The following is a review of Stefan Molyneux’s Universally Preferable Behavior – A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics:

The first time I read this book (UPB), I didn’t really “get” it. I mean, I saw the logic and the proof and thought, “Hey, that’s kind of neat.” I was not able to access the implications that the proof of this theory would have in my life and in the greater world.

I have since re-read UPB. While I still struggle with the full range of the implications for my life, I think I get it (certainly more now than I have before).

The null zone concept is brilliant as well as fascinating! I now have the image in my mind of a “null zone” being forcibly inserted between the “little truths” and the “Great Truths”, which disconnect abstraction from practice in the minds of individuals.

This alone ought to be enough to demonstrate to anybody why this is a multi-generational project. Once you’ve had abstractions forcibly disconnected from practice within your mind, it is a trek through the fires of ten thousand hells to reconnect them.

Also of incredible resonance to me is when Molyneux discusses the emergent properties of morality within society as opposed to the imposition of whim-based morality from a centralized authority. This is the fundamental “reversal” of intuition that either Dawkins or Dennett (I can’t remember quite where I read it) has described when it comes to the science of evolution; that life, the universe, and everything do not proceed from the top-down, but from the bottom-up. Complexity and order are emergent properties of matter over time, hence it makes sense that morality and social order are emergent properties of human society over time.

Eradicating that “null zone” within my own mind and becoming ever more aware of my top-down moral standards is the horrible, horrible consequence of UPB. The upside, however, is that if, one day, I have children… I will not inflict a “null zone” upon them and will equip them to be resistant to it!

I haven’t found any flaws. I think that Stefan Molyneux has done it.

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Ron Paul Part 1: The Shape of Things to Come
Ron Paul Part 2: Answers to Criticisms
Ron Paul Part 3: Politics versus Personal Liberty
Ron Paul Part 4: Infiltrating the Mafia…

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Wrong date again… I seem to be itching for tomorrow…

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The conclusion called “anarchism” effectively says, “I don’t know the answer, and neither do you.”

When somebody asks the question, “How will Problem X be solved without a government?” the only honest answer I can give is, “I don’t know.” I can make a guess at a possibility, but nobody has to listen to what I say, and if I’m wrong, so what? If I’m wrong making a guess at what a potential industry will turn out to be but I’ve put no money into it, then it’s just an opinion that didn’t go anywhere.

But it’s more than “I don’t know.” I don’t know the answer, and it’s not up to me to give it. It goes beyond my admission of ignorance and responsibility and imputes it upon you. Can you come up with a solution to Problem X that doesn’t involve forcing people to comply? If you are totally honest with yourself, you cannot! Perhaps you have an idea that will provide part of the system, but it’s improbable to the point of impossibility that you will be able to gather all of the information and make a calculation that provides the answer you seek.

It’s the theory of evolution as applied to politics and social organization (NB: not “Social Darwinism,” which is a misapplication of evolutionary theory). Just as neither you nor I could possibly predict exactly what the next species of frog or bacteria will look like “in the wild,” neither you nor I could possibly predict what form a non-coercive system will take place “in the wild.” It’s possible to make general predictions, but that will always be as far as you can go.

For more information, check out Freedomain Radio for a plethora of podcasts, articles, and forum discussions on this topic and more!

The Rule of Law without the State

I personally don’t think I’d want to transplant myself into such a society, but then, they’re not asking me to do so!

Given the way in which the clans police each other, I wonder if violence between parents and children exists to a significant extent? I find it hard to believe that it would, but it would be interesting if somebody did such a study.

Following up on my post on Atheism, I’d like to do something similar when it comes to political thought.

Again, the labels are rather heavily-loaded, and I want to be understood as clearly as possible.

When I say that I am an “anarchist,” I get a number of reactions from people. Most often, images of violence crop up in people’s minds, most likely due to the association of the violent anarchists near the end of the 19th century, but also due in large part to the perpetual propaganda pushed on them by their parents, schools, and government officials. Somehow, it seems that people believe that “anarchy” equates with “chaos.”

First things first: “anarchy,” taken literally, means “without rulers.” In comparison with other words, such as “monarchy” (one ruler) and “oligarchy” (select few rulers), “anarchy” simply means “without” (“an-”) “rulers” (“-archy”).

