Is TPF a kind of pornography? — tim wood

Debate porn.

I can't for the life of me find the article that talked about effects of sexual arousal on decision making in men and women. Specifically, men spent more money if they were dealing with an attractive female sales person whereas women spent less money if they were dealing with an attractive male.

Found this one though. Research is linked in the article
https://awario.com/blog/does-sex-sell-advertising/
Finding that men have a higher tendency for unusual sexual behavior and morally questionable when they are sexually aroused compared to how much they expected to be when unaroused. In other words, we are more irrational than we think we will be when aroused.

Anyway, I bring this up to show that sex porn is a powerful tool in affecting male attitudes and behavior. As long as it is, it will be used as such by those that benefit from them. IE by women, marketing, etc.

Yeah I agree. That's why I want to die in a firework where flying up would be scary, but I get a good view before instantaneously being blown apart into a good view.

I feel like slowly dying from cancer would be somewhat painful, although I have no clue. Chemotherapy at the very least looks pretty uncomfortable.

I wish I bought gamestonks

The love of money is the root of all evil -- St. Paul — Caldwell

How do you see this changing people's actions or attitudes towards life? Do they try to fight capitalism or try to live in a more minimalistic way in the countryside?

But think about it: If one would always wonder whether what one currently has truly is "as good as it gets", then this ought to make one reflect and strive at all times. — baker

I like that. As if complaining to the heavens that death wasn't all that it was cut out to be. But even in life asking yourself that would push you further by making you think of the best you can achieve.

"That's it??" — baker

Sorry?

What if all the ideas that I have were already known by those who came before me and what if they expressed it better? — TheMadFool

If all your ideas were better understood by others than you, then you weren't the world's greatest philosopher! But going off that thought, what you would try to leave would be disciples that you teach in life? You don't want to leave any specific ideas but focus on certain people to carry on everything just in general?

Current ideas can be lost to the flow of time too, although if you are confident that they wouldn't disappear then I suppose there's nothing for you to be worth doing.

Your question makes me feel so sad because you are speaking of how someone who is considered as being important will have still be seen as being so after death. — Jack Cummins

I don't see it that way. Death may be slowed but it is inevitable, so it is relevant to all. Cower in fear or rush into it daily, it will come eventually. But death in itself is a powerful thing. The people who grieve for you will have you engraved in their heart and minds as they move past you. In other words, it is assurance that you can change life after you. I see it as a source of hope in that death is not an end to all.

For example, some people who wrote the bible are remembered by name but what about the countless people who played the part in redistributing it over millenniums? While they might not have left their name in history, they played a role in maintaining the existence of something that still plays a major part in countless people's lives today. We don't know them but their work is still here.

But by E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-NG I didn't mean to leave everything to someone or some group. I meant it in the sense that when I die, I must/have to/for certain leave E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G — TheMadFool

Well you might leave everything worldly behind, but if you don't voice your ideas it will die with you.

The vodka in moderation is a nice excuse to let loose on the other half yourself. Jokes aside I appreciate the thorough explanation of the box items. Thank you.

So if you were to leave a story, you would try to make it more subtle because otherwise it would result in misinterpretation of the message or rejection entirely? Do you think some divides in our society is caused by messages that are too blunt or over encompassing?

I would leave behind these books of human thinking with the purpose of passing the meaning of life:

Tratado de la prudencia by Baltasar Gracián

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke.

Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.

Tao Te King by Lao-Tzu. — javi2541997

With these books that you leave behind, how do you think the people who look at them will change their behavior? As in, how do you see people with the "meaning of life" living differently?

E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! — TheMadFool

That's a greedy one. How would that look? would it be like an autobiography?

Or do you mean like a quote or several or an existing story or tale or a brand new one? Can it be something I made up on the spot? — Outlander

It can be anything as long as you can make it, but keep in mind that people will forget the more complex, lengthy and boring it is. As in, your audience in generations passed will be limited to people who are interested in that genre. Your loved ones and your followers will try their best to understand what you leave and pass it on, but their kids don't care for you or what you say inherently, although they might keep it at the back of their minds even if they aren't interested.

