georgioz
1d ago
As one example, this is a standard broadly liberal ethos for centuries. It goes with belief in tabula rasa and belief that humanism is the correct (liberal) atheist ethical structure can be gained by using science and reason. The whole liberal schtick for decades was that all it takes is a proper education and we will all live in Star Trek space luxury communism society.
You never encountered opinions that let's say Trump voters are uneducated stupid heliolites or that all Christians are science deniers or some version of this argument? It was very popular attack since my youth with new Atheism.
georgioz
1d ago
Overall I think my question is underspecified, because I'm not entirely sure how to properly adopt an outside view here and set aside my own personal beliefs about what is good and consider a general principle that's simple enough for someone who isn't already me and is less intelligent than me to use to eventually arrive at some approximation of goodness (which I believe is equal to my specific beliefs about what is good, even if I don't always live up to them).
This is exactly the problem of most secular ethical systems. As you say, in the end they have to be honest and just admit that they are subjective, relative and underspecified.
Bootstrapping ethics and morality from bottom up does not work and it was admitted since Hume that it is bankrupt endeavor. The main problem being that if you adhere to any kind of humanism and secularism where you start with human mind as the presupposition, then you do not have access to any justified universals. The frustrating thing is that many people holding these ethical systems either do not understand this conundrum, or they are just willfully ignorant about them.
How does someone without the sophistication to understand second order effects not just get one-shot by virtue signallers who sacrifice the greater good in favor of optics and first order appearances?
This is often much worse for these supposedly "intelligent" people, especially if they adopt some form of utilitarianism and consequentialism, where they can rationalize their delusion and sometimes outright schizoid view of the world to promote a very let's say "interesting causes". Just look at Effective Altruism that is supposedly filled in with the smart people and they care about topics like insect welfare, rationalization of how purchase of 15th century UK luxury manor Wytham Abbey is actually in line with utilitarianism and many more.
The problem is that one of the objectives of the conspiracies is to stay secret, at minimum until they achieve their primary goals.
Not necessarily. In fact, many conspiracies actually publish their aims and goals out there with knowledge that people will not read them and if they will, that they will not verbalize them as it will make them sound crazy. They proudly share their plans of You will own nothing and be Happy as message of Sharing Economy necessary for several of the 17 Sustainable Goals for 2030 and 169 targets. It is now just a meme. It is at the same time Alex Jones level of conspiracy that "UN globalist wants you to own nothing and eat bugs", but it is also something that actual UN globalists write in their papers and promote it.
The same goes let's say with Soros. He literally pours billions of dollars into an NGO that has website that proudly says let's say how they help Syrians to immigrate into Europe. But when you say that Soros helps Syrian immigrants to move over to Europe, you are immediately marked as a conspiracy theorist. Saying the name Soros marks you as one no matter if what follows is true or false or whatever.
I dislike the terms "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist", as they're generally used as terms of dismissal or abuse: characterizing a particular hypothesis as a "conspiracy theory" is tantamount to saying that it's untrue, and characterizing the person who espouses it as a "conspiracy theorist" is tantamount to calling them paranoid and unserious. But this shouldn't be the case, because conspiracies do happen!
Of course they do, there is a criminal conspiracy term under many jurisdictions and these conspiracies are prosecuted all the time ranging from drug or weapon or human trafficking, white collar fraud, RICO conspiracies, various government corruption schemes, monopoly and cartel pricing deals and many more.
However. We're all familiar with the type of person described by the term "conspiracy theorist". The people in tinfoil hats, the people who never believe the official story, the people who attribute every setback (no matter how trivial) to the dark hand of da Joos/the CIA/the Illuminati.
Actually we are in fact not familiar with "the type". Or to be more precise, there is more than just one type. The tinfoil hat chemtrail wacko is one type. But there are many other types, in general all leftisim is just one huge conspiracy theory. You know the type: everything is because of capitalism and billionaires. Or alternatively everything is because of white supremacy or patriarchy or whatnot. These "theories" are all on the same level as any number of other schizoid "theories" about aliens etc. But for some reason being a commie leftist who thinks everything is because of capitalism is somehow considered as a normal thing.
