Moral means knowing the laws of Nature? Isn't knowing these laws the cause of the chaos we increasingly observe in Nature?
I know what you mean, but if we don't want to find out how Nature behaves at all levels, in every direction, and at every height and depth, wouldn't that be better for Nature? We are taught from small age that acquiring knowledge is of uttermost importance. The children are treated as ignorant to be filled with a kind of knowledge only possessed by the ruling power, which makes the claim of possessing objective knowledge to be obtained by strict methods. The methods as well as the value judgement of the importance of the subject matter is subjective though, but in modern society it's made the so-called objective norm, while this so-called objectivity is just a label to cover the subjective essence, thereby lending it a justified power position, like God was once used to justify claims on power. — Raymond
I like the idea of driving an electric car. As a high school student in the early 1950s I would take the electric buses in Atlanta downtown frequently. But an accident involving electric vehicles is scary. All that electrical energy could fry you to a crisp. Gasoline is dangerous, too, but it's not "alive" like electricity.
But imagine all those cars, buses and trucks running out of power in dire conditions, and then efforts to charge them all to get started again. Whereas along comes a truck squirting a couple of gallons of gas into tanks as it slowly passes by.
However, technology will improve for E-vehicles. — jgill
Don't let the big numbers (2022) fool you. This is still the Dark Age: still the Age of Christs and Kings.
The Enlightenment's down-trickle's discouragingly drip-drip. — ZzzoneiroCosm
we — Athena
We have promoted ideas of superiority in obvious ways, such as the notion that going to the "right colleges" makes people superior to those who just went to a community or a state college. Or those who have A grades are superior to those who have C grades. Or those who believe this and not that, are superior. Perhaps if we continue to discuss this I can think of betters words for explaining what has gone terribly wrong! It is not just that what we know that is important but also how we learn to think. — Athena
Perhaps some other people would do well to not project their pessimism onto others ;) I wouldn't wish to derive happiness out of ceasing all valuable experiences.
The suffering also doesn't mean anything on its own. However, it does have significance for those who exist, just as the positives do. If nobody exists, there isn't anybody in the void who benefits from the absence of harms. If the lack of suffering would be good, I believe that the presence of happiness is also better (in an abstract sense, of course). — DA671
I do not mind continuing this discussion at all. after all I am in education, though in the Netherlands, not in the US. We have no private schools (yet) for instance, but only community or state education. We do not have Ivy league colleges but nearly all our state universitties are in the top 100 world wide. I am not saying that to brag or anything but display that our system is still much more egalitarian.
I have my own ideas of how the grading system works, what education does, and it is not all positive or a success story. I am a keen reader of Michel Foucault. I do wonder where you got the distinction between the US and 'Hitler's' system of education from. never heard this comparison and it seems way too unnuanced for me. So if you could point out to me where you got these ideas from I would sincerely appreciate it.
I also think you should be careful mixing subjects. International relations is something different from the education system. All kinds of moves are played in the international arena and no, that arena is not democratic. the Westphalian order sees states as sovereign, not subject to some higher democratic body. Focus your ideas and take one step at the time. I sound overly school master like maybe. but focus and you will be able to win your battles.
"Know your enemy and know yourself and you will be victorious in every battle, know neither the enemy nor yourself and you will succumb in every battle "Sun Tzu, the art of war, paraphrased. A Goddess of strategy needs to learn these things. — Tobias
"The Prussian education system refers to the system of education established in Prussia as a result of educational reforms in the late 18th and early 19th century, which has had widespread influence since. The Prussian education system was introduced as a basic concept in the late 18th century and was significantly enhanced after Prussia's defeat in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. The Prussian educational reforms inspired other countries and remains important as a biopower in the Foucaultian sense for nation-building.[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system — Wikipedia
The Origins of the American Public Education System: Horace Mann & the Prussian Model of Obedience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZp7eVJNJuw
You're too generous with this pronoun. The bulk of us have learned little. If you need evidence relocate to rural America for a spell.
