For a utilitarian suffering is like math so 9 billion X 1-10/10 is definitely greater than just 10 — khaled

Even so, it would depend upon the function which measures suffering. So we might say that the mode of the set of all sufferers is the final output rather than, say, the sum.

Ye — khaled

Then do you also agree with me in saying that suffering is not independent of people who suffer?

There is no independent suffering-function to which our moral acts must hue?

That's validity. Broadly, validity is defined as "Truth preservation over all cases", or if one wanted to be a douche, "Preservation of the designated value across propositional transformations" (I wrote this in class once and the professor indirectly told me to chill the fuck out, lol). Soundness requires a valid argument and true premises. — MindForged

You are right.

Here's where I'm getting tripped up in talking about soundness. While validity does not rely upon soundness for its conceptual clarity, soundness does rely upon validity -- since it must satisfy both that the argument is valid and the argument uses true premises. That's what I'm trying to get at at least, though I do not think I'm putting it well since I basically just restated validity as you note.

The conclusion is veridical. — MindForged

Is veridicality the same as soundness?

Not for the validity. That's the logic part. Soundness (at the object language) does need the argument to be valid but the truth value of the premises isn't a question of logic. The logic is the machinery guiding the inferences, soundness is, like, whether or not the machine is doing a good job. — MindForged

Well, I don't know. At least with informal logic usually the procedure is to show some kind of argument that uses a form with true premises and a false conclusion to demonstrate that some form of argument is invalid. Granted that's not the same as validity, but that's where I'm coming from in my (admittedly rambly) ruminations; that the demonstration of invalidity, rather than validity, relies upon true premises reaching a false conclusion.

So I keep on thinking -- might it be the case that we use a (now believed valid) form of argument with true premises that then comes to false conclusions? That doesn't seem correct at all, because when I read formal arguments i feel they are persuasive and they hold regardless of content, and so we can then get on with arguing over the content as long the argument is valid. But then there is this fairly common procedure of demonstrating invalidity that crops up in my mind.

Something like the problem of induction.

Though I admit I'm feeling really unclear right now. I just thought that clarifying soundness might help in getting around the conceptual confusion I've created for myself.

As far as what people generally think, I think @MindForged hit the nail on the head. I don't think it's a moral problem as much as a moralized emotion. For myself...

There is nothing morally wrong with being sick. And in the great majority of cases where suicidal ideation occurs it is the result of sickness, and not deliberate action. So it is right to intervene in those cases since the person's very agency is compromised by the sickness.

Suicide is not morally wrong -- it's a tragedy, not something to be condemned, even in cases where we might say a person is rational rather than sick.

The terribleness of suicidal ideation has more to do with the pain associated, and not with some sort of moral duty or something. There is also the real threat that someone could die from it, just as someone can die from lung cancer.

Obviously the latter is less. T — khaled

Is it? I don't see it as obvious.

The AN is not considering the suffering of people who don't exist. He's considering the suffering of people who WILL exist and that's not absurd at all. — khaled

I like your idea of going piecemeal.

So let me start with this. If the Global anti-natalist's proposal is carried through, how would you classify the people who will exist? Would you agree with me that they are no longer people who will exist, but are actually people who will not exist?

Alright, I'll try one more time --

It's not the "equals" part that you're not understanding, it's the "limit" part.

By that reasoning I could criticize literally anything from a purported position of knowledge as long as the position were written in English. :D

Statistical mechanics? So long as it is in English I know what it means, and can criticize it from the almighty authority of the dictionary. The causes of World War II? I don't even need to read a book on the history, but just need to know English and any opinion put forward on the topic can be criticized from my well-rounded knowledge of the language.

Surely you don't want to double down on that principle.


A bit more seriously:

Sometimes disciplines use specialized language because it's more precise and easier to deal with the technical nature of a topic, and knowledge consists of more than knowing the language that it happens to be written in.

I'd say the negative utilitarian escapes this because it is only harm which is of concern -- so since there isn't anything positive on the ledger, we'll naturally have a world full of net suffering, even if we're only counting things which are important. It's part of why the puzzle is working -- the proposition appealed to is common enough, it's just being taken in isolation.

And not to get too dreary, but I'd say it's also not terribly clear that the world, on net, is very positive on this hypothetical ledger either. And if all we do is quibble over the this hypothetical spreadsheet it at least seems, to me, that we're not really addressing the real concern of our purported negative utilitarian who is wondering if the world is really worth all the pain within it -- or, in the case of our convinced AN, is not just wondering but believes the world should go extinct because there is just too much suffering.

Plus I'd just note that I don't really keep accounting figures on such things in the way that I think of it. Even if the world is full of joy, it is also full of suffering. I don't really see one counter-balancing the other. So from my perspective I'm comfortable with the proposition that the world is full of suffering -- I agree with it. I just don't agree with the rest of the AN's position. But I can at least begin some kind of agreement upon which disagreement can be meaningfully had by agreeing to this point.

