That was aimed at Isaac, whom I was responding to.

Sorry our argument has derailed your thread.

Though I guess the "throw up your hands" thing is relevant to you too, if you actually are, as you say, a moral nihilist.

Really? If you think your method is literally all that's left after discarding those two options then you're either astonishingly hubristic, or you really haven't understood what I mean by 'your method' when it comes to the accounting procedure. — Isaac

My method is explicitly formulated as just whatever is entailed by rejecting those two options. I don't start with a complete idea of how to do things and then say "it's either this, or one of those two options". I say "it's clearly not one of those two options; what's left?" and end up with the position I end up with by combining the negations of those two options.

That position is just, in short: there are some correct moral answers (not throwing up our hands) but they're not correct just because anybody said so (not yelling at each other), so we have to give all the possible answers a shot (otherwise we'd end up throwing up our hands) until they can be shown unacceptable by appeal to our common experiences (otherwise we'd end up just yelling at each other).

We could talk about whether what I think is entailed by rejecting those two things really is entailed by it, but so far I've yet to get past even rejecting the "throw up our hands" option with you.

The point was that people do not do the accounting method you're suggesting we should do and yet do not end up in some kind of moral hellscape — Isaac

You’re projecting “moral hellscape”; I never said that. At the borders between groups who already have moral agreement within themselves, we do see exactly the problems I said, as you agreed in the paragraphs below. Whenever there is actually a live question as to what is moral, people either insist authoritatively that they are right, thrown up their hands and say there’s no such thing as right, or else do something much like I am suggesting everyone should always do in such circumstances.

Agreed. Not sure how you think anyone is more likely to agree on an accounting method than they were to agree on the moral 'oughts' in the first place. — Isaac

Because it’s pretty simple to see that some accounting methods cannot work — yelling at each other authoritatively and throwing up our hands in despair, specifically — and my method is just what’s left over if you reject the both of those.

Moral 'accounting' method = ?? — Isaac

http://geekofalltrades.org/codex/deontology.php and http://geekofalltrades.org/codex/politics.php

I haven't gone into details on those yet here because I've yet to get past the much simpler basics of just "let's proceed on the assumption that there are answers and we can figure them out". If nobody will even agree to that, there's no point yet going into details on how to figure them out.

People do not routinely murder whomever they feel like killing, they do not routinely steal from others, they do not routinely rape and torture. They also do not routinely try to universally account for everyone's moral sentiments — Isaac

People do not routinely believe other than what their religions tell them about the creation of the world, or what happens when we die, or the fate of mankind, etc. They also do not routinely try to universally account for all observations (i.e. do science).

Within a given worldview there's no problem, pretty much by definition: everyone agrees, or they wouldn't be within that worldview. It's at the boundaries between them, where disputes emerge, that a method of resolving disputes is important.

So our account of physical reality already has something to say about these 'oughts'. It tells us how they are likely to be generated, it tells us how they are affected by which external forces, it tells us how they change over time, it tells us how similar/dissimilar they are across cultures, it tells us how they change as we develop... — Isaac

It also tells us all that same kind of stuff about how people come to form opinions about what is real, but we don't then rely on psychological research into how people form descriptive beliefs in order to do something like physics. Or more poignantly: psychological research into why people are inclined to believe in gods, magic, etc, tells us nothing at all about whether or not god, magic, etc, are actually real. What people think, and why they think it, is a different question from what thoughts are properly justifiable, i.e. what it is correct to think, what is true.

Thank you too. :-)

We take all these things into consideration, this 'accounting for other people's seemings', which Pfhorrest seems to think he's just come up with, is something we do all the time, sometimes even subconsciously — Isaac

I don't think I just came up with it, I think my views are an elaboration of common-sense views shored up to defend against bad philosophy.

When the 'accounting process' for physical reality was widely disputed, theories about physical reality were relativist too (Gods, creation myths, animism...), we only have such widespread agreement now because we also agree about the accounting method (science). We no longer just 'have a bit of think about' the opinions of everyone we happen to have spoken to about physical reality. We consult experts in the field using a (largely) agreed on method of trials, controls, statistical analysis and peer review. This — Isaac

I'm pretty sure I've made exactly this analogy, even in discussions with you directly. I agree with what you say here completely. And then I advocate doing the same thing for moral discourse as you describe here for factual discourse.

