Crake
Protestant Goodbot
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User ID: 1203
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
9mo ago
I don't think that is what I said but I am trying to follow your point. morality is an evolved shared thing. It often stops the strong from imposing on the weak. Again, I don't see why that requires it to be objective. It is a cooperative custom.
Regardless of what justice is the strong will impose on the weak. Different cultures will evolve different customs to limit that. Limiting the strong being cruel to the weak seems good to me and also seems to be selected for in the evolution of morality. I think it is a blessing that that tends to happen.
might is not the only factor, culture and argument can affect things certainly, but maybe in this context you would see that as might too. People who can make convincing arguments or manipulate their peers will impose on those who can't
The first post in this chain said that morality is subjective not objective. Which I agree with. morality is crucial but not a material fact. It is based on inherited axioms that are evolved.
The response to that post that I replied to argued that that position leads inexorably to nihilism. Which I disagree with. I believe I can have a substantial moral position while recognizing that it is relative. The post I replied to said:
I think moral relativism collapses into nihilism -- or, if we don't like that word, moral non-realism -- because a principal purpose of ethics is to provide a means of challenging the whims of the powerful with an objective framework, or else justifying their power. If you believe everyone can just make up their own morality and it's exactly as real as yours, you have no means for challenging any perceived mistreatment, or even waging any culture war. To put it bluntly, you have no justification for condemning the Holocaust, because the Nazis were just following their own morality in which the Jews were vermin polluting the land of the volk and that meant they got to kill them. The primary purpose of morality ceases to exist in a puff of logic. That, to me, is a non-real morality.
I don't see why morality can't do the things he wants it to do while being relative.
If I think that the Nazis are bad, which of course I do, I can fight them. Recognizing that my morals are not materially more true than their's doesn't stop me.
I am not saying that my morals are isolated. If Alice was born in a similar place to me, was raised with a similar culture to me, shares a religion or a nationality with me, then we will probably share similar moral axioms. In which case my reasoning for thinking Nazis are bad will be compelling to her. If she doesn't share my axioms, then my reasoning will not be compelling.
I have reasons that Nazis are bad that will be compelling to Alice based on her axioms, but that doesn't seem to rely on material truth, as the axioms are received.
On a larger scale, I think that morals are cultural traits that are evolved and mutated over time. Since they need to be fit in order to spread and survive they have utility, usually, but looking at them from that perspective we would still be making a mistake to argue that one moral position is "materially truer" then another. They represent different solutions to environmental and social problems. We can argue that some axioms have more or less utility, but that is not the same as truth. It's like saying feet are better than hooves. Which would be a weird argument - and also would have nothing to say about feet being truer than hooves. Saying that feet are truer than hooves doesn't make any sense.
I got my moral axioms through upbringing, education, cultural osmosis and to some extent reasoning, but that reasoning required an axiomatic foundation to work from and as that axiomatic foundation had to be received, the entire structure is built on received axioms. So it is all relative.
What, then, do you mean by "bad"?
I mean that it violates my moral axioms and causes me to feel revulsion. The same way I might feel uncomfortable seeing someone violate a cultural custom, but a much stronger feeling.
I don't need my morals to be materially true to be the most important thing to me. Because of the circumstances of my upbringing, they are fundamentally part of who I am. Why is that not enough?
I expect most people to have slightly different moral axioms than me. Small differences are not problematic. The closer they are, the easier it is for us to make compelling moral arguments to each other. And there is a bit of flexibility to people's moral axioms so I may even be able to shift their moral axioms a little bit by making arguments using their other moral axioms. maybe I think some of their axioms are inconsistent and I can try to bring them closer to reflective equilibrium
But some people from cultures far removed from mine could have moral axioms that are bad or evil from my perspective. The grounds on which I would claim they are bad is that they violate the expectations laid out by my own moral axioms. Or that they always lead to ethical conclusions that I find abhorrent. Those moral axioms would be bad ones in my view. They are incompatible with my own to such a degree that I cannot tolerate them. It is likely that they would see my moral perspective as bizarre or evil as well.
