Really, fear? Fear of what? — TheMadFool

Like I said:

fear of conflict — baker

The prospective conflict isn't just with the police, but primarily with owners who are willing to protect their property and their lives.

I don't think you're giving good people due credit. — TheMadFool

But who are the good people? You want to argue that, say, Blondie Orange is not a good person?

Do you "buy" the rule of non-contradiction in logic, that 2+2=4, that down is down and up is up? Now prove any of them. And of course you cannot. So why are they true? I leave that to you. But EM is the same. — tim wood

It's not up to me to decide how much 2 and 2 is.
If there is objective morality, it cannot be up to me to decide what it is.

It you aspire to the ethics and morals of a squirrel or a lizard, you can do that, or try. But it's not human. So what is being human? That to you as well. And you get to choose, but your choice is yours and no one else's. Until you make it, you're not a man; and when you make it, then you're either a good or a bad man. The verdict of history is that good is substantive and it is better to be the good man.

*tempted to do a feminist pun*

By your logic above, can a good man do bad things?

How exactly do you think the world runs its cities? How is the peace maintained in towns, cities, megacities? The police force is, by my reckoning, just too small, in some cases poorly trained, ill-equipped, evn corrupt - surely some other factor is in play here? What, in your view, is that? — TheMadFool

Inertia, fear of conflict, minding one's own business, physical exhaustion due to overwork and stress.

I'm not convinced that people set out to try to "maintain peace". For that, they would actually have to know what brings about peace. Rather, I think peace is one of those states that are essentially byproducts of other things.

How exactly, may I ask? — TheMadFool

"Greed is good."

The asymmetry in the exchange between the buyer and seller has to be considered good and moral, trivially so, for both sides to engage in it deliberately and in good faith, and for people in general to promote said asymmetry.

The assumption here is that people don't deliberately do that which they believe to be evil.

But if you want to get more Machiavellian about it, by all means, let's wade into that quicksand! We might even find firm ground in the middle of it.

Seems like cherry-picking to me - you've got few instances in which being moral would likely be a fatal error but you're ignoring what must be instances where the only sensible choice is to be moral. — TheMadFool

If you have a group of people who behave morally (what is, in some traditional sense considered "moral"), and then comes one who doesn't behave morally, chances are he'll get away with it, because the "good guys", being the "good guys" that they are, won't be able to do anything against him. That is, unless they give up on their goodness.

Human goodness is weak and easy to exploit.

Too, if you haven't noticed (I have), morality makes so much sense that some, if not all, people have come to believe in "good for the sake of good". It is/has become a reason unto itself - it needs no argument to hold it in place, it's self-justifiying.

I'd like to believe that, very much so.

But then Blondie Orange wins the elections, and one has to wonder what it is that really counts in life.

I can't quite put a finger on it but there must exist an asymmetry in the exchange between, say, buyer and seller, for such a thing as profit to be real. — TheMadFool

Yes, and this asymmetry has to somehow be considered good and moral, good.

People can do whatever they like. There are some who are incredible generous, but what's this have to do with my assertion that the main thing going on in this world (especially collectively) is scamming to steal other folks labor value? — synthesis

So you have no trouble with asserting such, but you have trouble with considering that man can do damage to the planet?

The arrogance of man, thinking that he can be a threat to the planet. — synthesis

The arrogance of man, thinking that he can't be a threat to the planet.

So I went to these texts and after I waded through the sheer bulk, I conclude that all is for one thing and only one thing, all of the nuanced emotional, tendentious descriptions of unwholesome and wholesome experiences, serve to encourage the purification of Citta. The rest, impressive in its bulk, is contingent, could have been accounted for, listed, enumerated, categorized, differently, or really, not at all. The irony strikes me: this that I read through is a reduced form of the Abhidhamma, the Abhidhammatha Sangaha, so, such massive bulk belies the simplicity of the Buddhist essence. I have to wonder what the need is for all this analysis if the point is NOT complexity but simplicity. — Constance

Purifying the citta is not an easy task; or at least some think it's not an easy task.
The basic principles are easy enough, but putting them into action, every hour of every day, is quite another matter.

Sure, some of this is useful, but passages like the one that says animals are reborn due to evil kamma. or the teaching that one should associate putrid thoughts with desires to be rid of the desire, these are the products of ancient thinking, and can produce terrible neuroses, I imagine.

