Yet Another Angry Philosorant Site

This site is acting as my sounding board; a way for me to figure out what I believe by explaining or complaining about it to others. I figure that, if I'm going to try to write a book on ethics and start a new moral movement I need to write clearly and concisely. This isn't that. This is a place for me to rant and rave and get it out of my system to I can be calm and collected later. Hopefully it's at least entertaining.

​If you're offended by me saying fuck or calling someone a retard, then please don't read the beginning of this sentence. I use humor not because I'm insecure in my beliefs, but because I like to. If you're looking for a serious discussion on many topics, go to lesswrong.org. Stay away from sites which pretend to be be pro-rationality but aren't such as rationalwiki and most atheism pages.

I tend to assert a lot of things which happen to be true without a lot of research because scholarship is hard and I'm lazy. Luckily, I've been able to leverage my reasonably intelligent brain to skip to a lot of conclusions which is a huge time-saver. This site is under continual reevaluation to ensure what I'm saying is clear and to fix mistakes.

Actualizer

I am trying to live my life according to The Actualization Ethic, outlined here, and a generally classic liberal perspective. The fundamentals are easy to understand, but take a significant amount of time to master. I will share with the readers some of my findings on living actualization and libertarianism throughout this site.

Anti-Statist / Anti-Theist

I can't honestly claim to be an anarchist in the literal sense of the word. Anarchy means "no archons" and I will always be under archons of the mind and exist in a world of hierarchy and power disparities. A more honest self-appraisal leads me to recognize that I'm vehemently against noble (and ignoble) lies. Not only are these lies contrary to the tenets of actualization, they have lead to a lot of harm through the ages.

Of the two, statism is worse because most religions will leave you alone in developed countries. The power they have comes from government and government is legitimized beyond in areas where private groups or individuals wouldn't be tolerated because of the delusion of statism.

Welcome to your Nightmare

You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind - driving you mad.

 

I'm a libertarian who dislikes libertarians because libertarians are among the whiniest people on the planet. I dislike progressives because of their smugness and hubris - even the name progressive is smug. I dislike philosophers because they are, by-and-large engaging in mental masturbation.

I live in NH, one of the best states (by my standards) in the U.S. (which is a subpar country by my standards). I give no allegiance to any political unit simply because I was born here. If you're a "patriot," you'll probably get angry at some of the things I'll say. And yet, I'll be running for state rep in 2016 because, even though the system sucks, using it as a vehicle for change is more efficient than many other tactics. I'd be worried about what I write here, but people honestly don't pay attention to local politics and I'm not going to censor myself - this is who I am and people either accept that or don't. I plan to run to serve the people of this state by removing obstacles to human goal actualization. If they don't want me to serve them, then I can find other things to do with my time.

I'm a software engineer who doesn't let a dislike of special cases make him an aspie.

If you want to see a summary of the assertions I make on this site, click here.

