Your naive empathy is not a virtue. — Tzeentch

What kind of empathy/sympathy for a tragic criminal is then not naive? And if there were justified occasions were it wasn't naive could it serve as a virtue on account of what good that empathy might help promote, the greater good? Retributive justice may seem kind of senseless if it just leads to the perpetuation of more suffering.

If evil is privative, why does our culture find it so fascinating? — Leontiskos

It likely has to do with the desirable and associative aspects of autonomic sympathetic arousal. It's like asking why folks enjoy watching scary, suspenseful movies, or going on carnival rides, or jumping off mountains or airplanes in wingsuits.

Evil is arousing, as it entails signs of what is threatening. It arouses a kind of moral/physical activation, to engage to quell the threat, resolve by giving license for us to punish, to feel outrage, or to get away due to danger. To watch a transgression take place quickens the heart, even if its kind of benign. Imagine playing a game and witnessing someone cheat in front of your eyes, or someone drinking the self serve milk at Starbucks as you are waiting behind them to use it.

Not only is evil privative, good is privative, perhaps even moreso, insofar as we deny and constrain ourselves to satisfy arbitrary moral codes. "I'm playing by all the rules and some asshole gets and leg up and goes unpunished by their transgression." Evil might explode out of the agony of kinds of oppression, as a reaction to moral demands, whether legitimate/reasonable or not.

So no, I don't see BB as glorifying crime upon reflection. — "BitconnectCarlos

Walt's adventures are exciting and risky, but not ultimately good. — BitconnectCarlos

:100: If anything, watching BB tells us that we wouldn't want to be like Walter White, even if we didn't care about the misery of producing a drug that ruins lives. These kinds of series present a picture of the antihero entering a kind of hell of life threatening entanglements, which just serves to reinforce why it is wrong even from a standpoint of pure self-interest. He puts those he loves in serious danger which is unforgivable.

Another weird one is Red Dead Redemption II. Arthur, protagonist, lives a life of impossible gang associated crime, one murder after another to acquire wealth, whether taking bounties or committing murder for a few bucks. We are complicit as the one playing, choosing honor or dishonor. By the end, no one in history could've committed such a long series of depraved acts and live to tell about it and yet we somehow have empathy for the guy as he comes around to realize his great mistake. There is some feeling of innocence about such characters, as if they are not self-created, but merely the condition of life's happenstance.

The tragedy, self-destruction of the antihero, perhaps with the realization of their mistake if they go do it all over is what makes the progression of such stories morally satisfying. To see them live happily ever after is what would make it more repugnant to our moral sensitivities.

They batter themselves with the vulgar conventions of the world, as do all the other things of the world.

I don't understand the wisdom (?) behind the Daoist useless tree parable. We all have to live in the conventional way, which provides a measure of certainty and ease in our lives. Isn't going with the flow, as in taking up conventions, as much recommended to flourish. We can't really opt out.

If Dao trees of substantial size weren't rare, they be considered an bountiful material by someone. There is always a use for a tree unless the constraint against using it is absolute (law). The specific nature/property of the Dao tree is in question. Is the wood dense or light, rosewood or balsa. What industry/carpenters desires rosewood or balsa for their customers?

Does the Daoist desire a rose wood cabinet?

Ulaanbaatar (Capital of Mongolia) is famous for having the worst air quality. They all burn coal in their yurts and the conventional activity makes for very severe air pollution. What is Daoist solution for fixing such a problem? No one is moving by coal and exclaiming that it is useless, if that amounts to saying that the comfort of warmth in winter time is useless (temperatures dropping to -20 to -40 °C). The coal sellar/buyer (or whoever) does not walk by and exclaim, 'I'd rather have fresh air and be cold as ice', when the air is already choking.

Does a Doaist burn coal in the wintertime?

If they could all engineer Rocket mass heaters and strive to make living quarters insulated, this would be a step in the right direction, assuming the Jevon's paradox doesn't also arise from such a gain in efficiency. If things are too cheap, folks may have larger families, the number of rocket stoves could increase, and the demand for burning coal rises above the original reduction newly gained efficiencies. But likely the Jevon's paradox applies more to advanced technological economies, where all by conservation of personal wealth (by forced stake in all industry) mandates growth.

The useless tree stands until it is used, like useless coal remains in the Earth until used.

This is an interesting but complicated/difficult topic to think about.

