curi is describing some ways in which the world is burning and you are worried that the quotes are “extremist”. You are not concerned about the truth of what he is saying. You want ideas that fit with convention.
I am not worried. However taking positions viewed as extremist by the mainstream (aka the normies) has consequences. Often you are shunned and become an outcast—and being an outcast doesn’t help with extinguishing the fire. There are also moral issues—can you stand passively and just watch? If you can, does that make you complicit? If you can’t, you are transitioning from a preacher into a revolutionary and that’s an interesting transition.
The quotes above don’t sound like they could be usefully labeled “true” or “not true”—they smell like ranting and for this genre you need to identify the smaller (and less exciting) core claims and define the terms: e.g. what is a “mental cripple” and by which criteria would we classify people as such or not?
Oh, and I would also venture a guess that neither you nor curi have children.
I don’t talk about my own family publicly, but from what I can tell roughly half my fans are parents (at least the more involved ones, all of whom like TCS to some degree. I can’t speak about lurkers.) Historically, the large majority of TCS fans were parents b/c it’s a parenting philosophy (so it interested parents who wanted to be nicer to their children, be more rational, stop fighting, etc), but this dropped as non-parents liked my non-parenting philosophy writing and transitioned to the parenting stuff (the same thing happens with non-parent fans of DD’s books then transitioning to TCS material).
The passivity thing is a bad perspective which is commonly used to justify violence. I’m not accusing you of trying to do that on purpose, but I think it lends itself to that. The right approach is to use purely voluntary methods which are not rightly described as passive.
I don’t see the special difficulty with evaluating those statements as true or false. They do involve a great deal of complexity and background knowledge, but so does e.g. quantum physics.
The right approach is to use purely voluntary methods which are not rightly described as passive.
How successful do you think these are, empirically?
I don’t see the special difficulty with evaluating those statements as true or false.
I do. Quantum physics operates with very well defined concepts. Words like “cripple” or “torture” are not well-defined and are usually meant to express the emotions of the speaker.
How successful do you think these are, empirically?
Roughly: everything good in all of history is from voluntary means. (Defensive force is acceptable but isn’t a positive source of good, it’s an attempt to mitigate the bad.) This is a standard (classical) liberal view emphasized by Objectivism. Do you have much familiarity? There are also major aggressive-force/irrationality connections, b/c basically ppl initiate force when they fail to persuade (as William Godwin pointed out) and force is anti-error-correction (making ppl act against their best judgement; and the guy with a gun isn’t listening to reason).
@torture: The words have meanings. I agree many people use them imprecisely, but there’s no avoiding words people commonly use imprecisely when dealing with subjects that most people suck at. You could try to suggest better wording to me but I don’t think you could do that unless you already knew what I meant, at which point we could just talk about what I meant. The issues are important despite the difficulty of thinking objectively about them, expressing them adequately precisely in English, etc. And I’m using strong words b/c they correspond to my intended claims (which people usually dramatically underestimate even when I use words like “torture”), not out of any desire for emotional impact. If you wanted to try to understand the issues, you could. If you want it to be readily apparent, from the outset, how precise stuff is, then you need to start with the epistemology before its parenting implications.
everything good in all of history is from voluntary means
I understand this assertion. I don’t think I believe it.
ppl initiate force when they fail to persuade
Kinda. When using force is simpler/cheaper than persuasion. And persuading people that they need to die is kinda hard :-/
The words have meanings.
Words have a variety of meanings which also tend to heavily depend on the context. If you want to convey precise meaning, you need not only to use words precisely, but also to convey to your communication partner which particular meaning you attach to these words.
Right here is an example: I interpret you using words like “cripple” and “torture” as tools of emotional impact. In my experience this is how people use them (outside of specific technical areas). If you mean something else, you need to tell me: you need to define the words you use.
It’s not a replacement for talking about issues you think are important, it’s a prerequisite to meaningful communication.
So you said “I’m using strong words b/c they correspond to my intended claims” and that tells me nothing. So you basically want to say that conventional upbringing is bad? Extra bad? Super duper extra bad? Are there any nuances, any particular kind of bad?
And persuading people that they need to die is kinda hard :-/
ppl don’t need to die, that’s wrong.
I understand this assertion. I don’t think I believe it.
that’s the part where you give an argument.
“torture” has an English meaning separate from emotional impact. you already know what it is. if you wanted to have a productive conversation you’d do things like ask for examples or give an example and ask if i mean that.
you don’t seem to be aware that you’re reading a summary essay and there’s a lot more material, details, etc. you aren’t treating it that way. and i don’t think you want references to a lot more reading.
to begin with, are you aware of many common ways force is initiated against children?
Nope, that’s true only if I want to engage in this discussion and I don’t. Been there, done that, waiting for the t-shirt.
i don’t suppose you or anyone else wrote down your reasoning. (this is the part where either you provide no references, or you provide one that i have a refutation of, and then you don’t respond to the problems with your reference. to save time, let’s just skip ahead and agree that you’re unserious, ignorant, and mistaken.)
Yes. Using that meaning, the sentence “I mean psychological “torture” literally” is false.
i disagree that it’s false. you aren’t giving an argument.
are you aware of many common ways force is initiated against children?
