Doug and Chris

[I AM ME]

How do you feel about Venom hijacking your forum? This used to be your playground

[Bandalero]

i miss the good olde days.

[I AM ME]

yeah

man and to think i used to think Doug and Chris were immposible and stuborn. And the most right wing person we had was Corey who is completely reasonable 97% of the time.

wait a minute Doug is still immposible and stuborn.........not like they used to be though

[Bandalero]

yeah, damn war, it's taken a toll on them, as it has on me.

[I AM ME]

[Venom]

They're scared of me. They force their views on people that don't know any better with someone like me here. I can pick apart too many of their theories.

[doug]

to tell the truth, i have not found a whole lot of worthwhile discussion in venoms threads.

bitching about current events doesn't really move me much these days.

but venom, don't go labelling yourself the politics police. in the threads where it really was my theory that was up for debate, you were no where to be found.

i'd still gladly place my anarchist priniciples up against your sensational rebuttal of "anarchy is bullshit" or whatever three or four word sentance you can think of to try and discredit an entire political philosophy.

[nelison]

I wouldn't mind seeing that.

No interference from anyone else, just one on one. That would be awesome

[Venom]

but venom, don't go labelling yourself the politics police. in the threads where it really was my theory that was up for debate, you were no where to be found.

i'd still gladly place my anarchist priniciples up against your sensational rebuttal of "anarchy is bullshit" or whatever three or four word sentance you can think of to try and discredit an entire political philosophy.

Doug if you wanna argue about a theory that can't work and will never come into practice fine. Start a thread and we'll duke it out. I find it worthless to argue about something that isn't even a relevant, but to please you I'll debunk your theory. First since I don't know all your views (since there are several offshoots of anarchy) we'll take it issue by issue. You're obviously not a chaos-anarchist, but why do you think chaos won't occur with anarchy? There is nothing to stop it.

[Venom]

Are you more of a Libertarian type?

[doug]

Libertarian is probably the closest thing to a political preference that i have. If somebody held a gun to my head and told me to vote, i'd vote libertarian.

Here are two excellent links on my political philosophy. I'm writing a thesis on this for my own enjoyment as well, but it's not done yet.

http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.swf
http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/halbrooks/halbrooks2.html

Read those and "debunk" away.

[Narbus]

Read those and "debunk" away.

At the risk of starting one of these up again, fine.


http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/halbro ... ooks2.html first.

“A human can override any nerve in the body.”

No. The proper statement is, "Given time, knowledge, and rational thought, a human can override any nerve in the body."
Examples:
1. You sit down on a needle. You jump as the pain surprised you. Involuntary reflex. You know the needle is there, you sit down, and you supress the impulse to jump. You had no time to acclimate yourself to the situation at hand (a needle in your ass), so your natural instincts (pain = bad) kicked in to compensate. Both knowledge of the situation, and time to acclimate youself to it are necessary to supress the nerves. This is due solely to how fast nerves trigger, espcially compared to how fast we can "think through" a situation.
2. A child pricks his finger, and jerks away. Pricks again, jerks away again. Pricks again, you get the picture. The child has no reason to not jerk away, no thought process behind "don't jerk away," so he doesn't override the impulse. It follows, therefore, that any person without a rational mind will be unable to control themselves in this way.
3. Man cannot override any nerve in his body. The heart pumping, feeling pain, hot, cold, etc are all the result of nerves. Man can override impulses, given the above conditions, yes.


The point is: Only people of a certain level of development, both physically and mentally, are able to override impulses, and only then if they bend their will towards doing so. We are not as free of the shackles of flesh as the author is implying.

Certainly the basis of an animal’s movements are complex. The important point, though, is that an animal only moves according to instinct. There is no rational faculty at work, for example, when a cat walks across the room and claws at the sofa. The ends of an animal are intrinsically bound in its nature.

The gorilla "Koko" has learned some American Sign language. In clinical studies, chimpanzees presented with a banana dangled out of reach from the ceiling will stack boxes to reach it, without any "prompting" from the observing human.
On the other side, language is tied up in the brain more than most people believe. It appears that we have an innate capacity for language. It follows that what makes us speak is "intrinsically bound in our nature," and according to some philosophers, without language, (perhaps even specific languages) we would not be human as we know it. We are so bound up in language that it is impossible to define "man" without bringing language into play. Since language is, in some way at least, a biological function, it again follows that we are not so free from our impulses as the author thinks.
The author has done nothing to show that animals don't have some kind of internalized motive for what they do.

Also: The human brain is complex. Incredibly complex, we still have little idea of how it all works. That doesn't mean that it's not a physical system (and here's the kicker) bound by completely predictible physical laws. Yes, the criteria we take in is immense, yes, the brain stores information and uses it to respond to new situations, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a cause-and-effect system. Plato showed long ago that no cause or effect system, no matter how complex, can create the free will that the author suggests we have.
In short, the author is just assuming that we have free will and other animals do not. He does nothing to back this up, and in fact just ignores some aspects of animal behavior (dogs risking their lives to defend their owners, or animals dying to save their young) to make his point.