I do not see morality as a truth claim. my morals are part of who I am. It's like my relationship with my family. I don't think that my family is the materially best family, that doesn't make sense. However, they are my family, and they matter to me more than anyone else does. They don't need to be the best, or most correct, or most true family, those aren't meaningful attributes of family. They are mine. Same with morals. They are my morals. They are part of who I am.
Can you explain why that account of morality fails or makes me a less moral person? I recognize that if I was born in a different place or time, to a different family, that my morals would be different. The children of christians tend to have christian morals, the children of muslims tend to have muslim morals, aztecs aztec morals. It seems pretty clear that morality is inherited, not reasoned out from first principles for normal people. Again, I would argue that that isn't even possible, moral arguments inherently need to rest on arbitrary moral axioms as a foundation. Any moral argument you make will ultimately be undone by agrippa's trilemma. I can keep asking why and you will eventually reach a foundational moral axiom that cannot be justified. It simply is your moral bedrock.
From Wittgenstein “If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do.” Though I might alter that slightly to be "this is simply who I am."
I believe this is how everyone's morality is. I think your morals rely on a foundation of inherited axioms that cannot be justified morally. Which is fine as far as I am concerned. Can you make an argument explaining how your morals violate my view?
I think I've been very clear that I don't think that there is an objective badness attached to thinks that I morally oppose. I am using the term bad or evil to denote that my feelings towards them are much stronger than what "not liking" implies.
Your question was how would I explain to someone else that they were bad, and I said that if we had overlapping moral axioms then they would find my reasoning compelling. Between two people with overlapping moral axioms, there will be agreement on what is bad or evil. Is your point that bad and evil are fundamentally objective terms? I am saying I specifically do not think that moral badness or evil are material facts. They are subjective judgements only.
That's grounds for saying that you don't like them, but it's not grounds for saying that they are bad. That badness is not actually attached to the thing; it is merely a state of mind that is attached to you. Why do you want to go further and claim/imply that there is some actual badness that attaches to the thing?
If by actual badness you mean badness as a material fact, then I don't want to make that claim as it is not coherent. I think subjective things are still things. But if you are referring to badness as a material fact I would say that 100% does not exist. The physical world does not contain morality or "badness". That is reserved for the subjective world of humans. It is still very real, but is not a physical characteristic that could be measured using an evilometer.
Why do you want to go further and claim/imply that there is some actual badness that attaches to the thing?
This is getting pretty esoteric, but I guess I would say that evil and badness are states that I apply to things through judgement. Thereby attaching badness to the thing, subjectively. Another example would be beauty. It is real, but not a physical attribute. But I don't really feel strongly about this area of the argument, as it seems to be mostly semantic to me.
If you are only interested in badness as a material physical attributes of things, fair enough. my answer in that case would be that I simply do not believe that morality or goodness or badness exists as a material physical attribute of any assortment of matter. I think believing otherwise is incoherent and I challenge you to argue that it is coherent.
Ok, at this point I don't feel like you're arguing in good faith. You don't specifically say that you think I don't hate nazis enough, but if I read you correctly you are implying it. You're saying that the way I find abhorrent people abhorrent is incorrect?
You're expressing pretty strong judgements and I don't feel like you are backing the up in a helpful way. If you have such a strong judgement, please say it straightforwardly, and back it up. I've tried to engage with you honestly. You are shaming instead of trying to convince me at all.
You clearly think the position I've put forward is despicable, but despite your questions I don't feel like you've actually argued with what I've said in good faith.
I don't see why what I've said is offensive to you. I don't see why saying that "who I am is what makes nazis abhorrent to me" is not enough. That seems like a strong moral judgement. Why do you think that is not enough.
I suppose you can be forgiven for using language too casually in a way that would normally seem to imply that there is something about Nazis that actually is bad, so long as you're able to clear it up. Would recommend you avoid using that language in the future, though.
I do think that nazis actually are bad. I do not think that morality is a material attribute. If you find that position so gross can you please attack the reasoning I have given. You have not even tried to argue that subjective things aren't real and only objective things are real, while I have repeatedly made it clear that I do not agree with that. I believe subjective things are truly real.
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.
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.
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.
There's twenty-one people over there that like cilantro and one person who doesn't. I can't actually say that "they" believe that cilantro is good.
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.
In any event, you changed what it is that I said would be an error in language. I asked, "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 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.
