There are no communist nations and they never have been. The original communist ideas by Marx and Engels were primarily about the evolution of society rather than revolution. At one point they proposed to revolutionize, but that's not what's really found in their analysis. Most of it is about how the fall of capitalism happens naturally and that communism is the ideology that takes its place in order to steer clear of chaos. What Lenin and the rest did was to try and force communism into reality. By doing it through force, they break the natural progression Marx and Engels talked about.

So, any nation who's ever positioned itself as being communists did so on false grounds and it becomes as shallow as a mass murderer saying he is an altruist.

There are no communist nations. If you believe that, you're as much under their influence of propaganda as their own people. There are only dictators and the elite calling the shots while the people believe they are being cared for. Doesn't that sound exactly like, say, the world built on free-market capitalism?

There's only one global structure; the elite and people in power, by money or by blood... and the rest of the population under their boot. The rest is delusions and simulacra, a hyperreal perception of abstract realities that do not exist anywhere. Some in this world actually try to propose cities built from the ground up in accordance with communistic ideals, but they cannot be realized since everything revolves around money and the power through those means.

Calling China a communist nation is an insult to the intellect in my opinion.

I think it's time for rehab... no?

How does a copy of the original cave make them both fake? If there’s a reference to the “real” thing what makes the real cave fake? What makes the recreated cave more real, or just as real as the original? There is no feasible way that the recreated cave was an absolute stone cold carbon copy, and even if it was, if the original exists, why would someone substitute the recreation for the original? — Ignance

Haven't come around to actually read Baudrillard yet, despite him being one of the most interesting modern philosophers I know. Reason being that while people use Descartes or Plato's cave whenever they make the metaphysical thinking about "reality being a simulation", it's such an overused argument that it misses the more interesting ideas that Baudrillard brings to the table.

Even though I haven't read Simulacra and Simulation yet, the things I've read about his philosophies tell me that it's the psychology of the experience and memory of the cave that is key. Think about it this way, many appreciate 1900- house architecture, the more down-to-earth, lived-in feeling instead of modern factory-produced houses without any "soul". So a company starts building 1900-era houses, replicating everything and it becomes a huge trend, much so that a hundred years in the future, most people have forgotten that the architecture originally started 200 years ago. For them, this is architecture from the start of the millennium, they've forgotten the original and cannot see the difference between originally built houses and newer houses that essentially just copied the old architecture.

You can see his ideas all the time in society. When someone tastes wine that they think is expensive, but it's just a cheap copy. It tastes the same, it is the same to the one experiencing it.

But it goes much further. And the most interesting idea is how his philosophy applies to the world we live in now. How Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook have created a simulation of our world, but how people started blurring the lines between the real and the fake online persona to the extent that it's basically a simulacrum, a hyperreal society. How do you know that your friend is, in your mind, is not just a blurred sum of your real experience with him/her and the added fake reality of his/her online persona? Where does the online persona begin and end, and where does the real physical self exist in this regard?

Essentially, we already live inside this fake cave. Our experience of the world is so influenced by the simulation of fiction blended with the simulacra of news, commercials, and propaganda, that we cannot really see where the fake sense of reality ends and reality begins. Just look at how media and social media produce people who seem to be so detached from everything that we are stunned by their alien words and behaviors. Qanon is a perfect example of this, an extreme and totally bonkers conspiracy ideology that is based on its peoples' hyperreal experience. They are unable to distinguish between the real and the simulation. They accept crazy bloggers' depiction of reality as the real world to the extent that they don't understand the difference anymore. The attack on the Capitolium was a prime example of how far into this hyperreal they actually are. And the sentences many of them get now are a shock to them; a sort of awakening where they don't understand what is happening, much like Neo waking up in the tank in The Matrix. Not really seeing the real world, but seeing the border more clearly and how traumatic that is.

Now, Baudrillard criticized The Matrix for not really understanding his ideas, but I think that was a bit premature since the rest of that film trilogy did in fact use a lot of his ideas to the fullest. They were filled with the ideas of symbols and archetypes as simulacra and they took the concept of hyperreal and used it on top of the story structure of the movie itself. People with surface-level philosophy knowledge were speculating if the "real world" in the movies were just another simulation, but they didn't realize that even though the real world wasn't a simulation, it was a hyperreal event. Everything that the second two movies were about was the manufactured simulacra of fighting against the machines. It's like if the future wars of the Terminator movies were instead carefully manufactured by the machines to keep humans thinking they were free but inside a prison of their own mental concept of resistance. This type of hyperreal situation let us believe that Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and the rest were actually fighting for freedom when it's just a rehash of a thing that has been happening over and over again. This is what Neo is then breaking by literally being blinded, but seeing the line drawn. He is then able to navigate towards a solution that breaks the hyperreal fake war. And maybe here the criticism by Baudrillard makes more sense, since his point is that we are unable to see the border clearly, however, for the Wachowski's to pinpoint the philosophy, they had to show it clearly.

This type of hyper-real war is also closer to reality than many think. Much of the wars going on today is merely proxy-wars where the soldiers think they fight for survival or something noble or God or whatever, but in reality, it's just superpowers playing them against each other to acquire geographical resources and strategical positions.

Wherever we turn today, we have hyperreal things all around us. Even knowing things are hyperreal, it's very hard to break through the boundary. I can understand the hyperreal situation of social media vs reality, but I cannot break free of it. I don't know where, in my experience and mind, my friends' online persona and their real physical persona start and end. They influence each other and blurs together. It's easy to just say that the person standing in front of me physically is the real friend, but that doesn't help my experience and feelings towards this person. Everything they are online influences my "real" experience. So how much of this relationship is based on their persona online and how much is based on their persona in real life? It's impossible to answer, and that is the point of the hyperreal.

Whats the cocktail effect? — Prishon

A phrase for when unseen and unintentional side-effects occur due to the combination and sum of many different separate things.

Why not just make it tax-funded like in Sweden? I pay like 20 euros every time I go to the doctor and every time I need something from some hospital. But if it goes over 100 euros we all get a free pass for the remainder of the year. Essentially, everything is paid through taxes, but to keep people from not overcrowding hospitals with irrelevant issues, the minimal fee keeps things going even better while addressing that problem.

All in all, my stance is that any basic needs of the people should be issued by the government. Food, shelter, medical care, education, security, and public transportation should be provided by the government through taxes. If you study the domino effect of this then the general well-being of society as a whole goes through the roof. Everyone has the chance to bounce back from bad times in their lives. Not even Sweden has enough of what I'm talking about. We still have a lot of problems with helping people with mental health problems and we have a problem with criminals and young people shooting each other up and creating unrest. All of that is due to the inabilities to plan integration properly. But all in all, I'm quite happy with how Sweden handles the well-being of the people. It's one of the reasons it's high on that list. We have minimal differences between the different Nordic countries in this regard and Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark all rank high for being so geographically close to each other.

But I think more could be included in what the state covers. The cocktail effect makes it close to impossible for large groups to fall into a vicious circle that's impossible to recover from. Of course, the general attitude of the people towards each other is also important, but when money isn't a problem to help someone in need, it gets a hell of a lot easier.

Just think of how many plots in US television and films start out with the main problem being that the main character can't pay for medical bills. It's like no one even questions the stupidity of such a system.

It all looked kind of reddish purple. — frank

Ok, making it easier for those who won't read all data.

• Norway
• Switzerland
• Australia
• Ireland
• Germany
• Iceland
• Sweden
• Hong Kong
• Singapore
• The Netherlands

So, looking at the commonalities between these nations should give hints as to what the role of the state is and what the relation between the people and state should be.

What should the state be responsible for? And why? — frank

Here's a way to at least get some evidence for a conclusion. Look at the nations of the world that scores the highest on well-being and happiness. If we want to establish what the state should provide and what not to provide, the voice of the people should be the deciding factor. You could argue that we must first answer the question of purpose, meaning, we must decide what the purpose of a nation and its people is. If it's a nation conducting large-scale warfare for survival, then the needs and wants change drastically. But if we are asking the question for a nation in peacetime where the aim and goal are for the people to live life in a good condition for themselves and with as little pain and suffering as possible. In essence, if the people are happy and feel like their needs and their wants get realized, that is key to answer the question.

So looking at the nations that score the highest on this list, you can deduce what key features these societies have in order to reach this high level of satisfaction among their citizens.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-countries-to-live-in

As a matter of fact I had already decided that I'm done with this ridiculous fencing match of a discussion. You think I m the worst academic you've ever come across well I happen to think likewise that you're the worst blogger I've ever come across. I have never from all my students or colleagues in my 16 years of teaching literature and philosophy been attacked for my views in so virulent a manner . — Ross Campbell

Maybe you are just used to being looked up to by your students and the power of the teacher not having to deal with actual valid criticism. Maybe because you never really done something like arguing against other people than students who are new to philosophy makes you unable to conduct proper philosophical arguments for a conclusion or opinion you make.

