john42t

To QuestEon: (EDIT: deleted "and Molyneux-detractors" to stress that I'm curious about QuestEons opinion in particular) I just re-read An Essay by Stefan Molyneux, the last time I read that was some time ago. I'm wondering where Molyneux-atagonism comes from: His demeanor (about which I know next to nothing first-handed) or his opinion about the sick nature of modern family realationships. If it's the former, it might help to make it more clear what the criticism really is. If Molyneux is simply a domineering bully, it would be beneficial to separate this accusation from his message. If it's the latter, I largely agree with Molyneux (on the family issues, not on his libertarianism). I don't have a very strong opinion on Molyneux personally and even less on his community - but the contents of this article strike me as a very likely description of how parent-offspring relationships very often are. In particular, children are told that they should keep relationship with their parents for reasons other than their personal benefit: It is considered normal/moral/decent. I don't think I'm the only one who wasted quite a large amount of time and energy in relationships that I really, really, wanted to get out of since I was very little and did not nearly as early as I could have - for little reason other than allegiance to a moral imperative of questionable character. But whether it's the former or the latter (reason of antagonism) is usually obfuscated by his detractors. In the link above a video of Aaron, another YouTuber, is given as an example of an ex-follower who now speaks out against Molyneux. This is rather misleading. He's not speaking out against those ideas but only against the "culty" climate at FDR. The video is linked under a criticized article of Molyneux, as if Aaron now had a different opinion about that topic. I've seen most of Aaron's videos, and as far as I can see his criticism was largely confined to Molyneux' debating style and dominant demeanor. Ironically, Aaron is currently (I believe) employing another YouTuber, XOmniverse, who broke off contact with his parents - he made a video justifying this. XOmni was not a "follower" of Molyneux to my knowledge, befriended Aaron on YouTube and moved to California to work in his pest control company. Those two are not in opposition to the article as far as I'm aware. If the accusation against Molyneux is one of being a cult leader, I would like to hear how one can attract adolescents into a cult without something being seriously sick about the family relationships beforehand - or is the premise that even healthy adolescents are incapable of judging for themselves? If the accusation against the man is one of being an asshole, I can well believe this to be true. Most functional people are. If the accusation against the man is one of holding wrong opinions, I would like to see that separated more cleanly from the ad-hominem.

That viewpoint is marxist. It comes of no surprise to me to see you assume it.

And what philosophical discipline deals with "the knowable"? Epistemology. Metaphysics. Epistemology deals with how to go about knowing it.

This is marxism. I dunno about that. She had an orange and you threw in an apple, without explanation. Also, a part of Marxism is not Marxism. The belief that there is a finite amount of work to be done and workers who are to do that work and each worker should therefore dislike qualified competition under capitalism, that is a part of marxism. It's not all of marxism, but it's part of that ideology, and one of the most important parts. And it's wrong. People like to believe it because the unemployed then becomes the victim. Sentences like "They are qualified, but there are not enough jobs." rest on this. I didn't expect to have to spell something like this out - I would have thought that everybody's marxism alarm to go through the roof on "...job market is finite...".

I appreciate that it's out of the question to you. I believe in the opposite none the less. I even believe that human being's minds are "designed" (by natural selection) to allow lying to oneself, since total honesty, even to oneself, is harmful in the presence of hypocrites.

This is marxism.

I said that it is the less dangerous form of corruption and I said I saw it in myself (this one in particular actually). Also, I don't believe that I can ever profit from others being irrational (which I believe is what you're saying here). To put it extremely, how do I profit from the "cluelessness" of cats and dogs - they are even more clueless, aren't they?

Mallory's drooling beast, the force of irrationality, which brought all evil in the world, most notably the dark ages and whatever you call what was behind the iron curtain. It's not a distinct group of people, but it's some people more than others. It's in all of us to some extent, surely I've seen it in myself. The force corrupts language and turns reason against man. Since most (all?) men are intellectually second-handed in one way or another, this has massive consequences. Some corruptions are more important than others. The definition of morality is one of the more important ones, but even more important is probably the "do-gooder premise" we've been argueing about. An example template of a rather unimportant kind of corruption is: "Programming language X is better than Y because of Z." (uttered by someone whose skill is X and identifies with it). All of this has its origin in evasion. A learned worker who didn't want to face the fact that his skill is becoming useless, an altruist who doesn't want to face the fact that he sold out and is now worthless - it's all one and the same, the latter is only more frequent, more fundamental and thus more dangerous.

