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What is happening on college campuses???? I just finished watching the speech Dr. Peterson gave at Queens university. Was expecting the typical brilliance and incredible insight one would expect from Jordan...until about ten minutes in when the 'protesters' broke in and interrupted the event. If you haven't seen this take the time to watch it. Over an hour of these people banging on windows and blowing air horns and chanting like possessed monkeys. They actually broke several of the beautiful stained-glass windows. Is this sort of thing common at many universities? Who here is currently a student? Is speech going to continue to be effective to combat this hatred going forward? Please share your thought on this.

For a while, I've been exploring the subject of freedom and lately I have immersed myself in the topic of liberty and the libertarian philosophy. I work as a pharmacy technician to pay for my university. At work, as in every waking hour, I am a guy that keeps talking and analyzing questions and situations. Sometimes I feel like I talk more in a day then Stephane =P. For the past few months I have decided to analyse everything through a libertarian lens and I have found that everything (politic, economy, right/wrong, family, education...) becomes so clear and easy to understand and the solutions are simple to find. There is no more relativism. Like the universal preferable behavior tells us, an action can not be good and bad at the same time. So I have started to observe the reaction of people around me. - I would say that 90% of people dont give a shit about freedom and about living in a moral fashion. All they care about is earning $$$, having a house and a car, and to have fun. - A small minority, mostly women, want everything and everyone to be regulated and control by some dictator. - And then there are people who do not have a backbone. Who do not mind if freedoms are taken away from them, they dont care if small injustices are done to them. As long as they are taken care of, they are fine. I can count on my fingers, the number of people who truly care about their natural rights, who cannot stand coercion in any form and who are intelligent enough to see that we dont need a big government, we are even better off without the presence of the government. Very few believe in the free market and most believe that capitalism is a F word. This has become so bad, that I believe that I am turning into a libertarian snob. I'm my mind, I just cannot accept that someone who doesnt give a shit about his rights and freedoms can be my equal. What kind of birth defect or mental retardation has led them to be such agreeable slaves. This is when I take 2 steps back and realize that I am going into a bad zone. I realize that it is disgusting to look down on people. That I am wrong. But at the same time, I realize that they are contributing to the problem. They are grown this cancer call the government. They are the ones who are going to deprive my future kids of their freedoms. Sorry to leave you guys hanging on this question, but I have not found the answer to this dilemma yet. =(

With all the talk of free speech these days, with Milo's crusade finally exposing the limits to free expression in USA, I was wondering how far one can go in other countries without getting shut down. According to the UN: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers "In adopting the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Australia and the Netherlands insisted on reservations to Article 19 insofar as it might be held to affect their systems of regulating and licensing broadcasting" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country It is quite clear that every country in the World has a dofferent approach to the subject, and nobody really takes the decrees of the UN seriously. Germany, in my opinion has the toughest laws in the Western World. Their set of laws even has a name: Volksverhetzung (incitement of the people). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung I had to share this one just for laughs. Malta has only 1 single law limiting speech: Blasphemy against the Roman Catholic church is illegal in Malta Chechia has a peculiar one: Censorship is not permitted. I might add more to this topic as I continue my Research. As a general rule to where countries draw the line: - All countries: advocacy for violence, blasphemy, racist speech... - North America: Racist Speech seems to be the only thing they are really sensitive to - South America: Advocating for the toppling of the state or disrespecting the rulers are frowned upon, but loosely enforced. - Western Europe: They can virtually jail you for anything. - Southern Europe: Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are off limits, but anything else is in practice fair game. - Eastern Europe: Hate speech against foreign heads of state, religion or an ethnic group are illegal, but hardly ever enforced. - North Africa: Anything can get you killed, but speech against Allah especially - Sub-Sahara: Impossible to generalise - Middle East: Allah. Nothing else is enforced in practice - Israel: Criticism of the state of Israel is, although not exactly illegal, strongly frowned upon. - Central Asia: Speech against religion, the stability of the State, and Allah are no go - East Asia: With the exception of China, nobody really cares, since nobody really breaks any of those laws. - South Asia: Heads of State, Religion are off limits, but hardly ever enforced. - Oceania: Nobody cares.

