Stefan Molyneux’s speech on The First Temptations of Christ

Posted by Solver 5 years, 5 months ago to Philosophy
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“All evil arises out of the desire for the unearned”

Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio delivers a powerful speech at the Eagle Forum in St Louis.

https://youtu.be/DQ6bUtq3yoQ


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  • Posted by $ Abaco 5 years, 5 months ago
    I like Stefan. My first dive into his material was the, now famous, "The History of Your Enslavement" video. I was blown away by that when I found it.

    "To see the farm is to leave it..."
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    • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
      One of my favorites also. This video was just hit with an age restriction by youtube, owed by Google. It has purposely become a lot harder to find.

      What’s amazing is all those sex and gender study based videos that are not hit with any age restrictions by youtube, owed by Google.
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  • Posted by DeangalvinFL 5 years, 5 months ago
    Anyone willing to speak out on super controversial issues deserves respect for their courage. Regardless of any of the specifics that he talked about, I admire his courage.

    His distinction between purposeful charity and the welfare state is subtle but very apt. Most on this site do not think the government is the solution to personal problems. That pretty much sums up the 43 minute talk.
    (I listened to most of it but not all.)
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    • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
      The Bible says that after 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, Christ was given three temptations by Satan. Philosophically they could be called:
      The temptation of food
      The temptation of the Safetynet
      And the temptation of power over men
      All very relevant today.

      I thought it was a very good speech and he did get a standing ovation at the end.
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      • Posted by DeangalvinFL 5 years, 5 months ago
        I think one can ignore the religious aspects of it and the lessons are still apt.
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        • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
          Absolutely. His speeches are somewhat based on his audience. Did you know that Stefan Molyneux is an atheist? That in no way means that the Christian religion does not have some great wisdom that can be learned.
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          • Posted by $ Abaco 5 years, 5 months ago
            Correct

            This past year Stefan has said some very interesting things about Christianity. He has implied that without the moral guidance offered by it (read that again carefully) how does one establish their own values? I think this is very astute. It does not say Christianity is required...but relevant. I have come to see things this way. With a lack of values, what do you get? Where do you draw the line. If not from Christianity, better establish them somehow. I tend to agree that you shouldn't chase the neighbor's wife, murder people, etc.
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            • Posted by lrshultis 5 years, 5 months ago
              All that is needed is a self and rational thinking with regard to reality of the self's relationship to reality. E.g., if murdering is OK, then it is OK for others to murder you. Not a very good way of living. Same for rights. If a self has a right to some freedom of action, then others do. If it is right, then violating it for others means they can likewise violate it for you. Not a good way of living. Religions, though most have discovered some good ways of living, want to pack them with methods of gaining control over others. It begins with a rationally, i.e., with respect to the facts of reality, conscious self--a selfish self to discover values and thus chosen actions which are the moral. Those who do not choose are amoral. Those who choose evil have an evil set of values and are immoral. Those who choose rational values are moral. Religion is neither necessary nor sufficient for a rational morality.
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            • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
              There’s always the post modernist view that knowledge is meaningless and truth is unknowable. Where power and stories are the only things that truly exist. And you get power by following a narrative. Anyone or thing that doesn’t follow their collective narrative Is to be denied existence. That irrational illiberal ideology is what has somehow been growing, everywhere.

              Maybe after the dust settles more people will start reading Ayn Rand and work their way back to respecting individual rights.
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  • Posted by $ puzzlelady 5 years, 5 months ago
    This self-promoting atheist sure massaged the backsides of his religiously programmed audience. No, I could not stomach his whole act. "The desire for the unearned"? How easy it is to redefine what is "earned".

    At the animal level, a creature takes what it wants and finds. And without having a cognitive understanding of property rights, even animals ferociously defend what they stake out as their territory. That territory is needed to support their survival. Nature is a system of predators and prey, evolved through a constant contest of getting what survival demands. Losers become extinct, or adapt within their niche. Conquerors write the history books, continuing to promote the war meme.

