Karl

First there was the egg....

Nothing surprises me about people voting to remain part of the EU. The mob looks to socialism and the state to save it. For anyone under 30 I would say it's time to quit Europe. I always like th old adage 'when the crowd runs in one direction you had better run in the other'. If Britain stays in we are finished- even if we leave this may be true-but at least we would have a chance. It would be good if Britain was an independent place to which the strivers, the entrepreneurs, the industrialists, inventors, creators and investors could find sanctuary and have the people of this Island thrive. It would give hope to those trapped in a collapsing European nightmare that they could change things for the better. People are generally very risk averse. They see wide open spaces as dangerous plains; opportunities as a series of unsolvable problems. They cannot see themselves as heroes in their own stories so they look to the state to make their life safe and comfortable. The men and women who do stride out, who build and nurture are not revered, they are seen as exploiters and rentiers. The people don't see those people as saviours, but only cash cows to me milked to save the rest.

It's all gone very Tarkus. Was it ELP that created mankind ?

Yes, the hashtags, music, a brave Muslim, a reporter in a headscarf, some Muslim men appalled by the actions of a few, flowers, the promises of standing together, the exploration of how these men got 'radicalised' as if they caught some disease, posters showing immigrants wearing suicide belts with large red crosses, the liberal bourgeoise left pouring scorn on anyone who dare connect this to Islam or the hallowed EU. It's all getting a bit tiresome. Well I think that it won't be long before the average person in the street begins to doubt that their Government is actually capable of stopping these jihadhist nutters and what's more, they seem hell bent on flooding the country with more Muslim immigrants in order to increase the risks further. Once that confidence is gone then so will any sense of control. Enoch Powell saw it 'rivers of blood'. Well the rivers have begun to flow within our capital cities, the bastions of Western culture rocked by bomb blasts, machine gun fire and butchery knives. Every German wasn't a Nazi it is true to say, but when people begin looking for justice for those who's body parts lie scattered across buildings, trains and aircraft, then no amount of peaceful Islam will pacify the call.

Or you watched that latest Alien film :-)

@dustybejing. Either you are incapable of grasping the difference between man (the rational animal) and the irrational, instinctive animal, or you are being deliberately evasive. Man doesn't have an instinct for survival, he has a desire to live, but a desire is not an instinct. An instinct for survival is the automatic knowledge of survival and man doesn't have it. We are born tabula rasa with only a capacity for cognition and emotion, everything else we must learn and choose to learn. The reason we have wars is that we can choose to be self destructive, we can choose mutually assured destruction because we don't have an automatic instinct not to. We farm animals because we choose to feed ourselves instead of starvation.

That's the traditional 'hero' who sacrificed their lives-and we know how the state likes a good sacrificial lamb as a pin up. The more authoritarian and war like the state is, the more it wants its brand of heroes. To me a hero is a businessman, a mother, a Father, or absolutely anyone who uses their minds rationally and does not give them up to consensus, religion or populism. I consider myself a hero because I choose to be one, not because anyone says I am one. In a sense this is walking the path, but it is one of my own making and not one written in a book, or nailed to a church door.

Don't some already think it is comrade ?

Heroes know who they are. Our minds aren't black boxes unless we choose to throw away reason, to evade or just to be too lazy to bother thinking. I do what I do because I'm selfish. I enjoy writing and arguing. If I was in Ancient Greece you woukd have seen me amongst the student philosophers arguing in the forum. It's not an altruistic position. You also give your time and writing here, if you didn't I would be very bored, so, we trade, it's a win win even if the argument gets heated. I'm always fascinated by the approach of others, so it's fun for me otherwise I'd be somewhere else.

We won't be going anywhere until we do.

You don't think you choose to value your life ? Really. Then why are you doing anything at all ? Why are you writing your thoughts as an argument here ? It's complete and utter rubbish and you know it ;-) A dog has no choice as to wether it values its life or not, but you do and you have to choose to survive. There is no automatic mechanism you are forced to plan, reason and choose every step of the way. You must decide on a career, what foods to eat, who you should associate with, where to bank, what transport to use, what things you must learn, where you should live, how to purchase a house, if you should have a pension for old age, how much you should spend and budget. You must do what a dog does not ever think about. A dog is born, it hunts, it fights it mates and eats. If it's food supply runs out it cannot choose to begin farming, to irrigate the land, to domesticate it's food supply. You are not understanding the incredible being that you are and yet you default to calling man a plague, as if he was just so much irrational disease. We have more people on the planet today than we did thousands of years ago. We live far more comfortable, healthier, safer lives. We can walk into a supermarket and pick up food, clothes or medicine for a tiny fraction of what we earn. As capitalism has spread, the rest of the world is beginning to benefit in the same way. We grow more food than the entire world can eat. We live far longer. We can indulge in art, entertainment or just lazing about on a sunny beach. There are even less deaths from war and deaths from war are far less than that which we once suffered by disease, injury and starvation. Frankly I find it disgusting that you throw this all away and complain that it isn't a perfect utopia. That you wouldn't call for wholesale annhialation only because you are such a magnanimous perfect human being.

