@XOmniverse That's strange that it works for you. All I hear is white noise (very loud) and the video appears to about double speed. All other videos on YT have been working for me.
Objectivism – isn't that the idea that contingent beings have necessary access to reality? That the imperfect accesses perfection? That the less produces the more? What a nice idea.
@CeltoSaxonKnight, I bet objectivists are pretty bored by dumb fucks like you unable to make reasonable arguments, but very pruductive when it comes to complete nonsens.
@ThatGuyWhoDidStuff I don't know if I've done any more comparing Objectivism to anarchism, but the links in the description (particularly the first two) discuss that very subject in great detail.
@ThatGuyWhoDidStuff Something happened to a bunch of my older videos and they got corrupted. I have no idea why. The originals are long gone from my hard drive, so they are lost forever as far as I know.
@XOmniverse The best I can say about this is the update for any OS of vista and xp updates. Vista sucks do to the memory (ram) stored instead of the hardrive. Anyways, keep up the good vids man.
@XOmniverse I appreciate your videos. I also appreciate your progression of though coupled with the visual change in your appearance over time. I thank you for posting videos concerning philosophical thought as a counterpoint to cats playing pianos. "Coward" is a verbally hostile term that would immediately put someone on the defensive, and for that I apologize. A more accurate way to rephrase would be "I promote the open exchange of ideas, and demote the one sided push of thought."
@basedrop I don't stop anyone else from posting Youtube videos. I'm not inhibiting the open exchange of thoughts so much as deciding when I want people to interact with me directly. I don't see it as any different than not inviting certain people into my home.
When I tried to watch this video, I got nothing but static feed in the audio... Is there something wrong with the video or youtube or my computer? Most other videos seem to have perfectly fine audio... Weird. It seems like the audio should be working correctly based on all the comments you're getting here. But not for me :(
If I follow objective thought to the end, then, of course, I shall certainly have the truth, but the truth for whom? Certainly to be objective as possible is to be non-subjective as possible. Think along the lines of Grammar. What does the object relate to in a sentence? I am not attacking Rand, but perhaps Objectivists might want to ask why David Hume(that rationalist of all rationalists) opined that "Reason is the hand-maiden of passion." Passion is, after all, a subjective issue
objectivism was not meant to be a cult but i think that the fact that it behaves as such was inevitable.
one doesn't have to accept the entire body of work of john lock to be an empiricist or that of sartre to be an existentialist but rand called her philosophy objectivism and explicitly stated that any diversion on any point of her philosophy would count you out. so it's a essentially a cult of personality rather than a philosophy making it easy to create emotional ties to it.
the thing is, it implicitly denies any progression or evolution because it would require to deny one aspect or another of it's starting point and since no philosophy hitherto known is infalible, to be an objectivist you are required not to question objectivism in any way.
As do I, but that's the requirement put forth by the maker of the term.
Well, according to what I know, a blind follower, by definition, is not Objectivist, as they rely on faith, rather than reason. I'm actually fairly new to the whole subject, so my knowledge is probably incomplete.
Kill your father and rape your mother. Kill! Kill! Kill! Let the genius of your seed spread far and wide to all those who are deserving of it. To those who are ingrateful of my genius sperm let them suffer the pestilence of my urine and faeces. bwahahaha! Sons should eat their mothers and rape their sisters. It is evolution at it's finest!
A glowing hot nail would find a perfect home residing in the cooking flesh, bone, and cerebral tissue of the she-boy on this screen. In every cosmic sense the nail, the pain, the joy, and the natural progression would be reminiscent of golden aged ethics taking into account all variables.
The non-aggression principle is something that exists within a society with a state. It's really the fallacy of the stolen concept to advoate anarchism based on it. Anarchism really says nothing, and is really nihilistic, because a true anarchist state has no mechanism of preventing centralized government.
We need a centralized government for objectivity, not gangs.
Governments often times, are gangs. For instance Military = a gang, and is the strongest part of most governments.
um Anarchism is not nihalistic,though closer to that then capitalist or communist, its still Anarchism.
Anarchism as a sociaty is somthing that will take decades of teaching to accure, because its strongest need for survival is mutual respect and this cannot happen on such a large scale in a short time ( unfortunatly :( )
Nice video. I agree that you cannot initiate force on others. The only moral force would be the protection again a force, and I believe it must be non-violent (physical harm - understanding all force is a "violent" act), and only to create an in-action (peace).
I don't think this constitutes a contradiction in objectivism b/c it doesn't follow that a government would have to initiate force to prevent competition in the protection racket.
Nothing ethically prevents people from defending themselves or hiring body gaurds or a security agency to do it for them. As long as such security agencies don't break the law the government would have no need to confront them.
Suppose govA recognizes the right to health-care and govB doesn't. CitizenA gets sick and goes to a Hospital under the jurisdiction of govB where he's refused treatment and dies. Under the laws of govB no rights were violated and under the laws of govA they were.
Contradictory laws are unenforcable. There can only be one set of laws for a given group of ppl to live by. There may be competition among law enforcers, if that's how the gvmnt chooses to function, but not law enforcement.
I'd say that in such a situation it must be that there are two governments enforcing their own seperate sets of laws, which happen to be the same, or they're two agencies of the same government.
Before there can be enforcement of the law there has to be the LAW, and the definition of laws is the legitimate purpose of gvmnt.
Neglect FTSOA that competing gvmnts is contrary to the definition of gvmnt. Esp since we're talking about anarchy, lol! The real answer to your question is: neither.
The use of force by government is a defensive action, protectiong the rights of those whose rights were violated, under the NAP retalitatory, defensive force is completly moral.
the criminals are the ones who violated the rights of others by initiating force. the government is the one who uses force to protect rights. not that governments are always moral...
very interesting. i sometimes think about anarchism (though, from the more collectivist perspective) and how it is philosophcally and morally consistant, although i also think it might be esoteric.
how can you say that the non-aggression principle is natural. let's be practical for a moment. animals fight constantly, over food, territory, mates. why should this not also be true in humanities case. states were originally an invention used to supplement these conflicts. but why could they not instead be used to further nonviolent means of resolution. i'm basically asking why you have rejected statism instead of non-aggression. please respond, i would like to hear your thoughts on this.
Are the majority of your interactions with other people violent, or nonviolent? Are your most satisfying interactions with other people violent, or nonviolent?
why should we not act like animals, maybe because we have the mental capacity for abstract thought and a sense of self awareness. thats all i can think of off the top of my head.
Coercion from the state is cause and effect. Coercion is the practice of compelling a person to behave in an involuntary way. It's not involuntary if you violate someone else's civil liberties. That's like turning off someone's electricity because they didn't pay their electric bill. You (the electric company) didn't coerce the customer because they voluntarily elected to not pay the bill. Cause and effect...
If a "state" or government is created in the framework of mutualism, and as long as it is a voluntary agreement among the involved parties, vis-a-vis a direct or indirect democracy, then a government does not necessarily need coercion to exist.
When government transcends beyond its purpose of a defacto contract between its elected representatives and the electorate, then, yes, I believe it would into the condition of government being immoral due to the necessary use of coercion as you aruged.
Using democracy to achieve your goals is still coercion.
Here's a fairly simple example. We have a referendum over socialized health care. If 60% vote yes and 40% vote no, then forty percent of the voting population is coerced into giving up their tax money to support such a system when they clearly have no desire to do so.
When it boils down to it, not every man will desire what you desire, so you have no right to decide things for him.
Decision making has to be made in one manner or another if humans are going to have communities. If the minority imposes their will upon the majority as well, it is still coercion, under your description of the hypothetical. And, ultimately, organized society cannot exist without SOME form of organization and decision making, lest we are frozen from an inability to make such decisions.
(TBH, I cannot correctly recall the entirety of your video as well.)
