Inmendham’s Alphabet Of Evaluational Transgressions

[Update 2017-04-30: There are a few things in this post I no longer endorse. Some of the issues I'm spotting on this latest reread are stylistic. Others are plainly substantive, like my treatment of emotional suffering as categorically distinct from physical suffering, such that physical suffering always wins first rank in the moral prioritization realm. In 2013 and early 2014, I really did mean always whenever I wrote "always". This is subject to numerous reductio ad absurdum based counters, which are so obvious one shouldn't feel the need to single one out. Oddly enough, my attempts to free welfarist theories from all such reductios were precisely what motivated the emotional/physical categorization in the first place. I now accept that there is no avoiding of reductios, at least not in moral philosophy. I might be nitpicking, but that's just how it rolls with me. For updated criticisms of all things Inmendham, see this blog's post-2013 posts. I'm only keeping this post up because I (largely) share Inmendham's belief that wiping out content that was once available for public consumption is intellectually uncouth. As such, let the record stand.]

This will be an overdue continuation of the squabble from earlier this year between the discrete value economics promoted by Inmendham et al versus what I'll coin here as 'Freelance Ethics'. The last time I made an effort to cover some of this, I received a juicy dead-end for my troubles. Hopefully the itemized structure of this post will assist me in communicating rebuttals in a more lucid manner compared to the bloated posts from seven months ago.

Additionally, let this serve as a manifesto highlighting other areas where seeing eye to eye with Inmendham is managed only by paying no mind to internal consistency, while offering my own heterodox theories on a shiny platter for readers to adopt and/or scrutinize. One thing motivating me here is Inmendham’s ongoing challenge to have someone (anyone) present a cogent counterargument to any of his stated beliefs. He’s been griping about his inability to get a properly structured, well-organized debate format off the ground due to a lack of interest. This is true. No critic is ardent enough to put in the necessary time/effort to undermine Inmendham’s formulation of Intrinsic Value in a way that might resonate with him, so I’ll jump in and be an accommodating host by alphabetizing the entire ordeal. Each contentious issue gets its own letter. By assigning letters to individual points which are bound to continue causing friction, no item of contention will be swept under the rug. Inmendham can easily reference each section of our now abecedarian dispute outlined below (assuming he wishes to argue further, which I’m sure he will). Oh the excitement.

Note: Jump-links for the below are pending due to ongoing formatting issues

 

The Contents:

Inmendham Glossary (beginners only)

Preamble 

A. Establishing Premises

B. Central tensions between 'Justice Maximization' and 'Harm Minimization' 

C. "Sentience creates value" 

D. "That’s just your psychology"  

E. The Orphanage Proposal 

F. Extinction: The Pseudo-Goal 

G. Assisted Suicide vs. Unsolicited Mercy Killings

H. 'The Golden Rule' Is Awfully Rusty

I. "They can’t handle the truth”

J. "Why don't people lament the absence of life on other planets?"

K. “Zero-Sum Game” as a Post-Natal Proposition

L. “You can’t win” vs. Crude Literalism

M. 'Moral Nihilism' and 'Defeatism' are disjointed 

N. Non-Rational =/= Irrational

O. Non-impositions?  

P. Approved Impositions

Q. AntiNatalism and Atheism are not ideological cousins

R. Hedonism

S. Tactical Insults vs. Knee-Jerk Insults

T. Open Hostility Towards Doubt

U. Unquenchable Reinforcement Of Belief (including $1000 challenge) 

V. Style, Substance, and VloggerDome 

Summation

Inmendham Buries Himself On Ethics. Again.

Inmendham responded to my latest video. I urge everyone to watch his response here. I will no longer be leaving comments on Inmendham's videos (as some of my comments will continue getting spam-marked) which means I'll be refuting his molesting of context and timelines here. This will be a time-stamped, point-by-point contextualization of the arguments and replies. My initial hope was to simply post this as an "update" on the underbar of my last video, but YT won't accept it. I'm guessing it's too long for an underbar.

Before I proceed with the time-stamps, I'll address a reoccurring complaint from Inmendham. He kept pointing out that my thought experiments weren't at all relevant because I initiated every bit of this by showing up on a video of his where he had set the tone. He accused me of defiling this tone and asserted that he doesn't give a shit about any hypothetical scenario in my blog. He repeatedly stated that he wouldn't have bothered with anything on my blog had I not commented on his video. How then, are we to explain this video he made months ago? This is a response to a blog I wrote, riddled with those very conjectural events which he's now purportedly disinterested in. This response I received from him was entirely unsolicited, so he is actually the one who started this by replying to my "AntiNatalism And Dissection" blog back in December. I commented on that video response and told him that I would be following up with him "hopefully soon". Well, that "soon" turned out to be months as I had a hectic schedule up until mid March (and still do in some respects). Rather than following up on a three month old video of his, I left two comments on his brand new Objective Morality video (where he specifically argued for the very net-equation I argued against in the blog he replied to). I didn't think that me commenting there would matter to him at all, because we have evidence of him having displayed interest in my previous offerings, just a couple of months prior. I wouldn't even be mentioning any of this now if it hadn't been for him making a colossal fuss over my commenting on his video out of nowhere. I don't do YouTube consistently, so of course I comment "out of nowhere". Was I supposed to send a week-long notice ahead of time?

