Won't lie, haven't read the entire thread, but has anyone actually agreed on a definition of fascism? Because without that, debating whether the USA is heading in that direction seems pointless

What we can say as objective facts are that:"

• The USA is increasingly centralising power under the Office of the President.
• Democratic norms—truthfulness, checks and balances—have been eroded since 2016.
• Unilateral decisions are being enacted based on the will and beliefs of a single individual.
• The partisan split has become aggressively tribal, with moderate voices dismissed on both sides.

Regardless of whether that meets the definition of fascism, it represents a dangerous slide into authoritarianism, one that risks permanently altering the USA’s democratic structure. A democracy that refuses to defend itself isn't really a democracy for long

Never heard of him before looking it up, but it sounds like the theories have some strong applicability in the modern world in terms of providing a possible foundational structure to develop a general AI.

I think this misses a gap between 'acting on knowledge' and 'result'. Lets say that I know that if I donate to a charity that the money will be spent to save kids lives. I donate a large sum to the charity. The director who had been honest with the money up until now, sees the large sum and instead of donating most of us, gives into greed and finds a way to funnel it to their bank account. If I had not donated such a large sum, the director never would have given into greed and the charity would have continued uncorrupted. Did I do wrong? — Philosophim

So I have touched on this with other replies, but using your example

If "the act of giving money away to help others" is the action here. That's judged morally pure, and doesn't need reflection after the fact

If instead the action is "the act of giving money away to help others knowing it's mostly being siphoned off by corruption" then it's immoral, and you have to question your intent

It all depends on how causally linked things are in what you can see in the moment, not with hindsight

I appreciate your thoughtful critique it raises an important distinction between focusing on the actor and focusing on their actions. While I agree that the moral character of a person plays a role in shaping their decisions and intent, I would argue that actions provide a clearer and more universal standard for moral judgment.

For me, morality isn’t about labelling people as good or bad it’s about evaluating specific actions based on their inherent nature, intent, and consequences. This avoids the subjectivity that can arise from judging an actor’s character alone. Even a good person can commit immoral acts, just as someone with questionable character might still perform moral ones. Furthermore, if you focus on the actor instead of the act, it requires information that you simply cannot access, a level of omniscience about someone’s internal mental landscape. By focusing on actions, I aim to avoid having a solely internal moral system and instead develop one that is observable, open to scrutiny, and capable of being presented, critiqued, and debated..

That said, your point about context is well taken. My framework addresses this by separating the morality of an action from its justification, allowing for reflection on both intent and outcomes without reducing morality to rigid rules or hypothetical scenarios. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on how we might reconcile the importance of the actor with the need for clear moral standards in evaluating actions.

Lastly, I am not sure of this. Can't desires be good or bad? Isn't the desire to rape or steal evil? Isn't an important part of freedom and "becoming a better person" about identifying which desires are truly choice worthy and fostering those, while working to uproot the others? — Count Timothy von Icarus

For me, a thought or desire becomes harmful only when it is acted upon, or when resisting it causes harm to the individual. For example, in the case of a desire to rape, it sounds callous, but what goes on inside someone's head is simply a reflection of their internal processes—it’s not inherently moral or immoral.

The danger lies in the action that follows the desire, or in how the individual responds to the desire internally. If suppressing such thoughts leads to self-harm—for instance, punishing themselves with thoughts like 'I don’t deserve to eat because I keep having these thoughts'—then the harm is real, but it’s tied to their response rather than the desire itself. The key, in my view, is how we manage our desires, not their mere existence

I asked specifically why it's moral to tell the truth, in your system. On what you base that particular classification. — Vera Mont

Thank you for clarifying, I do tend to take questions at surface value, particularly when they’re brief, so I appreciate the opportunity to delve deeper.

I can imagine many guesses as to why it’s moral to tell the truth: the cultural weight of learned experiences, the conviction that lying is always immoral (and thus its opposite must be moral), or even the idea that truth-telling is a universal principle so self-evident that I’m surprised others can’t see it that way. But none of these are logically robust reasons they’re more arguments against lying or circumstantial appeals, which risk descending into moral relativism.

Ultimately, I fall back on the conviction that some acts are simply moral or immoral by their nature. It’s a deeply held belief that truth-telling is moral, while lying is immoral. I admit it’s not a logically airtight answer, but for me, it’s foundational to my moral framework, it just is.