And objectivists would say anarchists are initiating force by establishing a private dispute resolution organization. Seems like word games because that DRO IS "governing" (by consent) the people who belong to it and agreeing to negotiate with those who do not in order to reach the same ends that an objectivist gov't would. They claim it's not "objective law" for anybody to start a DRO, but how the hell do gov'ts start except some small group goes ahead and then announces it to everyone?!?
"And objectivists would say anarchists are initiating force by establishing a private dispute resolution organization."
People can say a lot of things. But I can prove that, by its very NATURE, a state initiates force. The same can't be said of a private defense agency. (Why does everyone always assume I am a proponent of Molyneux's DRO system?)
Why wouldn't an unregulated private defense agency initiate force in favour of, for example, well paying capitalists who wants to enslave all of his workers? Since in anarcho-capitalism, there are no collective democratic institutions (i.e. states) to enforce any laws, who would stop them?
The best justification for an argument against objectivism is that it is absent of any form of scientific method whatsoever in the deduction of its premises.
Why do you say one is forced to reject EITHER the non-aggression principle or statism. Why can one not reject both?
Other than the intrinsic belief of most people ("belief" being the key word here) that initiating force is morally wrong, what is the reasoned argument for accepting the non-aggression principle?
Is there not a deeper contradiction in objectivism? That is, the initiation of aggression is a necesarry by-product of self-interest.
Other books you might be interested in are "Democracy for the Few" by Parenti, "You Call This A Democracy?" by Paul Kivel, Corporate Media And The Threat To Democracy" by Robert McChesney, "Understanding Power" by Chomsky. Kivel's book is excellent but not well known. If you decide to read it could you do a review of it? I don't have the means to post videos. Thanks.
You still failed to define who, exactly, are the people?
4)The fact that it fails means that it is detrimental to society and should be removed.
5)There is no competition. Voting is the equivalent of casting a ballot to elect who the new CEO is. There is no choice as to who, if anyone, you pay to provide you security.
The idea that we are all created equal and that we all have rights are very lofty assumptions that most of philosophy and political theory hold in their foundations.
I've pondered the history with nations and it seems they always work for a while and then fall apart. I think the best system is the one who works at the time. We might one day be ready for anarchism... when the state collapse, we ought to try and find out... cant go worse than just have a state again if it fails... and the state will fall eventually too. :)
Here's my solution to that arguement: Voluntary taxation. If everyone is rational and cares about protecting their rights, they will probably invest in a gov't that will protect those rights. It a hell of a lot easier to voluntarily pay 5% or 10% of your income to pay for a small gov't rather then 50% or 90% to a large one. I would be investing.
Another question I have is about liberty. Liberals say that in Laissez fair capitalist economy people will have negative liberty but lack positive liberty. What is the anarcho capitalists/objectvist/libertarian response to this issue?
1. There will be "public" property the same way that malls, and museums, and land owned by the Nature Conservancy, are open to the public.
2. David Friedman's book _The Machinery of Freedom_ has some excellent explanations of why monopolies are unlikely, and probably impossible, unless government gives special legal privileges to the monopolist against competitors.
How would negative externalities be dealt with? (ex. noise, water, and land pollution)? In market anarchist society I take it there would be no public property? Would all natural resources be owned privately? What would be done to prevent someone from creating a monoply?
The short-and-simple answer to your first question is that pollution and other negative externalities would be dealt with in basically the same way that other crimes (i.e. aggression, harm, violation of rights) would be handled. (The details might be a little different, so there would probably be something like a carbon tax or marketable emissions permits, rather than fines or other punishments.)
The answer to your last question concerning monopoly is, to be concise, competition. Nearly all monopolies of the past have existed with the help of the state. The state enforces other monopolies through its own monopoly on force. Competition is a primary force behind the break up of monopolies, which is what free market Anarchists hope to unleash with their ideas.
No problem, if you like you can always send me a message or something and I'll give you a few links to read. Explains these concepts in far clearer detail, better than is able on youtube.
In a market anarchist society wouldn't a corporation be a like a state? Corporations and businesses can be just a bureaucrat as government in my opinion.
Also, could a market anarchist society turn into feudalistic system?
Opinions vary amongst free-market Anarchists on whether corporations would exist at all. Personally I don't think they would be able to exist, at least in their present form, without the state. Being incorporated requires state permission and entry into a state-sponsored 'corporate club'.
By what means would a competitor encroach on the government's monopoly on retaliatory use of force? Wouldn't this competitor have to initiate the use of force to do so?
I don't see why it would, unless you consider self-defense against government agents the initiation of force, which would be a bizarre reversal of the idea.
The mistake you make while disputing objectivist ethics, is your assumption that in order for government to exist, it must initiate force. All government force should be in retaliation to a criminal who trampled on another's rights.
If it is immoral to use force, would it not then be immoral to use force, to stop force?
In a free-market society where ~95%+ of the wealth are in private hands, would it not be dangerous to let some private people stand for the security of all the people, maybe even companies which would benefit more from war than peace, military industry complex.
Is the government not just the institution with the most weapons?
How will anarchism prevent wannabee dictators from rising?
Any form of community(doesn't have to be a formal state) is an initiation of force--as in the formation and continuance of said community includes/excludes as to what forms and sustains that community(whether the coercion is a culture of violence or a set of ideas.)
You can't coerce someone with ideas. It's sloppy definitions of coercion like this that people use to justify REAL coercion (after all, if anything is coercion, all's fair, right?)
"Real coercion" is a sloppy way to say 'coercion using violence', and it's disappointing that your definition for coercion excludes the other ways states control their people. --'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses' by Althusser, anything by noam chomsky after 1980, Lacan, Freud, Derrida, Michel Foucault are good places to start if you want to get passed the narrow libertarian chit-chat on personal liberty and the state.
To clarify, examples of communities that resemble states: the Israeli Kibutzim(anarcho), Jim Jone's theological community in Suriname(collectivist), various primitivist/militia towns in Montana(libertarian) show how ideas and violence can be used simultaneously for autonomous self-governance--and the thing is, western liberal capitalist democracies would rather use hegemonic institutions(force by idea)
The objectivist view on government is based on the metaphysical axioms of the philosophy. As such, in trying to debunk the view, one must use the view in their argument, and as such, validate that view. In this argument, objectivism assumes that the ONLY way a society can exist is by having government protect those rights. In trying to debunk that view, you assume that a society could exists where that is not the case, thus, debunking your own argument.
X, Watching your vid, I do not see an answer to the question I asked in the other thread: "What service is it that you are looking to provide [in competition with government]?
"Currently, private arbitration and mediation are services that are encouraged by statute and courts enforce those private agreements."
Also, so I can understand you argument better, what is your educational background related to political science and history?
Let me verify that I understand. Within market anarchy, you would be OK with the following situation:
A Muslim neighbor construes my atheism and statements against Islam/God/Muhammad as an initiation of force (based upon a fraud claim) so without my consent he hires al-Qaeda to arrest me, apply Sharia law to the dispute, and finally to cut off my head.
If not, how is my neighbor's action (drawn from real world examples) inconsistent with market anarchy?
It is inconsistent because market anarchists oppose ACTUAL initiation of force, not whatever someone decides to call the initiation of force, regardless of whether it is or not.
In this hypothetical, who decides what is an ACTUAL initiation of force? I understand what that means, but my Muslim neighbor disagrees and he hires an organization offering the service of protecting the "rights" of Muslims.
This hypothetical relates to actual facts in places like Lebanon, Somolia, Iraq, and Gaza/West Bank. In a market anarchy situation, what stops al Qaeda from providing "retailatory" force services, that is what their founders say they are doing now?
I notice you have yet to either say "Yes, it is ok for a state to initiate force in order to remain a state," or "Preventing competition is not initiating force because..."
With a state, what stops the state from initiating force?