Nothing interesting seems to follow from this.
I disagree, but interesting or not, my account of the nature of morality more closely aligns with reality and has more explanatory power.
From the evidence we have, it appears that morality is relative. I am making the argument that just because morality is relative that doesn't rob us of morality. It doesn't lead to moral nihilism and it doesn't decrease the relevance of morality in our lives.
On your view, there are no grounds on which we can say, "The nazis were wrong, and exterminating Jews is not good." We can only say, "There are some people over there who think that exterminating Jews is good and some people over there who think that exterminating Jews is bad. Nothing interesting seems to follow from this."
I think I have made a strong argument that this is not a necessary result of moral relativism.
The behavioral result is identical in my account and your moral realist account. If I am a moral relativist who thinks the nazis are wrong, I will say "There are some people over there who think that exterminating Jews is good and some people over there who think that exterminating Jews is bad" also I can say "I am one of the people who thinks that the nazis are wrong and exterminating Jews is bad" and I can act accordingly to stop their abhorrent behavior.
Nothing has changed behaviorally from your account, as both the allies and the nazis are going to behave the same regardless. Even if I was a moral realist the nazis were going to act in line with their fucked up beliefs. I was still going to act in accordance with my beliefs.
The difference between the accounts is their explanatory power. moral relativism doesn't have the issue of needing to find a justification for moral axioms that as far as I can tell are fundamentally not possible to justify objectively. Can you explain to me how you can justify a moral axiom without relying on another moral axiom?
This is going to depend on things like the determinism/compatibilism/free will debate. It cannot be freely concluded.
I'm not sure I believe that actual compatibilists exists but otherwise I guess that's fair. I'll think more about how that debate interacts with this one.
This is not what it means to have more explanatory power.
I think it kind of is but that's a larger argument. As this feels to not be the core of the argument, how about I start by just saying it's more coherent and has at least an equal level of explanatory power as the alternate theory. I think to argue explanatory power in depth I would need to know more about what you think moral realism vs. moral relativism predicts, which you have said would require pulling in the debate over determinism/free will.
In fact, if it were, we could on similar grounds jettison the entire scientific endeavor for objective physical reality. No need to go to the trouble of looking for a justification when we can just happily settle for the subjectivist view.
Thats not true.
Science is different in that it has no need to be justified by arbitrary axioms. It has utility as a justification which I think we would both agree is not a valid justification for morals. All science needs to show that it is better science is to work.
The scientific endeavor can be tracked via its utility. If my opponents and I have different science, but their science makes better bombs and medicine, then I should reconsider my science.
But if my opponents and I have different morals, and their morals make better bombs and medicine (let's say they use children in their mines or sacrifice children to create a working immortality potion), that is not grounds to reconsider my morals. Science is judged on utility, morality is not.
moral relativism doesn't have the issue of needing to find a justification for moral axioms that as far as I can tell are fundamentally not possible to justify objectively. Can you explain to me how you can justify a moral axiom without relying on another moral axiom?
I would still like an answer to this please.
I think you are pigeon hole-ing me really incorrectly.
because I can now tell that you've been too steeped in the New Atheists.
I really really am not. For one, aren't they are all stridently opposed to moral relativism?
I have no love for them as an ideological group and also have not read much of their stuff. Looking up the people that define that group I can honestly say that while I have heard of some of them, the only one I have really read at all is Dennett, who I do enjoy. But I don't agree with their beliefs and am not that familiar with their thoughts. Clearly they oppose religion and the things that come with it and I am deeply in favor of religion.
I do not think my beliefs line up with the New Atheists in general. Wasn't someone earlier in this thread saying that Sam Harris was trying to compose an objective system of morality based on naturalism? That flies in the face of my entire position.
There's not going to be much value in proceeding beyond simply suggesting that you spend a bit more time in some philosophy courses... You've run absolutely roughshod over centuries of philosophical underpinnings of science
Dude mean. I'm pretty familiar with the philosophical literature. It's embarrassing to retreat to a call to authority but I went pretty far into the philosophy class tree in undergrad and it was a college with a well respected philosophy program. I took lots of upper level philosophy courses. I don't have a philosophy PHD but I'm also not green by any measure. I guess I reject some of the established positions of analytic philosophers, but I have read them, and I have a lot of love for the continental literature as well. I don't think a lack of knowledge of the canon is the issue here.