The fact that you are teaching philosophy is not valid support for the inadequate arguments you are making. And I have no interest in arguing further if the other side is just writing opinions and never get involved with actual discourse.

You can express your opinion, sure - but if you want us to agree with you, to not dismiss them as unfair comments, then I’m afraid you’ll need to back them up with more than rhetoric. — Possibility

Exactly this. Enough has been provided in opposition to the original opinion and the request is for better support to that opinion.

Right. Ok then . Give me examples of hard evidence that Nietszche provides to BACK UP his ideas, not just clever aphorisms, or mythical narratives, like Zarathustra, concrete examples, case studies of REAL people in REAL LIFE situations, including data, empirical findings. Because as far as I'm concerned without these his opinions remain just opinions, as you yourself have indicated that most people's opinions don't count. — Ross Campbell

Or you should just pick up his books, go through and spot premises and conclusions for each segment, analyze through historical context, and find higher understanding than shallow interpretations of cherry-picked quotes. I've done enough job for you to show the meaning in that section on chastity alone to show that you have done a very shallow job of that quote you chose. The example is right in there, in my explanation.

It should be obvious to you how to decode philosophical texts like these, especially Nietzsche since he's pretty much one of the first philosophers you learn about. So with your degree in philosophy and your 11 years of teaching, it should be no problem for you to do this.

concrete examples, case studies of REAL people in REAL LIFE situations, including data, empirical findings. — Ross Campbell

This is not philosophy, or at least it is philosophy in an entirely scientific research form, which is not what philosophy has to be. It can be observational and analytical of those observations. That doesn't mean it's not logical, it can be purely logical in its inductive form when the deciphered premises and conclusions form an argument.

Because as far as I'm concerned without these his opinions remain just opinions, as you yourself have indicated that most people's opinions don't count. — Ross Campbell

I'm starting to see that you are just poetically illiterate. You are blind to the text in front of you and you don't understand it. I have provided so much information to you on this subject and you just ask for more without any argument yourself or anything other than your opinion.

I'm done with this, you are simply the worst academic philosopher I've ever encountered and I feel sad for the students under you. As long as you aren't bullshitting about your experience in order to look more educated than you actually are. Because you clearly have no idea how to read philosophical prose and you have no insight into Nietzsche based on how shallow you interpret your example quote alone.

I have been studying philosophy since I was 16 and my Degree from university is in Philosophy. I've been teaching it in schools part time for 11 years. Now Im not trying to be a know all and much of my knowledge of Nietszche is from secondary sources. — Ross Campbell

With all due respect, the way you conduct a philosophical discussion here does not reflect this type of foundational knowledge. You don't consolidate Nietzsche's writing into argument form and you don't pit that against why Buddhism is better, and you don't really explain your criticism against Nietzsche past cherry-picked quotes out of context based on a fallacy of extreme in order to paint it in a negative light. It might work on uneducated people with no sense of historical context, but if you want to make a point you have to actually do a proper argument.

If all people ever do is post opinions it only goes two ways: either a brawl of opinions leading nowhere, or people posting opinions and no one really reading them since why would anyone care to just read opinions and not have a discussion? Proper arguments are there to actually drive the discussion forward.

I still think he's a profound thinker. I'm not comparing him unfavorably with Buddhism . — Ross Campbell

You are. You take quotes out of context and provide no argument in the matter. I also picked a quote by the actual Buddha himself which has the same kind of misogynic viewpoint as any other male figure throughout history, because it is impossible to view historical figures outside of the historical context they lived in. Doing that is trying to deify them into some superhuman form with a morality and stoic balance that transcends time and space. To only view historical people and thinkers as "valid" if they were morally perfect and had a viewpoint that was disconnected from the world around them at the time of their life is impossible because there are no such people, even proved by the Buddha quote.

This kind of historical cancel culture behavior is downright anti-intellectual. The key is not to find thinkers that were perfect, the key to understanding what these thinkers were actually talking about is to understand the times they lived in and even use that as a tool to decipher the meaning behind their writing. What did Nietzsche really mean by the chastity segment?

It is written through Zarathustra as a character that breaks down chastity in the eye of Christianity. He talks with poetry about how Christianity made sexuality a "moral sin" and how that kind of viewpoint and detachment from love creates beasts of man. The actual quote you cherry-picked comes from this segment:

I love the forest. It is bad to live in cities: there, there are too many of the lustful.

Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman?

And just look at these men: their eye saith it--they know nothing better on earth than to lie with a woman.

Filth is at the bottom of their souls; and alas! if their filth hath still spirit in it!

Would that ye were perfect--at least as animals! But to animals belongeth innocence.

Do I counsel you to slay your instincts? I counsel you to innocence in your instincts.

Do I counsel you to chastity? Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many almost a vice.

These are continent, to be sure: but doggish lust looketh enviously out of all that they do.

Even into the heights of their virtue and into their cold spirit doth this creature follow them, with its discord.

And how nicely can doggish lust beg for a piece of spirit, when a piece of flesh is denied it!

Ye love tragedies and all that breaketh the heart? But I am distrustful of your doggish lust.

Ye have too cruel eyes, and ye look wantonly towards the sufferers. Hath not your lust just disguised itself and taken the name of fellow-suffering?

And also this parable give I unto you: Not a few who meant to cast out their devil, went thereby into the swine themselves.

To whom chastity is difficult, it is to be dissuaded: lest it become the road to hell--to filth and lust of soul.

Do I speak of filthy things? That is not the worst thing for me to do.

Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, doth the discerning one go unwillingly into its waters.

Verily, there are chaste ones from their very nature; they are gentler of heart, and laugh better and oftener than you.

They laugh also at chastity, and ask: "What is chastity?

Is chastity not folly? But the folly came unto us, and not we unto it.

We offered that guest harbour and heart: now it dwelleth with us--let it stay as long as it will!"--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

So what does the quote really mean in the context of chastity? Isn't it a description on how Christianity formed a notion that it is better to be a murderous person than to feel sexual lust? That when you stigmatize sexuality and lust to be a form of sin while speaking of killing and murder almost as a lesser sin, it robs man of sexuality as a form of love. That those choosing chastity shouldn't be forced to it, but that they themselves choose it for as long as they feel it is good for them.

He speaks of how Christianity suppressed sexuality down to a sin worse than murder and how the form of chastity they conduct within the church only pushed the beast behavior further by suppressing people's urges. He speaks of a balance where choosing your own chastity, but not be bound to it, makes you a balanced person capable of not giving in to be beast of lust nor the suppression of irrational religious belief.

How is this in any way the same as a literal interpretation of the cherry-picked quote you chose? This is why I think that for someone who points out having a degree in philosophy, but not knowing how to read and decipher Nietzsche, it is irrelevant how many years you've been involved with philosophy and I'm a bit concerned that you actually teach philosophy. Is such a literal interpretation of a cherry-picked quote from Nietzsche's writing something you teach your students? Because that is pretty far from philosophy.

Look I think the discussion has digressed completely away from my original post about a week ago where I made the SUGGESTION that Nietszche hates the virtues of Love, compassion and kindness and pity which are fundamental ancient virtues of Buddhism. — Ross Campbell

The interpretation of the very text you took the quote from argues against your conclusion here. The quote from Buddha also argues against it by actually being misogynic. The only thing you have left is your opinion. Nietzsche didn't hate love, compassion, and kindness, he was only concerned of getting rid of Christian values without having a balanced viewpoint taking place in the moral vacuum after it's gone. Only the ones who can't read past a literal interpretation and are poetically blind reach such conclusions. It's the most common notion of Nietzsche from people who actually never really read his texts with a philosophical mind or who understood the actual conclusions he made.

If anything I can agree with, it's that the way of writing philosophy in poetic prose makes it harder for the majority of people to grasp the actual conclusions and arguments he makes. But such criticism has been made by philosophers throughout the 20th century as well. This hard-to-interpret way of writing clouds people's ability to understand into believing the conclusions to be something else than what he actually wrote. But then again, his writing wouldn't have been so widespread if it were not in prose form and poetic.

But for philosophers today, it should be no problem deciphering it. You read it while underlining premises and conclusions, you decipher the poetry into a proper philosophical argument and then read the text again. Then it becomes clearer what he meant.

Now that's not a bias or a misunderstanding of Nietszche. I'm merely making a statement of fact. — Ross Campbell

No, you are not. The only fact here is that you don't understand the very quotes you are picking out. And you ignore Buddha's own remark about women. So what "facts" are you talking about?