Everyone who doesn't want to comit suicide values their lives first and then all other values are judged against that value. its a more complex evaluation than you are imagining. It isn't a fixed hierarchy of values, but the value of ones life is the measure. So, it means a Father might sacrifice his life for his wife or children, but it is not sacrifice in the sense of altruism. This kind of sacrifice is a product of the value he places on his families life, judged against the prime value of his own life. If he didn't value his own life primarily he would be incapable of any action. This is why I say that people are evading the truth by a long string of conceptual justifications. The true suicide kills himself the moment he decides he does not value his life as prime. He just ceases trying to survive. As I said, I'm saying everyone must choose how they act. If they decide to deceive or use force then they will suffer the effects of that action. Sometimes people make mistakes. That's life. All I'm saying is that it is up to YOU wether you decide to reason, to act in accordance with your values with your virtues. You are a moral man if you try to reason by the primary value of your life. It's only possible to act freely if you are free to act, so, in certain circumstances such as war, incarceration, abusive relationships or a totalitarian state it isn't always possible to apply reason. I don't know about straw dogs, but I am cautious about whom I associate. I don't walk into a barber expecting to cut my throat, neither do I have an operation without some sense the surgeon is qualified and sober. Some of these things I must weigh up. Alternatively a stranger in a dark alley, or a taxi driver with bald tyres and a half drunk bottle of scotch on the passenger seat won't likely share my values immediately.

Because of what you are doing in order to integrate the concepts and how many concepts that are needed in order to reach such an abstract.

I agree with that. It's those that don't know communism that are attracted to its revolution, worker liberation, capitalist fat cat extinction, social utopia of like minded beautiful people living in socialist Harmony with plenty for everyone. If you point out the USSR they cannot conceive that it was socialism, they make excuses that it was wrongly imposed, Marx was misunderstood, it was the capitalist countries that caused it's failure and anyway, they say without a hint of irony, this is a different kind of social justice.

She doesn't. Ive read some of her work in short form. I don't attack every critic of crony corporatism, the problem is that because we have crony corporatism it's easy for the left to tell us that capitalism is dead and that we must follow some version of the Neo Marxist model towards socialist utopia. To pick points of agreement-even amongst thick libertarians-I no longer do. The reason is that they all follow a subjectivist fantasy which makes for the pragmatic approach. I can read a few lines, or listen to half a dozen sentences and I know instantaneously what the economic model is and the philosophy that underscores it. I'm always intrigued by the economist/politician/philosopher who honey coats and hides their philosophies in order that they seem new, or attractive to those seeking change, it's sometimes fun to unpick their rhetoric from the underlying strategy. I worked backwards from socialism to libertarianism and finally anarchist. I've studied the economic models of Friedman, Mises and Marx. This gives a certain kind of objective view, but coupled with philosophy it's the equivalent of a bug under a very large microscope.

You do like your communist indoctrination at the state institutions. You should ask for Bob Murphy or Tom Woods. That would be really funny to see how that went down. Mises blew Kleins facile work out of the park 60 years ago. I keep suggesting you read Hazlitt as a primer, but I suppose it's banned in your head :-)

Once through the basics young adults should be taught how to educate themselves rather than being taught specific kinds of skills. If you can read a book enough to determine if it makes sense, then you can practically learn any skill you want. Every teacher is teaching from a book anyway. As the saying goes "teach a man history and he can trach history, but teach a man how to educate himself and he can do anything". A lot of building character was built on the Trivium. A man had to have the ability to read, reason and argue effectively. It was important to be physically able, but a man without the same craft of mind was considered an ignorant buffoon. Sadly those days are gone and 'ignorant buffoon' is pretty much standard currency.