And don't say "a constitution" unless you intend to explain how to prevent it from being ignored like our current one.
I ask a question to clarify your statement to me and you evade it; not a good sign for your proposition.
A proper state does not initiate force when it enforces its authority, under objective law, over a vigilante force.
Constraints against the initiation of force by government are constitutional. The effectiveness and stability of a constitution will become corrupted by changing it to be more "democratic," see Yugoslavia and Venezuela.
Such "democratic" changes in the U.S. have effectively eliminated constitutional constraints on the legislature to the detriment of individual rights.
A system of voluntary taxation would eliminate one method by which our legislature became so overbearing. Eliminating public education would control for the main source of ignorance in the electorate. I would favor a none-of-the-above option on the ballot, with an appointment provision, to reduce "democratic" pandering by candidates. I could go on and on but these are limited comments.
I wasn't evading your point per se (I do have an answer to it) so much as trying to establish some things first.
Tell me, given a state that (mostly) takes donations in exchange for retaliatory force (taking a payment for a service, effectively) and a private institution that tries to do the exact same thing, what makes the private institution "vigilante" and the state not? Where does the state derive its alleged right to provide retaliatory force that other organizations cannot?
Well, if you are not evading, then answer the question.
The difference between a proper government and vigilante force is that the former is operating under an objective code of rules for the purpose of protecting individual rights, but the later is not. That objective code of rules being necessary to bar physical force from social relationships. [see "The Nature of Government," VOS]
Now that ties in nicely to my question, so I look forward to your answer.
What guarantee is there that a state will rely on an objectively correct code of rules? While multiple agencies in a market can actually serve as a check against one another, a state concentrates all of that power into one entity.
So I can throw your same argument right back at you and ask what's to stop a bunch of religious nuts (such as Christians in the U.S.) from gaining control of the state and using that to violate rights?
Firstly, in context, I have been speaking about a proper government according to O's politics, so I think that your question is invalid. Possible valid questions in this context could be: 1) How does an existing government evolve into a proper government according to O's politics? or, 2) How does such a government maintain itself so that it does not degenerate?
So what are you asking? Did you change the context, intend one of the other two questions I stated or something else?
"...multiple agencies in a market can actually serve as a check against one another..." That is called a civil war, isn't it?
Re: a proper government stopping religious nuts from taking over, constitution with a separation of powers, guarantee a separation of church and state, and have police and war powers.
Actually, that should have been obvious as history demonstrates that religious nuts take over when either an highly centralized authority is weak or when effective executive power is overly decentralized and in competition. If you can provide a counter example from reality, please do.
Note, you are advocating a system where effective executive power is overly decentralized and in competition so history is working against your proposition.
"In this hypothetical, who decides what is an ACTUAL initiation of force? I understand what that means, but my Muslim neighbor disagrees and he hires an organization offering the service of protecting the 'rights' of Muslims.
This hypothetical relates to actual facts in places like Lebanon, Somolia, Iraq, and Gaza/West Bank. In a market anarchy situation, what stops al Qaeda from providing 'retailatory' force services, that is what their founders say they are doing now?"
Places with failing states and places with no state but constant international pressure from outside states are not valid examples of a market anarchy.
The market would decide. War is expensive and unproductive, and only a state has the means to mass extort in order to fund it. People have a basic implicit understanding of natural rights, and I believe that this will bear itself out naturally without a state to enforce it.
X, You says that you are still OK with O epistemology, so why is your argument so concrete bound and attempting to exclude conceptual comparisons? This behavior leads credence to the evaluation that MA is a floating abstraction unconnected to reality.
Ironically, your argument sounds like Stalinism and its explanation for why the state did not wither away as Marx predicted.
But I appreciate your concession, that MA can not resist external states, which takes the MA idea outside the realm of reality.
If the market decides what is an ACTUAL initiation of force, doesn't that mean that there will be multiple competing and incompatible ideas?
Why do you assume only rational actors, when that does not exist in reality? What does expense and unproductive mean to Attila or al Qaeda? No one will rediscover Hobbes as a solution to disorder?
If I explain why a square is not a circle and should not be considered as such, I am "concrete bound" and "excluding conceptual comparisons"? That's silly. A true market anarchy has not existed on any large scale yet.
If you want a floating abstraction, let's discuss how a state has to initiate force to remain a state, thus failing at its intended goal of preventing the initiation of force.
Also, are you ever going to answer the questions that I ask?
Or is that the tactic, you bore thinking people out of arguments with your rationalistic assertions unsupported by facts and constant evasions of inquiry? I can't even get to the more devastating line of questions because you can't or won't answer the easier ones.
My tactic is to cease conversations with people who make wild assertions, especially regarding my motives, and who clearly have a malevolent, arrogant attitude when discussing ideas that they don't immediately agree with.
In addition to failing repeatedly to answer direct question, you also have also made unrelated generalized statements then later deny that you are applying those statements to the one to whom you are responding. So own up and take responsibility for your words by tying them back to reality.
Who fits your description of "[making] wild assertions, especially regarding my motives, and who clearly have a malevolent, arrogant attitude when discussing ideas that they don't immediately agree with"?
Me? If so say it directly, and take responsibility. If in the future, you lie about how you own Objectivists when it coming to discussing MA, I want to be able to reference unambiguously your retreat from this discussion.
Further, implicitly, because you refuse--after repeated requests--to deny it, that Sharia law (like the stoning to death of a female adulterer) is compatible with MA.
Regarding your square and circle analogy, by dropping context, yes you would be concrete bound and excluding conceptual comparisons. For example, what if we were discussing a fenced enclosure? In both cases, you are attempting to discuss abstracts and resisting any effort to connect them to reality.
Have you be reading too much Rousseau? Why do you believe in a general will that appreciates natural rights but are inhibited by the state? Any history or survey research to back that up, because what I have seen demonstrates the opposite?
Regarding your proposition that "...only a state has the means to mass extort in order to fund [war]." Hatfields and McCoys, where is the state actor?
The foundation of knowledge is not an assumption but an undeniable perception. The fact of first sensation is the fact that there is something, as opposed to nothing (existence). Transfer of information is not transfer of an ability to think. You can share information, but you can not force it on another. IE You can lead a horse to water. Your alternative is pure second-hand psychology. Why do you think it is right for someone to tell you what the world is, but wrong to discover it for yourself?
If his grasp is noncontradictory, then even if the scope of his knowledge is modest and the content of his concepts is primitive, IT WILL NOT CONTRADICT THE CONTENT OF THE SAME CONCEPTS IN THE MIND OF THE MOST ADVANCED SCIENTISTS. The same is true of definitions. ALL DEFINITIONS ARE CONTEXTUAL, and a primitive definition DOES NOT CONTRADICT a more advanced one: the latter merely expands the former."
Dude, I don't mean to sound like a dick or anything, but if you want to explain your position on subjectivism in this much detail, do a video instead of flooding the comments.
I got to "Oh boo hoo, you're not allowing multiple groups to enforce their own version of justice. After all, there are no objective standards", saw the strawman, and decided not to comment.
If you do not believe market anarchy is a cry for multiple standards of justice and that I have misrepresented the position, by all means represent it as it is. Tell me that the position is NOT that in asking for multiple agencys of force protection you are asking for multiple standards of justice. If you are suggesting they are all operating in harmony, what difference does this have with a single government?
I want to reply by first saying Xomniverse has a point; I was going to say something earlier but ironically didn't want to waste the space...this is getting very long (something I personally don't mind) but it's off topic for this video. I would ask you to email me, but I think it is important that this be publicly documented somehow for educational purposes, so I would like to invite you to continue this debate in my most recent video response on this very topic...Please respond there.
Note: These next 5 or 6 comments will be my last on this video comment page. You can reply to these comments on my video titled: "Re: The Standard of Value: Response to wolfwolfwolf1979" where the topic is more appropriate.
