Colour texts, personalised themes, the threads are much clearer structured as my scope of interest is quite limited regarding philosophy -- but I actually do not want be pedantic.

I know what descriptive ethics are — Noble Dust

Your reply did not give the impression you do.

Desire is innate and is not a choice, nor can it be eradicated -- at best suppressed with some nasty unforeseen side effects. This is why I think Buddhism is fundamentally mistaken and numbing yourself leads to alienation. I believe in two personal virtues, ambition and discipline. Buddhism kills the former.

It is fascinating to see the enormous ad hoc or post hoc rationalisations people make to deal with the biological nature of human existence.

I deny myself any wants and desires that are contrary to reason. — Question

Hume was on the right track when he said: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

"The emotions are mechanisms that set the brain’s highest-level goals. Once triggered by a propitious moment, an emotion triggers the cascade of subgoals and sub-subgoals that we call thinking and acting. Because the goals and means are woven into a multiply nested control structure of subgoals within subgoals within subgoals, no sharp line divides thinking from feeling, nor does thinking inevitably precede feeling or vice versa (notwithstanding the century of debate within psychology over which comes first)." Pinker

A traditional forum has more options, but I am getting used to this minimalistic forum design.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_ethics

Empirical evidence, moral views differs by location, time, religions, cultures, countries, etcetera -- to the point that moral relativism is the most accurate position to hold.

"Robert Wright"

He keeps trying to push this nonsense through.

Two things:

(1) Moral descriptively, I think relativism is true. I do not believe in a universal moral telos.

(2) Group Selection is false allure. Selfish gene interpretation demolishes his utopian crux / wishful thinking.

Welcome lad.

And while I really dislike this forums layout, I figured I'll give it a shot. — Maw

Same here, but it may be just bias against any change -- eventually you will get used to it.

try searching for how many times you've used the word "fuck" in your posts, or how many times you've personally insulted a poster" — Agustino

I am guilty as well. I will try to behave. :-x

But his reply wasn't.... Unless he comes around to correct us. — Thorongil

My reply had nothing to do with sex, I actually forgot the topic of debate until he mentioned it again.

Well, the topic of the thread is about sex... — Question

Fine...

But there are Buddhists out there that practice celibacy, successfully. As far as I know, there is no requirement for people to have sex. It's just something that you can choose to indulge in or not. Just like one can have cake or not. — Question

It is an obvious fact that we are sexual mammals, since that is how we reproduce -- it is in our nature. It is like telling a bird not to fly or a fish not to swim. I do not think that one should be ashamed of it, and I think that it is foolish to deny it. Life long celibacy is strongly selected against. There are exceptions, asexuality is a thing after all. Homosexuality is fascinating, and I read a research paper on it by an economist (I forgot his name, but might look it up later). The evolutionary explanation for homosexuality is complicated and is still largely unknown. Any research on those areas in the light of biology is either not funded or repelled by (mostly) leftists -- this is quite ironic since homosexuality is the only trait that must be natural according to the leftist narrative, all the rest is a social construction.

So given the importance of sexual behaviour in evolution, it is no surprise that it is surrounded with strong moralistic and complicated (evolved) emotions/feelings. If we all suddenly stop to reproduce, civilisation would be gone, but I am not an anti-natalist and keeping civilisation going gives me personally great meaning in life.

I concede that social conservatives turn out to be correct, namely that the optimal time for active sexual behaviour is after marriage -- especially if you hate to see 93% abortion rate out of sheer (in)convenience. It is a concession, because I am naturally not conservative at all. But being prude is not unique to conservatives, leftists are nowadays probably worse. Just Google "rape culture" or "gamers gate" (women being objectified in gaming). Often voiced by the movement of feminism, the same movement that strongly advocated for sexual liberation, oh the sheer irony of progressives...

