Crake
Protestant Goodbot
No bio...
User ID: 1203
That wasn't what I meant. Your axioms are already primary to you. So if we share an axiom that axiom is primary to you. I didn't say anything about my experience. There is just an overlap of a preexisting condition of primary-ness. I am not saying my axioms have any effect on what is primary to you.
Your axioms are primary to you. Let's say there is an axiom called axiom A. If axiom A is an axiom that you hold, then it is primary to you. If I hold axiom A, then axiom A is primary to me, because it is one of the axioms I hold. Therefore if you and I both hold axiom A, then it is primary for both of us and acts as primary, substantial moral common ground. You don't have to care about my experience or my moral axioms whatsoever. But if we do share them, then those axioms are primary for both of us. That's all I was saying. And with that common ground then we can communicate about morality. That is the basis of a shared morality. Even if you don't agree with me that moral axioms are subjective, the ones we share are still primary to both of us.
That two people happen to share some set of subjective things does not somehow elevate them to being any more primary.
No elevation is needed. Each person already believes the thing, therefore the thing is primary to them. I am not saying that there is magical effect creating new primacy from their shared moral axioms. I am saying that all of their moral axioms are primary to them, therefore if they share them, they have common ground and will agree that those axioms are primary.
Looking at those twenty-two people, can I say that cilantro is "good" or "bad"? I think that even trying would be an error in language.
I am saying that if all of those people share the axiom that cilantro is good, then they can all agree that cilantro is good. That's all.
can I say that cilantro is "good" or "bad"
If you are one of these people with the axiom that cilantro is good, then you will say that cilantro is good. If you hold an axiom that it is bad you will say it is bad.
If you are a third party with no opinion about cilantro, then I think the moral status of cilantro will be undefined for you, or perhaps it will seem like a weird and alien thing to attach moral status to. As it does for me in real life.
I think that even trying would be an error in language.
maybe it would be an error in language for you as a third party with no opinion on cilantro to say that cilantro is good or bad. But it would certainly not be an error of language for you to say that those people over there believe that cilantro is good. That would be a simple description of the reality that those people believe cilantro is morally good.
and for that strange group of people who believe cilantro is morally good, it would not be a error of language for them to say "cilantro is morally good" - because that is what they believe. You would say that they are incorrect, but there have been lots of humans with moral axioms you would say are incorrect or bizarre, and I doubt you would normally say that their expressions of their weird beliefs are an error of language.
I mean, your subjective things are pretty secondary to me. The same reason why the nazi's subjective things are secondary to you.
Well only assuming we don’t share the same moral axioms right? What if we share most moral axioms besides the axiom that morals are relative?
Then the axioms that define my perspective wouldn’t be secondary to you, by virtue of being the same as your axioms which are primary to you.
I think it's incorrect/incomplete.
Ok well that’s not very informative or fun but it’s honest. Thank you.
In what sense? Probably not in the traditional sense of the word.
Lol fair enough. I am not a moral realist. I mean real as in subjective things actually exist, but I am fine taking the moral realist definition in this case. There are plenty of philosophers who have have argued that subjective things are "real". I agree with those philosophers, but I'm not interested in defending the definition of real as it's not really needed for my position right now.
Instead, how about I say that subjective things can be overwhelmingly profound and important. They are in no way of less importance than physical material facts. They are not secondary.
I didn't say that I don't think you hate nazis enough, make strong judgments, say that your position is despicable or offensive. I just tried to understand and describe your position accurately.
I think that's dishonest. What is your honest moral judgement of my moral judgement of bad/evil people? You are saying that when I say that people are bad, I don't mean that they are actually bad. How is that not the same as saying that my moral judgement is not the right kind of moral judgement?
You have continually implied that moral relativism as a position is insubstantial or just incorrect. I am not offended, that's the default position. I just want you to argue with what I have said.
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
10mo ago
The relativist stance simply describes the reality that morality is constructed by humans. If I live in a monoculture I have to live under its moral axioms, which is fine. If I need to make a moral argument I will use those axioms as my starting place. I don't see why that position is abhorrent to you.
You're wrong that these things can be easily separated.
I am not a fundamentalist christian. Some fundamentalist christians do not believe in evolution. In fact, evolutionary theory is directly contradictory to what they do believe.