I don't know how else, aside from agreeing with antinatalism right out, I could indicate to you that I understand the point of antinatalism. But to spell out my rejection here more clearly:

I'm saying P2 is false. The rest is justification for why I think P2 is false -- birth does not increase the net suffering in the world, it creates the world simpliciter. The (moral, human) world is full of suffering -- but this concern with suffering only happens within this world. The AN should modify their principle to reflect this difference, I think, because it's much more clear -- and also makes apparent why AN isn't very appealing to many people, though the AN seems to make an appeal to what is a commonly accepted moral precept.

Also, as is a pretty common way of arguing in moral philosophy, I'm attempting a reductio ad absurdum on AN. I am appealing to consequences because consequences, while not exactly the same as a utilitarian calculus, are generally more appealing to those inclined towards utilitarianism. The consequences of AN, taken globally, is that we are all acting for the concern of people who do not exist. Given that this is patently absurd I can see why an AN wouldn't want to accept this conclusion, but then I'd say the AN needs to spell out what the morally significant difference between fictional persons and people who will not exist is -- and in so doing I suspect that they'd undercut the basis on which the AN makes a claim (namely, that difference between actual persons and not actual persons), though perhaps there's another way about it.



Perhaps you don't find these arguments persuasive. But then I'd just say that you are right to say I don't understand. And so it'd be helpful to know what you are looking for exactly.

There's a need for something like a suspension of critique to get at what is being said in a philosophical work. — Banno

Yup.

Not that I have a dog in this race. But that's pretty much how I read philosophy in my first brush -- and how I read Kant the some-odd 7 years ago I started that reading group up.

Guess I'm just giving a thumbs up to this interpretive technique more than anything -- since it seems to be something that folks don't pick up on.

Also, I might add @khaled that you haven't done much with being able to differentiate the morally significant difference between fictional entities and potential persons which will not be born.

If there is no moral difference there then, given that these are the consequences of the AN position, there isn't much reason to think that the anti-natalist can speak for anti-natalism without, at the same time, speaking in favor of reducing harm to fictional characters.

No it doesn't. A rock is a rock even without kids observing it — khaled

I stated the moral world before. Sure, the rock will exist without us. But the subjects which are part of our moral deliberations will not. It's this to which I refer. If the goal is 0 human suffering without humans, then I'd submit that I haven't misrepresented the AN's case -- The AN avoids the (moral, our human) world in which net suffering is supposed to be avoided, rather than avoiding suffering within that (moral, our human) world.

It's the entirety of our existence, rather than suffering -- which requires subjects who can suffer -- that the AN rejects.

So if I kill someone painlessly it's okay? Because there is nothing to experience the pain or complain afterwards? — khaled

Of course not. We treat those who are actual different than those who are not actual. The whole focus on harm, suffering, and pain here has more to do with the required ethic the OP sets out.

It's really very simple
Give birth: increases net suffering in the world
Don't give birth: don't increase net suffering in the world

Therefore not giving birth is morally and giving birth is immoral.

I don't think giving birth increases the net suffering in the world. It makes the world in the first place, and the AN position negates said world.

That is, after all, the consequence of global anti-natalism. The principle of reducing suffering is taken to a point where the context in which said principle was developed can no longer be applied.

Except Harry Potter can never be harmed. However, a potential person can be harmed in real life, if it is born. — schopenhauer1

I don't see a potential person as being the same as an actual person. Harry Potter can never be harmed. And a potential person, if said potential person is always a potential person, can also never be harmed. That is because only actual persons can be harmed.

So if we see potential persons in the same light as we see actual persons then sure. But, then, I think I've basically been saying that the AN position basically does exactly this -- it conflates what is actual with what is not-actual. Or, if not conflates, it at least evaluates what is not-actual as equally worth consideration as what is actual.

For me that's just absurd. If someone never has children, then the children they do not have are not as important as the children that someone else does have. I should feed the actual children, whereas I should not set food aside for the children that are not-actual. By choosing to not have children that is all that potential persons are -- they aren't exactly the same as fictional entities, but there isn't a whole lot of difference with respect to how we should act.

I restated P1 as: Taking a course of action that results in more net suffering in the world than there would be without taking that course of action is immoral. — khaled

Cool.

Of course there is something to consider within a moral light. Your choice to give birth results in more suffering in the world than there was previously — khaled

Alright, so we're evaluating actions.

In the case of murder you increase suffering because you are causing harm to someone who is actual.

In the case of birth, though, there is no one who is actual.

Suffering only occurs after birth. I'd say it's something like a transcendental condition for talk about suffering -- without anyone it's not just that there is no suffering, or that suffering is being avoided -- there is nothing whatsoever.

That's a different kind of result than simply avoiding increasing the net suffering of the world. The AN avoids the world in which net suffering is supposed to be avoided, rather than avoiding suffering within that world. The target is different. Perhaps that is the real point of the anti-natalist -- that it is better to not exist than to exist. But then it's time to change the principle originally appealed to because that principle requires a world in which to act within.

The person does not need to be born to know that it is being prevented from harm. If they are negative utilitarian, then it was only good that harm didn't occur. — schopenhauer1

I understand that this is what the AN thinks, but this is the very point that I would say is the most unconvincing part for myself. The language of harm needs an actual person. As we cannot harm someone who does not exist, there is no equation between preventing a person's birth and preventing harm. It would be like saying that we should not harm Harry Potter.

