What three opponents? I saw nir, cain, and John. Who’s this mysterious third person you spoke of? Of course it wasn’t me, as I think you think it was, because read my posts to him. It began with I supported the use of their opinions (nir’s, John’s, and cain’s) as I stated this is a good community that hashes out things like this. Then I pointed out his semantic issue with ‘natural’ that would only lead to strawman’s and red herrings if he can’t define a word right within the tradition that was being espoused by somebody other than him.
I wasn’t even close to being an opponent of him. I never once argued with him. You took this way out of proportion in my opinion. Give-me-a-break. And if I’m not the third person, then ok, ignore this post and happy hunting.
Perfectly said John. This is exaclty what happens in these discussions. Molyneux and his accolytes insist on changing the discussio to axiomatic truisms and away from the real issue about Molyneux that you have captured perfectly.
It is not just a web site. Molyneux engages in one on one unlicensed personal therapy. His minioons on the site surround the new arrivals and go through a pretty creepy process of indoctination, etc. The huge majority of visitors come and go. It seems a lot of members are really spam emails that crawll the FDR site and Mollyneux counts in his volume of hits and such. But some are open to the idea. When they are qualifed, the process to engage them and bring them in is remarkably well conceived.
To be fair, while they may be sympathetic with him regarding the deFOO issue, nirgrahamUK and Andrew Cain are nowhere near being “acolytes” of Molyneux (neither is wilderness, btw, although I don’t mean to lump his position with theirs in saying that.).
I think a more apt metaphor would be a salesman with ziplock bags that all had the same powder in them (DeFOOing). He recommends the powder to all customers, however it is ultimately up to the customer if they want to buy the powder and if they do buy it they deal with the consequences.
Your comment: Molyneux has never said that deFOO is necessary for good health, is incorrect**.**
Molyneux believes with all of his intellectual heart that a defoo is the only true path to freedom and he has said that many times. There is even one example in this string.
That’s completely false. Very specific allergies aside, the same kind of powder will by and large have the same effect on the human body. That is not the case with deFOO and a person’s psychic well-being. deFOO might be “medicine” to some, a placebo to others, and an absolute poison to still others.
You said it was like something that can be sold that has three effects 1) nothing happens 2) good happens 3) bad happens. Ergo, it is analogically similar to risk engagement. Any salesman or advocate of possible risk (from death to merely minor setback) is “irresponsible.”
What I mean in terms of necessity is that he doesn’t throw deFOO out there as a principle. Even as something beneficial.
I also don’t see what could be disastrous about it, even while recognizing the relative risk of most any action. Do you think that people cannot survive without parents? Maybe in a very perpetually juvenile person… but in that case, it wouldn’t seem as if these people would be a huge source of ill-gotten income for the salesman Molyneux. But the opposite.
Let me ask you this: If opposing the state could be “medicine” to someone in a high tax bracket, a placebo to others, and a poison to another, lets say someone receiving welfare/social security/medicare, should we still advocate that they all oppose the state?
Every action involves risk. But the extreme measures Molyneux promotes with such profound ignorance regarding the situation in question, in my judgment, involves a woefully irresponsible level of risk. Using your reasoning, one could not call irresponsible someone who serves someone delicious “mystery fish” which just happens to be hastily-prepared fugu.
That claim beggars belief.
It’s not a question of biological survival. You don’t see how a deFOO could potentially be disastrous to the happiness of either sides of the deFOO?
I would have personal moral disgust at anyone in the third category promoting the state for self-serving purposes. But, with regards to matters of state, I have concluded that expressions of personal moral disgust have very little effect in changing minds.
In your hypothetical situation, in which the nullification of the state truly would be poison to a welfare recipient, then there would be a fundamental antagonism between his interests and mine, and so I would not waste my breath in expressing to him what he should do.
In the real world, on the other hand, characterized as it is by the preponderant harmony of rightly understood interests, I would advise the welfare recipient that economic science demonstrates that his ends would most likely be better served without a state.
Then I think you are admitting your own judgments, rather than logic, are what produces your analogies and equivocations to deFOO.
The principle is not deFOO, but that relationships are voluntary. And the immorality which causes it has nothing to do with the deontology of parenting, but of the morality of any person. Parent-offspring is a relationship. And parents are people. Ergo, it is both voluntary and subject to moral rules. It is not necessary to put forward deFOO as a principle.
Such condemnations are only “willy-nilly” in the way that all value judgments are, and thus all actions, which are impelled by value judgments.
Value-free science does not necessitate value-free interactions between individuals. In fact such a thing would be impossible, in that there is no such thing as a value-free action.
And I would also advise anyone who believes in the NAP that his ends would most likely be best served by avoiding people who violate the NAP. Even if they are his family.
For anyone still responding to the mind control sales mongers, I highly recommend determining who is a Christian (an actual cultist) before spinning any more wheels against the supreme value of unconditional genealogical loyalty.