GENIUS FORUMS

vicdan wrote:There are plenty of places in USA where you can have land for free.
Here's the very first hit in the google search for free land: Kansas Free Land. That search is full of places giving away land for free -- just come and settle there!

Come on, start coming up with new excuses! You can do it!

Well, to start with: such deals have requirements like having a child that has to go to the local school or a government grand of some kind. And added to that one is often expected to get employment in one of the two factories of the town. Farming would be an option if one has A. investors in farming equipment, and B. less competition from giant farming cooperations next-doors.

Of course there's something about the permaculture or other volunteer farming networks that would certainly form a good alternative. Often that's only a few hours work each day and one has a roof and food, and slower pacing. Perhaps no DSL though. But when working for a few years like that chances are one gets to borrow some land and equipment from someone and do your own thing. Even in farming there's a corporate ladder called 'experience' and 'skill set'.

My take on Victor's ethics on fairness would be called 'exchange'. Life is not free: on many physical and psychological levels one is constantly busy with exchanges and both sides of the exchange must have some weight or value. It wouldn't matter if this weight is material or immaterial but there must be the perception at least of balance. The moment our perception of a balanced exchange is off, this will result in ressentiment, jealousy, sadness, depression or irrational forms of defensiveness on the mental side at least.

At the moment one perceives the good things of the environment one lives in and receives from, an instinctual response arises to return. This could range from a religious mindset (a sacrifice to the gods) to more practical ones (respect, care and contribution to its upkeep). Messing with this law of exchange breeds lots of problems. Here lies not just a problem with the work refuser: Western society is becoming less able to provide a viable method of return when something, good or bad, has been received. In such cases violence becomes a safety valve.

Now what if one perceives mostly bads of the environment. Two responses become a possibility: leave the environment (migration) or change it (mutation). If mutation is chosen, and it might be closest to a philosopher's choice, ones work would be geared toward the possibility of change. This is where the exchange is possibly restored when the philosopher, even wannabees, really believe they are working towards influencing their environment and to facilitate change. One becomes the man with the mission but if this is not done seriously one should really consider the migration option to prevent falling victim to the dark and subtle, disarming forces of ressentiment.

Unidian wrote:Okay, so we know you have all sorts of objections to paying to keep people who choose not have jobs from starving. So what do you think about paying for bullets to shoot little children in Iraq, or perhaps burn them alive with white phosphorus? How outraged are you about the far larger share of your income which makes that possible?

Quite a bit. However, bullets don't proclaim that I have a moral obligation to pay for them.

Besides, as I had previously said, i support NIT for pragmatic reasons. What I really despise is people like you claiming that I morally owe them indolent dickwads a living.

Where taxes go is a democratically made pragmatic decision. Our economic system doesn't proclaim that I have a moral obligation to support whatever goals our representatives decide to spend money on. You do. Our economic system doesn't impose a moral obligation on me, but you attempt to.

That's why I had said earlier than i would have a lot less problems with someone who simply doesn't want to work, and unapologetically abuses the system to support themselves. I would prefer an honest thief to a dishonest slave. If you piss on my shoes, at least have the decency to not tell me it's raining.

Nick Treklis wrote:I'm not demanding anything. I'm just making a valid point that if someone doesn't want to participate in societies irrationalities then it should be viewed as reasonable to afford them a modest and civilized way of life. If I lived on a planet where you had to get fucked in the butt in order to make a living, and me and all my butt fucking buddies encountered a man who didn't want to participate in our butt fucking, I would see that as a reasonable request and not require him to participate in our butt fucking while affording him a modest means of living.

Okay, let's review how things work on Planet Buttfuck:

"Hi, how you doing? Would you care for some anal penetration? "

"No, thanks, but now you must support me for the rest of my life."

"Well, that's certainly reasonable."

DHodges wrote:Okay, let's review how things work on Planet Buttfuck:

"Hi, how you doing? Would you care for some anal penetration? "

"No, thanks, but now you must support me for the rest of my life."

"Well, that's certainly reasonable."

I think what Nick meant was something more like this:

"I have to find some way to get the necessities of life."

"Well, in order to get the necessities of life, you can either be buttfucked like everybody else or prove that you're incapable of being buttfucked."

"I might be capable of being buttfucked, but I really don't like it."

"That's too bad. On our planet, if you're capable of being buttfucked, you have to be in order to make a living. Since you're capable, your options are to start being buttfucked or to starve."