But as a consequence of not having a child there simply is no person that is either harmed or saved -- and that's my point.

So what would be appropriate would be to tend to the needs of children that are actual -- but if there aren't any children, then what's all the fuss about anyway? You're thinking of what is not actual as if it were actual.

In your scenario 1, though, there simply is no person to reason about. What's so different about a child you decided not to have and a fictional character?

They aren't identical. But a child you do not have has about all the moral weight as a fictional character -- something not worth considering.

It's not the possibility of things that I'm attacking. In fact in the part you're quoting I even say that birth will result in a life that will include suffering -- so I'm not questioning the possibility at all, I'm saying that it will be necessary.

I'm making a statement about what is right to reason about morally. Stones, for instance, are not the sorts of things we reason morally about. Human beings are. Animals are. The environment is.

But something else we do not reason morally about are either things or beings which do not exist. So Harry Potter, for instance, is not the sort of thing which we should reason morally about. So far I don't think this is controversial.


I'd just take this one step further and say that persons who do not exist, even those who may possibly exist, are not worth moral consideration. They are more like fictional characters than they are people. Not identical -- and there is some tension in the way I'm saying this here and the belief that future generations, for instance, should be cared for (which I do think they should).

But the anti-natalist is making a mistake in treating what is possible as if it were already actual, when the game of talking about pain-prevention already presupposes, I'd say, someone who is alive -- which an unborn somebody isn't.

P1: One has no right to inflict undue suffering on another
P2: Giving birth is equivalent to inflicting undue suffering on another as it results in the creation of a creature that will definitely suffer as opposed to the absence of such a creature in which case there will be nothing to suffer
C: Giving birth is immoral — khaled

P1 is confusing. I don't have the right to eat pizza everyday, but eating pizza everyday is not a bad just because I don't have a right to it. From the perspective of good health it may be bad, but not because of lacking a right.

If we were negative utilitarians, as you present it, we may say something more along the lines of "Inflicting undue suffering on another is bad, and furthermore, the only morally significant value" -- since the former statement, without the qualification, I think most people would agree to. But most people would not go so far as to say that inflicting undue suffering is the only morally significant value.

P2 is closer to what I take an anti-natalist to believe, but it also reveals why their arguments do not get very far with a lot of people -- and this is related to the restatement of P1 above. In particular the equivalence relation is just not how people look at birth. Everyone has a pretty good notion that their child will suffer. But they also think that their child can thrive. They have more values than the rather narrow interest of our purported negative utilitarian.


For myself I have a hard time accepting that I'm inflicting anything on someone who does not exist. Birth will result in a life that will include suffering in it. But without birth there isn't anyone at all -- and hence nothing to consider within a moral light. It is only after birth that someone becomes a morally significant being worth consideration. Else, it's just an imaginary character.

Does it? I can't remember the last time I used the term "substance" in the context of chemistry. If it does have one then it has one in an introductory book. But in the practice of doing chemistry you'd just use a more precise term (like, say, mixture, or the name of the substance), or you'd probably just mean it in the more generic sense.

I often see it being defined as a form of matter having constant chemical composition with characteristic properties although I do not understand what this means — blokeybloke

There are several properties one could measure. One such oft-used property is the melting point or the boiling point of a substance, which is just the temperature required to make some sample to change phases at standard pressure.

Salt water does not contain either a uniform composition or a stable boiling point. You'll have a different number of sodium and chloride atoms to water atoms, depending on the sample, and that ratio will change the boiling point.

But salt, by itself, and water, by itself, *does* have a set boiling point. Water, at standard pressure, will boil at 100 degrees Celsius. Where the salt water will boil at different temperatures depending on the ratio between salt and water.

I don't think "substance" has a precise technical meaning in the context of chemistry. You could differentiate this mixture of salt and water from, say, just salt by itself and water by itself and say these are substances whereas mixtures are not -- thereby setting out how you mean to use the word "substance" in the conversation. But you could also say it more plainly and say that salt-water and salt and water are all substances too. What is important is to lay out what you mean in the event of confusion between two possible uses of the word. In the latter case, where "substance" is not being used to differentiate between mixtures and samples with fixed properties, usually all that is meant is something like "an inert something or other" -- something material, whatever it might be. It's a very general word.

Heh. It's been a few years. :D

EDIT: Just cuz it was bothering me.

y = -e^(-x) + a

That was the function I was thinking of. Superficially looks like a log curve, but has a number it approaches when you take its limit.

So if you assume any rate of improvement at all, then [virtual reality video] games will be indistinguishable from reality. Or civilization will end. Either one of those two things will occur. Or we are most likely living in a simulation. — Posty McPostface

Others have already pointed this out, but I figure I'll throw my hat in with that lot and try to rephrase. . .