And it seems on this blog that SOME people have taken umbrage at that remark. Im not a Buddhist evangelist. It's not fair to label me as such. I just think that these above virtues in my opinion, which HAPPEN TO BE part of Buddhist philosophy are good ones. — Ross Campbell

Virtues in of themselves are nothing but hollow words. They mean nothing in applied philosophy. You can take any virtue and deform it through subjectivity into an immoral act. The "love" of the nation to battle against enemies as an SS soldier in a concentration camp, to find "compassion" towards the fellow german not of Jewish heritage, the "kindness" towards the neighbor by keeping the race clean. It's "carpe diem" t-shirt philosophy that can be twisted into the darkest corners of humanity. Whenever you dive deep into ethics, empty virtues have a hard time surviving practical reality. What Nietzsche speaks about is the process of dismantling religious constructs of living without falling into the nihilism of nothing being left. He describes the process of leaving the church behind and how to live without it, to be a balanced person.

To point out virtues in Buddhism without including the complexities of morality it becomes a shallow virtue signaling. Nietzsche did the hard work of digging deep past such virtues, into the core of humanity rather than religion. Anyone finding Nietzsche proposing nihilism and hate for virtues does not understand Nietzsche. If anything, he hated empty virtues, the kind of virtue signaling or being a slave to empty virtues used as power over the people. You can find a number of cases in Buddhist groups where the leaders used virtues as a means of power.

If something is easily corrupted as a means of power, it is not a powerful moral tool. Virtues in of themselves are nothing but empty air.

As I said before I think Nietszches critique of Christianity as a slave morality has a grain of truth. But I disagree with his attack on the virtues of love , etc. He somehow seems to think that these virtues encourage the weak and a slave morality. — Ross Campbell

He says the opposite. He speaks greatly of love while he attacks the church and Christianity of making sexuality into a form of sin that in turn creates beasts of men giving in to a destructive form of lust. He attacks the virtues of Christianity to be empty of substance, something that confuses people by going against their psychology. He positions that each and every man needs to think for themselves, to understand beyond empty virtues, and find balance in self-control. That he hates "love" or "kindness" is just an amateur interpretation of his texts.

I think I'm entitled to have that opinion. I'm sure there are millions of others who would share that opinion. — Ross Campbell

Of course, but as I mentioned, opinions don't mean anything in philosophy if you can't back it up by actual arguments. What is your interpretation of the quote you cherry-picked? How does that pit against Buddhist virtues? etc. I don't care about your opinions, I want your philosophically constructed conclusion in this matter. Why would I care about your opinion? It doesn't further philosophy, it doesn't add to the discussion about Nietzsche, it's just noise in the billions of people expressing their opinions every day, who the fuck cares? Want to be a relevant voice in philosophy... then do philosophy instead of just expressing opinions that have no substance without a proper argument underneath.

I don't think I need to back up my view about the merit of these virtues with Philosophical argument. — Ross Campbell

You're on a philosophy forum. Yes, you do. Why are you even in here expressing opinions if all you back them up with is that you are entitled to your opinion? Why would anyone care about your opinions if they have no relevant substance behind them?

This is the illusion of entitled people today. That everyone's opinion matters. No, most people's opinions are just irrelevant noise. The only opinions that matter are those who actually do the work of making proper arguments for them. Anything else is totally irrelevant. People express opinions every day, alone, online, on the street, during family dinners.

As a person who cares to build knowledge and wisdom, digging through opinions of the masses first needs to dismiss all the irrelevant ones, the ones who "feel entitled to opinions" but have nothing more than that. Those are irrelevant to wisdom, they are the noise of the people that can only be practically used as a form of mass statistics of opinions, but not opinions as facts. The wise should dismiss them all and focus on the ones who care to explain themselves, the ones interested in backing up their opinion, the ones who use self-scrutiny to clean up their viewpoints.

Anyone who backs up their opinion with "I'm entitled to my opinion" has nothing of worth to say until they back that opinion up with a substance of worth. In my mind, you are not entitled to an opinion if you cannot back it up. Until then, you are entitled to move your mouth, form words in a text, but I don't value someone's opinion before it has substance past the subjective ego of the speaker.

And if Christian and Buddhist or Islamic extremists have abused certain ideas or beliefs for power that's a reflection on those evil individuals , it's nothing to do with the virtues themselves. — Ross Campbell

The way you use "evil" and "virtues" like this just shows how lacking in moral knowledge you have. The nature of "good and evil" is the common man's idea of moral, but in philosophy, it's almost a joke and essentially a black and white fallacy. And the misuse of the ideas doesn't have to be extreme in order to be destructive, just as Nietzsche described in his text on chastity. It can be that the structural form of virtues and sins creates a psychology within people that become destructive on a large scale. The way sexuality was detached from love created beasts of lust that was a widespread problem, not something a few "extremists" did. All these tie into structural problems we have in today's society. The idea that some people are just "evil" is a sloppy observation of society that ignores the actual machine that creates them. And the virtues, ideas, sins, and vices that they misuse are only able to be misused through their simplicity in face of the complexity of life and society. This is why you sound like an evangelist. You speak of these virtues as good without explaining why, you speak of criticism of these ideas as bad and that people who misusing these as being evil, and you position yourself to be entitled to these opinions without anything else to back them up.

It's all shallow speak, no substance, no insight, the evangelical speech of the entitled ego. Why should we care?

I seem to have ruffled a few feathers on this blog just because I took a quote from Nietzsche and described it as a rather outlandish remark. Nietszche was not living in the middle ages when people used to have such highly superstitious, dogmatic, misogynistic ideas. He was living during the 19th century in a modern , industrialized country. — Ross Campbell

You took a quote out of context of the entire text, provided no insight into understanding the meaning of that text, and used it as a means to criticize him in favor of Buddhism by pointing out how his ideas are negative compared to the positive of Buddhism, without providing any real philosophical argument that was asked for. You are on a philosophy forum, act like it, or you are just a Buddhist evangelist, which isn't allowed on this forum. Here, you need to argue with much more "quality" than in other forms of discussion. If you provide a thesis, you need to back that up with a proper argument, or we can just conclude you are wrong because you haven't provided any proper argument to the contrary.

Nietzsche was living in an era that was still treating women as second-class citizens. They didn't even have the right to vote and the suffragettes hadn't even truly begun their activism. You don't seem to have much insight into how the 19th century was really like. Finding a feminist guy or some white dude speaking up for the black population was extremely rare if not almost impossible to find. I don't really know where you get the notion that the 19th century was "modern" in the sense we use it today. Just because the enlightenment pushed critical thinking to dismiss the church as part of the state and academic philosophy started to push knowledge forward, doesn't mean they went into moral enlightenment that shifted the world overnight into what we see today. And we still to this day have structural problems with inequality both for women and people with other ethnicities than being white. We're not even close to pure equality yet and you think people were educated about these things over 120 years ago? That's just a ridicoulus conclusion that has no valid premises.

And you still haven't addressed the quote I provided. How does that fit into your argument about Nietzsche vs Buddhism?

The 'chance of spreading one's genes', I would have thought would be more about making love than war. — Amity

It's basically what the conflicts within groups of primates are about. The dominant ape conquers over the weak and gets the girl. But since humans in civilizations aren't just thinking about food and sex, but unable to ignore such instinctual drives, it forms into other needs and wants. Some seek it in art, others in war.

Global resources such as oil are still available to plunder...
The economic resources involved in war efforts are astronomical.
The profit gained is what some see as the 'good of war'. — Amity

Resources like oil are going out of fashion, technology is much more interesting to governments today. There's still money in oil, but everyone knows they can't keep up the charade for long when floods and other environmental disasters keep getting worse, so they know they need a backup plan for their wealth and power.

But no one goes to war over resources. Why do that when you have proxy wars? Feed weapons into the hands of some minor forces and militias and pit them against other superpowers' little toy soldiers. It's basically the game Russia and US has played since far into the previous cold war.

I'm not saying the craving for resources is gone, it's just that no one but the crazy dictator will go to a world war in the name of it. Resources are gained by diplomacy or smart surgical strikes that are hard to blame the superpower for. "Giving weapons to these people wasn't supposed to make them terrorists, it's not our fault they became Al-Qaida."

The cold war era was an identity crisis for most superpowers. Eventually it led to the collapse of the soviet union and a massive decline in the popularity of war in US. Instead of doing another Vietnam, US took part in the Gulf war with much more emphasis on claiming oil than fighting communists. And they did it with more focus on technology as a means to fight the war than brute force numbers. The next big conflict was the post 9/11 Iraq war. This was based on a delusional president who tricked US into why they were there. But underneath it was all about oil, they wanted an excuse to setup moneymakers in the middle east so they used the anger of the US population after the 9/11 attacks.