That said, I can rationalize an argument based on pragmatism: deception is inherently dangerous to society, and in a binary value system, the opposite must logically be held to be moral. You can easily conjure scenarios where a moral choice leads to harm, but so what? If the events are so tightly linked as to be causally connected, then my framework addresses them as a single question. If they’re not, then expecting moral choices to foresee distant outcomes is asking for clairvoyance, a skill none of us have. In the absence of certainty, you can only trust that making a moral choice is the right one for you, or, if you choose the immoral path, reflect upon it afterward

Why?
I see no particular virtue in telling what one believes to be true in all situations to all people, nor any great fault in withholding, bending, embellishing or fictionalizing it for various purposes. Nor do I consider flat-out lying in itself immoral. Who is lying to whom, in what circumstances, with what motive, for what purpose? — Vera Mont

Fundamentally, my 'why' is to avoid the uncertainty and doubt that surround moral relativism. I separate the judgment of morality (moral/immoral) from the assessment of outcomes (right/wrong) to provide myself with a clear and consistent decision-making framework.

While many disagree with this premise—often because moral absolutism feels restrictive or uncomfortable—it allows for accountability and reflection. Even in my framework, an immoral act can be justified as the right choice in specific circumstances. However, those justifications require consideration and reflection: Do you feel guilt? Do others external to you find fault? If the answer to both is no, your action can still be right, even if it remains immoral by its nature.

This separation ensures that my moral judgments are consistent, while still allowing for nuance and context in how actions are justified.

At the end, both our systems and approaches result in the same practical result that you can tell lies. I just feel you should always consider that choice in detail before you make it, and reflect afterwards. By putting a moral weight on the action, I work towards being a better person.

Expanding on this, what we call AI is effectively a sophisticated pattern recognition system built on probability theory. It processes vast amounts of data to predict the most likely or contextually relevant response to an input, based on prior examples it has 'seen.' This process is fundamentally different from what we traditionally define as intelligence, which involves self-awareness, understanding, and the ability to independently synthesize new ideas.

For instance, if you prompt it to write a story, the output may appear creative, but it isn't creativity as we know it. It's a recombination of patterns, tropes, and linguistic structures that have statistically proven to fit the input context. When it asks for more detail, it's not because it 'wants' clarity it's because the probabilistic model lacks sufficient constraints to confidently predict the next sequence of outputs. This is an engineered response to ambiguity, not a deliberate or 'thoughtful' action.

This distinction matters because it reshapes our expectations of AI. We aren't interacting with a sentient partner but rather a probability-based tool that mirrors our inputs. It raises questions about the limits of this approach and whether 'true' intelligence requires something fundamentally different—perhaps an entirely new architecture that incorporates self-directed goals and intrinsic understanding. Until then, what we have is a mirror of human information and creativity, not an independent spark of its own.

Interestingly, the way an AI operates isn’t entirely dissimilar to a child learning about the world. A child often seeks additional information when they encounter uncertainty or ambiguity, much like an AI might request clarification in response to a vague or incomplete prompt. But there’s a key difference. Some children don’t ask for more information they might infer, guess, or create entirely unpredictable responses based on their own internal thought processes, shaped by curiosity, past experiences, or even whimsy.

This unpredictability is fundamentally tied to intelligence an ability to transcend the purely probabilistic and venture into the unexpected. What we see in Large Language Models, what I prefer to call Limited Intelligence (LI), not Artificial Intelligence, is a system bound by probabilities. It will almost always default to requesting clarity when uncertainty arises because that is the most statistically 'safe' response within its design parameters. The kind of unpredictability that arises from genuine intelligence the leap to an insight or an unconventional connection is vanishingly unlikely in an LI system


EDIT: One further thought occurred, that with the addition of memory to an LLM model, we are now in a position whereby an LLM will naturally come to reflect their user's responses and preferred styles. This creates an echo chamber effect that could ultimately lead to people believing that the AI response is always the ultimate arbiter of truth, because it always presents ideas that seem rational and logical to the user (being a reflection of their own mind), and also damage someone's ability to consider multiple perspective.s

I'm not convinced because the underlying premise seems to deny the factual reality of silence, which is the complete absence of sound. When something is entirely absent, there is no inherent potential within it something else brings the potential. It can no more be true to say that silence contains the potential of all sounds than to say a blank piece of paper contains the potential of every word ever written. In both cases, the potential lies in what acts upon the silence or the paper, not within them.

"If you want to consider a more abstract understanding of silence, listen to 4'33" by John Cage. What that teaches us is that when the music stops, nothing is ever truly still or silent. The ambient sounds the rustling of the audience, the distant hum of life, become part of the experience. In that, we may still extract enjoyment or contentment, but this is not because silence contains potential. Rather, it reminds us to notice and appreciate what exists around and within us

My senses can deceive me, so if I cannot trust my senses, I might as well conclude that outside reality doesn't exist; It's just me and you; but if my senses cannot be always trusted then your existence must also might be an illusion.

As always, one can only deduce one truth: "I exist", whoever "I" is.. — A Realist

Late to the party, but what the hell

The same senses that you dismiss as unreliable are also responsible for your knowledge of I as well, you're like someone trying to open the box containing the whole universe whilst still being inside the box and we all know from Futurama what happens then!.

EDIT: Which, now I think about it, is basically Russel's Set paradox in another form. Can our senses be trusted to justify our senses.

