Marco Posted January 15, 2013 Posted January 15, 2013 Hello fellow philosophers,I’m Marco and I have been interested in philosophy for a number of years and have travelled quite a journey when I discovered Freedomain Radio.I can’t remember when, maybe when I was 15, I read Sophie’s World and that was my first contact with philosophy. It was very interesting to read about all those philosophies and it opened up a completely new world to me. What I liked most from the book were the Epicureans. As I understand it, as the idea that you should live life to the fullest, it stayed with me ever since (though I am sure Epicurus’ philosophy is much more complex than that).From then on I read countless books about philosophy and incorporated ideas into my life if I thought they made sense.In 2007 I discovered (LaVeyan) Satanism, which is a very interesting philosophy and not quite what people think. It’s an (kinda) atheistic philosophy (so no believe in a devil!), which says that there is no god; but if there was one, Satan, as he is portrayed in works like “The mysterious Stranger” by Mark Twain and “Paradise Lost” by John Milton, would be a much better alternative. They say all religion is showbiz, and therefore added some show to their philosophy. You should search for truth no matter what people might label you, so (partly out of spite) they embrace the worst label there is.That’s Satanism in a nutshell. I was a Satanist for some time, but if I was still a Satanist when I started listening to the podcast, Stef definitely brought forth some arguments that put the nails into the coffin. However, I still find it very interesting, so if you want to talk to me about it, feel free. Especially LaVeyan magic is still something that I quite like discussing, especially as I still think it is a valuable concept (Definition of magic: “The change in situations or events in accordance with one's will, which would, using normally accepted methods, be unchangeable.“).After I read that LaVey was influenced by Ayn Rand I read Atlas Shrugged and was totally hooked. I read the Fountainhead, We the living, Anthem, and half her non-fiction. I wasn’t convinced by her ethics but from then on my political opinion was what I call “Objectivist politics”.As I lead my life I developed my own philosophy, so I stopped calling myself a Satanist. When I discovered Freedomain Radio, I was pleased to find out that what Stef was saying either matched my opinion or his arguments were so compelling that I accepted them. There are some things that I am still undecided about, but then I haven’t got the chance yet to read his books. I am an anarchist now, and let me tell you: Being a Satanist was far easier than being an anarchist when discussing ideas, who would have thought.I am currently at Ep 254 (I feel like I am in a time machine, haha), though I also sometimes check what Stef is doing right now.So where am I now? I am a 22-year old German. I am now doing a student exchange in Vienna and I am very, very happy here. I have taken the chance to develop my thinking here. There are no parents, no friends with weird ideas, nothing to distract – just life to test my theories []. One thing I have thought about a lot is why I am so happy. Mmh, maybe that chatty guy in my ears IS on to something when he talks about the family… Alright, I'm now gonna talk a bit about my family. After I wrote the following paragraphs I thought, wow, I am really putting myself out there. But I will let it in there because that's what I am currently thinking about the most. I will certainly check out the threads in this forum that deal with those things specifically. If you don't want to read it, skip to "So, back to ideas."It was my plan from the beginning to move out of my parents’ home after this exchange, but now I will also try to be as self-sufficient as possible and then, with all options available to me, I will talk to my parents and see what happens. There have been very emotional discussions with my parents and especially with my brother. I was listening to “Changing a Person's Mind” today and I was shouting, “Yes! So dead on!”. I realized I have made a lot of mistakes in the past about how I approached discussions. I have changed my ways and had some quite interesting, deep philosophical discussions with a fellow student here as a result (yeah, there is the empirical verification! []).My parents are against hitting, my mother even had a whole rant about it in the car once. She is a trained kindergartener. But what she apparently forgot (my father probably too), that they had both hit me once each. I actually kinda forgot it or haven’t thought about it until I started to think about my family because of Stef. My father was hit as a child quite coldly, like “You got bad grades? Go upstairs, I get the belt”. My mother is repulsed by such behavior, but “understands” how one can hit in the heat of passion/on impulse (German: “im Affekt”). She says if that happens, you should explain to the child “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have hit you and that was wrong. But you also shouldn’t have done X.” That is better than saying, “It was your fault”, I guess, but I still think it’s monstrous to have such poor control over your impulses as an adult and even getting the impulse in the first place.My brother and I have a very bad history of violent conflicts when we were children. He is 2 ½ years older than I am. I recently thought how I stupid it was of me to try to convince him that violence in politics is bad, when we had never talked about our childhoods.Now I am racking my brains about what my parents and what my brother should do or if they can do anything at all that will convince me that they have changed and that I should continue seeing them. In some ways I am very dependent on my parents, like living at their home etc. But being a saver from grade one, I have saved up a considerable amount of money that will help me should I really decide to split way with them. I think it will be very hard and I am still a bit scared. I have said to myself, that it might be possible that I will lose every friend I have now. It is very, very scary, but I am less afraid of it every day. But there are some people, like my friend who is very quiet but constantly asks me and my other friends a lot of question about what they think about some topic, that I now really learned to appreciate and I think I will not lose his friendship. I have a girlfriend who is a journalist and very curious about things and I really hope that I can communicate my ideas to her. She has seen Molyneuxs “The Five Most Important Questions” and said it was a “cool video”. She actually corrected me once about my approach to discussions and said I want to be right because it makes me feel important. I got frustrated with her then, but later found that she is so right. I love her for those insights.So in short, what I am trying to say is, that I think I am in good company apart from my family. If some of you want to help me with your suggestions, comments and advice I would be very happy to hear it. So, back to ideas. I am also very interested (and now on the fence) in Polyamory and BDSM and I wonder what you guys think about that. When I have the time I will definitely browse through the forum looking for these topics.I watch NASA vidcasts and receive the SpaceX newsletter – Astronomy and space exploration is just awesome. I study math and I think instead of using the “two plus two is four” metaphor from Orwell Stef should really start using the “every bounded sequence has a convergent subsequence” metaphor J.I am very inexperienced with forums, but I will try to dive into it when I have the time and I will also try to read all the discussions and Stef’s books that might help me with some of the questions I have. Feel free to recommend to me whatever you think will have the most relevance to my situation.So, that’s about it for now. I am looking forward to discussing ideas with you! Feel free to write me!
Logic Fan Posted January 16, 2013 Posted January 16, 2013 Being a Satanist was far easier than being an anarchist when discussing ideas, who would have thought. LOL [] That was a really nice intro Marco. Welcome to the boards. []
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