Supposedly when humans learned to cook foods, they gained an advantage by being able to access more metabolic energy per unit of food consumed. A lot of our closest animal relatives, with longer digestive tracks, have to spend a lot of time foraging and chewing lower energy density raw foods. Maybe you could frame the loss of adaptation for the gain of another as either a loss or gain of efficiency relative to certain mode of eating/being.

We are more efficient digestors compared to gorillas only if we can mechanically cook/process our food. Our shortening of the digestive system represents a loss of efficiency of digestion if we must eat like gorillas eat but a gain in efficiency if we can cook, cultivate and grow our food. Is this correct?

What mode/process is more efficient than what mode/process given the relevant inputs/outputs.

I don't think those who use an appeal to tradition really take that appeal to be a serious justification. More honest/nuanced justifications are just not forthcoming.

You want to make love in the future only because you know what it was like to make love in the past. If you didn't know what it meant to make love, how would you know that you might desire what that unknown activity will do for you.

I enjoy the celebration of Christmas immensely because of good memories of the festivity in the past. They form strong memories which persist to condition its future celebrations. Christmas is also an excuse to be with my family and eat rich fancy food in a warm interior. It is one of three holidays I don't have to work.

What is known/judged to be comfortable, comforts the comforted. When the moralist or the lawmen show up, then goes the task of providing justifications for what should or shouldn't be allowed.

If we were Bonobos we'd run around naked and greet each other with a touch of our genitals. A disgusting culture of depraved traditions to be sure. Luckily none need to appeal to reason or tradition. It is what it is.

In an immaterial sense I am not so sure - items such as software and services for example are not constrained by finite physical inputs is exactly the same way. — Colo Millz

But you can't grow the economy immaterially. While AI and other kinds of software might help to make many kinds of energy consumption more efficient they also require a tremendous amount of energy.

By 2028, the researchers estimate, the power going to AI-specific purposes will rise to between 165 and 326 terawatt-hours per year. That’s more than all electricity currently used by US data centers for all purposes; it’s enough to power 22% of US households each year. That could generate the same emissions as driving over 300 billion miles—over 1,600 round trips to the sun from Earth. — MIT Technology Review: We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

Edit: I suppose if this power usage represents global use of AI with a comparison to US energy usage of households, 326 terawatt hours per year isn't that much... With respect to total current energy consumption (180,000 TWh) the estimated fraction going to AI would represent .18 percent.

Apparently, even if we had supremely cheap carbon free supply of energy, another constraining factor to economic growth in terms of the number of people with standard energy appetites, we'd have to figure out how to vent exhaust heat into space as we exceed the radiative cooling rate of Earth.

The only way to grow infinitely is to escape planetary constraint but here we are getting too far ahead of ourselves with such future speculation.

@Copernicus

Does the relationship between whatever a "self" ought to reference and the "body" (of that self) have any relevance to the opinion that "all acts are selfish acts"?

There is sometimes the anomaly of conjoined twins who share a composite body, like Abby and Brittany Hensel. Maybe we would say two selves (individuals with distinct personalities, minds) share one body, while one controls left side and the right side.

In accordance with your OP, they both are always acting in their individual self interest all the time. Mutual coordination/agreements, trade-offs for the shared self (as shared body), is just a "refinement of selfishness". In one sense they share a self and another they don't.

This same kind of relationship extends to people who do not share a body in the conventional sense, but are embedded in ecological environs/processes (dependent functional relationships between each other that comprise "organizations").

How do we assign what belongs to self (as body, or otherwise) and what doesn't in terms what goes into instantiating whatever the "self" is?

Someone could do an act and not really know what caused them to act. They may form a rationalization/narrative that explains their action, but the motivation could actually be caused by something completely unknown to them. Suppose a benign brain tumor enhances the reward for gambling in a person towards self-destruction. For the person the desire/reward of gambling might align with their desire/will at one point in time and be against their desire/will at another. They know with respect to a future condition they'd be better off if they could inhibit their impulse yet they always succumb to the act.

What goes into instantiating the self goes beyond the limited awareness of any self.

...people call mass "weight". — Copernicus

That mistake is probably due to the opinion that they're acting in their self interest, whether they know it or not.

I didn't read the book. What's the story/context? — Copernicus

For my purposes you don't need to read Moby Dick but just contemplate when a crew shares a body (function/vessel) and coordinates action for mutual survival. You could just as well think of astronauts on a space station, who have to maintain a breathable atmosphere.