Today, however, 20 years later, it's almost impossible to trick the people in the same way. Information flows much more freely. Conflicts have changed into information wars and cyber warfare. Why send troops when you can take out a nuclear power plant with a virus? A couple of years back there was an attack on a nuclear power plant in Iran. Made by an unknown virus that shut down many of the cooling rods. This virus was deemed created by a government and not something someone could just cook up in their basement. Everyone knows this was most likely a strike test by the US military. And it was successful.

The next big conflict will be so sudden and strange that people won't know what has happened before it's over. Surgical strikes are preferable over a nuclear blast. The superpower that finds a way to just flip a button and eradicate the enemies and leave a vacuum for the attacker to take power in, will be the way of war going forward.

Firstly I disagree that Nietzsche's comment should be only viewed in the context of his society. John Stuart mill another 19th century thinker who lived during the same patriarchal victorian society as Nietszche had a far more enlightened view of women, attacking his society for the oppression of women. Nietszche in company with Aristotle and Schopenhauer however seemed to have thought women were inferior. — Ross Campbell

You cannot argue against the fact that almost every thinker since Socrates was a person of the times they lived. Just because Stuart Mill criticized society in that way doesn't render the ideas of other thinkers irrelevant because they don't fit the mold of a modern person. It's absolutely an intellectual downfall to demand such a thing. As I was saying, you may have ideas today that in a hundred years will be considered unwanted. This kind if historic cancel culture is fucking stupid. Especially when you don't even fully understand the quote you chose but rather attributed your own judgment to the interpretation instead of reading it with philosophical eyes. Women had their revolution at the start of the 20th century... the start. It was only during the consequent hundred years that they gained equality and even today we have so many structural problems with inequality that is a direct result of how deep such cultural opinions about women were before the 20th century. The number of people who didn't agree with the general idea about women before modern times was an extremely small amount and they were usually culturally shunned if they spoke too openly about it. We haven't seen equality on a global scale as we have today at any time in history, so judging philosophers for their cultural opinions during their lifetime and historic era is just plain stupid. You would have to dismiss the majority of philosophers throughout history. If you cannot accept that people throughout history can both be individually bad and still have valid, logical, and good philosophical ideas to contribute, then I don't think philosophy is something for you. If that is the filter you cannot see past, you are unable to actually conduct philosophy because you would dismiss the majority of philosophical ideas throughout history based on it.

Secondly in relation to your point about extremists and Buddhism here's a quote from Wikipedia
In Buddhism, one should not harm other sentient beings. ... Happily the peaceful live giving up victory and defeat." These elements are used to indicate Buddhism is PACIFISTIC. — Ross Campbell

You mean that there hasn't been any discrimination of women within Buddhist history because a wiki article points out that Buddhism is focused on pacifism. Are you for real? It's like reading the bible and point out that Christianity is also about pacifism, turn the other cheek, and so on, "and that's why there were no religious wars in the name of Christianity". Seriously. Go and look into the actual history of Buddhism. Check out papers like this https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/3516 or maybe this https://qz.com/india/586192/theres-a-misogynist-aspect-of-buddhism-that-nobody-talks-about/ this https://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=75673 and so on...

Using a wiki text about what Buddhism is supposed to be might be the laziest effort available and it's blatantly obvious that you just want to whitewash Buddhism's historic sexism but condemn it in other historical figures that you don't want to agree with. This is a pure bias and an extremely non-philosophical way of addressing the actual ideas. It's just basic cancel culture on a historical scale.

Here's an example of a quote that is eerily similar to the ones you criticize other historical philosophical thinkers for:

“Of all the scents that can enslave, none is more lethal than that of a woman. Of all the tastes that can enslave, none is more lethal than that of a woman. Of all the voices that can enslave, none is more lethal than that of a woman. Of all the caresses that can enslave, none is more lethal than that of a woman.”

Buddhism has been around for thousands of years and has stood the test of time as a philosophy that today 500 million people find brings them peace and happiness. Stoicism is another ancient philosophy of timeless wisdom which is experiencing somewhat of a revival . I don't agree with every precept of Buddhism, such as asceticism and it's religious beliefs. I wonder will Nietszche stand the same test of time. I know he's admired by 10s of millions of people today as one of the most popular thinkers , but Freud and Marx in the early to mid 20th century were also lionized , but who have gone out of vogue today. l wonder how fashionable Nietszche will be in 50 years time. — Ross Campbell

And there are many religious extremists who keep thousands of years old ideas alive that are destructive to many people. Time is not any evidence for something being "good", it's just time. There's been a lot of things that's been kept alive for thousands of years that are not good for people, so your conclusions are a fallacy.

And neither Nietzsche nor Marx has "gone out of fashion". Just as any other philosophers, through philosophy, they don't go out of fashion, their ideas are blended together with the modern zeitgeist and contemporary thinkers and expanded upon. As a matter of fact, since the witch hunt for communists and the stupidity of pseudo-scholars trying to take a dump on Marx over the 20th century, his philosophical ideas are starting to gain attraction in the midst of awakening to how the pure free-market capitalism isn't all shiny and happy rainbow as the rightwing liberal policies have indoctrinated the herd to believe. So thinking Marx is "out of fashion" is not really seeing which direction political philosophy is moving for the general public. People have less trust in the BS capitalist ideals of wall street and billionaires and are starting to wake up from the sleep that keeps them suppressed.

I'm not sure what the foundation is for your conclusions, but thinking Marx and Nietzsche is "going out of fashion" is not only wrong, it's unsupported in society.

I'm simply giving you what seems to be a famous quote from Nietzsche and giving you my opinion that it's a rather inane statement also seems a rather misogynistic comment. — Ross Campbell

So you prove that you actually don't understand what you are criticizing. You just take things out of context in order to prove he's an asshole who hates life.

I'd like to know what women would think about it. — Ross Campbell

It's not about women, try again.

As far as I'm aware Nietzsche didn't have a very high opinion of women anyway. — Ross Campbell

He didn't have a great experience with love, but that's not what the page you quote from is about.

There's absolutely nothing pseudo about selecting a quote from a famous figure. Journalists, academics etc do it all the time. — Ross Campbell

Ehm... yes, it's pseudo-intellectual bullshit to just quote something out of context and try to analyze it without that context. Journalists aren't really people I hold high up on the intellectual scale. There are very few journalists today that actually think on a higher level than the algorithms that are about to take over their jobs.

Perhaps Nietzsche should have been more careful about the some of the outlandish statements that he made. It takes away from some of his other very intriguing and thought provoking ideas. — Ross Campbell

Or maybe he wrote in a way that is both how people back then culturally wrote, while people reading his texts are required to actually think while reading it and not take things out of context. Maybe he wrote for a higher intellectual reader and not the cancel culture mentality of today. Maybe a hundred years from now, even your own ideas about society is so outdated that people call you out for the same judgement you have of Nietzsche? Most people today who judge others in society based on the ideas you judge Nietzsche for might be guilty of ideas that in a hundred years will be considered on the same level as racism, sexism etc. It's not really viable to judge a person of his time based on the current zeitgeist, that's an intellectual short circuit. Look at the time he lived in, acknowledge how that time was and deconstruct what he meant out of it. If you start judging them on the times they lived in but based on modern cancel culture mentality, you really need to bring out the cancel book, because 98% of people before the modern era were racist, sexist, and all sorts of modern-day trash.

It's impossible to engage in historical thinking and philosophy with that kind of thinking. Do you even know how women have been treated in Buddhist regions of the world? If you are criticizing Nietzsche for being harsh on women, maybe look into the very religion you so wholeheartedly praise.

War is the result of an error of humanity. We have already moved past the biological reason to have conflict within the same species. The biological factor is that of fighting for the best genes to mate. Through our evolving intelligence, that drive has been put onto the idea of power. Instead of just going by the instinct of fighting for the chance of spreading one's genes, we've conjured up other reasons driven by those instincts as the core drive.

In the end, the politics involved in pushing for war usually comes from people who have primal minds, stuck in instincts because they are weak-minded. Like a catholic priest who can't stop touching his dick. People who are well-balanced and understand how to balance the ego and the collective rarely go to war, but instead collaborate, build and find solutions that last and are constructive.

Today though, most major powers of war mostly have a strong military as a necessary protection, but no one really wants to go to a major war (world war size), because it's draining resources and there are no resources left in the nations to conquer. War has become so destructive that it's not a viable solution to anyone except the stupid and crazy leaders (who are usually invaded early and executed before they can even try to do anything stupid).