None of this means that one ought to indulge in sexual behaviour, e.g. sexual harassment is illegal. Like Pinker says: "Well into my procreating years I am, so far, voluntarily childless, having squandered my biological resources reading and writing, doing research, helping out friends and students, and jogging in circles, ignoring the solemn imperative to spread my genes," he writes. "By Darwinian standards I am a horrible mistake, a pathetic loser, not one iota less than if I were a card-carrying member of Queer Nation. But I am happy to be that way, and if my genes don't like it, they can go jump in the lake."

Sexual integrity, dignity and autonomy is one's right, so I would be against any coercion. Your life, your choice indeed.

You seem to imply that because something is fatalistic in its teaching that that should be avoided — Question

I can not see how I have possibly implied that. I say that Buddhists attempt something that is fundamentally impossible and cover it with a mix of sophistry and hypocrisy.

What are you now? And you really saying that you ceased all inquiries into Buddhism on account of a Zizek video? — Thorongil

What made you change your mind on Stoicism/Buddhism after seeing that video? — Agustino

(It sucks that the old PF is dysfunctional, because I have criticised Eastern Philosophy before but I can’t find the post)

It is not the case that a contie like Zizek argued me out of Buddhism, but he is a flavourful person that can show you a different perspective, something you have never considered before -- though 95% of what he says may as well be white-noise to me. Zizek got the ball rolling so-to-say.

It is also not the case that I “…ceased all inquiries into Buddhism on account of a Zizek Video.” I can appreciate some ideas from Eastern Philosophy, Buddhism and Stoicism – like I can appreciate some ideas of Marxism – but I would never label myself with any of those positions because I fundamentally disagree with all of them.

That video of Zizek – which got the ball rolling, I start looking up other texts, videos and did some rethinking -- he made me realise that Buddhism (and parts of Stoicism) drove me towards a deep apathetic state of life, something that I can only describe as alienation – I tried too hard to reject human nature, I tried too hard not being a human being. Brené Brown calls it: not living whole-heartedly.

Buddhist’s views on suffering, desire, attachment, ego with its ultimate telos as Nirvana imply a certain amenable view of human nature, which I think is simply false and utopian. No matter how much you practice or how much teachings you follow, human nature won’t change and neither will you.

And their metaphysical views of impermanence, interdependence and emptiness seem to be either incoherent or too assumptive to me. I think that the fundamental notion of interdependency -- which is often seen in many Eastern Philosophical thoughts -- as incoherent, since dependency is essentially asymmetrical.

Why is sex so idolized in the West? — Question

Is it? I usually accuse the progressive leftist of being so god damn prude...

It seems nowadays that almost every film produced for adults has to have at least one sex scene. — Question

Sex is a normal part of life but I get what you mean, it feels intrusive -- especially watching it with relatives. Pooping is also a part of life, but as long as it is not part of the plot, I do not want to watch an actor to simulate emptying his intestines.

Having that said, Sowell may be right:

"it may be a sign of our times that everyone seems to be talking openly about sex but we seem to be embarrassed to talk about love"

For a brief period of my life, I had been interested in Buddhism and Eastern Philosophy in general. It made so much sense and I saw so much overlap with Stoicism, which also deeply intrigued me -- until I stumbled upon this video. Then I remembered this TED talk as well. That is when I decided to let go of Stoicism and Buddhism.

My pessimistic side would state that (social) conservatism has lost, especially in Europe. This is seen in the decline of Christian church attendances, lower fertility rates, decline of marriages, increase in divorces, increase in single parenthood, increase in depression, women are less happier, increase in female suicides, etcetera.

However, natural selection is a beautiful thing:

I don't miss the point at all, I know exactly what you are saying, but your left wing bias shines through, to the point that you immediately shut off when you are confronted with some basic economic facts that do not conveniently fit with your political narrative:

↪Emptyheady
Wrong. (...) — Benkei

Tragedy of the commons is an issue that is unique to communal owned resource (i.e. non-private ownership systems). Yes, there are possible solutions to deal with this phenomenon besides the obvious privatisation -- like I stated here -- BUT it does NOT negate the FACT that it is still a specific phenomenon of common resources systems and none-existent in private ownership systems.

