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Primaprimaprima

US government confirms the existence of aliens in 2026: 100%

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joined 2022 September 05 01:29:15 UTC

"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."


				
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Primaprimaprima


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
US government confirms the existence of aliens in 2026: 100%

				
				
				

				

					5 followers  

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					joined 2022 September 05 01:29:15 UTC
				


				
					

					
"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can you please elaborate?


FC has repeated multiple times that the principle criteria is “we know how to solve all our problems”. Zizek denies that we know how to solve all our problems. But you are claiming that his project still “counts”. Why?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


what you think the “Zizekian communist project” still is




Intentionally left somewhat vague, but my impression from listening to him and his close collaborators is that it’s something like: nationalization of industries, central economic planning, aggressive state action on issues like global warming, workplace democracy and employee co-ops, etc. The sorts of ultra-left economic policies that you’ve heard of before.


There’s still the hope that with enough fumbling about we’ll someday “transcend the social relations of capital”, although everyone has failed at specifying what this means concretely just as much as Marx himself did.


And yes, it could involve the use of revolution too. Although as I’ve already argued, revolution is a tactic that can be utilized or rejected by any ideology.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


there is no solution, that there is no plan, that we are not in control of the world; all we control is ourselves; we make our choices and live with the consequences.




What I have reiterated over and over in these discussions for a year at this point is that believing in a "master plan" is not a necessary criteria of any of the political ideologies under discussion.  You can be a Marxist and still believe that there is no plan, we are not in control of the world, etc.  This is basically Zizek's whole schtick, if you listen to his lectures.  It basically goes: "Yeah, Marxist revolutionaries at one point did believe that they were impersonal agents of history, simply carrying out what was rationally required, etc.  We know now that was a mistake, a failure mode.  That's how you get Stalinism.  So that's been discredited.  But we're still communists, we still believe in the communist project."


But does that make Zizek and his fellow travelers into allies of traditionalists?  I don't think the traditionalists would agree.  Which means that your belief in a master plan is not what fundamentally determines your political orientation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I want to try to achieve an understanding of what the root of this disagreement is, on a deeper level.  The Christianity hypothesis was one attempt at that.  If you have an alternative read on the situation that's fine.  I encourage you to share your own interpretation.  Although I would point out that Hlynka said, directly, that belief or non-belief in God is part of "the core of what positions we hold".




I use similar logic to sort friend and enemy, and to make predictions about where current ideology will lead people, and this seems like an obviously useful and relatively uncontroversial method of reasoning.




If it's ultimately just about distinguishing "my friends" from "my enemies", then that's fine.  I would have nothing further to add.  But you should just say that, instead of arguing that vastly heterogeneous groups of people are committed to a complex web of philosophical assertions that they are not, in fact, committed to.




Eugenics was straightforwardly an attempt to reshape "human nature" through the mechanism of social institutions?




Well, through technology and biology.  Not social institutions.


Unsurprisingly, materialists believe that human nature is grounded in some combination of biological/physical properties and environmental factors, because that's all there is.  Humans are what they are because of what their made of.  If you change what they're made of then you could (potentially) change what they're like.  If this fundamental metaphysical commitment makes all materialists ideologically "the same" in some sense, then that lends further credence to the assertion that the fundamental divide for you is really about materialists vs non-materialists.


It should be noted though that materialists are not necessarily committed to the idea of an infinitely malleable human nature.  There could be logical/physical constraints on the "space of all possible minds".  The psychoanalysts believe that the necessary preconditions of subjectivity itself put certain constraints on any conscious mind that look a bit like the fall of man and original sin if you squint at it (Lacan, despite being an atheist, had a complex relationship with Christianity).


At any rate, there are non-materialist Christians among both the communists and the dissident right, rendering the whole line of questioning somewhat moot.




Do you understand that, completely separate from any charged keywords or references to specific identity groups, the core logic evident in that passage marks the author, to me, as the most mortal sort of ideological enemy? Someone with whom no cooperation is or likely ever will be possible?