If so it would be about a man of average or less than average stature and upbringing who worked hard, and despite several timelessly relatable setbacks, came out stronger than if he would not have faced them, eventually becoming a success in business and relationships. Oh and that we're all related to him or something. But distant enough so as to not change one's way of thinking too greatly. It should also have ninjas. — Outlander

Ninjas are cool. So a story that tries to convey the importance of not giving up, but going more for a subtle message than not, if I understand. Why not just say that giving up is bad and to take that to heart?

That or the blueprints for the perfect Utopian society. It would be in a box labeled as such. The person who opens it in a hurry will peer in wide-eyed then just look confused and say "All that's in here is a couple of gardening tools, a few paintbrushes, a bottle of half-drunk vodka, a pair of dice, a harmonica, and blank sheets of paper". — Outlander

I really like that one, especially the half-drunk vodka. Do those items in particular have much meaning? Or are they a random set of tools? I feel like I heard oi this before but I can't put my finger on it.

So you'll leave songs for everyone to remember. I just listened to "Tangled Up in Blue." It was a nice song about two who were in love but couldn't be together because of class differences, reuniting later in life. How do you see these songs changing how people act in the future? I'm not trying to be cynical, just trying to understand the reasoning for your choice.

I think a major reason that pornification is as heretic a topic as it is is because western society is a majority monogamous culture. I see the concept of "true love" being popular to be proof that our society idealizes and strives for a monogamous relationship that is continuous, as in: staying with one partner for life. Since undying loyalty to your partner is essential for this, porn is bad because it's hard to draw the line of where you are loyal to your partner and when that loyalty ends. Are you cheating on your partner by watching from a screen? What about VR? Will watching porn become an obstacle to developing real relationships?

These are the reasons porn could be bad in a religious sense.

Changing perspectives, a key factor to note is that visual porn, which I assume to be the primary topic here, is primarily consumed by men, as compared to romantic porn by women. You can imagine the former to be in the form of videos and pictures and the latter to be in story telling (50 Shades). As long as we are targeting porn for men specifically, it's reasonable to assume that the root problem of this conversation is male behavior.

I need a fact check on this but one idea is that porn was a driving factor in the development of the internet today. The reason the internet and its surrounding technologies was developed to this point today is because of men's desire for porn. The point being, porn is a viable substitute for men's biological desires for women, which should be men's ultimate biological goal. This desire, is what pushes men to work and develop so that society can progress.

So readily available porn that eliminates the need for men to work hard and develop things for women is problematic, though how much is debatable. It seems that a real relationship is preferred over purely porn, but is largely subjective and depends on you and your partner.

Some statistics show that countries that allow porn seems to have much lower rape crimes than countries that don't. This makes sense, as men can blow off steam more easily, there is less need to commit crimes for it. This seems like objective data that shows porn is good (Again fact check is good).

At this point I'm just throwing out ideas, but I want to finish with a heavy personal concern I have for porn. Namely, that people who are indulging in porn frequently seems to have a need to pursue more and more extreme and specific porn, seemingly getting radicalized in the process. Many of these are harmless but some are unsettling. Porn can be facilitating people to enjoy murder and torture sexually. Then the question becomes: can there be a point where porn is not enough, and they'll act on it in real life? I'll link a picture of a meme with a bunch of terrible porn tags and you can choose to look up these tags at your own risk.



A counterargument is that these people would've derived pleasure from it without porn but I'm not so sure. I hate thinking about it but I'm curious what people have to say about it.

Yes you can lower gun deaths if you can get rid of guns, but that in itself is very hard to make happen here, in the US. But then the real problem is that we have something in our culture, our way of living that causes people to take guns and kill as many people as they can with it That desire doesn't go away if guns are gone and just gets replaced with, "take a knife and kill as many people as they can."

Japan is an interesting exception in most regards, but I suspect that its low homicide rates translates directly to it's high suicide rates. In other words, people in Japan may be killing themselves before they can kill others, which in some respect is much more morbid than mass shootings considering their innocence.

