Topic: Rational Ethics (Read 2819 times)

Did you actually look at the video I posted? He says climate science is nonsense. He says it has no 'innate' value. And then he says he doesn't know much about climate science.

I am skeptical of him, as I spent years with friends tearing up his arguments and finding issues I had with them and then building back up once the issues had been resolved logically. It was not an easy transition by any means.

He also has never said that climate change is false. He has said several times that he is skeptical and doesn't know the real story and looks into both sides. In his mind, neither has yet produced decisive evidence as to the cause of climate change. As the evidence changes, his opinion may change.

Then I suggest you learn to be more skeptical of this fellow.


Then he's obviously rendering his claim about the validity of climate change false - A self contradictory argument.

This is patently false. He has stated several times that he is skeptical, but doesn't know whether it is anthropogenic or anthropomorphic. Any rational person should be skeptical of anything that anyone tells them until every hole they may have can be closed.

I also have heard him state the opposite that many things schools teach are good and other things are bad. They obviously provide some sort of legitimate service if only to cloud some nefarious purpose. Police provide public safety, besides raising revenue for small towns, arresting people for having the wrong plant and other giant list of crap they do.

He didn't accidentally make those statements. He made them loudly and repeated them. He's an idiot who allows his dislike of government to cloud his thinking. He gave zero logical argumentation regarding his stance on climate change, and ranted on like a typical climate change skeptic, without actually addressing the science. I see no reason to listen further to such a windbag.

Small quotes, out of context. He doesn't believe that everything that is learned at public school is false. This is obvious and apparent, and if he accidentally made those statements, then upon being brought up to him, he would quickly revise the statement to reflect truth.

Indeed. But he lacks it. See this post: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1419965

Ad hominem attacks, appeals to authority, these are absurd. First, I don't know when I became a puppet, but that's good information for me to have. I should get the hand out of my backside. Second, the man who makes the arguments is irrelevant. The question is do the arguments make rational sense. All of this garbage and lack of rational argumentation means nothing. An argument can be made by a poor pauper without a degree, experience, or popularity that can be true and can change the world.

Rational argument is all that is asked. Examine the argument, find a hole or fallacy, change the argument to compensate and come up with a new truth until it can be improved upon.

You're missing the point. I didn't say seek out someone who has a degree. Degrees are a dime a dozen. However, highly published individuals with a history of acclaimed work, who lay out previously published studies and facts by other well cited authors, and who include citations of other published works, and are noted for doing important groundbreaking studies themselves are about 1,000 times more credible and respected than some self published quack and youtuber who, for the most part, just puts together words which argue with other words, rather than words which argue against established studies.

What does that actually mean? Would you say that physicists "idolize" the theory of relativity just because they recognize it as being correct (or at least, consistent with all evidence that exists thus far)?

you can find real knowledge anywhere. Just because something is academically peer-reviewed doesnt make it any better than the "quacks" you are talking about. Degrees mean just about nothing and I see more and more everyday how our education system is just spewing out exactly what you would expect, cookie cutter copies of machines without an ounce of logic, creativity, or even any independent thinking.
"If you want to get laid, get an education. If you want an education go to the library."

SM might be considered a quack to some people, but at least he is thinking independently of some pretty important stuff. Yes, there are cult followers (the people who like what he says but dont really know whats going on or what is really behind the words). And there are the people similar to the dissenting opinion on this forum who dont say anything bad about his IDEAS but just quack about who he is and what he does that makes him a cult. His following is less cultish than any religion I have heard of but hey its only wrong if the ideas are wrong, but nobody seems to want to talk about ideas about rational ethics on this forum anymore.

Podcasts aren't where it's at. Are you looking for a niche celebrity voice for some niche crowd? Why? Solid academic studies are far more enlightening.

Study works published by respectable publishers written by academic peer reviewed professors. Don't go looking for quacks who seem to echo what you're looking for. You'll only be lead down a narrow tunnel.

Try Herman Daly. Try The Dominant Animal by Paul Ehrlich.

@augustocroppo

wow, well this goes above my head but im glad you responded to my question with more than "he's a cult leader". I guess he says a lot that probarbly does not makes sense to you but ti a laymen like he can make things a lot more understandable, like the difference between a opinion and a fact.

but: Do you maybe have a podcast that you think it worth-while listening to? do you have like a favorite author?

Roland.