This 'method' is based on the prior belief that there is an external cause for the similarity in our observations. Absent of such a belief about objective morals, I can't see us ever agreeing on a method for accounting for everyone's 'seemings' on the matter, nor checking that such a method has been followed. Absent of such an agreement, any conclusions drawn will be based on the individual's own subjective choice of accounting method and so will be entirely subjective - moral relativism. — Isaac

And how do you think such an agreement on such a priori methodological principles could ever be reached? How do you think it was reached in the matter of factual discourse?

I say it was reached in the matter of factual discourse because it proved itself pragmatically useful -- it got results, it resolved disagreements, it built consensus, it didn't leave people in an intractable mire of unresolvable disputes about what is or isn't real. And I give exactly that reason for why we should adopt a similar practice for moral discourse: because doing otherwise leaves us in an intractable mire of unresolvable disputes about what is or isn't moral. Either because "nothing's actually moral, that's all just, like, your opinion, man", or because "God has handed down his unquestionable moral decrees and anyone who disagrees is a heathen who will burn in hell!" To put it dramatically. My whole approach boils down to: don't do either of those things.

Thanks to @Avery for digging this up:

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/factual/papers/HorganNondescriptive.html

That paper (from 2000) isn't the origin of my views, but I knew at one point after coming up with them I came across a paper that sounded very similar to my views, and then lost track of it before I could read it. I'm only 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through this one tonight, but as far as I can tell thus far it sounds exactly like my own views, modulo a few insignificant terminological differences (though @Tarrasque may find them more significant than I do).

Thanks for this. I found this paper on non-descriptive cognitivism, which I have yet to get all the way through (but will). I just need a dictionary handy while I do. :p

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/factual/papers/HorganNondescriptive.html

Does this describe your beliefs? I'd love to hear more. — Avery


Thank you for finding that. I think that is the one article on the topic that I ran across once and never had time to read more than a bit of. My own views are all home-brewed, but if this is the article I think it is I think it’s similar to mine. I’ll have to find time to read it in detail. — Pfhorrest

Found time to read like a quarter to a third of that tonight and so far it sounds almost exactly like my own model, modulo a few insignificant terminological differences. Thanks again for digging this up! I knew I had run across one paper with a view similar to my own long ago, and then lost it before I could read much of it, and I'm pretty sure this was it.

I might start a thread about it if someone else doesn't first.

Thanks a bunch :) It makes me feel really good to hear things like that.

Congrats on writing an entire book! I don't think that I've ever been able to finish an essay that was over six or seven pages long. You could always self-publish if you can't find someone to publish it for you. There's a lot of independent publishing companies nowadays, but, I feel like self-publishing will start to become more popular now, especially since not everyone reads books that are actually printed anymore. — thewonder

Thanks! I have already self-published, inasmuch as putting something on the web counts as self-publishing (link in my profile if you're interested), but I don't think it's likely that I will try to do any kind of for-profit publishing, since I've yet to confirm that a single person has actually read the whole thing even for free, so I really doubt anybody at all would ever pay to read it.

That's fine, but FWIW, I'm arguing against nihilism generally, not you specifically, since you asked why I think nihilism is so indefensible. If what I'm arguing against isn't what you're for, then maybe you're not actually a nihilist. (Which is fine, either way).

To be honest, I don't really think that this forum thinks too much of me. Kind of a lot of people don't, and, so, it doesn't surprise me. It's one of the better online forums, but it's also kind of just another place where I feel like kind of outcast. — thewonder

I'm just one person, but for my part I think you've been one of the nicer new additions to this forum. I also have a lot of apprehensive feelings toward the community here in general; I don't get the impression that this is a safe and welcoming place where people care about other people's feelings. It's just... the least bad options, as far as philosophical discussion, that I've found yet.

I know that you're trying to be nice, but it is kind of disheartening to be told to study Computer Science and of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Handbook. — thewonder

I was trying to be careful to clarify that that's the advice that I would have given to myself in the past. You're both a different person and it's now a different time, so I don't know that CS would be right for you or as right for now as it was then. The OOH is what I wish I had known of back then so that I could find out that CS would have been better for me than the multimedia arts degree I got at first. (I went back for philosophy later when I wanted to be a school teacher, after my graphic design career failed to launch -- which I also ended up not doing). I'm just suggesting it as a resource to see what the various prospects are of different paths you might be considering, because back when, I had no idea that different careers had such different financial prospects. (I thought artist or programmer would both be about the same, being on the same tier above fry cook or barista but below doctor or lawyer. I had no idea that the gap between their financial prospects was so huge, until it was took late to go back).

