I was waiting for FreeDomain approval, and wound up here

Number of posts: 10 Registration date: 2012-01-18

I've been stuck inside because my damn car won't start in the snow.
I was looking for a libertarian forum.
Having followed Molyneux on Youtube I decided to pop over to his website and register.

I was (still am) waiting for approval and took it upon myself to read some of the conversations.

Oh. My. Gould.

The people there have to be the most socially retarded bunch of ubernerds I have ever imagined seeing.
Now nerds have to nerd about something, and I'd rather it be Libertarianism than Christianity.
But I noticed they weren't talking about Libertarianism.
They were talking about their feelings.
No, not their own feelings.
Mostly the feelings and hidden motivations of other people. Sometimes on the board, sometimes not.

Here I am reading a group of people, some of whom strike me as mildly autistic.
And they are acting like they have a deep understanding of emotional psychology.
Of strangers.
On the basis of message board arguments.

It was so obviously conducted on little-to-no-basis that I was cringing with das Fremdschämen.

Maybe I was targeting psychologizing-heavy threads but it seemed like every other post was about whos feelings were being discounted.
And what childhood experiences led one to fear happiness.
And why is it always childhood experiences?
Don't people have experiences after childhood?

I googled 'molyneux + psychologizing' and this was one of the first results.

Wow.

Is this the future of libertarianism? Self-help books?

Say it ain't so.

To be fair to Molyneux I never sensed he was that woo-woo before.
A little snarky and too-clever-by-half, but nothing atypical for a politics nerd.

I do have to say that I sort-of agree with him on one thing, maybe I am even more extreme in some respects. I do think most parents are abusive and negligent and really have abdicated any right or claim over their children.
And I think a fourteen year old is well-and-capable of deciding who he will live with and what he will put into his own body.

Number of posts: 82 Registration date: 2009-01-28

Your observations about FDR are thoughtful and salient. I am legitimately curious. Why do you think most parents are abusive and negligent?

BTW: The ultimate mission of parenting is to abdicate their rights or claims on their children. Of to put it another way, we want our kids to grow up. We also want them to have the emotional maturity and self discipline needed to thrive after they move out.

Number of posts: 10 Registration date: 2012-01-18

Arthur wrote:

Your observations about FDR are thoughtful and salient. I am legitimately curious. Why do you think most parents are abusive and negligent?

1) Hitting of any kind (except in defense) is wrong. If I see someone hit their kid I am sorely tempted to knock their teeth in.
Most parents hit their kids. Many parents hit their kids a lot.
A lot of people will bring up the scenario of stopping a kid from touching a hot pan. That is not, prima facie, force. That is a reasonable presumption. If my mate is about to slip off a bridge, and I grab her by the arm, I am not assaulting her. If she then insists on jumping, and I prevent her, I am indeed engaged in force. And I pretty much feel the same way about children. I think forcefully preventing people from suffering consequences does no good for anyone and is aggression.

2) Most parents force their children to attend school. These places are soul-stealing gulags. They are, literally, prisons and brain-washing camps. The teachers are abusive, even the ones who 'mean well' are essentially engaged in a humiliating and disrespectful enterprise that kills learning and knowledge, and most of them are frankly lying and practicing hypocrisy every day in class. Sending your kids into that environment, and cooperating with the Gestapo to keep them there, is disgusting.

3) Yes, 'my house, my rules' applies. But if the behavior of the house-owner becomes psychologically abusive, and 'my rules' are stupid contrived bullshit (i.e., I decide who you can be friends with, have sex with, etc.) then the person absolutely has a right to exit the situation. The fact that parents hold the legal obstructions to this (such as police kidnappings in the form of juvenile detention) is yet another abuse. It is no more reasonable to force a child to stay with a sex-fearing racist maniac Baptist parent than it is to invite someone to your house and then say, "Now, in my house, I get to piss in your food, oh, and you aren't allowed to leave or get food anywhere else."

4) Teenagers can make their own decisions on who to talk to, what to read, what to smoke, who to fuck and where to live. Parents have absolutely no rights over teenagers at all except those established by contract.

5) Most people are ignorant, have terrible values and are impatient. Molyneux is 100% right about the working mother situation and the casual threats of emotional abandonment being horrific child abuse, this is basic evolutionary psychology. People breed out of short-sightedness, cultural norms and biological drive. They have no business raising a child. Taking care of and having legal guardianship over a human being are vast responsibilities. It is FAR more serious than surgery. No one who is not a professional should EVER attempt surgery, and doing so ineptly is criminally negligent. The same is even more true of raising a child.