Of course. So?
well if you don’t want to talk about it, then i guess you can continue your life of sin.
curi is describing some ways in which the world is burning and you are worried that the quotes are “extremist”. You are not concerned about the truth of what he is saying. You want ideas that fit with convention.
I am not worried. However taking positions viewed as extremist by the mainstream (aka the normies) has consequences. Often you are shunned and become an outcast—and being an outcast doesn’t help with extinguishing the fire. There are also moral issues—can you stand passively and just watch? If you can, does that make you complicit? If you can’t, you are transitioning from a preacher into a revolutionary and that’s an interesting transition.
The quotes above don’t sound like they could be usefully labeled “true” or “not true”—they smell like ranting and for this genre you need to identify the smaller (and less exciting) core claims and define the terms: e.g. what is a “mental cripple” and by which criteria would we classify people as such or not?
Oh, and I would also venture a guess that neither you nor curi have children.
I don’t talk about my own family publicly, but from what I can tell roughly half my fans are parents (at least the more involved ones, all of whom like TCS to some degree. I can’t speak about lurkers.) Historically, the large majority of TCS fans were parents b/c it’s a parenting philosophy (so it interested parents who wanted to be nicer to their children, be more rational, stop fighting, etc), but this dropped as non-parents liked my non-parenting philosophy writing and transitioned to the parenting stuff (the same thing happens with non-parent fans of DD’s books then transitioning to TCS material).
The passivity thing is a bad perspective which is commonly used to justify violence. I’m not accusing you of trying to do that on purpose, but I think it lends itself to that. The right approach is to use purely voluntary methods which are not rightly described as passive.
I don’t see the special difficulty with evaluating those statements as true or false. They do involve a great deal of complexity and background knowledge, but so does e.g. quantum physics.
How successful do you think these are, empirically?
I do. Quantum physics operates with very well defined concepts. Words like “cripple” or “torture” are not well-defined and are usually meant to express the emotions of the speaker.
Roughly: everything good in all of history is from voluntary means. (Defensive force is acceptable but isn’t a positive source of good, it’s an attempt to mitigate the bad.) This is a standard (classical) liberal view emphasized by Objectivism. Do you have much familiarity? There are also major aggressive-force/irrationality connections, b/c basically ppl initiate force when they fail to persuade (as William Godwin pointed out) and force is anti-error-correction (making ppl act against their best judgement; and the guy with a gun isn’t listening to reason).
@torture: The words have meanings. I agree many people use them imprecisely, but there’s no avoiding words people commonly use imprecisely when dealing with subjects that most people suck at. You could try to suggest better wording to me but I don’t think you could do that unless you already knew what I meant, at which point we could just talk about what I meant. The issues are important despite the difficulty of thinking objectively about them, expressing them adequately precisely in English, etc. And I’m using strong words b/c they correspond to my intended claims (which people usually dramatically underestimate even when I use words like “torture”), not out of any desire for emotional impact. If you wanted to try to understand the issues, you could. If you want it to be readily apparent, from the outset, how precise stuff is, then you need to start with the epistemology before its parenting implications.
I understand this assertion. I don’t think I believe it.
Kinda. When using force is simpler/cheaper than persuasion. And persuading people that they need to die is kinda hard :-/
Words have a variety of meanings which also tend to heavily depend on the context. If you want to convey precise meaning, you need not only to use words precisely, but also to convey to your communication partner which particular meaning you attach to these words.
Right here is an example: I interpret you using words like “cripple” and “torture” as tools of emotional impact. In my experience this is how people use them (outside of specific technical areas). If you mean something else, you need to tell me: you need to define the words you use.
It’s not a replacement for talking about issues you think are important, it’s a prerequisite to meaningful communication.
So you said “I’m using strong words b/c they correspond to my intended claims” and that tells me nothing. So you basically want to say that conventional upbringing is bad? Extra bad? Super duper extra bad? Are there any nuances, any particular kind of bad?
You are failing to communicate.
ppl don’t need to die, that’s wrong.
that’s the part where you give an argument.
“torture” has an English meaning separate from emotional impact. you already know what it is. if you wanted to have a productive conversation you’d do things like ask for examples or give an example and ask if i mean that.
you don’t seem to be aware that you’re reading a summary essay and there’s a lot more material, details, etc. you aren’t treating it that way. and i don’t think you want references to a lot more reading.
to begin with, are you aware of many common ways force is initiated against children?
And yet everyone dies.
Nope, that’s true only if I want to engage in this discussion and I don’t. Been there, done that, waiting for the t-shirt.
Yes. Using that meaning, the sentence “I mean psychological “torture” literally” is false. Or did you mean something by these scare quotes?
LOL. Now, if you wanted to have a productive conversation you would have defined your terms. See how easy it is? :-D
Oh, I am.
Of course. So?
i don’t suppose you or anyone else wrote down your reasoning. (this is the part where either you provide no references, or you provide one that i have a refutation of, and then you don’t respond to the problems with your reference. to save time, let’s just skip ahead and agree that you’re unserious, ignorant, and mistaken.)
i disagree that it’s false. you aren’t giving an argument.
well if you don’t want to talk about it, then i guess you can continue your life of sin.
Correct! :-)
This is false under my understanding of the standard English usage of the word “torture”.
Woohoo! Life of sin! Bring on the seven deadlies!!