Whenever an individual's cognitive framework is challenged, "joy" or "calm" is most likely not going to be their reaction, but rather fear. But again, setting up large contrasts in ideologies helps us to a certain degree to either change our philosophy or stay the same.

Nietzsche urged people never to drink alcohol. I think that's a bit extreme. But perhaps a good shot of medicine for a society bent on excess. His argument was basically that it stripped us of our drive for self improvement.

No doubt the powers that be have a vested interest in pushing extreme philosophies. At the risk of starting a fight, I won't throw any of the obvious (to me) extreme philosophies under the bus. But maybe capitalism is a favorite whipping post that does drive a lot of our thinking.

But to your statement, yeah, it's ok to pass through extreme philosophies, but not "exist there".

Is there an agenda to drive us to extreme philosophies... I'm going to vote "yes". I don't think any form of government on earth in history has arrived at the utopia they claim to push to achieve. Not that we should be dismissive of good ideas and lessons learned. That would suggest then that historically we were driven to extremes and collapse was the result.

Einstein wrote on a piece of paper "A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness."

There's no doubt in our mental gymnastics, we consider the extremes. I believe it helps us feel opinionated and helps derive meaning to come to important decisions. However the maturity of thinking appears to be something more modest and universally pragmatic.

It took me a while to think about this one. But depending on people's point of view, marriage and family are the core building blocks of a society. Freud would argue that developmental issues that come from this building block follow us the rest our lives. Therefore there would be great interest in arguing for one form of marriage or the other.

This to me sounds like technocratic political philosophy. I happen to really hope that we can innovate ourselves to a better existence. But the philosophical consensus appears to be that "life is suffering" and there's no getting out of that (men or women). we could try to suppress suffering with technology, but it will find it's way up again.

You are completely justified to lament our current state of existence. The socio-economic and political power dynamics are set up to ignore the preferences of large portions of the human population. Then on top of that subjugating more offspring into such a situation adds further grief.

What I'm suggesting is a permutation of "I think therefore I am". I would go a step further to say "I seek therefore it exists". The only qualification to that would be "unless I am deluded". But the ideal of representing all people's preferences is something all societies pursue in some way no matter the religion or culture. So I don't think it's a delusion despite our current disqualifications.

Well, the fact that we know to aspire to enjoying without infringing, and suffering without complaining, suggest a moral compass of some sort. I think more, it pins this side of existence being a humiliating one as we discover how disqualified we are. But the fact we aspire (pretty much universally) means either we are all deluded, or there is an evolution or greater existence coming.

Your example of child bearing is a good one. But what came before that (most of the time) is intercourse. The ideal there being both parties suffer and enjoy the experience mutually. So then perhaps the future we seek isn't just "don't bother me and I won't bother you", but the merging of all our enjoyments and sufferings.

Agreed, even virtual decisions would be informed by pre-existing assumptions about outcomes. And I think speech is a great example of how quickly we do go through virtual choices before bringing one word to be spoken.

The framing of the, one death is better than multiple deaths, scenario is an assumption that we can reduce suffering. Nietzsche and others argue strongly that life is full of suffering no matter how many of us are around to experience it.

However as it applies to political philosophy, we do feel we have some ability to control mass suffering by taking it unto ourselves or placing it on somebody else capable of containing the suffering.

Agreed that the logic or chaos would have to be observed by us to make an argument one way or the other. But that is what is required here. Chaos or logic would need to be something that we (in our limited way) can observe.

I would argue about natural selection, that it is not random. But we can't just say survival of the fittest. There are way more variables to consider than fitness.

As far as actual research into telepathy, Cleve Backster looked for reactions in plants to intentions of the tester using a polygraph. Apparently this doesn't work if the correct polygraph technology isn't used. But it does urge some suspicion that there is the ability to project thought and have it received by an observer (in this case a plant).

The proof that God knows everything and we don't have free will is that we can't think an original thought. Every thought we have is some mash-up of what we have seen and experienced. And what we have seen and experienced was put in front of us by God.

Now as far as God knowing what we are going to do ahead of time and possibly deviating from it... I would put on the table the illusion of free will is a reflection of our own feelings about our perceived humility (feelings of powerlessness), and that God is also humble.

The problem isn't so much the original sin as the implications for future behavior. There are those who act out sin more acutely. But at the end of the day, given a larger degree of authority and carrying certain behaviors forward would be a magnified disaster. Therefore the need to put a lid on things with death.