The better way today is to use corporations and establish yourself in other nations. This is what China is doing. They establish a lot of power through corporations and economies outside their nation in order to control through that. Most major politicians know that corporations have more power in free-market capitalism than they would ever have as a political party. So they play the charade of democracy to the stupid sheep herd people who don't realize this and then they establish power through corporations powers overseas.

The second cold war that we live in today is so cold and silent that hell froze over.

Ok Here's a Friedrich Nietzsche Quote:
“Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman?”

Now explain what kind of validity is in the above statement. It sounds like something you could hear from some street corner guru. — Ross Campbell

How is that in any way an argument for your opinion being correct? Did you deconstruct the entire page where this quote comes from? Like how you actually read philosophical books? Or did you just search for the quotes that sound the most outlandish out of context.

Please provide a proper philosophical argument that pit your opinion against Nietzche's ideas, I have no time for this pseudo stuff.

Also Marx's theories are not drawn from REAL LIFE but dreamt up from his own prejudices. — Ross Campbell

How do you come to this conclusion? He didn't use the facts of the life of the workers' conditions during the industrial revolution?

I'm entitled to my opinion that philosophy should be ONLY based on REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE and in line with NATURE. — Ross Campbell

Opinions don't mean much in philosophy. Why are real-life experience and nature a better foundation for philosophy than any other method or observation? You need to make a proper argument for this opinion, otherwise, you are not doing philosophy.

Don't misunderstand me I think Nietzsche is a brilliant writer and many of his critiques of religion and some secular philosophys are very thought provoking and penetrating. But his ideas are not necessarily all valid. I think SOME are off the wall. I think there's a grain of truth in what someone else on this blog said "Nietzsche is a bit like a Germanic version of Oscar Wilde" who is another beloved, brilliant and widely quoted writer but I wouldn't go to him for guidance on how to live a virtuous life. — Ross Campbell

What are you even arguing for here? You provide nothing for why his ideas aren't valid, only that you prefer "lived experience and nature", which doesn't mean a thing within the context of this discussion. Explain how his ideas are invalid and your line of thinking is correct.

Then, philosophy doesn't necessarily give you answers on how to live, it can also be an observational deconstruction of the status quo, in order to force people into thinking in new ways. This is actually more of a foundation to philosophy than any other clear-cut answers on how to behave or what to think. More often than not, clear "answers" in philosophy tend to become framed "carpe diem" quotes decorated on someone's wall instead of actually being of any academic value. The deconstruct and critique of earlier ideas is how we move forward with philosophy, and Nietzche is one of the key figures in pushing philosophy forward through turning previous ideas on their heads. Philosophy also doesn't have to have any positive messages at all, it is irrelevant in the pursuit of truth. This is why many pseudo-philosophers don't like philosophers who conclude negative standing conclusions about the human condition.

I rarely see anything but biased opinions in fallacy-driven arguments.

Buddhism is a PHILOSOPHY as well as a religion. — Ross Campbell

I know this. Doesn't mean it is better or worse than other philosophies. But you also incorporate Christianity in your argument, which is much less of philosophy and a whole more of controlling mechanisms for a ruling class.

like myself only take the philosophy component and disregard the religious component. — Ross Campbell

So why even incorporate Christianity in you argument?

Stoicism is also a philosophy. — Ross Campbell

So?

In my opinion the strength of these philosophies is that they are not just drawn from REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE but also in line with the way nature and reality works. — Ross Campbell

As does Nietzche and many other philosophers. Don't see your point.

They believe in living according to nature. I would hazard a guess that Nietzsche is selective in where he gets his ideas from, he despises so much of traditional culture and values that he's left with very little to work on. — Ross Campbell

How much of Nietzche have you even read?

I don't get what point you are trying to make here? You are praising Christianity and Buddhism and try to convince through premises that Nietzche doesn't observe real life or make any valid points because... of what exactly? You don't agree with Nietzche, sure, but your way of criticizing his writings doesn't make any sense or have any philosophical depth. You just say that you don't like him or his writings and then strawman his texts in favor of Christianity and Buddhism because you like them... it's not really enough.

I disagree that Buddhism and Christianity are not based on everyday experiences. Love, compassion, forgiveness, kindness which they preach are part of the ways human beings relate to each other in a positive way — Ross Campbell

Religion has always been used as a form of class control. So why have trust in that compared to examining people outside of any religious form?

Ask any modern psychologist and they will tell you that practicing these virtues will enhance a person's happiness and those he/she interacts with. — Ross Campbell

Sure, but that's a very simplified way of looking at life. What about the complexity of justice, the entire field of moral philosophy? So many examples of complexities that make empty phrases that have no meaning in themselves.

These virtues did not come from some academic textbook like Marx's theories they were developed by many thinkers over centuries, modified, built up and so on. — Ross Campbell

These virtues are the result of complex empathy patterns that are basically built into our psychology. You cannot credit these virtues to religion, that's giving them credit for nothing but observing humans truthfully. Like saying the sky is blue but it was credited to a guy named Steve in the late 1800s so it is his idea that the sky is blue. We just have better tools to examine these behaviors today than before, religion is unnecessary as a factor.

They are drawn from REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE of ORDINARY people in ordinary situations. — Ross Campbell

So did many philosophers in thier work, what is your point?

Where did Nietzsche get his ideas, eg The Will to Power, from reading another academic, Schopenhauer? To what extent has he backed up his ideas by observation of real people in real life? — Ross Campbell

He got them from building on previous philosophical ideas and added his own. Why are you so obsessed with the observation of real people. Do you think Nietzsche didn't do this? How can a person go through life without observing other people? Why is this attributed specifically to religion in your opinion?

His thinking based on a series of aphorisms and metaphors seems to lack a logical rigour of thought. I thought the definition of philosophy was supposed to be logical or rational argument. — Ross Campbell

In my opinion compassion which is at the heart of Christian and Buddhist ethics is what brings people together, without it the world would be a very cold place. — Ross Campbell

What is you're point of view in this matter? You criticize Nietzsche's writings for not being philosophically rooted in logic and rationality, but you praise Christianity and Buddhism for just being, without any logic or rationality behind it.

Nietzsche's writings need the context of the full text to reach full understanding. The same goes for any other philosopher who wrote in the same way. Both Satre and Camus can be criticized in the same manner. The problem is that you praise Christianity and Buddhism for using observation of people as a foundation for their teachings. Actually, they don't. They built their virtue's foundation on adjustments to fit the narrative they work under. True observation is what Nietsche and the rest of all prose writing philosophers did in order to deconstruct human behavior.

I think you are stuck with a simplified idea about what Nietsche is really saying, and you use it as a foundation for criticizing the whole of his writing. The Nazis didn't use Nietsche's writings, they used most of the corrupted version of his unfinished work by his Nazi-fangirl zealot sister.

Nietsche is the father of most of 20th-century philosophy, the way we put religion aside and examine human behavior and the universe without the shackles of tradition and institutionalized faith. Not recognizing the importance of his work is a failure to understand the history of philosophy and the key figures of its evolution. It's like saying Einstein isn't important for modern physics.

Is Nietzsche's ambiguous style genuine Philosophical thinking? — Ross Campbell

Arguments are in there. There are ways to deconstruct prose philosophical writing, but people aren't educated enough to do it, so they dismiss it instead.

Until about 150 years ago many, if not most, philosophers and scientists in Europe and the U.S. accepted as fact what we would now label as racist ideas. Was it because they were weak-minded, stupid and not rational? Or was it because ideas about many aspects of human nature evolve over long periods of time? — Joshs

Yes, it was because the tools of rational thought weren't fully developed by then. No scientist or rational thinker today that's worth a damn would be able to reach a racist conclusion without totally abandoned the wisdom that we've acquired from the enlightenment era to today. Only reason it's still going on is because of generations of people keeping conservative biases alive while the reasonable and rational thinkers view these people as mere morons, incapable of actually doing the proper work needed for up-to-date rational thinking.

Basically, you argue against my point by pointing out that we should dismiss the last 150 years of development in science and philosophical thinking because before that people didn't come to the same conclusions. That's a fundamentally flawed way of giving credit to people who either didn't have any modern tools of deduction or simply dismissed any attempt at rational thought during their times. I would argue that thinking heavily through biases and subjective superstitions or invented concepts that don't have any connection to reality outside of the self... is stupid. It doesn't matter which time in history we are speaking about, history up until now has only developed to lessen the influence of idiots and weak-minded people. We still have them, but we have developed tools to lessen their influence on the world and we are still doing it. Would you agree that we still have idiots in the world today? If the amount of them are higher in power the further back in history we get, based on my reasoning here, that only strengthens the idea that the way we've developed rational thinking today and respect its process, has decreased the number of idiots having influence compared to 150+ years ago.