I will ask directly: are all your enemies "the same" in some sense, just because they are your enemies?  If not, then why is it relevant that Bismark sees you as an enemy?  Why did you bring it up?




they believe they can sort people into the good and bad bins by population-level metrics, when in fact they absolutely cannot do that.




Is this the assertion of a new criteria for determining identity among ideologies?  How is it related to the other proposed criteria ("humans as naturally good vs evil", "knowing how to solve all our problems vs not knowing", etc).  Are they all equivalent formulations of each other?  Is one of the formulations at the root, and the others are derived from it?




Would it be fair to say that they believe things will get a whole lot better, if they can simply remove most of the silly barriers keeping them from exercising unrestrained power to reshape and organize society?




Is there any set of circumstances that's better than any other set of circumstances for anyone, ever?  Or is everything just all the same?


You have expressed a great deal of anger on this forum previously about what you see as Blue Tribe overreach and abuse of power.  Would your life be better, in any way, even a little bit, if Blue Tribe had less power over you and the things you care about?


Because if you can imagine specific changes to society that would make your life even a little better, then we're just haggling over numbers at that point.  Your proposed changes would only improve life by a modest 50 utils, so you're on the Red Tribe side, traditionalist, anti-Enlightenment, etc.  But Yarvin thinks he can improve life by 300 utils, which is over the cutoff of 250, so he's on the Enlightenment side with all the Nazis and communists etc.


This is not tenable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m not a Yudkowskian Rationalist.  I’m an enemy of utilitarianism. I am in fact sympathetic to some of the critiques of the Enlightenment that these posters have laid out.


This is just about recognizing the distinctions between different ideologies that are in fact distinct. It’s not about anything else.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What do you think of the idea that I floated here?  That the fundamental distinction for you and Hlynka, at the end of the day, is between Christians and non-Christians?  Is there anything to that, or is it completely baseless?


Although not entirely central, references to religion do recur throughout posts made by you and Hlynka, such as the line I quoted from him, and your reference to "secular materialists" that you just quoted.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


have more conservative sexual ethics than most on the DR(which in its most mainstream form endorses male promiscuity)




Ok, this may be at the root of some of the confusion around this topic.  When I say "DR" I mean specifically the narrow white nationalist variant.  These people by and large are quite conservative in terms of sexual ethics.  Someone like Andrew Tate is not DR under this definition.


You can say that it's not fair to focus on such a relatively small group and ignore the diversity of alternative right-wing thought, which is a valid point, but the white nationalists are worth looking at in particular because they do provide a significant counterexample to Hlynka's arguments.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


My position is that you can't properly characterize Hlynka's position if you don't address such a significant part of the position.




I of course want to represent Hlynka's arguments as clearly and accurately as possible.  I just reread the three "Inferential Distance" posts.  The most relevant section seems to be this from the first post:




Relatedly, I maintain that the left vs right spectrum are best understood as religious schism within the western enlightment, with the adhearants of Locke and Rousseau on one side and the adhearants of Hobbes on the other. The core points of disagreement being internal vs exterenal loci of control and the "default" state of man.




But this ignores the diversity of views about human nature you find on both the far right and the far left.  The dissident right already has an essentially Hobbesian view of human nature, as far as I understand it.  And even on the far left, things are not so clear.  Followers of the more psychoanalytically-inflected strains of Marxism stress that there can be no final end to history, no ultimate reconciliation of the individual with the collective.


Further quoting Hlynka:




That is an underlying assumption on both sides that if only all the existing social barriers/contracts could be knocked down, utopia would be achievable.




This is straightforwardly false.  The dissident right does not believe this.


And finally:




Users here will often argue that the existance (or non-existance) of "an imaginary sky-friend" or individual loci of control are not relevant to whatever issue is being discussed but I disagree. I believe that these base level assumptions end up becoming the core of what positions we hold.




I suspect that what he wanted to say, but shied away from, is that there are ultimately two camps: those who believe in the Christian God, and those who don't.  This is undoubtedly the conclusion that one should draw if one starts from Christian priors.  But since I reject Christian priors, I unsurprisingly reject the conclusion as well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It was just a name for the position I quoted at the beginning of the post, nothing more.  Sorry if there was any confusion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The hole exists because the avoiders of the hole reject the underlying premise even when they are aware of it, if they are aware of it in the first place.