Don't fall into the trap of confusing intelligence (emergent or otherwise) with consciousness. The former is an attribute that comes from effective processing. The latter is an attribute with no reasonable explanation - see David Chalmers. My best guess regarding the existence of consciousness is some as of yet undetermined fundamental property of the Universe. In other words, consciousness, in some primitive form is intrinsic to the Universe, just as gravity, matter, time and space is. With that fundamental building block (consciousness, or proto-consciousness, if you will), intelligence emerged more powerfully, quicker, or more effectively, than if that fundamental building block did not exist. Furthermore, it imbued intelligence with qualia, awareness (consciousness!) rather than not, as in a philosophical zombie (see David Chalmers again).

Note his logical mistake: he assumes that circles exist at the boundary of the Universe.

Roger Penrose uses Godel's Theorem and quantum mechanics (quantum gravity more specifically) to discuss consciousness. He's a great writer. Give his books a whirl. And unlike certain self published youtubers with the initials S.M., Penrose is actually an oft cited academic of no small repute. Point being (other than the fact that Penrose makes a great read), S.M. has little or no respect in the field of academia, else he wouldn't be self publishing, but rather, the great university presses would be publishing his work. We can infer then, that S.M. really has no respect in the fields of economics, environmental science, social systems, psychology, political science, climate science, ecology, biology, mathematics, philosophy, etc.

Instead, what he is, and it's obvious, is he's very much like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones, but with much less star power. None of these individuals are anything but cult leaders of a somewhat brainwashed crowd. They all spout self formulated nonsense, and are prone to repeat the same things over and over, all built on flimsy logic, if not outright lies.

Good suggestion! I enjoyed the article. I just disagree with the word "God". Readers can confuse the meaning of "God" with the bible god, Jehovah. I would replace the word "God" with the word "deity" (or "deities").

For people really interested to learn where philosophy come from and why it will never reject the concept of the state, I recommend the old and classic Aristotle:

Miller, Fred, "Aristotle's Political Theory", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/entries/aristotle-politics/

This charlatan actually thinks he's relevant (his logic is so bad): http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uEFv4_OGY_o#t=143s

I typed his name (Stefan Molyneux) into Google, and the first additional word Google suggested was 'cult'. Interesting.

I listened a little further into the video link I posted. What a moron. I feel sorry for the people who get sucked into his blathering.

I loved this comment posted by a viewer below the idiot's video:

Thank you blablahblah for the transcription. It made me laugh a lot! Just an idiot would state that 'purpose of philosophy has been in general to serve evil' and then praise itself as a popular source of philosophy in the Internet:

http://www.freedomainradio.com/free/books/FDR_2_PDF_UPB.pdf



World population: 6,973,738,433

Freedomain Radio subscribers: 52,901

Stefan Molyneux have already convinced 0.000758574% of the human society that 'statist and religious ethical theories' will be rejected by the human society. So now he just needs to convince the another 99.999241426% of the human society to reject their 'statist and religious ethical theories'.

Prophecy (cult mindset, check, try to convince the enquirer with predictions of a terrible future).

Stay satiated people, that is it! Be careful with the "dehydration" of the mind!

Stephan Molyneux is a delusional sophist. The paper offered by him does not have one single reference to any another work. Thus, his philosophy is selfish and void. A true philosopher/scientist would base his works on the discoveries of other philosophers/scientists. Look at history, Aristotle, Kant, Cappra and Dawkins, etc. All these philosophers/scientists studied other philosophers/scientists to form their theories. They did not just decide that their own thinking was the only source for a 'universal preferred behavior'. Stephan Molyneux's ideology is a subversion of the scientific thought.

E.g.




So, what happened when I questioned him? Justusranvier...

...ignored the question and proceed to "force" me to watch the video (cult mindset, check, never answer complicated questions, redirect the enquirer to the cult leader).

..., after the second question, played the victim and suggested  to me to not participate in the thread (cult mindset, check, if the enquirer insists, play the victim and ask him/her to leave)

...suggested the people questioning the video title would be exactly the kind of people the video was warning about (cult mindset, check, tell the enquirer the cult leader already predicted that people would come and ask complicated questions)

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/mental-illness-is-most-likely-a-fiction-131489


Stephan Molyneux followers have been qualifying users which disagree with them as sociopaths. In the face of that, the above quote by Rudd-O is hilarious! Stephan Molyneux is a sophist, spreading misinformation in such way that his follower now think they are qualified professionals able to diagnose users in Internet forums or to assert that mental illness does not exist.

