Quickies!

Number of posts: 842 Registration date: 2008-03-25

I interrupted the Allison story long enough to throw up a couple Quickies! for Feb. (I knew I would start feeling the pressure to do them monthly. I need to skip a month to remind myself I can. It's not like I have hundreds of subscribers dying for my next column!). Anyway, it's just a couple of things--no big revelations. I did have a little fun with the determinism thread, though.

http://www.fdrliberated.com/?p=1827

Thanks and a big tip o' the hat to Argent, who clued us all in to Molyneux's crazy talk about the role of a therapist.

_________________
-Q.E.

Visit FDR Liberated for the story behind FreeDomain Radio.

Number of posts: 514 Registration date: 2010-01-28

Hat tip right back at you, man. Interesting and insightful stuff!

If I may add one correction, as I noted in the thread about the determinism thread, the apology offshoot thread did see the defection of one member: Paul. It's kind of a weird one, though; the last time he posted was almost a year ago, in another determinism thread. So I'm not sure if these new threads changed his mind in some way, or if he was just looking for a chance to announce his departure, or what.

Number of posts: 842 Registration date: 2008-03-25

Thanks for the compliment and the correction! I've updated the article.

_________________
-Q.E.

Visit FDR Liberated for the story behind FreeDomain Radio.

Number of posts: 628 Registration date: 2009-02-09

I have to admit QuestEon, your blog has become as addictive as popcorn to me.

I haven't listened to the podcast entitled "Why Are We Different?", though I did see the thread. I missed the idea that fdr members who had not defoo'd their families are considered abusive and that has given them brain damage. Is that what the podcast suggests? Geez!

The suggestion of having a therapist listen to one of Molyneux's podcasts in which he is dealing with a member and helping them to understand something from their past is a suggestion that I have already taken. When I was making my break from fdr, I had my therapist view fdr and listen to more than one podcast. She did, in fact, think that Molyneux was attempting to practice a kind of therapy with the people who he was talking with. She also felt that his methods were highly suspect, that the community was unhealthy at best, and she advised me to break all ties with the community as quickly as possible. You are 100% correct on that one QuestEon!

The whole Determinism scene was just plain sad.

QuestEon, your insights are so clear. It is my hope that many are reading and will be helped to see this situation with clarity.

flower

Number of posts: 842 Registration date: 2008-03-25

nelle wrote:

I haven't listened to the podcast entitled "Why Are We Different?", though I did see the thread. I missed the idea that fdr members who had not defoo'd their families are considered abusive and that has given them brain damage. Is that what the podcast suggests? Geez!

First, thank you very much!

I want to be very clear about that podcast. What I do is tie together the outrageous things that Molyneux says. If he believes in what he says, then my logic is sound.

In that podcast, he says he believes that when people abuse others, it makes physical changes in their own brain. Therefore, he says, you will one day be able to tell from a brain scan if someone is an abuser, because the act has changed their brain somehow.

Later, he says the reason "we are different." By "we," he means "FDR True Believers" and by "different" he means "morally, probably intellectually, and likely a few other ways, superior."

He says that those who "are successful" in the "conversation" find it easier to do so because they "haven't harmed anyone."

Does he believe all that? Then that means those who are unsuccessful have harmed people. I don't think I have to even infer that, now that I think of it. I haven't listened to the podcast for a while, but I think Molyneux literally says it's hard to join FDR and defoo, etc., if you've harmed people.

Of course, that's a joke. Anyone can be a PK if you buy a subscription or cough up $500! Best deal in town.

I, however, did draw the link between non-committing FDR members and brain damage. But I don't see any other interpretation, based on what Molyneux says here. I doubt he would dispute it.

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Subject: Re: Quickies! Wed Feb 10, 2010 6:34 pm

QuestEon wrote:

In that podcast, he says he believes that when people abuse others, it makes physical changes in their own brain. Therefore, he says, you will one day be able to tell from a brain scan if someone is an abuser, because the act has changed their brain somehow.

IIRC, I listened to a podcast he did about welfare and how it makes you stupid. I was struck by how he confused correlation with causality, or so it seemed to me, but it was a very long time ago and I did not want to listen to his voice again.