You are replying to the points I am making but I have no way of knowing which of my points, at any particular time in your response, you are addressing anymore. I feel we could find which of our concepts have more or less validity by addressing them each one by one to their roots rather than scattering thought from one topic to the next.
The foundation of all knowledge is based on assumptions...from a standard of absolute purity. I am not lying, I just don't subscribe to absolutely pure and consequently impossible standard of validity, I refuse to hold either your arguments or my own to those standards, not because this is a choice I can make but because it is a prerequisite of my condition of being.
There are some things I need to know to get to the bottom of your positions: I want to know if you deny the concept of transference of "information" through the use of language and I would like a straight answer as to whether you think something can have a value without a subject to value it.
I don't think I have a grasp on your theory of language and knowledge because it seems your concepts can be interpreted a number of different ways. I can't respond until you clarify your position. You seem to go in and out from language to knowledge. As far as I can fathom you don't seem to accept the concept of knowledge transference from one subject to another.
I can argue these metaphysical issues but I still feel like old contradictions in your argument are not yet resolved and that you only managed to escape them by holding my arguments to absolute total a priori standards such as my recognition of the (practical and obviously operational) concept of "communication".
I am making an argument for your recognition of practical objectivity verified by social interaction, not singular individualist dogma. Where are your responses to the specific comments and examples I made in my previous comments?
The only issue open to an individual's choice in this matter is how much knowledge he will seek to acquire and, consequentially, what conceptual complexity he will be able to reach. But so long as and to the extent that his mind deals with concepts (as distinguished from memorized sounds and floating abstractions), the content of his concepts is determined and dictated by the cognitive content of his mind, i.e., by his grasp of the facts of reality.
abstractions integrating long conceptual chains--all conceptualization is a contextual process; the context is the entire field of a mind's awareness or knowledge at any level of its cognitive development. This does not mean that conceptualization is a subjective process or that the content of concepts depends on an individual's subjective (i.e., arbitrary) choice.
Why is there bad audio on this?
marce11o 1 week ago
@marce11o It sounds fine to me. It seems like there is an issue with the audio being out of sync with the video. Is that what you mean?
XOmniverse 1 week ago
@marce11o It sounds fine to me. It seems like there is an issue with the audio being out of sync with the video. Is that what you mean?
XOmniverse 1 week ago
@marce11o It sounds fine to me. It seems like there is an issue with the audio being out of sync with the video. Is that what you mean?
XOmniverse 1 week ago
@XOmniverse That's strange that it works for you. All I hear is white noise (very loud) and the video appears to about double speed. All other videos on YT have been working for me.
marce11o 1 week ago
@marce11o That's a problem I've noticed on some of my older videos. I have no idea why it happens. Some kind of Youtube bug I guess.
XOmniverse 1 week ago
@CeltoSaxonKnight ....um...not, it's not...
Bhajancobansignh 2 months ago
Objectivism – isn't that the idea that contingent beings have necessary access to reality? That the imperfect accesses perfection? That the less produces the more? What a nice idea.
CeltoSaxonKnight 4 months ago
@CeltoSaxonKnight, I bet objectivists are pretty bored by dumb fucks like you unable to make reasonable arguments, but very pruductive when it comes to complete nonsens.
Idol2011no 1 month ago
@ThatGuyWhoDidStuff I don't know if I've done any more comparing Objectivism to anarchism, but the links in the description (particularly the first two) discuss that very subject in great detail.
XOmniverse 8 months ago
@ThatGuyWhoDidStuff Something happened to a bunch of my older videos and they got corrupted. I have no idea why. The originals are long gone from my hard drive, so they are lost forever as far as I know.
XOmniverse 8 months ago
@XOmniverse The best I can say about this is the update for any OS of vista and xp updates. Vista sucks do to the memory (ram) stored instead of the hardrive. Anyways, keep up the good vids man.
TimeFlux88 7 months ago
You are an intellectual coward. You've disabled commenting on some of your videos.
basedrop 1 year ago
@basedrop Care to explain how disabling comments on some videos makes me a coward?
XOmniverse 1 year ago
@XOmniverse I appreciate your videos. I also appreciate your progression of though coupled with the visual change in your appearance over time. I thank you for posting videos concerning philosophical thought as a counterpoint to cats playing pianos. "Coward" is a verbally hostile term that would immediately put someone on the defensive, and for that I apologize. A more accurate way to rephrase would be "I promote the open exchange of ideas, and demote the one sided push of thought."
basedrop 1 year ago
@basedrop I don't stop anyone else from posting Youtube videos. I'm not inhibiting the open exchange of thoughts so much as deciding when I want people to interact with me directly. I don't see it as any different than not inviting certain people into my home.
XOmniverse 1 year ago
@XOmniverse you fear the truth, thats why you're a coward.
VITOKICKSASS 8 months ago
@VITOKICKSASS No fear of the truth here. I just don't suffer fools very well.
XOmniverse 8 months ago
@basedrop im getting nothing but noise from the vid
megabassist427 11 months ago
oh the irony..... noise
blaziermissy 1 year ago
Ditto on the audio - nothing but white noise now, and I was hoping to hear your thoughts on this if the is title accurate.
TheOneLaw 2 years ago
When I tried to watch this video, I got nothing but static feed in the audio... Is there something wrong with the video or youtube or my computer? Most other videos seem to have perfectly fine audio... Weird. It seems like the audio should be working correctly based on all the comments you're getting here. But not for me :(
seanotube85 2 years ago
It's Youtube. Evidently this video got corrupted later on or something.
XOmniverse 2 years ago
upload it again plz! corrupted audio
gugaLiuzzi 2 years ago
If I follow objective thought to the end, then, of course, I shall certainly have the truth, but the truth for whom? Certainly to be objective as possible is to be non-subjective as possible. Think along the lines of Grammar. What does the object relate to in a sentence? I am not attacking Rand, but perhaps Objectivists might want to ask why David Hume(that rationalist of all rationalists) opined that "Reason is the hand-maiden of passion." Passion is, after all, a subjective issue
Kierkegaard73 2 years ago
objectivism was not meant to be a cult but i think that the fact that it behaves as such was inevitable.
one doesn't have to accept the entire body of work of john lock to be an empiricist or that of sartre to be an existentialist but rand called her philosophy objectivism and explicitly stated that any diversion on any point of her philosophy would count you out. so it's a essentially a cult of personality rather than a philosophy making it easy to create emotional ties to it.
fede2 2 years ago
Soooooo because the term is inflexible, it is a cult?
Kikarok 2 years ago
not necessarily but it does behave as such.
the thing is, it implicitly denies any progression or evolution because it would require to deny one aspect or another of it's starting point and since no philosophy hitherto known is infalible, to be an objectivist you are required not to question objectivism in any way.
fede2 2 years ago
I take it more as, "to be an Objectivist, you must have come to the conclusion that you logically agree with all aspects of it."
If, for whatever reason, you decide you do not completely agree with it, then you're not an Objectivist, you're something else.
And to be honest, I doubt Objectivists would call any blind follower one of them.
Kikarok 2 years ago
it's possible. i just find the idea of agreeing with one philosopher on absolutely everything a bit strange.
"I doubt Objectivists would call any blind follower one of them."
i dunno. those ARI fuckers are out of their minds.
fede2 2 years ago
As do I, but that's the requirement put forth by the maker of the term.
Well, according to what I know, a blind follower, by definition, is not Objectivist, as they rely on faith, rather than reason. I'm actually fairly new to the whole subject, so my knowledge is probably incomplete.
Kikarok 2 years ago
Comment removed
designtoexpire 1 year ago
"To live by means of you OWN mind, your OWN ability, your OWN vision and check them against the standard of reason and logic."
unless the result of that conflated with the conclusions rand reached. that's what happened to nathaniel branden and he was ostricized.
fede2 1 year ago
Comment removed
designtoexpire 1 year ago
Its Jesus! Why Jesus? Why did you blow out my eardrums with your video? Why?