End of the day, there’s just too many guns — Wayfarer

If a mass shooting were to happen, how would it stop without another person without a gun? The US is in a peculiar place that differs from places like Japan because they have Mexico and Canada as a place where, even if all guns were banned, would still flow in. Once banned the only people who would have guns would be people who don't follow the law, the ban. Not to mention it's fairly easy to make if it's a bootleg one.

Even if we can magically make all guns on the land disappear and have them never made again, it wouldn't solve the root of the cause: the desire to cause a mass shooting.

My point being, I don't understand the notion that the solution to the problem is as simple as, "just ban it"

I see probability as a count of all possible scenarios in respect to it's results. For example, suppose a coin is tossed. That coin, thrown randomly, has an infinite number of ways it can fall considering it's speed, position, angle at which it lands, etc. However probability can simplify that to 50/50 because both sides have the same infinite number of scenarios that can lead to it. They cancel out, simply put and allow a simplified understanding of what is technically something of infinite possibilities.

Because of its nature, there needs to be either a very concrete understanding of how things can lead to the results or a large amount of trials to be able to apply the concept of probability to something. Going further with the coin example, a concrete understanding would be like what was mentioned previously, where the probability of 50/50 was reached deductively. The other way is to inductively find it by for example taking 100000 trials and finding something close to the 50/50 ratio.

But in the end it is the same. It is a simplified way for us to count the infinite possibilities for something.

If we're talking purely about school shooters, as someone who is finishing college, I can see a few points worth empathizing. My experiences are from California schools,

Firstly, school is an absolutely terrible experience. Unrelated to the pandemic, student suicide rates weren't anything to laugh about, although it seems worse now. It's a world where you're being convinced 5 days a week since you're 3-5 years old that your worth is determined by the letter score on every assignment. Schools have also been laxing their standards to give an A for decades, so currently many people see Bs or less to be for failures. In other words, you can't fuck up. You have to be perfect or you're worthless.

Perhaps as an extension of that, there's a dubious idea shoved into your throat that going to a highly ranked school and getting a job is the only worthwhile life direction you can take. As a result you have competitive students with extremely fragile senses of self-worth that hangs by their gpas, and struggling students that're reminded of their worthless for years on end.

Not to mention somewhere along the way as classes get more specialized, there's a realization that a great deal of material that you're being forced to learn for 6 hours of the day is practically useless.

I was more of the competitive kind of student and the only thing that I felt that kept me sane were the friends I could complain to between classes. Take that away and all that would remain would be the desire to end it all. Then change perspectives to someone who never had the friends to tie them back down to reality and are reminded of their worthlessness on a constant basis.

I would want a big power trip before logging out.

I forget the origin of the quote and I'll probably butcher it, but have you heard,

if 100 people watch a movie, 100 different movies were watched?

Even if we look at the same screen side by side, we are still looking from differing perspectives. These differing perspectives essentially make for some to learn very slowly and some to learn very fast. If you are noticing the wrong things, you will not learn or learn the wrong things, slowing your progression to being competent.

If you have the perspective to be able to learn more efficiently, you're rewarded with more success. Thus people tend to go into careers that "reward" their perspectives, but your interests may not always swing that way.

This digresses a bit, but I find an interesting introspective exercise to be to try to find out how you think and how you think the best at. For example, do you think in words or pictures the best? If you're in this forum, you are probably very proficient at thinking in words. Even if you think in words though, do you hear it as a voice in your head? Who's voice? Maybe it's words as a text? What font? If you try to think in pictures, how much resolution do you have? How much color does it have? Is it cartoony, realistic or something else? Perhaps you think the best in some other way entirely, but the point is that these differing ways of thinking could be more or less suited for learning different things.

Given an empty world, it stands to reason that for the world to be empty, a lack of existence needs to exist. A lack of existence in this case seems synonymous with empty space. So that begs the question: is space something or nothing?

If it is, then it seems like a world with nothing is impossible without differentiating empty from nothing, unless a world can exist without the dimension of space.