Talking about brain scans, I wonder if Moly has ever had his scanned. Given that his mother was an alcoholic and foetal alcohol syndrome can affect the developing brain.

Number of posts: 842 Registration date: 2008-03-25

Quickies! March 2010

The "Against Me" argument is for dopes, the passive-aggression principle, Godless crimes against UPB!

_________________
-Q.E.

Visit FDR Liberated for the story behind FreeDomain Radio.

Number of posts: 628 Registration date: 2009-02-09

QuestEon,

Thank you again for your insights. Am I to understand that Molyneux is recommending in podcast #724 that a person just cease communication with those who they "hate" as an act of vengeance, knowing that this will cause huge amounts of emotional pain and suffering (because, from personal experience I can tell you that it does)? And is this in spite of knowing that the the person or people being defoo'd from would desire further communication and clarification? This is in completely contradicts what he has been saying recently, doesn't it? I do believe that there are many friends and parents who have been defoo'd exactly in this manner.

Number of posts: 842 Registration date: 2008-03-25

nelle wrote:

QuestEon,
Thank you again for your insights. Am I to understand that Molyneux is recommending in podcast #724 that a person just cease communication with those who they "hate" as an act of vengeance, knowing that this will cause huge amounts of emotional pain and suffering (because, from personal experience I can tell you that it does)?

I dimly remember some podcast somewhere, where I think he uses the "simmering in hell" line or something like it with one of his defooers, but I think he has been more likely to tell defooers that it won't as big a deal to leave the family.

But in this podcast--inadvertently or not--he reveals that for him personally, it's an act of hatred and vengeance. I'm saying, "well if you believe that, Stefan, then tell your defooers. Tell them to leave because they hate their parents; they hate their siblings. They hate them and they want to hurt them. They hate them and they want to extract vengeance for their miserable childhood."

If it's true, why not say it?

_________________
-Q.E.

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Number of posts: 514 Registration date: 2010-01-28

I love how you flipped the "Against Me" argument on its head! To take it a step further, trying to crawl inside the mind of your average citizen for a moment:

They might believe that there is a fundamental difference between violence resulting from a refusal to pay taxes, and violence resulting from a refusal to deal with terrorists. Which is that, in the taxation case, the individual -- right up until the last moment -- has the option to stop the violence by agreeing to pay the taxes. So someone could say, "No, I am not advocating violence against you, I am advocating violence against you should you choose to allow it."

Whereas they might say that terrorists aren't so reasonable; that their entire purpose is to aggress against us. If we let them grow in strength, there will be no stopping them. So it is everyone's duty to fight this in any way we can. And if anyone refuses to take part, they are advocating violence against others that those others do not have the power to stop (unlike in the taxation case).

So it's not just a point, a counterpoint, and a stalemate; a case could be made that the terrorism case actually wins out in terms of the "Against Me" argument.

I'm not so down with the above reasoning, but I too have always taken issue with the "Against Me" argument in general, so that's not surprising.

As for the removal of this specific Ask A Therapist podcast, I have to wonder if in this case it was about more than just Christina's involvement in it. I wonder if he recognized how what he was saying therein contradicted his later justifications for deFOOing, and preferred to just take it down rather than saying so. It would be so nice to see him acknowledge such discrepancies, or be forthright about views of his that have changed in important ways since he began podcasting, rather than sweeping the old views under the rug. You know they're still living in the minds of some of his listeners. It's rather disrespectful to them not to say something.

Number of posts: 842 Registration date: 2008-03-25

Argent wrote:

I'm not so down with the above reasoning, but I too have always taken issue with the "Against Me" argument in general, so that's not surprising.

Agreed on both points. I wonder why it got so much traction.

Argent wrote:

As for the removal of this specific Ask A Therapist podcast, I have to wonder if in this case it was about more than just Christina's involvement in it.

You have to listen to the whole podcast. The part I quoted is just a tiny little sidebar not related to the main topic, which is actually a mindbender.