I think the implication is false. @Marchesk pointed this out in their reply here:


"Rate of improvement" is a squishy concept. Even supposing that the concept can be modeled mathematically as the use of the word "rate" seems to imply this is just plainly false. Empirically you have the car example. Theoretically speaking you need only consider what graphing a rate can look like. In a more localized sense a rate can appear to be linear -- it can look like it is a straight line that, if having a positive value, increases. But that's only locally. Often times a rate can be approximated like this when, in reality, it has, say, a logarithmic progression. Modelling equilibrium curves often produces this exactly. So instead of. . .



You get. . .



In which case, as you can see, given infinite time we'll progress towards a limit -- wherever that happens to be -- but that limit will not be infinite.


Elon musk is not only assuming that improvements can be modeled mathematically, but also assuming that the rate is linear (and positive, for that matter). So the probability of his implication hinges a lot on what he does not know, nor I.

If that's the case then I'd say his claim that this argument is very strong is false. It's a flight of fantasy with a lot of assumptions.

It may seem odd, given our recent disagreements, to say that I agree with the sentiments you present here. There is nothing glorious in war -- and especially so with war for the state, as the first world war was. I had to read Dulce et Decorum Est in my secondary education, which means it's widespread if not universal for U.S. citizens. I totally agree with its sentiments.

I suppose I'd say: War, though it is not glorious or something to be celebrated, is sometimes necessary. In what sense necessary? I don't believe I'd say even morally speaking. Or even ethically speaking. Only that we find ourselves at an impasse, and here it is we are now. I don't wish for it, and think it a good to avoid at most costs. But sometimes it seems to me that war cannot be avoided, because it would mean such and such for not just the people I love now, but forever the people I love into the future -- or, if not forever, then at least war for them.

You make humans sound like emotional sticks arbitrarily stuck in the muck (not wholly inaccurate). I think that when we are most vehemently and emotionally opposed is exactly when we should be debating; it means we have a significant difference about a significant issue. But thorough and unbiased debate in the midst of a controversial and emotional disagreement (especially where issues quickly break down into complex ethics, biology, economics, ecology, etc...) is asking to much. Grimly, thorough and unbiased debate, and some form of reconciliation and compromise is exactly what we're expected and required to do as the body politic. The more in-depth conversation we actually have, the less room I think we will have to disagree (on basically anything), the problem is in a world of tweets, headlines, and digital blinders, in-depth conversation is somewhat of a rare luxury.

We don't have to agree on everything, but we should at least be capable of understanding each other's perspectives (let alone willing!), and if and when mutual compromise seems necessary, it won't be for lack of trying. — VagabondSpectre

I agree in principle that sometimes reconciliation or cooperation is not an option (I personally refer to it as a breakdown of morality) but I don't think everyone's interests are so fundamentally opposed that we must necessarily differ or allow ourselves to come to violence. I guess it will come down to whether we engage in politics with our heads or our hearts, or perhaps some ideal mix of both...

I think people's interests are opposed fundamentally within our society. I think there are people committed to principles which cannot simultaneously be realized, too. And, if that be the case, then dialogue will lead us to realize that we are not ignorant of facts, but rather that we are, in fact, opposed. One such material interest I would say is that between the boss and the worker -- bosses' and workers' interests just aren't the same. An individual worker and an individual boss may cross lines, but their social position creates a hierarchy of conflicting interests. With respect to principles I'd say that the abortion issue is a good example of mutually exclusive principles. And with respect to both of these examples violence has already been used -- even recently. What's more the issue would not have changed without violence. Violence is a part of political action. Even those who move peacefully benefit from violence -- as alternatives to a conflict people tire of living with.

In the long run I take it on faith that it's possible for humanity, as a whole, to work out our interests so that they align and so that our principles can harmonize. But the journey there will have wars, and conflict, and the end product will look different than anything we're living with now. I also think it naive to take politics on faith.

But it did, critically, coincide with a rise in the ubiquity of new forms of (social) communication. Printing presses were being made smaller and cheaper, literacy was rising, and the social-political machine was revving up. Leaflets, letters, pamphlets, posters, newspapers and speaking events. Dues collecting unions, clubs, and political parties churned out propaganda with quickening pace and a diversifying body of literature. Compelling reform movements included the women's rights, the emancipation and abolition of slaves and slavery, healthcare, and the general reform/Christian perfection of mankind in the face industrial decadence and socio-moral decay (Millenialism, temperance, utopian communes, etc...).

They may have lived in a snail's world compared to the pace of our own, but they were still living in a time of increasing communication and were like us being overrun with new information they weren't prepared to process. Perhaps when a technological change finally stabilizes we can have a chance at predicting and adapting to its effects, but when the environment itself is changing unpredictably, we might be wholly unprepared to confront the new and hitherto unseen consequences (uncertainty of the future lads to fear, and that fear to leads violence). The expanded and newly segmented world of post Jacksonian politics in the 1850's was marked by division over an influx of new issues. When Minnesota became a state in 1858, it gave the north a clear majority in the electoral college, and the perception of their impending loss (and therefore loss over all those intractable disagreements) caused the southern states to declare succession, and war ensued. Environmental forces of the 1820's-1850's caused the body politic of the era to segment and divide faster than it could homogenize through democratic debate and reconciliation.

