Easy Truth

Distortion/muddying of the water exists because the initiation of injustice has become normal, the factor/cause has not been identified as an initiation of a "wrong". We have to use "force" within the current context or there will be confusion. Yes, physical entities move based on force, but that is not what is being talked about here. The initiation of (direct or indirect) non-defensive force is the necessary component of infringement of a right. And if speaking in terms of "the system", it is the necessary component of infringement of a rights. The initiation and the initiator of force has to be identified in order to prevent or repair the injustice. Initiation of force may be hard to determine but it is ultimately "determinable". In fact, I would argue that it has to be determined and prevented. Otherwise, injustice becomes the norm. In hindsight we know for certain that there was initiation of force. Just because at the time we could have some doubt, does not mean it is indeterminable. But even at the time one could make observations and be reasonably certain. Force does not have to be direct/personal. It can be indirect and as a consequence of an initiation. There has to be an initiation of force unless this particular Jew you are talking about is some sort of horrible criminal that people are shunning to protect themselves. The key question would be: are the Jews being boycotted by the entire population without any governmental involvement? So businesses that could make a profit servicing their needs are choosing to lose the opportunity? Charity organization cannot help someone they are set up to help? So this is due to racism by the entire population? By cannot buy, is it they don't have the financial resources. Or is it because they are actively being prevented with threat of force from the government?

Let's assume that implicit contract exists. If you voluntarily agree to it, what is the problem? You probably would have a stronger argument if you said that there is no contract and that people are (in some way) forced into the arrangement. Ideological power? Again, is that forced ideas? Otherwise, if you are in fact a provider of the truth and people appreciate it, do you now have ideological power because of the influence you have? Bottom line, to fix the issue one has to connect the problem with government force, and to the immorality of government force being used in that area. The immorality of personal financial choices you make for your business is irrelevant.

But the problem is in fact governmental. The core problem is that these companies have liability protections that publishers don't have. Many of the recommendations in the article like using AI for this or that are already implemented with varied success. The bottom line is that a business should have the freedom to publish what it wants and be subject to proper libel and slander or child pornography laws. If it wants to be an arbiter of truth, it should be ready to face both the legal and business consequences. We have to keep in mind, these social media companies are providing something without getting anything for payment. There is no standard contract between the user and the provider which makes it even more complicated.

Gee, sorry, if you were just giving business advice. But if we are going to propose regulating how to be or not be the arbiter of truth: Is the next mandate going to be that science journals should not endorse anything as true? After all, they might make mistakes and it will be bad for business. The thread is about governmental involvement not practical business advice. From a purely business perspective, some companies will want to muzzle and some won't and the real monetary consequences will determine if they satisfied their customers. And as far as practical business advice, it's too early to say the actual business consequence. These labels may simply be ignored by the public. Similar to labels on food and cigarettes by the surgeon general.

If it's bad for business, the market will deliver their proper consequence. Is your proposal to regulate how they attempt to act as arbiters of the truth?

I would agree that it's a bad trajectory. The issue with the wording is if one said "I was murdered when he broke my nose", he could say "well, it's a degree of murdering". In a way it's true. But murder has it's own place in the hierarchy. Similarly censorship, has to have it's specific place. If censorship, per the wider definition, should be banned, then an employer can't "muzzle" anyone and if the definition widens even more, eventually you won't be able to kick someone out of your house for what they said. Twitter's reason for existence is trying to make money for its share holders. A Cuban radio station is primarily a government function. That's a huge difference.

Different in kind or degree? Degree or by venue, as in where you say something? If you go to someone's party at their house and you say something they don't like, when they ask you to leave and call the police, will you say that is a little bit of censorship? If a company wants to hire and and in the contract they say you can't talk about such and such, is that censorship? (assuming the government is not involved) If this forum has a terms of service that if you violate, you will be kicked out, is that censorship? When you are sued for slander or libel, is that censorship since the government/judicial system will be involved? When culturally, many people will insult you for saying something, are you being censored? The fact is if one includes some or all of these as censorship, it will muddy the water when it comes to protecting freedom of speech. Suddenly anything and everything is censorship. The other problem is that it normalizes censorship. Everyone does it, so it must be okay.

But censorship in Cuba is very different that what Twitter or Facebook are doing. How are you going to differentiate it?

To be clear If by "ban" you mean be allowed to refuse to sell to a certain group, the answer has to be yes. It's the right of any individual to refuse to do business with another (and suffer the consequences). Otherwise, "ban" would have to mean: actively put a gun to the head of someone and say "don't drink it".

Based on the definition you are going by, that may be the case. I am going by "a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."