    A success at taking is what constitutes "the earned". Humans, once they evolved to a more advanced state of mental faculties and abstract thought --beyond the animal's direct method of forceful appropriation, killing and devouring--developed social contracts of mutual non-aggression, enshrined in bodies of ethical principles upon which thriving and peaceful societies could be built.

    Too bad the primitive program of power and predation still pollutes the human operating system , leading to ever escalating mutual destruction, wars, slavery, expropriation and genocide, all directed at one’s own kind. These practices are anchored in fraudulent beliefs in a higher power, from alpha males, tribal chieftains, kings… and gods, thus justifying the use of destructive force against other humans.

    These are defective programming, becoming a form of cannibalism draining others’ energy, time, property, and individual freedom, if not outright their flesh and blood. We see this coming to a head in today’s virulent conflict between the haves and have-nots, where the rich are accused of acquiring their wealth wrongfully, thereby justifying the poor in their hatred of the rich and their political maneuverings to redistribute that wealth. What is rightfully “earned” is no longer defined. Everything is up for grabs.

    When governments were “instituted” to secure individual rights, the people hired as administrators were not to be rulers, only employees. Gradually that system morphed into the old rulers and ruled formula of tribal societies. People wanted to be taken care of, not pull their own weight, becoming obedient subjects under paternalistic management, pleading historic injustices as excuses to demand special treatment at the expense of people who are generations removed from the original injustices that past cultures regarded as normal conditions of life. Under the euphemistic label of “Progressives”, groups agitate to spread predatory practices into ever more hands, pushing for change that lets them take more than they have earned. Under the comforting label of “Conservative”, other groups aim to preserve their historic practices, resisting change so as to be able to keep their gains.

    In sum, the best formula for peaceful, mutually respectful and survival-protecting relationships is “Galt’s Oath”. You know, the one that starts with “I swear by my life, and my love of it… “
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  • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
    The desire for the unearned is rooted in evasion. There are no emotions or desires before the thought (or its antithesis) consciously chosen and alterable by individual human beings whose wills are irreducible to biology, genetics or innate anything..
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    • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
      Not sure how that invalidates one of his quotes and gets a down vote.
      So, if someone desires the unearned, is that evil, not evil or NOTA?
      Is evasion evil, not evil or NOTA?
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      • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
        The downvote was for promoting the "racist philosopher king" in the Gulch. I am in total agreement with philosopher Charles Tew's assessment here: https://youtu.be/aIdWAa-0oOw.

        And yes, as Ayn Rand observed, just as "thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed ... his basic vice, the source of all his evils is [evasion]."
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        • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
          For clarification, Stefan Molyneux at about 28 minutes into the Tew video talks about IQ studies showing a vast range of IQ scores between different racial groups. He says emotionally, “This is one of the most difficult facts I’ve ever had to absorb.” After he says, “I would give so much for it to just be racism,” the commentator comments how Stefan Molyneux is a racist.
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          • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
            Correct. I am in total agreement with Tew's analysis. And he has other videos analyzing where Anarcho-Molyneux is leading to: Identitarians on the Right (most evident in his interview with Dave Rubin). Also, his blind-eye or blank out toward the morality of Objectivism betrays his Stadler-like stance and sub-rational premise as regards human nature. He only wants the freedom to act on whim unchecked by a free but moral order, the freedom to be an irresponsible (but well-intentioned) hippie I suppose.
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        • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
          Reality is not racist. Statistics are not racist.
          But, if thinking that people with some range of skin pigment color can be identified as a collective all needing to be helped or harmed, is racist, then the vast majority of people on the planet are racist. Maybe that is the point.
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          • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
            Neither are they "non-racist" (only minds can be so -- by choice). And yes, the majority are collectivistic (but "only" implicitly). So people are ripe for a collectivist dictatorship on the basis of such thinking as is being enshrined by outspoken voices on the right as well as the left.