One problem, at least, is that if we continue to segment deeper into our divided and emotionally committed trenches, violence will be inevitable. I'm not hoping to reignite the Luddite movement by laying so much blame at the feet of digital communication, but I am hoping that we get around to maturing (learning how to use it responsibly, healthily, and sensibly) sooner rather than later (though, as long as technological change keeps accelerating, I don't think we can necessarily control ourselves). — VagabondSpectre

This is an interesting line of inquiry, I think.

What I hear is it's is not the rate of communication, but rather the relative rate of change of communication from one point to another -- the rate of the rate of change.

I think there's something to that -- a cause of civil unrest being technological change in nature, and in this case, the technological change in the rate of communication. However I don't think it's a matter of being ready to withstand such a difference in communicative power.

Media production in a commercially motivated society is a mirror of the personalities involved. The media production doesn't dictate desire as much as desire, and the ability to make financial flows (be it collectively, individually, through taxation, whatever), dictates what media is distributed. So I'd say that I think that a change in the production of media, in the rate of the rate of change, allows for disruptions of already existing tensions within a society. Whereas in prior technological hierarchies the powers that be had established means for controlling the production of opinion, the change in technology allows others to step in because even the powers that be are learning just what exactly this new beast is and how it works.

I see this as a different from an explanation for conflict through inflation, though. I'd say the tensions are already present, and its the change in technology which allows stratified power to be disrupted, which in turn brings out polarization as those previously silenced gain a voice and begin to restratify power in a new arrangement.

I tend to think that it's best to just treat each thinker separately -- I know that Hegel is responding to Kant, but then there is a multiplicity of interpretations of both Hegel and Kant. And then there's Hegel's Kant on top of that. Plus if you look at the publishing dates of Hegel you'll see they occurred after Kant's death so it's not exactly right to say they had a disagreement since they didn't really have much of a conversation. It's better to say, I think, that Hegel is responding to Kant, or that he is bouncing off of Kant -- but in that way that philosophers tend to do, where they get to interpret their interlocutor, and tend to have some other project in mind aside from interpretation when doing so.

Well, sure -- but then, nothing is inherently better or worse than anything. Things are better or worse in relation to a judgment we make, not because goodness inheres in a state of mind or object or action.

If someone wants to be miserable and elated, there's nothing you can do to persuade them to think or feel differently. Such changes only happen because a person changes. But the distinction should still be recognizable, all the same -- there's a meaningful difference.

There is a distinction I like to draw between ecstasy or elation and happiness. I like to draw the distinction because I think that we tend to focus, as a culture, on ecstasy and elation while ignoring a different kind of happiness that is more stable, lasting, and still worthwhile. So if we are not elated the tendency is to say that we are not happy, and to obtain said elation we usually have some objective we want to fulfill or object we want to obtain, and we experience elation when we are victors, when we achieve, when we obtain or own what we want or are attached to.

Happiness as distinguished from elation, on the other hand, is more akin to contentment. We may not have everything we want, we may feel sad or bad about some things, but we are also doing alright. We can accept the bad with the good.

I'd say misery is the opposite of this kind of happiness -- where we are unable to accept our current conditions of life. But this differs from elation in that we can be miserable yet elated -- we can set unrealistic goals for ourselves, fulfill them, yet be attached to a new, harder, or higher goal. And hence be dissatsified and miserable with life as opposed to happy.

And we can be happy thought we are not elated -- we didn't get everything we wanted, but we can accept the situation we happen to have now.

Well I'm going for a social construct view. — unenlightened

Gotcha. I think I've been drawn to looking a politics through a sort of phenomenological lens -- hence my emphasis on the personal relationships I have. Obviously the ones I have aren't the ones you have, but everyone has these sorts of relationships. And together we can do things; which is quite similar to saying together we have power, and can effect change in the world through that power be it feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or what-have-you.

When I think in this manner it seems that a lot of the arguments that incense people become somewhat distant to me. Not that they won't have real effects -- they will. They are arguments about social constructs that, as you say, are a fact whether we believe in them or not. They seem outside ourselves though we are participants in their creation. Hence why people become incensed.

But they are also, due to the abstract nature of what we are arguing over, sometimes disconnected from the the meaning of the words they use. I don't know if war is something anyone really wants, though we seem to be talking like we do.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning that we have reached the age where the participants in the last global conflagration are no longer active in politics. Perhaps not having experience of how bad it can get and how it gets that bad allows a general upping the ante, exploitation of fear and resentment, that was previously confined to the lunatic fringe, and for the same reason makes it more effective. — unenlightened

I actually do think that's worth mentioning. Things have gotten bad, but they can get much, much worse -- I don't know if we'll actually escalate to civil war, but that kind of thinking that leads to civil war is in the air, so to speak.

Hrmm, fair. I think you are right to say that polarization is found out there, and not in here. Alliances have solidified into mutually exclusive groups where there is a kind of generalizaed orthodoxy.

Although I am tempted to say not out, but up there -- because a lot of these sorts of alliances seem to me to be the result of an abstract system of identification rather than something which is mediated by personal relationships. I'd say I get along fine with everyone I got along with before, but I have some kind of connection to them -- whereas there is a sort of story over-and-above my day-to-day life in which the news and commentary and all this seems to take place. I am able to engage in political action, in the broader sense, by ignoring the abstracta that populate political dialogue, in the narrow sense of representative government.


