Stefan Molyneux’s speech on The First Temptations of Christ

Posted by Solver 7 years, 7 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 EgoPriest 7 years, 7 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 EgoPriest 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 $ Abaco 7 years, 7 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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The guy on the video you linked defines “racism” this way,
    “...the idea that the racial group is the primary unit of reality, and its benefit, whatever that means, is the standard of value by reference to which one should choose his actions.”
    ( Had to search through the comments to find this )
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  • Posted by 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 EgoPriest 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 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 7 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    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 7 years, 7 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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