If cowardice is the opposite of bravery, are you doing something brave? Can you describe that? — Monitor

No, I'm not doing anything noteworthy. Bravery and cowardice only come into play when an individual perceives the threat of danger. I perceive no threat, so I can be neither cowardly nor courageous in this case.

So your judgement on male cowardice is final? Can you see no other virtues to redeem them? — Monitor

What was that judgment again? Out of the four classic virtues (wisdom, courage, moderation and justice) I can see a poor attempt at moderation.

It comes down to this: if society does not value the truth it disintegrates. A century of moral nihilism has brought us here, to where the truth is simply unavailable, and talk has almost no value. Thus the thread does little but allow some emotional venting. If trust is irrational, then no one should rationally believe anything another says or posts, and we cannot talk at all. — unenlightened

:100:

For folks who distrust their government very very much, I know of a few places without any serious government. Somalia is one, Afghanistan another. I've traveled there extensively so I know people and the way in and out. For 10,000 bucks -- a bargain -- I can accompany any and all of the distrusters to a remote Afghan valley and introduce them to the locals. For that money, I can also sign a certificate that the pharmaceutical industry yields very little influence over there, deep in the Hindukush. Alternatively, the Juba valley in Southern Somalia offers well protected shores from the reach of any bad bad western government and pharma, thanks to them Al Shabad boys.

I can offer a discount for Somalia, because Al Shabad pays well for western hostages.

For folks who distrust their government very very much[ . . .] — Olivier5

Too bad you didn't make this offer when Trump was in office, I'm sure you would have made a fortune.

LOL. Even Trump did not trust his own government... The deep state, ya kna?

So I think you go too far, and not far enough. If trust isn't ever rational, then nothing is ever rational but what one sees with one's own eyes. Perhaps I can adapt Wittgenstein a little and suggest that distrust and trust are on a par, and equally need some, but not absolute, justification. There is, alas, good reason to distrust governments and medical companies, in the record of lies and bullshit that they have promulgated over the years. It is clear that the truth is not as high on their priorities list as their self-interest.

It should be. It comes down to this: if society does not value the truth it disintegrates. A century of moral nihilism has brought us here, to where the truth is simply unavailable, and talk has almost no value. Thus the thread does little but allow some emotional venting. If trust is irrational, then no one should rationally believe anything another says or posts, and we cannot talk at all. — unenlightened

The only thing I've argued for is that people understand that they are not being rational but employing a heuristic here on both sites. Hell, the assumption that we can trust each other is a heuristic itself. It works most of the time so it's fine until that trust is damaged. It's not rational to trust anyone but that doesn't mean it's a sensible starting point in most situations. That's why heuristics work but we shouldn't confuse the fact that they work with it being a rational decision making process.

And here we have two different heuristics resulting in opposing viewpoints with respect to vaccination: everything the government and Big pharma push cannot be trusted and we should trust the scientific consensus.

It's like interlocutors are arguing from within different paradigms. That the scientific consensus is that vaccination is safe is simply not a counterargument to "I don't trust the government". So people are speaking at cross purposes.

there isn't a need for one's arguments to be understood as rational anyway — Tzeentch

What's an argument that doesn't need to be understood rationally? How's that still an argument?

While discussing SARS-CoV-2/pandemic, ...

people first need to be in the clear about "the big existential issues" and have a definitive answer to the meaning of life question. — baker

... kind of reminded me of ...

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. — Sagan

:)

(nothing further to see here, move along)

, you're not free to interact with others however you see fit.

^{(If you want to go on a killing spree, then please leave others out of it. If you want to drive drunk, then please stick to your backyard. ...)}

, right, when rational means deductive. How much trust is deductive, though? I'm thinking trust is generally more weighted (subject to some contextual justification, pros and cons, etc).

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. — Sagan

This is why apple pies are so expensive.

the assumption that we can trust each other is a heuristic itself — Benkei

I'm suggesting that it is a moral imperative. I'm suggesting that rationality cannot exist without trust. I'm suggesting that we are social beings before there can be any question of our being rational or irrational beings. I'm suggesting that reason is and ought to be only the slave of passion.

you're not free to interact with others however you see fit. — jorndoe

What's your point?