            It's pure poison and not to be tolerated one iota (which certainly goes for Jordan Peterson or any other Jungian as well).
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            • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
              That would mean that these collectivist “Warriors” promoting their Social Justice based on race, are racist. These individuals think (feel) that some race collective(s) need to be helped, or some race collective(s) need to be harmed, to make the whole collective more equal. Thus, thinking that some races are in some ways inferior, or some races are in some ways are superior. To balance this out, these collectivist “Warriors” actively promote and apply collective reward or collective punishment to continuously correct this collective problem.
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              • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
                Oh, absolutely! I worked with these people out of college (Equality Alliance of San Diego) so have overwhelming first-hand knowledge. It was an utter nightmare (self-inflicted).

                Fortunately, the "reaction" I had sent me running back to Ayn Rand in horror of what was happening right in front of my eyes.

                Please watch as much of "The Meaning of 'Social' Justice — Racists for Egalitarianism" as as you have time for -- or can stomach:

                "In this episode of Functional Philosophy [https://youtu.be/6MahagRBLJk], I [Charles Tew] discuss the philosophical foundations and implications of social justice." (~45 min)

                I also, belatedly saw an expose on PBS of the whole ACORN fiasco that was also perfectly in line with my traumatic self-negating experience with these nihilists. People need to know!!
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                • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
                  Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, collective punishment is a war crime. But this 2018, and it is seemly ok for angry collectivists all over the world called, Social Justice Warriors, to march in step, applying collective punishment to fix their irrationally perceived global white privilege problem.
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                  • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
                    As Tew makes clear, nihilists are primarily self-negating. Other than being routinely charged with "white-privilage" whenever I drew any conclusion based on my own first-hand knowledge of dialectology (e.g., about the identity of the person on the other end of the phone), or the sadistic psycho-drama charades we had to "voluntarily" act out as part of our "training," the whole of it was self-inflicted, rationalized as a desire to make change from within.

                    It doesn't work, because their only goal is to negate any self they touch with their vile poison of otherism taken to its logical, tribalist, primitivist extreme (i.e., a person who's simply mistaken or virulently irrational can only destroy or be destroyed).
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            • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
              I'm a life-long "perfectionist" and usually edit out my "errors" at least two or three times after every post due to my neurosis (which I try to counteract by regularly reminding myself that "progress is perfection").
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        • Posted by $ pixelate 5 years, 5 months ago
          Well, in that case, I too am a racist. I place my investments in facts. Fact is, there are significant IQ differences between the races. Ignoring all of the implications of IQ disparity would be an act of evasion.
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          • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
            The key here could be, “implications of IQ disparity.”
            Taking an extreme: If the implications are that enraged non-white people are going to collectively march in step to hunt down and exterminate the “white oppressors” (every white man, woman and child) all over the globe, I think it would matter, a lot!
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          • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
            Stefan Molyneux wishes with all his heart that it was racism. But it’s not. It’s statistics. It’s science. It’s culture. It’s reality. And after that, he is labeled a racist by Tew.
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          • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
            Fact is, it doesn't matter!

            If I thought such "differences" mattered I'd be a racist egalitarian too.
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            • Posted by $ pixelate 5 years, 5 months ago
              First order corollary to the identity axiom: A <> ~A A thing cannot be both itself and its opposite. It does matter. I am choosing a population to receive advertisements for my adventure travel and trekking service. Nigeria or Norway. I look at disposable income as the result of the exercise of IQ. No surprise; I am going with Norway.

              Actually, I am a racist elitist.
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              • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
                So choose the people who will kill you with kindness over those that will kill you with stupidity. I don't care. A Robert Stadler can be the greater genius but will kill you just the same, while a John Galt need only use his common sense to keep the motor Stadler taught him to invent out of the hands of Norwegians or whomever. Morality is what matters but the smart people think they know better. Anarcho-Molyneux carers for nothing but the "freedom" to satisfy his inscrutable whims. I'll take the supposed dumbasses over sophisticates like that anyday (btw, I've always been an A student, but as a fire-breathing Objectivist had the most satisfying relationship of my life with a beautiful Muslim girl from West Africa of unremarkable IQ while in the Navy (she's now a 20 yr. service member and I'm living like a bum). Principles are all that matter, we are neither robots nor animals. So stop thinking like one.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 5 years, 5 months ago
    The animal like Temptations of the bicameral brain, driven by your baser needs, weaken your free will, takes away your freedom, lessens the need for the mind which destroys you ability to Create Value.