Refinement of selfishness. — Corpernicus

I think an issue is the connotative baggage of the word "selfish". It's doing a kind of associative/propagandist work we can't properly articulate. Like the generalization we've all a propensity for violence. It doesn't say much.

Rather we want to know, relatively, who is problematically violent and who is problematically selfish with regard to whatever the mutual goal is.

If Copernicus every ends up in a authority position on the Pequod, hopefully he facilitates mutiny for the sake of preservation of the group over tolerating the self-destructive madness of Ahab. Though the white whale was a bit of a black swan for the crew, and the lack of information along a hierarchy is as much the cause of failure of mutiny. Any whale potentially could sink a ship but what are the odds.

And Copernicus by chance could be cast as an Ahab, if psychopathic traits prevail.

Ahab was no more or less selfish than anyone else on that fictional ship according to the OP's generalization. Though he was ignoring economic/moral duty to pursue a personal desire/vendetta.

To be less selfish is to extend yourself into having someone else's perspective, so as to make a decision that benefits the greater self (the group) sometimes at the cost of the little self (you). The greater self may be selfish too but it's coordinated actions override and guide the little selves for mutual benefit.

The self can imagine itself to be like another, to have its point of view. If it shares a body with other selves, many may breath from the same lungs and coordinate to use the same appendages for the sake of living a good life. So together they are all selfish, insofar as they must use up and destroy or exploit other selves, for the sake of living.

Whatever goes against you (want/desire/interest/feelings). — Copernicus

What if our "self" is not really unified in its wants/desires. Say it wants two contradictory things, like a composite being composed of conflicting drives. That we must eventually act as we do doesn't mean we desire the consequence of that action.

I desire to eat but I want a six pack set of abominals. I want to have the high from exercise but don't want to put in the time. I crave sugar but I'm diabetic. In what sense can the "self" be against itself?

The word violence seems kinda hyperbolic to describe sexual desire though — Darkneos

The instinct for sex is as strong as the instinct to eat at times. Eating is inherently violent. Animals consume other beings to sustain life. Sex is like a propelled act of consumption to reproduce. Unlike eating it is unnecessary for the survival of the individual, but there are ramifications to the repression or fulfillment of that desire.

In nature it can get quite ugly. Female sea turtles may be drowned by an unintentional swarm of horny males, who weigh her down in the competitive act of copulation. Female ducks have the famous labyrinthine vagina as a covert means to defy the generative power of an unwanted sex act, what a human might consider rape. Many males above and below the class mammalia compete for access to females by fighting, which comes with the inherent risk of injury and death, assuming it goes beyond the softened formality of dominance/aggression theater (like a game of sparring).

Sex is a nightmare without a fantasy, at worst, or alienating, at best.

This is an interesting idea but I am not sure I understand sex without fantasy. Who would ever consent to sex without fantasy, if consent implicates fantasy as present and operating?

Kafka gets that part. — Paine

Care to expand?

Between the man who has long turned to dust and the posthumous reception of his works, where is this being that is Kafka? Kafka is just a memorial reconstitution, the interpolation of his stories/biography, piecemeal ideas searching for context, in the theater of our heads, an arising and falling away. We always want to understand what defies understanding, as if narrowing to a subject with careful reading/analysis we arrive somewhere. Reading Kafka might make us gloomy and nauseous, in which case the Dr. recommends abstinence.

My point is that I think you exist because in different mental states you caused certain experiences and feelings in me. I think this is more than necessary to prove your existence. — javi2541997

But we don't need and can't use private dream content for the proof of any existence as it stands in contrast with what really confers that proof: the waking life of enduring reality. Though we can equivocate here for the sake charity/fun that dreaming together is constitutive of the possibility of any experience of each other. Paradoxically in this equivocation, dreaming together also requires us to be awake, to share our visions/perspectives as we are doing so here.

Secondarily maybe you are conveying there are certain TPF members who you enjoy exchanges with, time after time, and their appearance in your dream signals a deeper kind of acknowledgement/value of their being/existence.

We could strip Berkeley's dictum "To be is to be perceived" of its metaphysical weight about foundations and consider it as just a dictum about existential/social relevance.

I attach relevance and importance to the fact that I experienced exactly the same thing both dreaming and awake. — javi2541997

It's impossible to experience anything twice with exactitude. With respect to a person's perceptual habits/expectations much of what is potentially new to a re-experience may be rendered negligible by habitual perception. We tune out most of the information available to us for good reason.