I was trying to find that could work out as twitter alternative. as of today, couldn't find much but maybe someone has a recommendation

This book begins with a treatise on free speech by Quintus Curtius. He makes the point that we assume incorrectly that society will just get better and better; we assume that we will just become freer and freer, we see the tremendous improvement in human quality of life in the past hundred years of history recorded via grainy photographs, shaky news reel and newspaper clippings and we assume that it's just going to get better but Quintus warns that progress is not our birthright. It's especially easy for young people with no children to assume that the nature of the world is just get increasingly free over time, barring some extraordinary life experience it's likely that over time all they've personally experienced is their freedom expanding. We do associate the abstract idea of freedom with our concrete quality of life, consumer choice and the advent of new technologies making our lives more convenient and amusing. Since there is no sign of the Cambrian explosion of consumer options slowing, the idea of freedom contracting seems incomprehensible to most.. But Quintus writes Time is as much a destroyer as a creator: and perhaps more of the former than the latter. He makes the case that our society of unequaled freedoms wobbles on a knife's edge and that there is a good chance that human rights will regress within our lifetimes I've long believed likewise that... human rights are antithetical to human nature. Human nature is evolutionary - of course - and prone to devolve into brutal competition. Human nature is a strong man taking power, money, women and resources from those who he can by sword, law or guile. Human nature is a tribe being fiercely unsympathetic to an out group. Human nature is a syndicate of elites depriving the common people of the fruits of their labor. Human nature is a dictator depriving his people of the ability to defend themselves from their overreaches. Human nature is a ruling narrative stiffling and censoring dissenting voices. Human rights are not something we deserve by default, human rights are a gift given to us by those before us who paid dearly for them in blood, sweat and ink and it's a duty for us to maintain and pass them on to our own children. As Quintus writes Rights, once won, do not remain won forever. He argues that free speech is our cornerstone human right that all other rights depend upon, he comments upon the shoddy maintenance of this foundational right by our institutions Are we progressing ever upwards in our tolerance of free speech and a free press? Or are there more subtle, insidious ways of stifling free speech? freedom of speech and the press is an absolute necessity for any forward-moving society. The surveillance state is antithetical to the idea of freedom of speech, In the first Matrix movie Morpheus tells Neo that 1999 was the peak of human civilization, after Neo takes the red pill he discovers that while technology has advanced exponentially human freedom has steeply declined and nearly been totally snuffed out. An analogy for the delicacy of human rights so apt that the film became the metaphor for men rising above their own visceral desires, revulsions and whims to grasp the fleeting nature of freedom. It's a bit of a conspiratorial premise, that some may call alarmist or fear mongering but the rest of the book is a memoir of the public demonization of Roosh V that pretty clearly shows how the cultural left is strangling free speech. The author is a personal development guru, Internet entrepreneur and nomadic pickup artist. Which is kind of what I do, which is a career and lifestyle path that an increasing number of intelligent young men are choosing. Men have an evolutionary motivation to spread their genes as far as possible and the modern world of budget travel has made it easier and more appealing than ever to chase the skirts beyond our national borders. Men also have a motivation to build... something. For generations in the past it was building a family home, digging a well for the village or working on an old Porsche, our generation finds this same fulfillment in building online tribes and websites that attract the like minded, styling one's self into a personal development guru which of course means that you have to be Internet entrepreneur of some technical aptitude to communicate effectively. People are free to call us douchebags for the deviant lifestyle we've chosen but it's human nature to try to figure out how to maximize hedonism while minimizing labor, they would be doing the exact same thing given the option. The book follows the author as he goes on a speaking tour and hosts personal development meetups in several different cities in Europe and North America. Which dosent exactly sound outrageously scandalous does it? Plenty of personal development gurus and pickup artists do tours. However, Roosh V, in addition to being a pioneer of this lifestyle is also a career courtier of scandal - he has an uncanny ability to piss off loud people and is a talented practitioner of the art of Internet trolling. Because of his past writing in Canada and the author becomes the target of a vicious media scandal. I read this book while I was also reading Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday and the Canadian outrage is a quintessential case how the "fake news" that the media manufactures become self fulfilling prophesies which manifest in the real world as violence. I recommend the two books together. In the end... Free speech wins, he's able to hold all of his meetups. The Canadian