One may argue that the action of a human in an illusion as well. After all, aren’t we just as much governed by the electrical impulses of the body as the animal is? Aren’t our ends intrinsically bound in our nature as well? As Herbert showed above though, the answer is no. The test of a human is whether one is capable of moving in a way that is counter to the impulses of one’s body. In other words, only a human can consciously manipulate the body and other objects to achieve desired ends. And even if humans are influenced by feral impulses, that does not change the fact that in the end, a human must decide whether to act upon these impulses or not. The desire to procreate may be well embedded in people, but nevertheless, having sex remains a conscious choice.

The brain is also part of the body, and it still requires those electrical impulses to stifle a response just the same as it takes to preform it.
The author has done nothing to show that we do have any kind of choice in the matter. He's just taken it as a given, and chosen to ignore the stories of animals rushing into danger to save their young, or their owners, etc. Nor has he done anything that proves that we have graduated beyond "animal," just thrown out some straw men and knocked them down. Hardly a compelling argument.

True Story: My Dad was out mowing the back yard one day, and noticed the dog acting funny. He shut off the mower, concerned that the dog was ill, or had caught some little animal, and went to see what was going on.
Turns out the dog was walking up to dandelions and blowing on them to scatter the seeds. For no reason beyond "it's neat."

Hardly a case of "feral instincts."

If he must use his body in order to satisfy the proposed ethic that he cannot use any objects, then the ethic must be incorrect.

A minor point here: if Jack could, in fact, control any nerve in his body, then he would be able to cease all bodily functions, and you yourself stated, way back in that Christina Aguerlia thread, that not acting is ethically sterile. For Jack to just not act would be ethically fine. He's not acting, he's not "doing" anything, so yay for Jack.

The Highwayman Bit (rather long, not bothering to quote)
The government DOES provide you with services in return for your money. No, you don't really have a choice in the matter, but that doesn't change the fact they do provide you with services, the compensation they take, in form of taxes, does have some legitimate grounds.
Also, there are clearly ways around this. A parent and a child, for example. The parent has the right to raise the child, as the child is not a rational, thinking creature (this is simply due to an underdeveloped brain). When do we decide that we are free from the parent? I've seen any number of 6 and 7 years old clearly incapable of rational thought demand their parents to leave them alone; simply asking for freedom does not display the ability to handle it, so what does?


The central flaw in the author's argument is his lack of discourse as to what we, in fact, are. From a strictly objective view, our bodies and our actions are the result of (completely predictable) chemical and electrical reactions in our brains. It follows that we cannot "take action" (by the author's defintion of action), and therefore have no rights, therefore it's completely ethical for anything to use us as a resource, just as it's ethical for us to use animals as we would the trees or the air.

In short, he makes a mighty huge assumption and runs with it, without bothering to consider the ramifications.

I would reply to the other post, but I'm afraid work beckons.

/edit: Oh, wait, I've seen the other post, and it holds pretty much the same tenets as the first one, and thus the same flaws.

[Bandalero]

i want a front row seat to Doug Vs. Venom....Rumble in the CM. Live only on pay per view. call your local internet service provider for Doug Vs. Venom...Rumble in the Cm.

and then don king would be like only in America.......(add Doug view of US here.). then he'd be like Only in America...(add venom view of US here.)

and ring card girls.....i want ring card girls.

[Venom]

Your first link (the flash piece) is all well and good if everyone in the world could live that way. I am a realist and the reality of the world is that without government there would be chaos. Not everyone is gonna live their own life. Its inevitable that people will murder, steal, and enslave. If everyone could follow that model...fine, but any rational person knows thats impossible. Democracy is the best deal going. We choose our own leaders (i'll admit the electoral system needs to go) and they act on our behalf or we get rid of them.

[doug]

Sorry for the delay in my replys. But as you all know, Sunday was the GREY CUP. and my Edmonton Eskimos are now the 2003 CFL CHAMPIONS! woo.

woo fucking hoo.

anyway.

narbus:

No. The proper statement is, "Given time, knowledge, and rational thought, a human can override any nerve in the body."

What halbrooks said is still true. A human can override his nervous system if he chooses. Neither your rebuttal nor your evidence disproves that.

The point of the article was not animal intelligence, so i am not going to discuss Koko the gorilla. History, and animals themselves has proved that animals are not rational.

Humans taught the gorilla sign language, likely using teaching methods relying on the gorillas instincts. Your chimps build the boxes because they're hungry. They're acting on instinct alone; if you dipped the banan in CYANIDE they'd still go after it. That's the difference between us and them, you see.

