If you are seeking society success then yes, you should not care about morals to much, because social morality is no REAL morality, it's only morality according to circumstances. You do things because people agree with them and boosts your image and you benefit and so on, the everlasting respectability fight.
But if you are seeking a life where you want to be happy ( and don't mix happiness with pleasure-that can be self created through means like sex, games, drugs, alcohol etc) and corect with yourself, from any POV and search for higher stakes other then materialsm, you should go the other way around.

Hope this answers a bit :)

Today it has become so easy to be successful according to so society, meaning to become respectable and gain power and money, it only takes a machiavellian mind, cunning, greedy, deceitful to manipulate people and their emotions and there you go, success :)
It's up to you :) - my personal perspective would be a little balance between the two, with tendencies to live as a human being 80% and as an individual 20%. The human being, being the moral one and the individual being the "shallow" result that society created through education and prejudices and all other influences that formed you up until now.

But you just said the morality wasn't real. I don't personally see any other choices than materialism. I think that the "shallow" result that society has created is what I am and anything else would just be a lie I am telling myself.

Happiness is the perception I have when there are no boundries, no rules to respect(which doesn't mean I should do whatever I want and hurt others around me), no fear, when I am not seeking it, happiness cannot be searched for, it comes naturally when you are in a fresh mental state, positive, alive, optimistic, cheerfull. And to be in this kind of state you have to live a very moral life, according to yourself.

Drink every few days or get other means of pleasure and you will see the down that comes after, the depression, and you will be unhappy all your life, with little boosts of pleasure that you can treat yourself with every now and then.
Pleasure always comes along with pain, it's like a rollercoaster, the higher you get the pleasure the deeper the depression goes.
But happiness doesn't come with any strings attached, you felt it for sure and it was an immense joy inside that we usually can't express in words.
Most of the important things in life have no words to describe them.

Rather then seeking happiness, look within yourself and get to know yourself and amazing things will happen :)
We are always trying to become something, constantly on the move of becoming, I am stupid and I want to become smart like " that guy " , I am poor and I want to become rich like Elon Musk :)
But what are you ? You say you want to become "that", but what are you ? It's like being lost in a wood and you want to find the way out but you never stop to see where you are in that exact moment, so you keep going and going and will never reach the destination because there is no starting point nor a direction. You always want to become something but you don't know what's the source that wants to transform itself.

I don't know if I agree with the notion that happiness comes with no strings attached. To me it seems that happiness is a form of emotional pleasure and sadness is a form of emotional pain. You can't live in a state of happiness indefinitely, it comes strung along with sadness. I believe that my sense of self is an illusion and I am whatever I perceive myself to be. If I position what I perceive myself to be in accordance with what I desire out of myself in the future, then that is something I can be happy with. To me it seems you are trying to persuade me into nihilistic thought. I would rather do something productive for our society and further the technological and scientific advancements of the human race than just sit back and enjoy "the things in life you can't describe". Especially taking into consideration that whenever I do find something that I can't describe, I try and succeed. I can't think of a single think I cannot describe. I don't see it as being reasonable for me to stay in a fantasy of my own bullshit while there are kids starving in Africa. I would much rather find happiness in the material world as I don't see any other options.

I don't see it as being reasonable for me to stay in a fantasy of my own bullshit while there are kids starving in Africa. — MonfortS26

then go to Africa and feed them if you believe that will make you happy. I did not state that anyone can live in a permanent state of happiness, what I was meaning is that happiness is different then pleasure and it's merely a perfume not a thing to do to reach it. However YOU want to help the poor kids in Africa in order to get yourself HAPPY - that is a very ugly and egocentristic thing to do. I would rather help them because I feel like doing that not in order too feed my ego and become happy about it.
Go find happiness in the material world as you describe it and return when you find it :)

I would rather do something productive for our society and further the technological and scientific advancements of the human race than just sit back and enjoy "the things in life you can't describe" — MonfortS26

If you understood that, then I'm not sure what else I can say...
I would try to understand myself first if I were you.

To me it seems you are trying to persuade me into nihilistic thought. — MonfortS26

I am not trying to persuade you in any direction, because I don't care :) It's your life and your journey, If I can however help with a personal perspective that might or might not bring light in the problem, that's ok, but other then that live your own life like we all do.