DesdinovaImaginos 2 years ago
I agree with everyrthing you say. Don't know what this other guys are talking about, Static? hahaha. That's no way of disagree with someone...
ruimigdias 2 years ago
Kill your father and rape your mother. Kill! Kill! Kill! Let the genius of your seed spread far and wide to all those who are deserving of it. To those who are ingrateful of my genius sperm let them suffer the pestilence of my urine and faeces. bwahahaha! Sons should eat their mothers and rape their sisters. It is evolution at it's finest!
joesub007 2 years ago
Static. Shame, this looked promising.
ACDavis629 3 years ago
Sorry about that. It was fine when I originally uploaded it but somehow it got screwed up on Youtube's server.
The links in the description box should be of interest.
XOmniverse 3 years ago
No worries. It happens. Thanks!
ACDavis629 3 years ago
Seriously though, I'd really like to hear what you have to say. Please fix the video!
OuroborosChoked 3 years ago
A glowing hot nail would find a perfect home residing in the cooking flesh, bone, and cerebral tissue of the she-boy on this screen. In every cosmic sense the nail, the pain, the joy, and the natural progression would be reminiscent of golden aged ethics taking into account all variables.
thetinfoilhatter 3 years ago
What the Hell is wrong with you?
Thats just creepy...
armyrules1989 3 years ago 2
The sound was meant to be a soothing deterant from the annoying profile of the winney sappy artisen hippy suido scientific hermaphrodite.
thetinfoilhatter 3 years ago
is the anoying sound fast vid pard of what u meant to do? is all I'm getting , no sound no expresion.
psytrancegirl 3 years ago
The non-aggression principle is something that exists within a society with a state. It's really the fallacy of the stolen concept to advoate anarchism based on it. Anarchism really says nothing, and is really nihilistic, because a true anarchist state has no mechanism of preventing centralized government.
We need a centralized government for objectivity, not gangs.
thinkingisawesome 3 years ago
Governments often times, are gangs. For instance Military = a gang, and is the strongest part of most governments.
um Anarchism is not nihalistic,though closer to that then capitalist or communist, its still Anarchism.
Anarchism as a sociaty is somthing that will take decades of teaching to accure, because its strongest need for survival is mutual respect and this cannot happen on such a large scale in a short time ( unfortunatly :( )
AnarchistCommunity 3 years ago
remove this shit.. static!!!
dontdewcriz 3 years ago
Ya, me too. What the fuck is this static?
graecoromanus 3 years ago 2
Alot of older Youtube videos are all static now
Rahab111222 3 years ago
why are my speakers taking a shat in my ears?!
elsargente 3 years ago
wasup???? I just tried 2 see this n' there's just a weird "static" sound??
Belibette 3 years ago 2
Clear, concise, and well done all around.
Ghs
smikro1 3 years ago
Nice video. I agree that you cannot initiate force on others. The only moral force would be the protection again a force, and I believe it must be non-violent (physical harm - understanding all force is a "violent" act), and only to create an in-action (peace).
sherlockfury 3 years ago
yay! An objectivist!
gumbiproductions 3 years ago
I don't think this constitutes a contradiction in objectivism b/c it doesn't follow that a government would have to initiate force to prevent competition in the protection racket.
Nothing ethically prevents people from defending themselves or hiring body gaurds or a security agency to do it for them. As long as such security agencies don't break the law the government would have no need to confront them.
natdavi 3 years ago
So if two institutions of roughly equal size are enforcing the law, which one is the government and which one isn't?
XOmniverse 3 years ago
And don't say "the one that doesn't violate rights." I could easily suggest a scenario where neither of them is.
XOmniverse 3 years ago
Suppose govA recognizes the right to health-care and govB doesn't. CitizenA gets sick and goes to a Hospital under the jurisdiction of govB where he's refused treatment and dies. Under the laws of govB no rights were violated and under the laws of govA they were.
Contradictory laws are unenforcable. There can only be one set of laws for a given group of ppl to live by. There may be competition among law enforcers, if that's how the gvmnt chooses to function, but not law enforcement.
natdavi 3 years ago
I'd say that in such a situation it must be that there are two governments enforcing their own seperate sets of laws, which happen to be the same, or they're two agencies of the same government.
Before there can be enforcement of the law there has to be the LAW, and the definition of laws is the legitimate purpose of gvmnt.
Neglect FTSOA that competing gvmnts is contrary to the definition of gvmnt. Esp since we're talking about anarchy, lol! The real answer to your question is: neither.
natdavi 3 years ago
The use of force by government is a defensive action, protectiong the rights of those whose rights were violated, under the NAP retalitatory, defensive force is completly moral.
Arbiter099 3 years ago
So if two entities attempt to provide this service, which one is the government and which one is just a gang of criminals?
XOmniverse 3 years ago
the criminals are the ones who violated the rights of others by initiating force. the government is the one who uses force to protect rights. not that governments are always moral...
natdavi 3 years ago
very interesting. i sometimes think about anarchism (though, from the more collectivist perspective) and how it is philosophcally and morally consistant, although i also think it might be esoteric.
fedeman2 3 years ago
how can you say that the non-aggression principle is natural. let's be practical for a moment. animals fight constantly, over food, territory, mates. why should this not also be true in humanities case. states were originally an invention used to supplement these conflicts. but why could they not instead be used to further nonviolent means of resolution. i'm basically asking why you have rejected statism instead of non-aggression. please respond, i would like to hear your thoughts on this.
hollrahd 3 years ago
Are the majority of your interactions with other people violent, or nonviolent? Are your most satisfying interactions with other people violent, or nonviolent?
I rest my case.
XOmniverse 3 years ago
why should we not act like animals, maybe because we have the mental capacity for abstract thought and a sense of self awareness. thats all i can think of off the top of my head.
sbrian28 3 years ago
Coercion from the state is cause and effect. Coercion is the practice of compelling a person to behave in an involuntary way. It's not involuntary if you violate someone else's civil liberties. That's like turning off someone's electricity because they didn't pay their electric bill. You (the electric company) didn't coerce the customer because they voluntarily elected to not pay the bill. Cause and effect...
DominationCorp 3 years ago
Individual vs the Collective we must be bruce wayne in order to exist OBJECTIVISM RULES!!!
SwaggerSpot 3 years ago
If a "state" or government is created in the framework of mutualism, and as long as it is a voluntary agreement among the involved parties, vis-a-vis a direct or indirect democracy, then a government does not necessarily need coercion to exist.
When government transcends beyond its purpose of a defacto contract between its elected representatives and the electorate, then, yes, I believe it would into the condition of government being immoral due to the necessary use of coercion as you aruged.
Baculus 3 years ago
Using democracy to achieve your goals is still coercion.
Here's a fairly simple example. We have a referendum over socialized health care. If 60% vote yes and 40% vote no, then forty percent of the voting population is coerced into giving up their tax money to support such a system when they clearly have no desire to do so.
When it boils down to it, not every man will desire what you desire, so you have no right to decide things for him.
Samer1988 3 years ago
Decision making has to be made in one manner or another if humans are going to have communities. If the minority imposes their will upon the majority as well, it is still coercion, under your description of the hypothetical. And, ultimately, organized society cannot exist without SOME form of organization and decision making, lest we are frozen from an inability to make such decisions.
(TBH, I cannot correctly recall the entirety of your video as well.)
Baculus 3 years ago
sweet
primusman117 3 years ago
And objectivists would say anarchists are initiating force by establishing a private dispute resolution organization. Seems like word games because that DRO IS "governing" (by consent) the people who belong to it and agreeing to negotiate with those who do not in order to reach the same ends that an objectivist gov't would. They claim it's not "objective law" for anybody to start a DRO, but how the hell do gov'ts start except some small group goes ahead and then announces it to everyone?!?