No, there is a limit to how much they can change a myth, because it's written down in the Bible. The stories of Adam and Eve or Noah's ark can't change much since they are clearly told in the Old Testament. The left is inventing myths right now and they can make them up as they go along because they are hardcore subjectivists. Truth is whatever they want it to be. That argument won't go anywhere. It's like saying one can choose an irrationality because it is guaranteed to be limited in scope. Which is the fundamental position being posed ultimately.

Yes, stronger than a blanket endorsement, but if that is the strategy, then why not go all the way and propose an alliance with the Nazi groups, Q Anon, White Supremacist and the people who want a "worker's party" etc. The argument that they believe in an individual soul, not only is ridiculous, but a blanket endorsement for future behavior on their part.

The fundamental disagreement here is between the idea that the religious right is in fact not subject to mythology vs the idea that their fundamental basis is based on myth by being welcoming of myth, they will welcome more mythology. Now maybe you are arguing that that their foundational myth is so powerful that they don't allow any new myths. As in a Christian will not easily become a Jew or Moslem or Atheist. But religious people are myth friendly, therefore, they will allow their own mythology to morph into another myth. They have to, that is how their mental process works. A Christian will not become a communist as in loose the belief in god and believe in community over the individual, but simply include the belief that community is more important than the individual. That's how it happens. One could think that a devout Christian would be resistant to voting for Bernie while in reality many do vote for him. It's not like only atheists vote for Bernie. Meanwhile, communitarianism/collectivism/altruism is a myth since it is a nonsensical/(ultimately supernatural) story that people tell each other about fantastic beings called society and government that have these wonderous powers and responsibilities and they get their powers from their believers just like Greek gods did. Government as a father figure that should redistribute wealth because we are all a family is a myth that fits both the leftist and the religious narrative. Both believe in this myth and in both cases their leaders use this mythology. In both cases, the psychology of the leader is the final determinant of authoritarianism. In both cases a sociopath could gain power with the myth of society over the individual. In the case of the religious right, it's based on "god's chooses flawed people to lead". It could easily be used to justify Hitler. Especially when he brought employment zero, conquered land without retribution etc. until Poland OOPS. Usually, in the case of the left the dominant mythology seems to be about unearned guilt without a God involved. Someone wins who successfully shames the public in the voting for them. But, similarly, on the religious right the shame card is played early on with things like the original sin card. It's part and parcel of their system. These aren't myths though, they are actions. The myth would be the fantastic narrative for why they need to spend money and control business. You are separating "action" based on mysticism, vs. action in a vacuum based on nothing, just action. You discount the fact that Republicanism (a la Trumpism) is for big government, just a different huge government than Democrats. Now what is the basis for big government? It is Judeo-Christian values (even for secular people) according to Tucker Carlson if you looked at his debate with Amy Peikoff. For some reason Islam and Buddhism is omitted although they will also push toward communitarianism as having the highest value. My fundamental objection is regarding the idea that "we can count on the religious wing to do the right thing" because of a core aspect of the belief in the soul (forgetting that it is a supernatural soul). The truth is that you can't count on them to do the right thing because of their belief in a guilt ridden soul. Throughout history, without reason and respect for individual self interest, one can count on them to do the wrong thing. If your argument is a temporary alliance until X happens, you would have a stronger argument. This is true with any alliance. But arguing that "by their nature, they support individualism because of the soul thing" is just a myth that you have succumbed to.

I assume you mean a self defensive war. As written it could mean defending yourself in war which at least in Objectivism is going to be an ethics of emergency issue. Although, Peikoff once said we don't care about innocents in war in the O'reilly interview. Not sure what the position is exactly. But the morality is far more clear cut if you are defending yourself in a defensive war. Unless the ethics of war demands that you destroy the opponent at any cost which can't be the case because most people are innocents caught up in something they can't control when wars break out. As far as deception goes, there definitely is a link between fighting (engaging in conflict) and faking the opponent out. I would argue it is part of the process of fighting.

Deception (of another) is fraud. To be clear "deception of oneself is immoral no matter what" i.e. evasion. So fraud is good when used in self defense. Otherwise, initiating it is wrong as in one should not have the right. The only other consideration that may have some relevance is the severity of retaliation. As in, what amount of retaliatory damage is justified.

Ultimately, isn't force justified in the case of self defense? Wouldn't that include dishonesty and fraud? Isn't initiation what determines the moral status in the case of force?

Fair enough. I think I was influenced by the fact that Sowell was an author on the objectivist forum newsletter, unless I remember wrong. The other example I could think of was Walter Block although he also is an anarcho-capitalist.