So in this thread I've argued against the offered causes of polarization -- the internet, social media, and the inflation of outrage. I've done this by pointing out time periods where polarization has occurred without social media, and also by pointing out that outrage has plenty of purchasing power if you are the right kind of person talking to a person on your side -- hence why we see so much of it. I've also made the claim, at least, that this is not a necessary evil, but part of the process of doing politics.

So I guess that leaves me with the questions ,"why the polarization? How did we get here?" unanswered. History could be investigated, but there simply is not a point of view from which history can be written that would not favor this or that side. Further, I don't think there is a more accurate presentation for grasping at the events of human action than by the historical method. So if we indulge in a more abstract approach we will lose accuracy, though perhaps at the benefit of not deepening or participating in polarization.

My own bias inclines me to look at the system of government that we currently employ. But, then, it could just be that there are a few pet issues that are near and dear to both sides, where people have felt like they are not being heard or that enough is not being done, and enough is enough. It could be just as simple as having irreconcilable differences of opinion that are so important to both sides that war is seen as worth it.

Usually such deep political views do not arise organically -- usually there are people organizing people into groups when that happens; just like a strike doesn't "just happen", so too do people not just happen to draw a line in then sand to fight to the death, come what may.

But the topic is hyperinflation — unenlightened

Fair point. I'm a bit off.

Is there even a way of talking about what's happening that doesn't participate in and partake of the polarisation? — unenlightened

I think on a one-on-one or group basis that it's possible, sure. I don't feel more or less polarized, myself, having discussed it here for instance. I suppose we could do so if we wanted, but I'm not really here for that. I want to share my thoughts and hear the thoughts of others bounce off of them, and vice versa.

Though I don't know if there is a general way to talk about the phenomena that does not at the same time participate. I'm also not sure that inflation is exactly the right way to put it . . . polarisation, yes -- but a lack of trust and a clear enemy, moral certitude, and conviction seem closer to me than not believing in someone else's outrage just because it's over-used.

It's not that outrage has run out of purchasing power. It's who we pay attention to that matters -- these person's outrage makes sense, where these other person's outrage does not. The poor's outrage against the rich does not make sense because they could just work hard and obtain their dreams just like I did. Their outrage is the outrage of those who have not accepted my values, grown up, and taken responsibility.

The Republican outrage does not make sense because it's not based in scientific fact. They are trying to impose their religion upon the state, when the state and church should be separate.

Do you see what I mean?

You are wrong. So wrong that this issue is no longer debatable.

But fortunately, we agree about some other things, and it is this conflict between our agreement on X and our disagreement on Y that keeps us peaceable. Polarisation is when we either agree or disagree about everything, then there is us, or there is them, and the conflict is no longer internal, as I agree with you about some things and agree with your opponent about some things, but if i disagree with anything, I disagree with everything. The latter is a recipe for war. — unenlightened

I'd say that it is through trust and respect for you that makes me want to listen to you, even in disagreement -- so even if there is no debate I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts.

If we trust and respect one another then we can disagree on damn near everything; whereas if we do not then we can agree on a lot while still treating one another as enemies -- actually I'd say the current situation is a lot like my latter scenario. The amount of agreement between the two political identities is remarkable. The disagreement is over a few pet issues, with a heavy salve of double-standards that gives emphasis to the disagreement. If anything were to be sad about civil war in the United States right now it would be over how very little civil war erupted from.

But sometimes we have good reason to neither trust or respect a person. I'd also say that there are different kinds of respect. There is a general sort of respect for others that everyone is owed just by virtue of their humanity -- even our enemies. Then there is the kind of respect we feel for others because of who they are, what they have done -- a kind of admiration of sorts. It's the latter that prevents war. The former is the kind of respect we can hold for others even in war.

There are plenty of sad issues that make me lose the latter kind of respect but I think I'd prefer to stick with a hypothetical for now. Suppose negotiating with a bully. A bully is the sort of person who gains pleasure from the fear of others, and said fear is measured by concessions to their actions. A bully is generally insecure about themselves and it is the pleasure they receive from others pain that soothes said insecurity.

Some bullies don't go to a far enough extreme that you need to declare war. They can be appeased well enough without infringing on your dignity, and their insecurity is their own problem to deal with. But that's not always the case. Sometimes the only way to deal with a bully is to say no, after which the bully will attempt to follow through with the threat -- and while sometimes what they threaten isn't actually of much worth or worth the effort of war, sometimes it is; such as when violence against people you love is threatened, for instance.

I don't see how you come to a compromise when dealing with such a personality. And there are various other sorts of people who I lose respect and trust for that I would say merit treating distantly -- and, at lamentable times, with war.

I think that it's a problematic example for eliminative materialism to deal with, at least of the sorts that tends to see the world as arising from the bottom -up. Not that one couldn't, necessarily, only that it's problematic -- because there is some effect occurring that is not a result of the chemical being ingested. So if that effect is not the result of the mind, given that the mind does not exist, then what bottom-up physical process is it an effect of such that things like belief are eliminated?

