It's an issue of proximity, he had nothing to do with me but yes, his life meant nothing to me and I would place no value in it if he was still around. If his life was entrusted to me, it might be a different matter. It's like how I value bicycles and people being able to ride around using that method of transportation and recreation but if you ask me if I value YOUR bicycle then it's a bit difficult to answer, no, I don't but what's that got to do with me valuing bicycles.

I don't know how to value anything that I'm basically unaware of, I didn't even know Manson was dead until this thread and it wouldn't have made a difference to your argument if you had named a lesser-known criminal.

Going to start off with what should be obvious; life has no objective value. However, it doesn't matter what kind of life, just objective value in the sense we're using the word doesn't exist. If you recognise this question to be highly subjective then it needs to be worded differently and if not then I'd say you're lost.

My personal answer is that life does have intrinsic value to me, if I would throw out one of my possessions because it's useless to me, I wouldn't have to think about that but I wouldn't consider your life to be worth nothing just because it's not useful to me. Charles Manson is a more contentious example because rather than just having failed to meet some kind of pre-requisite for value, he's done things which make him less than useless but rather undesirable.

I think to not see life as having intrinsic value reflects a lack of value in the potential or beauty of life. Charles Manson's life has no potential and no beauty and so it's hard for even most people to see it as valuable. It's not just a value for life that protects someone like him but also because most people aren't capable of being a ruthless killer like Manson was. Putting him in jail and refusing to kill him is also a statement about how society condemns killing for any reason and refusing to kill even horrible criminals is the biggest possible commitment to that.

Endeavour to be "hard on yourself and easy on others", hold high standards for yourself but do not apply them to others. If you consider yourself wise or fortunate to have learned about the value of saving your money then don't blame others for not being as wise or fortunate as you. Rather, be generous and not conceited.

Philosophy is often about finding the answer that would work for the most people. I give you that answer with that in consideration. Be conceited if you want, after all, I am.

As for applying standards equally to everyone, there is not much point in your "standard" of saving money and being financially responsible. You've phrased your question as if it's about standards but it just seems to me that you're making a case for poverty being more of a character flaw because you believe it's caused by bad financial practices, laziness, vanity, shortsightedness or whatever else.

You're already aware that people are different, with different lives, different priorities, different circumstances and that life is unfair. I would advise you to forget about trying to find out whether poverty is a character flaw, adopt an "innocent until proven guilty" approach and refuse to come to a judgement on anything but a case-by-case basis.

If you can be generous in your assumptions about people, I believe it will help you in many contexts across life and it may help improve you in the estimation of others. There is no value in being prejudicial against poor people, what can you know about someone because they're poor? Nothing really. I advise reserving judgement until you've got the facts.

As for the general concept of holding everyone to the same standards, I think that it depends on many variables and I have some standards I hold everyone to and some standards that I am willing to make exceptions for and some which are specific to certain people and I think that's the same for everyone.

Is it because of overpopulation? Forgoing children to quell problems of overpopulation is a task for the self-appointed caretakers of the world, the logic of obeying this moral imperative is questionable at best - the claim it's illogical to not obey is humorous. You can deceive yourself into thinking you're part of the solution but you're ignoring the obvious truth that you know there aren't going to be enough people who think like you to make a difference.

I don't know why you think it's illogical to have children but since I don't think it's obvious that it's illogical, I have to just point to all the obvious reasons that don't really need listing.

Does anyone else feel like a fair number of individuals on this site could do with some humility?

Are you constantly feeling angry when someone proves you wrong? Then watch this you cognitively dissonant masses you haha — Mark Dennis

The call for humility often seems to come from those who lack it, you don't like the taste of your own medicine I think or you just don't understand what you're asking for. There is no good humility that embraces being called part of the "cognitively dissonant masses" and honestly I can't think of a less humble word than "masses" being used to describe others.

While we may have differing views, cultures and backgrounds, let’s not forget we are here to increase our awareness, collaborate and seek knowledge. — Mark Dennis

To be perfect is to be unassailable, so it stands to reason that if you are being assailed then you are not perfect — Mark Dennis

Philosophy is not necessarily about being right or wrong, it is not necessarily about knowledge either. When I look through the discussions on the forum, I'd say very few of them have anything to do with truth or knowledge but are very subjective. People disagreeing with you doesn't show flaws in your ideas any more than it shows flaws in theirs, quite a fallacious statement.

You said "prove wrong" at the start of your OP, I don't know what that's in reference to but did you actually "prove" someone wrong? Or you're just convinced you were right and you're in fact angry that they didn't acknowledge it. That's what your post sounds like, a hypocritical tirade against self-assuredness.

