Freedomain with Stefan Molyneux

On Thursday October 1st, 2015, 26-year-old Chris Mercer-Harper entered Umpqua Community College in Oregon - wearing body armor and armed with five handguns and an assault rifle - and murdered nine people in cold blood, leaving at least nine more injured and destroying the lives of countless families.

Following the shooting Barack Obama and the political establishment wasted little time in calling for increased gun control - willfully unaware that these gun free zones are a magnet for violence regardless of weapon availability. Stefan Molyneux is pissed off – and breaks down the facts while deconstructing the usual media narrative and focusing a spotlight on the true root of this problem.

Question 1: [1:25] - Most of the time it feels like thinking, but if I'm really honest, most of what I say 'I think' is some combination of other thinkers that I've read or listened to or watched. Maybe this is normal but a problem arises when two different people, whose opinions I value, come to conflicting conclusions. This painfully reveals to me how much of a hidden desire that I have for someone to just 'believe in.' Why is thinking for myself so hard?

Question 2: [31:24] - Do the ongoing Gene Wars (see the r/K Selection presentations for more on this) invalidate the Non-Aggression Principle? The Non-Aggression Principle doesn't work if it's not universal and it's not universal because there are sub species of humans in heavy opposition. We are not all the same so why should the rules be extended across gene sets?

You’ve heard that our addiction to fossil fuels is destroying our planet and our lives. Yet by many measures, human well-being has been getting better and better. Alex Epstein (author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels) explains why humanity’s use of fossil fuels is actually a healthy, moral choice.

Alex Epstein is the President and Founder of the Center for Industrial Progress, the author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and an expert on energy and industrial policy. Center for Industrial Progress is a for-profit think-tank seeking to bring about a new industrial revolution. For more from Alex and CIP, please check out: industrialprogress.com and alexepstein.com

To purchase The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and get source notes, go to: moralcaseforfossilfuels.com or http://www.fdrurl.com/alex-epstein

Destroying the world is actually lot easier than you might think – you will have to be patient, of course, but remember this: evil delayed is evil denied, and it is well worth the wait.

To destroy the world, you need to do three things – first: break the bond between husband and wife – second: break the bond between parent and child – and third: convince the population that they are helpless.

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Question 1: [1:30] - What are your thoughts on law of attraction? Do you believe in it - why or why not? What do you think is the limit of what man can achieve by simply thinking and working towards an ideal? In other words, how far do you think one can go using law of attraction?

Question 2: [1:01:43] - A discussion about escaping a toxic romantic relationship, the value of the Real Time Relationships approach, finding somebody you want to spend the rest of your life with and dangerous red flags to look out for in the dating world.

Did you know that it has now been eight consecutive years without a formal United States federal budget. That means we’ve had eight consecutive years of debt ceiling increases, continued threats of government shut-downs and the back-and-forth blame resolutions to fund government.

As the stock markets all around the world are simultaneously crashing and warning signs continue to mount - Stefan Molyneux describes the latest news on the road to economic collapse.

Question 1: [1:52] - The novel 1984 by George Orwell describes a dystopian future and is often compared to our current society. How does our understanding of this novel and outlook change when we look at them through the lens of r/K selection theory?

Question 2: [49:44] - What do you think the advantages and disadvantages are of having more than two parents involved in the raising of a child? Can quality and quantity exist together in the realm of love? Can you explain why you think that people who are K selected are, by definition, monogamous?

Question 3: 2:20:08 - If one is trying to spread the philosophy in order to change the world, at what point should one stop using the vestiges of the old system to do so? Does using those institutions – road, taxpayer funded schools, unemployment insurance - make ones message ineffective?

Question 1: [1:25] - What should I do when a bigger child is being aggressive with my son? A mother complained when I protected my son from a boy who pushed him. Am I being over-protective - perhaps because I was bullied by my mother and regularly by kids at school - or is this a healthy reaction?

Question 2: [29:50] - If Intelligence has a genetic component and is a strong predictor of future economic success - this raised an interesting moral question. Do we have some duty to protect the less intelligent from themselves, perhaps the same way we might support a person who is born disabled? Is high intelligence just winning the genetic lottery? Do we have a duty? And if not, why?

Question 3: [1:54:45] - It is my opinion that that conservatives try to persuade people with logic and reason more than emotions. Besides a few exceptions, I think a majority conservative personas can participate in rational discussions without constant logical errors or appeal to emotions. So - why do not we play the left's game? Why do we persist with logic when the left wins by making emotionally arguments?

One of the great “gotchas” of history is currently sprinting through our collective consciousness with regards to the migrant crisis in the European Union, and it goes something like this:

“The migrant crisis is payback for Western destabilization of Middle Eastern governments – if you don't want these refugees, you shouldn't have bombed their countries – Karma is a bitch, so suck it up!”

This is an emotionally compelling argument for many people – and here is where we need to exercise the greatest caution. Emotionally compelling arguments by their very definition need to be rigidly examined and resisted – to avoid intellectual bigotry, we must subject seductive arguments to the greatest tests.

On Monday 9/14, Ahmed Mohammed, a 14-year-old Texan kid, made the national headlines after he was suspended from school for bringing an alarm clock he had supposedly built himself. Later on Barack Obama tweeted "Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great." As is to be expected, there is far more to this story!

Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/ahmed-mohamed