The people you perceive are no more constitutive of what is real than the people you imagine as an artifact of past perception. Though we can ponder this to impractical consequence. We ought to know the use value of determining what constitutes the many kinds of things that could be said to exist, whether abstract or concrete.

We do imagine and produce simulacra of humans at the level of disembodied, abstract, internal, private illusions. We do this here in the forum by language alone, to assist the projection of mixtures, amalgamations, explorations of ideas by reading others representations of their thought.

We are dreaming now, to the extent we participate in a communal dream of shared reality. The brain is blind, subject to the projection of its own representations of the world it has indirect access to. Many minds are projecting upon another, merely abstractions, which necessarily tune out and simplify the horrendously complex empirical world.

The map is not the territory.

The perceived person is not to be confused with the actual/empirical person.

Yet the contrary position also holds:

The map becomes the territory, insofar as it remakes/refies the territory.

The perceived person stands in for the person, even in their absence, as a memory mediated figure. The expectation holds they resemble themselves predictably. Javi resembles Javi enough to affirm: Javi is Javi.

There is a horrendous video of a Korean(?) mother who lost her child, who was enabled by AI to bring back an interactive simulacra of said child. Something inside me recoils against this, yet if the mother could just dream the same scenario, on command, and it was possible to be made public, would I have the same reaction. Probably not.

Wait when I dream of you. — javi2541997

Dream Michael is an incarnation of Zeus... He is sporting a gilded purple himation right now in a aural sphere on planet Jupiter in the eye of the red storm. Hopefully this suggestion will have amusing effects.

"Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." (Homer) Guess it comes with being a mod.

But you are resistant to silly associative contamination for good reasons. No amount of telling you that Michael is (like) Zeus will make you believe that Michael is (like) Zeus.

But we should try anyway. Michael (what/which Michael?) is like Zeus (what/which Zeus?).

Quis ut Deus?

I have never experienced Zeus, nor did I dream with him. I think it is pretty obvious the cause: his source of existence is missing. — javi2541997

You've used the phrase "dreaming with" several times, whereas "dreaming of" sounds more apt. It's kind of odd because in order to dream with someone you'd have to share in the same content.

Joseph Campbell called myth (shared narrative/ideas about what is) communal dream. So maybe we can stretch this to the concept of dreams/reality as the domain of social constructions, reality as shared/directed hallucination.

The frustration of a lucid dream is apparent in and round those rare moments when you take what is occurring in a dream to be reality. The only notable example of this was thinking I had a drawer full of cash, which evaporated on waking. :groan:

The "guided" version of any evolutionary process is always susceptible to returning to the "unguided" version in time due to unforeseen accidents/contingencies. The great spans of time, as BC said, make these accidents/contingencies more likely to happen (inevitable).

There was a fun simulation game called Surviving Mars that came out in 2018. It's a resource management game which is a race against time to build and maintain a colony on Mars (kind of like Starcraft, SimCity) Technology is constantly breaking down and requires maintenance. All your scout/extraction vehicles are running out of fuel. There are trade-offs to each energy production type (like having to clean dust off solar panels). You have to reach a kind of technological threshold for resource abundance before you run out of everything you need to maintain the colony but so much chance is involved that any minor problem can snowball to catastrophe.

Eventually if you get rich enough you can get fusion generators and a space elevator and this turns the game into a cakewalk, as it frees your from the limitations of extracting what you need from the surface of Mars. But just input enough time and realistically, with the complexity of a real Mars, you're likely to fail. Any boostrapping remote/self-automated technology is going to appear like a form of life in itself.

Consider the scenario of facing a Chicxulub level impact (%70 of life wiped out) event today. Could we manage to prevent that? Just move backwards 100 years from now and the answer to that question is an obvious no. The Wright bros are just flying their glider then bam!, Chicxulub II ( the return of the great death).

Managing our own evolution, as conserving our level complexity as an ecologically embedded species, requires us to have all sorts of redundancies in place. Ideally, we need another comfy planet, or new bodies/adaptations to sustain this project in inhospitable environs.

Just turn on HBO or Netflix and live your life. You'll love it. I promise. — Outlander

This forum is just another version of HBO/Reddit/Youtube. You'll love it. I promise.

I don't see why it would be immoral unless one had views similar to antinatilism. — RogueAI

Let's give you the seat of that monotheistic god, architect of the universe, at his control panel. To seed the universe with extra life, trillions upon trillions of new organisms, some will evolve the ability to feel pain. Add to this the great resource competition of organisms eating other organisms, every momentary pleasure/satisfaction comes at another's pain and annihilation. Further still some worlds gain intelligent species, socially complex agents, and the capacity of suffering grows in proportion to their complex needs.