The Enlightenment exists in the hearts and minds of a tiny minority. The media obscure this by presenting a vision of the universal elite. — ZzzoneiroCosm
personal attacks — Athena
even in cities are many literate in the Greek and Roman classics that are the foundation of our democracy. Even in the early days of the US when college-level education meant a classical or liberal education, only a tiny minority were aware of the Greek and Roman classics and later philosophies that lead to the democracy of the US. — Athena
The Enlightenment was acceptance of what science could do for us and what we have achieved is far beyond what anyone imagined at the time of the enlightenment. — Athena
I don't think that it's rational to believe that not preserving the good is somehow not problematic. — DA671
If someone exists, they can be happy. My point is that not creating a person does not create the opportunity of an immense good for a person (since they don't exist). — DA671
However, creating them can also lead to goods, even if there would be negatives. — DA671
I believe that the moral choice is to minimise harms and to increase the goods. — DA671
Also, I don't think that creating valuable lives has much to do with causing harm. — DA671
I don't think that the harms is good, and I certainly hope that we had better options for people to find a graceful exit. — DA671
Nevertheless, I don't think that one should decide to arbitrarily impose a pessimistic view that leads to the cessation of all that matters. — DA671
Love, beauty, and the pursuit of knowledge matter to a lot of people—definitely a lot more than a "game" — DA671
and it isn't fair to pull the plug on the basis of a perspective that's not true for billions of people, many of whom deeply value their lives in spite of the existence of harms. — DA671
"Oh yeah, I can tell that you have deluded yourself into loving your life even though you've suffered a lot, but I don't think that your life needs to be created (if it didn't exist), so it's still acceptable if you didn't exist at all (yet it's obligatory to prevent negatives that don't lead to a tangible better outcome for an actual person, which means the "good" coming from that prevention is an abstract one). — DA671
If it's obligatory to prevent harms that nobody was desperate to avoid in the void, I believe that it is also necessary to ensure that the good in the world is conserved. — DA671
Still, I am sorry if my comments came off as being callous towards the reality of suffering. As someone who has struggled with illnesses for much of my younger years, I am aware of the fact that it is a grim reality that isn't addressed properly, particularly in a self-centred society. I advocate for a liberal RTD (along with transhumanism) because I do want the harms to end, and I am hopeful that, provided we work together, we can eliminate most forms of extreme suffering. — DA671
Rural America is rife with ignorance and superstition, dull-mindedness, racial tension, religious prejudice and a tendency to be cowed by celebrity mystique: the antithesis of Enlightenment values — ZzzoneiroCosm
Do you live there? You must to have witnessed this horror. :scream: — jgill
so I apologise if I came off as being rude. — DA671
I also explained that nobody in inexistence is craving s prevention of all life. However, if it can still be good to prevent all harms, it's also bad to prevent all happiness, irrespective of whether or not there is a conscious feeling of deprivation. — DA671
If no one exists, no one suffers. Put a value on that of what you want (good, bad, neutral). If someone exists, someone suffers. The value part comes in when you as the parent/already existing person processes this and makes an action or inaction from it. So the parent decides that no one will suffer when they could have. My point is, this inaction (to not procreate), has no collateral damage to an actual person (as they are not born). However, an action (procreating) will create collateral damage, as there will actually be a person that suffers, whatever other good that comes from it. I think the moral choice is to prevent that suffering, and am pointing out that there is no collateral damage either. — schopenhauer1
The prevented suffering also doesn't "matter" to anybody and doesn't fill anybody with relief. However, when one can say that preventing harms is good, I don't think that it's reasonable to believe that it wouldn't be bad to prevent all the goods. — DA671
The basis for this is basically that it is never good to cause unnecessary suffering (in the first place) that is not trivial and inescapable unless extreme measures are taken (like starvation or suicide). It puts people in a bind of comply or die as well (if you don't like the "rules of the life game" you must "deal with it and go fuck yourself if you don't like it"..aka commit suicide). — schopenhauer1
Ans that right there is the crux of the issue— I don't think that it makes sense to say that the absence of harms is good even though it doesn't actually lead to a benefit for anybody (except in an abstract sense), but the lack of good isn't problematic. It's certainly good to focus on reducing suffering for existing people, since that's usually sufficient for them to live decent lives. However, in the case of creating people, I think that it can be good to create potential happiness. — DA671
I never said it didn't. However, if one believes that not creating a person is good due to prevented harms, it's also unimaginably bad due to all the prevented goods. All the valuable lives cannot be relegated to being collateral damage (and yes, it would indeed be bad to prevent the good if it's good to prevent the harms). — DA671
There's also "thank you for this single opportunity of experiencing joy, which, despite being precious and fragile, has been a source of inimitable value". The right is still necessary, but it isn't sensible to think that bestowing the ethereal positives is unnecessary or worthless; it most definitely isn't. — DA671
The point is that if you believe that it's better to prevent all the negatives, it's also worse to prevent all the positives. — DA671
The absence of suffering also doesn't matter (and is therefore not a solution) for the nonexistent beings in the void, by the same token. If the lack of harms is still preferable in an instrumental/abstract sense, the lack of goods is certainly a problem. — DA671
Nevertheless, it's irrational to suggest that the bringing about the absence of all harms that nobody is desperate to avoid is an obligation — DA671
It wouldn't be particularly nice to prevent all happiness, even if your intentions were to just stop the possibility of harms. — DA671
The truth is not convolution. The reality is that universal antinatalism does imply that even if a person would have a deeply meaningful life and would cherish their existence (and hope to relive it), it supposedly would not be good to create them, which is something that seems patently absurd to me. But I digress—the reality is that there's it's unreasonable to consider the lack of harms to be preferable whilst failing to see that the positives will also always matter. — DA671
Pain is also not an entity that requires a sacrifice of happiness at the altar of "prevention". Nobody in nonexistence has a need for preventing everything that would inundate them with relief. But if it can still be good to ensure that future harms don't exist, it's quite apparent that it's unethical to prevent all the positives. The lack of happiness could certainly be considered a collateral damage (or a much bigger damage, since most peop — DA671
Thank you for your kind words. Hope you have a nice weekend! — DA671
Thank you for your kind words. Hope you have a nice weekend! — DA671
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