Since their capabilities will inevitably decline their positions will become dependent on the lack of competition. The obvious temptation is to develop a framework that excludes competition.

What I heard during this "debate" was PJ describe a mechanism why voluntarism is not possible and so won't generate a peaceful society, he obviously thought that the explanation was self evident. Stef didn't agree, because to him voluntarism is self evident. That most of the people on this board use the same "self-evidence" as Stef is unsurprising. What I found surprising is that PJ describes current situations which Stef obviously agrees with otherwise he would not support peaceful parenting as the solution. It seems reasonable to restate peaceful parenting as "people can't make good decisions because of abuse they suffered as a child. Therefore if we want a peaceful society we need to prevent that abuse" where as PJ's position was stated as (pardon my paraphrasing) "people cannot make effective voluntary decisions because of cultural pressures". The only way I can see that those statements could be decoupled from each other is if it is taken as given that un-abused people are going to produced a culture functionally similar to people abused as children. Or if you don't believe voluntary decisions are good. Either of those positions would indicate a lack of support for Stef's proposition. It seems PJ supports the first of these positions but that wasn't what they were arguing about in this "debate".

I'm sorry as evidenced previously I don't know how to break a quote up into the components I wish to address as I could with the last system. "You can't militarily hold people down over the long term." If you define the State as "The right and obligation of a select group to use force in a given geographical area" then to claim that Military force can't be used to suppress people you would have to ignore thousands of years of history. It's what States do. "Only the widespread belief in government enables the group calling themselves government to get away with what they do. That comes from centuries of tradition and indoctrination. " So without centuries of tradition and indoctrination there would be no State?. This means that States have always existed because otherwise there would have been a time when there was not centuries of tradition and indoctrination, in which case there would seem little need for tradition and indoctrination. The other posibility is that the factors you specify are not the only ones that apply. " Establishing a tradition whereby a few "enlightened" would look after them would have been a lot easier to foist upon them. And at a lot less cost." It could also be said that the people of times previous were a lot more independent and had a greater understanding of the desirability of their own property as they were surely more involved in acquiring it. It could therefore be argued that getting them to part with their hard won resources would have involved greater difficulty. Especially if the individual(s) attempting to do so were in command of less sophisticated arguments, which would seem to be a given.

A lot of you seem to be saying that PJ didn't have a lot worth saying. You are probably doing the same as he is in feeling that the challenge to what you hold to be self evident is useless. I can say from my own perspective that after this "Debate" some of the things that I felt to be self evident no longer seemed that way. These seemed to be positions that Stefan had not encountered before but he used the same talking points that he has used many times in the past and I think these failed to address the new positions. They are admittedly arguments from a deterministic position, but requiring no more determinism than Stefan's position that the family gives rise to the State. I am discussing it over here http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/37139-about-the-debate-with-peter-joseph-and-clearobjective-language/

I'm pretty sure PJ's contention would be that the "Supercomputer" would be beyond human interference and probably understanding. To overcome the price determination problem it would obviously have to be. How is this achieved with merely human resources? I don't know, I don't foresee that it is. but my desire is not to promote supercomputers but to discuss interesting observations that may reveal a gap in my understanding. I see my interpretation of PJ's arguments as having some validity, as being flaws in the An-Cap system. This leaves a couple of conclusions, one being that my understanding of An-Cap is flawed another that my understanding of a free society is.

"Stef's contention that building a state would be too expensive in a free, competitive market makes more sense to me." I believe the conjecture is that people currently rich have the ability to spend enough to ensure they can maintain their fortune. The alternative is believing that people who have striven to become rich are going to fail to strive to continue to be rich. Taken the current situation of 4% sociopaths do you think that a "private army" couldn't be established?. The only reason it is unnecessary for anyone to develop a "private army" is that the State is cheaper. " Only childhood indoctrination can make people obey the state and how would you achieve that in a free and open, educated society?" Sure but these two are arguing about how to achieve such a society, not what problems such a society would have.[EDIT] or more precisely why the other guys plan won't work. "Military force could subdue people initially but it never works in the long run. And doing so would be so expensive with so little likelihood of payoff, even if it was successful, that I don't even think that is likely." Except what you are describing must have been the start of the State. Unless everybody voluntarily accepted it.