If one superimposes one's own stances on Buddhism, that can surely lead to neuroses ...

I have also read that much of this not to be part of the original teaching. I suspect that extraordinary person 2500 years or so ago was certainly NOT the overwrought anal retentive type that would commit this to the "canon".

You wanted a meta-level text, and I suggested a standard one.

The Abhidhamma has replies to the questions you were asking. But its sheer size can be overwhelming, to say the least.

I tried to be objective, but in the final estimation, all that is essential to Buddhism is what happened when that man experienced the purity of Citta and the liberation from the "becoming" of psycho-physical existence.

The point of Buddhist practice is to bring about this "purity of citta". Having that purity and getting to it are two quite different things.
There would be little use in offering up a brief account of the Buddha's enlightenment, if this wouldn't be accompanied by an outline of a course of practice acting in accordance with which other people could attain enlightenment as well. Without such an outline, the Buddha would be yet another fancy religious/spiritual figure who supposedly attained some high religious/spiritual goal, but the narrative would leave us forever wondering how he got there, or if, maybe, he ws just born this way.

I think this nibbana was a deeply profound event, and, not to put too fine a point on it, the point of it all the fuss of being human.

The idea that the purpose of human life is to become free from suffering / to become enlightened is not a given in Early Buddhism, nor in some other schools of Buddhism.
These schools don't operate with notions like "everyone should become enlightened", "everyone can become enlightened".

I am sort with George Carlin on this one whereas I don't really believe that man can cause much harm to the planet. — synthesis

Then maybe you should go and live in a landfill.

You don't think that a free lunch can only be found in mouse traps?

If your labor is creating value for somebody else, you paid for it. Value cannot be created out of thin air. — synthesis

But he is indebting other people for future favors back to him.
He may have fixed someone's computer for no monetary charge this time, but he's also set up the option for the other person doing him a favor, as the opportunity presents itself.

So much in life depends on favors which are difficult to put a price tag on, yet they can be enormously valuable.

Well, the time of the elves is over.

https://i.imgur.com/SLAlB.jpg

If God exists, everyone should go to heaven and there should be no atonement involved. — Gregory

As in some Hindu (mono)theisms. Of course, in those systems, too, a person has to jump through some hoops, including risking a series of rebirths/reincarnations, but there is no threat of eternal damnation for making the wrong religious choice.

So - God is like The Manager, and if everyone doesn’t have a good outcome, then he’s responsible. Is that it? — Wayfarer

This would apply for a demigod, ie. one who doesn't create the universe and of whom living beings are not part of.

But given that 1. it's God who created everyone, 2. nothing happens without God's will, 3. God knows the future, one has to wonder why some will burn in hell for all eternity with no chance of salvation, and moreover, how is that some could so completely stray from God's will to begin with so as to earn themselves eternal punishment.

The simplest explanation is that Christianity is a mix of monotheism and demigod worship, mixed together in such a way that it supports group supremacism of one particular group.

Christianity is monotheism in some aspects of creation and judgment. And it's demigod worship when it comes to allowing for the possibility that humans can, on their own, act against God's will, and that this can have eternal, irredeemable, irrepairable consequences.

If we start from the premises that God creates everything and that everything belongs to God, and that God is always happy/content, then isn't it strange to suppose that God would set aside a part of his universe where or about which he will be unhappy/suffering? That's one masochistic god, to say the least. Or, oddly familiarily man-like.

Do you know how to play chess? Some people do not. Do you conclude from that, that you are allowed to - or that it is good to - move your rook diagonally? And if you do, what happens to the game of chess? And what happens to people who make illegal moves on a chessboard? — tim wood

The assumption that there is such a thing as objective morality (which would have the same type of function as the rules in chess) tends to lurk in the back of discussions about morality.

Because of confusion and ignorance on what "success" means and is.

You're going to argue that, say, becoming the president of the most powerful country in the world is not success?

My heavens! You're expecting the world itself to be an EM place?

No, I'm expecting to deduce what EM is, based on known facts about the world.

There is a system of words: good, better, best, bad, worse, worst. What do you imagine they mean or refer to? At the moment, it appears you're arguing that whether a mugging is good or bad depends on whether you're the mugger or the muggee. And that's not how the world works.