Inmendham's Axiological Projectivism

[Update 2015-05-20: Many of the criticisms here are outdated. See recent posts (2014, 2015) for a more polished set of them.]

This will be a response to Inmendham’s read-and-respond videos targeting some comments I left in his neck of the woods. My commenting in Inmendham's house warrants justification, apparently. It's an attempt to sway his regular viewers, with little-to-no hope of making a dent in Inmendham's own thought patterns. He should find this most complimentary; by sidestepping him and focusing on the potentially convincible, I give him the benefit of someone who isn't a wishy-washy, new-position-every-six-months-having prick. You know, the type who opens his mouth without sufficient certitude of his incontrovertible correctness. Beyond my comprehension is how someone of Inmendham's mindset continually manages to expect that anyone would engage him in VloggerDome style video exchanges “to the death” without seeing the non-starter that he himself imposes on any epistemic motive among potential opponents. Especially when he complains how, for some strange reason, no one is taking him up on the video challenges in the wake of his oft-admitted insusceptibility to persuasion.

Anyway, if the comments I posted amount to a trespass in Inmendham’s eyes, I’ll relocate them elsewhere from now on (like here).

For the record, I haven't seen anything Inmendham posted after "more BullshitMan part 1". That video, along with the "EatYourOwnBullshitMan" one already overloaded me with objections and I'd like to keep this shorter than my previous post. If Inmendham went on to make additional arguments after "BullshitMan Part 1", I'm yet to see them, but be assured that I'll cover them after I'm done with this entry.

AntiNatalism And Dissection

Seeing as this post delves into the (defamation-magnetized) area of Natalism vs. AntiNatalism, I’ll just mention right off the bat that disingenuous remarks alluding to anti-natal driven genocide, cultism, eugenics, crypto-fascism, death-worship, hedonism, cowardice, emotional frailty, depression-blurring-perspective, “mommy didn’t love them enough” and so on will be ignored in the interest of sidestepping all too familiar time-sinks. This is intended to put proponents of AntiNatalism on the immediate defensive. The diversion works only when discussants and onlookers ignore how the brisk aggressor never earned possession of offense. Guilty of redundancy enablement are fellow objectors to Natalism who still see purpose in explaining themselves, as mere messengers, to the dullards eagerly regurgitating such charges.

I typically wouldn’t even mind this, but the long-refuted character assassination ploys –– coupled with philosophy/psychology entanglement –– are being milked for all they're worth. Spirited counterpoints of this sort have, for me, been impossible to sit through for a long time now, yet they still manage to find new ways in which to get more egregious by the week; over four years later. Any gasbag that chimes in with their 2 cents by evaluating the psychology and personal life of the messenger lambasting Natalism unapologetically seems to attract enough bait-bitters who'll fruitlessly engage –– as if the accusations dished out against the lazily posited "Quintessential AntiNatalist" are worthy of being debunked, on account of some ingenuous misunderstanding on the part of the gasbag.

Such noise hardly differs from any other armchair psychoanalyses permeating the internet. The difference here is that far more DNAtheists seem to uprate the efforts of the pseudo analyses as long as the objective is the maligning of AntiNatalists' credibility. Public dissenters of Natalism who bother with this tripe or accept sketchy aphorisms about the "Archetypal AntiNatalist" emissary carry a share of the blame for AntiNatalism's current lack of intrigue and the formulaic, painfully cyclical debates so pervasive on YouTube.

At some point you have to put your foot down and quit humoring perennial straw. If it hasn’t gone away the first 500 times it's been refuted, it's unlikely to go away once you refute it for the 501st time. Or the 5001st time. Of course, I’m unable to confirm that the psychology of every dissenter of Natalism is impervious to the psychobabble charges regularly levied by Natalists and their sympathisers, but since none of it applies to my cogent understanding of what the AN position entails, this factor suffices as the disqualifier of any such hullabaloo. The more overblown the charge, the less apposite.