Just because people had some good ideas back then, doesn't mean they had the tools to always arrive at rational conclusions.

Actually, it is precisely our intellect and intelligence that is behind what we call racism. If the problem were simple irrationality it would be a it easier to solve it. But when people do their best to act as ‘rationally’ as possible and still end up behaving in ways that others call racist it should teach us that the cause of racism isnt irrationality, it is the limits that are imposed on intelligence in any given era. — Joshs

It is definitely not intelligent to reach a racist conclusion. I said "weak-minded", which means that the person arriving at a racist conclusion is weak-minded, stupid, not using the intellect or rationality correctly. Plenty of people think they are rational and that they use rational deduction to reach conclusions but instead have biases and fallacies in their line of thinking. It's why we have biases and fallacies as concepts used in a deduction in order to arrive at logical conclusions that aren't influenced by our stupidity. There's no logic to racism, not even in the context the "fear of the unkown" originally formed from. Racism is an invented concept by individuals and society in order to cope with the "fear of the unknown", but through biased and fallacy-heavy reasoning aimed it at different looking people. It's the Dunning-Kruger process of intellect that formed it, not intelligence or intellect when used properly.

Is racism natural? — Lil

Fear of the unknown is natural. Racism is an irrational mental construct and product of an irrational surrender to this natural drive. Our intellect and intelligence are the shields against this irrational construct since we can understand that it is irrational and fight the urge to surrender to it.

The weak and weak-minded cannot live without surrendering their intellect to the laziest interpretation of our natural drives. Is racism natural? No, the fear of the unknown is. "Racism" is a construct invented by weak-minded people in order to explain that fear.

Sort of. Rather, is it ethical to choose for someone else a state of affairs whereby they must "work" and "feel stress" and do so when there was no need in the first place (no one existed prior to work or feel stress)? I am looking for a standard here, not necessarily what is happening in practice. — schopenhauer1

A bit hard to deconstruct what you are aiming for here? Is it ethical to ask someone to do stressful work that is unnecessary? Or to do stressful work that is necessary but wasn't up until that point? Depends on what work it is, how the economy works, and so on. If the work is, say, dig up people who are trapped in a collapsed building, then demanding stressful work onto people is a necessity to save lives; the stress they feel during work is irrelevant to the positive outcome. If the work is rather stressful out of making the owner rich while the person working earns very little, you could argue it is unethical, but also while under a free market, fair, if the worker didn't do anything to become an owner themselves and only accepted their class and place in the economical hierarchy. In a more Marxist view, the only fair/ethical thing would be if the work is helping both the worker and collective, the stress is shared among all that collaborate for the whole group.

It's hard to sense a standard with so many variables. It depends on the type of work and what kind of ethical economical structure society is built upon. In the US, people are being more taken advantage of than in Sweden where the unions have much more power and laws are harsh against those who try to use cheap labor. So just between these two nations, there are two pretty different levels of ethical viewpoints on "work" that leads to different answers to your question.

I find it funny how it is all a big raucous, work, life etc. All needing to be maintained. How about the goal of not spreading more work and stress via "just don't create the situation for more people". If we can't actually develop a way out of it, then why would we put people into it? Pondering ways out on a philosophy forum won't suffice to change anything. The micro-decision to not put more people into situations of work and stress is attainable, however. — schopenhauer1

Because capitalism really. We invented a monster we call a friend and when we realize we cannot easily kill the monster devouring us we either just continue ignoring it and feel fine in that ignorance, or we just kill it, regardless of the consequence to society. Problem is that if we adapt heavily into automation, we are essentially "solving" this thing by replacing humans who are stressed out by the work, with machines so that the bigger monster can continue and let us humans rest... but we haven't figured out how the monster will continue to exist when the bloodstream of transactions stop working. It's like we have the shell of capitalism, but nothing within it will work. Right now, we maintain the monster, we keep it fed, we read fairy tales before it sleeps the out-of-market night, but we don't know how to actually opt-out and deal with it without collapsing the entire world.

Capitalism is like Fenrir, the giant wolf, and child of Loki. If Loki created capitalism, it would be this wolf. And we, the people, are Odin, chaining it down, feeding it in the hopes that it will not lead to Ragnarök. We hope that we can keep it like that, forever ongoing, that it will not devour the moon and start the collapse of everything. But it will, it is inevitable, and we need to know what to do after Ragnarök, not fool ourselves with trying to prevent it, as Odin did and failed.

So if the choice was between no one existing and creating someone who must do X work to survive, maintain, entertain, what would yo do? — schopenhauer1

Are you asking if it's better to exist and suffer or not exist at all? I don't think that question helps in regards to a very realistic outcome of the current capitalist movement of automation. We will probably end up in what I describe, so what do we do in that scenario and after is the main question. I feel the question asked in the OP just touch upon a very old and contemporary issue with "work", but we're soon in for something entirely different in the scale of the industrial revolution during the coming hundred years, and it will define if capitalism, as we see it today, will survive in the same form or not.

I think the biggest question to tackle is if there's even going to be a solution that is enough for all?

Not all people are suited for high intellectual work, which is the kind of gigs that will be left for humans when automation becomes enough advanced. People live in a fantasy where everyone can become whatever they want if they want it, but that's not true. The IQ levels required for many gigs that cannot easily be automated go above the average intelligence, so a majority of people cannot do that work based on their mental capacity alone. If society focuses on high intelligence work more, then we might see a more complex education system and generally higher IQ in society when people are required to push their own IQ span a bit higher, but it won't be enough.

In the end, we will have a massive amount of people who don't fit anywhere. So going back to the original question of economics, capitalism will through this fall and needs to be replaced with a new system. It will start with universal basic income, which is just the natural way for governments to make sure the economy doesn't crash in the first run of change. But even that cannot work since there's no one working and paying enough taxes to fund that UBI, so eventually that would collapse as well.

What then would a new form of economics be? If the only choices a citizen has is to do creative or high intellectual jobs, which most aren't educated for or have the capacity for, or have UBI until they can't anymore because there aren't enough national funds to cover it, and then industries start failing because no one can afford to buy products even though they make them cheaply using automation.

There will be a collapse in this scenario and something needs to replace that collapse.

First of all, some (or many?) people will not be able to afford the automation and will have to make do the old fashioned way. — baker

Is that what we've seen with the car? Started off as exclusive, then luxury, then it worked its way down through the classes and today everyone can either get a $100000 Model S or a scrappy old rust-waggon from the 90s. Technology rarely stays exclusive and expensive, especially in wide adoption. On top of that, it's mainly larger industries that employs people who will automate in the first run of change. So where do the employees go?

Secondly, some people will probably rebel against automation. — baker

Why? Sure, if it's a nice corner café with really good service, that will never change to automation because social interaction is part of the reason people go there. There will be a lot of similar places to work, but not enough for the entire population.

But if you mean that the implementation of automation in industries lead to mass unemployment and that these unemployed people will rebel against this adoption, yes, it will be a massive push to "ban" it, but how can you combine a capitalistic free market system with governments demanding companies to "lose money" on employing people instead of the extremely more efficient automation systems?

This will probably shift more into governments getting the boot since they didn't have a plan for this kind of mass change in the economy. They are still educating subway engineers to drive trains in nations where the trains will soon be automated. Governments don't seem to have a clue on what's going on. The solution is to re-educate the workers getting replaced, into technical support teams for the automated systems. Instead of driving the trains, they supervise, but even that will be gone a couple of decades later.

There is a vast number of futuristic films that explore the possible scenarios of how the above two premises work out. — baker

Films are mostly written with the intent to tell a story and that story is about other things than the premise of world-building. So, in a sci-fi set in a future where there's automation all over and there are class struggles around these things, they rarely are the center of that story, or it never really explores the extreme sociological problems that could happen if the progress goes unchecked. I would say that "Blade Runner 2049" gives a good background to how the future might look in that the majority of people live almost in homeless conditions while the ones actually working are stuck in shit jobs while the privileged have gone off-world retiring far before old age. But even that isn't really about the wide sociological scope, it only zooms in on the workforce of replicants that took over the jobs of the regular people, which mostly live in hallways and megastructures with little to no hope of any change in their condition.

Even a movie like "Elysium" seems to focus directly on the class division that happens when technology becomes extremely advanced, almost caricatures the complexities of the issues into an almost "heaven and hell" simplicity.