The world generally sides with whoever is better off, and this can be either the mugger or the muggee.

If a rich and powerful person beats up a poor person, the rich and powerful person is deemed as having done nothing wrong.
If it's the poor person who beats up the rich one, it's the poor person who is the criminal.

Don't forget that the police was invented to protect the upper class from the lower class.

I get ya. Rather I was thinking of his descriptive imagery of the landscapes. — schopenhauer1

Sure, but there are dragons lurking there, literally! And orcs!

The beauty of the Shire, for example, is not safe, not a given. How can you enjoy it when you know there is evil not far from it?

Like that financial guru said -- "Never tell people what you know, keep them poor".

No, it hasn't. Are you thinking maybe you need to be dishonest, unfair, inconsiderate, law-breaking? — tim wood

How can something that leads to success in the world be morally wrong?

Next. They don't obey the rules. Immediately two possibilities: they really are not obeying the rules, or they actually are and you just don't yourself understand the rules. First step, do you actually know the rules? Now by cases. 1) They are actually not obeying the rules. If so, they have conferred on you a good bit of power. You have access to your own voice and being in the right, your community, your church, the law, the police, your local government. And sometimes that's what you have to do, because there are bad and stupid people out there and proximity to them can be bad for one's health. That is, EM is shoulds and oughts but themselves without force until and unless enforced - and sometimes you the engine that gets them enforced.

That's assuming that rules apply equally to all people, regardless of their status and power.
That's not how the world works.

I would be horrified to have it confirmed that this is the only planet with life, that no where out there is someone doing it better. Just depressing as hell. — Book273

Thank heavens it's not possible to prove an absolute negative, heh.

There's a reason why Tolkien's books are so charming. They speak to that time before fast-paced, industrialized technology. — schopenhauer1

Not at all. Think of all the sword fights, the bows and arrows! The horses, the running, the falling, the chases, the charges, the battles! The urgency! That's not charming at all.

The characters in Tolkien's books have a meaningful sense of urgency; they actually have missions, things to do, places to be. Dragons to slay, rings to destroy.

Unlike nowadays IRL, when there is no grand narrative, and while there is urgency, it also has no definitive direction.

Truthing is circular like that. — baker

Unlike parsing, heh.

How can I find something when I don't know what that something is? — TheMadFool

The process of "discovering" truth is simultaneously deductive and inductive.
Assuming something to be true makes us able to see the supporting evidence.

Truthing is circular like that.

The fear of discovering that there’s no firm conceptual ground under their certitudes. — Olivier5

I suppose the more neurotic types have such a fear. But most probably just feel offended, righteously indignant, with no further thought given as to how come.

All this being said, there might be something in the subjects of philosophy that irrates people. — Olivier5

The words "philosophy" and "to philosophize" also have distinctly negative connotations.

When the opportunity presents itself, I poke around a little when people become irate in reference to philosophy in some way.
So far, I've discovered that they experience philosophy as a breach of their personal boundaries, as disrespect to their persons.

This probably has to do with people's tendency to strongly identify with their thoughts, their beliefs, to see them as parts of their person. So that when someone in any way steps on the metaphorical toes of those beliefs (such as by discussing them, less or more philosophically), people feel like someone actually physically stepped on their toes, or worse.

You made statements about the ancient Stoics. I responded to those statements. I think my interpretation of their position is accurate. — Ciceronianus the White

My point is that you're addressing a different problem than I.

Can you imagine a person feeling demoralized, where this demoralization doesn't have to do with "the world not living up to the person's expectations" about the world?

That said people attribute all sorts of shite to Socrates or Plato or Nietzsche or Einstein or MLK too. — StreetlightX

And to ordinary people.

On that note, I was once talking to a woman online, she must have been about 50 at the time, who genuinely did not understand what a quote is. To her, interpreting and quoting was one and the same thing. (I discovered that after talking to her a bit.)

I don't understand how someone can confuse or conflate the two, but the experience with that woman convinced me that it's possible.

So strange.

So neither you nor anyone can dismiss them out-of-hand without at the same time dismissing your own humanity. — tim wood

Do you think Donnie writes into his gratitude journal every day? Exactly.