Not a single word on what the actual object of science is, nor why such a thing should correlate in any way to "utility", whatever that means. If you lived in a Matrix where the only thing that seemed to bring you an ill-defined "utility" was pressing the experience-machine-go-heroin button, I guess that would be the proper domain of science or something.
Ah, ok I think I see the confusion. You're interpreting my use of utility to be the same as economists or utilitarians; essentially the same as human pleasure (I know they quibble about the exact meaning but something in that space). That was not what I meant at all. I meant it in the informal or scientific sense of a description of the degree to which something is practically useful. If your science makes tall buildings that don't fall down, medicine that heals the sick, and bombs that explode well - then it is good science. Good science correctly predicts the material world and successfully provides control over it. The more it does those things, the better science it is. I wasn't trying to refer to utility as human happiness/pleasure at all.
You've run absolutely roughshod over centuries of philosophical underpinnings of science
I really don't think I have. Science's core objective is to provide us with a reliable and predictive understanding of the natural world. Its success is best measured by its utility, and in a scientific context, utility refers to the practical applications of scientific theories and findings. That might not be the only goal of science or the method of science, but it's a very strong measure of its success. If your science doesn't work when applied to physical experiments, you go back to the chalkboard. That position does not "run roughshod" over the philosophical underpinnings of science.
With that explained, do you feel your matrix thought experiment is still relevant here? I think it was based on the assumption that I meant utility like utilitarians do, but if I am misunderstanding, please tell me.
I'm sort of proceeding by reductio ad absurdum. Seeing how your test here would play out when turned against something you like. You seem vastly less willing to be even a tenth as stringent in favor of bounding over giant buildings in a single leap (of faith).
I'm not sure I follow what you are saying. Is the reductio ad absurdum argument you are making the matrix thought experiment? If not can you lay the argument out again please?
when turned against something you like.
What thing that I like?
Of the what now? Where did that thing come from? All you have right now are some subjective perceptions.
We start with subjective perceptions but I am not universally against any kind of realism. Science is an effective way to handle the material world as we perceive it. It works as far as we can tell. That's enough for science because that is the grounds on which we judge science. We want science to work, if it does, then it has fulfilled its stated purpose.
The requirements for justifying moral stances are higher because the stated purpose of morality is not "just work". That is why it raises the question of relativism. If all we wanted was for morality to work, then we could compare the moral positions of different groups and the associated outcomes and using that data we could pick the best moral positions. But that is not the grounds on which we judge moral positions, so we have to grapple with the questions of relativity.
Historically, many New Atheist adherents leaned hard naive moral relativist, with nearly exactly the same positions as you. Adding on the papering over of how we go all the way from nothing to magic utility in one shot just sealed the deal for how close you are to where that community was, whether intentional or not. Of course, their naive moral relativism was the biggest thing that they were constantly taking Ls over in Internet Arguments, so a segment of them (including the aforementioned Sam Harris) pivoted hard toward trying to science away the is-ought gap and construct their own scientific moral realism. But yeah, I was more placing you pretty much exactly in that community, but prior to the pivot. Back in the day when I was most engaged in it. As I was getting a better phil education was when this turn started happening.
Well, I am only passingly familiar and certainly not steeped in that context. I don't have your knowledge of their internet argument history. I really don't think my philosophy in general aligns with new atheism, which again, I presume is in favor of atheism. I am in favor of religion.
I feel like you have not been charitable in the course of this discussion. By which I mean you tend to focus on very specific things I have said while avoiding dealing with the central cruxes of the arguments I am presenting - despite the fact that as far as I can tell, you know very well what the points I am trying to make are. And even knowing that, you don't make much attempt to argue with them head on. Instead you focus your responses away from the central arguments. If you were being charitable, the first target of your responses would be the core issue and you would directly explain what the problem with it is.
I could pretty immediately see the central flaws in a couple different attempts, so I kinda stopped paying attention to it as I drifted away from caring much about them more generally.
Wow, what a statement. If my position is so obviously retarded then show me by engaging it head on. I ask you multiple questions in most of my posts, you ignore them in general. You are continually dismissive in your responses, despite my best attempts to engage in good faith. Where's the charity?