Is a universe that filled/seeded with life, vastly more events of suffering, any more or less preferable than a universe that is by comparison empty? Would it matter what the internal state of god/alien was (motivated by purely selfish pleasure/amusement) in guiding its decision to have more life in the universe?

Are these questions ridiculous?

Are we talking about imposing life on a barren planet or "overriding" the life that would have evolved on a life-bearing planet with life of our choosing? — RogueAI

For the purpose of the hypothetical, let's say no direct overriding. We seed only lifeless planets that could maintain life, with the kind of early life it would naturally develop if it could. Problem here is the degree to which initiating this kind life could be successful in time. Many seeding attempts would realistically fail as a matter of chance, through many levels of the Great Filter idea. So there is no telling how effective pressing the button really would be anyway in terms of stages of evolution. Even if we got global levels of bacteria, is evolving complexity inevitable if it doesn't go extinct for 5 billion years?

Or you can run with any version of guided panspermia. Ought we send civilizational seeds to other worlds that grow version of ourselves as we are at the time? Is this any worse than jump-starting in situ natural selection on a planet by magic. I guess the technological process of the seeding technology could be its own form of life (autonomous robots growing humans).

Think my sci fi hypothetical collapsed... The only reason we don't want to contaminate other planets in our solar system is because we want to find evidence for how common independent events of abiogenesis might be in the universe.

Although I prefer to believe that god has always been and is vastly different to created life forms. — kindred

We can have all/any of the gods though in any way we want them but they remain disembodied abstractions.

I'm partial to the idea of achieving some kind of mystical union with the universe, however ridiculous that sounds. I need a placebo. Maybe it is just the hope for existential peace, achieving greater ease in the world. I think the true function of kinds of religious life (discipline) helps us to get to a better way of being in the world.

Will the civilizational seed contain one's choice of religion?

naturalistic and supernatural explanation would be equally valid — kindred

Supernatural explanations are plural (every culture has its own gods and mythologies). The gods/Gods resemble projected variations of ourselves or other creatures, metaphorical amalgamations pulled from nature, beings with supreme agency yet still limited in power over what happens in the natural world. They don't appear to us except as extensions/combinations of entities entirely natural.

We often can't help our anthropomorphisms and our metaphorcial flights of fancy. They are helpful because they comfort and amuse us.

Let's say you are the alien/god who can seed life but you don't get to guide the process in such a way to produce something specific relative to you, like pugs, purple carrots, cloth wearing apes who can talk to each other and build an internet.

There is a big red button that every time you press it seeds life on some viable planet in the universe, even if the chemical substrate is vastly different. What reasons might you give for why you ought to or ought not to press the button? Let's say the way in which life is seeded on these planets is in the way life would've naturally started there in the first place, so you aren't imposing an overarching goal much, except for the process of natural selection.

Compare this kind of non-guided seeding of life to a scenario of guided seeding, such that the panspermia seed reproduces our particular kind of life elsewhere (humans with a carefully chosen set of symbiotic organisms, like purple carrots, potatoes and dogs). Is the imposition of this kind of specific life in new areas of the universe any more morally questionable than the impositions of any kind of life anywhere?

If there is plenty of space and resources out there, seemingly empty, and our type life cannot escape the inevitable transformation at the hands of an evolutionary process, whether it incorporates goals or no goals, does it matter whether we seed life or not?

Don't answer if you don't care to.

guided evolution also be taken seriously — RogueAI

Should theistic evolution be taken seriously because life could move from planet to planet within a solar system by accident?

Just because life could be seeded doesn't explain abiogensis, or whether it requires or does not require a supernatural explanation.

Hate speech is deviously meant to activate your amygdala, the threat detection system in your brain, in appreciation of the "if it bleeds it leads" theory of attention. Rhetorical fear, virtue and vice signaling, plays a moral role in maintaining social identity/behavior.

Fear, the ability to channel/leverage/exploit fear, is one of the greatest organizing principles/forces in the universe. Everyone is always using rhetorical fear against others and themselves to get things done.

The kissing bug and the lyme carrying tick are parasitic vectors of chronic disease. They want to take your vital god given property and destroy it by their nature. They are waiting for you outside, hidden like tiny little soldiers of war in the bush. Disgusting species do not belong in the USA. They should go back to their countries of origin. They must be avoided and destroyed at all costs.