Humans would be the ones to create the causal link between buttfucking and starvation in the Planet Buttfuck scenario. Humans do not create the causal link between work and starvation, no more than we create the causal link between jumping out a skyscraper window, and splattering your head on the ground. We simply allow it to exist, in the same way we allow gravity to take its lethal course by not spreading a trampoline underneath the skyscraper-jumper.

I didn't murder him because I failed to place a trampoline there, did I? not even if he yells: "I am about to jump, you better have a trampoline ready!" And I certainly have no obligation to spread a trampoline under him -- he chooses to jump, and that he also wants a trampoline prepared is not material to that fact. His arguing "But I didn't choose to splatter, I chose to jump onto a trampoline!" is exactly like Unidian saying that he doesn't choose to starve, he chooses to not work but be supported on welfare. The fact that we can spread a trampoline under such a jumper, does not create in us a moral obligation to do so, nor does it turn our not doing so into an act of coercion or murder.

Anyway, back to the joys of anal sex. As I said, the causal link there is explicitly man-made, and therein lies the crucial difference which you assholes are ignoring. Equating buttfucking and work is like equating death from gravity-induced splatter, and death from saying "Pumpernickel!', because there is an asshole going around town and bashing in the heads of any person who says "Pumpernickel!"

There is clearly no equivalence between the two. You are guilty of your own death if you jump from a skyscraper window, but the pumpernickel-hater is guilty of your death if you get your head bashed in for saying "Pumpernickel!"

Fucking duh, you bloody idiots.

Humans do not create the causal link between work and starvation, no more than we create the causal link between jumping out a skyscraper window, and splattering your head on the ground.

This is true, but humans do have the power to interrupt the causal link between not working and starving. If nobody worked, then everybody would starve. But it does not follow that if a few people do not work, then they must starve.

vicdan wrote:Anyway, back to the joys of anal sex. As I said, the causal link there is explicitly man-made, and therein lies the crucial difference which you assholes are ignoring.

The conditions under which work occurs are man-made, even if the need for somebody to do work is not. And I think that was Nick's point: that the conditions under which work occurs make work feel like "being buttfucked" to someone who has a strong disinclination for it.

So address my examples of the trampoline and the pumpernickel, or STFU.

As I think was said before in one of the old threads: the jumper is saying that he's going to jump, and a team of trampoline-operators are directly below, but they refuse to deploy the trampoline.

The jumper is saying "I am going to jump, and you owe me to spread the trampoline!" He is saying that he wants to live, but that he will jump anyway.

The trampoline operators will typically spread the trampoline for suicides. They don't owe it to the jumper though, and if they refuse to spread it when the jumper demands it, they are not murderers, nor have they coerced the jumper. They save jumpers because they wish to save lives, not because they owe it to the asshole who demands to take a vertical joyride at everyone else's expense.

Do you know what they do with people who pull shit like that -- wasting everyone's time because they really want to jump, or really want to prank-call 911, or whatever? They fine 'em, or even throw them in jail.

What Uni is saying is that if he yells 'i am about to jump, spread the trampoline!', and the trampoline isn't spread, that the resulting death is murder, rather than a really dumb and assholish decision he made; and that because the possibility of spreading the trampoline exists, the jumper is coerced into not jumping if the trampoline isn't there.

Do you fucking realize how insane this is? Because the trampoline operators don't feel like indulging him, Uni is saying that his decision not to jump (for lack of actual trampoline despite the possibility of trampoline-spreading) s a coerced decision. He is coerced into not jumping because the trampoline operators aren't willing to play his games!

The idiocy just boggles the mind.

Heh, living on welfare is a real "joyride," I'm sure.

I'm off to class now.

Ta ta!

Philosophaster wrote:"That's too bad. On our planet, if you're capable of being buttfucked, you have to be in order to make a living. Since you're capable, your options are to start being buttfucked or to starve."

That's not Planet Buttfuck, that's childhood in Thailand.

Bummer.

Philosophaster wrote:Heh, living on welfare is a real "joyride," I'm sure.

It sure is considering they would be rotting in the streets if people weren't so interested in fighting against natural selection and maiming/taming the human race.

Humans would be the ones to create the causal link between buttfucking and starvation in the Planet Buttfuck scenario. Humans do not create the causal link between work and starvation, no more than we create the causal link between jumping out a skyscraper window, and splattering your head on the ground. We simply allow it to exist, in the same way we allow gravity to take its lethal course by not spreading a trampoline underneath the skyscraper-jumper.