(If you want to go on a killing spree, then please leave others out of it. If you want to drive drunk, then please stick to your backyard. ...) — jorndoe

That's random. Why are you whispering?

The deep state, ya kna? — Olivier5

Love me some deep state :wink:

This is why apple pies are so expensive. — frank

If only we could spike pie with the vaccine, the world would be vaccinated in no time

"You people", lol. Just so we are clear, to what people do you think I belong? — Merkwurdichliebe

Among the anti-vaxxer crowd. Or just plain staunchly ignorant.

This is why we should care that everyone is being vaccinated unless, of course, they want to isolate themselves from society, which is their choice.
— Xtrix

I disagree. Rather, if you think going out into society is a risk to your health and life, then YOU can choose to dig into your den of cowardice and stay put. — Merkwurdichliebe

You're too stupid to understand, I realize, but it's not about fear -- and it's not about me.

Your ignorance doesn't trump public health. Which is why the states are stepping in and mandating vaccines. Take a look at New York. So you go ahead and "disagree" all you want -- it matters not.

The vaccinated can still get breakthrough cases, and some who want a vaccine can't get one. I'm vaccinated, and I'm not afraid of the virus. That means exactly NOTHING when discussing vaccination. We should all get vaccinated -- they're safe, they're effective, and they help stop the spread. 6 billion shots given around the world, 100s of millions of people fully vaccinated. Serious side effects? Extremely rare -- better odds of getting hit by lightning.
— Xtrix

Ok. And your point is...what exactly? — Merkwurdichliebe

:rofl:

Apparently the point is not to talk to imbeciles.

If a theory is predictive then it is presumed correct until it is falsified.
Scientists are trustworthy.
Therefore the theory is correct. — Benkei

How you got this out of what I said, I have no idea. But I have no real beef with you generally. My point was simply that it can be rational to trust people (including experts) if there's good evidence to do so. I'm not arguing in favor of blind faith.

:up: Pure rationality is nothing more than consistency of thought; it cannot tell us what to think. What to think is motivated by what we care about, and what we should care about (on account of being social beings) should inform practical rationality or what Aristotle referred to as "phronesis".

Awww...everybody look, xtrix is upset because I don't agree with him.

Nice response, xtrix, I bet you walk around in pissy underwear with yellow stains. You should really try defending your position instead of crying and whining like a little bitch.

I don't always agree with you, but I love your philosophy. Keep it up

btw, you never adressed the general concern about your hope for the indiscriminate vaccination of everybody on earth. The concern is: it is very naive to think everyone on earth can be vaccinated. After all, how can everyone get vaccinated, if as you say:

some who want a vaccine can't get one. — Xtrix

???

Answer...or cower in defeat! The choice is yours

I'm suggesting that it is a moral imperative. I'm suggesting that rationality cannot exist without trust. I'm suggesting that we are social beings before there can be any question of our being rational or irrational beings. I'm suggesting that reason is and ought to be only the slave of passion. — unenlightened

I disagree. There are plenty of situations where mutual trust is absent and we're still possible to navigate out of those situations. Almost every negotiation starts without trust. Your negotiation partner can lie about all sorts of things like pricing, lead times, capabilities, quality etc., and magically we still manage.

Almost every negotiation starts without trust. — Benkei

Not true. Aztecs? Iroquois? Africans?

But I don't care about that. I really want to know what mr. unenlightened means when he says:

I'm suggesting that reason is and ought to be only the slave of passion. — unenlightened

"The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it gives the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus

Read this thread and tell me he wasn't right.

no one in our time believes in tyranny. It's a recipe for great tragedy

If only we could spike pie with the vaccine, the world would be vaccinated in no time — Merkwurdichliebe

We could put it in the payloads of some missiles and bomb Texas with it.