MillionthUsername 3 years ago
"And objectivists would say anarchists are initiating force by establishing a private dispute resolution organization."
People can say a lot of things. But I can prove that, by its very NATURE, a state initiates force. The same can't be said of a private defense agency. (Why does everyone always assume I am a proponent of Molyneux's DRO system?)
XOmniverse 3 years ago
Why wouldn't an unregulated private defense agency initiate force in favour of, for example, well paying capitalists who wants to enslave all of his workers? Since in anarcho-capitalism, there are no collective democratic institutions (i.e. states) to enforce any laws, who would stop them?
Bellator656 3 years ago
Right on!
dakshinamurti 3 years ago
And the word "immoral" isn't a predicate in any statement of any actual mathematically rigorous logical argument.
denouement100 3 years ago
The best justification for an argument against objectivism is that it is absent of any form of scientific method whatsoever in the deduction of its premises.
denouement100 3 years ago
Why do you say one is forced to reject EITHER the non-aggression principle or statism. Why can one not reject both?
Other than the intrinsic belief of most people ("belief" being the key word here) that initiating force is morally wrong, what is the reasoned argument for accepting the non-aggression principle?
Is there not a deeper contradiction in objectivism? That is, the initiation of aggression is a necesarry by-product of self-interest.
tca246 3 years ago
One could reject both.
I'll doing a video series on ethics, and relatively soon I should be at the point where I justify the NAP.
XOmniverse 3 years ago
Other books you might be interested in are "Democracy for the Few" by Parenti, "You Call This A Democracy?" by Paul Kivel, Corporate Media And The Threat To Democracy" by Robert McChesney, "Understanding Power" by Chomsky. Kivel's book is excellent but not well known. If you decide to read it could you do a review of it? I don't have the means to post videos. Thanks.
888zzz 3 years ago
What is objectivism exactly? I just fail to see just what objectivism is. Could someone please try to sum it up for me?
disasterchief117 4 years ago
Look it up on Wikipedia.
Basically, it's a philosophical system developed by Ayn Rand.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
1) People must consent to a government;
2) Since people consent to the government, the government is not its own entity, but simply an arm of the population who consents;
3) The government may take actions that are immoral to objectivism, but that doesn't make the government itself immoral;
4) The government may repel foreign aggressors or protect the consenting from force between each other;
5) These actions are not monopolistic in nature because the people may change the government makeup.
Advocate1234 4 years ago
1)The fact you use 'must' consent implys such cosent is not voluntary and therefore invalid. Secondly, who are 'the people'?
2)People don't consent to the government, consent is coerced.
3)Government is immoral because it is coercive
4)Governemts routinely fails at providing security
5)There is no competition allowed. All competition is prevent through coercion. Therefore Government is a monopoly.
RiotersBlock 4 years ago
1) I use must in the sense that in order for a government to be valid, people 'must' consent;
2) I just answered your second point;
3) I just answered your third point;
4) The fact that something fails does not mean what it should strive to do, or what its purpose is;
5) The competition is from a bottom-up form of political freedom via elections.
Advocate1234 4 years ago
1)How is that consent acheived?
You still failed to define who, exactly, are the people?
4)The fact that it fails means that it is detrimental to society and should be removed.
5)There is no competition. Voting is the equivalent of casting a ballot to elect who the new CEO is. There is no choice as to who, if anyone, you pay to provide you security.
RiotersBlock 4 years ago
The idea that we are all created equal and that we all have rights are very lofty assumptions that most of philosophy and political theory hold in their foundations.
drinsanity13 4 years ago
I've pondered the history with nations and it seems they always work for a while and then fall apart. I think the best system is the one who works at the time. We might one day be ready for anarchism... when the state collapse, we ought to try and find out... cant go worse than just have a state again if it fails... and the state will fall eventually too. :)
Censeo 4 years ago
Here's my solution to that arguement: Voluntary taxation. If everyone is rational and cares about protecting their rights, they will probably invest in a gov't that will protect those rights. It a hell of a lot easier to voluntarily pay 5% or 10% of your income to pay for a small gov't rather then 50% or 90% to a large one. I would be investing.
DaveDoggOwns 4 years ago
Another question I have is about liberty. Liberals say that in Laissez fair capitalist economy people will have negative liberty but lack positive liberty. What is the anarcho capitalists/objectvist/libertarian response to this issue?
chalk20 4 years ago
Get to the point
oathniel 4 years ago
Chalk20:
1. There will be "public" property the same way that malls, and museums, and land owned by the Nature Conservancy, are open to the public.
2. David Friedman's book _The Machinery of Freedom_ has some excellent explanations of why monopolies are unlikely, and probably impossible, unless government gives special legal privileges to the monopolist against competitors.
VentrueCapital 4 years ago
VentureCapital thanks for your thoughtful response. I will look into that book The Machinery of Freedom.
chalk20 4 years ago
objectivism is bs
waylonh11287 4 years ago
i agree
maxandchris15 4 years ago
How would negative externalities be dealt with? (ex. noise, water, and land pollution)? In market anarchist society I take it there would be no public property? Would all natural resources be owned privately? What would be done to prevent someone from creating a monoply?
chalk20 4 years ago
The short-and-simple answer to your first question is that pollution and other negative externalities would be dealt with in basically the same way that other crimes (i.e. aggression, harm, violation of rights) would be handled. (The details might be a little different, so there would probably be something like a carbon tax or marketable emissions permits, rather than fines or other punishments.)
VentrueCapital 4 years ago
The answer to your last question concerning monopoly is, to be concise, competition. Nearly all monopolies of the past have existed with the help of the state. The state enforces other monopolies through its own monopoly on force. Competition is a primary force behind the break up of monopolies, which is what free market Anarchists hope to unleash with their ideas.
RiotersBlock 4 years ago
RiotersBlock & VentrueCapital thanks for your responses to my questions. I really appreciate it.
chalk20 4 years ago
No problem, if you like you can always send me a message or something and I'll give you a few links to read. Explains these concepts in far clearer detail, better than is able on youtube.
RiotersBlock 4 years ago
In a market anarchist society wouldn't a corporation be a like a state? Corporations and businesses can be just a bureaucrat as government in my opinion.
Also, could a market anarchist society turn into feudalistic system?
chalk20 4 years ago
Opinions vary amongst free-market Anarchists on whether corporations would exist at all. Personally I don't think they would be able to exist, at least in their present form, without the state. Being incorporated requires state permission and entry into a state-sponsored 'corporate club'.
RiotersBlock 4 years ago
excellent.
kidpens 4 years ago
By what means would a competitor encroach on the government's monopoly on retaliatory use of force? Wouldn't this competitor have to initiate the use of force to do so?
somnys 4 years ago
I don't see why it would, unless you consider self-defense against government agents the initiation of force, which would be a bizarre reversal of the idea.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
Then how does some entity become a competitor?
somnys 4 years ago
The mistake you make while disputing objectivist ethics, is your assumption that in order for government to exist, it must initiate force. All government force should be in retaliation to a criminal who trampled on another's rights.
seargantsilly 4 years ago
right on brother with your american educated outlook
bobbybusyjohn 4 years ago
Great job XOmniverse, you nailed it right on the head.
RobertPFreeman 4 years ago
How do market anarchist plan on dealing with radical Islam? On their knees I would think.
Signofthedollar 4 years ago
Or with our guns. We still have that option :P
XOmniverse 4 years ago
If it is immoral to use force, would it not then be immoral to use force, to stop force?
In a free-market society where ~95%+ of the wealth are in private hands, would it not be dangerous to let some private people stand for the security of all the people, maybe even companies which would benefit more from war than peace, military industry complex.