To say that we "allow" gravity to exist is meaningless, because we don't have a choice in the matter. However, the same is not true of the link between voluntary unemployment and starvation/homelessness/etc. We have the ability to repeal such a link with minimal effort anytime we want. When we figure out how to repeal gravity, your objection will make sense. Until then, it's a just another way to attempt to rationalize allowing people to starve.

Even the sociopaths know it it - look at poor Neil bemoaning the existence of the welfare programs we already have. He knows full well that we're already repealing the link between idleness and starvation for many people, and he hates it.

Unidian wrote:To say that we "allow" gravity to exist is meaningless,

i didn't say that, idiot. I said we allow gravity to take its lethal course, i.e. we refrain from interrupting the causal linkbetween jumping and splatter.

Whassamatta, English comprehension getting in the way of your self-justifications now?

because we don't have a choice in the matter.

nor in the matter of starving if you don't have enough food. We can. however, interrupt the causal connection between not working and starvation, just as we can interrupt the causal link between jumping from a skyscraper, and splattering on the pavement.

However, the same is not true of the link between voluntary unemployment and starvation/homelessness/etc. We have the ability to repeal such a link with minimal effort anytime we want.

Right. And we can stretch a trampoline under you, so that you could jump off a skyscraper and still survive, albeit by burdening others -- just as we can feed you indolent diskwads, so that you would refrain from work and still not starve. However, in neither case do we have a moral obligation to do so.

When we figure out how to repeal gravity, your objection will make sense. Until then, it's a just another way to attempt to rationalize allowing people to starve.

Yeah. Just like i rationalize allowing you to splatter if you jump.

We no more repeal gravity than we repeal biology. We can simply interrupt the causal link between not working and starving, just as we can interrupt the causal link between jumping and splattering.

Here is the correspondence chart for you, kiddo:

gravity -- biology
not working -- jumping
death of starvation -- death by splatter
the dole -- trampoline

Get it? We wouldn't repeal biology by letting you live on the dole, we could disrupt the causal link between indolence and starvation. We wouldn't repeal gravity, we could interrupt the causal link between jumping and splattering.

It's a matter of small cost vs. great benefit. If someone comes up to me with a gun to his own head and says "give me a slice of toast or I will shoot myself," I will not start arguing with him over whether or not he is to be held responsible for his own predicament, etc. I will just give him the goddamned piece of toast. Why? Because it's easy for me to do and it obviously means a hell of a lot to him. Faced with such a scenario, I would willing to make a small sacrifice in order to effect an enormous positive change in someone else's life. It's a no-brainer for me.

We've been over this before, though. As always, you prefer strict adherence to ideological principle to a flexible approach based on preserving the dignity of human life, even if it means that people die. You wouldn't be "blackmailed" or "coerced" out of your piece of toast. Good for you, congratulations. BLAM! Oops, it seems you have some brains to wipe off the wall. Good job, and I hope you've got some Lysol handy.

As for interrupting the causal link between joblessness and starvation, as I pointed out, we're already doing it for tons of people. You just don't want us to do it for a certain very specific group of people, based on some irrational ideas about it being "their choice / their responsibility / their fault." For an alleged determinist, you argue just like a free will believer. Then again, I've had the distinct impression that your understanding of determinism is actually piss-poor ever since Philo handed you your ass regarding fatalism back at FP.

Perhaps what you need to do is go here and brush up a bit. It might resolve some of this.

Social Policies: If persons are not self-made, but entirely the product of genetic and environmental conditions, this means that their virtues and faults are not a matter of will or self-chosen character. Rather, individuals are shaped by circumstances that can themselves be modified to produce people that are happier, more productive, more creative, and less needy. The myth of ultimate self-determination (contra-causal free will) blocks the design of a more humane society by blaming persons for their shortcomings instead of understanding the conditions that create them. Likewise, this myth touts material success as the triumph of free will, so that it's thought to be justifiably restricted to those who "deserve" to succeed. Under naturalism, the allocation of resources is understood not to reflect what is deserved on the basis of self-caused virtue, but what is needed for each of us to live a desirable life. Therefore social policies will be encouraged which seek to maximize the opportunities for each person's development, independent of differences in inherited talent or social status. See the Social Justice page.

(Emphasis mine)

I think you acknowledge determinism only because you realize that you absolutely must do so in order to be rational, and having done so, you then proceed to completely ignore it. But the consequences of accepting determinism, including the social ones, will not go away just because they don't fit your egocentric psychology.

