Voluntaryism is the largest philosophical movement in history, do you know about it?

[Ajidica]

And how prosperous was Soviet Russian society?

It varied. Compared to Western Europe Tsarist Russia was still essentialy a medieval society, and when you add on to that roughly 20 years of devestating civil war you get a society that is a long way away from reaching Western European levels of prosperity and living conditions.
And yeah, some of the more peculiar aspects of Soviet society and collectivism didn't help much but considering where they started from and the economic collapse during and preceeding the last days of the Soviet Union really screwed over Eastern Europe.

You do know that millions of people died as a result of Communism, right?

Oh yay, this historical fallacy again. Looking specificaly at the Soviets (I honestly couldn't care less about what the Maoists of in China did), the vast and overwhelming majority of those fatalities were a result of the famines following the Civil War. Those famines were particularly severe for two main reasons: 1)the massive devestation Russia suffered during the First World War and the Civil War cannot be understated, and 2)in an agrarian society famines tend to come on a cycle and the Soviets got a perfect storm of cyclical famine and devestation. The Supreme Soviets response to the famine was to contine the collectivizations prompted by the local Soviet functionaries which probably had no net effect on the severity of the famine.
It is important to note that in many cases the farmers would simply kill their livestock and harvest insufficient food because the Soviet state was unable to either pay them or offer them anything they wanted in the towns.

 

[ParkCungHee]

We are run by ideas. Historically, whoever has controlled the moral narrative has controlled the masses. Philosophy will take it back and define morality objectively once and for all, the same way we've come to define knowledge objectively using the scientific method.

This suggests to me that you haven't read much philosophy.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

The claim is that property is ethically premised on certain ideas about self-ownership and voluntary cooperation, but that because property is exclusive and non-negotiable in practice it necessarily violates those premises in practice. Only by abandoning exclusivity and non-negotiability would property undo these contradictions, but in that very transformation it would cease to be property and would become instead communism.

Self-ownership is exclusive and non-negotiable. If we own our bodies then why would any other property be different?

If self-ownership is not exclusive and non-negotiable then you just justified rape. That doesn't sound right.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

This suggests to me that you haven't read much philosophy.

What is knowledge, ParkCungHee?

 

[ParkCungHee]

What is knowledge, ParkCungHee?

Accordance with the Forms.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

Accordance with the Forms.

How do you know if you're in accordance with the forms?

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

A meaningless statement would be one like "colourless green ideas sleep furiously", because it makes no intelligible claim about reality. You see the difference?

"colorless green" is what makes the statement meaningless, no? Isn't that because it is self-contradictory?

 

[ParkCungHee]

How do you know if you're in accordance with the forms?

If I knew that, I probably wouldn't have a material existence.

 

[ParkCungHee]

"colorless green" is what makes the statement meaningless, no?

So "Crapulent green ideas sleep furiously" has meaning?

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

If I knew that, I probably wouldn't have a material existence.

So you know that you don't know the method for obtaining knowledge?

I can't quite follow...

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

So "Crapulent green ideas sleep furiously" has meaning?

It could as a metaphor.

 

[ParkCungHee]

So you know that you don't know the method for obtaining knowledge?

Yeah, that seems to be the size of it, yeah.

I can't quite follow...

That makes sense. If I knew how to know the method of obtaining knowledge, I wouldn't have to explain it to you.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

Yeah, that seems to be the size of it, yeah.


That makes sense. If I knew how to know the method of obtaining knowledge, I wouldn't have to explain it to you.

But you haven't explained anything.

You said, "I know that knowledge is accordance with the Forms."

but when I asked, "how do you know if you're in accordance with the Forms?"
you replied, "I don't know."

But if all knowledge relies on conforming with the Forms then you must have somehow been sure that your previous statement (about knowledge being ideas conforming with the Forms) conformed with the Forms. I'm wondering how you knew that.

 

[ParkCungHee]

But if all knowledge relies on conforming with the Forms then you must have somehow been sure that your previous statement (about knowledge being ideas conforming with the Forms) conformed with the Forms. I'm wondering how you knew that.