Bernstien mentions that Rand coined the phrase "social primacy of consciousness". I thought it was an an interesting idea, was wondering where there is more information on it. Other than that Swig mentions leftists go for "shiny new mythologies". Not that I disagree, but this issue exists in our society, evenly across parties, not just leftists. Up until Trump, the Republican party was more pro business and less social spending. But suddenly "the shiny new mythology" became the "Republican workers party" and the 6 Trillion that is being opposed by Republicans seems to be more to prevent the Democrats from getting "credit" for that spending. The other example is that keeping businesses in the US has always been a Bernie position. So I doubt that attraction to the shiny new myth is fundamentally a problem with leftists. And that is at the core of the problem with Bernstien's argument. That the religious right is safe, as if they are solidly impervious to moving toward some mythology. When at the core of their religious reality is a bunch of MYTHs. They are far more susceptible to that. There is no acknowledging that they have made a dramatic shift toward another shiny mythology of higher spending and control of business. Also, this idea that Christians can appreciate or convert to objectivism but leftist can't is silly. Two examples are Yaron Brook and Thomas Sowell. And then: Christians had respect for free will because they would say "convert of die". Bizarre understanding of what respect for free will looks like. Bottom line, "right wing religious people are by far morally preferable to leftists" can't be defended for every election. There are many other elements to take into consideration. If the renaissance is the cleanser of Christian crimes, why couldn't the left have a renaissance. As in Sweden and the UK trying it and changing and in some ways becoming more Capitalistic than the US. Not to mention, there are leftists that believe in science and statistics. There are leftists engineers that send rockets to the moon. So they are not all that monstrous as portrayed.

Unknowns as such are entities with attributes. Agreed Everything that exists has identity. Agreed Not all entities and their attributes under all conditions are conducive to life. Agreed So if I say that it's possible that some unknowns can be harmful to you that's the equivalent of saying "it's possible that some planes will crash." Does this make sense? It does, but I will argue that your statement is arbitrary in the sense that it is "incomplete" as to guide toward a value judgement. If there is one percent chance that you will fly a plane and crash, and I tell you "it could crash" and I give you no other information, wouldn't you chose not to fly on that plane? I would have to tell you it could crash and it could not crash to be more complete or precise. And to go further I would say, there is one percent chance it will crash and ninety nine percent it will not crash. I would ultimately argue that the non-arbitrary/complete statement in this case would be it's possible that some unknowns can be harmful AND it's possible that those unknowns can be beneficial. Why? because they're unknowns Also, unrelated, "arbitrary" has nuances that should be explored and I have meant to do that. In fact one of your previous posts elsewhere opened my mind up to some of them that I would like to discuss, when I get a chance.

Or can this be considered: volition qua man?

It may be metaphorical but an example would be a plant growing toward the sun. It is an alternative that is life enhancing for the plant, it is a movement too.

But how do you identify volitional movement as apposed to non-volitional movement? Can't volitional movement be "mimicked" by deterministic systems? The question was discussed in the thread regarding "external indicator".

Then let's start with the first question (a repetition in some ways): Are these objects an illusion? (starting with a yes or a no will be helpful) Are you saying that classifying things as secret has no purpose, it's just a knee jerk reaction? Everything that is weird is classified? So ladies and gentlemen, go back to what you were doing, there is nothing to worry about. What is the purpose of the classification? Is it "don't ask, it's for your own good"? If you want to say "there is no purpose, they just do it", it would be an authoritarian government's typical excuse, just another "public good" justification. A more plausible perspective is that classification would have a purpose. It may have been to prevent Russians or the Chinese to know that we saw these things, but the secret is already out. Ultimately what you are saying is "let's not ask why they classified it, they just do these things". Is that the basic idea?

The more I have thought about this statement, the more I am convinced that this is an arbitrary assertion. The potential to harm is not an identifying component of the unknown. In fact, nothing is identifiable about the unknown. If you are truly speaking of the unknown, you would not know what potential it has. To make any assertion about it would be arbitrary. So it is a certain definition or category of unknown you are speaking of. You seem to know "something" about this unknown.

The typical question is as Swig put it: Are they real? And Lev started out with not knowing what the question meant. Typical with most incidents. Which has been at the core of the issue. Some thinking they are real and some thinking they are not. Real does not mean are they biological robots. "Real or not" means, are they optical illusions or not. Up until now the story has been that they are like optical illusions. Why has the government consistently tried to keep it quiet for at least 80 years? One of the concerning questions is: who is trying to keep it "undiscussed". Let us say they are pieces of dark matter that move in a certain way. Or they are experiments done by our own government? Has the resistance only been "cultural", as in MOST people think these are shadows of something? Or has there been organize governmental forces to keep it secret. The question about volition seemed to be explained away as "it can behave as if it is sentient". Which is valid unless we have the tell tale of what volition would look like from the outside. "Something could be built naturally". And ? .... Kind of like our own volition? The rest of the guesses became maybe maybe maybe etc. And Swig was correct in pushing away fantasy. That's where people who don't take it seriously don't want to discuss it. Ultimately, the question of "where" they originate is the the most important, but rather the question to get out of the way is: Is it a volitional phenomenon or not because if it is, we are not the animal on top of the food chain.