It's because you don't think that I'll make it as a philosopher, which is what everyone in this field that I've met thinks. — thewonder

I sure don't think that about you, but I share your feeling that other people think that about me, too.

I'm not sure if you were here long enough ago, but there was kind of a big to-do earlier this year when I wanted to get constructive criticism on the philosophy book I'd just finished writing, and... was sorely disappointed in the quality of feedback I got.

I'm not a professional philosopher, and I'm ashamed of that fact. I feel like I'm not allowed to try to forward new ideas unless I've got a PhD and can get published in a professional journal. But as others have explained in this thread, by the time I got to the point that I had the credit and reputation to do so, I would probably have been bogged down for many, many years with pointless drudgery helping to forward someone else's agenda.

There doesn't seem to be anything in-between the bottom-dwellers of uneducated internet philosophy, and that desiccated inaccessible realm of professional academic philosophy. And that non-existent middle is where I feel like I have to fit, so... I'm laypeople trash to the professionals, and an arrogant self-centered narcissist to the internet, because I want to do more than be a rando on the internet, but the professional options that are available aren't really any more appealing. If they were free, I'd still do them, but they're not worth sacrificing what's left of my life for.

If, instead, someone were to just say that they "believe" that moral facts don't exist, then it side-steps the issue. A means of objective evaluation is not necessary for it to be true that someone believes something. — Avery

That's why right after that I wrote "at most, the nihilist can express their opinion that nihilism is true, but to be consistent, must agree to disagree with anyone whose opinion differs about that".

That's why it's tantamount to just bowing out of moral discourse entirely. Other people are talking about moral issues and trying to figure out what is or isn't moral in this or that context, and you say you don't think anything is or isn't moral in any context. They ask why not, and you admit that you can't prove it, that it's just your opinion. So they shrug, state that it's not their opinion, and go about as they were.

And I'm also going to need some evidence that floopblorp is real. — Avery

Moral questions aren't necessarily about what is or isn't real. Some people think that moral answers have to be grounded in some kind of facts about reality, but you and I both already disagree with them. That doesn't make the questions meaningless. It makes that kind of justification for answers a poor justification.

Do some people murder other people? I'm betting you'll say yes, 'cause they do.

Ought those people murder other people? I'm betting, as you say you're not a psychopath, that you'll say something to the effect of "no", except you'll try some circuitous way of rephrasing the "ought" question into an "is" question.

But there's no getting around that this is a fundamentally different kind of question than the first. They're both about the same state of affairs: people murdering people. So why aren't they exactly the same question? Because one is asking whether that state of affairs is real, whether it is the case that some people murder other people, and the other is asking whether that state of affairs is moral, whether it ought to be the case that some people murder other people.

Asking whether something or another ought to be the case isn't asking anything at all about whether or not anything is the case; so likewise, a claim that something ought (or oughtn't) be the case, has no implications about what is (or isn't) the case. Saying "things ought to be this way" isn't making any claim at all about the way things are, so asking for proof that something "is real" is a complete non-sequitur, because nobody was claiming anything was or wasn't real. They're not even trying to describe reality at all. People can do other things with words than describe the world.

If you just refuse to answer that kind of question, by always twisting every attempt to ask it into a different kind of question entirely, then you're... just refusing to answer that kind of question.

...is a straw man. It purports that moral nihilists are making one unprovable claim, and moral realists are making another unprovable claim. But that's not true. Realists are making one claim, and nihilists are saying that claim is unsubstantiated. — Avery

Saying it's unsubstantiated isn't nihilism, that's just skepticism. A particularly overzealous kind of skepticism that can't help but lead to nihilism, but still.

But also bear in mind that the same kind of overzealous skepticism could be applied to claims about reality. You just assume, like most normal mentally healthy people do, that something is objectively real, and you're not just dreaming the whole thing up. There's no way of proving one way or another that anything actually is or isn't objectively real, but you can't help but act as though you assume either one way or another. The same is true of claims about morality.