Is the government not just the institution with the most weapons?
How will anarchism prevent wannabee dictators from rising?
DJLorenzen 4 years ago
By shooting them.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
What if they have more guns? :)
DJLorenzen 4 years ago
But what if the majority of the public is for the dictator, as Germany was very much in support of Hitler.
Then what? The minority that is morally right is screwed. Say goodbye to property rights because the majority is against them.
seargantsilly 4 years ago
How exactly would an Objectivist minority be able to stop a Nazi-supporting majority from instilling a dictator?
XOmniverse 4 years ago
Change your battery douchebag.
samiegray 4 years ago
Any form of community(doesn't have to be a formal state) is an initiation of force--as in the formation and continuance of said community includes/excludes as to what forms and sustains that community(whether the coercion is a culture of violence or a set of ideas.)
bflagsst 4 years ago
You can't coerce someone with ideas. It's sloppy definitions of coercion like this that people use to justify REAL coercion (after all, if anything is coercion, all's fair, right?)
XOmniverse 4 years ago
"Real coercion" is a sloppy way to say 'coercion using violence', and it's disappointing that your definition for coercion excludes the other ways states control their people. --'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses' by Althusser, anything by noam chomsky after 1980, Lacan, Freud, Derrida, Michel Foucault are good places to start if you want to get passed the narrow libertarian chit-chat on personal liberty and the state.
bflagsst 4 years ago
To clarify, examples of communities that resemble states: the Israeli Kibutzim(anarcho), Jim Jone's theological community in Suriname(collectivist), various primitivist/militia towns in Montana(libertarian) show how ideas and violence can be used simultaneously for autonomous self-governance--and the thing is, western liberal capitalist democracies would rather use hegemonic institutions(force by idea)
bflagsst 4 years ago
The objectivist view on government is based on the metaphysical axioms of the philosophy. As such, in trying to debunk the view, one must use the view in their argument, and as such, validate that view. In this argument, objectivism assumes that the ONLY way a society can exist is by having government protect those rights. In trying to debunk that view, you assume that a society could exists where that is not the case, thus, debunking your own argument.
Reckoning91101 4 years ago
Woods, are you an Objectivist?
Elhan2005 4 years ago
X, Watching your vid, I do not see an answer to the question I asked in the other thread: "What service is it that you are looking to provide [in competition with government]?
"Currently, private arbitration and mediation are services that are encouraged by statute and courts enforce those private agreements."
Also, so I can understand you argument better, what is your educational background related to political science and history?
jwoodswce 4 years ago
I'm self-educated on both.
Let me put it this way. A state is supposed to have a monopoly on the retaliatory use of force. What if I wanted to provide this service?
XOmniverse 4 years ago
Let me verify that I understand. Within market anarchy, you would be OK with the following situation:
A Muslim neighbor construes my atheism and statements against Islam/God/Muhammad as an initiation of force (based upon a fraud claim) so without my consent he hires al-Qaeda to arrest me, apply Sharia law to the dispute, and finally to cut off my head.
If not, how is my neighbor's action (drawn from real world examples) inconsistent with market anarchy?
jwoodswce 4 years ago
It is inconsistent because market anarchists oppose ACTUAL initiation of force, not whatever someone decides to call the initiation of force, regardless of whether it is or not.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
In this hypothetical, who decides what is an ACTUAL initiation of force? I understand what that means, but my Muslim neighbor disagrees and he hires an organization offering the service of protecting the "rights" of Muslims.
This hypothetical relates to actual facts in places like Lebanon, Somolia, Iraq, and Gaza/West Bank. In a market anarchy situation, what stops al Qaeda from providing "retailatory" force services, that is what their founders say they are doing now?
jwoodswce 4 years ago
I notice you have yet to either say "Yes, it is ok for a state to initiate force in order to remain a state," or "Preventing competition is not initiating force because..."
With a state, what stops the state from initiating force?
And don't say "a constitution" unless you intend to explain how to prevent it from being ignored like our current one.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
I ask a question to clarify your statement to me and you evade it; not a good sign for your proposition.
A proper state does not initiate force when it enforces its authority, under objective law, over a vigilante force.
Constraints against the initiation of force by government are constitutional. The effectiveness and stability of a constitution will become corrupted by changing it to be more "democratic," see Yugoslavia and Venezuela.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
Such "democratic" changes in the U.S. have effectively eliminated constitutional constraints on the legislature to the detriment of individual rights.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
A system of voluntary taxation would eliminate one method by which our legislature became so overbearing. Eliminating public education would control for the main source of ignorance in the electorate. I would favor a none-of-the-above option on the ballot, with an appointment provision, to reduce "democratic" pandering by candidates. I could go on and on but these are limited comments.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
I wasn't evading your point per se (I do have an answer to it) so much as trying to establish some things first.
Tell me, given a state that (mostly) takes donations in exchange for retaliatory force (taking a payment for a service, effectively) and a private institution that tries to do the exact same thing, what makes the private institution "vigilante" and the state not? Where does the state derive its alleged right to provide retaliatory force that other organizations cannot?
XOmniverse 4 years ago
Well, if you are not evading, then answer the question.
The difference between a proper government and vigilante force is that the former is operating under an objective code of rules for the purpose of protecting individual rights, but the later is not. That objective code of rules being necessary to bar physical force from social relationships. [see "The Nature of Government," VOS]
Now that ties in nicely to my question, so I look forward to your answer.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
What guarantee is there that a state will rely on an objectively correct code of rules? While multiple agencies in a market can actually serve as a check against one another, a state concentrates all of that power into one entity.
So I can throw your same argument right back at you and ask what's to stop a bunch of religious nuts (such as Christians in the U.S.) from gaining control of the state and using that to violate rights?
XOmniverse 4 years ago
Firstly, in context, I have been speaking about a proper government according to O's politics, so I think that your question is invalid. Possible valid questions in this context could be: 1) How does an existing government evolve into a proper government according to O's politics? or, 2) How does such a government maintain itself so that it does not degenerate?
So what are you asking? Did you change the context, intend one of the other two questions I stated or something else?
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
"...multiple agencies in a market can actually serve as a check against one another..." That is called a civil war, isn't it?
Re: a proper government stopping religious nuts from taking over, constitution with a separation of powers, guarantee a separation of church and state, and have police and war powers.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
Actually, that should have been obvious as history demonstrates that religious nuts take over when either an highly centralized authority is weak or when effective executive power is overly decentralized and in competition. If you can provide a counter example from reality, please do.
Note, you are advocating a system where effective executive power is overly decentralized and in competition so history is working against your proposition.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
Are you ever going to answer my question that you have been evading?
jwoodswce 4 years ago
I thought I had; which question was it?
XOmniverse 4 years ago
"In this hypothetical, who decides what is an ACTUAL initiation of force? I understand what that means, but my Muslim neighbor disagrees and he hires an organization offering the service of protecting the 'rights' of Muslims.
This hypothetical relates to actual facts in places like Lebanon, Somolia, Iraq, and Gaza/West Bank. In a market anarchy situation, what stops al Qaeda from providing 'retailatory' force services, that is what their founders say they are doing now?"
jwoodswce 4 years ago
Places with failing states and places with no state but constant international pressure from outside states are not valid examples of a market anarchy.
The market would decide. War is expensive and unproductive, and only a state has the means to mass extort in order to fund it. People have a basic implicit understanding of natural rights, and I believe that this will bear itself out naturally without a state to enforce it.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
X, You says that you are still OK with O epistemology, so why is your argument so concrete bound and attempting to exclude conceptual comparisons? This behavior leads credence to the evaluation that MA is a floating abstraction unconnected to reality.
Ironically, your argument sounds like Stalinism and its explanation for why the state did not wither away as Marx predicted.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
But I appreciate your concession, that MA can not resist external states, which takes the MA idea outside the realm of reality.