While it may be tempting to make black-and-white generalizations, this is mostly too simple. It all depends on the teachers. I have attended both private and public schools and can't say that the public school teaching lagged in any way behind. Some teachers I had in public school were actually excellent and quite inspiring. I don't mean public schools as opposed to private schools. I mean "the kind of schooling the public is fond of". As opposed to apprenticeships, for example, a kind of education that works really well (here in Germany anyway) but no one ever talks about. But then apprenticeships are voluntary, and people really don't like that.

I disagree with this. I agree it's a commonly accepted connotation. But as I said, morality is a word not to be surrendered. Suppose one does not act on the "ought to", would one be condemned as immoral? Yes. For example, if you feel that your partner is doing only what you want from him and disregards his own desires (eg out of fear of rejection), you would "condemn him as immoral", that means to tell him that he really shouldn't sacrifice to you in some constructive way. You'll do that because you know that nothing good can come from such a sacrifical relationship, meaning you do it for selfish reasons. Your neighbour, on the other hand, isn't likely to give a damn about it. Why would they?

This is the most fundamental single new thing I took from Rand: That people can, and often do, lie to themselves. What's easy to reject is new information: It could be false. For example, you don't have to believe what scientists say. They could be mistaken. You don't even have to believe what you see with your own eyes, it could be an hallucination. But it goes way deeper than that. People believe in one thing and its opposite at different times in a conversation and evade the contradiction. Orwellian doublethink is real - but it's not a trained technique, it's the irrational default. I had a discussion with a former friend of mine who would say to my asking "Do you see yourself as a Muslim or identify with them?": "No, but I just see Americans critical and other Muslism do so too." (or something like that) He would say "I'm not a Muslim" and imply "I'm a Muslim" in the very same sentence and evade the contradiction. Or often did I have this discussion about God: "Everything that exists has to be created (premise A), so there must be a creator." Of course this begs the question why the creator can be exempted from the rule. But that can be made to work if you hold premise A and premise "not A" in the same reasoning at different times. They work like this: They want to believe in C, C presupposes B, so they must believe in B also. At some point they reach A and not A, but they won't realize it unless you tell them, which is when they get angry. My friend didn't want to be a Muslim and wanted to be a Muslim. He could make this work by assuming one or the other depending on what argument he wanted to make. It's totally scary.

It didn't occur to me to define honesty that way. It might make sense, I certainly agree fully with the primary virtue being not faking reality to ourselves. Objectivism doesn't oppose the conscious liar as much as unconscious hypocrite, who is more common by a along way.

The "ought to" is the same concept. It's exactly how I define morality: What you ought to do. But "duty" is when you "ought to" do something that doesn't benefit you - that's what I would take as the definition for the word "duty". That's very much how Kant meant it I believe. So when you "ought to" be selfish, there's no duty. That's the one thing you can't have a duty to, as that would contradict the definition of duty.

[Removed, didn't read the thread before commenting...]

I didn't think of that. Why the South? Surely not Texas?

Well, I suppose life is different for each of everyone. I think Germany is a good place to live and it's likely to get even better. School wasn't exactly constricted and menacing, not in the sense of Japan. I had lots of freedom and free time. And more important, I had this vision of the future as lots of fun writing software. School was dull and meaningless, and it didn't mean to prepare me for anything in particular. It made me complacent. During my studies and large parts of my professional life, I felt strongly motivated by the presence of excellent peers, and in those times I've been my best - the lack of that in times of schooling conveys the psychological message that there is nothing to compete with and no expectations to live up to (except being nice), even when one consciously knows better. What remains are only your own standards. I had those, but I was so much not my best. I wrote some trivial video games when I was about 16 or so, yeah. Wow. In the 19th century, a bright boy that age and of good breed would be at the verge of manhood trained, not self-taught, in a profession. He could already be attractive to women (by means other than bullying, that is). A part of me and so many others has been sacrificed to the do-gooder's dream of the public good. The best part. If it was an honest mistake, it wouldn't matter so much to me. But you have to take into consideration that they were leftists. They were lecturing about the evils of male dominance, white supremacy, man's exploitation of nature and American capitalism. Some of them used to be outspoken Communist sympathizers. When they learned about the holodomor and the killing fields, they would only say "that wasn't what I supported", "I didn't know" or "I meant it well". Not one would apologize - because up until today they believe that the good intention is all that matters, and they think that absolves them from all guilt. Of course they would still criticize Israel, demand "social justice" and whine about selfishness. So when they would scold an adolescent for making a girl cry, for being too proud or for loving America, does this not have something to do with the people who died in the millions for their sickeningly childish dreams? Are not my petty childhood problems I know I should be ashamed of whining about only the shadow version of all the life lost behind the iron curtain? Of those who are still trapped in the hellhole of North Korea (the one no-one ever talks about because you can't instrumentalize it). And is not my self-blame for being too arrogant, too ambitious, too uncritical of America and of making a girl cry not a virtue, but a perversion of virtue, adopted out of weakness, inertia and cowardice? Not to admit my hatred of them would make me hate myself. It needs to be said as a long as people think of them as the good or the innocent. They are the evil. You're right. I am a Randroid. [EDIT: I'm sorry I got carried away. That was a lot more than an answer to your question.]