What seems to be the case is that people believe that they need to have some sort of ruler, some sort of hierarchy where somebody is at the “top,” running everything. What they fail to realize is that it is entirely a fictional construct to exist in such a hierarchy. Here’s what I mean: if you have a king that rules over you, then what is actually happening in reality? That king can tell you what to eat, but that king cannot actually eat for you. That king can tell you where to work, but ultimately, the decision to work at that place is yours. So the notion that somebody can actually rule you is fallacious!

People may object, “Oh, but that’s not what I’m talking about when I say that people need rulers!” Really? Consider all of the laws and regulatory bodies that make up the agriculture industry. Consider all of the rules an employer has to follow and all of the taxation that employing an individual entails. Those are, indirectly, your rulers telling you what you can eat and where you can work.

So why do people believe this? Why are adults willing to subject themselves to some other person telling them what to do? Why do they desire rulers?

This is the question that people try to answer, but really, the answer is, “I don’t know.” I believe that we are much closer to accessing the answers to those questions than we are about the existence of God (I’d say “infinitely closer!”), but for most people, they simply do not know, but they are not willing to admit that they don’t know.

They take the answers provided to them, often when they were children, and parrot them back. Certainly, there are some sophisticated explanations, but they really fail to address the question in full.

One might also consider that somebody was following you around, holding a gun to your head, and telling you what to eat and where to work, you might handily object! I’d say that most people, given the opportunity, would try to escape, or fight back, or simply refuse, depending on their personality. Not only that, but people around you would feel a deep pity for your situation, and some might even try to help you escape or subdue the gunman, or something. It would be blindingly apparent that you are listening to the gunman not because you wish to, but because you are being forced.

The difference between a ruler that tells you what to do and the gunman holding the gun to your head is one of distance and language. The ruler will be called “President” or “Prime Minister” or “King,” whereas if somebody was directing a gunman to follow you around holding a gun to your head, people would rightly call him a “Mob Boss.”

There is no difference in kind between a ruler and a mob boss. If you do not obey the ruler’s edicts, you will be punished, and usually with horrible, horrible results, ranging from imprisonment to rape, to death.

This is violence… and this is what people say they want. People say that they want violent overlords couched in euphemisms.

Of course, I wouldn’t say that the vast majority of people are aware of this distinction, at least, not fully. They understand that if they don’t pay their taxes, “bad things” will happen, but that still doesn’t really explain why anybody accepts the fact that “bad things” will happen. Furthermore, it is only because people continue to support the Government Mafia that “bad things” are pretty much guaranteed to happen!

But this still doesn’t answer the question, why do people desire rulers? It makes it rather perplexing, but I think that an answer exists.

One way of looking at the situation is to consider, what other areas in life do people experience an incredibly powerful, larger-than-life entity that tells them what to eat, where to go, when to sleep, where to work, and so on?

The only common thread is parents.

Are you still here? Good. Let’s continue.

Imagine yourself as a small child… it shouldn’t be too difficult–you were there once before! Consider yourself in relation to your parents. Your parents seem to know everything. They’re enormous, and incredibly strong.

Now, imagine that your parents become angry for some reason or another. You don’t have a problem sensing your parents’ emotions yet, so you become frightened. If your parents are like most parents, they may take out their anger on you. In that moment, you have the biggest non-choice in the world: either attempt to placate your parents or run away from the situation and risk death.

Children do tend to want to live, so they create defense mechanisms in order to survive living with their parents. This is entirely natural and, at the time, the only way they can preserve their future health. It is about survival and nothing more.

However, when the child gets older and gets out into the world, he has been traumatized by his parents, but he’s also been trained to repress his trauma. He is never allowed to talk about his feelings with his parents, how he feels scared or angry or frustrated. He is never allowed to demand an answer to, “What does it mean when you say that you love me?” In fact, a child is somewhat lucky if he never hears the words, “I love you,” spontaneously and voluntarily, because at least then there’s slightly less confusion over how his parents feel. Actions speak much, much louder than words.

Because of this trauma, he never truly stops seeking that which he was denied. Unfortunately, since his parents never provided it when he needed it, he will never get it from them. He has set up defenses around certain areas and, if he never dismantles them, will perpetuate them upon his children, all the while desiring to be parented in the way he never was.