I don't see it as being reasonable for me to stay in a fantasy of my own bullshit while there are kids starving in Africa — MonfortS26

This is one of the most hypocritcal mention btw in the history of mankind, whenever anyone wants to give the world the impression that he/she cares about anything in this world they mention the " poor starving kids of Africa ".... it's like the Miss contenders say everytime, that they want to solve world hunger and all that bullshit... And bring world peace... how ? By being ego-centric ? By going to do a "moral" thing according to society to feel happy about it ?

I said social morality is not real morality not that there is no MORALITY at all..

But if you are seeking a life where you want to be happy ( and don't mix happiness with pleasure-that can be self created through means like sex, games, drugs, alcohol etc) and corect with yourself, from any POV and search for higher stakes other then materialsm, you should go the other way around. — Benjamin Dovano

The other way around is to be MORAL according to virtue and the real facts.

I would rather help them because I feel like doing that not in order too feed my ego and become happy about it. — Benjamin Dovano

What is the source of that feeling if not to feed your ego?

I would try to understand myself first if I were you. — Benjamin Dovano

And how would you recommend that?

This is one of the most hypocritcal mention btw in the history of mankind, whenever anyone wants to give the world the impression that he/she cares about anything in this world they mention the " poor starving kids of Africa ".... it's like the Miss contenders say everytime, that they want to solve world hunger and all that bullshit... And bring world peace... how ? By being ego-centric ? By going to do a "moral" thing according to society to feel happy about it ? — Benjamin Dovano

Stereotypical yes, Hypocritical no. How can you not feel even a little guilty for having such an easy life when there are people suffering to that level anywhere in the world. Sex slavery, abusive parenting, war, addiction, murder, rape. All horrible things that people other than me are suffering through. You are making it out to be ego-centric to attach happiness to that like that is a bad thing. Would you prefer I be Id-centric?

The other way around is to be MORAL according to virtue and the real facts — Benjamin Dovano

You have a lot of beautiful ideas, but I have yet to see any substance in most anything you have said. What real facts do you speak of?

Stereotypical yes, Hypocritical no. How can you not feel even a little guilty for having such an easy life when there are people suffering to that level anywhere in the world. Sex slavery, abusive parenting, war, addiction, murder, rape. All horrible things that people other than me are suffering through. You are making it out to be ego-centric to attach happiness to that like that is a bad thing. Would you prefer I be Id-centric? — MonfortS26

Bro, change yourself and you change mankind... Don't try to change and solve the problems of the mankind OUTWARDLY like you enumerated murder rape addiction etc above. Those are INWARD problems that manifest OUTWARDLY ( we only see the results, the murders, the hunger etc ).
So if you really wanna make a difference in this world focus on yourself (not being egoistic, because by self I dont mean the name, the culture , the religion that you "have" or get identified with, I am meaning the human being), and by doing that you will discover a new way of living that will be emapthic and you will autmatically influence people around you in a positive direction.

Morality according to virtue and order is the REAL morality and if you are seeking that you will never find it unless you make order in your own mind. So before trying ANYTHING outwardly, see what goes within and make order within.

Virtue:
1. behaviour showing high moral standards. ( this is something that lies whithin ) like making the difference between right and wrong, if you can't see the line then we are in a very bad situation.

What are your virtues?

in other terms Morality comes only with understanding.

We all see the society we live in, but we are society, so we always say: lets change society... ok then, how ? if we are society shouldn't we each of us change ourselves and we changed the entire society?
How can you proceed otherwise?
You wanna go and feed manually all the hungry people in the world ? Be realistic, you can't. But if we change our behaviour, maybe, we will get to a different kind of lifestyle. Why would you buy a 5 or 10$ pack of cigarettes every day instead of giving a homeless guy food worth of 10$/day ? wouldn't that be amazing? But we will never do it because we care about ourselves more then about anything else in this universe. So as long as there is the ME involved, society will never change.

What are your virtues? — MonfortS26

goodness, virtuousness, righteousness, morality, ethicalness, uprightness, upstandingness, integrity, dignity, rectitude, honesty, honourableness, honourability, honour, incorruptibility, probity, propriety, decency, nobility, nobility, worthiness, worth, good, trustworthiness, meritoriousness, irreproachableness, blamelessness, purity, pureness, lack of corruption, merit; principles, high principles, ethics
"the simple virtue and integrity of peasant life" - this is the definition of virtue.