But for you they seem to be a burden. I submit that what burdens you is not any issue of EM, but in part perhaps lawless neighbors and what to do about them - no trivial problem at all.

Why ignore the obvious?

Why should the way things actually are IRL play no part in a theory of EM?

Given, for example, that bullies usually win, shouldn't that be taken to mean that bullying is morally good?

Has it never occured to you that being honest, fair, considerate, law-abiding actually makes you a loser and an untermensch?

This is still too puzzling!

You've yet to explain what they are actually doing. What are they doing? — Outlander

Cutting into a slope and risking a landslide.
Burning trash close to the property line, so that the trees and grapevines on our side are damaged from the fire.
Damaging our fence when digging on their side.
Planting very tall trees (pines that will grow some 20 meters) in a direction that will put a considerable part of our property into complete shade.
And so on.

Are you an introvert who's disinclined to be "neighborly" with your other neighbors?

Not at all. It's these new neighbors who are on good terms only with one other neighbors (the ones who sold them the land), and their relatives who also live in the neighborhood.
It's all becoming more like life in a city, with distance and anonymity, whereas we "old settlers" are used to more cordial and considerate neighborly relations.

Like was said before there's strength in numbers. If they decrease your property value, they decrease not only their own but others around them. Which removes the "morality for the sake of morality" dynamic.

I don't understand that. What do you mean?

It’s the natural human instinct to explore, but I also think it is sometimes the sublimated longing for Heaven. — Wayfarer

Or a kind of job security: If you set out to explore something as vast as space, you'll always have something to do, your life will always be directed toward a goal, you'll always have something to be passionate about and to look forward to.
Earthly tasks are never so promising.

Humanses are a pugilistic species. The internetz merely tunes out the noise that generally prevents us from seeing people in their typical pugilistic mode IRL.

Make it about your vulnerabilities not about how irresponsible they are. — Joshs

Sure, I've been thinking about that. But what if they say, "Your life, your problem"?
Appealing to people's compassion generally doesn't go well.

Still, at face value, if they feel no desire, need, or responsibility to correct damage done either willful or unintentional, they likely don't expect any recompense or recourse when it's done to them, ie. those who are hard on others are often hardest on themselves. — Outlander

No, this are one-way relationship kind of people. They should be able to do harm unto (certain) others, but those others should be kind to them no matter what.

Interesting dynamic you say they "have connections with the local authorities". What support or evidence do you have of this?

Can't share the details here, but there is such evidence.

If those connections are worth jeopardizing the social fabric over (ie. documentable proof of conspiracy) it is unlikely you live in a poor or average neighborhood. A fact you should not take for granted.

It's a neighborhood that is rapidly becoming gentrified. And it looks like we "old settlers" are going to be pushed out.

I dare you to prove this wrong.
— baker

Say I did. Then you'd never know who the people you don't want to have around/in your life are. — Outlander

I don't understand what you mean by that.
How would showing that it's worth bothering about other people have as a consequence not knowing who the people you don't want to have around/in your life are?

I am literally living in fear for my life every day, and this guy is getting away with it.

You see, philosophy is fine, and abstractly discussing existential problems is fine -- unless one actually lives in the middle of one and actually needs a solution, on the spot.

Many philosophers decry moral realism. Yet when one looks at the world, when one doesn't ignore the obvious, moral realism is the name of the game.

The ancient Stoics didn't think that that we stand in judgment of the universe, though. They didn't believe that the universe must conform with our expectations or be condemned if it doesn't conform. According to them, we share in the Divine Reason which infuses the universe and carry a part of it within us, but shouldn't complain because the world is what it is. — Ciceronianus the White

This completely misses the point, or even deliberately detracts from it.

It is possible to feel demoralized about the world while this has nothing to do with one's expectations not being met. It's the demoralization that comes with the belief "There is no room for me in this world".

Many people were told that there is no room for them in this world, and were deprived of their property, their health, and their lives.

It's that when one doesn't meet the expectations of the world, the world condemns one. This is the reality of living in this world. How does one accept it, make peace with it?

Precisely: Why bother about other people, their lives and their property, when you can get away with endangering and damaging it.

some petty neighbor squabble — SophistiCat

I invite you to walk a mile in my shoes. Or, in this case, live in my situation, with such a neighbor who doesn't care if because of his actions, your house collapses and buries you and your family.