Unidian wrote:It's a matter of small cost vs. great benefit.

Ah, so you seem to have abandoned the coercion angle! Good boy. Just remember this the next time you shove your feet in your mouth.

Go ahead, argue that we owe you a living because it's not really much of a cost.

If someone comes up to me with a gun to his own head and says "give me a slice of toast or I will shoot myself," I will not start arguing with him over whether or not he is to be held responsible for his own predicament, etc. I will just give him the goddamned piece of toast. Why? Because it's easy for me to do and it obviously means a hell of a lot to him. Faced with such a scenario, I would willing to make a small sacrifice in order to effect an enormous positive change in someone else's life. It's a no-brainer for me.

The question is not whether you would do it, but whether you are morally obligated to do it; and what would you do if it became common for people to walk around and blackmail others with suicide thusly?

We've been over this before, though. As always, you prefer strict adherence to ideological principle to a flexible approach based on preserving the dignity of human life, even if it means that people die. You wouldn't be "blackmailed" or "coerced" out of your piece of toast.

Yup. I see surrender to coercion or blackmail as the real affront to the dignity of human life. Live free or die, remember?..

Good for you, congratulations. BLAM! Oops, it seems you have some brains to wipe off the wall. Good job, and I hope you've got some Lysol handy.

nah, i will build a tent around it and charge gawkers for admission.

As for interrupting the causal link between joblessness and starvation, as I pointed out, we're already doing it for tons of people. You just don't want us to do it for a certain very specific group of people, based on some irrational ideas about it being "their choice / their responsibility / their fault."

No, i don't want to be told that i am morally obligated to interrupt this causal link on your behalf.

For an alleged determinist,

Free will/choice/whatever has nothing to do with determinism. Libertarian free will is just as incoherent under non-determinism as under determinism. You used to know that (back when i was drilling it into your head). I am more of a compatibilist. I see free will as freedom from coercion, not freedom from determination. You still have your freedom to choose.

you argue just like a free will believer. Then again, I've had the distinct impression that your understanding of determinism is actually piss-poor ever since Philo handed you your ass regarding fatalism back at FP.

hahahaha

yeah, memory is a funny thing, no? You remember what you wish to remember... Go ahead, find that thread.

Poop.

(This is the thread, for anyone interested.)

Something that nobody has mentioned in 14 pages is that this idea only makes sense in rich countries. In "middle class" and poor countries, it would make no sense to even discuss it, as there are many people who are capable of work, have skills and want to work, but can't find a job. Those people do go hungry, and the society is not rich enough to carry them. IMO, as long as there's people who want jobs and can't find them (again, in places where there is no dole), not many are going to feel empathy for those who can find jobs but just prefer to do nothing.

Objections I have for this system: a lot of people will quit their jobs to join the "leisure class", and the burden on the working class will be greater. I believe that many people, if not most, work only because they have to, and put up with jobs and bosses that are shitty, but would quit their jobs in a minute if there existed a guaranteed income.

IOW, if you make not working a more attractive option, many more people will take that route. There are times I myself would have wanted to take it.

Here is the correspondence chart for you, kiddo:

You don't think he could've figured that out on his own?

-

Shahrazad wrote:Objections I have for this system: a lot of people will quit their jobs to joing the "leisure class", and the burden on the working class will be greater. I believe that many people, if not most, work only because they have to, and put up with jobs and bosses that are shitty, but would quit their jobs in a minute if there existed a guaranteed income.

If that income were enough to buy only the absolute necessities (food, water, simple housing, basic clothing) plus a couple of amenities (working computer and Internet, air-conditioning, a book or CD once in a while), how many people do you think would quit their jobs for it?

Not many, I bet.

Ah, so you seem to have abandoned the coercion angle! Good boy. Just remember this the next time you shove your feet in your mouth.

Go ahead, argue that we owe you a living because it's not really much of a cost.

I haven't abandoned anything. I'm simply making an additional argument. There are many arguments for universal welfare. I could make the pragmatic one (based on social costs) as well, but you already agree with it and support NIT for that reason.

The question is not whether you would do it, but whether you are morally obligated to do it; and what would you do if it became common for people to walk around and blackmail others with suicide thusly?

Yeah, of course I feel morally obligated to do it. Duh. If I didn't, wouldn't I just tell the "toast suicide" guy to go get bent, like you would? That's what this whole issue is - I'm arguing for that moral obligation of society to provide universal welfare and you're objecting to it. I thought we established that like 4000 pages ago.