Disagreement can turn to polarization when for whatever reason both sides have sufficient emotional stake in their positions, and in the course of defending against attacks from the other side they are driven deeper into commitment or extremity. On the subject of abortion, as you say, there is outrage on both sides, certainty on both sides, which has largely been brought about thanks to the emotional arguments each side uses. The uncompromising certainty held by either side pretty much guarantees that reconciliation toward truth (in whichever direction it may lay) is not possible. — VagabondSpectre

There comes a time when an issue is no longer debatable -- where there isn't some compromise that will satisfy everyone involved enough to keep on getting along. There isn't some true belief with respect to how we should set up this or that law. There are convictions, and some of them cannot be reconciled. You either cross the picket line or you don't -- you either support the North or the South -- you either vote for Kavanaugh or you do not.

I submit that the tendency of social and news media to favor that which outrages (because it gets more clicks and views) has altered our previous balance of emotions toward a state of stress, irritability, and resentment (being inundated with enraging click-bait which has been selected because it reinforces our preexisting biases, is a main culprit).

People react to new environments differently, some more extreme than others, but in general I do see a rise in stress (at least the "on-line" cross section of westerners), increasing polarization, shrinking will for empathy and bi-partisanship; general cantankerousness. — VagabondSpectre

I think that the favoring is more because this is how we feel now. I mentioned the civil war because that was clearly a violent political moment where there could not be compromise, but it happened without social media or the internet or even very fast communication.

I don't disagree with you in saying there is a rise in stress, irritability, resentment, and a drop in empathy. It's more that I don't think social media is the culprit, but just another vehicle through which the same emotions have always fueled political discord. We just happen to live in a time when compromise is being viewed with more suspicion.

And I'd submit that this isn't necessarily bad. Change is violent. These moments are indeed scary. I feel fear when I think of the future. But, then, I also do not feel the need to compromise. I feel anger, and anger is a gift which overcomes fear.

Not that I want to live the entirety of my life full of rage. Anger can also be corrosive. But philosophers tend to view anger with suspicion, where I say that it has plenty of good to offer. Especially when you come to realize that it's not a lack of understanding on either side of an issue, but rather a disagreement on values.

Aren't the criteria multifarious? It seems so to me. We can divide knowledge, roughly, into know-that and know-how -- but it is a rough division when we come to experience knowledge, I think. We can know-how to act in a play, we can know-that when acting we do this that and the other. We can know-that elements behave in a certain way under certain conditions, and we can know-how to demonstrate said knowledge.

But in both cases the knowledge we obtain isn't exactly commensurate, though we call both knowledge -- one is artistic and one is scientific; just to create another division of sorts.

It seems to me that the criteria of knowledge are highly specific to not just area of study but even time and place. Acting in a Shakespearean play when Shakespeare was alive would be different from acting in a Shakespearean play today. Doing chemistry in the time of Lavoisier differs from doing chemistry now. It all depends on our social arrangements, in a way, which are highly specific. Lavoisier could prove atoms existed through a fairly basic electrochemical reaction, and that mattered to the time because of the conflict between materialism and religion. Nowadays? You are kind of appealing to different groups. We are divided due to our experiences.

As to which starts first -- I don't know. I start with knowledge, but even starting with knowledge presupposes some element of what it is we know. Just as starting with a method presupposes some element of how we know.

How could you sort such a conundrum?

Heh. I've read this thread a few times over and just couldn't think of a good response. Sorry posty. I know that my inclination is to say we know things, first. But I don't have much more than that to say.

My initial thought is that these two lines of thought are so disparate in history that it's hard to compare them. Hume is something of an deacon of the enlightenment (quiet follower who took many enlightenment principles to their rational end), and stoicism is an ancient doctrine we've gleaned through fragments that happen to be left over, and influenced by the ancient Greek milieu concern with invulnerability. Even the words like "control" and "passions" seem to differ to me, because the philosophy of mind and ethics of their day differed.

It's just hard to compare such notions in situ -- now, in vitro, with more explicit explanations of what you are thinking -- that's possible.

I do agree, but I believe there is something unique in the relationship between negativity/outrage and social media. I'll try not to bore you with causal explanations such as the psychological impact of negative and positive emotions from an evolutionary perspective (arguably, avoiding the "bad" is necessary while chasing the "good" is not) (Hey that wasn't so bad!), but it is fairly evident that the most popular bandwagons (or at least those which travel fastest, furthest, and crash hardest) tend to be fueled by anger and outrage. — VagabondSpectre

Is it? How would one measure such a thing to make it evident? And from a political perspective, if politics is about power, and anger makes a "bandwagon" popular quickly, makes it travel further, and have a bigger impact then . . . what exactly is wrong with it?

Would you rather a political agent travel slowly, affect a handful of people, and not have much of an impact? Or is it the particular policies that the anger is directed at that are actually the problem -- as in, you'd rather these (effects -- policies, actions, what-have-you) be slow, local, and disappear?