If we here treat each other as ends and not means to ends then we can all benefit. — Mark Dennis

What would your arrogant rant be without some preaching to others on how they should be like. Don't get me wrong though, I don't have a problem with your overt arrogance, only the hypocrisy and duplicitousness.

Unless you're planning on making friends here on this forum, the members are means to an end. Kind sounding platitudes don't pass for wisdom, an anonymous forum board is not the place for people to treat others as "ends in themselves". Better figure out why you're here and if it's to get into stupid arguments with strangers and then make disgruntled threads about them after you had an argument, perhaps find a better use of your time?

As for the VR, people need to first opt for it, which is what I meant when I said they won't feel satisfied with it. The VR feels like a separate topic, I think there are many reasons why such an option would be unpopular that have nothing to do with people wanting more than hedonism. Social stigmas and the implications it may carry. I agree with the sentiment that people want more in life than pleasure and I also think people seek more than pleasure in their actions - a lot more. It's pretty complicated I think but since I agree with the general message being conveyed there, I won't go further into my thoughts.

Since you are talking about satisfaction as a way for a third-party observer to evaluate the quality of someone's life, to me, it instantly becomes a discussion about subjectivity. I think that's the case because if you agree that this is an entirely interpretative and subjective evaluation (and will always be) then this method is just another of the potentially infinite number of ways that one could choose to evaluate the quality of a life. The only thing that separates those and this one is the opinion of us humans. This way of evaluating the quality of a life is not particularly absurd or unreasonable but since truth isn't a factor, I would start to look at utility and appeal which would be a hard deviation from the topic.

The moment you used the word "evaluation", it's been determined that we're not looking for objective truth. We evaluate by interpreting, we give true things meaning, what is - IS and then everything else is our creation. Quality doesn't exist without interpretation - as things just are and they are not measured. It's not different if instead of from a person's mouth, it's by rules they created or criteria they established.

Without a truth value, there needs to be some other kind of value and I've yet to see an appeal for that. Since there is no need to evaluate the quality of other peoples' lives and I have yet to see any benefit for people who choose to evaluate the quality of others' lives in this way, I don't see the point of the whole thing.

Okay, I had assumed you were advocating for it.

I am sure many people will not be satisfied with just hedonistic pleasures and likewise, many will not be satisfied with a virtual reality.

I'm a bit confused as to what you're specifically talking about. If we're talking about using how satisfied someone was throughout their life as a means to evaluate their life then I find that concept to be meaningless. We cannot evaluate a life's worth, it is purely subjective.

If it is to say "my life is good because I am satisfied" or "I want a good life therefore I will aim to be satisfied" then these are good ideas but over what timeframe is this person focusing? You may be satisfied when you eat a lot but dissatisfied over your weight gain or you may be satisfied in a low paying job now but many years down the track begin to regret.

People, groups, society, culture and whatever else place values on particular attributes and qualities. I don't think these opinions matter until they matter. In other words, the people with those opinions have to matter and that includes yourself. All of this plays into whether one will be satisfied with their lot in life or not.

As I am a nihilist and a pragmatist, I feel compelled to evaluate things from the perspective of someone else's value system. There is no greater goal for people to aspire towards. People never have things sorted out though, they don't even know what they want. Even when they get what they want, they may become bored of it later and will want something new. Just ambition alone means that perhaps one will perpetually dissatisfied with what they've got. However, I interpret being satisfied to mean that your life is being lived in accordance with what you wanted out of it. Representing low internal conflict, knowing yourself and living well. Even if you aren't someone to be admired.

I think you're right, people will criticise the satisfied if ignorant, immoral or unambitious because it doesn't sit right with them. If they felt this applied to themselves then they would be dissatisfied with the state of their own lives, it is only their opinion about the quality of the lives of others where despite them being satisfied, can consider others to have a low quality of life.

That being said, it can be more complicated because this understanding of evaluating quality of life by satisfaction may encourage short-term hedonistic behaviour without worrying about long-term consequences.

Of course, there a whole lot of philosophical thought which can be used to argue against your view. I tend to care about the individual and being pragmatic even at the expense of others if that's whats wanted. I have my own preferences but I tend to think that its the job of people to live up to their own preferences in the best way they can, that's what I want for others and not for people to think as I do.

People argue about religion because it has important implications to the lives of many people, it touches many issues and topics. Abortion, marriage, sexuality, education, politics, science, history, morality and so on, are all impacted by the claims of theists. That's why I find myself talking about religion even though it's not something I think about or care about.