Sorry, the what now? Where did that come from? I feel like I'm missing some axioms or something.
I argue it in the following sentences. I specifically said the material world as we perceive it. Should I post the exact same thing again? If you think that my stance on moral relativity is incompatible with my stance on the material world, I think you need to make that argument more clearly, instead of just continuing to say "Wah? What?".
maybe you are missing some of my relevant axioms, I'm happy to fill them in if you're actually curious. It doesn't feel like you are.
Let me clarify what I meant. I could see the flaws in a couple different attempts to science their way across the is-ought gap to a scientific moral realism. This is not what you're doing, so it's not your position.
Ok. Well thanks for that. I agree you can't science your way across the is-ought gap, and have no interest in trying. The fact that at least current New Atheists appear to try to do that is part of why I have low interest in their position.
I'm not that enamored of science.
No reply to my accusation of a lack of charity? That doesn't concern you?
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
10mo ago
How could you teach someone how to think without introducing a frame that also teaches them what to think. How to think is a slightly larger space than what to think. But both are indoctrination.
People need a foundation of knowledge that doesn't derive from every individual having to reinvent the wheel, intellectually, but that doesn't come from people's mere curiosity.
I agree that you need to do that to create functional people, but it's still indoctrination. The unfortunate truth is that you need to indoctrinate children.
You need to uncritically build that foundation in people, as an authority figure; from first principles.
First principles are, by their nature, arbitrary. Actually, that's not fair, they aren't arbitrary, they are selected because of their relative usefulness. But they cannot be more or less true than other first principles exactly because they are first principles.
Biblical Truth: Everything the bible says is true. The bible should used as the decider for any dispute. Is a first principle.
The law of non contradiction: "Not both A and not A" or "¬(p ∧ ¬p)". Is another first principle.
There is no way to show that one is fundamentally more true than the other, because they are first principles. You need to use first principles to evaluate the truth of a statement.
Therefore, all education is indoctrination. In many ways, but at the very least in terms of first principles. Which is already going to account for a lot of indoctrination.
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
10mo ago
I think that the way you feel may be a normal response to the world you were raised in, but I suspect it is an indication that that world is pretty unhealthy. It seems like a symptom of a profound alienation. Historically, male or female would be a genuinely meaningful category that placed certain rights and obligations on you. I'm not sure that the elimination of that has been psychologically good.
I can relate. I don't feel an automatic urge to identify as a Citizen of my country. It's just something I happened to be born with and while I appreciate the huge benefits it provides me with, I don't feel responsible for the actions of my native country or a strong sense of association with other nominal Citizens. But that's probably a really bad thing. Citizens of a healthy nations automatically partake in the daily plebiscite. I should feel a strong alliance with my nations and my fellows. And most of all, it would be great if my country applied some meaningful obligations on me.
And it makes me sad, because I've always wanted to see gender roles become less rigid, not more. What I fear is that people who deviate from increasingly narrow gender roles are going to be funneled into an increasingly narrow gender role of the opposite sex, which is every bit as much oppressive as a father who berates his son for playing with dolls.
Why though? How has the reduction of the strictness of roles that modernity has brought on improved things for people?
If so, what is this "material world" that we are supposedly perceiving?
You know what it means colloquially, but here is a more extensive explanation of how I would describe the material world:
It is the seemingly mostly consistent thing that we infer via our subjective perceptions. We peer through an unreliable lens. There is something on the other side that can’t be perfectly known. Whatever the stuff is on the other side that generally responds consistently to experiment, that is what we call the material world.
It appears to be a system or substrate that follows mostly consistent rules that we, whatever we are, exist within or on.
Science is the practice of measuring and manipulating that mostly consistent stuff on the other side of the lens. Therefore, science does not raise the problem of relativism, because the only justification it needs is that it effectively gives a person tools to manipulate the material world. As long as it is helpful for doing that, it is justified as legit science. That doesn't justify it morally or anything, to be clear. It just justifies it as science.
But morals are not justified by being useful for getting some kind of result. They have to be justified by being good or right or noble. And those do not have the same simple test as science, so they raise the problem of justifying moral axioms.