I don't. I'm making informed guesswork.

 

[Traitorfish]

So you're saying that the group of people who wanted to implement the idea of Communism wasn't responsible for the attrocities?

The communist party caused the famines by forcing people onto communal plots. They murdered people and even called them "insane" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union) for rejecting the *IDEA* of Communism.

See the bolded? Key term, there.

We are run by ideas.

No, we're not, or at least not in the sense of explicit and discrete Ideas. We run on a whole host of cognitive processes taking place at various levels of awareness and across three dimensions. That's not something that can be reduced to whether you subscribe to "Communism" or "Liberalism" or whatever other grand-yet-poorly-defined lump.

Historically, whoever has controlled the moral narrative has controlled the masses.

I disagree. Ideological narratives (of which moral narratives are one sort among many) are certainly important, but they are not paramount. Their function is not to dictate the nature of social reproduction, but to present it in a coherent fashion, plastering over the contradictoriness and often downright incoherence of daily life. When hegemonic narratives fail to do this, as they often do, society does not simply dissolve into nothingness, but is rather exposed to its participants as the chaotic and unwelcoming reality that it is, and new narratives- both conservative and radical-critical- emerge to try and make sense of it.

Philosophy will take it back and define morality objectively once and for all, the same way we've come to define knowledge objectively using the scientific method.

Who did what now?

 

[luiz]

This kind of black-box-reasoning where one thinks purely in the dimension of moral principles but not in the dimension of how those principles will actually play out when enacted is IMO never a good idea.
For instance, I agree that taxes are theft. I think they pretty clearly are. It rests on a social contract which is plain and simply enforced upon you by the threat of physical force. Just like mafia boss may enforce a "Protection fee" upon your buisness. That you get something in return doesn't make a contract you have to enter any less theft-like. If somebody steals my purse but gives me a lollipop in return, the police isn't going to tell me "Well- you exchanged goods. Hence no theft. Good day Sir". Getting something back isn't what defines theft. What defines theft is that you loose property by force. Hence taxation is theft.
But... so? Why must this theft be wrong? Because theft is wrong and that's it? No matter the circumstances? Why??? Makes. No. Sense.

This.

I always find it irritating that people ridicule the libertarians' claim that taxation is theft when it so evidently is theft.

What hardcore libertarians fail to understand is the last part of your post.

 

[luiz]

Oh yay, this historical fallacy again. Looking specificaly at the Soviets (I honestly couldn't care less about what the Maoists of in China did), the vast and overwhelming majority of those fatalities were a result of the famines following the Civil War. Those famines were particularly severe for two main reasons: 1)the massive devestation Russia suffered during the First World War and the Civil War cannot be understated, and 2)in an agrarian society famines tend to come on a cycle and the Soviets got a perfect storm of cyclical famine and devestation. The Supreme Soviets response to the famine was to contine the collectivizations prompted by the local Soviet functionaries which probably had no net effect on the severity of the famine.
It is important to note that in many cases the farmers would simply kill their livestock and harvest insufficient food because the Soviet state was unable to either pay them or offer them anything they wanted in the towns.

Stalin's political repression alone killed over a million, so how can you call his claim a fallacy?

Edit: also, the fact that you don't care about what happened in China doesn't mean that he doesn't as well. Normal people usually consider Mao to have been one of the most important communist leaders in history, so his actions do indeed fall under the tab of "communism". How you feel about it is irrelevant.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

I'm making informed guesswork.

Then why did you proclaim, "Knowledge is accordance with the Forms" if that wasn't true?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Then why did you proclaim, "Knowledge is accordance with the Forms" if that wasn't true?

There is a difference between not having knowledge of something, and something being untrue.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

This.

I always find it irritating that people ridicule the libertarians' claim that taxation is theft when it so evidently is theft.

What hardcore libertarians fail to understand is the last part of your post.

Wait, so you welcome Mafia bosses who demand "protection fees"? You wouldn't stand up for the victims of that kind of predation?