There's "facts" about the world as far as the teacher/establishment understands them and there is "what ought to be done about the state of the world" sort of material,
If I was a science teacher for their children, I would want to teach them evolution (assuming I am following your definition of what is and isn't indoctrination). Evolution is a "'fact' about the world as far as the teacher understands it". However, me simply teaching what I believe to be factual, despite not being a moral value to me or a description of what a person ought to do, would be a threat to their worldview.
My simply providing what I see as facts would be hostile to them. Therefore, personally I would not want to do that - as that seems immoral to me. I would be indoctrinating their children into a worldview that was hostile to the worldview of their parents.
Do you see how I think all education is indoctrination, despite the fact that I am not trying to "raise an army for culture war reasons"? I am actively laying out boundaries of how not to do that.
can you antagonize an avowed enemy?
Yes. There are many situations where avowed enemies tiptoe around each other and do their best to avoid any escalation of conflict. Mutually Assured Destruction would be an example of a situation where two avowed enemies would actively try to not antagonize each other, because of the potential consequences. In fact I think that's a really good example of what I mean by antagonism. The kind of action you would avoid in such a situation.
Or, can you antagonize a guy in self defense?
No. If the enemy attacks you and you harm them in self defense, I could certainly imagine the enemy claiming that that was an act of antagonism (in fact that may be the default claim in such a case) but from an omniscient 3rd person perspective that would not be antagonism.
Fair enough. Instead of "I assume that they will use their leverage to fuck over their opponents" how about "I assume they will use their leverage to further increase their postion and weaken the position of their opponents".
But this happens even between the tightest of allies, the best of friends. The US-Britain alliance couldn’t stop the US from interfering in the Suez Crisis and US decolonization efforts against britain and france. Refusing an alliance from another power’s sphere without compensation is not the baseline, it would be insanely friendly behaviour. It’s essentially putting their interests above yours, self-sacrifice.
I don't disagree with anything you've said here. I'm not sure how that is an argument against my pedantic point. I'm continuing to argue my pedantic point at this juncture because you have requested it, to be clear.
Those actions may or may not be acts of antagonism. I think between allies I might be more likely to call it just rude, but there is little difference. If the US did something it thought would really truly cross the line in offending its ally, then that would clearly be antagonism.
What I meant is that 'avoiding war' sounds good, when really it erases the agency of the other party who declares war, the moral responsibility of the war in the france case in fact rests entirely on her shoulders. You say you expect ‘the conflict’ to escalate, but the conflict doesn’t do anything, it’s an inanimate object. Russia, like France, will escalate if they don’t get what they want. You say Martha's vineyard is important to the US, and ukraine is not, but it is the same moral calculation whether the opponent extorts a trillion or 2 dollars.
I feel like you are being intentionally obtuse in interpreting my position on this. The united states can have an aggressive warlike posture with russia, or a neutral posture, or a friendly posture, or a conciliatory posture. Do you disagree with that?
I don't think that Ukraine is not important to the US. Ukraine may very well be important to the US tactically, but I would like to have a neutral posture with russia. Ideally even a friendly posture with russia. I think everyone would benefit from us finding a path of cooperation between America and Russia, and I see inviting Ukraine into the Western hegemony as indicative of an aggressive posture. A move that may be tactically essential in the case we go to full war with russia, but tactically not relevant if we can find a path towards my preferred future in which we cooperate with russia.
I would like to let Russia have Ukraine in the pursuit of cooperation between West and Russia, something that I think is not an insane position but I think you write off out of hand for moral reasons that are not part of the pedantic component of this argument.
I do not see embracing Ukraine as an act of glorious liberation. I think you do. Beyond the pedantic argument I think this may be the fundamental disagreement. That is fair.
Finally:
To me, antagonizing is not justified by definition
I really don't get this. Why would it be definitely unjustified in all cases? You think it always wrong to intentionally annoy or bully your enemy? On what grounds?
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
1yr ago
I'm confused about both you and stiffly stance here. Are either of you disagreeing with me that having this be more of a public concern would be bad?
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
1yr ago
You don’t think there’s any effect on the person from the medium itself? No truth at all to “the medium is the message”
I have many young family members and I think that the way screens affect them is pretty strong evidence, for me, that the medium of story/information matters a lot.
Kids react to iPads and television they same way they react to cake. It gets them freaking high.