I do not dislike them, I have had plenty of fun reading these (almost brain dead) idiots spreading the holy word of Stephan Molyneux!

I think we can only ignore the obvious for long before the strain of cognitive dissonance becomes too much. I don't think government has more than a generation or perhaps two left before people no longer believe in it.

Haven't watched this yet, but am pretty familiar with Stephan's work. He's a smart, motivated, well-spoken fellow spreading ideas with extremely powerful philosophical support, as many ethicists will tell you. I can see how he'd rub some folks the wrong way, initially. In addition to communicating in the sometimes obtuse mode of a trained philosopher, he doesn't mince words regarding the conclusions of his ethics.

The inability to distinguish this from a cult is amusing. The childish (and I hate using that term as a pejorative) reactionism to these ideas by apologists for a society structured by violence is disappointing.

Recently, it seems a sort of alliance has begun to form, spanning techies, libertarian philosophers, Austrian economists, hackers, cryptographers, anarchists, activists, etc. As one excellent Blogdial post notes, these communities appear to be iterating toward libertarianism. Naturally, some members of individual communities will shun the new company of these other groups, but hopefully most will realize how much they have to learn from each other.

Note: Blogdial is a terribly awesome blog that is at least as intense and polemical and philosophically forthright as a Stephan Molyneux or a Richard Stallman. I recommend it. Stay thirsty, my friends! Merry Xmas!

@augustocroppo & @firstascent

I listen to him now and then and i like his philosophical idea's, the free market utopia side of his idea's i like less but you can learn something from everything. even if you dont fully agree.

What exactly is your problem with the work of stephan molyneux?, which things he says do you not like'?

Did you miss post #7? There is some evidence.

That sounds exactly like Rush Limbaugh. And Alex Jones.

This is another typical behavior of cult followers. They like to accuse the critics as being 'sociopathic and/or evil', without present any meaningful evidence to substantiate the accusation.


...and then, the cult leader is praised as the best! The cult leader is always put in a moral high ground by the cult followers.

That is exactly how the cult system works. The leader creates a "temple", a place where the followers must gather often to keep up to date with the cult leader mindset. In this case, you are arrogantly inviting  the critics of the cult to visit the "temple" where the the cult leader have total control of the debate. This invitation is done as challenge, 'if any of you have an argument of any substance', disguised with a false sense of security, 'you will be treated respectfully and given a chance to explain'.


This obvious ad hominem, coming from who demanded arguments of any substance, it terrible funny!


...and then, once more, the readers are invited to gather in the "temple"!

Those kinds of attacks aren't surprising coming from people who are openly sociopathic and/or evil but it's surprising that he gets a lot of flack from the "old guard" Libertarians too.

I can't help but notice that while a lot of them have been pontificating from the safety of their think tanks Molyneux has actually been out in the trenches advancing the application of the NAP in real terms. I don't know of anyone else who can claim to have advanced libertarianism by convincing tens of thousands of parents to stop violating the non-aggression principle with regards to their children.

Maybe they're upset that Molyneux is actually getting results in the real world?

Myrkul answering in behalf of his cult leader:


Rudd-O invoking his cult leader name in a list of writers:


Runeks indicating his cult leader links with anarcho-capitalism:


Madhatter asking for donations to his cult leader:


Snipes777 (Rudd-O's sockpuppet) praising his initiation in the cult:


Myrkul recommending the holly words of his cult leader:


...and so far, Stefan Molyneux is cited up to 2010 in this forum by different users.

Yeah or check out his free books, theyre worth the read!

I really enjoy Stefan Molleneux's podcasts. He does a live show every Sunday and invites and encourages criticism of his ideas. If any of you have an argument of any substance that is critical of his opinions, please call into his show and debate him. You will be treated respectfully and given a chance to explain your position.

If you post on here comments like Stefan is a "cult leader" then I will have to assume that you lack the intellectual ability to engage in anything more meaningful than childish name calling.

Details on joining his Sunday show can be found at his website.

+1

They sure do love to shovel their shit back and forth, don't they? It just never ends.

More propaganda from the anarcho-capitalist cult of Stefan Molyneux...

An Introduction to Rational Ethics

Universally Preferable Behavior