Unlisted Junk # 2: Future Work Plans + Cliche Cops Rant

Unlisted Junk # 1: Interview Woes

Segregationist Kool Aid: A Sober Addendum

Towards the end of this video I pointed out that I would fancy seeing a modern example of a fully fledged segregationist society jam-packed with racists, strictly for comparability purposes. I'm not going to waste time recapping all the layers of context preceding this, so if it comes off as an odd wish to make, just watch the first 20 minutes of the video and you'll get my drift.

ProIndividual Assumes Egoic Individualism

The user ProIndividual left one too many comments on one of my older videos. The comments consisted of arguments commonly made against the existence of the State, and since I hate having to condense my writing when replying to multiple posts left on YT's restrictive comment sections, I'm making a blog out of it. Feel the exhilaration yet?

His comments, from first to last:

Fringeelements Hates Charts

So the Fringeelements guy made a stupid video trying to refute this graph video I uploaded last month. He said he didn’t even watch my video but knows what it’s about since I'm allegedly this perfect stranger to original thought. So right off the bat, he shoots himself in his impudent foot, since he immediately goes on to list reasons as to why all these shit eater Americanist union labor nationalist socialist types are totally retarded when they ask why can't America return to the way things were during the post-WW2 boom era. After subjecting us to some supercilious mimicking of the way most Americans spoke back in the 50s, he asserts that reverting back to the policies of that time is a fantasy at this stage, seeing as how the number of Nations capable of competing with (and surpassing) the States has increased tenfold over the last half century. The argument being that the immense prosperity America enjoyed was damn near unavoidable during the good ol’ days, irrespective of any meticulous examination targeting the policies in effect during that time. He’s under the impression that by alluding to this, he’s refuting an aspect of my video. Had he actually bothered watching the video, he’d have known that I never joined the shit eater Americanist union labor nationalist socialist types in their pondering.

RE: The Rich Do Not Pay High Taxes

Welcome to JacobSpinney response blog #2494831. You can find his video attached as a response to my Trickle Down Apologists video. Much like with the Anarchy arguments, it’s clear that the more video time one dedicates to arguing anything that so much as pinches the rich financially (like a 3% tax hike), the more clean-up duties one will plague oneself with in the form of video replies. Seeing as how I already dedicated a combined total of 55 minutes to this topic with my 2 videos, I will be addressing additional arguments here. I also want to avoid any further “enough already” comments from those already in firm agreement with me. On January 3rd I posted a 23 minute video explaining why the correlation =/= causation complaints do nothing in the way of discrediting the initial video wherein I utilized relevant data to highlight the many instances in which implementation of supply side / trickle down policies failed to deliver the outcome successfully sold to a good number of lower/middle class Americans. Jacob replied to my January 3rd video with the following:

The Illegitimacy Of The "God/State" Analogy

One of the dumbest things to come out of the Anarchist camp is the term Statheism. I guess yours truly qualifies as a prime example of a Statheist so I might as well take the time to explain why this derogatory term is attributed to a position which is neither derogatory, nor the least bit irrational.

Anarcho-Impracticalism

On to JacobSpinney's arguments, which were, again, just recitals of his previous arguments, save for a few original points. I think he's truly oblivious to the fact that he hasn't done my arguments much justice, meaning I can't exactly accuse him of intellectual dishonesty, especially since covering the substance of these lengthy blogs is an impossible task. Even the most well intentioned opponent would fail to contextually quote & refute all of this stuff through a limited video medium. So even though his flaky arguments don't really deserve another response, I'll offer one up anyway. I'll be focusing on all of the counterarguments he made in his "Problems with Anarchy?" series (1-6), which are all linked as replies to my videos on this subject. There are a few arguments which I already tackled in videos and in previous posts, but I will have to revisit them, with an even larger magnifying glass.

First off, I brought up my recollection of lawlessness during post-Communism Serbia in respects to employers refusing to pay their employees not because I wanted to pigeonhole every hypothetical construct of a Stateless society to that particular outcome (an outcome which happens to encompass varying degrees of chaos, no less), I brought up post-Communism Serbia strictly because of the ongoing mantra I keep hearing from Ancaps concerning the employee/employer dynamic. The point was to demonstrate, invoking real life scenarios I've witnessed first hand, that contrary to Ancaps' predictions, employers show no concern over upsetting their staff when mindful of the fact that they won't be faced with any real legal ramifications for doing so. Ancaps seem to be under the impression that workers ought not worry about dictatorship or harassment at the workplace because owners are constantly pissing themselves over the prospect of losing their workers. Because workers can just up and leave anytime they choose, and find another, gentler boss to work for. This amounts to a dream even in the current civilized system we have here in the West. In a wholly deregulated system, it will be a nightmare. The alternative benevolence they envision as a practical option for the worker, exists solely within the confines of their imagination. Meet new boss, same as the old boss...