I don't know if we are back peddling on color blindness, I don't know of a time where race wasn't a big way in which many people see others. I think there are a few main reasons for the continuation:
1. Racial Histories - As for instance, an African-American, you have a separate history than a white American.
2. Racialised statistics - Crime, wealth, education, voting and so on, are all popularly divided by race which leads to a greater racial focus.
3. Low requirement for "racism" - Culture, religion, language, food and many other things can't be criticised without risk of being called racist. So even if you are not actually racist, people will say you are and this puts a spotlight on "race" which goes beyond what it should.
4. News on racism - I think people are very interested in this topic for a number of reasons, racism and racial differences is constantly reported on.

There are many more though.

With 1 & 2, it's clear you can't fix past injustices and racial inequality without making race an important issue. The only way to proceed with an unracialised perspective is to forget about racial histories (i.e. All Americans (or insert nationality) share a history, not based on skin colour) and forget about racial inequality. I think for many people, it's inconcievable to do that because it's seen as unfair, an outlook that requires 1 & 2. I think, ironically, the racism is being perperuated by the people who care about 1 & 2 because reducing racism is not the main goal and people who see color blindness as the solution don't see this difference.

Reducing racism at this point, will not undo the fact that because of the past, many non-white races are disadvantaged in many areas across life. It is also requires forgiving these inequities which is hard for some. People still see others as part of a racial history, African Americans are former slaves and whites are former slave owners and without changing this outlook, you cannot achieve color blindness.

Of course, the people who I say are perpetuating racism probably don't see it that way but I don't see racism going away where race is extremely important and they're making it very important. Racism would go away if everyone was color-blind but the inequities would remain, I think for some it's more important to keep color-blindness out rather than forgive the inequities.

Racism is clearled defined as discrimination based on the belief of the superiority of one race over another. It is unscientific, impractical, prejudicial and unfair. Biogtry is characterised by intolerance but to tolerate the intolerable is equally immoral as being intolerant towards that which should be accepted. So it becomes a matter of perspective over whether tolerance is good or not in that context. That's why calling leftists bigots isn't even necessarily an insult, because they are proud to be intolerant of what and who they find intolerable, change must be demanded. It's just that the word bigot has negative associations and will only be used to insult.

Also, when I said that I'm against simplistic, overarching characterisations, I am but if I described the same thing as I do with biogtry but with nicer words, it would just describe the views of leftists. If being on a political extreme wasn't like that, it wouldn't be called a political extreme. You did ignore most of my post just to sneer at a percieved contradiction, whatever the reason is, I'll end this conversation with you here.

I dunno if you edited your post or if I misread it but I remember distinctly a setence from you using concerns about immigration racism. I can't find it now, I'll assume that I misread and drop that point.
As for Nazi Germany, I don't feel like taking this seriously, many things happened between Hitler debasing the Jews and killing them, I don't need to address that comment.


My point is pretty redundant if you think racism and biogtry are insignificantly different. Racism is indefensible, there's no racist beliefs that are reasonable, it's fair to say it's ignorant to be racist. Biogtry is a term which makes a whole lot of sense from the perspective of a leftist but it's usually a matter of perspective. I think most leftists are bigots, they have a "with me or against me" attitude, they describe those they disagree with in the most vile terms they can find and they refuse to compromise. Leftists aren't going to call themselves bigots though, they're going to call all the people who refuse to embrace their ideas bigots. They'll call it "to stand firm on important issues" and that's how they'll brand it.

I am not complimenting Trump's voters, I am not willing to condemn them either. They're a large number of people, with different circumstances and ideas and any simplistic, overarching characterisations will draw my criticism. An incomprehensible number of people voted for Trump, I can't even imagine a million people, let alone 63 million. What voting for Trump says about someone is complicated and we cannot even begin to approach this issue objectively. It's also a separate issue from any appraisal of Trump, voters on Trump don't only interpret things differently, but they also aren't experts on Trump, they may be willing to overlook what they know is bad because they care so much about the other issues - or one single other issue.

So people say why they vote for Trump, they say why they care about border control and they don't cite racism or sexism but that's what Hillary says it is anyway. Illegal immigrants get demonized by Trump, people don't like illegal immigrants - oh they're Mexican - we must be racists. Trump is basically calling Mexicans deplorables right? What's the difference between him and Hillary? You just assume it's race because there's a race difference, even if no actual racial differences are talked about. You may be convinced it's racism but I'm convinced that if Mexicans were white, this would still be a huge issue that people were angry about and Mexico isn't just a country of people of a different race, people know about the crime rates, the poverty and the political situation. It's no different than a bunch of poor people from a bad neighbourhood and different entire being discriminated in an affluent neighbourhood even when the race is the same. I think the level of precision necessary to avoid simplifying the issue according to one's biases is incompatible with what can be done while talking about a group of 63 million voters.