If you act as though your perceptions and beliefs might not be the correct ones, as though what seem to you to be other people have other perspectives on what is real, their own perceptions and beliefs, and that you could do to check your perspective against theirs and work out some description of what is the case that accounts for all of those perspectives without bias, then you're acting as though you think something is objectively real, in comparison to which it's possible for people's opinions to be wrong. If instead you walk about like your perception just is reality (or equivalently, that nothing is real and your perception is all there is), and those who (seems to you to) disagree are just a meaningless figments of your own imagination, then you're acting like you don't think anything is objectively real. Would you do that, just because nobody can prove conclusively that anything is objectively real?

If you act as though your desires and intentions might not be the correct ones, as though what seem to you to be other people have other perspectives on what is moral, their own desires and intentions, and that you could do to check your perspective against theirs and work out some prescription of what ought to be the case that accounts for all of those perspectives without bias, then you're acting as though you think something is objectively moral, in comparison to which it's possible for people's opinions to be wrong. If instead you walk about like your desire just is morality (or equivalently, that nothing is moral and your desire is all there is), and those who (seems to you to) disagree are just a meaningless figments of your own imagination, then you're acting like you don't think anything is objectively moral. Should you do that, just because nobody can prove conclusively that anything is objectively moral?

There is a healthier kind of skepticism about both reality and morality than this rejection of everything until it's proven from the ground up. Be skeptical of each particular claim, others' and your own; hold every opinion you hold only tentatively, being open to evidence to the contrary, and ready to change your mind if you should come across it. But in the mean time, hold some opinion, whichever seems most plausible to you. And if you and someone else have different opinions -- about what is real or about what is moral -- try to gather all of your respective reasons for holding those opinions together and see if you can't figure out what possible opinion accounts for all of those reasons. You know, like reasonable people do.

I know that feeling, and it makes me sad and anxious on your behalf to imagine being in such a position, but it's your life and I'm just some rando on the internet, so I guess you gotta do you.

But still I would really, really recommend, if you have to pay for education, to get trained in some useful job skill, and then study things that are interesting to you on the side for free. It's not that a professional philosophical education is of no value, it's just not so valuable as to be worth a lifetime of poverty and regret.

My first degree was actually in multimedia arts, and I even regret that I focused my time in that program perfecting skills I already had -- 2D still design, basically -- instead of learning new skills like motion graphics, CAD/CAM, and 3D animation, since those are the things that the jobs I'm searching through now all really want.

And if I had done computer science instead of multimedia arts, man, I could be making like twice what I have been.

Something I wish had existed back then (if it didn't; nobody told me about it in any case), which I can't recommend enough now, is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook:

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/

As someone with a philosophy degree, I strongly recommend against getting one. Also, in general regarding financial planning, be very aware of the cost of housing where you intend to live. I long ago gave up all of my fancy dreams of being an important rich or famous person and decided to just focus on getting an ordinary humble life together with a house and a wife and all that. And now I’m approaching 40 and ever just owning a house still looks like it may be a pipe dream. I got through college debt-free, never made below the median income in my life, and for most of the past decade have been making more than twice that, saving between a quarter and half of my income toward a down payment, and I still live in a tiny trailer on rented land.

If I could advise my past self just entering college, it would be to double-major in computer science alongside philosophy and then go into AI for Apple or Google or someone. And that’s only because I had a full ride because my parents are poor and my test scores were off the charts. If I had had to borrow money, I’d advise my past self to just do the CS major and study philosophy for free as an extracurricular activity.

Also, on the scale from the Planck length to the observable universe, a “medium-sized” thing is about the size of a large cell, like neuron. So comparatively, on the whole, an individual human is enormous, and our planet-spanning civilization even bigger still.

In short, because moral nihilism amounts to just assuming that moral questions are unanswerable out of the gate, and merely not even trying to answer them.

I object to all nihilism on the pragmatic grounds that if such nihilism is true, then by its nature it cannot be known to be true, because to know it to be true we would need some means of objectively evaluating claims, so as to justifiably rule all such claims to be false. But the inability to make such objective evaluations is precisely what such a nihilistic position claims; at most, the nihilist can express their opinion that nihilism is true, but to be consistent, must agree to disagree with anyone whose opinion differs about that. In the absence of such a means of objective evaluation, it nevertheless remains an open possibility that nothing is moral. But we could only ever assume such an opinion as baselessly as nihilism would hold every other opinion to be held.