We know refined sugar is bad for adults even if they aren’t as obvious in carnal delight when they consume it as kids. I think the same is likely true for screens.
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
1yr ago
I would be pretty upset if my kids were childfree. I wouldn't try to coerce them away from that decision, but I would feel like I had failed on some level, or that society had failed them. Family formation is a pretty core value for me. Is that wrong?
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
5mo ago
Act unsympathetic enough, and your support will dry up no matter your ESG score.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you but are you saying that if a group that progressives are sympathetic towards acts unsympathetic enough their support will dry up, or is the "your" in your statement pointing at something else?
If you are referring to groups acting badly, that I think you're very wrong. What about the long term homeless? It's hard to imagine a group that could act more unsympathetically, and yet progressive zeal for protecting them could not be stronger. If anything, the worse their behavior, the more intense the progressive sympathy towards them appears to be.
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
11mo ago
Yeah it's pretty nice on the inside but why build a beach house in San Diego (assuming you're super rich)?. San Diego is beautiful, but California makes it illegal to own the beach itself. If I had unlimited money I'd want to put my beachfront property in places where I can keep the riffraff off my sand. How am I supposed to enjoy the beach and the surf if the paparazzi (or just randos) can legally come onto my beach.
This is obviously a very very low priority nitpick, but the current favicon is bad. Obviously not worth pulling meaningful resources to fix, but when it is possible I would say that just a bolded M in any bright color would be an improvement from the current version.
You can generate a letter based favicon easily from somewhere like this https://favicon.io/favicon-generator/
I'm not saying that the product will be good, but I think like a black M on a grey background might still be an improvement.
I'm not brave enough to actually select a font though.
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
5mo ago
I'm interested, I replied to spookykou, can you tell me if I am misinterpreting you? https://www.themotte.org/post/780/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/168128?context=8#context
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
5mo ago
The long-term homeless are unsympathetic to you. The progressive movement considers them far more acceptable than Hobby Lobby or Chick-Fil-A, so long as they're far enough away that they don't get robbed personally, and sometimes not even then (insert bike comic here).
That's true but not an argument against what I said, unless I misunderstood the comment I was replying to.
The comment above me said this
Identity politics is and always has been a tangle of relative snap judgments. Not just as a matter of multiple axes, but because those judgments change day to day and with the charisma and decisions of the groups being judged. Act unsympathetic enough, and your support will dry up no matter your ESG score.
My read on that was that it implied that if a group acted badly, "unsympathetically", then the progressives would stop supporting them. If "unsympathetic" is referring to what the progressives think is unsympathetic then the above statement I was replying to is tautological, right?
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
5mo ago
I assumed the "your" there was an individual. The normal way I see the 'progressive stack' being brought up is to discuss the fall out from a specific event with specific people trying to compare their 'status'. If a gay person loses the court of public opinion in some sort of conflict with a Hispanic person, people on here will ask questions like 'Does this mean gay people are lower on the progressive stack now?'.
Interesting, that's fair. That isn't what I've assumed that term means. I'm going to use software as an example to describe the different concepts and keep them in the same domain (plus I assume that RAT terms are often informed by software given their demographics)
You're saying the "progressive stack" is referring to an implicit hierarchy of groups in order. That's fair and is implied by the term stack. Metaphorically similar to the stack as a software data structure.
I've always interpreted it be referring a selection of active beliefs. Not implying a hierarchy, simply a set of useful tools being used by for a purpose. Metaphorically similar to a set of software tools that are being used by a company. eg one software engineer asking another "What stack does your company use" - "Oh, we use MEAN: Mongo, Express, Angular, Node.js"
The second usage, the one I have assumed, being used to imply that the beliefs held by progressive are primarily determined by their heuristic usefulness, instead of their logical compatibility. And also not implying hierarchy.
I may be really misinterpreting here, I'll look at how it's used more carefully.
Protectionism applied to different areas of the economy is going to have different results. It's probably always going to lead to a reduction in total economic growth, but that doesn't mean it won't have other effects. They will have different externalities.
If your goal is something other than total economic growth or strict economic fairness - then I don't see how it's hypocritical to want to put your thumb on some areas and not others. He hasn't stated that his driving principle is maximum economic freedom for everyone.
Pure economic growth and strict fairness are pretty thin "neoliberal" goals. I think there are better things to set your political compass towards.