I try to live with these in mind constantly and do the right thing.
I try not to lie - unless is business related :) there is Free For All ( no morality and no nobility in business )
I try to be non-judgemental, ( I'm not saying it works 100% , but if i go from 100% to 5% then for me it's a win or at least a great progress and I can go further from there )
I try to help unconditionally
I try to not be and ass ( we all know how an ass acts in society - watch Donald Trump )
I try not to be corrupted ( the hardest thing to do - because corruption exists as long as there is self interest )
etc

I've come to think it's a mistake to assume that lying is always more beneficial than being honest. While it often leads to immediate short-term benefits, the long-term costs may include a loss of your credibility and reliability, which in turn may adversely affect your job prospects, your personal relationships, your emotional and psychological well-being etc. More than that, the social impact will be to erode trust within the community, thus leading to pervasive cynicism and the dissociation between things that should be aligned: my well-being and yours. This seems the situation we have nowadays, although I'm also of the opinion that our interests need not be incompatible.

Granted, there will always be people who will be gullible enough to be taken in by your deception, and/or those who will have no qualms about hiring you as long as you can bring in profits by any means necessary, or any number of human beings who are not troubled by your lack of integrity as long as you can bring them some perceived benefit. So sure, good liars can be 'successful' up to a point. On the flipside, being honest can get you in a lot of trouble at times for reasons not hard to imagine.

Anyhow, I don't think being honest - excepting perhaps the occasional and harmless 'white lie' that usually has the consideration of other peoples' feelings in mind - necessarily precludes worldly success and achievement. In fact, I think it may actually contribute to these things in the long run in many cases. Establishing trust within a community can lead to some tremendous collective endeavors that would not, or could not, be accomplished through an artificial association of (mistakenly) autonomous egos bent on securing their own private advantage at others' expense in a zero-sum game. That may be a straw man, or at least a bit of an exaggeration, but not much IMO. Much modern philosophy tends in this hyper-individualistic direction.

And if that practical defense of truth-telling doesn't work, I'm still taken in a bit by Plato's more sublime notion that being dishonest (and immoral generally) leads to a certain disharmony of the soul, and is therefore not conducive to genuine happiness, at least not for any thoughtful human being. For those who are content with fucking and 'filling their bellies like beasts' (Heraclitus), well, the only response would be to suggest that it's better to be an unhappy Socrates than a happy pig (JS Mill?). Another debatable point of course.

I agree with the idea that a eutopian society cannot be reached while there is still a sense of self. I also think that the self is an societally evolved entity. However, I think that the notion that you can change the world by rejecting a part of your personal makeup (nature and nurture included) is sentimental and anemic. Changing yourself is an important part of changing society, but it is of negligible value in the long run if it is the only thing you are doing. It means nothing to set an example if you don't maximize the amount of people that that example influences. We have evolved to have a ME for a reason. Humans are selfish for survival purposes. Unless we can get rid of the threat of death I don't see any possible alternatives.

I like the way you think and I think I agree. What value does integrity have though?

Humans are selfish for survival purposes. — MonfortS26

We lived on that up until now, do you feel safe today? I would feel more safe if I lived in a cave with 10 more people that I trust then to be alone at night - vulnerable to beasts or other threats. But out of egoism I rather build my own home and make my own " safeness " - which is fake and unrealistic anyway.

The ME is the construction of the thinking process that assembled all the experiences, fears, knowledge, images about everything into this construct of the " ME ".

I would say I feel relatively safe. And we lived on that up until now because it has worked. What is your alternative proposition? Reject the selfish part under the false assumption that other people will see you doing that and decide to do the same. It is fallacious to believe that other selfish people will admire your selflessness and decide to change themselves. What's in it for them?

I would say I feel relatively safe. And we lived on that up until now because it has worked. What is your alternative proposition? Reject the selfish part under the false assumption that other people will see you doing that and decide to do the same. It is fallacious to believe that other selfish people will admire your selflessness and decide to change themselves. What's in it for them? — MonfortS26

If you feel relatively safe go to Syria and " live " there for a week and let me know how safe you feel. Or in North Korea or in many African countries where there is conflict and the so called "terrorism".

