Between wanting stuff and the truth.

If we numbed ourselves, we would lose track of the truth, by silencing the guide, and wander aimlessly in a land of delusion.

The lord requires a contrite heart.

As I admitted from the beginning, it's the truth that hurts. Perhaps it is more what has been seen cannot be unseen. "Psychopaths" and other "dark personalities" are marked by their excessive denial, and lies. They just never admit to fault, or admit that what they did counts as that wrong thing, they use subterfuge doublespeak, and grandiosity. They use their language for manipulation, rather than truth.

1. Morality exists
2. It is not man-made, but innate to man and other animals
3. You can't break the moral code you have — szardosszemagad

1 is true, but 2 and 3 aren't. We aren't just born moral, and don't have to learn it, and strive for it. This is clearly not the case. What do you figure when you see someone that is immoral? Mutant? Every time?

Desire, and compromise, problems for everyone, and you simply lack self-awareness if you believe otherwise.

I already agreed with you from the beginning, you don't need to manufacturer conflict.

You don't have to avoid personal benefits, they just shouldn't be so important that you sacrifice everything for them in pursuit, and entirely irrelevant to the truth.

Hardly isolated events, or things of history, people think in way too extreme of terms. It's rampant, right now and everywhere. Manipulation and deception to affect status, maintain reputation, and accrue material benefits. Some are just better at it than most, but it is the norm. People generally only tell the truth when it is beneficial, spend more money and time advertising and telling people that they gave to charities, or donated time than they gave, or donated. Exaggerations, omissions, outright fabrications...

I believe that people get extreme because they always have to imagine something worse than themselves when they think of evil. A murderer says that at least they don't hurt children, or haven't killed as many as another. People are full of rationalizations, justifications, excuses. There's always someone worse than me... they're the evil one.

I've addressed these objections. This all only true if I couldn't get away with it, and then is just more self-interest in that case, it's prudence, and understanding that in the final analysis, I would not actually benefit.

Again, I said whim and preference. Not just whim. I really don't think that people just randomly feel like hurting people for no reason. What I'm talking about is just using people to get the things you want for expediency. People don't just want to hurt others for no reason at all. I said manipulation and deception. Not becoming a supervillain that wants to nuke metropolis just 'cause.

I said whim, and preference, and results matter a lot in that regard, as if the cost is high, the whim isn't worth it, that is just prudence. It's also hardly a whim that would make someone want to hurt someone so badly that they don't care about the consequences, that would require either significant distortion, obsession, and concern, or deep history investment, and the feeling of wrong.

None of that is what I'm talking about though, as most people don't have constant deranged inclinations to hurt people for no reason, I wouldn't think. They do however desire to get the things they want, that would be pleasurable, fun, or increase status, and if they could get them without damaging their reputation, or negative consequences, then they would be deeply tempted to do so.

I thought you were using "normative" in the natural language, and not technical sense. So, your position is just then it isn't right or wrong absent right or wrong? That one must presuppose those in order to object? Well, that is kind of the point... that one has no objection without their presupposition, but I would think, would object to that. Unless playing an intellectual game, in real life, they would object to that, and then I went into what the basis of that could be, and if it were power struggles, fiat, or prudence, then those would only be substantial objections if I couldn't get away with it.

The idea is that in the absence of right and wrong, all things are permitted, not impossible, or random... where's the precedent for that?

If it's all just normative, then one ought to do what is normative? Norms don't originate in the normative, so that would be impossible, and also implies that regardless of what is normative, that is what ought to be done... is it controversial to say that sometimes the norm is wrong?

You're just not making much sense. Even if our motivations are random (though they aren't, they're mainly self invested, which is why morality, and the notion of oughts exists in the first place, and even in the absence of them, would still exist), some will be randomly malevolent, why shouldn't they follow their random malevolent motivations? Do you have a real opinion on this issue, or just obfuscation?

No we're not, we're left with motivations, and different ones, that are presumably all equal. It isn't as if, if there are no oughts, action would be impossible... even oughts presuppose motivation to do other than one ought to, or there would be no reason for them...