The etymology of "robot" is slave. Ah, those good ol' days! — TheMadFool

A slave can only be a slave if it has the capacity for self-reflection. It's also the foundation for how slavers mentally tortured slaves into thinking of themselves as slaves and nothing else, they changed their mental self-image to fit the reflection. But "AI" doesn't have to be strong AI, it can just be VI (virtual intelligence), it can be an algorithm or a complex automated robot that do complex actions in repetition, like taking care of old people by fixing laundry, making dinner etc. They don't have to be strong AIs for that.

Anyone who's into AI and the development of such technology can see what is going on right now. It's the first step in the total automation of society. Like every new disruption technology, like the first car, people right now are viewing these things as little more than a curiosity. "Oh, look at Tesla's new self-driving, it's cute, but it will never be a thing". It will, and it is inevitable. Capitalism demands it. It's the perfect ratio of expense vs income for a company, so any company will apply automation where it is possible, or else lose to the competition.

But what is interesting is what happens after the fall of traditional economics. What will the future of capitalism look like when everyone is utilizing autiomation?

As for work, it's economics. Everybody has to sell something. — TheMadFool

Or we change the economics into something else that does not require that. It will be a necessity in the future when automation takes care of most stuff. What will people do then?

I worked because I had to, as do all humans. As do all animals I guess. It's not unfair. It's just how it works. — T Clark

That's a lot of assumptions about "how things work".

I would argue that work activates people. The early humans got mentally and physically active because of doing what was needed in nature. In modern times we have replaced this with "work", so it keeps us healthy.

However,

That is just an illusion since if we had anything else than work that required thought and physical movement in day-to-day life, that would be as much "activating" as any kind of work. Assuming work is needed is based on the manufactured ideas of duties. But what if we replaced all those duties with automation? What then? It is probably going to happen, as it is being done right now. Lots of people are losing their jobs because of automation, so what will the future hold if "work" is no longer a necessity?

Work is also stressing out people, it is lowering their life expectancy. There are only a few occupations today that do not have a negative impact on people's lives and it's usually non-critical jobs that give more of a subjective sense of meaningfulness than any collective necessity.

But assuming that we work, "because that's just how it works" feels like a philosophically shallow viewpoint on the topic of "work". The nature of "work" as it exists for many people in the world today, is often just a manufactured thing that is not necessary at all.

To make sure we're talking about the same thing, when you say I'm "straw-manning" your argument, you mean I'm attributing an argument to you that you never made. Correct? If so, it was on account of a misunderstanding, not an attempt to win the argument. I have no problem with explaining the problems with another person's argument. As I've said from the beginning, it is labelling an argument as a logical fallacy I object to. Doing that allows people to criticize another person's argument without thinking through the reasons. It also makes it easier for the other person to dismiss the criticism. — T Clark

To criticize the logic in someone's argument, pointing out fallacies is still a valid way. What you are attributing my argument to being, is - (in terms of a strawman, making it a simplified version of my real argument and in so make it easier to counter, i.e making an argument I didn't make) - that you just point out fallacies and nothing more. I've never said that the one pointing out the flaws in logic of the other speaker shouldn't do the job themselves of explaining the lack of logic. But pointing out which fallacy is being made can make it crystal clear what the problem is, rather than trying to invent the wheel and explain the basics of something already publically defined.

That just raised a question for me - is labelling a person's argument a logical fallacy an example of an argument from authority? I'm not sure. — T Clark

No. The logical fallacies are logical flaws, it's like math. If I say that 2 + 2 is 4, do you think that's an appeal to authority?

Yes, this is my point. — T Clark

But still makes it easier for the one with flaws in logic to understand where the flaw was made and how.

Generally speaking, it's like if you say 2 + 2 is 5 and instead of me just showing you two stones and two other stones and ask what they make together, I go on a rant for ten minutes on how stones can be single things and if you can imagine two stones, like those on the ground, but in some abstract way combine them, then attribute numbers to them and then you will know that... Just show the stones and get to the point, it's wrong, it's 4.

The existence of fallacies and biases is there to make it easier to get rid of flaws in logic. I don't understand the reason to not use them in a discussion. If someone misuses them, it would be painfully obvious for that person. But it would be just like any other who has flaws in logic. You tell them their fallacy is wrong. But using them right is a shortcut through hours of unnecessary talk that can be settled in a short sentence.

The problem isn't pointing out fallacies or biases, the problem is people never learning to understand what they mean or how to check the logic in their own argument. The problem is that people can't write reasonable arguments, not that others point out fallacies in their flawed reasoning. It's like you are defending the incompetent speakers trying to point out that the competent ones "are the real problem". Don't get it.

A quantum particle is in all states at the same time. What IS and what is the anti-IS there?

How is it possible.

It isn't from a scientific perspective. How has it become so accepted as a concept? — Andrew4Handel

In what way isn't it possible? Are you defining physical gender based on whether or not they have a dick or vagina? Or are you talking about chromosomes? With the latter, which is more accurate for physical gender, it's not as clear-cut as perceived physical attributes of genders. There are genetic events during development that could alter the physical gender so much that it's not really clear which gender a person really has.

But we also have, as MadFool points out, the mental perception of gender. I presume you are a man? How do you know this? Is it just because of the physical properties of your body? In CIS people, we have the perception of our own gender in line with the physical properties of out body. In order to understand transgender people, you have to imagine that your perception of your own gender, beyond the physical properties of your body, is out of sync with each other. It's a combination of perception of your own behavior, social interactions, cultural identity and sense of physical body. If all of these leans towards a gender that isn't in line with your physical body, then transitioning the physical body will give you harmony in the same way as a CIS person feels in harmony between the mental perception of gender and the physical body.

Before the discovery of hormones and extensive advances in plastic surgery there was no way to live other than in the body you were born in. There is no evidence of mass trans suicides before they could get surgery and hormones. — Andrew4Handel

There's no evidence that it didn't happen either. There's also very little evidence of them since the little that is known about transgender people before modern times showed that they were most often killed and forced to comply with society. Just like women needed to comply with society, not vote, force themselves to keep within living standards and physical norms that the times demanded. Did that mean there were no women who fought against such standards? What do you think happened to women who stood up against the social norms of the time silencing their voices?

It sounds more like you know little about the history of both women and trans people throughout history.

Someone to recommend whenever there's talk about transgender culture, sex changes and related topics is Contrapoints. She's, compared to many in here, an academic philosopher who's been aiming towards explaining many of these things with a scope of philosophy. We also have Philosophy Tube with Olly who just transitioned to Abigail, although she's not really focused on gender-related topics and more focused on pure and time-relevant philosophy.

https://www.youtube.com/c/ContraPoints/videos

I do not believe a focus on fallacies will improve the quality of discussions. If you think someone has their facts wrong or has provided inadequate justification, say so and explain why. If you think someone has made an incorrect inference or deduction, say so and explain why. Just shouting out "logical fallacy" doesn't convince anyone. Too many boys have cried "wolf" before. Everybody knows there's a good chance you're using the term incorrectly because so many others have. Just explain in regular language what your problem with the argument is. — T Clark

But that's not what I'm saying. Ironically you are making me use this argument as an example of how it is used. You are essentially straw-manning my argument. I'm not saying that someone is just saying a fallacy and using that as a way to dismiss other's arguments, I'm saying, like right now, that pointing out fallacies and biases and then explaining why they are applicable is the way to use them.

Since a fallacy used by someone else, or a bias they show is not recognized by the speaker of that argument, hence why they fail the argument because of them, it doesn't work to just say which bias or fallacy they are guilty of. You have to explain why. Like here, when you take my argument and simplify it down to just using fallacies as something to drop in arguments, that is not what I'm talking about.

To ask for better arguments from someone who is constantly doing low-quality reasoning, and pointing out which flaws they have in their reasoning through pointing out their fallacies or biases, is absolutely reasonable when the aim is to conduct a discussion or debate through philosophical means.

The point is not to "win" an argument by pointing out fallacies and biases, it is to improve the quality of arguments so that there actually is a forward momentum of thought for both parties. Someone who ignores making better arguments is not someone I would consider philosophically able, but rather closer to evangelists, regardless of topic. Someone who just says or preaches their opinion and argues for that regardless of the quality of the counterarguments, regardless of how bad their own logic is, and regardless of how good the opponent's logic is.

An argument needs to be solid, it needs to have good thought out premises. We don't need to use the classic deduction/induction format, but it needs to have a logical throughline. But for argument's sake I can make one here.

p1. Fallacies and biases are flaws in reasoning that break the logic of someone's conclusion.
p2. Breaking the logic means the discussion is at a standstill until it has been solved.
p3. The quality of both side's arguments is improved when there's an active attempt to discuss without fallacies and biases.
p4. Pointing out fallacies and biases is helping the other side improve the quality of their argument.
p5. Pointing out fallacies and biases is helping the other side find the actual core of their argument.
p6. Pointing out fallacies and biases is not a valid argument in itself.

