Although I don't speak of all of you, I feel I speak of a great many of you when I say that your conception of the world, and of our current existence, is greatly over simplified. You berate others for viewing the world through an ideological filter, whilst you hypocritically do the same, only with the stronger filter of Marxism. To you the entire world is defined by nothing other than the abstract distinctions of class. All forms of struggle and conflict are either swallowed up by your overly materialistic world view and appropriated as evidence of the supposed "Evils" of capitalism, or are ignored entirely. Mental illness? Alienation. Loneliness? Alienation. Resentment? Alienation. Whenever one speaks of human nature, and of the instincts and will that not only drive men, but are quite possibly men "themselves", you mock them. You mock the entirety of the psychological field that is not of a marxist bent, and resist any argument that there is a nature in man that is unchangeable, and is part of his being as a whole.
Other than out of your own self interest to not be exploited, how can you oppose exploitation at all? How can you say that capitalism is unethical, when you don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to any form of objective morality, as you regard religion to merely be a system of control, and mock the religious? How can you possibly defend your world view using anything other than pure emotion or vulgar utilitarianism?
Brody Russell
There are a few Christians on here.
Adrian Scott
...
Adam Collins
I'm not religious, I'm a relativist. There is no foundation for reality outside of the divine, and even then it wouldn't be absolute.
Oliver Reyes
*morality, not reality
Hudson Lewis
Why is making up a god and then following whatever commandments you put in it's mouth any better than using pure emotion as a moral compass?
Cooper Young
It isn't vulgar. I'd prefer the label "efficient" or "rational".
Tyler Nguyen
Do you, like Sam Harris, support nuking the entire middle east because of your consequentialist philosophy?
Ian Flores
It's worth distinguishing between using emotion as the foundation of your ethical system (eg. deciding that you don't want to see people suffer for emotional reasons), and using emotion to decide how to act in order to achieve the goals defined by your ethical system (eg. every "justice" system ever). The basis must be emotional, but all further reasoning should be done intelligently and scientifically.
Asher Diaz
Could you provide a concrete example of how this sort of thing might work?
Parker Young
make up you mind
Aiden Bell
i read theory. this is fake news.
Jack Roberts
No. Voluntary painless extinction isn't the worst option, but it would deprive a lot of people of the opportunity to live net-positive lives. The present day is shit, but I think the future (~500 years +) is going to be very bright. I strongly support the survival of our species into the deep future. Nuking only a small part of the planet is just retarded for countless reasons, not least the suffering of all the loved ones who survive.
Okay, I think we can agree that we both have fundamental emotional objections to people suffering. A specific example of that suffering might be, say, child abuse.
Your gut might suggest that it is a good idea to make all therapists and psychiatric doctors legally required to report any signs of pedophilia among any of their patients.
If you thought about the problem rationally and did sufficient research you'd realize that such laws only make pedophiles avoid seeking therapy and actually make the problem worse. In this case the best solution is to keep doctor-patient confidentiality intact and seek to understand the problem better.
In fact our society's response to the problem of child abuse is one gigantic case study on all the ways in which gut reactions can make a problem orders of magnitude worse and hinder any future efforts to solve it. Drug prohibition is another good example that I could have used. In fact, pretty much every aspect of our "justice" system is totally fucked because of policy makers thinking with their guts instead of their minds.
Ayden Mitchell
To be fair op said But I agree, fake news.
Nicholas Nelson
Google Murray Bookchin
Ryder Hughes
Not that user, but that's my own view on handling child abuse as well.
Jeremiah Robinson
To be fair, two cents thrown out like that are common here, as in any chan, but you do bring up a good point. I always wanted to know how exactly alienation from labor was connected to social alienation.