I'm not beaten for sure. I also see that there is possibility even if not probability. My life will shortly draw to a close, so the most I can do is pass on what I know to the tiny few who that might listen. It is the young who will have to make of the world what they will, I will have long since turned to dust. I will carry on carrying water and chopping sticks until then. :-)

Your life is not 'intrinsically valuable' you must 'choose' to value it that way. Then you have to think and do action which preserves and enhances that prime value. We are reasoning animals and that's the difference. We must choose to live or die, to survive, to produce, to plan. An animal doesn't have this faculty. It simply does what instinct tells it to do in an automatic way. I am more valuable to me than you are to me. You don't argue for annhialation for one very obvious reason. You are lying to yourself and evading. If you really believed it was a plague then surely you should be first with a rope around your own neck, but you don't advocate that of course. It's just everybody else who is the plague, not you and your loved ones clearly-who you say you don't value any more highly than anyone else. That's the conflict you hold its as obvious as the tree outside my window. You can pretend to have your cake and eat it, but you know it isn't reality by the hypocrisy of your argument. You do value yourself and your loved ones higher than everyone else and you don't see them or yourself as the plague only 'others '. You can't advocate annhialation because it would put your neck and those of your family to the knife.

It is my standard of heroism because I value my life as a primary. I did not imply that you will have the same standard, but neither am I speaking from arbitrary whim. In other words I know, regardless of wether you know it or not. It is as plain as 2+2=4 (and I did not choose that example without good reason). You do not deprive anyone of anything by driving on the road unless you stole the car and thus acquired a value by deceit or force.You cannot live your life through the mirror of another because you are no longer accepting your life as prime value. Don't confuse this with hedonism it is entirely the opposite. My morals are my morals, my virtues and values are mine and mine alone. However I choose to act will have to accord with holding my own life as the primary value. Existence is identity ; consciousness is identification. Therefore, I choose people to trade and associate with who also hold similar standards. This should be obvious-would you let your wife/daughter into the car with a known rapist. Would you buy from someone who has continually failed to honour their contracts. Would you get on a plane with a pilot who announces that he believes life is just a dream, that reality cannot be know, morals are subjective and so we shouldn't worry if he decides to fly into a cliff. I'm going to bet you want to get on a plane with a pilot who values their own life most highly and will do everything in their power to survive. I've tried explaining this many times but perhaps it's too radical to grasp, even though to my eyes it's so patently obvious it really should need explanation.

I bought it on DVD years ago and watched it many times since.

I like Titan AE - I haven't ever thought of it beyond an entertaining film. I don't know if there is a strong philosophical undertone, but it's a great movie IMO and underrated. The scene flying with the light porpoise phantom things .....brilliant 'it's my time to fly'.

Fan of mankind is a ridiculous notion Stosh. I only represent myself and see that it benefits me to volitionally and peacefully trade with men who value what I value. My aim is to my own survival first. So that, I'm hero and not villain. Therefore anything that threatens my life, that is anti-life is a threat/evil and anything that helps me to survive and prosper is a good. People that claim 'we are a plague' do not know me and do not share my values and represent a clear threat. I reserve the same for anyone claiming that 'might makes right' or we should give up thinking because reality cannot be know. I don't wish to sacrifice anyone for my life and neither will I sacrifice mine for theirs because I love my life.

This is not a case of absolute morality and you are thinking in the way of a straw man. I'm saying that you are capable of reasoning and logical thought, that this will show you what action is key to your survival and what isn't. It does not say that you are always making the right decision, instead it says you are always capable of making the right decision and so you should try as hard as you can to shine by thinking the best you can. The problem is that we have stopped doing this, we have substituted pragmatism and are busy evading reality. We mentally evade and actively seek not to think and it's here that we are presently. You cannot talk of anything without starting here. We are at almost the lowest point- we can go lower still-we must seek to rise higher. This is what I believe people are doing here, no matter how misguided, they want it to be better, but many are giving away the opportunity by destruction of their minds. Armies should be there to protect reason and the Liberty for man to exercise that tool through mind and body. Armies are not there to protect against arbitrary morals dreamed up by churches and politicians. We must fight for liberty to preserve reason and reason to preserve life and the productivity that goes along with it. That's the only purpose of defence, not to protect property, but to protect the liberty of every man as you would for the preservation of your own life and the freedom to live it productively.

We aren't going anywhere until we take our own, independent lives as primary value and learn, again, to apply reasoned thought. We cannot sacrifice everyone to us, neither can everyone sacrifice for everyone else. That's the lesson we had better learn pretty damned quickly whilst waving around mass killing weapons without any sense of good and evil, but with total pragmatism. We had better learn fast to be heroes and to take that responsibility seriously. My guess is we will fail. We have squandered our advantage against natures uncompromising testing of our fitness to survive. We have junked reason, our only tool of survival and we are at the beginnings of a large scale suicide.