An analogy is that populism is a unique (inherent) phenomenon of democracy, and so is the tragedy of the commons to common resources.

I know that I am right here, because this is just a basic economic fact, not a political opinion. Your knee-jerk reaction is meaningless.

Like I said, open a book about economics lad...

You can't be serious, how could individuals own the populations of fish in the ocean.
Just let it go, you don't know what you are talking about and trying to save face has only dug you deeper. — m-theory

Yes, I addressed that exactly. Again, what I said to Benkei goes for you as well.

I pointed out that the problem has come to be known as the problem of access because it has nothing to do with communal ownership it has to do with access to a limited resource.
It has to do with a limited resource,access to the resources, and individual actors seeking individual interests. — m-theory

You thought the problem was common ownership — m-theory

It is by definition...

"In Hardin's classic piece "The Tragedy of the Commons," a commons is a natural resource shared by many individuals. In this context, "shared" means that each individual does not have a claim to any part of the resource, but rather, to the use of a portion of it for his/her own benefit."

That is the definition of a non-private ownership, isn't dear?

Just have a look at what you wrote:

Privately owned business harvest from the fish population and each compete with one another. — m-theory

Private property would entail private ownership of the fishing population, hence rejecting it as a communal resource.

Now do some rethinking. The ball should start rolling as soon as you get this.

I concede that that is indeed tricky and there is more to it, but those indicators are quite telling measurements.

Hitchens' take took me by surprise. One of the few people that spontaneously changed my mind on things in a few-minutes-talk:



"It would be nice if we could have continued as a society rather than a collection of people living in the same place" P. Hitchens

Yes. It is the tragedy of communal/common ownership of resources. That is pretty much the definition of it.

Yeah, same goes for you what I said to Benkei.

I also fail to see how the tragedy of the commons and the externalisation of costs are unrelated. — Benkei

Yeah I never said that...They are not unrelated, what I said is, 'do not conflate them'. You tend to project things on me that I never said.

I'm not sure how else I was to interpret this as private ownership as the only solution but my bad. I do note that I merely raised this issue as an example of the tragedy of the commons (which it is) and I received the above as a reply against my suggestion that the West apparently didn't pay enough for the use of certain resources. — Benkei

The possible solutions are (i) privatisation, (ii) coordination or (iii) internal regulations.

(i) The best solution is obviously privatisation, because private property would abolish issues you addressed completely -- you conflate national property (sovereign country) with private property (individual) -- but privatisation requires a sovereign entity enforcing its rules and recognition, but there is none beyond a sovereign country. For example, there is no legal recognition of private ownership in space, hence there is barely any private investment into space exploration.

(ii) The alternative is coordination, like putting quotas on fishing for example. But no one is surprised if you see a headline that an Asian fishing ship ignored the quotas. Who is going to force China to back off?

(iii) Another one is regulation, but that is only possible within a sovereign country, so it does nothing to address the examples you issued.

edit: so to provide an answer for your issues, if you can't privatise it, try to coordinate and hope for the best -- which is exactly what we do now.

Yeah, I mean indications of human flourishing.

Human flourishing is more complex.

Imo human flourishing.

Quantifiable: reduction in violence (e.g. rates of homicides and rape), poverty and all its aspects (e.g. death by starvation, death by diseases); and increasing life expectancies, the standard of living (in GDP) and the universal human rights (which I consider the maximisation of negative liberty).

Generally, there is one powerful measurement to to determine this, namely child mortality (including abortions).