This is my hate speech against kissing bugs and ticks and pests in general. Luckily they can't register my speech as hateful. I could love them if they didn't threaten to eat and cheat me.

We must wage war on kissing bugs and ticks. And fire ants! They'll conquer the world if we don't fight back...

When you fall asleep tonight, dream of the pests sucking away your vitality. How terrible am I to plant the seeds of these bad dreams, to cultivate an unnecessary fear about your possibly impending decline and death.

An idea is an irreducible mental event that is meaningful and is distinguishable from other ideas. — MoK

That ideas are irreducible mental events sounds somewhat mysterious. Phenomenally, there is no more or less to an idea than what it is to the thinker at the time it occurs...

A car ran over the neighbor's dog.

Does the summary meaning of this sentence comprise an irreducible mental event? It (the idea via sentence) happened, it isn't any more or less than what it means.

Compare:

A 2024 Rapid Red Mustang Mach E ran over our neighbor's 15 year old Chiweenie.

Does the summary meaning of this sentence comprise an irreducible mental event? It (the idea via sentence) happened, it isn't any more or less than what it means. For the sake of telling someone what happened, I could reduce detail. But that telling causes an irreducible mental event to occur in whoever understands the idea(s) of the new sentence.

The appearance of things as they appear to us, are just irreducible mental events. Is this tautology?; ideas are no more or no less than what they are.

How are they properties of the universe? If all beings die. Where are the properties? — Jack2848

It is possibly wrong to say that thoughts are properties about the world they represent, but they provide the means of knowing what is out there. In the absence of all knowers/experiencers, the world continues. But we could be nested in some kind of greater dimension that is inaccessible to the one we are enclosed within (like the Matrix or Mind). The properties outside of this enclosure could be of an entirely different order/nature/being.

Even the physical world is always changing its properties, though often predictably. The macroscopic object holds its mundane relative stasis while the negligible microscopic is quite dynamic. Nothing really is eternal, possibly not even atoms, given enough time.

Without minds, where are the properties of the universe to be found/known?

What are the non-mental properties of this sentence?

Ideas are just intelligible parts/properties of the universe as represented in the mind (as everything is).

What is the nature purpose of having intelligible parts/properties of the universe represented in the mind?

To help you enjoy life in a safe/responsible manner. (Haha! Good luck)

What is the nature of a swiss army knife, a billiards table, or encyclopedia? :monkey:

I'd prefer to not have existed. — flannel jesus

There is always time to change your mind. I am working on it. :wink:

What Difference Would it Make if You Had Not Existed? — Jack Cummins

Not much of a difference in the grand scheme. We were thrown into existence by a kind non-voluntary lottery and if this is true, we could've been anyone. This should give us pause for moral (re)consideration about our behavior to other people (see the golden rule). I've made some terrible decisions in my life that have left an indelible mark on myself and others for selfish reasons. Yet I find hard to hold myself responsible for those decisions because I didn't have the sense and emotional stability to choose the better path at the time. I was a lonely, afraid and stupid kid, pursuing a strong desire to belong and got into self-destructive behavior along with a lot of other stupid directionless kids. And boy did many of us get burned! Think of a moth headed for a flame, or a hungry dog eating poisoned kibble.

But these same kind of dynamics (bad/unconscious choices) are happening everywhere all the time to other people. If we run through the lottery again in a game of eternal recurrence, what are the chances it'll be any better the next time around? Hopefully a large part of the population of humans can say that they prefer to live, that joy outweighs the negative, and that they would say yes to another round of being thrown into the world, even if it means we're going to experience some abject form of hell, like Holocaust, war, genocide, addiction, mental illness, et cetera.

The lottery is going to happen again and yet we can assume it only ever happens once. Buckle up... for the long sleep that must end.

. I have a very fickle mind. — Athena

This is the modern malaise most young people also understand, given the roulette wheels of fleeting pleasures available at our finger tips. If AI can help sustain attention/commitment to the working topic, to dig in rather than just glide over the surface and onto the next thing, it surely is useful. But as folks have said, is it just another modern crutch that makes us weak and dependent and not very good, logical thinkers.

However, we may all be concerned about our economy being tied to AI. — Athena

Recently I saw headlines that ChatGPT data can be handed over to the police, as algorithms may detect those who are about to commit a crime. We're definitely living in a sci-fi novel now, much like the Minority Report, except the precogs (those that see us better than we see ourselves) are machine learning networks controlled by private businesses. The abuse of control over people lives, from power/wealth incentives, is worrisome, especially with the political climate now in the USA.