At this point is worthless to try and change anything as far as I am concerned (and im not saying there is no hope, but the traction and speed we got towards this human moral decline has reached a speed that can't be stopped unless something really really bad happens), we are going towards a downfall ( you don't need to trust me ), and the only things we can do is either accept it (which is what is happening by default today), or fight it (which will never happen with the current mental state of mankind). So the one thing that I do is trying to enjoy the ride and become less materialistic every day because money don't bring anything but false feelings of accomplishment. Try and find happiness in the things that matter for you.

Fuck society. Society doesn't want change, it's only whining and baby-crying but does nothing about it.
We need more whistleblowers ( Assange, Snowden, Aaron Swartz (dead already).. ) and more balls to make a change, but unfortunately those things are harder to come by every day. And people who are doing it are considered Enemies of the State and people aggree with that...

Would you risk your life to make a change? I guess not, because you have the fear of death. Why would you risk it and for who ? for another politician to replace the existing one? for the wealth of the people who know the truth and rule this business we call world?

I like the way you think and I think I agree. What value does integrity have though?

Thank you for the kind words.

I would, yet again, separate the pragmatic from the more ethereal benefits of integrity. In regards to the former, I think concrete examples work best, and I'll use one from my own experience to hopefully make my case.

I manage about 15 employees, and before my arrival the morale was extremely low, with a high turnover rate, frequent absenteeism and other similar things which make running a successful business extremely difficult, if not impossible. Why? Primarily because the previous manager had lost all credibility with the staff, which was the result of him failing to live up to his word. Raises were promised to the deserving, promotions were promised based upon performance, and the like. The gentleman apparently had no intention of fulfilling his commitments, and this became clear after a while. His lack of integrity may have helped motivate the crew initially, but it eventually hurt the company in a roundabout way (I'm in the restaurant business), since the workers no longer cared about the quality of their work, and did much less than they were capable of. This scenario was ultimately reflected in poor guest satisfaction.

When I came in I immediately sensed the low morale and took the requisite steps to correct the problem. Now we have basically no turnover or absenteeism, but instead have a committed and loyal group that cares deeply about the well-being and profitability of the place. The food comes out faster and with higher quality than before, the place is cleaner and more organized, etc. The employees have aligned their interests with the larger interests of the company, and vice-versa. This is team-building 101; common sense to anyone perceptive to intangibles like group motivation and energy, but usually hidden from one-dimensional bean-counters and those immersed in their own selfishness and who see others as a hindrance rather than a help to achieving their goals.

Now regarding the less practical and more 'spiritual' advantages, I would largely agree with the idea that virtue (integrity) is its own reward, and needs no external validation to prove its worth. Philosophy, to me, is a way of being (rather than, say, a set of largely abstract positions on what are considered to be 'philosophical' topics) that manifests itself in the most trivial and mundane ways, as well as more elevated ones, obviously. Someone who has strength of character and is willing to forego the trappings of worldly success - fame, money, etc. - for the sake of higher principles is worthy of deep respect on that account alone. Clearly this sounds absurd to most modern ears, when everyone is thoughtlessly and shamelessly chasing after what they assume everyone else wants, largely I'd imagine in order to feel secure about themselves by getting some sort of positive recognition from others. To be free of this need, and to be secure in conscience and genuinely content with who we are, leads, or can lead, to an abiding sense of purpose and happiness beyond the ephemeral values of the marketplace.

I know the last part will not be very convincing to many, but I can only speak from my own experience and the communicated experiences of the wise through the ages. Not to sound holier than though or anything, but I've found much more truth and wisdom in the sages and philosophers I've studied than anywhere else. An antiquated view indeed, but no less relevant today than 2500 years ago IMO.

Exactly, people who expose the truth are villified by the ignorant masses. The key to that is tohide the truth. Use people as objects as a means to attain an end. You said it yourself, we are society. Some people still operate under the illusion of having a self and are ignorant to the threats against humanity. So instead of trying to wake them up manipulate them to achieve your goal for the greater good.

What if I'm doing that already? :) but low profile because the Squid is giant.
What if im working to get a lot of money to start something? :) Who will join? How can one make friends and allies without being the victim of (Seek retser vices)?