Conclusion: Avoiding fallacies and biases help to improve the quality of a discussion and pointing them out helps both sides moving forward towards a conclusion.

I don't think waving the logical fallacy yellow card is a very effective way to improve the quality of discussions. — T Clark

Neither is bad arguments and low-quality reasoning. I would say that if a forum thread leads to a "bullshitting mosh pit that leads nowhere", then pointing out fallacies and biases can absolutely be a way to straighten the discussion up and get it on track towards something instead of just being some random internet debate like on any other forum that isn't a forum dedicated to philosophical discussion.

The topics posted on this forum require a lot of education and knowledge, why would knowledge of fallacies and biases be any different?

The idea is not to have forum "laws" that fallacies and biases cannot exist, but instead try and encourage people to actually break down their own arguments in order to improve their quality. This should absolutely be encouraged on a philosophy forum and is pretty much done so by the forum guidelines, but there's rarely anything done about the bs arguments.

Having a clear focus on fallacies and biases as solutions to avoid "bullshitting mosh pits that leads nowhere", is in my opinion a positive thing for increasing the quality. I see no reason to fear them other than for those with a notion about their own ability to create a reasonable argument.

If someone points out a hole in logic, a specific fallacy, or a bias that seems to get in the way of a reasonable argument, then, like all other normal philosophical discussions, the person making those lacking arguments need to change it to make more sense or plug those logical holes.

It's just basic philosophical behavior in discussions and I think this forum encourages too little of such standard philosophical behavior in discussions.

Trying to get back to the point I wanted to make. Religion, generally, encodes ideas about the nature of meaning in mythological forms, to try and tell the story in an allegorical manner. Clearly the allegories of religion are out-moded by the circumstances of modern culture. But what was it, that was encoded in those allegories in the first place? And if the allegorical representation of those ideas are discarded, what is discarded with them? — Wayfarer

The allegory, the power of religious writing as stories, is not the same as belief in the supernatural or God/Gods. You can have stories, they can be powerful. We have stories all around us in literature, movies, games, music, art etc. With great imagination and powerful emotions. All of these make us examine life and existence.

There's a difference though, when someone believes allegorical stories and fantasy to be truth rather than fiction. To interpret allegory and stories as being true in themselves. This is a religious belief.
It's no less valid than starting to believe in the Avengers as actually existing deities protecting our world. To interpret the Marvel cinematic universe as factual representations rather than allegories.

This is done out of fear. Instead of using allegory to give perspective in order to figure out a meaning in life, it is taken literally in order to give the responsibility to a higher power to figure that out. Instead of me understanding Iron Man's journey through the Marvel cinematic story, and because of this allegory, get a new perspective on life, I take the story literally and actually believe Iron Man is out there figuring all this shit out. This is one of the main problems with theism.

Unfortunately however Lovecraft's vision was essentially demonic in nature, as if the forces he intuited were utterly alien to humanity. — Wayfarer

Has nothing to do with demons. It is an allegory of how alien to our human perception the nature of reality actually is. Like our human vision only able to see a very small spectrum of light, if we were suddenly able to see all light spectrums it would blast our mind with such intensity of perception that we would go insane. It's an allegory for humanity's inability to stare into the extreme complexity of the universe and never be able to comprehend its enormous existence without going insane.

So the point is that it is alien to us, that's the whole point. It does however have nothing to do with "demons". Just like the movie Annihilation isn't about a demon coming to earth, but something truly alien and uncomprehensible. (Which in turn takes great inspiration from Color Out of Space)

But I think Lovecraft's idea of there being kind of parallel planes of being that interpenetrate with our own is completely plausible, in fact, I'm sure he drew on the grand tradition of mythology and occult religion as a source of inspiration for his (unfortunately deviate) stories. — Wayfarer

Why do you take Lovecraft literally? Like, why do you speak of it as plausible? It's fiction, it's a story, an allegory. It's like you are proving my point of religion being wrongly interpreted by theists and believers as truth when the texts are allegorical stories of fiction. The Bible and Necronomicon are the same kind of things: stories, allegory, fantasy, and tales to speak about the human condition. They are not the truth, they are meant to examine the behavior of humans in situations that put these humans under moral, emotional, and political pressure. It's storytelling, not reality.

Since I'm often guilty of holding the yellow cards, it's usually not to "win" an argument. In a philosophical discussion, it's important that the arguments are made to the best ability of the speaker. They should try to make them bulletproof by examining them as they are writing them.

Fallacies just make the discussion low quality. We turn to philosophy in order to lift a discussion up to a higher standard. If a group of people sits at a restaurant discussing "determination and free will", that's not really a place to have a moderator, arguments said within a time frame, examinations of premisses etc. It's just a casual discussion about the concept.

However, if the discussion is a philosophical one, then it needs to have certain rules in order to actually move a subject forward. If it doesn't have this backbone, then it will just be a bullshitting mosh pit that leads nowhere.

Demanding philosophical scrutiny and pointing out fallacies is meant to increase the quality of the other speaker. If their argument is of low quality, pointing out fallacies means pointing out the flaws in the argument until the argument is without those flaws.

There's no point in putting together counter-arguments to an argument filled with fallacies as there's no logic to deconstruct before forming the new argument. The discussion is at a standstill.

Maybe it's better to actually learn the knowledge about fallacies and put some effort into making arguments that don't feature them? Doing the opposite would just degrade the quality of a philosophical debate. There's a reason for them to exist.

One wonders how it is the not the height of infantialism to demand that 'meaning' be handed to one on a silver platter from on high, with the alternative being that one is consigned to some kind of drooling existential incapacity. One imagines that the theist - for all his inventions of sky daddies and karmic mysteries - has a lack of imagination so severe that he has to invent a whole industry to cover over their total inability to recognize 'meaning' seeping through every pore of the universe without all that trash. — StreetlightX

Because of fear. It takes existential courage to live without all that trash. Most people who stare into the concepts of reality are overpowered by the enormity of it; the extreme facts that put them into a context of such insignificance that they feel like they will implode; they cannot comprehend it, so they invent a lullaby to sing for themselves in order to feel calm.

Society teaches us to have small minds. Upbringing and education, work, and social life all have in common that they focus on making insignificant things feel important. More complex knowledge, more complex ideas about existence have usually been devoted to the church of that society, whatever religion was present in that time. So if and when someone asks a hard question, the "church" was quick to answer.

But then came the enlightenment era and more and more people had the ability to gain knowledge by themselves. When someone then dared to peak into complex knowledge and discover how much more complex the world and universe are and how contradictory the "church's" answers were, it was a pure horror of awakening.

Such horrors are portrayed by writers such as Lovecraft for example. Where the ones who dares to open their eyes to the actual truth of the cosmos rarely had their minds intact. The horror of turning your back against the fluffy answers by the "church" and instead embrace the extreme nature of the truth.

I think the reasons why most theists can't accept "meaning" as something coming from us, invented by us or figured out by us, individually or as a group, is because they must first peak into pure reality without fear. Only when the fear is gone, like accepting death without fear, even though you know it is as cosmically pointless as your life, can meaning be built. It's only when the cosmic fear has past away and you are ok and friends with the idea that everything is pointless, only then can meaning be built.

We externalize building things, like houses and art. We demolish something to rebuild something new. To build meaning internally, we must demolish something first. But theists think that's about demolishing religious belief and God. It does however have more to do with demolishing the fear in order to build meaning. Demolishing the fear demolishes the reasons to have belief and a God. Because belief and God aren't something built, it's a consequence of something already built. The fear has been built long before birth and taught down to all children. Reject the fear, then God and belief will start to erode and disappear. Without fear, there's no need for fluffy fairy tales to comfort life and instead, life and the universe is open to be interpreted honestly.

Empirically proving what a particular war was (actually) about is virtually impossible. So as much as one might dislike religion, there are things one cannot say about it without thereby losing one's self-respect as a lover of wisdom. — baker

Since this connects to what I said, it's important to note that I said more things than what wars were actually about. Most notes in historical records and research on reasons for wars throughout history do exist, while the rest of the idea I had, had to do with the psychology behind religion compared to atheism. If you combine such psychology and review history, it's absolutely in high probability to conclude that most conflicts had religious reasons over other reasons.

This also applies to political reasons because many of those societies had power that was a mix between religion and politics and not separated. So religious reasons were political and political reasons were religious. But conflict also means outside war; peace times when other atrocities happened within society or from institutes of power using religion as tools for that power. So in the end, most conflicts had religious reasons. But in here, when I say "most" in an argument, that seems to be interpreted as "all".