I can't put it in any other language. If the cost is small and the benefit to someone else large, then yes, we are morally obligated to indulge such "blackmail" (in your terms) simply because the value of human life is far greater than the value of the pittance sacrificed. We already do this, you know. As libertarians are fond of pointing out, money is collected by the IRS at gunpoint (in principle) and redistributed to others against the will of many contributors because we as a society have decided that we would feel badly if this were not done. As libertarians also point out, advocacy which promotes this setup is essentially a form of "emotional blackmail." Libertarians get fairly frantic about this. I don't. The reason they do and I don't is one of a differing value framework and approach to morality (which can never be resolved through argument, BTW, even if this goes 5000 pages). To me, it is an effective strategy to solve a problem which could not be solved otherwise. Relying on voluntary charity to solve social problems was tried in the period before the Great Depression, and it was a disaster.

Another difference, of course (and one which also cannot be resolved through argument) is that I think people starving for any reason (including voluntary unemployment) actually is a social problem, and you don't. Again, different value frameworks. We can amuse ourselves with this tennis match all day, but you know as well as I do that no resolution is forthcoming, nor will any audience member be persuaded to adopt a view inconsistent with his or her own pre-existing moral framework.

Good for you, congratulations. BLAM! Oops, it seems you have some brains to wipe off the wall. Good job, and I hope you've got some Lysol handy.

nah, i will build a tent around it and charge gawkers for admission.

Framed as a joke, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. Like Ayn Rand before you, you really made good in America, eh?

Free will/choice/whatever has nothing to do with determinism. Free will is just as incoherent under non-determinism as under determinism. You used to know that (back when i was drilling it into your head). I am more of a compatibilist.

Good for you. The concept of "deserving" on which your moral approach is based in regard to this issue is still just as incoherent as it is when Republicans, Libertarians, and other regressive preach it. Workers "deserve" the wealth they create and others don't. I said you argue just like a free will believer, and you do.

Shar,

Something that nobody has mentioned in 14 pages is that this idea only makes sense in rich countries. In "middle class" and poor countries, it would make no sense to even discuss it, as there are many people who are capable of work, have skills and want to work, but can't find a job. Those people do go hungry, and the society is not rich enough to carry them.

True. However, while some are not going to want to hear it, the fact is that America has sufficient wealth to eliminate poverty throughout the entire world. It actually wouldn't cost as much as you might think, since in many impoverished nations, each person only needs a dollar or two extra to have a reasonable subsistence income.

However, since doing so on a global scale would cause all kinds of economic craziness, it's not really feasible yet. For now, I acknowledge that my arguments are directed toward rich nations. Sadly, poor nations will just have to wait a bit longer for progress to catch up.

Philosophaster wrote:(This is the thread, for anyone interested.)

kewl. Now isn't it interesting how memory works?

In that thread, I had specifically rejected fatalism as incoherent, and no sane person (including philo) believes in fatalism, yet Uni accused me of having my ass handed to me regarding fatalism. He had also specifically dismissed my objections as not being trivial and uninformed (not significant, coming from him, but relevant to indicate what he thought at the time...) but his memory has worked its magic, and that thread became the magic place where Philo beat me on determinism.

if you recall, my point was not that determinism is false (it's irrelevant actually as long as you accept causal closure of the universe) but that it cannot be used as a basis for discussing free will, Philo disagreed. I think I had won, because Philo's argument about reasonableness of determinism was grounded precisely in refusing to consider determinism in the hard physical sense, and instead taking a quasi-compatibilist approach. I am a compatibilist, a tradition with very distinguished intellectual pedigree, but Uni's retroactive memory editing changes everything.

Re-writing of history never stops. :)

If that income were enough to buy only the absolute necessities (food, water, simple housing, basic clothing) plus a couple of amenities (working computer and Internet, air-conditioning, a book or CD once in a while), how many people do you think would quit their jobs for it?

Many would quit their jobs, and live off the teet temporarily, hoping to find a better job. They eventually would, but in the meantime, there'd be a lot of people temporarily out of work.

(food, water, simple housing, basic clothing) plus a couple of amenities (working computer and Internet, air-conditioning, a book or CD once in a while)

These "absolute necessities" you mention are more than good enough for me, if you'd be willing to also extend them to my children. Choosing between not working and working in a shitty job, where I feel unappreciated and underpaid, is a no brainer. Heck, I've quit shitty jobs before without a guaranteed temporary income.

.