So I agree with @Primaprimaprima that "conspiracy theory" label is primarily a propaganda term that is used just as an ad hominem attack on opponents epistemological credentials. It is often used in battery of ad hominems where one attacks all three faculties:
- Attack on you epistemological legitimacy: "Only conspiracy theorists believe that, no serious academic can believe what you believe, you are outside of scientific consensus"
- Attack on your mental legitimacy: "Who hurt you? Something must have happened to you, only people with unresolved trauma say these hurtful things. Did you try therapy?"
- Attack on your moral legitimacy: "Only racists and fascists say what you say. You should be ashamed of what you say"
Hypercompetent characters rely on certain behind the scenes shenanigans, and they turn into a puzzle for reader to solve. Imagine Sherlock Holmes books, where you see the world through Dr.Watson only to witness the genius of main character in expose at the end of the movie. This is a common trope for detective movies or TV shows, including female protagonist like with Murder, She Wrote where the main heroine is basically female Sherlock Holmes who also plays her own Dr. Watson using her "housewife" mask - very similar to how inspector Colombo pretends to be dumb in order to solve various mysteries.
If you lack a tension, you can also add a big bad on the background. Like with Sherlock Holmes who had Professor Moriarty as his evil twin, who turned even Holmes victories into strategic defeats and whatnot. This is often used trope in these hypercompetent hero stories, e.g. as when Ender in Ender's Game wins the Game, only to realize that he was duped into genocide or some such.
Also you can always do the Alien trick - just write a role for a man and turn it into a female role. This is how Ellen Ripley was born. She absolutely is hypercompetent heroine. She always connects the dots, has the correct knowledge for the situation be it learning how to operate a gun in 1 minute tutorial only to then rig a flamethrower and grenade launcher under when to situation calls. The same for somehow being robot operator right when it is needed to defeat the alien queen.
If you wanted to turn your mother into a badass, just look at Walking Dead and Carol Peletier. A battered housewife is actually a hidden gem. She can navigate social situations like when inside the compound she used her easy going persona to uncover cult mysteries etc. But she is also a badass sniper on a level of special unit commando Rambo who single-handedly dismantled cannibal cult from the outside rescuing the rest of the group. She can do it all, she can survive on her own out in the middle of zombie apocalypse, she can be a mother and nurturer, she can be a high-stakes spy using her acting skills as the spy and she can be cold blooded killer, Spetznaz executioner.
In short the hypercompetent characters are not interesting for their own growth - although there is a room there as well, especially if they need to get competent in some new realm such as social relations or whatnot. Their main job is structural to the story, they are part of the worldbuilding and/or the plot device.
georgioz
3d ago
So Achilles had his heel as a literal weakness, but he was also full of moral flaws
I just want to add that the heel gimmick was a later addition by Romans - who considered themselves the descendants of Trojans - as a propaganda to diminish Achilles's victories. In the original Iliad, Achilles had no gimmick like that, he was just that awesome.
It is both. They are ignorant because they don't want to learn The Science™. And they do not want to learn because they are intellectually lazy bigots. This is a standard pathos + false ethos attack that James Lindsay described quite well. He described it as an ultimate Ad Hominem battery of attacks - you do not have scientific consensus, plus you probably also have some unresolved trauma and also your opinons are very close to what fascists and racists say.
So it is a blend: you are white supremacist fascist, Jones level MAGA conspiracy supporter, and on top of that you are also religious bigot who suffers trauma from priest child diddling and sexual repression. It is all one neat dehumanization package.
Of course there are other strains of this, e.g. old school eugenics intellectual progressivism - something very close to maybe current Grey tribe technocratic elite often with Fabian Socialist bent: most people are just stupid and they simply do not know what is good for them. We are the intellectual utilitarian avant-garde who will establish benevolent technocratic permanent beurocracy, where we will use psychological tricks, nudging, propaganda, economic and tax incentives and other means to make sure that the the sub 100IQ plankton can live their lives in moderately prosperous society. Of course they will fight us, but it is because they are stupid and barely above some animals intellectually. Also we are not using words like good and evil outside of tongue-in-cheek. The population is just object of our power, they are barely sapient and incapable of good/evil. And the best of us who achieved true Gnosis of utilitarian calculus are literally beyond Good and Evil in Nietzchean sense, they are applying their will to power in form of social engineering of raw material in form of nameless "population".
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