6) No one who does not have a reasonable chance of feeding their children and protecting them from the environment should have children.

In all of the cases above, true of the vast majority, birth control, adoption or abortion is preferable to them raising the child. I am not on the side of the anti-natalists (I do not think procreating is wrong, per se) but I am of the opinion that the vast majority of people are temperamentally and situationally unsuited to reproduce. Of course I know the masses will never come around to accepting this, because they are herd-spawners, but that does not change the fact that it is right.

And I find the typical response "but practically no one would have children if they listened to you!" First of all, if everyone were that self-critical and aware many more of them would be competent and right in raising children. But, that aside, so what? How many people have genes that are worth spreading? Most of them are the 'many-all-too-many' who pollute the world and do stupid shit like advocate socialism. We could do without their kind.

Quote:

BTW: The ultimate mission of parenting is to abdicate their rights or claims on their children. Of to put it another way, we want our kids to grow up. We also want them to have the emotional maturity and self discipline needed to thrive after they move out.

No, that is what the mission of parenting SHOULD be. But as a matter of course, for 99% of the human race for all of our history, this is objectively false. The ultimate mission of parenting is spreading genes/engaging in mind-killing biological drives. These people have no more business breeding than they do performing heart surgery, and the consequences of their irresponsibility and failure are far more dramatic and painful.

It is worse than negligent surgery in another way, too. Except in the case of emergencies you choose to go under the knife. If you want to be a patient of Dr. Killzum it's your right to do so. But children to not have the option of choosing their parents, either in the biological or legal sense. The oppressive regime that social norms and state power operate make it even more obvious that children are deprived of choice, and bringing a child into that environment when you yourself aren't certain you will make a professional-quality go of it is horribly irresponsible.

Now I am not denying that many parents genuinely care about their children and that their children are often ignorant. But just because I care about a woman does not mean I can throw her in my basement to make sure she doesn't get hurt. It does not mean I can belittle and beat her 'for her own good'. And the ignorance of children is vastly overplayed - the fact is that in the sense of values and lifestyle choices most parents are no better, and often worse, than twelve-year-olds. Adults have been ruined by, among other things, terrible parenting and an inability to make their own choices for 18 years.

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

I've pretty much decided I don't want kids. Every once in a while I get the biological, "ooh, wouldn't it be nice to have a cute little kid and be the best parent EVER" and whatnot, but when it comes down to it, I don't really like kids -- never have -- and I could not see myself sticking with it for 20+ years.

What weirds me out about FDR is how the members spend half their time talking about how awful the majority of parents are, and the other half of their time gushing about wanting kids, how to find the perfect wife/mother for these kids, etc. No attention is paid to the fact that, statistically speaking, half of them are going to end up with the failed marriages they so abhor (especially if their primary goal in dating is finding good prospective mothers rather than partners they genuinely like), and X% of them are going to end up with teenagers/young adults as dissatisfied as they are right now.

Wanting to be a good spouse/parent is not nearly enough. If they think it's going to be a walk in the park just because they've listened to a couple thousand hours of podcasts and read a handful of books, they've got another thing coming. Especially if they didn't have good role models growing up (as they probably didn't if they're hanging around FDR). That's not to say that none of them should want to be parents, but how about a little bit of realism?

Number of posts: 10 Registration date: 2012-01-18

Quote:

I've pretty much decided I don't want kids.

I think I am in the same boat. I have a number of material requirements (such as a husband with a lot of money), and I know that I do not like most children. If I had a kid that was anything less than brilliant he would probably drive me to insanity, I would just end up giving him up for adoption. So, all in all, I know I would not make a competent parent and would not wish myself on a child.

Quote:

What weirds me out about FDR is how the members spend half their time talking about how awful the majority of parents are, and the other half of their time gushing about wanting kids, how to find the perfect wife/mother for these kids, etc. No attention is paid to the fact that, statistically speaking, half of them are going to end up with the failed marriages they so abhor (especially if their primary goal in dating is finding good prospective mothers rather than partners they genuinely like), and X% of them are going to end up with teenagers/young adults as dissatisfied as they are right now.

Yes, it's a fantasy of thinking that because they know what parents do wrong they therefor would not do those things. But it's not true. Most of us have a number of reasons why murder is wrong, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't do it if pushed beyond our limit. The thing to do is make sure you don't end up in that situation.