The Legitimacy Of My "Democracy/Market" Analogy

This is a follow up to my YT video from September 30th, 2010 where I was timed out well before I got to cover everything I wanted to. It's been a while since I initially said I'd have this entry up. The reason for the delay is that I considered dropping it altogether. The more I contemplated refuting these same arguments again, the more I dreaded the thought of actually going through with the repetitious task. But here I am anyway. It's not so much about Anarchism at this point, it's about me defending my initial premises and the arguments built upon those premises. The last blog already covered many of the counterarguments I received to it. Same goes for the entry preceding that one. And the one before that. So why the hell am I doing this? For starters, someone just sent me a video by qtronman in which he's contriving ferocious laughter at my market/democracy comparison, in a pathetic attempt to write it off, with his dolts cheering him on. I'll take care of that here since he still has me blocked, routinely deletes comments, and is definitely not worth wasting anymore video time on.

More Holes In Anarchic Logic

To begin, I will be addressing the argument from ethical relativism in the context of my comment section disputes with Anarchists/Anti-Statists. I keep getting the old "Who are you to say that people shouldn't work for 13 cents an hour while billionaires roam?! Fairness is relative. Checkmate".

Easy does it, right? Wrong...

Anarchy Dissected (2/2)

I already received some replies to Part 1, so a thank you is in order for those of you who took the time to read this stuff. At the same time, I'll have to point out that my arguments were paraphrased superficially and incompletely. The points I'm making here cannot be summed up with one-liners. The roots of these issues aren't as cut and dry as the anarchists have described them to be, which is precisely why I had to relegate them to this medium instead of YouTube. All possible contentions, in their minds, have been explained away innumerably. Interestingly enough, every counterpoint I've received so far has been one I have already heard years ago, so we're in the same boat there. Consequently, one would suspect that my persistence would have been met with at least a minimally improved level of apprehensibility. It's laughable to instead construe it as my closed mindedness or infirmity creeping in.

Anarchy Dissected (1/2)

Time to address a bunch of counterarguments I received from Anti-Statists. I'll be referring to them as plain old Anarchists from here on out, because I'm literal like that. Traditional anarchists may very well scold me for that due to their imagined monopoly on the term, and that's fine since I find aspects of many original theories on anarchism to offer societal control mechanisms which barely differ from the control mechanisms offered by modern States when adjusted to the municipality domain. The reason I'm using the blog format to tackle the particular brand of dissent I received on Youtube, is because I will be taking an ultra thorough look into many aspects of this argument, starting with my video and how the new & improved Anarchists dealt with it. I may break it up into two parts if it ends up being overly long.

Response To Chad On Islam

Chad responded to my last blog, but in a 3 parter on Youtube. It has been pointed out to me that doing a blog reply to him instead of a video would come off as disrespectful. No disrespect meant, but I did boldly state in my last video that it would be the last time I speak about any religion related topic unless someone were to provide a substantive counterargument regarding my unrefuted interpretation of religious scripture. This wasn't the purpose of Chad's videos to me, so I will be making my reply to him here. If I could cover everything he said in under 11 minutes, maybe I would make this a YT video instead. But there is far too much content to go over, and I'm not subjecting my sub base to a potential 6 part video series in which I reiterate some of the same points. It doesn't warrant even more Islam talk coming from me. So again, I mean no disrespect towards Chad by posting my reply here.

Chad Defends Moderate Islam

I just watched Chad's video in defense of "Moderate Muslims" and of Islam, in which he summarized all the recent videos people have been making against Islam as "retarded", "childish" and "fucking dumb". Now I haven't seen many of these videos (Chad didn't link any of them in the under bar of his video) but I will be refuting Chad's efforts here nonetheless, because I get the sense that he's lumping my video in whatever category all these other videos fall into. Chad's a good guy, but I'm not going to just look the other way after being called retarded and childish for making a rational argument, be it directly or indirectly.

TheAntiBroadcast Channel: Don't Kill The Messenger

I was recently asked by a few fellow YouTubers to share my thoughts on TheAntiBroadcast channel and what I think of its long term potential. Instead of just replying to people individually, I've decided to make a blog out of it. And no, not only because I haven't done one of these in ages, but because I actually have quite a bit to say here. Fair warning though, it ain't gonna be pretty.

Last Word On RIC

Hello weekend, bye-bye drudgery... which means I finally have some real time on my hands; time with which to address recent events + the attendant fallout. Before I jump into the substance end of things, I should probably explain in more detail why I'll be doing additional responses here. As stated in the profile, I've been swamped at work and the last thing I want to do after getting home is make videos and waste more time tackling the same stressful shit over and over.