What's this 'we" but a disconnected number of individuals, we require an organisation or the government to effectively and fairly distribute aid to those who need it. We are still expected and sometimes required to play a part in helping others when they need it in all kinds of situations from providing medical assistance to strangers, to financial support for family members and so on. Is this not so?

I think that racism has lost all meaning to some people, I wonder what people would think a world where only a single race existed. There'd be no borders, nobody would be worried about illegal immigration, nobody would discriminate against other cultures, nobody would discriminate against poorer and less educated nations.

Forgetting that, what I said still stands true, a desire for strict border control is not indicative of a racist mentality. Why would voting transcend what people care about - that's exactly what it should be about.I don't think that what you've posted actually demonstrates racism. It certainly demonstrates an extremely prejudiced view towards illegal immigrants but is it race, is it because Mexico is a poor country, is it because the media misconstrues the reality of the situation and people do not know the facts?

Do people like Trump because he's a "racist" or because they care about border control and they're willing to overlook that he's a 'racist"? There are repercussions economically, culturally, politically, societally and on many different scales and areas to the topic of border control. There's the truth of the matter and the fearmongering and misinformation that people will react to if they don't can't discern fiction from fact.

I'm not really making any claims about what percentage of people favour Trump for what reason but leftists certainly can't help themselves. Trump supporters are racist, the desire to control borders is indicative of racism, a simplistic analysis that is convienient for them.


No, you're just unable to separate fact from interpretation and the role of your insidious views from your interpretations. Every post you've made in this thread stems from your ignorance about these two things.

Your conclusions to the statistics you're providing require a particular bias, you sacrificed nuance for stronger condemnation. Of all the fallen democracies, Nazi Germany and Hitler are the worst to draw parralels to, because it's overused as a method to do the most damage to your "political opponents". Caring about immigration ≠ racism either, pretending to be orientated around facts while utilising these overdone interpretations which clearly only seek to maximise impact, it's been done too much to have even the slightest chance of people failing to recognising what you're doing.

Like the video said, really, only leftists equate wanting border control with racism, the argument is absolutely ridiculous. Maw has already equated Trump to Hitler and this next argument of his is equally stupid.

People don't have a right to suicide because it's not something that needs a right. I understand you're saying that we don't need a right to suicide but why would we need a right to suicide to begin with? Why is it important to say that we shouldn't have one. Seems to me you're just saying that "suicide is not the answer".

What's a right to begin with? Euthanasia is one thing, we're discussing a legal issue and rights apply. Suicide itself can't be a right because rights can only go so far, if you're doing it yourself, you don't need approval to suicide you just do it.

The video covers the topic of the "deplorables" well even if it's not explaining many of the other factors in the Trump victory. I wonder how many voters of Trump actually support Trump and don't just hate the left and Hillary. I think I can understand where Hanover is coming from, although maybe it's just my imagination, I feel that many would vote for anyone if it meant preventing the likes of Hillary from achieving presidency. The contempt the left has for the "deplorables" is not unmatched by the contempt felt for the left by all kinds of unlikely allies. I feel that Trump is so outdone as a threat by the left, it's just terrible that he can be a better option than his mainstream political rivals.

Culture dictates and good men obey.

Hate is triggered by many things and takes many forms, in my opinion, arm-chair philosophers tend to try to give explanations that ignore complexity. That's not to say arm-chair philosophy is inferior to something else, it doesn't apply to everyone. I think the word "hate" and what I define as "hate" are different because the word hate is used non-chalantly to describe a strong dislike while hate for me, is something personal and emotional. If you "hate" something like traffic or crying babies and what you mean is you find those things annoying then I would say that's not hatred. For something to qualify as hate it needs to be emotional, intense and persisting. That's not a fact, that's my interpretation of what it means to hate.

I think that historically, hate has rarely been a factor in any changes for the better but endless examples of how it played a hand in what we'd have rather avoided. When a group experiences hate, that hate takes over and overpowers reason, tolerance and kindness. Hate is rarely pragmatic, hate allows people to forget about the consequences. Even hating evil leads to more evil, some people probably see things like the death penalty and lynchings/vigilante justice as examples of that. No forgiveness, persistent and overpowering anger which lends itself to thoughtless choices.