In the strictest sense, I agree that there might not be anything moral at all. But all we could do in that case is one of two things. We could either baselessly assume that there is nothing moral at all, and stop there, simply giving up any hope of ever finding out if we were wrong in that baseless assumption. Or else, instead, we could baselessly assume that there is something moral — as there certainly inevitably seems to be, since even if you deny their objectivity some things will still seem good or bad to you — and then proceed with the long hard work of figuring out what seems most likely to be moral, by attending closely and thoroughly to those seemings, those experiences.

But note that I am not saying to take any particular answer on faith. I am saying only to trust that there are some answers or others to be found to all such questions, even if we haven't found them yet. I am not even saying that any such answers definitely will ever be found. I'm not saying that success in the endeavor of inquiry is guaranteed, just to always assume that it is possible rather than (just as baselessly) assuming that it is impossible. I am only saying that we stand a much better chance of getting closer to finding answers, if anything like that should turn out to be possible, if we try to find them, proceeding as though we assume that there is something to be found, than if we just assume that there is not, and don't even try.

“Teleology”, in the sense of “teleological ethics”, a synonym for “consequentialism”. Because while deontology is about just means, this is about good ends, which I think are both equally important questions. Ontology and teleology are about the “objects” of reality and morality respectively, while epistemology and deontology are about the “methods” of knowledge and justice respectively.

Yes precisely. I actually break up normalized ethics into two separate fields, analogous to ontology and epistemological, and I call the field that’s analogous to epistemology “deontology”, partly because it has so much in common with Kantian ethics.

Thanks for this. I found this paper on non-descriptive cognitivism, which I have yet to get all the way through (but will). I just need a dictionary handy while I do. :p

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/factual/papers/HorganNondescriptive.html

Does this describe your beliefs? I'd love to hear more. — Avery

Thank you for finding that. I think that is the one article on the topic that I ran across once and never had time to read more than a bit of. My own views are all home-brewed, but if this is the article I think it is I think it’s similar to mine. I’ll have to find time to read it in detail. (Meanwhile if you mean you’d like to hear more about my beliefs specifically, there is a recent thread I started on metaethics that’s all about my views, if you want to respond over there.)

You wouldn't believe the number of times people hear something like "Morals don't exist." and come back with "Well then why not just kill people then??" — Avery

Well why not, if someone feels like it, and can get away with it, and no moral reasons count?

Pfhorrest seems to trust our capacity for exhaustive and honest accouting a little too much. — Olivier5

I never say that anyone actually does, or even can do, a completely exhaustive accounting of everything, either in factual or normative matters. I’m no more saying “the good is whatever seems good to you right now according to your appetites” than I say “the truth is whatever seems true to you right now according to your senses”. Only that senses and appetites are the criteria by which to sort through things that might be true or might be good. That sorting process is a whole thing unto itself — when concerning reality, we call it epistemology — and that’s where the handling of ambiguities and weighing of different imperfect solutions against each other happens. All I’ve said so far here is what the aim of such a process is, how to gauge whether a proposed solution is the perfect one or not, and if not, why not.

Not sure egotism is an actual school of philosophy though. — Mww

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

I was thinking nihilism until you got to this part:

ask "What do I want to see happen?", and then to work toward that goal. — Avery

Which seems to put it squarely as a form of egotism. “The good is whatever I want”. Which is almost (next to only nihilism) the least defensible position on morality there can be.

It sounds like the main thing leading you here is a rejection of both robust realism (where some kind of facts about reality, be they natural or non-natural, constitute descriptive moral truths), and most forms of subjectivism (where moral truths just are someone or another agreeing that something is moral; your egotism is a kind of that too, though you except it).

I agree wholeheartedly with the rejection of both of those, but nihilism isn’t the only alternative. The usual popular alternatives are varieties of non-cognitivism, which say that moral claims aren’t even trying to say things the likes of which can be true or false. I’m also opposed to those. But a very few philosophers, including myself, aim instead for a non-descriptivism, while retaining cognitivism.