Quote:

Wanting to be a good spouse/parent is not nearly enough. If they think it's going to be a walk in the park just because they've listened to a couple thousand hours of podcasts and read a handful of books, they've got another thing coming. Especially if they didn't have good role models growing up (as they probably didn't if they're hanging around FDR). That's not to say that none of them should want to be parents, but how about a little bit of realism?

Absolutely. I have compared competent parenting to being a surgical professional. And being a medical professional is not simply a matter of having heard of a surgical technique, or having went to a nursing class. It involves a life-long dedication, constant study and adaptation to new information and a whole lot of god-given talent, brains and drive.

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

Plus, kids are so expensive!

Sometimes, I idly wonder if child-rearing will go the way of farming. Humanity needs children to survive, but we do we all really need to be making babies? Why not leave it to the people who are really good at it? I'd be happy to chip in to support the parents in my community, if that in turn meant that the parents were held to some sort of standard (it could definitely get out of hand if it became too regulated, though). In terms of education, I'd be happy to participate in a mentoring program where I helped broaden some kids' horizons in terms of different ways of life. There are foreign exchange programs even now. Maybe I'll try hosting an exchange student at some point.

Number of posts: 10 Registration date: 2012-01-18

Argent wrote:

Plus, kids are so expensive!

Sometimes, I idly wonder if child-rearing will go the way of farming. Humanity needs children to survive, but we do we all really need to be making babies? Why not leave it to the people who are really good at it? I'd be happy to chip in to support the parents in my community, if that in turn meant that the parents were held to some sort of standard (it could definitely get out of hand if it became too regulated, though). In terms of education, I'd be happy to participate in a mentoring program where I helped broaden some kids' horizons in terms of different ways of life. There are foreign exchange programs even now. Maybe I'll try hosting an exchange student at some point.

Probably after we genetically engineer ourselves to stop being imbeciles.

This is, of course, one of the fear-tropes of the Luddites. How many 'dystopian' futures have you seen where people are reared in test tubes and cold, inhuman methods of education prevail? I see most 'dystopian' movies and wonder, "What the Hell is wrong with that?" It's really just a knee-jerk reaction ingrained in people who fear change.

For another example, look at Robocop 2. Robocop was a thug and a drug warrior working with corrupt socialist police; and here we have OCP taking possession of property they rightfully own and trying to build a safe, clean, privatized paradise and I am supposed to believe they are the bad guys?

Number of posts: 82 Registration date: 2009-01-28

Thanks for the reply. Seems like you got away from FDR which is a good thing. But it also seems you have completely adopted the FDR version of the corrupt family/parents model.

Number of posts: 10 Registration date: 2012-01-18

Arthur wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Seems like you got away from FDR which is a good thing. But it also seems you have completely adopted the FDR version of the corrupt family/parents model.

Actually, that predates FDR. It's a conclusion I came to watching parents, reading articles/books/forum discussions on parenting techniques, etc. The simple fact that most people force their children to attend government schools proves to me they have no right to children. I think the aversion to calling the obvious on most peoples' inane and unjust parenting is simple biology and popularity. But just because most people vaguely want to breed does not mean they should or, if they do, that their children have any obligation to obey or remain with them.

In my view a child's status under a parent is like any other ward, wherein a person has been obviously incapacitated or damaged and a person may assume some functions of helping them, arranging their environment, etc. But under no circumstances is it allowable to abuse or imprison your ward, or to assist others in coercing them; your rights in this manner decrease automatically with demonstrable decision making capacity and the moment a ward becomes an obvious decision maker (teens, prima facie 14 for non-mentally-retarded children) your wardship status is instantly revoked and any further dealings are purely on the basis of direct contract.

The same sort of abuses perpetrated against children are also perpetrated against the elderly and mentally handicapped by their caretakers; human society has been very lax about punishing abuses of wardship because people don't want to have to face the fact that their social norms could be so thoroughly corrupt.

Number of posts: 82 Registration date: 2009-01-28

Your thinking on the subject is awfully close to the Molyneux silliness. I do give you credit for contributing to the discipline by setting the age of emancipation at 14.

Number of posts: 10 Registration date: 2012-01-18

Arthur wrote:

Your thinking on the subject is awfully close to the Molyneux silliness. I do give you credit for contributing to the discipline by setting the age of emancipation at 14.

Eh, 'silly' or not it's perfectly consistent with the way one is supposed to regard free individuals and wards under care. Just because human beings are inconsistent shits who don't want to challenge their evolved psychology doesn't change that I'm right. People need to start thinking with their brains instead of their genes. DNA has no rights.

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I was waiting for FreeDomain approval, and wound up here

I was waiting for FreeDomain approval, and wound up here

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