    The creation of value gives us a reason to be truly happy, to have pride in accomplishment, reflecting upon the value created both, of yourself and of others (that which makes us human) gives us our sovereignty, independence and mutuality with your fellow man.

    That's the difference between being Morally Human and Immorally Humanoid.

    Thanks Solver.
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    • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
      Very good! It is a lot like, “Want fish now!!!” as opposed to “I will choose to make a fishing rod now and be able to catch lots of fish later. Then I can trade the fish I don’t eat.”
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      • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 5 years, 5 months ago
        Yes. Here is an interesting point, it relates to my unpopular post: Reminder to self. The Devil (in this story of a time of Jesus) is offering things it had no part in creating much like the politician promising free stuff, the government offering grants, special compensations and bailouts with money they took no part in creating.

        Putting your post and mine together, I now can state definitively the Rand Did have a sense of this and expressed it throughout her life, her philosophy and her writings, even though she may not have stated it outright. She also did appreciate what the west inherited from the great philosophers of the past.
        I was thinking way too deeply on the subject but now I see it.

        Thanks again.
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        • Posted by 5 years, 5 months ago
          “The Devil is offering things it had no part in creating much like the politician promising free stuff,”
          Sounds like you watched at least part of the video

          Ayn Rand did write, “The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.”
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          • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 5 years, 5 months ago
            I watched the whole thing...a little at a time while trying to get stuff done at the house, (inbetween), before I had to go to work again...seems lately, that's all I do.

            I like that saying, I don't remember it, (it's been a while), but it sure seems that's where we were headed before Trump...I worry about post Trump...we might repeat Franklin's response of: If you can keep it.
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  • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
    ~16 min. in ... Anarcho-Molyneux is trying to make common cause with altruists and mystics. Disgusting. The only way to "help" anyone is by reason through trade.
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    • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
      "Truth is relative to reality, power is relative to people," he states axiomatically, placing subjective whim, again, as foundational to life and politics.

      Contrast this with Ayn Rand: "Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth." (emphasis added)

      On power, she draws a fundamental distinction (contra Anarcho-Molyneux's equivocation) between economic and political power. (1) "economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering [a value, while] political power is exercised by a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, death." (emphases hers)

      Thinking on this, I've come up with my own definition of a criminal (and you may quote me):

      "A criminal is a self-appointed politician posing as a businessman." -Egopriest

      1) http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/eco...
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    • Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
      His whole argument, up to ~20 min in, is that government can only get in the way of following your natural "instincts" to sacrifice and live for others.

      The result: a religious dictatorship of the morally-righteous over all who would only live for their own happiness on earth.
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    Posted by EgoPriest 5 years, 5 months ago
    I simply could not watch past ~24 min. when this mystico-anarcho nut job said that "science feeds off the material self." That is just evil; and two wrongs do not make --or protect-- a right. It is a Platonic inversion and it is wrong through and through. The evil is that it appeals to otherwise good people. Anarcho-Molyneux is just another Robert Stadler itching to get his hands on the power of legitimate ideas (e.g., Ayn Rand's) on the premise that man is essentially an irrational animal.
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    • Posted by Kittyhawk 5 years, 5 months ago
      I view Molyneax not as an anarchist (i.e., one who is against political rulers and in favor of maximum individual freedom), but a person with theatrical training who plays different roles in order to grow his audience and personal power and wealth. He used to portray himself as an anarchist, but has presented himself as a conservative and rabid Trump supporter for several years now.
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