police don't throw him in jail and the worst the hysterical mob manage to do is throw a beer in his face. Quintus writes What is now clear is that freedom of speech and the press exist merely as possibilities, and not as the absolute rights that they should be. The book helped me to clarify my belief in radical and extreme free speech, otherwise known as free speech. Baring exceedingly clear examples of speech intended to cause violence (like a mafia boss ordering a hit) as culture unless we have an extreme level of free speech than inevitably the right will decline for everyone. Extreme free speech means that we will have hate preachers and neo nazis along with gangsta rap music and really terrible comedians but it also means that we can use our free speech to ostracize and expose their bad ideas. In the book he includes the full transcript of the speech he gave, here's the crux of speech which sparked a controversy from coast to coast of the second largest country on Earth... At any other point in history day to day life was likely a tremendous struggle for the individual man; he had to labor in a factory or a field for well over 10 hours a day just to put a little bit of bread and soup on the table. He was in constant mortal danger of the tribe from over the hill invading his territory and killing him. His freedom of vocation and recreation was limited to a very few options and there was always a high likelihood that his king or country would conscript him to go marching off in a suicidal war. Fast forward to modern day life and we find a stark contrast in a man's life; we suffer from diseases of superfluous comfort, we are exhausted from the decision fatigue of deciding between so many enjoyable ways to spend our time and our lives are so safe that out of boredom we invent risky sports and hobbies to participate in. But there was one thing that was quite easy for the man of the past: courting and marrying a good wife. The hardness of life created all the incentives for women to be very feminine, virtuous and loyal. Women who didn't marry a similarly virtuous and hard working man at a young age were literally not likely to survive. Roosh V makes the point that the kind of loyal, wife material woman that was so prevalent in times past is now very rare and that the great struggle men face today is the holistic personal development necessary to find and attract a "unicorn" - a woman who is young and attractive with a good character that is unspoiled by cultural influences. Every time period has a sacrifice, and the sacrifice that we have to make is not food, is not work, is not living in filth, but it’s quality relationships with women. (p. 150) It now takes hundreds of hours of game work and self-improvement work to enter a sexual relationship with a girl who is good looking. Did your dad have to put in a hundred hours to meet your mom? My dad had to take a shower every day. (Laughter and clapping.) Is that enough now? (No.) (p. 146) He goes on the describe the modern day necessity of the art of seduction Their “natural” self will lead to reproductive failure without purposeful intervention that increases their attractiveness in the eyes of women who (p. 199) “Game” is a collection of socially-based tactics and reproducible behaviors that increase a man’s sexual attractiveness to women (pp. 199-200) You can read the rest of the speech in the book, it's mostly NOT about clever ways to pickup and have one night stands with women from bars or clubs. It's mostly about how to long term become a better man that can enter a relationship with a great woman. That was the secret sentiment communicated at these meetups that so many people in Canada did so much, so ineffectively to prevent from happening. You may totally disagree with this sentiment, I'm not sure if I'm 100% on board with it either, but if you think about it, it's really a useful message... It's a call for personal development it's a call for adapting oneself to the culture environment It's a call to rediscover the visceral experience of being a man by unplugging from the technological and ideological matrix Which brings me to a nuanced point... There's certain false beliefs that serve us very well Like recently I was watching an interview with the author Sam Harris and he said that libertarian free will is not a real thing. Libertarian free will is the idea that we can chose our our socio-economic position in life. That we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps from poverty to become successful. Sam Harris makes a pretty good case why Libertarian free will is an illusion. I'm not sure, I'm not convinced either way; however, what I know for sure of is that I would definitely rather live in a society and have friends that believe in Libertarian free will than the opposite. If an accurate social science experiment could be conducted on different cultures I'm sure it would find that the cultures that believed the most in Libertarian free were the most healthy and had the happiest people. If Sam Harris is right (and I suspect he is) Libertarian free will is an very useful illusion we should embrace. Now you may totally disagree with Roosh's sentiment, you may believe something more mainstream like that courtship is simply more difficult for both men and women in the modern age. You may disagree with the premise of the book, that we have lost free speech and that this will lead to the decline of the most advanced culture this planet has ever seen. But logically you must see how, like Libertarian free will, Roosh's ideas will lead both to personal development and and a more free, healthy society. At least you will after reading this book.