Not really. Such accusations are cheap to throw around and are usually bullshit.
Alright
When an imperial power offers the option of joining its hegemony to a smaller state that directly borders an opposing empire that is egregiously antagonistic. Offering the option to join the American hegemony to anyone who wants to regardless of the effects that will have on the balance of power is obviously antagonistic.
That seems so clearly antagonistic to me that i'm not sure your statement is in good faith. Can you explain how you think that isn't antagonistic?
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
4mo 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
1yr ago
Russia is openly concerned about western hegemony expanding near its borders. Therefore western hegemony threatening to expand near its borders is antagonistic.
Offering entry into its hegemony to anyone who wants it regardless of context is universally antagonistic.
You can argue that it’s morally justified but it’s clearly antagonistic
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
1yr ago
It also probably didn't help the box office of BROS that its target market --- young urban progressives -- is the same one most hawkishly cautious about COVID and the least likely to return to movie theaters out of what now could be ascribed to superstitious fears of deadly illness.
I really don't think this is a thing. Everyone I know is a young urban progressive, and many of them are the conspicuously political type of young urban progressive. While they all liked to talk about how covid was terrifying and we needed vax mandates - both in person and on social media - most of them stopped caring after less than 12 months.
We are way beyond that point now, and I don't know a single "young urban progressive" who avoids going to rowdy parties. Maybe they wear a mask on public transport to that party, but that's it. Most of them will happily share a joint with strangers at said parties. None of them are concerned about covid in a way that would stop them from going to a public event they had any interest in.
If young urban progressives didn't show up to this movie, its because they, like everyone else, was not interested in the movie. Not because of covid concerns.
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
1yr ago
What's the point?
I don’t want any increase of geopolitical tension between China and the west but I think there are substantial reasons to want this to become the widespread consensus.
Biotech is an existential risk that people and governments are not concerned enough about. I think it would be very good for that to be a more widespread concern.
A practical goal would be banning gain of function research. Or more realistically, banning gain of function research that claims to be being done in pursuit of some kind of medical goal. I don’t really think you’ll be able to stop it from happening in military labs. But research that dangerous shouldn’t have the veil of claiming that it is being done in order to protect against viruses. And, you shouldn't be able to do it in labs with the security levels of the Wuhan labs.
The smallest practical goal would be removing American funding from Chinese gain of function research. It appears to be undisputed that there was at least some money coming from America and funding labs in Wuhan that were researching novel coronaviruses. That should obviously stop.
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
1yr ago
I don’t think women don’t like conservative men. It may be true that they don’t like conservative men who feel the need to overtly signal that they are conservative.
On the internet there are a lot of men who are conservative in a way that is informed by their resentments. They feel that the leftist world order hasn’t taken care of them and so they reject it. Fair enough. Obviously women don’t like these men because they aren’t successful or confident or handsome. If they had attractive traits they wouldn’t be resentful in the first place.
But there are lots of successful and confident men who are conservative. Most of the more conservative men I know in real life fall into this camp.
These men are conservative by nature or upbringing or whatever. But they are successful and confident, so resentment isn’t part of their politics. I don’t see these men having any trouble finding girlfriends or hookups in real life. And I live in a very liberal urban bubble.
They date women who generally are more liberal than them because that’s ubiquitously the political ideology of women in young urban areas. But neither the men or the women care that much about their political differences.
The women don’t care because they want confident successful men and don’t actually care about their partners politics. The men don’t care because they want hot loving girlfriends and think their partners politics are irrelevant.
Notably, these couples tend to follow traditional gender norms in their relationship to each other. Even if the women are strident feminist on Twitter.
if the above is true, why on earth would a successful handsome conservative man sign up for a conservative dating site? They already get laid on tinder and can find girlfriends that are comfortable with gender roles through normal dating.
thiells website is going to select generally for men who aren’t just conservative but who are conspicuously conservative. And worse, who are generally not successful with girls. And that’s going to be obvious to women regardless of their stated politics.
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.
I don’t see the problem. Yes morality is relative. Yes my moral values are not materially truer than yours, so what? My morals are my morals, and they are correct, for me. I will act accordingly. I see no reason for this to collapse into nihilism.
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”
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