I think, after reading your post a few times, that you are basically trying to refute this idea:

"Only a human may act, in the sense that he can work toward a goal that is consciously self-chosen."

by saying that nothing is self-chosen and everything is a result of fully predictable biological and physical laws.

if this is true, then why is there so much in the world that is unknown? how come we can't figure out what the soldiers in iraq will do next? why don't we just fall back on the well-known and fully predictable laws that govern all human conduct? if that is what you are arguing, why do we not know exactly what everyone is going to do all the time?

because human action is not 100% predictable. human action is not based on laws. there's no finite, concrecte formula that can accurately predict what a human being will do next.

You say that the author has done nothing to show that we have a choice in the matter. I don't know how you can possibly argue this. Herberts test proves beyond any doubt that we have a choice - the young man CHOOSES to leave his hand in the box and endure the pain rather then react to his instincts and withdraw his hand. He is making a choice. If you wish to argue otherwise, you will need to spell it out for me.

Sigh. What Halbrooks means when he says that jack can't act is that Jack can use no resources and take no action - not thinking, not moving, nothing. In order to do this, he must kill himself. But to kill himself he has to use his body. Therefore, any ethic that orders that Jack may not act MUST be false.

I am afraid that your rationalization of the state is still lacking. Yes they provide services, but by force. If a man breaks into your house and says you are now going to pay him 10% of your annual earnings and in return he will cook your dinner and do your laundry. But if you refuse, he's going to shoot you - is he a criminal in spite of his great cooking?

Let me explain something to you both (Narbus and Venom)

Self ownership is an axiom. it's not an assumption - you own your own life. nobody else has any rational claim to it. That axiom is the lynch pin of my philosophy. You need to disprove that axiom.

[Narbus]

The point of my statements was that Halbrooks is putting forth (heavily implied if nothing else) the argument that humans are to be afforded these rights because they are capable of exisiting...not "without," but let's say "beyond" the flesh. That the (rational) human mind is powerful enough to override the (instinctual) human body.
This is not true, nor is it a very practical nor intelligent use of the human brain and body. If you accidently put yourself in pain, your body reacts, generally in a manner that gets you away from the pain. The child who keeps pricking himself shows that people must mature before they are capable of the rational thought that Halbrooks' argument is built on.
Maturity is a slipperly concept, one that's such an idividual thing that it's impossible to quantify, and therefore it's not feasable to build a social system off of it.

We can't figure out what soliders are going to do next for the same reason we can't predict the weather (accurately). There are too many variables for us to deal with. The storm passing by a forest takes the punch out of it, that Bobby's been playing outside on a hot summer day means he's tired and not working up to par, the butterfly that flaps its wing in Tokyo, the precise mix of chemicals in the brain, so on and so on.

Basically, refute this:
Electrical and chemical reactions, whereupon the variables are all known, are completely predictable (you can't run a current through a resistor and not have the voltage come out as the product of the current and resistance (Ohm's law), and you can't put Na and Cl together and not get a reaction).
The brain is a physical organ operating entirely on electrical and chemical reactions.
Therefore what happens in the brain is completely predictable.

That the brain is a marvelously complex cause/effect system does not mean it's any less a cause/effect system. No cause/effect system, no matter how complex, can give rise to free will.

As for Herbert's test, again I point out that animals are well known to risk life and limb (going against the self-preservation instinct) to save their young.
And before the "gene preservation" argument even lands, there are species of bird that mate for life, something hardly conducive to spreading genes as far as possible.

I understand the state, libertarian leanings, blah blah blah. The point was the Halbrooks' highway man analogy isn't as accurate as he wants it to be.

"You own your own life."
I ask again, what right, then, do parent's have to discipline their child? In your social theory, the ONLY acceptable method of child-rearing would be abandonment. I have no rational right to tell my son to not put his hand on the stove, nor do I have any rational right to tell my son not to beat up the neighbor boy, nor do I have any rational right to do anything without my child's 100% approval.

[Venom]

I ask again, what right, then, do parent's have to discipline their child? In your social theory, the ONLY acceptable method of child-rearing would be abandonment. I have no rational right to tell my son to not put his hand on the stove, nor do I have any rational right to tell my son not to beat up the neighbor boy, nor do I have any rational right to do anything without my child's 100% approval.

and without having that right to bring our children up the way we see fit we will have chaos! Not many children would choose going to school over playing with their friends. Without government there is chaos. If you believe otherwise please explain.

[Narbus]

The right to raise your child hardly exists solely due to government, nor does government exist because I have the right to raise my child. It is entirely feasible that a person could raise their child without the government intervening, and it's entirely feasible that a government could exist without telling people how to raise their children.

Try again.

[Bandalero]

*opens a beer and watches.*

[thirdhour]

*gets out the popcorn*