/philosophy/ - Philosophy

>>1140
Stefan Molyneux is alright. I like that he at the very least attempts to stay impartial when giving people advice but he has gotten progressively more and more arrogant over his career. That's what happens to smaller men when they're surrounded by sycophants I suppose.

He flip flops on some of his views at times and I dislike that because it makes it seem as if he is putting on a show.

All in all, I find nothing vehemently disagreeable about him or most of his ideas.

His ideas are that everyone who is not an anarcho-capitalist wants you shot, and that you should isolate yourself from anyone who is not a member of his cult.

Those are his ideas, along with something about frozen and other movies, the rest is copy-pasted libertarianism.

Whenever a philosopher starts analyzing movies like a shaman analyzes chicken bones, you can tell he's full of shit.

>>1140
I don't know much of him, but I do know that he is prone to rampant generalisations which is not a good thing in my book. If he also flops on his views, like >>1141 mentioned, then I have little reason to take him, as a person, seriously. That does not necessarily need to be the case for his views, but I'm only familiar with anarcho-capitalism which I frankly find idealistic at best and insulting at worst, especially his brand which comes neatly packaged with the demonisation of government and anyone who only isn't anarcho-captitalist because then they can shoot anyone they like.

He's a retard.

>>1140
He's a sociopath who runs a cult of pseudo-intellectual wannabe-philisophers. He and his wife are also frauds.

>>1165
>>1167

I think you guys are being too harsh. As people who are interested in philosophy you should make it a habit to actually listen to what people say and comprehend their view points.

While I agree that his "macrophilosophy" based on economics and political ideology is problematic his personal everyday philosophy contains nuggets wisdom here and there. I feel that you're missing out on these ideas that he has which are quite fulfilling if given a listen.

Even a stopped clock is right two times a day.

>>1170
Nuggets of wisdom aren't worth much if embedded in a system of thought that is otherwise flawed. You'd be better off looking at a different clock if all you gain from it is accidental correctness twice a day.

Also, while I agree that one should listen and try to follow the arguments of others, you can't just assume that the anons you quoted didn't attempt to do that.

>>1173
When all they give is "he's a retard" and calling him a "sociopath" that doesn't impart much in faith that they actually listened to a thing he said.

In regards to your point they aren't embedded within his greater philosophical ideas. These ideas come out when he has a dialogue with someone else and most of the lifestyle videos are separated from his political ideology videos. You don't need to slog through a ridiculous amount of drivel to find these things.

>>1180
I'm probably too naïve but when someone uses such harsh language specifically directed at a person I can only assume it's a judgement founded on a previously gained impression, which may have been superficial or may even have been in-depth. At least I hope that's not expecting too much on a board like this.

Retard is one thing, but he definitely strikes me as having sociopathic tendencies, what with all the demonising he does and presumably means seriously.

>they aren't embedded within his greater philosophical ideas
Well, nevermind then. I got confused because of the analogy.

Everytime I see threads about this guy, I only see character assassination from people who don't agree with him. I wish there was at least a semblance of debate.

>>1170
>his personal everyday philosophy contains nuggets wisdom here and there

This manipulation

>2+2=4
That's correct
>smoking causes lung cancer
Spot on again!
>Leprechauns aren't real
Wow, this guy really knows his shit!
>isolate yourself from your parents, friends, family members, everyone who is not an anarchocapitalist and give me your money

Well, he's right most of the time, so he isn't that bad!

>>1186
I've never heard him tell anyone to isolate themselves from their family and he doesn't force anyone to give him money. He may prey on the sycophants who fawn over him to extract money from them but that has nothing to do with me.

I have seen him advocate isolating yourself from unrepentant abusers though. People who have raped, molested, beat or otherwise severely abused their children and are not sorry about it.

I don't see what's wrong with that.

>>1188
When abuse means "not being raised by anarcho-capitalists that are exactly like Stefan Molyneux" I do find something wrong with that.

He doesn't even deny this. He sums it up again and again, such as in the "do you want me shot" video, in which he states that people who are not anarcho-capitalists are evil and that you are scum of the earth if you don't isolate yourself from them.

>>1189
I'm almost 10 minutes into the video and I've yet to come across where he says not to associate yourself with people who disagree with you and that if you weren't raised by anarchocapitalists that you should cut them from your life.

If at a later point of the video he says either of these things please do point out at which point as his work tends to be a tad verbose and I've listened to a lot of it and having gotten my fill scarcely wish to listen to more.

>>1190
He literally states that people who are not anarcho-capitalists want you shot, and that you should isolate yourself from them. He repeats this over and over again, stating it the clearest at 12.03. "You don't keep people in your life who want you shot"

>>1189
For good measure I did listen to the rest of the video and I did indeed come across him telling you to disassociate yourself from people who disagree with you.

So it appears I was wrong. Nevertheless I still think that at the very least the fact that he is passionate about philosophy is good enough to give some of his non-political philosophy a listen to.

It also goes a bit deeper than "2+2=4" as your intellectually dishonest strawman examples try to suppose.

>>1191

Jesus Christ anon, it would be so easy to make a fair argument for not listening to him, but you can't even be bothered to do that? Really?

His argument is that the State has power because it can threaten to jail people, and if they won't go to jail it can kill them. Therefore, anyone who wants to do anything through the State is threatening violence, albeit through a proxy. That's why he's saying that people who aren't anarchists want to shoot you, it's shorthand for an argument that he doesn't want to have to repeat a million times.