I can see how one might be at war with the world, engaged in a series of ongoing and linked conflicts time and time again. However there's a danger that entrenching oneself in such a combative mindset is only going to result ultimately in deep personal harm, after all to reach this position they have had to declare the war themselves, the world can't be the aggressor in this case.

In terms of your point regarding diplomacy Clausewitz's perspective, that war is an extension of diplomacy, reminds us that war and conflict are often about advancing interests when negotiation fails. However, I’d question the idea that failed diplomacy is always due to stupidity or irrationality. People’s interests are shaped by emotions, power dynamics, and values not just logic. Even when opinions and interests seem irreconcilable, there are often ways to avoid war if both sides are willing to make concessions. The challenge is that compromise often feels like a loss, which is why diplomacy sometimes falters.

I don’t think I have a definitive argument against scepticism as a starting point, but I question whether it provides a stable foundation for reasoning. If scepticism demands doubt about all assumptions, including its own methodology, it risks infinite regression: how can we be certain that scepticism is the correct first principle?

Moreover, by prioritizing doubt, scepticism might bias inquiry toward uncertainty or negative conclusions. Constructive methods, starting with provisional assumptions or shared understandings, seem more fruitful. These assumptions can be questioned and refined over time, but they provide a stable working framework for inquiry.

In practical fields like science or mathematics, we build knowledge by working from well-understood concepts toward the less certain. Philosophical scepticism , by tearing down foundational assumptions, risks leaving us without a coherent framework to rebuild. Shouldn’t we be cautious about basing our understanding of the world on the idea of negation, rather than starting with what is more immediately evident or reliable?

I’d lean towards a more pragmatic approach, where doubting things is a valuable tool in reasoning but not necessarily the best first principle. Instead, I’d suggest that the starting point for considering thought should be 'why' asking why something is the way it is before delving into the conundrum posited. This allows for curiosity-driven inquiry and exploration without prematurely dismantling assumptions that may hold practical or explanatory value.

I don't understand, if something is the right thing to do, how it can be immoral?

It's a fascinating quandary isn't it? Why aren't moral or immoral the same as right or wrong?

Perhaps they don’t have to mean the same thing. It might feel like linguistic sophistry to separate them, but I see it this way: right and wrong are judgments about what action you should take, while moral and immoral are judgments about the nature of the action itself.

For me, labelling an act as immoral means I have a responsibility to reflect on it—to examine my intent, the consequences, and what led me to act that way. It’s a tool for accountability and growth. I resist the idea that labelling an act as moral gives me a free pass. That’s why I approach actions from a deontological perspective: they must be judged consistently, or I risk simply doing whatever I want and rationalizing it afterward.

I don't think an action can be considered immoral if it is not done with intent. In those cases it's just a bad idea or negligent. You're still responsible for your actions, but that's not the same as immoral.

Exactly! That’s the crux of why I separate the judgment of an action from the consideration of intent and circumstances. An action can still be immoral based on its nature, its consequences or violation of principles, regardless of intent. However, the question of intent comes into play when we decide what should follow: personal reflection, societal punishment, or even forgiveness.

Negligence or a lack of intent doesn’t absolve responsibility, but it shifts the focus. While the action itself might be judged as immoral, the response, whether it's guilt, accountability, or a learning moment depends on the underlying intent and context and what it always says is that the action should always be considered, that it's right to stop and check someone for this.

What this gives me is a consistency, whenever I do something wrong, and indeed whenever possible *before* I do something wrong, I stop and think "is this the best approach?, will I feel guilty?, should I expect punishment from the wider society? It's a way of allowing a degree of moral relativism within a framework of moral absolutism, without having to endlessly debate specific acts and building a myriad of scenarios.

Thanks that gave me some food for thought actually, considering what happens when a seemingly moral action leads to immoral consequences.

For example

Being in a position where telling the truth likely leads to someone's death

Looking solely at the action, telling the truth is moral, we need not concern ourselves further
Lying, is immoral, but does not need punishment, you believe that the outcome may result in someone's death, so your intent is to avoid harm.


The way I was thinking to resolve this was to consider that when there's a clear causal chain, then you have to consider the action to be the whole thing, but otherwise, it's not exactly a flaw that you can have outcomes like this, because you can't *prove* the causal chain at the time of the decision.

I'm a frequent user of ChatGPT, and I've found its design makes it an excellent reflective tool for understanding and organizing your own thoughts, as well as gathering and summarizing information from various sources. One common misconception is treating it as if it has an independent existence, it doesn't. ChatGPT works by determining the most statistically likely sequence of words to form a coherent response based on the input it receives

However that doesn't make it invalid as a tool for understanding some of the basis of thought and consciousness, in many ways it could be seen as a kind of gestalt of human experience. It draws from the vast dataset of human knowledge, language, and ideas, reflecting back patterns and perspectives that can feel profound.