Also if these big data companies are reliant on advertising for their business model, and LLM search inquiries are bypassing advertisements; what do they stand to gain by doing that? When will LLM content start sneaking in advertisements to its free/base tier service, like all of the video/music streaming services have done, increasingly so.

Beauty is subjective, not objective. — DifferentiatingEgg

Maybe we could also introduce inter-subjectivity to this scheme, insofar that people can share a consensus about what things are beautiful or what things ought to be beautiful. If the world annihilates itself in time, if it is forever in flux, inaccessible in its momentary specificity or wholeness, then the world is never to be properly objectified. Objectivity is a transient and relative concern between a group of subjects, mapping a relevant territory among territories, as a means to many potential (unknown) ends.

So no one here cares about my thread about the great depression, and that is easy to accept. — Athena

There are a lot of threads that seem to die out pretty quickly. It isn't so much that people don't care as they mayn not have the competence, knowledge or will to critique the subject and its responders. LLM/AI could make participation easier as it removes the friction/work of sharing analysis.

The prohibition here does make me feel bad about my own LLM use as if I'm doing something wrong. But I suppose it is less bad than losing myself in mindless entertainment, like video games. A lot of folks here critique popular culture, in an off handed way, as something awful, as if it was competing antagonist for their more ambitious aims (self edification through discourse). The forum no doubt plays an important social function for some people, which for others the consumption of media/books/television tries to fill.

We could look at LLM as a synergistic element, in the sense that two minds are better than one, when one mind cannot receive sufficient feedback from another. Of course it is wrong to consider LLM a mind, but insofar as it can produce the illusion of a mind as output, it can assist a real mind/person in trying to make sense of the world.

:joke: I'm very disappointed that forum users don't use horses instead of cars to get to work. They/we could learn something about hard work from the Amish.

Or all philosophical exchanges should be done by embodied oration, in a public forum.

:joke:

That said, roughly speaking, yes. That's right. — AmadeusD

Mental training can go a long way but who helped you to help yourself in this way? Why aren't you a meth addict now, half dead in gutter, or a neurotic incel living in your mother's basement? Maybe it is just that you made all the good choices in your life so your competence proves your worth.

Your idea that person who feels offended should look deeply into his/her reaction is very important and valuable insight. It reminds me of the narrative of the Buddha as he stands against Mara (the forces of his own craving and aversion, as existential temptations and fears). He immune to the offense of Mara, which springs from his being as delusion/ignorance. But he is ready to defend himself against a real threat, for sure, if he wants to continue to teach, pet dogs and eat mangoes.

But I think it is best that we do...(help people)

Well, you said it. I think it is best that we do help people, but we don't always know how to help people help themselves. Even if we know what we ought to do where does the will come from to do it, if not fear. Fear is the slave driver of human kind, it has great utility as motivation, but if it's excessive and unreasonable one can easily be destroyed by it, or rendered stupid.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” — Frank Herbert, Dune

At some stage, we need to stop throwing money and accommodations at those people, I think. — AmadeusD

Natural selection is God's tough love, I guess. If a bird is too stupid, lazy, afraid or overworked to put a roof over its nest and secure it with anchor straps does it deserve to lose its young when the wind blows?

Modern conditions are objectively better than essentially any previous period in history other than perhaps the late 90s. — AmadeusD

In materialistic terms this is likely true but in psychological terms, possibly not. We're facing a loneliness/despair epidemic in the US. A lot of people are mentally not doing so great. It's all well and great to say people ought to control their emotions, and anyone can start, but who is going to help them do that? Though maybe that's not your concern or your point. Does a moral obligation spring from your argument/philosophy to help others to help themselves, if there is any normative prescription that passes from it.

People ought to do X. Who will do Y, M, L and Z, in order for people to facilitate/achieve X.

Or do we just say people ought to do X.

To someone who cannot control their emotions, of course it would. If you feel you're being asked to do something impossible, it will sound both callous and irrational. But I have empirical evidence that this is not so... People do this all the time. — AmadeusD

I can't get the guy I work with to wear closed toed shoes or come in at a specific time, even though he lives across the street. He actually almost died from getting a foot infection while working outside, which he could've avoided if he had just worn his shoes when doing physical labor. Think he was slapped with a $10,000 bill for intravenous antibiotics. He doesn't know how to or doesn't want to go through the trouble to pay his taxes. I value him as a friend though so I can't whip him into shape without making myself out to be an asshole. He is a charming human being despite all his faults.