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
9mo ago
Lily and marshall are in a long term relationship at the start of the show, and they still have a whole thing where Lily bails on marshal to run away to the west coast to do art. Sure, she regrets it. But the show still uses breaking them up as a source of drama.
Not as bad as the endless on again off again thing done by most sitcoms (and done in HImYm with ted and robin) but not as good as Parks and rec where the couples that the writers actually want to have be together never have temporary break ups used as a cheap source of drama.
Lol thanks man. I appreciate it. I'm starting to feel embarrassed for continuing this convo for as long as I have.
Your interpretation of my position is not correct though. And it is not based on what I have actually said. You've made big assumptions.
"Maybe I (@Crake) don't have a trivial knock-down argument against moral realism that doesn't do significant philosophical damage in other domains."
I don't think that. I recognize that my position on morality complicates other areas. I am happy to go there and discuss those areas and the damage done. You are not. I recognize that my position creates difficulties and problems in other areas, I think they are meaningful problems that are worth exploring. I don't think this is trivial.
It's the same sense of triviality that I've seen from all sorts of adjacent folks in the past who think that the material world obviously just is, trivially
I really really don't think that the material world just is, trivially. That was part of my point. I tried to make it clear that my vision of the reality of the material world is thin. I think that this is a profoundly not trivial question. I thought I had done a good enough job making that clear.
You're confusing "there is a material world" with "science has something to do with 'usefulness' (however ill-defined)". Your first section was a bit about the so-called "material world":
I did not say "there is a material world". I said the material world is something that is just inferred. I said there is something out there that we appear to be able to interact with in an apparently consistent way. my qualifiers were not accidental.
my description of science as a practice that, to our best perception, appears to allow us to effectively interact with something that exists beyond our imperfect lens should make it clear that I am not holding science or the material world up as the most real most important and reliable thing. It is just useful. It is not deifying science, it is the opposite.
that "science" just magically settles all questions, trivially. Yes, I'm aware this is the school of thought people were steeped in; just do the thing, say the words, and don't worry about the presuppositions or foundations; it's useful!
Where the hell are you getting that from?! I have not said anything remotely like that. Science doesn't and cannot solve moral problems because it is such a limited tool. That was one of my central points that I have repeated throughout this thread.
If anything I was trying to diminish the value of science. It cannot help us solve the greater mysteries. It is a notably limited tool that appears to work in a limited scope. And its value is incredibly contingent. The important stuff, like morality, is outside the scope of science. That is my point: morality is insoluble to science. Even you admitted that that was my position earlier.
Is there any way for me to say that I am not privileging science which will make you actually deal with that position? Somehow I suspect that even if I convince you that this is my position you'll find it just as odious.
It appears to be a system or substrate that follows mostly consistent rules that we, whatever we are, exist within or on.
Stop here. Someone could probably write something very similar about the moral world. Nothing about hazily-defined "useful" or "result" needed.
Yes. Someone could do that and it would be an actually meaningful and interesting argument. That is the kind of thing I was hoping this discussion would eventually lead to. I would love to hear you make that argument. Please do.
But instead of that you insist on guerrilla warfare tactics. Instead of actually arguing with my position honestly, you needle at my position while exposing no surface of your own position for me to argue back against.
Ok, Sorry if I miswrote that or wasn't clear enough. You can say that they, the 21 people who believe cilantro is good - believe that cilantro is good. That seems essentially definitionally true and not an error of language.
I don't think I changed what you said. I made it clear what I thought. If there are groups of people who think cilantro is good or bad, that does not provide you any ability to extract from the fact that they believe those things the position that cilantro is good or bad. Their moral conclusions are largely irrelevant to whether you can say cilantro is good or bad, that would have to be based on your own axioms. most likely you wouldn't think that cilantro has a moral weight, but I have no problem imagining a culture that does, like this theoretical group.
If your axioms are that cilantro is morally good, then it is not an error of language to say that cilantro is morally good.
However, as I said earlier, it is logically incoherent to say that is it objectively true that cilantro is morally good. And definitely logically incoherent to say that it is morally truer that cilantro is good than that cilantro is bad. What is objectively true is that some of these theoretical people believe that cilantro is good, and some of them believe it is bad. That is objectively true. Determining the truth of the statement "cilantro is morally good" is where logical coherence breaks down.
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