Can you explain what the Hobbesian premise is that's being rejected/forgotten?


Earlier you said:




whether humans are naturally good or evil, the nature of the locus of control as internal (individualist/person-centric) or external (you can change people and the world by taking and changing the institutions)




Is this it?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm not exactly a fan of top-level posting denouncing the beliefs of someone who isn't permitted to clarify their position




All the more reason he should be brought back to defend himself!




But Hlynka's narrative had some pretty clear and specific keywords that you've not even raised.




Taking one of Hlynka's positions and using it as a synecdoche for "Hlynkaism" in toto is, indeed, an example of the very behavior I was criticizing, and for that I apologize.  (In my defense, it was supposed to just be a cute moniker rather than an assertion of a serious philosophical claim.)


But it did seem to be one of his most critical recurring positions, it's the position that I've encountered most frequently in other conversations with posters here who claim to be carrying his mantle, and, crucially, it's the position that was outlined in the post I quoted from hydroacetylene.  So that's what I wanted to respond to in my post.  My post was only intended to respond to that position and not any of Hlynka's other positions.




Call it whatever you want- left or right, whether humans are naturally good or evil, the nature of the locus of control as internal (individualist/person-centric) or external (you can change people and the world by taking and changing the institutions)




But this isn't actually a good way of dividing up different ideologies.  It's essentially a non sequitur.  It's just something Hlynka latched onto because it seemed like a good way of putting all his enemies onto one side, while he got to stay on the other side.


It also just misrepresents the basic facts about what different groups believe, particularly in the DR.  As HBD advocates, they believe in a relatively static human nature that cannot be reshaped by social institutions.  Nor can their position be reduced to "white people inherently good, everyone else inherently bad"; they acknowledge that whites have a higher genetic disposition to violent crime than East Asians, for example, and that this would persist regardless of social arrangements.




That sort of rejection / non-recognition of the alternative enlightenment paradigms was / is one of the core tenets of Hlynkaism.




I believe that I'm quite capable of considering all relevant alternatives, but please let me know if I'm missing something.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And as a tactical choice it is itself a ideological commitment. It’s not merely ‘rapid change’- it requires an acceptance of top down impositions, rationalism, the idea of de novo societal shifts implemented by a vanguard party. I reject all of that ideologically.




You are right to point out that the distinction between tactics and principles is not as clean as I made it out to be.  But I'm skeptical that recourse to revolution is always indicative of the deep ideological commitments that you portray it as having.  Whatever it may entail ideologically, I don't think it's a good criteria for cleaving the global ideological space at the joints.


The American Revolution was, by most accounts, based on the principles of classical liberalism; principles that I imagine Hlynka and his fellow travelers would endorse wholeheartedly.  Was there something ideologically objectionable about the American Revolution just because it took the form of a revolution?  Does it have to be denounced?  Were the founding fathers necessarily committed to a certain "top down rationalist" view of human nature that true Red Tribers would have to reject?


Or consider the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which instituted an Islamic theocracy.  They certainly claim to be following a conservative tradition of some kind; it might not be your preferred tradition, but it's a tradition.  Are they too committed to an Enlightenment rationalist view of human nature?  Does Islamic theocracy share a deep philosophical affinity with Marxist communism that has hitherto gone unnoticed?  And the American Revolution too?


The most reasonable conclusion, on my view, is not that revolutions are a result of people having a deep ideological commitment to the idea of a top down rationally organized society.  Revolutions are a result of people wanting power, and having the means and opportunity to seize it.  This is universal to left and right, old and new.




I agree with much of the DR that gays are perverts who shouldn’t be allowed near kids, that women shouldn’t vote, etc. But my reasoning and therefore implementation of these ideas is very different.




Would you be willing to elaborate on this?  I'm just curious.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There appears to have been a mild resurgence of Hlynkaism on the forum.  This is concerning, because I believe that the core tenets of Hlynkaism are deeply confused.