But usually good people with similar intentions tend to gravitate together like planets around suns :) the sun being the cause not the person (hero or whatever)

I'm not particularly worried about (Seek retser vices). I'm curious as to see where you are going with this though

Why should I be honest? Everybody lies, and people who lie are usually better at getting what they want. Wouldn't it be more logical from an evolutionary standpoint to be a liar? — MonfortS26

That all depends on the social environment one finds oneself in. People who lie and don't get caught can usually get what they want, but it's that part about getting caught that can throw a wrench into things.

In a small group of social beings with long memories and with minds that provide enough detail of others to be able to distinguish them apart, being caught means you run the risk of retaliation of some sort. And when the victim can share their experience with others, others will distrust you and refuse to interact with you in any meaningful way thereby thwarting any easy chance to find a new victim and running the chance of being cut off by the group.

In large groups of social beings, where a victim will probably never see the cheat again, or doesn't recognize them, cheats have a higher chance of not getting caught and not be on the receiving end of any retaliation. When the victim has no way of retaliating or doesn't rat out the cheat, then others will fall victim to the same cheat. The saying, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." seems to be appropriate.

You're asking as if there's a correct answer to be discovered. There isn't. Whether one values honesty, what honesty one values and to what extent, etc. is an individual matter.

And yes, everyone lies about some things, but usually people feel that some types of lies are either beneficial or at least neutral (for example, making someone feel better about themselves--imagine that your wife asks if you think she looks fat in an outfit; you might think she looks fat in any outfit if she's fairly overweight, but you'll answer "no" to the outfits that make her look less fat), while objecting to other sorts of lies--such as someone telling you that they'll pay you $10,000 to do some job, then you do it, and they only give you $1000 ("I was just lying that I'd pay you that much--you don't mind, do you?")

That's why some lies are the sorts of things that lots of folks don't even consider lies ("I'm fine" in response to "Hey Howard--how are you?"), while other lies have been formally made illegal--fraud, for example.

But it's up to you. You're the arbiter of values for yourself.

A recent examination of businesses revealed that those who were reliable, helpful, and friendly had more repeat business than those who were merely reliable. Its not just a question of honesty, but even game theory suggests that its a question of how social you are. Likewise, a related study indicated that content people tended to do better in the long run than those who were more ambitious suggesting its about how social we can become. Honesty, it appears, has no real value outside of it making us more social including, of course, being honest with ourselves.

Do you happen to have a link to this study? I would be interested to read it.

Do you happen to have a link to this study? I would be interested to read it. — MonfortS26

That's actually three studies and there are many more related ones I didn't include for the sake of brevity. For example, contrary to decades of accepted wisdom, the immune system has proven to be intimately connected to how the human brain functions and appears to largely determine how social we become. Autism and other cognition problems may actually be how nature prevents us from socializing too much in some ways and encourages us to become more creative in others. Its pattern matching and suggests there are four rudimentary types of consciousness rather than just one with each having its own distinctive advantages and disadvantages.

The implication is that Darwinian survival of the fittest merely describes a limited view of evolution which is actually about living organisms becoming more social and creative. Which also means everything should display self-organizing behavior and, in the last decade or so, both Quantum Darwinism and Quantum Chaos Theory have received their first confirmations. My own guess is that the two theories themselves will turn out to be context dependent and illustrate how a recursion in the law of identity is organized. In that case, it means we should be able to view everything from four rudimentary metaphysical perspectives which are all more or less applicable to different situations and something a simple systems logic should be able to describe for reconciling quantum mechanics and relativity.

If you want to view everything as alive and evolving or social you can, but you can also view it as merely the original creative impetus of the Big Bang still expanding outward like some sort of machine because both are merely different perspectives of what science can never pin down any further. The secret of the particle-wave duality would remain safely hidden within the Big Bang-Big Crunch and everyone would just have to decide for themselves what to believe.

I like what you have said. I think that honesty is closely related to justice, truth and fidelity to one's word. Each of these are complex notions. Justice is typically associated with the law; truth with logic, fact and judgement; and keeping one's word such as keeping promises.

Any action has contextual components so even if there were objective standards these standards would still have to take into account the situation in which actions occur. I think promise keeping or fidelity to one's word is the closest to honesty.

Can a politician be honest and be successful? Plato's noble lie suggests that society as a whole can't take the whole truth, it must be lied to for its own sake. A pious lie. I don't think that society can act simply, ethically. If a societies's end is to enable the pursuit of happiness for its citizens then I think it must generally act from a utilitarian standpoint.