Freedomain Radio

Andrew Greve:

Andrew Greve:

REPORT: THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE RIGHT NOW

UPDATE: The house may not be on fire. 

Stefan Molyneux:

Did it collapse?

Can someone please explain to me what is funny about this?

with gorilla's it is the case that when they show their teeth like in this smiley they're not laughing, but expressing aggression...

Andrew Greve:

Conrad:

with gorilla's it is the case that when they show their teeth like in this smiley they're not laughing, but expressing aggression...

Can you clarify this point for me a bit, please?  I'm not sure what you're saying. 

you asked what was funny about it, i said that (at least with gorillas) the smiley can mean something altogether different than 'funny', namely naked aggression.

I'm not going to be more explicit than this

Andrew Greve:

Andrew Greve:

REPORT: THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE RIGHT NOW

UPDATE: The house may not be on fire. 

Stefan Molyneux:

Did it collapse?

Can someone please explain to me what is funny about this?

I think it was a response to the first part that came before he edited and updated the post and also it was a slight joke about 911 I think.  What I wanna know is how did it make you feel?

If I may interject, I thought it was a really funny joke. You brought up that the house was on fire, and I can tell you are a 9-11 "truther" just from your avatar. It was therefore humorous, because, as "truthers" tend to claim, buildings have never collapsed was being on fire (albeit, they are talking about steel buildings). I don't think it was meant to be insulting, I got the impression that it was just meant to be kinda ironic in a silly sort of way (everyone knows comparing a house to a skyscraper is ridiculous, so it was lighthearted more than anything).

Nathan McKaskle:

Andrew Greve:

Andrew Greve:

REPORT: THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE RIGHT NOW

UPDATE: The house may not be on fire. 

Stefan Molyneux:

Did it collapse?

Can someone please explain to me what is funny about this?

I think it was a response to the first part that came before he edited and updated the post and also it was a slight joke about 911 I think.  What I wanna know is how did it make you feel?

Imagine a situation in a class room. One boy is arguing with the teacher and others about the death penalty. His teacher will argue that the death penalty is immoral, that it is doing the same as what criminals do, that innocent people may be put to death, etc. The great majority of other boys cheer the teacher on 'Yeah, that's right!', repeat arguments and so on. The boy keeps putting forward his own arguments, but there seems to be a definite imbalance in power in the discussion. This may be because the boy's arguments are not very good or because the teacher and the majority of other pupils are just more dominant and make it clear that they find the boy's position not just wrong, but absurd and pathological.

The debate seems to have paused temporarily and the discussion turns to another topic. One of the boys tells about how there had been a lot of commotion in his family because his brother had stolen something from the supermarket. Some other boys talked a bit about this and then the teacher grins to the class and then to the boy he had argued with and says: 'Do you think we should execute him too?'

How do you think the boy would feel?

 

and how do you think the boy would feel if afterwards the boys he had argued with come up to him and tell him that they thought it was a very funny joke and that of course the teacher's nonsensical rhetorical question of course wasnt meant in a nasty way and so the boy's shock could not be taken seriously, and then, puzzled by the shock on the boy's face, go on to ask him curiously 'What was your feeling when you heard it?'

Andrew Greve:

Andrew Greve:

REPORT: THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE RIGHT NOW

UPDATE: The house may not be on fire. 

Stefan Molyneux:

Did it collapse?

Can someone please explain to me what is funny about this?

What's funny about it, Andrew, is that you were absolutely certain about a burning building happening in real time, right now - SO CERTAIN YOU USED ALL CAPS, and then it turns out that you were wrong.

What's funny is that you jump to erroneous conclusions about burning buildings in the present, but are absolutely certain about what happened in other burning buildings half a dozen years ago.

Stefan Molyneux:

Andrew Greve:

Andrew Greve:

REPORT: THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE RIGHT NOW

UPDATE: The house may not be on fire. 

Stefan Molyneux:

Did it collapse?

Can someone please explain to me what is funny about this?

 

What's funny about it, Andrew, is that you were absolutely certain about a burning building happening in real time, right now - SO CERTAIN YOU USED ALL CAPS, and then it turns out that you were wrong.

What's funny is that you jump to erroneous conclusions about burning buildings in the present, but are absolutely certain about what happened in other burning buildings half a dozen years ago.

Stef,

when I read your joke-post I got a strong sense that this was bullying behaviour, and I tried to explain so in my posts on this thread by giving the analogy with the class room situation. Now of course my feeling can have other causes (in myself for example) than your remark and earlier behaviour on the thread, but it may be instructive to analyse this situation, also because there are more people who have repeatedly had similar sorts of feelings in reaction to your posts and that of others.

Conrad:

Stef,

when I read your joke-post I got a strong sense that this was bullying behaviour, and I tried to explain so in my posts on this thread by giving the analogy with the class room situation. Now of course my feeling can have other causes (in myself for example) than your remark and earlier behaviour on the thread, but it may be instructive to analyse this situation, also because there are more people who have repeatedly had similar sorts of feelings in reaction to your posts and that of others.

Well, perhaps you are right about what you experienced but I'm not sure how this addresses the point Stef just made as to why he said it.  That you have an emotional response to something Stef said doesn't always mean it is caused by Stef.  It can mean something about yourself.  Are you open to it being something about you?

For instance, just the other day someone said something slightly negative about my ex.  I immediately got defensive and upset.  Was it because they said something negative about my ex? No, it was because I was transposing my identity onto my ex and taking anything negative said about my ex as a reflection on me.  It was just a minor criticism of my ex.  In other words, I interpreted what they said to mean that I am stupid and dumb for having dated my ex.  My therapist connected it back to my tendencies toward narcissism.  Does this sound at all like what Andrew did with Ed Brown and what Niels did with Art Bell or whoever?

Nathan McKaskle:

Well, perhaps you are right about what you experienced but I'm not sure how this addresses the point Stef just made as to why he said it.  That you have an emotional response to something Stef said doesn't always mean it is caused by Stef.  It can mean something about yourself.  Are you open to it being something about you?

For instance, just the other day someone said something slightly negative about my ex.  I immediately got defensive and upset.  Was it because they said something negative about my ex? No, it was because I was transposing my identity onto my ex and taking anything negative said about my ex as a reflection on me.  It was just a minor criticism of my ex.  In other words, I interpreted what they said to mean that I am stupid and dumb for having dated my ex.  My therapist connected it back to my tendencies toward narcissism.  Does this sound at all like what Andrew did with Ed Brown and what Niels did with Art Bell or whoever?

yeah, I'm very much open to the possiblity that my feelings may say more about me than about Stef's posts. And I understand I think your point re the remark about your ex and I can imagine similar situations. But at least right now this situation here does not to me seem like a similar sort of thing, and I have tried to explain in what sense I experienced it as bullying behaviour. it's up to Stef now to respond and I hope he can make it clear that my feelings were irrational and that his behaviour was not bullying.

an earlier response by Stef to David Heinrich had the same characteristics an I felt the same way then, so  if my feelings are irrational, they are at least consistent ;-)

Conrad:

But at least right now this situation here does not to me seem like a similar sort of thing, and I have tried to explain in what sense I experienced it as bullying behaviour. it's up to Stef now to respond and I hope he can make it clear that my feelings were irrational and that his behaviour was not bullying.

I think it's great that you're open to that. So, to start off, "bullying" seems a bit fuzzy to me. What specific moral principles do you feel Stef has violated ?