@hydroacetylene said:




Fuck it I’m taking up the hlynka posting mantle- they’re the same thing. They’re both revolutionary ideologies calling for to radically remake society in a short period of time. They merely disagree about who gets cushy sinecures doing stupid bullshit(black lesbians or white men). The DR weirds out classical conservatives once they figure out it’s not a meme.




It's not entirely clear what's supposed to be the determining criteria of identity here.  Are wokeism and the DR the same because they're both revolutionary, or are they the same because they only differ on who gets the cushy sinecures?  At any rate, I'll address both points.


Revolution (defined in the most general sense as rapid dramatic change, as opposed to slow and gradual change) is a tactic, not an ideological principle.  You can have adherents of two different ideologies who both agree on the necessity of revolution, and you can have two adherents of the same ideology who disagree on the viability of revolution as a tactic.  Although Marxism is typically (and correctly) seen as a revolutionary ideology, there have been notable Marxists who denied the necessity of revolution for Marxism.  They instead wanted to achieve communism through a series of gradual reforms using the existing democratic state apparatus.  But does that suddenly make them into conservatives?  Their tactics are different from typical Marxists, but their core underlying Marxist ideological principles are the same.  I doubt that any of the Hlynkaists on this forum would look at the reformist-Marxists and say "ah, a fellow conservative-gradualist!  Truly these are my people; they too are lovers of slow, cautious change".


"Tradition above all" is an empty formalism at best, and incoherent at worst.  If tradition is your sole overriding source of moral truth, then we just wind up with the old Euthyphro dilemma: what happens when the tradition that you happened to be born into isn't worth defending?  What if it's actively malicious?  "Support tradition" is a formal principle because it makes no mention of the actual content of that tradition.  If you are living in a Nazi or communist (or whatever your own personal avatar of evil is) regime whose roots extend back further than living memory, are conservatives obligated to support the existing "traditional" regime?  Perhaps they're allowed to oppose it, but only if they do so in a slow and gradual manner.  You can understand why this response might not be appealing to those who are being crushed under the boot of the regime.  And at any rate, you can only arrive at the position of opposing the regime in the first place if you have an alternative source of substantive ethical principles that go beyond the formal principles of "support tradition" and "don't change things too fast".


As for the assertion that wokeism and the DR only differ on "who gets the cushy sinecures"; this is simply incorrect.  They have multiple substantive policy disagreements on LGBT rights, traditional gender roles, immigration, foreign policy, etc.


Hlynkaism to me represents a concerning abdication of reflection and nuance, in favor of a self-assured "I know what's what, these radical Marxist-Islamo-fascists can't pull a fast one on me" attitude.  This is emblematic of much that is wrong with contemporary (and historical as well) political discourse.  The principle goal of philosophical reflection is to undermine the foundation of this self-assuredness.  Actually, you don't know what's what.  Your enemies might know things that you don't; their positions might be more complicated and nuanced than you originally thought.  Undoubtedly the realm of political discourse would become more productive, or at least more pleasant, if this attitude of epistemic humility were to become more widespread.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Although there is variation in the opinions of individual mods, my impression of them as a group is that they certainly have no interest in enforcing an “HBD consensus” (in either direction).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


a choice between the rules as a credible institution or his continued participation




A third option is to enforce the rules, but not via permabans.


Permabans should be reserved for the most egregious trolls, spambots, or accounts that are otherwise doing harm to the forum in some way. The way I see it, there’s almost never a reason to permaban a good faith poster (which Hlynka obviously was). I would set the maximum suspension length somewhere in the range of 6-12 months.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have consistently maintained that banning him was a mistake. Although he might be prideful enough that even if the invitation was extended, he wouldn’t come back.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Today's art world insists on newness above all.




They say they do, but whether they actually do is another question.  And at any rate, constant newness is not a reasonable demand.  Creative work always falls into regular patterns; in both the sciences and the arts, the majority of work consists in simply filling out the details of a given paradigm, rather than actually pushing at the boundaries of the paradigm itself.  True innovation is hard, and at this point in human history, the possibility space of the traditional plastic arts has been explored pretty thoroughly.