I didn't say you weren't. We two are not in disagreement about morality as far as I can see. We came here because you suggested I might be misunderstood because of the way I phrase things. I don't think I am. For example, I'm pretty sure that my disagreement with Angela (xray, that's your name, right? I keep forgetting it) is not just misunderstanding, but a genuine disagreement.

In Germany, the dean has little to say. But such a deed would be considered insane, so you would probably get an early retirement. With full benefits, of course. I'm wondering, would you think that any of the things I mentioned earlier about my teachers get you fired in America? I would have thought so, but I don't know.

Self-taught means different things to us two. I am speaking of curiosity. Schools (and I'm sure that goes for American schools too) usually provide a curriculum. Someone else schedules when you learn what. I don't object to that, but I don't call it self-taught. I'm a self-taught software developer, I'm (largely) not a self-taught mathematician. Especially my calculus professor was excellent and I had (largely) a curriculum. Adolescents will waste their time on bioshock as long as their life is filled with schooling and they are provided for. Society dictates this rather strongly. If they have to work for a living and can improve their attractivity to girls with excellence, they will do it. The laziness and evasions of students of today is just what is to be expected if all that is worth fighting for is taken away from you and put into a foggy, distant future - which is what schools do.

My theory is that the *average* of the UK and the US is abysmal, but the elite rather good, whereas in Germany the *average* is better than abysmal and thus compares very good internationally where only averages count, and there is no elite in Germany. My school featured a teacher who would lock the door from the inside, one who peed into the basin in front of the students (and eventually killed himselves), one alcoholic, one greenie activist nutter that accused invited stem-cell researches of murder in front of the whole of all students and another activist nutter who prepared hate leaflets against those researches in advance. I will spare you stories about their incompetence, as I consider that secondary. The important bit is that they are cranks. And it's not only the school I was at. I have teachers among my relatives - the same pattern. I know people who chose to become teachers at university (in Germany, all teachers study at the same universities as the ones who go into the economy, which is considered a different thing) - the same pattern. I believe a lot of students are self-taught. I was largely software-focused, but I wasn't the only one with sensible interests. So the stats you refer to say nothing about the schools alone: They only say what students know. They might know more without the schooling for all you can say. Go ask the best (according to grades) student in the classroom (usually a girl) where seasons come from. Or why leap seconds are needed. Or why "e", the Euler constant, is so popular as a base for exponential functions. They will know it as little as the retarded teachers who gave them the good grades for their smooth talk and fancy handwriting. Oh yes, it works for many others. Or at least it so it seemed. For the times, they are a changing... [EDIT: I would expect Germany to be much worse than America and the Commonwealth countries, where teachers can actually lose their jobs. That makes a big difference.]

I don't think there was a single question I got right because of schooling. I used to be moderately interested in physics and electronics in my adolescence and I read some wikipedia pages about chemistry long after I finished high school. Without extra-curricular interest, there would be much left at all. Schooling only taught me never to become a teacher, which is, however, an important lesson to learn.

I don't think it was there when I checked... [EDIT: And Dominique: he's joking, of course. There is no patriotism in me whatsoever. And even if there was, it would be madness to think that Germany has any claim in this regard.]

And human sacrifices to society are still rather common. Human sacrifices in general climaxed in the 20th century, indicating an ethical catastrophy. I'm with you that there is an ethical development, but I'm not with you regarding the causes. Maybe I just lucked out, but I happen to have known quite a few nice guys in my life. I have been married to one for many years actually. I'm sure my girl calls me a nice guy too. The context got lost in both these threads of discussion.

I wonder if I am. Do they offer certificates or something? dominique: Hi there! So where are you from?

It is not meaningless in societies where belief in a punishing god is still prevalent. It's meaningless in the sense that you shouldn't kill your son, not even in such societies. That was the context. The wish to avoid unnecessary suffering has been universal. It was always only the guilty/wicked/inhuman that were made to suffer, and it was always deemed "necessary". At no point in history a thought such as "pointless suffering and injustice is a good thing" as been dominant enough to find its way into the history books. There's always a God to please, a higher cause or something like that. So your demand for the non-agression premise (that's really it, isn't it? the non-agression-principle) is futile. All I have to do to attack you is to delude myself into it being defence, or God's will or necessary in the process of saving the planet. You want a lip service from me that I'm a nice guy. I don't think there are nice guys. Demand a sane guy, that's realistic. And sane.