On such an account, moral claims are not descriptions of the world at all, they’re not purporting to describe some kind of moral objects, neither natural nor non-natural, nor are they about people’s views, so they aren’t made true or false by anyone’s agreement or disagreement. But they are nevertheless capable of being objectively, universally, unbiasedly correct. They are just correct prescriptions, rather than correct descriptions; and prescriptions are to be judged by different criteria than descriptions, by appeal to our appetites rather than our senses, but to all of our appetites equally, just like when describing reality we have to account for all of our sensory observations equally.

I am not so optimistic to believe that such a world will necessarily be created, but not so pessimistic to believe that it is impossible for it to either. — thewonder

This is the attitude that I place at the foundation of my entire philosophy, always rejecting both such optimism as makes our efforts seem unnecessary (because success is guaranteed) and such pessimistic as makes our efforts seem pointless (because success is impossible). Rejecting anything that leads to the conclusion “don’t bother trying”.

I think Camus himself was aiming for something like this, as he rejected both the optimism of traditional meanings of life, but also rejects the pessimism of nihilism, and basically says “fuck it, I’m gonna live anyway, even if it might be useless and hopeless.”

I don’t think he’s trying to fit them all together, but rather pairing individual rights with Kant (the CI), and greatest good with Mill (utilitarianism). And I think saying he’s got some bridge between those two “sides”: the Kant/rights side and the Mill/greatest-good side.

how do rights, utilitarianism and greatest good relate to the Kantian C.I.? — Mww

I think he’s equating deontological ethics with individual rights, and equating utilitarianism with the greatest good.

Libertarians just want as much of the authority as possible to be privatized — fishfry

It's clear here that you're talking specifically about libertarianism as understood in the United States since the 1970s, which in academia and internationally and historically is called specifically "right-libertarianism" and considered a continuation of liberalism (in the international, historical, academic, non-American sense), whereas "libertarianism" is short for "libertarian socialism" and is a synonym for anarchism. Even Rothbard, who largely pioneered the use of "libertarianism" to mean what Americans commonly take it to mean now, only 50 years ago, said:

"One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, 'our side,' had captured a crucial word from the enemy. 'Libertarians' had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over." — Murray Rothbard in The Betrayal of the American Right, page 83

NB on a similar note that "anarchism" simpliciter is explicitly a form of socialism, and anarchists generally consider "anarcho-capitalism" to be simply not anarchism at all, because capitalism is incompatible with anarchism, precisely because privatized authority is still authority, it's just even less beholden to the people than democratic authority is.

Also note similarly that libertarian socialism was the older socialism, before so-called Marxists invented authoritarian forms of it; as well as being the original form of libertarianism, as explained above. To libertarian socialists, it kind of beggars the imagination to try to suppose you could have libertarianism without socialism, or socialism without libertarianism, because inequality breeds authority, and authority breeds inequality.

Art, perhaps? — thewonder

I think that's likely the only way. Get popular media to show people what actual anarchy is supposed to look like. Have scifi or fantasy movies where the status quo ante of the good guys' civilization is explicitly anarchic, then have space wizard fascists or whoever roll in and fuck it up, and the good guys have to fight to win it back without becoming the thing they're fighting.

The most effective thing anyone in any marginalized political movement can do is raise awareness, get people to care about the same problems enough to support actual political possibilities enough to actually make a real difference. If we want to move in an anarchist (actual anarchism, not anarcho-capitalism) direction, in America, we need first and foremost to somehow change public opinion such that what today’s Republicans stand for is completely outside the Overton window, not even remotely considerable. Once today’s Democrats are popularly considered the whole of the Overton window, we can focus more on getting popular support further to the left of them. And so on until eventually the people in general favor a government fully backing real liberty and equality, who won’t stand for anything less.

While big chunk of the people openly support fascism, there is no hope for anarchism of any kind, even if it could overthrow the existing government by force. For anarchism to work, for any form of government to work but especially anarchism, enough people have to actively want it, and few enough people have to actively oppose it.

So the mission is really one of education. Winning hearts and minds. You can’t win peace by violence.

Something not being a physical object, but a state of a physical object, doesn't make the thing not a physical thing.

When you disassemble a lego house into just lego bricks, the house isn't there anymore, but the bricks still weigh the same as the house did. Does that make the lego house non-physical? No, it's just the physical arrangement of physical things, not a thing unto itself; the house hasn't been removed from the bricks, it isn't somewhere else, it's just been transformed from that arrangement that it was, into a different arrangement.