I think I understand some of PJ's points His argument against voluntarism is that if defined narrowly it makes perfect sense but the surrounding situation makes the choice involved coerced. The surrounding situation being the culture and established norms. An example of what I think he means might be if a parent gave a child the choice of being beaten with a strap or an open hand. If you focus on whether the child has a choice you are missing the point and PJ would argue that voluntarism does just that. His argument against the free market is I believe that the State is a product of the free market. That given inevitability of some achieving riches and the inevitability of their decay in capability and increase in competition they will deduce the only way to continue being wealthy is to ensure one or the other of those factors is significantly reduced. Being that decreased capability is inevitable the only factor that can be effected is competition and the only way to control that is through force, the State is merely a framework for justifying this use of force, but other non state frameworks are possible, in fact some framework is inevitable. Another thought I had whilst listening was that Stef's home life was wretched and despicable but could be logically foreseen to have an ending when he grew big enough to make the physical attacks he suffered dangerous to perform. It makes me wonder what PJ's home life was like.

First rule of propaganda: Labelling something as the truth means it isn't . So calling yourself the "Doctor of Common Sense" would suggest to me that you aren't.

Sorry haven't looked, This is something I haven't researched, just information I have heard from various sources over time. It may not be even true but the sources where unrelated so I thought it was worth introducing as an anecdote. In China there is as historic context in the legal process that requires confession, from some TV shows I have seen of actual interviews it is still adhered to. I wouldn't be surprised if given the cross cultural exchanges that have occurred in the region if Japan shared similar traditions.

I have heard from various sources that the Japanese criminal court system has a higher conviction rate than Stalin's political courts did. Seems to suggest some pretty fundamental differences to other cultures.

As someone who has read both UPB and The Moral Landscape. I don't see that they are a refutation of each other. My current position is a synthesis of ideas from both authors. My belief is that Sam Harris is, strangely enough given his statements on the word, a fearful atheist. IMO the reason he supports the US State is that he fears the effects of extremist religion and believes that Statism is the natural enemy of those forces.

He's where I got my determinism from. Currently an unabashed statist but I think that's going to change. Unless it's just expedient.

Are you saying that the word "action" like the word the word "aggression" and the word "force" are only meaningful in the context of a mutually constructed framework? I don't understand how this works. If I choose to do something, then I would not choose to sanction myself for that choice, if I have no choice in that action then how and why would I choose to sanction myself, just as I would not sanction myself for the actions of another. What am I missing? This says to me that the decision to sanction the "bank robber" is based solely on the knowledge set of the person doing the judging, which includes the knowledge of the "Bank robber's" actions. It still seems irrelevent to "pretend to be" the bank robber. Either the judgement of the action is done from your Knowledge set in which case it seems ( having never robbed a bank) that you judge the action to be unacceptable, from the Bank robbers Knowledge set in which case you judge the robbery to be accepable or from a null set in which case you don't care. I am still failing to see the need for an impossible assumption of "bank robberishness"

There are too many weird exceptions in golden rule style of ethics, so matters of principle require an abstraction. In other words, what "should" we do is subjected to conditions that the other guy is not me nor in my situation or have my knowledge set. So universality seems difficult to state or evaluate. Each case seems only to be evaluated by hypothetical overlay of our decision process on top of the other person's current situation. Regardless of the golden rule problem, which I agree with but for different reasons,(at least I think I do). Isn't Universality easy to state "If action A is right/wrong for person X then it is right/wrong for all persons." Am I missing something? Are you talking about why something "Should" be universal? This suggests to me that you acknowledge no responsibility for actions taken by your past self regardless of wether you continue them or not. Each moment allowsa new decision to either nullify or perpetuate any past action without consequences accruing to the "current" (and therefore only) self. Is that what you mean? I don't see how this follows But wouldn't this guilt require you to have the knowledge set of the "bank robber" in that you would need to know the fashion in which the money was aquired to feel guilty? And if you had that knowledge set why would you in fact feel guilty? If it is only based on your knowledge set that that the performance of certain actions "Should" make a person feel guilty, why is it neccessary to pretend to be that other person (or other self)?