I highly appreciate the explanations. Thank you.

So if I understand correctly, then a modal realist way of thinking is like imagining the universe to be infinite where there is many versions of the world by sheer chance. And depending on the area of the universe, laws can change so that gravity falls upwards, for example. So in that universe, there are many worlds you might call a possible, real version of the world, but none of them would be "nothing" and be a world at the same time.

Forgive me for being ignorant but I am just a crayon eating web surfer and am not that book smart.

Does the modal realist perspective consider worlds that have laws that do not follow our own, to be within the set of "possible worlds?" For example, would a world where gravity makes things fall upwards a possible world?

Can you think of an example where people are less preoccupied about the contents of a minimum standard provision than more comprehensive one? Even just determining what gets to be called 'virtue based' and what is 'necessary' is going to cause an almighty shit fight, I would think. — Tom Storm

The problem doesn't lie in how much we would be preoccupied about what constitutes a minimum provision, because it will change as time flows, creating a need for reanalysis, and we would always be preoccupied about anything, anyway. The point is that the government is an arrowhead best aimed with it's purpose being a minimum to protect and maintain the country. Every policy is evil, so there is an ethical need to minimize the amount to the necessities.

The less there is to go around, the more desperate people may become. — Tom Storm

People will have more money from not being taxed, and thus will have more money to spend on charitable causes if they wish. Letting people who want to redistribute money to the poor do so is a better representation of the people's will than taking money from all of them and letting the government hand them out.

Why would something that doesn't do anything of purpose need to exist in the first place? — Outlander

Sorry, the wording was misleading. I should've said the minimum amount to maintain the country/society. So it would be primarily, if not entirely, law enforcement and national security.

The point of a government is to enact the will of the people using its might, resources, and governmental status. — Outlander

I need to think about that. The true purpose of government. My kneejerk reaction though is that the scope of the government should be kept within what I mentioned previously: some sort of minimum to protect and maintain the country, rather than reach for other policies that would be better done by individuals.

Having the democratic republic fight over what is the "minimum amount" is more preferable to trying to force in virtue based policies.

If a cause is deemed wrong or offensive the logic behind it should be self-evident when brought up to the public through an action or awareness campaign or committee. However, just because you believe something is evil doesn't mean it's not a lesser evil. That is to say every point has a counterpoint. A popular and powerful one being "it would cost (you) money" such as mandating all food product be organic and cruelty-free or something. — Outlander

I am not talking about whether one thing is more evil than another. Rather I'm saying the taxes we pay to the government should be paying the minimum amount to maintain its own existence, and anything beyond that should be done by individuals. Virtue through the government doesn't work because we cannot agree on the virtue.

This a mighty poor example for a libertarian to use for an attack on taxation. You are worried about the pennies spent on funding abortion, while ignoring the buckets of money spent on many useless military operations. The military depends on a lot of taxation of most of the population who do not receive either safety or enforcement of the law from the funded military activity. [It's mostly local and state police that protect safety and enforce law.] — Bitter Crank

I don't think we are disagreeing on much. I should've clarified that when I used the term military, I meant any organization wielding some sort of brute force, so the law enforcement active inside its own country would count as the military. Not specifically the army, marines, and so on. They operate in many ways that aren't solely to maintain safety. The operations going farther than that is wasteful and the same criticisms from my argument applies.

While there is room to argue what constitutes specifically what "maintaining safety" means, any operations that aren't for maintaining safety should be funded by individuals or organizations that support the idea.

it's ethical — Huh

Is this ethical in terms of the abortion context or the slaughterhouse example? Or just saying that unnecessary spending of tax money could be ethical?

I, me, mine, I, me, mine, I, me, mine. — Banno

So what are we getting here, is the question about abortion and supporting it or being funded by those who doesn’t support it? am a bit lost? — RBS

I will consider rephrasing my OP. My question was if taxation to fund policies that are not needed to maintain the society with taxpayer money is ethical.