My suspicion is the latter. But then if that were the case then outrage and anger are not your object of criticism -- it's what the anger and outrage are doing.

I would say that we're less able to identify what is politically meaningful where previously sympathy for victims and the ensuing outrage did help us to identify issues of merit. Now that all sides are victims, there's less sympathy to go around, and we're more liable to being hijacked by the polarized narratives which surround us. — VagabondSpectre

I understand that you believe this -- But why would you say this?

Polarization isn't the result of a lack of ability to identify issues. That would be uncertainty -- but polarization comes about because people have convictions of which they are certain, and said convictions are in opposition to one another.

So we have two common identities in the states right now which want different things, and the different things they want annul each other. To use a common point of dispute, and your terminology of victimhood -- abortion can be seen as an issue where the innocent are harmed; the innocent in one case are unborn babies, and in another are women. Neither side deserves to be harmed for what they are: the difference lies in how we look at the two groups, and that manner of looking aligns pretty strictly with the two popular US identities.

But that isn't an inability to identify what is politically meaningful. In fact, both sides know exactly what is meaningful, and exactly what they want.

It's probably true that as individuals we're no more or less outraged than before, but group dynamics have changed thanks to hand-held social media; mobs form in a different manner. When a few million people are simultaneously incensed, even if each of them can only take a very small action, cumulatively it can amount to crucifixion. On the other hand, when were inundated with enraging click-bait, we have less time to take specific action. The result, I think, is that we're able to identify fewer issues of meaningful ethical concern, and of the issues which we do become concerned about (typically the most sensational) our responses come in inconsistent proportions. — VagabondSpectre

What are some common responses in light to a social media campaign? No-platforming and firings seem to be the most extreme things I see.

But this pales in comparison to, say, riots, assassinations, and civil war -- all of which have a history of happening in the United States before social media.

How groups interact have changed, sure. But what does that have to do with outrage?


Lastly I'd just note that anger springs out of love. If someone you love is harmed then anger is an appropriate response.

Politics is about power. There is power in moving people -- be it fear, patriotism, or outrage the political agent will speak to whatever is moving people at the time.

Competition for attention isn't something new to social media. In some ways it actually opens up the playing field in competing for attention relative to television. And outrage is certainly not new. I mean, think of the children ;).

What's changed isn't the emotions in play, but what the emotions are directed towards -- I'd also say that we are more aware of a difference in values now than we were (or perhaps it's even more divided now, and it's not just our awareness)

We don't have a good basis for making judgments about the minds of ancient people -- whether they were as divided by emotion as we are, or whether we are more outraged than they, or for what reason. These are largely empirical claims which we lack the evidence to make a decent judgment on. Did information move more slowly? Sure. Does that mean that they were less susceptible to fits of outrage which were not guided by the cool hand of reason due to the slowness of information travel? I rather doubt it, though it's possible -- but in either direction it's largely speculative. It's worth noting, however, that Plato complained about the effects of the passions on the body politic.

There's a far better explanation for Ford's hearing than an inflation in outrage. Namely she is a woman, and he is a man, and men are given preferential treatment to women in the halls of power. For all the outrage against identity politics it's not like it came out of nothing -- there was already a preferred identity.

I don't think that people are unable to identify what is politically meaningful. It seems to me that people are largely set in their ways and they are not going to agree. There is a difference in values, and a stark one at that. I don't think this is the result of outrage-saturation, though. Why would I? Isn't outrage just another of the passions that motivate people to move? And aren't there other emotions which are appealed to in the competition for attention? Even now?

People are made apathetic by the competition for attention. But such has it always been -- there has always been a large percentage of people registered to vote who do not vote ,and an even larger percentage of people who are not registered to vote (just to name the easiest, lowest effort political act); in the US 2016 election there were roughly 125 million people not registered to vote, and of the 200 million registered about 127 million or so actually voted (and it's worth noting that these were highs -- indicators of a high degree of care and participation). They are apathetic to the process, for one reason or another, and some of them are apathetic because they have grown tired of having their attention competed for (though I think more often than not it's a little more mundane -- like having to fit in going to vote to a busy schedule, or feeling like the candidates are inadequate to vote for so there's no point to it, or thinking that someone else will go vote for them). But, then, there are others who fill their place, who become activated, who are passionate. And given that passions move people, and politics is about power, and power is derived from moving people -- why would you do anything but ride the passionate wave of movement? It's self-defeating to just not make appeals or compete for attention, even if it turns some people off. And if outrage is what works then why not?

Some day we may be so lucky as to have more fear and and disgust instead of outrage. ;) But one does not become politically motivated and go through the hassle without what are painful, and sometimes ugly, emotions. The sausage is good, but the process isn't the prettiest thing to look at.

Everyone knows that you need to carry a torch into the dungeon to fight grues.

We do have mood rings now which change between green and blue (and other colors too) depending on time.

Really for any entity which changes predicates with time we could invent some predicate which functions like grue. It may be an odd notion, but so what? The force of habit could overcome that odd feeling. Perhaps if we were not very particular about which of the two predicates happen to hold right now we'd invent some third term that's less precise but more efficient.