I was talking about manipulation and deception... people immediately imagine the worst things imaginable, and crimes, probably because they're already constantly poorly attempting what I'm talking about on a daily basis, but just failing.

I've already said that there is no reason why I should, and one could do otherwise fine, I'm asking for reasons why I shouldn't.

Doesn't matter.

Because I want to, it's natural. We, and other animals are competitive, and status driven. We all want to. There would be no dilemma, no need at all for morality if we didn't.

Well, yes, reason only tells you how to accomplish things, and what will come of things, this is why I said based on my preferences, and whims. So I hold that based on my preferences and whims as motivations, it is more rational, as the results are in my favor. You can't just isolate one thing I say, removed from everything else I've said.

It is the world I find myself in. I qualified if you could get away with it. This question was posed in the republic I believe it was (one of Plato's dialogues), one of the discussants suggests that if one were to find a ring that made one invisible, and one could get away with whatever they wanted while maintaining their reputation, then it is desirable to do so, and most people would do so. If morality is just prudence, then it indeed is for the weak and incompetent.

I don't think that laws are analogous to moral precepts, though clearly related. I will say though, that most laws are based in a theory, and historical precedent, and usually those theories involve innate value of human beings, and their autonomy. Neither empathy, nor compassion and such emotions are impartial, they inherently take a side.

As long as you're saying that there is no reason why someone shouldn't, and are fine with that. You have no objection to it.

There is still the hypothetical oughts. They just aren't binding in absence of motivation.

Then you ought to if you could get away with it?

Thats the implication of what you said.

There is indeed nothing stopping you from just whimsically deciding to be good and altruistic, but that isnt the problem, that problem is that that isnt actually better or worse than anything else. It also isnt very rational unless it is more personally beneficial to me than anything else. Its rationally at best an opportunistic strategy.

No law is actually just or unjust beyond preference or fiat. Since we disagree about such things it cant be "man" that decided it but some individual or group.

I actually do think that that is true, but that already supposes too much of the position Im questioning. Without the soul, or truth anyway, that cant be true.

No it isnt. Its far more like asking why should if follow the law if i could get away with not doing so? Aristotle said that what he got from philosophy was that he followed the law because it was right, and not because it was the law.

Also, ought we follow any and all laws, even unjust ones?

You've watched them all. Really? There are hundreds. — Baden

This by the way is quoting him when someone said that they had watched all of his videoes to him, but obviously hadnt.

I find him interesting because he thinks a lot of the same things as I do, although I don't think that our personalities are all that similar. I also think that his motivations differ, and think that his artificial regulation of serotonin has kept him largely immune to the effects of competition and status, but my powers are mystical.

I don't know what to say to the idea that it's actually the opposite of that... I think we must live in different worlds...

I don't have much of a life, I spend most of it absorbing material.

Most of them are the same. He only has so many lectures on his on page, and I've watched those, as well as many interviews that are scattered around, which aren't on his own page. I may not have seen all those. All of the short clips are just segments of his lectures that have been cut out. It also gets pretty repetitive after awhile. He only has some many positions, so many facts, and I've seen him say them all about fifty times.

I'm simply saying that we shouldn't be associating positive attributes to one, and negative attributes to the other, on the notion that they have no real basis in reality, because we like one more than the other.

I've watched them all, I like facts more than interpretations though.

The point is precisely that it isn't merely semantics, words correlate to the world, and mean things. They also are associated, which is why when people are trying to become something, or like someone they emulate superficial traits and qualities as much as the substantial ones, because they can't tell the difference. Drawing improper associations is as misleading as not drawing proper associations. Saying, basically, that gender has no relation to sex, is wrong, at the very least on must admit statistically wrong.

Women are more agreeable, and higher in neuroticism, but only after puberty, and onward. I think this is simply because physical violence is the most extreme, and trumps all other forms of domination in the final analysis, and women are generally always at a disadvantage in this regard.

I think that we have to be careful about how we talk, as women don't have to be more masculine to be more assertive, and men don't have to be more feminine to be tempered.