A sculpture that consists of, say, a few loose pipes and concrete slabs strewn about the floor, which are alleged to represent the struggle for Palestinian liberation, is just as much of a genre piece as a representational painting of the deposition of Christ.  It follows genre conventions, it shares a clear lineage with other works in the same group, etc.  It's just that "abstract sculpture paired with a leftist artist statement" is a politically favored genre, whereas "representational Christian painting" is a politically disfavored genre.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So what is your basic definition of the Red Tribe, exactly?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Red Tribers are somewhere between uninterested in and actively hostile to intellectual/cultural production (by which I mean things like scholarship or art)




That depends on what you mean by "Red Tribe" (everyone seems to have a slightly different definition).


It's not particularly hard to list right-wing intellectuals and artists.  Nietzsche, Heidegger, Pound, Eliot.  There was an intimate link between Italian futurism and Mussolini's fascism.


I think Yarvin's concept of the dark elves is useful here: internal traitors to the Blue Tribe who align with Red Tribe on certain key issues and provide intellectual and cultural support to the reds.  If your definition of a Red Triber is a person who prioritizes "income/general social status" over intellectual development, then sure, ex hypothesi such a person will take little interest in cultural production.  But you're ignoring all the dark elves who very much are in the business of thinking "conservative" thoughts, and as others in this thread have pointed out their perspective has been systematically censored in elite institutions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, if they already have that capability and it’s only regulations holding them up then it is real self driving.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Self driving = ability to do 100% of what a competent human driver can do in any location, without geofencing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


He knows reds don't have the temperament or interest to "show up" for museums or libraries




Well... isn't that just a skill issue then?


Regardless of the institutional form it takes, there will always be culture of some kind, and it will indeed belong to those who show up.  A purely destructive strategy with no positive program for cultural production of your own is not viable in the long term.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm the biggest enemy of AI art on TheMotte, and even I recognize that a lot of AI paintings are pretty darn good!  It's not at the point where it completely obviates the need for human artists (which is why people are still employed as professional artists as of March 2025), but in the range of tasks where it is successful, it's clearly good at what it does.


I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that AI does nothing.  It does a lot.  It's just a question of whether and when we're going to get true AGI.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've always been more skeptical of the singularity than the average mottizen -- not outright dismissive, but skeptical.  I've become more confident in my skepticism over the past year after seeing the diminishing rate of progress in frontier models and the relatively disappointing launch of GPT-4.5.  I feel more assured now that currently known techniques won't lead to AGI.


Not to say that there won't be impact to individual jobs and industries, of course.  There are plainly people who find LLMs to be very useful even in their current state, and LLMs aren't going anywhere.  But I don't think that o3 or even o4 or o5 will lead to a cataclysm.




some relatively minor additional work




The first 90% of the project takes the first 90% of the time, and the last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Can these perspectives be reconciled?




Sure.


Some men evidently accomplish a great deal without being "fit" in the physical sense.  And that's perfectly fine for them.  That is their "health".  But we might still find it regrettable that there are opportunities they never explored, because in the general sense every choice involves forsaking other possibilities and there is always something regrettable in this despite its necessity.


One of the greatest lessons I took from Nietzsche is how to approach things with more nuance.  Something can be good, and virtuous, and necessary, and regrettable.  Something can be bad, and deleterious, and undesirable, and yet still necessary.  You can mix and match.




Is there a good as such? Have not all attempts to define such a thing failed miserably?




There is such a thing as "the good", but it escapes any attempt to define it in terms of basic axioms or repeatable guidelines.




Once upon a time, I did not care much about conventional notions of health, because I quite consciously did not particularly wish to live to advanced age. Now I contemplate that I am rather unlikely to live to hold my grandchildren, and rather likely to leave my wife a widow, all promises to the contrary, and I wish I had not been so foolish in my youth.




You probably just made the wrong decision then.  No one ever said that people couldn't just be wrong.  There are innumerable healths, which means there are innumerable unhealths as well.




Concrete examples would be really ideal here




Concrete examples illustrating which part, exactly?