How did you get to that from what I was saying? — baker

Sorry I meant conversation about politic, not without.

a philosophy discussion forum is a very specific kind of community, one that is specifically intended to accomodate those divisive effects — baker

I agree that the philosophy forum should be treated as an exception where the divisive effects aren't as pronounced. Maybe it's because people talk in a different language format that facilitates rational discussions better or that we go into a conversation expecting the difference of opinion.

I feel like there is no conversation about how antinatalism is based on the assertion that suffering is equivalent to an objective "bad." Why would suffering, a mental state for an individual, be bad for the universe at whole?

If you're calling the Big Bang a fairytale to describe how ludicrous of an idea we're told to take in, I agree. Not because it is improbable, but because everything from the span of time to magnitude is far beyond what a normal person is capable of comprehending. I suppose it's just as unbelievable as theories about how the universe will end, although there is much more competing theories for that. I don't think the problem of this is that the fact that it is unbelievable, but rather we have nothing more believable to fall back on.

I'm not sure what you mean by "material" universe, but my understanding is that the universe is commonly differentiated into two dimensions of space and time. Useful. I know, but I've heard of arguments about whether time actually flows forwards or backwards and I feel like that's relevant here.

No, what "holds a philosophy discussion forum together" is a measure of commitment by its members to a very specific tradition of discussing things in a specific way. — baker

I agree that people on this forum tend to have a way of discussing that practical conversations in life lack. So you're saying without that, conversation without politics is always divisive and negative? So you're asserting that only the philosophy forum is an exception to the divisive effects of political conversations?

Freedom is just a fancy word for nothing left to lose. — god must be atheist

I love it! I can't tell if it's bait or true. I suppose to some, gaining freedom is the same as losing security. The security of not having to take responsibility for one's actions.

As we devolve into a totalitarianism characterized by intolerance, divisiveness, and massive propaganda/ignorance, you just have to wonder whether the desire to be free has been selected out of Western people. — synthesis

I think people's nature is to pursue what they lack. Like the lawn is always greener on the other side, and that applies to freedom as well. Perhaps people in the West have lived too freely, too long without knowing the dangers authoritarian control. So they idealize it with rose-colored glasses. I see similar things happen when people picture nature, or living "simply in the olden days" to name a few, when these were much more brutal in many respects in magnitudes that are hard to imagine for us in the west.

I have no memory of this....

Was I hacked? — counterpunch

You remind me of a character in an anime I'm watching. I enjoy it.

My sister and my brother's parents-in-law were not talking to each other. My sister was just expressing her opinion forcefully to the whole table. They just sat there in silence. — T Clark

I guess it turned out to be a one sided speech than any conversation. That's unfortunate.

I was raised as a Methodist, although my mother wasn't as devout as your family sounds. — T Clark

I want to clarify that my family didn't actually beat me in the name of Christ's love. Rather if and when I showed doubt over some religious claim, it felt like the conversation was just drowned out by it.

Do you really need me to go over the Sandy Hook shooting to convince you it's not a "false flag" operation? No, you don't. Good day. — RogueAI

So you're confident in your knowledge in Sandy Hook! I was going to address it but I ran out of time earlier. Unfortunately I'm clueless to this event but I'd be happy to hear out an explanation of why this is relevant.

However I don't think a convincing perspective over Sandy Hook changes the argument over the other topics you mentioned. I suppose you feel that i'm trying to convince you that having your opinions about politics is wrong. I really couldn't care less who you voted for or your political leanings were. Thus I don't care if you're actually right or wrong on these subjects. What I'm trying to say though, is that you seem to have a zealous faith in either the sources of information your getting on these, or some magical power that makes your political opponents automatically wrong.

How do you have such strong faith in your opinions? I always find myself skeptical and I can't relate.

But people at a forum like this typically are not friends or family. We're not a community.
Discussing issues in a philosophical-ish manner is not conducive to friendship. [...] "You shouldn't discuss politics or religion in polite society." — baker

That's true. This community probably would disagree to the notion of being friends, and much less family. However if a community can exist with only disagreements to hold it together, why can't it simply exist in friends and family? I personally feel like friends or at least family is far from polite society.