Much of the podcast is given over to Christina's involvement in creating FDR and, in fact, Molyneux himself. It's amazing. In their conversation, she reveals that she used Molyneux to promote her own ideas on family. And all of this defooing and family-as-voluntary, etc., stuff came from her.

Here's an excerpt:

Podcast 724 wrote:

Stef: “Well, and you made me into an internet philosopher, I am of your making.”

Christina: “I fed you the ideas that made Freedomain Radio different than any other philosophical podcast.”

Stef: “Well, more than different. Different would be to say that my life is run by my bowl of oranges. But that’s not what you made, in terms of difference. You made it relevant, you made it personal, you made it have traction, you made it actionable, you gave, and not just in a comment, but in a series of lengthy discussions, you gave the basis of the show. The basis of the show is the logic of personal, personal and political freedom. I brought the political, who brought the personal?”

Christina: “Sadly, I did and this is what I’m struggling with. I orchestrated this, we orchestrated this together but I participated enormously in all this and now I hate it and now I don’t want to do it.”

I'll be winding back to this podcast one day! But listening to it, I believe that any parent who wanted to legally make a case for reviewing Christina's license would certainly make use of this podcast--in which Christina claims to have orchestrated FDR as we see it today. I believe that's why they took it down.

I don't believe a bit of it, of course, which it what makes it all mindbending to me. Molyneux has Christina so embroiled in his mythology, she actually believes he is of her creation.

It is, as they say, anti-logical.

Argent wrote:

It would be so nice to see him acknowledge such discrepancies, or be forthright about views of his that have changed in important ways since he began podcasting, rather than sweeping the old views under the rug. You know they're still living in the minds of some of his listeners. It's rather disrespectful to them not to say something.

Totally agree. I'm not holding my breath, though!

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-Q.E.

Visit FDR Liberated for the story behind FreeDomain Radio.

Number of posts: 514 Registration date: 2010-01-28

QuestEon wrote:

You have to listen to the whole podcast.

Wish I could! While the Ask a Therapist podcasts were still up I didn't think much of them. Nothing I had heard in the ones I had listened to was very helpful to me. It was only after they were taken down that I realized how interesting they would be to analyze.

Number of posts: 514 Registration date: 2010-01-28

Also, the above-quoted exchange reminds me of another podcast that was taken down: #504 - A Good Wife (With Christina). In that one, they are discussing Christina's resistance to doing more Ask A Therapist podcasts, and Christina lets Stefan push her into the conclusion that she is being selfish, lazy, and disrespectful to him in not supporting him in his endeavors and sticking to her past commitments. He makes those assumptions about her motivations without being the least bit curious about whether there are some deeper issue going on for Christina. And she validates this by affirming that she loves the idea of the show in general and the Ask A Therapist series in particular -- that that is not where the issue lies. I didn't believe it though, and wondered if anything more ever came of it. Now I see that, just two hundred and some podcasts later, something did. Verrrry interesting.

Guest

Just poping in to ask a stupid question. Have all of the archiving sites been checked for copies of these podcasts? I'm sure some people have them on their computers somewhere. I used to have a lot of this stuff, but deleted it long ago when I discovered what a scum bag the Stefman truly is.

- NonE

Number of posts: 514 Registration date: 2010-01-28

Does anyone know about legal issues surrounding redistribution of podcasts? I mean, as far as I know, Stefan is against IP law, and I see no requests on his site that the materials he gives out for free not be redistributed. But still, I have mixed feelings about publicly sharing content that he has taken down. On the one hand, it feels a bit disrespectful, since by taking them down he's indicated his desire that people not hear them anymore. On the other hand, it's not like he created a system in which the only way to listen to podcasts is through his website (a la [legit use of] youtube [in some circumstances, anyway]). Using the feed system that he does, once he releases a podcast to the public, there is no way to get it back from people. It is therefore his duty to be mindful of this and think twice before publishing content he might regret.

Thoughts, anyone? I'd be happy to share those missing podcasts I have or can get my hands on, if it won't bring trouble upon me and/or LM. I do think it's very important to be able to analyze the content Stefan has published, that is still affecting people whether he likes it or not, using primary sources rather than hearsay.