Almost every negotiation starts without trust. Your negotiation partner can lie about all sorts of things like pricing, lead times, capabilities, quality etc., and magically we still manage. — Benkei

You can distrust your negotiation partner because you have a trusted social world. Start with global social distrust and you will see that you are deprived of language entirely. This too is a lie, or might (as) well be.

It's from Hume. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotions-17th18th/LD8Hume.html

To put it very crudely, if one does not have a passion for truth, reason has no function. My modern translation of 'passion' is 'giving a fuck'.

Start with global social distrust and you will see that you are deprived of language entirely. — unenlightened

David Lewis agrees.

But I have to say, I'm beginning to feel a bit hamstrung by this:

I'm suggesting that reason is and ought to be only the slave of passion. — unenlightened

On the one hand, we who live in open societies tend to be pretty hands-off with other people's "values." The word we use these days for people who have ideas about other people's values is "Taliban."

Socrates and Confucius both lived in inegalitarian monocultures (not really, I know) with official religions. Maybe they are just particularly charming members of a Taliban. But maybe our conception of reason is too narrow; maybe there is a way to broaden our conception of reason to encompass wisdom again. To some of us, who take this instrumental view of reason, the natural temptation has been to fill the gap with more formalisms (more logic, more game theory, more Darwin -- we have a lot more tricks than Kant did), but is that the best we can do? (I know you are not so tempted, which is why I'm asking.)

@ssu recently posted an interview with John McWhorter in which he argues that "wokeness" is a religion. I find his view pretty persuasive but still disheartening. I want something between crying "Heretic!" and calling for public floggings, on the one hand, and "Well, Mr. Nazi, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that." I mean, most of us do live in between, but we think we just happen to, that we do so because "these are our values" and other people not in the middle "just don't share our values." That's been turning out lately not to be particularly solid ground to stand on.

What do we do, un?

and @unenlightened, if you're at all interested.

This is what I was arguing on the other thread, but the stats clearly did not go down well. Nonetheless, I think stats can help us here.

When you stratify a sample over a variable, that variable loses some of its relative influence over the variance within the stratification cohort.

So we might stratify our community over some variable like 'reasonableness', into classes - {completely unreasonable}, {perfectly reasonable}, {very reasonable}. We could use 'degree of reasonableness' to eliminate one group from our trust, but once we've done that, 'degree of reasonableness' loses some of its power to explain the variance, so we needn't then continue to apply it within that cohort - we can afford a bit more 'live and let live'.

We've not sacrificed a passion for truth because we used it thoroughly to eliminate the classes within our stratified population, but once that's done, it's served its purpose, it's no longer particularly useful within the remaining classes, and other, more personal factors can take over.

What do we do, un? — Srap Tasmaner

Let's be good: be honest and trustworthy; be kind and helpful; be generous and forgiving. It's very old-fashioned, but there really is no other way. I think the social tradition for a few thousand years has been to try to impose solidarity by the power of violence and threat, and there seems no other way to impose it. But it is a nonsense of course. Solidarity naturally arises when there is no attempt to impose it, and every attempt to impose it creates more division.

I'm not at all clear what you are saying. I am saying that we are inescapably social and interdependent - we have to trust or die alone. Therefore we have to have a moral commitment to the truth, or die alone. I am saying that if we continue to valorise "rational self-interest" we will all die alone.

Trust isn't special. Lack of trust makes the news. The Russians can't be trusted. We may have to bomb them. It's dramatic.

We can't trust the government. That's rich drama. Since the government is our own super identity, it's like saying we can't trust the Pope, and this is an old drama. Very old

I am saying that we are inescapably social and interdependent - we have to trust or die alone. Therefore we have to have a moral commitment to the truth, or die alone. I am saying that if we continue to valorise "rational self-interest" we will all die alone. — unenlightened

(y) That's also why starting out with or campaigning distrust and Us-versus-Them narratives can be degenerative. It's in the toolbox of divide-and-conquerors.

"The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it gives the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus — Tzeentch

I guess democracies better choose their tyrants carefully, eh? :) Unless ... (more or less by definition) leaders are tyrants ...?