Even capable/competent people are breaking under modern conditions. The stress of our lifestyles actually undermines the ability for people to control their emotions by virtue/vice of the "monkey see monkey do" and "tit for tat" phenomena. Chronic stress in childhood undermines the ability of emotional control in adult life.

beautification by minimization or (simplification) — Outlander

I'm not so sure about foot binding in relation to this idea of simplicity/minimization but it certainly is very relevant/plausible. I think the kind of fitness that foot binding signals is as much the willingness to conform in service of organizational harmony, to participate in the culture, to tow the line. It takes resources/work to bind feet, in addition to everything else one needs to do in life.

I thought about trying to learn throw pottery. But slip caste cups and bowls, the kind you buy a the store, are so perfect and lightweight, the printed designs visually outstanding (Japanese bowls in particular). Potters' mugs seem to suffer from a kind of rustic bulkiness, both in clay content and glaze thickness, which makes them less comfortable to use and heavier.

So I prefer the simplicity/utility/refinement/lightness/consistency/design of industry over the average functional hand made pottery you might encounter. I enjoy what I see in excellent pottery but I don't want to keep that pottery. So why fire pots if I don't know what to do with them.

Another word to add to simplicity/minimization is organization/utility. Maybe they suggest the same thing. A simple thing is an organized thing, such that it remains familiar, stable, and thereby comfortably/predictably functional. A beautiful house is often a well organized one. A beautiful friend often resembles him/herself.

Beauty is not the same thing as physical attractiveness. — Outlander

Most people have a sense of this, if you were to ask them. But our sense for what is beautiful is still an artifact of natural selection, if not sexual selection, which I guess isn't saying much. Beauty is both about physical attractiveness and not about physical attractiveness.

It's also about comfort, enjoyment/pleasure and whatever else a philosopher might say about it. :flower: :chin:

Beauty is... Conformity. — Outlander

If you weren't put off with someone who's face was deformed — Outlander

A deformity could become a culturally pressured/desirable modification, like with Chinese foot binding. It is a mutilation that goes beyond the superficial cosmetic, causing great pain and disability with the potential for other health problems. I wonder if in bed, uncovered, Chinese men of the time ever found these deformed feet to be a powerfully erotic sexual fetish. Or do the pretty shoes stay on?

It has been estimated that by the 19th century 40–50% of all Chinese women may have had bound feet, rising to almost 100% among upper-class Han Chinese women. — Wikipedia: Foot binding

One could imagine the tragedy of this handicap forcing itself downward through lower social classes, where a woman's ability to do domestic work is limited by pain. Say your peasant parents decide to bind your feet but then you are also still pressured to carry out daily duties suited to normal functioning feet. At least you can console yourself with the belief that your feet are either beautiful or sexy...

First, while some can try to appear "deeper" by declaring that in their opinion human "beauty" goes well beyond what an eye can see — LuckyR

Well, any combination of desirable traits can synergize with the image to make lust more potent.

One can suddenly desire a person by image alone and in the next minute, in the course of discovering new properties/traits, be disgusted or craving can be magnified by learning what they enjoy and their peculiar mannerisms.

What is strange about beauty is how such small features can magnify it. Like how a single earring, say the Christian cross, might be symbolic of an entire domain of meaning, and what kind of work that does in context of other signs of what a person might be like.

Say there are two gorgeous young men, of equal physical beauty, one wearing a Christian cross earring and one wearing a Swastika earring. Don't the meanings of those symbols in some cases go to work on whether or not we find them beautiful at a glance? But even the man wearing the Christian cross is subject to an investigation regarding what kind of Christian he is... Do fundamentalist Christian men, quick to prejudice and full of dogma, wear earrings? Our prejudicial response of disgust is a condition that modifies the object of beauty.

When a women gets buccal fat removal we may find it off putting. Plastic surgery, if we can tell it has been done, may invoke disgust if we think the person is visually less appealing than they were before. It does the opposite of what it intends, insofar as it might tell something of the internal state of the person, their insecurity/fear/concerns.

Body builders, of the the kind that followed Arnold Schwarzenegger lead, in maximizing mass of muscle are nowhere near as beautiful as Michael Angelo's David. But many might share the opposite opinion.

All kinds of behaviors/signs, insofar as they help us make an inference about character, go to work on whether or not we find a person attractive.