As for the actual topic: sometimes he makes good arguments, sometimes he is way off the mark. For example, in one show a listener called in and asked about judging women for wanting casual sex. He ended up trying to psychoanalyze the decision by a woman to seek casual sex and base it in evolutionary pseudo-psychology, and talk about how it's bad because it runs contrary to the optimal mating pattern for women. Not once did he stop and say: "Or maybe she just wants to have sex because it feels good, and there's nothing deeper than that. In fact, that's almost certainly the case, carry on."

I've watched quite a few of his videos in the background while I'm wasting time, and I can say that whether he's going to have good arguments is largely dependent on the issue. He usually makes solid, well thought-out and supported points about political philosophy, history and parenting. He's sometimes good on relationships, and he's almost always way off target on popular culture stuff.

Overall, I think his problem is that he's very good at picking apart bad arguments, but doesn't always realize when he himself is making them.

his views are alright, his political ones.

the dude himself is a literal psychopath, narcassist etc.

just google him and deFOOMing or whatever it is

>>1165
/thread

He is liar and a sophist.

His ideas are also idiotic, but both should be treated separately.

He is a lying sophist because he doesn't practice dialectic correctly¹ and because he straight out lies².

His ideas are idiotic because they do not take roots in reality at all. One sentence can resume everything you need to destroy his ideas "correlation does not imply causation".

However if that's not enough let's develop; stefan assert that the government intervention in his classical fields of intervention, (education, economy, employment, health, wars, immigration) are an "intrusions into personal liberty"³. Obviously when you are honest and listen/read Stefan Molyneux for 5minutes you realize that the core of the problem seems for him to be government and (monetary) imposition. Stefan Molyneux however accepts that two individuals can contract obligations toward one another through open (non-coercive) trade (what he refers to as : the free market)

So here are the reasons why his ideas are idiotic:
1 - What Molyneux doesn't understand that the government exist because of the population willingness to accept its control ⁴. Stefan completely forget the intrinsic role of the government as regulator to picture it as a coercive monster that only works for power but actually there is a social contract between people and governments. So Stefan is for contractual obligations in one case and against it in the second case.

2- What Molyneux doesn't understand (I believe by a deliberate choice) is that in an unregulated market (such as his free market) people create something we call a monopoly and under monopolies there is inherent coercion, hence the historical creation of instances of economic control (government - what he'd know if he read a history book once in a while). Therefore government does serves has a predatory force against the populations but has a protection against predation.

so if his doctrine takes root in ideas that are demonstrably wrong, and gives unequal results it is fair to assume it is wrong. If it is wrong and it took two seconds to make the necessary research it is fair to say it is idiotic.

¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO1P5wlW-HQ
² https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-67C2htgI4
³ http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux1.html
⁴Alain - "le culte de la raison comme fondement de la république" conf. 1901

Some of the things he says are not crazy. But he and his cult of personality bullshit is. I'm not a big fan of ancaps, even as an extropian, but I can respect a lot of stances. Molyneux is just a scam artist and a hypocrite who wants a cult army though. Not too far away from scientology in my book.

>>1218
>Jesus Christ anon, it would be so easy to make a fair argument for not listening to him, but you can't even be bothered to do that? Really?

I quoted him.

>His argument is that the State has power because it can threaten to jail people, and if they won't go to jail it can kill them. Therefore, anyone who wants to do anything through the State is threatening violence, albeit through a proxy. That's why he's saying that people who aren't anarchists want to shoot you, it's shorthand for an argument that he doesn't want to have to repeat a million times.

Which is what I quoted. He believes that people who are not anarcho-capitalists want you shot, and that you should isolate yourself from then.

>As for the actual topic: sometimes he makes good arguments, sometimes he is way off the mark. For example, in one show a listener called in and asked about judging women for wanting casual sex. He ended up trying to psychoanalyze the decision by a woman to seek casual sex and base it in evolutionary pseudo-psychology, and talk about how it's bad because it runs contrary to the optimal mating pattern for women. Not once did he stop and say: "Or maybe she just wants to have sex because it feels good, and there's nothing deeper than that. In fact, that's almost certainly the case, carry on."

Of all the bad arguments he makes, not stopping with the superficial "because it feels good" is not one of them.

>I've watched quite a few of his videos in the background while I'm wasting time, and I can say that whether he's going to have good arguments is largely dependent on the issue. He usually makes solid, well thought-out and supported points about political philosophy, history and parenting. He's sometimes good on relationships, and he's almost always way off target on popular culture stuff.

He breaks teens down to tears, and makes them wish their parents dead. That's his view on relationships, he hates them, he hates parents, he hates everyone and thinly veils it with libertarianism.

He is not a philosopher, he copy-pastes libertarian talking points and shoehorns his hatred and narcissism into it, in every debate he had with an actual philosopher, he failed utterly.

>>1140
His work on metaethics doesn't get past the is/ought problem. It fails on the first hurdle and refuses to change his theories in anyway.

All of his work is based on the assumption that the NAP at least fairly accurately explains ethical decesions, and it doesnt

>>1140
I don't know, but he made some good games.

I thought he was OK for like 5 videos, eventually I realized he was a one trick pony. He just says the same shit again and again. Maybe I'll watch one of his "truth about" videos sometime if an event in the news REALLY grabs me.

>>1140

I've listened to a lot of his talks, at first I thought he was pretty cool but eventually started to rub me the wrong way. I don't have any specific examples of what bothers me about him but I know that a lot of what he says doesn't seem right and is not based on any science whatsoever. Also he seems a bit fake or over-dramatic about certain topics once in a while, almost as if he's trying to get out actually addressing the topics.

Have watched some of his videos and heard him on Rogan's podcast a few times. Came to the conclusion that he's a total nutter.

I think the only reason people don't totally discredit him is that he's well spoken and makes good observations sometimes.