The idea can be summarized as that you have become liberated before you can create any sort of ideal society. — thewonder

I used to be of that opinion (and thought it the natural conclusion), but I've come to think quite the opposite by now. You have to build an alternative, superior power structure to displace the old one; you can't just tear down the old one and then move forward from there. The reason is that power vacuums get quickly filled by the worst kind of power structures. In order to keep bad power structures from arising, there has to be some kind of better power structure in place: something that will protect liberty against those who would trample on it, without in the process on it trampling themselves.

That's why I argue that anarchy is not the absence of government, but the limit of good government: what progressively better and better government converges toward. If you just get rid of all government, it will quickly be replaced by the worst kind of government. Instead of doing that, we have to first build a better form of government, with which to displace the bad one. And then build a better one still with which to displace that. Etc. I don't think we'll ever manage to get to perfect liberty, but we can get a lot closer approaching it progressively like than than by tearing everything down and starting over again from the worst of the possibilities.

some sort of more utopian society, but almost exclusively with the abuse of power. You have to cope with attempts at subjugation before you can even do anything else. There are a lot of ideas and ideals within the libertarian Left, Anarchism, and even Liberalism that are worth substantiating, but, because power has come to be so effectively secured by, primarily, men who often even intend to abuse it, the most effective praxis would ultimately be of some sort of anti-authoritarian philosophy. — thewonder

Those philosophies are all anti-authoritarian to a greater or lesser degree (anarchism the greatest, liberalism the least).

This has probably been pointed out already somewhere in this thread, but the point of starting an argument by stating definitions is to clarify which of multiple possible uses one means by a word.

See for examples my recent thread about moral objectivism, where in the poll question I state the things I’m not asking about and the things I am asking about in different terms, so that people won’t think I’m asking a different question than I am. Of course that depends on people being able to use the words I’m using to state the definition, but there is still a usefulness to stating a definitionally to avoid ambiguity.

Given that such reciprocality is obligatory, such that if someone helps you you are in their debt, then yes exactly, because money is a way of tracking debt, who is owed what. It’s also a unit of such account, a way of quantifying exactly how much some help is worth: helping a neighbor carry in their groceries probably isn’t worth them donating an organ when you need one, but how much is each of those worth, how can their value be measured against each other?

Nearly everyone has access as you say, but not everyone has the leisure, and perhaps innate capacities, to both develop and defend against deluges of propaganda; the rhetorical b.s. as you put it. Nevertheless — boethius

Additionally, even those who have the access, the leisure, and the innate capacities, still often lack the values that would incline them to pursue it. As I'm sure you well know, there is a pervasive attitude of anti-intellectualism in America, and even among nominal intellectuals, a lot of parochialism by topic area. I.e. you've got masses and masses of people who think learning, studying, and thinking generally aren't worthwhile endeavors, and then even people who say they value those things dismiss large swaths of things they could study and think and learn about as not worthwhile, e.g. the STEM brogrammers who think all social sciences, arts, and humanities, especially philosophy, are worthless nonsense, and conversely some people in those latter fields who think that hard sciences are just arrogant Modern-era religions that find no better truths than any other "ways of knowing".

The incubation of these anti-values is itself of course a systemic thing promoted by those in power who benefit from it, too.

The electron is kind of smeared out along its orbital path, which is not a nice neat ellipse like you would expect of an orbit, but one of several weird flowery shapes. It doesn’t have a definitive position or momentum along that path, but its observed position or momentum at any moment will always be somewhere along that path. And it can only be on one of those specific weirdly shaped paths or another, jumping suddenly between them when it absorbs or emits a photon.

Which is why I was focusing on doing better; it's much easier to establish flaws and improvements to attempt than whether what one did was The Best Possible Thing in context. It will always be true that I can do better regardless of the context. Moral realism through trying to be less wrong. — fdrake

:up: :clap:

It's not surprising that that's in agreement with me, since I wrote that. (Most of the current state of that article is my doing from like a decade ago).

That's basically a toy model; it's not actually true, but it's a useful false visualization for learning purposes.

Wikipedia on Atomic orbitals explains why in full, but the short answer is "a classical charged object cannot sustain orbital motion because it is accelerating and therefore loses energy due to electromagnetic radiation".