The problem is set out by him first but the assumption that only private ownership is a solution is false. — Benkei

Now this is funny, in order to safe face, you are straw-manning me?

privatisation was a solution to correct this self-defeating economic behaviour. — Emptyheady

Where did I say it was the only one? "a solution" and somehow you pretended I said the 'only solution'. Like I said earlier, the tragedy of the commons is a unique phenomenon of non-private property systems.

Now, you could also interpret it as a coordination problem, but privatising is probably the best solution, generally speaking. You already have a hard time to even understand the basics, let alone granting an authoritarian politician the power to regulate such a complex system.

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system (clean air) where individual users (countries) acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good (fucking pollution) of all users (everybody) by depleting that resource through their collective action. — Benkei

Honestly, take 10 minutes -- it is not hard to understand its workings -- to read it up and then come back and have a proper laugh at yourself.

*sighs* It is really time that most of you open a book about economics...

"The tragedy of the commons is a very real economic issue where individuals tend to exploit shared resources so the demand greatly outweighs supply, and the resource becomes unavailable for the whole. "

"The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource through their collective action."

"In 1833, the English economist William Forster Lloyd published a pamphlet which included a hypothetical example of over-use of a common resource."

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tragedy-of-the-commons.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

----

edit: it is derived from the game theoretical idea where the equilibrium is tragic -- i.e. self-defeating economic behaviour that is unique to common resources.

Tragedy of commons is a fundamental problem of non-private property -- it is a tragedy of communal ownership you dips. — Emptyheady

edit2: privatisation was a solution to correct this self-defeating economic behaviour.

edit3: do not conflate externalities with tragedy of the commons. This is just bad-economics.

Tragedy of the commons — Benkei

http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/43543 :-}

First of all, climate change has become a religion. It is full of left wing bias.

But let's assume that it is true for the moment.

Like Hans Rosling said somewhere, there is a painful trade-off between regulations, to fight climate change, and saving human lives.

Carbon tax, for example, is regressive (in the economic sense of the word). This means that it will hurt the people with lower income substantially more than those with a higher income.

There are about seven billion people in the world. The rich west accounts for about one billion, and the rest are quickly emerging. They will emit more carbon, and taxing that will reduce their big climb out of poverty.

Y'all need to open a book about economics.

Tragedy of commons is a fundamental problem of non-private property -- it is a tragedy of communal ownership you dips.

Do you understand proportionality? This is how all rates of crime work.

The data speaks for itself really:




https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-evidence-on-violent-deaths/

Agustino, I have read Pinker's work and his massive data collection and reasoning are quite solid.

I am generally an optimist.

Have you read some of Haidt's stuff? I score more as a libertarian than a social conservative on his tests. That is probably because my form of social conservatism is unconventional, borderline libertarian.

I am fully willing to accept that gay couples can romantically love each other like heterosexual couples, but I am against same sex marriage.

I take no issue with casual sex, but I do have deep problems with irresponsible sex -- sexual behaviour that increases the amount of easily avoidable abortions, de facto making abortion an 'retro-active-anti-conception' method. 93% of abortions are committed by solely the reason of inconvenience -- utterly disgraceful.

At least conservatives teaches people responsibility.

I would legalise all drugs (and hypothetically abolish the FDA), iff we fully privatised healthcare. But If we are going to socialise healthcare, then my political views radically shifts towards authoritarian social conservatism on the spectrum.

This one was really tough, I voted for Hume out of personal preference, but seeing Kant at top seems justified.

Karl Marx.

"Chomsky" (again) lol what am I missing, is this some kind of a cheeky meme I am missing?

Chomsky is not a philosopher.

Probably Religion and Rational Theology.

Swinburne and Thomas Aquinas. The rest is no contest really, as I do not consider Spinoza religious.

If animals do have rights, when can we start locking up animals in prison for killing other animals or making other animals suffer?

Zoo?

Oh the irony of animal lovers/leftists. Most vehement advocates of animals "rights", own animals in captivity.

The essence of art that it is utterly useless, meaningless and serves no other purpose beyond aesthetics.