If the market decides what is an ACTUAL initiation of force, doesn't that mean that there will be multiple competing and incompatible ideas?
Why do you assume only rational actors, when that does not exist in reality? What does expense and unproductive mean to Attila or al Qaeda? No one will rediscover Hobbes as a solution to disorder?
jwoodswce 4 years ago
If I explain why a square is not a circle and should not be considered as such, I am "concrete bound" and "excluding conceptual comparisons"? That's silly. A true market anarchy has not existed on any large scale yet.
If you want a floating abstraction, let's discuss how a state has to initiate force to remain a state, thus failing at its intended goal of preventing the initiation of force.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
Wow, you have explicitly made three major concessions so far:
1) MA is unrealistic as it can not protect against force by external states,
2) that argument for MA lacks evidence from reality based upon history, and
3) that your argument that states must initiate force to survive is a floating abstraction.
Other than identifying them, I'm not particularly interested in debating floating abstractions.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
I never conceded any of those things. You're ridiculous.
Go on believing whatever you want.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
In context, what else could the following statements by you mean (correlate using the numbers)?
1) "Places...with no state but constant international pressure from outside states are not valid examples of a market anarchy."
2) "A true market anarchy has not existed..."
3) "If you want a floating abstraction, let's discuss how a state has to initiate force to remain a state..."
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
Did you want to retract one of those points?
Also, are you ever going to answer the questions that I ask?
Or is that the tactic, you bore thinking people out of arguments with your rationalistic assertions unsupported by facts and constant evasions of inquiry? I can't even get to the more devastating line of questions because you can't or won't answer the easier ones.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
My tactic is to cease conversations with people who make wild assertions, especially regarding my motives, and who clearly have a malevolent, arrogant attitude when discussing ideas that they don't immediately agree with.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
X,
In addition to failing repeatedly to answer direct question, you also have also made unrelated generalized statements then later deny that you are applying those statements to the one to whom you are responding. So own up and take responsibility for your words by tying them back to reality.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
Who fits your description of "[making] wild assertions, especially regarding my motives, and who clearly have a malevolent, arrogant attitude when discussing ideas that they don't immediately agree with"?
Me? If so say it directly, and take responsibility. If in the future, you lie about how you own Objectivists when it coming to discussing MA, I want to be able to reference unambiguously your retreat from this discussion.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
Further, implicitly, because you refuse--after repeated requests--to deny it, that Sharia law (like the stoning to death of a female adulterer) is compatible with MA.
Regarding your square and circle analogy, by dropping context, yes you would be concrete bound and excluding conceptual comparisons. For example, what if we were discussing a fenced enclosure? In both cases, you are attempting to discuss abstracts and resisting any effort to connect them to reality.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
Also, you continue to evade answering direct questions that attempt to connect your point to reality or related concepts.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
Have you be reading too much Rousseau? Why do you believe in a general will that appreciates natural rights but are inhibited by the state? Any history or survey research to back that up, because what I have seen demonstrates the opposite?
Regarding your proposition that "...only a state has the means to mass extort in order to fund [war]." Hatfields and McCoys, where is the state actor?
jwoodswce 4 years ago
cont...
From your omission, I take it that you agree that in MA there is nothing to stop al Qaeda from providing 'retaliatory' force services.
jwoodswce 4 years ago
The foundation of knowledge is not an assumption but an undeniable perception. The fact of first sensation is the fact that there is something, as opposed to nothing (existence). Transfer of information is not transfer of an ability to think. You can share information, but you can not force it on another. IE You can lead a horse to water. Your alternative is pure second-hand psychology. Why do you think it is right for someone to tell you what the world is, but wrong to discover it for yourself?
Kesshutsu 4 years ago
If his grasp is noncontradictory, then even if the scope of his knowledge is modest and the content of his concepts is primitive, IT WILL NOT CONTRADICT THE CONTENT OF THE SAME CONCEPTS IN THE MIND OF THE MOST ADVANCED SCIENTISTS. The same is true of definitions. ALL DEFINITIONS ARE CONTEXTUAL, and a primitive definition DOES NOT CONTRADICT a more advanced one: the latter merely expands the former."
Kesshutsu 4 years ago
Dude, I don't mean to sound like a dick or anything, but if you want to explain your position on subjectivism in this much detail, do a video instead of flooding the comments.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
That's probly a good position on comments however what is your response to my comments on anarcho-capitalism?
Kesshutsu 4 years ago
I got to "Oh boo hoo, you're not allowing multiple groups to enforce their own version of justice. After all, there are no objective standards", saw the strawman, and decided not to comment.
XOmniverse 4 years ago
If you do not believe market anarchy is a cry for multiple standards of justice and that I have misrepresented the position, by all means represent it as it is. Tell me that the position is NOT that in asking for multiple agencys of force protection you are asking for multiple standards of justice. If you are suggesting they are all operating in harmony, what difference does this have with a single government?
Kesshutsu 4 years ago
I want to reply by first saying Xomniverse has a point; I was going to say something earlier but ironically didn't want to waste the space...this is getting very long (something I personally don't mind) but it's off topic for this video. I would ask you to email me, but I think it is important that this be publicly documented somehow for educational purposes, so I would like to invite you to continue this debate in my most recent video response on this very topic...Please respond there.
wolfwolfwolf1979 4 years ago
Note: These next 5 or 6 comments will be my last on this video comment page. You can reply to these comments on my video titled: "Re: The Standard of Value: Response to wolfwolfwolf1979" where the topic is more appropriate.
wolfwolfwolf1979 4 years ago
You are replying to the points I am making but I have no way of knowing which of my points, at any particular time in your response, you are addressing anymore. I feel we could find which of our concepts have more or less validity by addressing them each one by one to their roots rather than scattering thought from one topic to the next.
wolfwolfwolf1979 4 years ago
The foundation of all knowledge is based on assumptions...from a standard of absolute purity. I am not lying, I just don't subscribe to absolutely pure and consequently impossible standard of validity, I refuse to hold either your arguments or my own to those standards, not because this is a choice I can make but because it is a prerequisite of my condition of being.
wolfwolfwolf1979 4 years ago
There are some things I need to know to get to the bottom of your positions: I want to know if you deny the concept of transference of "information" through the use of language and I would like a straight answer as to whether you think something can have a value without a subject to value it.
wolfwolfwolf1979 4 years ago
I don't think I have a grasp on your theory of language and knowledge because it seems your concepts can be interpreted a number of different ways. I can't respond until you clarify your position. You seem to go in and out from language to knowledge. As far as I can fathom you don't seem to accept the concept of knowledge transference from one subject to another.
wolfwolfwolf1979 4 years ago
I can argue these metaphysical issues but I still feel like old contradictions in your argument are not yet resolved and that you only managed to escape them by holding my arguments to absolute total a priori standards such as my recognition of the (practical and obviously operational) concept of "communication".
wolfwolfwolf1979 4 years ago
I am making an argument for your recognition of practical objectivity verified by social interaction, not singular individualist dogma. Where are your responses to the specific comments and examples I made in my previous comments?
wolfwolfwolf1979 4 years ago
The only issue open to an individual's choice in this matter is how much knowledge he will seek to acquire and, consequentially, what conceptual complexity he will be able to reach. But so long as and to the extent that his mind deals with concepts (as distinguished from memorized sounds and floating abstractions), the content of his concepts is determined and dictated by the cognitive content of his mind, i.e., by his grasp of the facts of reality.
Kesshutsu 4 years ago
abstractions integrating long conceptual chains--all conceptualization is a contextual process; the context is the entire field of a mind's awareness or knowledge at any level of its cognitive development. This does not mean that conceptualization is a subjective process or that the content of concepts depends on an individual's subjective (i.e., arbitrary) choice.
Kesshutsu 4 years ago
"Concepts are not and ca