here

I to a considerable extent withdraw my criticism of him re not daring to point out problems with FDR.

I was impressed (well you saw that I told him as much). It was an intellectually honest essay. It will be interesting to see where he goes with it.

(Does this mean you're in Canada now?)

I do of course disagree with a lot of what he says about LM, and FDR. But at least he is also honest in that he mentions the things that in his view are problematic in FDR.

No responses to his post yet on FDR.

Memeverese posted a number of new articles. Only very briefly read them so far, but they seem interesting. Have a deadline for next Tuesday though, and won't have much time to respond before then. On FDR there are some responses to his post as well, although of course not about the stuff that is mildly or more critical of FDR

Brief response to the main points in part 4

Memeverse writes:

Quote:

The claim is that Stefan Molyneux consistently bans dissenting opinion from FDR and that this represents a form of hypocrisy because he otherwise promotes freedom so much. People say such things as, “this is a forum about freedom and anarchy yet it is one of the most tightly controlled boards on the internet” or “Stefan Molyneux repeatedly says he is open to criticism, yet when somebody even politely disagrees he asks them to stop posting”.

I would say the claim I make re banning is that Stefan bans people who intelligently and persistently and often politely criticise or question his theories or his actions. Very few people make the former claim that Memeverse describes, but that is the claim he spends most space on refuting

He then does say this

Quote:

That said, a lot of such claims have only a selection of controversial forum threads to show for it for which they often tend to portray a rather one sided picture of what happened usually following a pattern like “someone comes in and politely states his disagreement and promptly gets swarmed with irrelevant questions that stonewall him into a defensive position that gets him banned”. I realize something that resembles this did seem to happen in certain instances, however when examining purported examples of this behaviors it is still worth asking if such stated disagreement really was all about mere expression of disagreement and curiosity or contained something more that could cause the discussion to take a more inflamed route.

which is much more in line with what critics such as myself say, but then he pretty much just glosses over it, thereby leaving unaddressed the main point re banning, shutting down threads, etc. So it doesnt seem here as if Memeverse really tried.

Then he moves on to the legal action thing:

Quote:

5. “But he threatened LM with violence?” Consistent with the whole “purging of dissent” line of accusations it was actually claimed that Molyneux threatened LM with violence, which is a claim of actual authoritarian-style attempt to purge dissent even by dissenters own venues. I wish to put this claim to rest once and for all. The sole basis of this claim is Molyneux’ plea in this video where he says that “using these words without detailed and specific evidence is actionable legal slander” and where he also states: “You can call me all of these things, but you can’t call me an embezzler. You can call me names and that’s fine, but you cannot call me a thief, you cannot say I kidnap people and lock them in because that’s where you’re starting to talk about facts and as we’ve seen there are very specific facts which need to be presented with objective evidence in order to support the charges of cult. Cult is a very specific legal term that is different from “jerk”, you can call me a jerk, I’m never gonna get bothered by it fundamentally, but when you’re gonna use words like brainwashing, cult, cult leader and so on, that is specific, that is associated with criminal activity and you need to provide evidence or you need to withdraw those claims. If you call my show a cult, or me a cult leader, and do not provide objective evidence from standardized definitions, you and I will have a problem. Don’t do it, let’s not go down that road. That’s silly, let’s keep the debate on principles The terms “actionable legal slander” is taken as to mean that he can take legal action against those using terms in question to portray his show. What accusers infer from this is that he effectively threatened to sue them and since it is impossible to sue someone today without state courts and since state is the one enforcing laws against slander, this is seen as threatening to use state violence against them. But this simply does not follow. As is seen in the quote above, he clearly states that the accusations in question are associated with criminal activity given that many cults foster certain acts which are not only illegal (by laws of state), but morally illegitimate (natural law referred to by libertarians for the principle of non-aggression). Therefore accusing FDR a cult without real basis not only presents potential harm to the value of FDR and its brand and reputation, but puts FDR in a legally vulnerable situation to others who may in fact initiate legal action against him. Even in a free society which Stefan Molyneux, libertarians and voluntaryists promote, filing disputes for arbitration on the basis of baseless slander is not inconceivable. In market anarchy there would be a severe plurality of private courts with various terms of service. If Liberated Minds, for instance, was a group registered with court A and that court had provisions against slanderous activity, one can certainly sue Liberated Minds if they break such a contract. If they however went with the service without provisions against slander, Molyneux could still claim a dispute with it by means of a different arbitration agency which could have some sort of a contract with the agency representing LM which would allow a way of settling inter-agency disputes. Whichever route was pursued the bottom line is that Molyneux could claim that his business was damaged by what were deliberately slanderous and untrue statements against potential customers of his business, claiming that these slanderers are perpetrating fraud. If he could prove that he is at a loss as a direct consequences of said slander, and the arbiter determines that the claims they have been making truly were without basis and deliberate attempts at smear, with conclusive evidence, LM could conceivably be forced to pay damages. But given that we do not live in such a society and are all subject to the same coerced set of rules, appealing to the vulnerable legal state seems entirely reasonable. In any case, quite a bit of misrepresentation is necessary for this to be understood as a threat that flies in the face of Molyneux’ own philosophy.

I don't know quite how to respond to this other than by saying that I think it is such an obvious denial of what was obviously said. This is the point where I actually question Memeverse's good will.

It's like (I think) Blackacidlizzard said: "Stefan's words here are like those of a mobster coming in to a store saying 'That's a nice store you've got there, sure would be sad to see it destroyed'.'

He is not literally saying that he will destroy it, but the threat is clear to anybody who's paying attention. Again, I'm not even gonna try to argue for this interpretation any further cuz it seems so very obvious (''be legally responsible''Using these words [cult] without detailed and specific evidence represents actionable legal slander''Cult is a very specific legal term [...] when you're gonna use words like 'brainwashing', 'cult', 'cult leader' and so on, that is specific, that is associated with criminal activity and you need to provide evidence or you need to withdraw those claims.' 'If you call my show a cult or me a cult leader and do not provide objective evidence from standardized definitions, we will have a problem.') that you have to be very creative in trying to deny it.

Stefan's use of this threat is double hypocritical, first because it goes against UPB (and this also addresses the second point Memeverse makes about it) and because Stefan has used the word 'cult' very liberally when applied to o9ther organizations and never once was concerned with the association with criminal activities, with being 'legally responsible' etc. It's only when the word is used against him, that he threatens to grab the gun of the state.

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I swear, some libertarian troll gets a message board and you guys can't fucking stop with it.

Thank you Conrad. It is important to be respectful of everyone's opinions here, even and especially when they differ from our own. I appreciate that Memeverse's differing opinions are being considered carefully and respectfully, instead of being automatically dismissed because of his pro-FDR vantage point. In spite of the problems that I have had with FDR, I feel that fairly considering Memeverse's point of view is valuable.

Mr. 'Verse doesn't have much of a sense of humor. He treated Conrad's joke about building an FDR compound as if it were a serious prediction. I know that sometimes it's sort of hard to gauge that sort of thing online, but in the context, it's immediately apparent that it was hyperbole for the sake of humor. It's similar to, but not nearly as bed as Stef pulling out the ridiculous, over the top insult thread and misrepresenting it as a true and accurate portrait of LM's typical level of discourse and our feelings on race, ethnicity, etc.