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is held as the standard for free speech by most. The government is promising to allow and protect people on the subjects of religion, opinion, peaceful assembly, and press within federal commons and institutions like universities. However, the government also allows private property and the exercise of free association within it to a degree, considering the civil rights act doesn't allow for certain discriminations anymore within private properties. So when Twitter, or Facebook, or any other site like Reddit and else start banning voices they disagree with there are always two camps: The free speech team, and the private property team. The PP team usually wins, actually always wins, and the FS team just shrugs it off with a promise for more activism which just ends in memes and trolling. And some good stuff, too, but it's always the same cycle. The last thing I wanted to point out with this is that in a society comprised solely on private property and no commons, there would be no effective free speech at all. Every site, every street, every university, every media outlet, every utility like telephone or radio would have it's own terms of service and rules. They would have the power to ban and silence any opposition. "But the FS team would have its own twitter! Competing products!" Yeah, not so easy. The PP twitter would block all communication from the FS twitter, and you would have total ideological segregation. The FS twitter would also have its funding cut since no one would advertise there - actually it would look a lot like 4chan barely making server costs. The media backlash against non politically correct spaces would follow the typical smear campaign of the left. Anyone using a FS platform would be ostracized and shunned - and since it is a free society, the effect would be even worse than now. To end in short points: 1- Only with a government issued right to free speech in the commons can people exercise that ability. 2- Private property is always at odds with free speech. 3- A society based solely on private property would have tremendous opposition to controversial opinions and possibly negate them completely through leftist tactics and ostracism. PC culture is dominant. 4- The resulting segregation of ideas, where one camp bans the other means that people will only hear the ideas they already agree with. Thus negating the purpose of having free speech at all since no one who disagrees can even reach the other. 5- By having a central authority that enables common grounds and a commitment to freedom of thought and association can the purpose of free speech be reached as the ostracism wouldn't work, the censorship would be a crime, and the ideological segregation attempts would defeat themselves when the people who have never been exposed to opposing views meet the other side and lose the debate - like sjw's do. What do you think? Am I off with these predictions and things would play out differently? Or do you agree, but have a different solution?

Is misinformation about the climate criminally negligent? My girlfriend is taking a critical thinking class through the philosophy department at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The general theme of the course is about pseudoscience (astrology, cryptozoology, UFOs, etc.). It appears that global warming skepticism (or "denialism", as the professor is putting it) has made the list. The above link is to a blog post written by another professor within RIT's philosophy department advocating for criminal sanctions against organized global warming skepticism. Read the blog post; it isn't long. So the professor (of a critical thinking class, remember) is proceeding under the assumption that global warming skeptics are in the same category as astrologists, and the discussion is currently focused on whether criminal sanctions are justified for those who speak out against the narrative. How would you all respond to something like this? I haven't had a detailed discussion with her about this just yet. I got the email this morning, so I apologize for shooting from the hip. I'll be back with more information about the classroom content. For now I'm just looking for reactions to the blog post, and how you would respond to it if you were in that class.

John Rosemond won't be a popular guy around here with his authoritarian and biblically based views on parenting. That's a given. What is interesting is how he is being prosecuted for giving his opinion in a newpaper. He is being charged with not having a license to practice psychology in Kentucky where his column has run for many years. Who made the complaint? A psychologist pointing out how North Carolina’s licensing standards are not as strict as Kentucky’s. John Rosemond is also on record as saying licensure is bogus and thinks it should be done away with. Thoughts? http://www.roanoke.com/living/family/2080675-12/parenting-columnist-john-rosemond-targeted-by-kentucky-board.html