Worse yet! Parents, as they approach middle- and old-age, demand love and respect from their children despite having never given their children anything resembling any reasonable definition of “love” and “respect.” Here’s a news flash: feeding, clothing, and sheltering your children are not sufficient prerequisites for “love.” Prison guards do the same for prisoners–ought parents not be a little better than mere prison guards?

I think that this needs to be developed further, but I think that this line of thinking has some promise. The desire for people to be ruled directly stems from their treatment as children by their parents.

If that is the case, then what is necessary for people to realize that they do not need to be ruled is for them to face the horrors that their parents inflicted upon them, whether it was emotional abuse or physical abuse or what have you (physical abuse and emotional abuse often go hand-in-hand, but physical abuse also gives the child a much clearer insight as to what their parents really thought of them).

I don’t expect that everybody will be able to do this… it becomes especially more difficult if they’ve already had children. However, if this is correct, then it is right to do, no matter how long it takes, because truth is always better than falsehood.

Clicky

Fantaaaaastic! (If you haven’t seen it yet, haha.)

It’s kind of funny that the first posting in my “non-personal” journal is something that fits into both categories. However, I can still, at least, try to separate my comments into “non-personal” and “personal” ones.

So, in eques, I’ve posted some broader Thoughts on the Free State Project. In a nutshell, I’m strongly considering removing my signature from the Free State Project (FSP)‘s Statement of Intent (SOI).

The significance of such a move is not all that great. After all, my name is only one out of a few thousand, and their “mission” can certainly be carried out without my name being part of the body count. However, it is about my integrity, and about what I believe is right.

I admit that I was somewhat hasty in signing up–it is clear to me now that I did so without fully thinking it through. In my defense, however, much of my present disagreement grew from a few doubts I had in the beginning that I considered to be insignificant at the time. That is to say, the doubts I had I either ignored or read a response to them. The doubt regarding political involvement in particular was definitely there, but I was “assured” by the comments of others that political action was not necessary.

(I will say that, strictly speaking, political action isn’t necessary. I think that the 20,000 activists figure has a decent amount of wiggle-room to allow for those who would sign up and be strictly apolitical. However, it would not be appropriate to say that the organization is not political in nature.)

I joined the FSP because something resonated in what I read. However, a degree of resonance does not mean that everything included in the package is appropriate. To use the classically extreme example, Nazism doubtless resonated with enough Germans on some level to gain strength, and we can observe the massive devastation that ensued.

I don’t want to control other people. Every time I’ve felt the desire to go into politics somehow, I’ve stopped myself before I began, either because there appeared to be no principled politicians, or because there seemed to be no way a principled individual could succeed. I now know that it doesn’t matter how principled the individual is, because the system itself is flawed. For the small amount of good said individual might produce, much, much more evil is perpetrated.

One thing that bothered me briefly regarding my removal of my signature from the SOI was the potential of losing social relationships that I gained by joining the FSP. But that didn’t bother me for very long, because I’ve already been down a very similar road when I disclaimed Christianity. I’ve had more than a few people essentially turn their backs on me because I could no longer honestly consider myself a Christian. If I can handle the sort of hypocrisy that enables an individual who has been my “friend” for years to turn their back on me, I can certainly handle that sort of behavior from people I’ve only known for a few months at most.

I will say that I am very sorry for using the FSP as a vehicle to get people to help me in my time of need. Even if I had good intentions at the time, the fact remains that I did use this association far more for my personal benefit than for theirs. I’m not sure that my manipulations have been all that minimal, either. Sure, I had people help me move in, and I rewarded them with pizza. My landlord also gave me quite a few breaks and we’re just now catching up. But those are minimal in comparison to using the FSP for social satisfaction. I am very decidedly not interested in politics and attended the regional meetings largely to fill my own social needs.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, but I just feel that what I did was wrong. The only thing I can really do from this point on is to not do that anymore. I should also be up-front with people about my withdrawal from the FSP, whether officially or otherwise. Then, if any damage has been done, we can proceed from there.

My guess is that not a whole lot of damage has been done, as I didn’t really keep very many secrets as to my doubts from the beginning. But there was still that one veneer, that one mask that I never removed until now.

So, any of you who still feel that the FSP has merit, good for you. I think you’re wrong, but what else can I say?

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