• Existence
  • Reality exists and you can be incorrect about its nature
  • Identities exist in the map, not the territory
  • Things are real when they are found in reality
  • States of affairs exist or they don't.
  • Nothing can't - that is you can't derefence properties or actions on an object the concept of nothing refers to because the concept of nothing has no referrent.
• Epistemology
  • Truth is a relationship between beliefs and reality
  • Probability exists in the map, not the territory
  • You can't use deductive logic to gain knowledge
  • The epistemological "can" means "belief that the probability of X is > 0%"
  • Justification is relative to a standard, something is functionally justified when someone no longer needs to make claims for a listener to accept his or her assertion.
  • Can doesn't imply will. Did doesn't imply will (the problem of induction).
• Deities
  • A being or beings with the commonly attributed attributes of god likely doesn't exist
  • The likelihood of Yahweh or Allah existing is so close to zero, that it's effectively false
• Evolution
  • Macro and micro evolution are real
  • Group selection doesn't work
  • Evolution doesn't stop at the neck - human IQ and propensities toward and away from certain behaviors can vary by identifiable sub populations
  • Hybridization can be beneficial or destructive of certain ends
  • Dysgenics and eugenics are defined relative to traits.
  • Evolution is a process of survival of the "not bad enough to not survive"
  • Evolution HAS NO GOAL
• Human Biology
  • Contra-causal free will doesn't exist
  • Mental states supervene on neurological states
  • A large number of human propensities and aversions are genetic
  • There are multiple evaluative centers which can compete with one another
  • Thinking requires energy, and humans are wired to be "cheap"
  • Human behavior and intelligence adapted primarily for small groups where the actions of most individuals was visible and known to other members
  • Belief in the non-existence of something is not the same as non-belief about the existence of something
  • Most decisions bubble up from the unconscious and are already decided before one is aware of them
• Psychology
  • Children are resilient: they won't be harmed by (accidental) physical pain and lack of money much
  • Children are fragile: they will be harmed by abuse, disrespect, and lack of love
  • Human are naturally self-interested
  • Humans generally come pre-wired with economic calculators
  • There are multiple evaluative centers which can compete with one another
  • Most humans need to engage in The Power Process
  • Humans are able to compartmentalize beliefs
  • Cognitive dissonance tends to feel unpleasant
  • There exist widely common moral foundations per Jonathan Haidt's work
  • Habit and ritual are useful
  • Humans have a sphere of infuence and sphere of concern. Misaligning these in either way produces results most would consider bad.
  • Owning your values is hard, but liberating.
• Ethics
  • You can cross the is-ought bridge by referencing desired ends.
  • There is no motivational moral ought which is not reducible to: expectation, advice, or demand.
  • Univerality is not possible from a purely logical perspective because the pertience of any Schelling fence is value-laden
  • There are no natural rights
  • There is no non-peer-to-peer social contract
  • Duty is expectation from self or others
  • Rights are respect for self or others
  • There is no meta-moral system.
  • Ought (except the demand form) implies can (as defined in the espistemology section).
  • Moral systems are self-balancing through cost. Norms operate in a moral ecosystem through the process of morality (similar to species operating in a biological ecosystem through the process of evolution).
  • With the exception of showing how multiple evaluation centers can operate largely independently in the brain, trolley problems are fairly pointless.
  • Good and bad, right and wrong are relative to states of affairs or desires.
  • Value is a relationship between desires and states of affairs, or the dispositional strength of an action potential channel, or the ranking of a means toward and end. It is also the expression of such a desire when used as a verb.
  • Intrinsic value does not exist
  • Blameworthiness is the intersection between fault and responsibility.
  • Contra-causal free will is not necessary for responsibility.
  • If you have no reason to care about something, then you won't.
  • Science can't tell you what you SHOULD desire without reference to a desire you already have.
• Sociology
  • Centralization of power is dangerous for goal actualization and The Power Process
  • Democracy is not freedom
  • Voting at large scales does effectively nothing at an individual level except to buy into the system.
  • Power tends to corrupt
  • People are more careful when spending their own money than when spending others' money
  • Socieites require truth, trust, and trade to survive
  • Society is a tool for individuals, not something they owe allegiance to
  • Luck falls stochastically and you can't correct for it without creating additional costs
  • Humans are opportunity creators and opportunity consumers
  • Wealth is not zero-sum, but is finite (if accessible opportunities in reality are finite)
  • Justice, equality, and liberty are complex and nuanced concepts
  • Bureaucracies generally shift to self-perpetuation over time
  • There are numerous similarities between statism and relgion
  • Guerilla warfare "works"
  • An armed populace reduces potential and actual tyranny
• Libertarianism
  • Not all problems are caused by the government
  • Self-ownership does not follow logically
  • Ignoring the Lockean proviso will not lead to stable large-scale minarchy or anarchy.
  • Ignoring the use of violence, confrontation, and shame will not hasten increased liberty.
  • Lying violates the NAP
  • The NAP has problems
  • Argumentation ethics is a joke
  • Geoism is the system most concordant with libertarianism and social justice.
• Progressives
  • You don't know what's "right" for others
  • Self-ownership does not follow logically
  • Ignoring the Lockean proviso will not lead to stable large-scale minarchy or anarchy.
  • Ignoring the use of violence, confrontation, and shame will not hasten increased liberty.
  • Just because someone has more money doesn't mean it's a good idea to tax them more.
  • Stop using the 91% marginal tax rate argument, it makes you look stupid.
  • Shame is one tool in the social suassion toolbox, removing tools is irrational.
  • The government and the people in it don't necessarily have your best interests in mind.
  • Scarcity exists
  • There are some problems which aren't caused "by society." E.G. some groups of people really are more violent or lower IQ than others.
  • The constitution isn't a living document.
• Conservatives
  • War is BAD for the economy generally
  • The police and miltiary aren't heroes automatically
  • Many people join the military for dishonorable reasons (by my standards)
  • The war on drugs is a war on freedom
  • The "FairTax" is a bad idea and you're dumb if you support it.
  • The government and the people in it don't necessarily have your best interests in mind.
  • Retribution is a waste of past invested human effort.
  • Guns reduce crime, but so does increased equality.
  • The U.S. isn't a Christian nation.
  • The founding fathers weren't infallable.
• The Future
  • If humans don't go extinct before that time, you will gladly discard your body if you can because it's a liability
  • The future will get more complex and efforts are better spent finding ways to make human action non-conflicting with other humans than to try to assign rights and rules.
• Disaster
  • Malthus being wrong doesn't mean overpopulation is a lie.
  • Peak oil is real.
  • Technological unemployment is real.