In almost all cases where hate can be argued to be something good, it's actually love for the opposite thing that's good - or would be much better. In the case of something like slavery, I would want people to love freedom and tolerance and not feel hatred. I believe this kind of attitude will lead to happier people and better solutions. I think all emotions can be manipulated and given contexts where they're good but unfetted hate has a terrible track record, can't ignore it.

Athiesm is not offering solutions to existential problems, nor is it an attempt at being pragmatic. Religion is not necessary for answering existential problems, any insistence on that is meaningless.

We would need to define 1) Power and 2) Prevailing but I don't think that interpretations can be "true" in that they're objectively correct. So within a business, the business owner will make the rules according to his views and hence power defined the prevailing interpretations. It's more complicated within a culture or society, there are many prevailing interpretations and each of them determined by more than just power but the basic idea, I agree with.

Interpretation is not the difference between fact and fiction, it's a necessary step in understanding the truth. Meaning cannot be a byproduct of truth because meaning comes from interpretation. Interpretation is not a product of truth either because it comes from us.

It's a moral flaw, meanness tends to be petty and selfish, if meanness isn't a moral flaw then idk what is.

Most of the trans-exclusive communities, your usual cisheteronormative generally right-wing folks, just straight up equate sex with gender, and I don't think I really need to argue much against that view here, I hope, since it's just factually wrong — Pfhorrest

You've established political undertones from the very start of your post. Your use of terminology is not only unnecessary, but it's also argumentative and condescending, your claim is not even sourced. This set me against you from the start. However, I did not do you justice in my characterisation of your opinion. As you say, others have derailed you quite a bit and I lazily jumped to conclusions without giving your post a proper read but after rereading your post, it is as you say, I apologise. I think your argument has merit and the term "bearing" would go some way to helping people to talk about gender and people with gender dysphoria.

I always think it is interesting for someone who is transgender (or whatever else you want to call it) to have unique and particular opinions about gender. You also throw in words like cisgender, heteronormative, trans-exclusive and so on and your experience. It sets up a framework for which the reader will understand where you're coming from, which is that rather than listening to your opinion, we're hearing about dogma you've learned and feel enlightened by. I feel like you're here to enlighten people on an issue which is particularly personal to you, this is a bad set-up because it's a scientific issue.

The primary problem I have with your piece, besides its dogmatic undertones is that you've set up genders as social constructs or as a choice. This is mostly a scientific issue, especially among educated circles, A scientific claim needs strong evidence. This ties into a nature vs nurture debate on gender, My view is that the science points to nature quite strongly, I usually only hear "pragmatic" reasons for why if gender WAS socially constructed, we could change things to create a "utopia" where women and men are equal.

Even the idea of gender being a spectrum, is part of this notion that people are tied down by the oppressive narrative of gender. So a spectrum represents freedom from that oppression. It's the same with every speaker on this, there's no evidence, just ramblings on fairness, equality, freedom and so on but since it's simply not true, when I see evidence that discredits these ideas debunked or evidence that shows these ideas to be more than just hopeful, then I can rethink my position. There's room for reinterpreting gender performance but not actual gender as it's currently defined.

Is this meant for @Rufoid?

It is rational in that it is rational to do what is in your best interests.

I think irrationality is a statement about the coherency of logic but within a context. So it's irrational to bet your life savings on a 1/10000 chance of winning but not if you're going to die tomorrow and you don't have anything better to do with it. It's irrational to use bird omens to make decisions that have nothing to do with birds unless you're doing it for some other reason than trying to make good decisions. It becomes irrational by the standards that have been created through the reason for believing.

Belief in God is slightly more tricky because we're talking about whether or not something exists rather than a choice. Whether belief in God is irrational or not is just one possible framing on that matter. Just as with the bird omen, on the surface, it appears that a belief in God is irrational but we don't know why the belief in God exists. In just one example, one may choose to believe in God because they feel a world without God would lack meaning and that would cause them to be miserable. I would be fine calling that a rational justification for belief in God. It is not sufficient to just know the what, we must know the why.

On the surface, it appears as though there is nothing rational about your choice. However, we do not know that the reason you make your decisions based off the type of bird you see is that you believe this will give you the best chance at making good decisions. If we knew that, I think we could say you're being irrational because there is no logical reason to believe this to be true. If you were doing this for some other reason, we'd have to re-evaluate.

I think this is a case of ambiguity arising from lack of information that is confusing some of the other posters.

Anti-individualist, prejudicial and delusional but worst of all, your argument doesn't make sense even within the framework of tribal thinking and belief in the patriarchy. "Political lesbianism" is toothless, it amounts to nothing more than a hateful and unpragmatic temper tantrum. Whatever authority the group of "man" has won't dissipate just because women refuse to engage in relationships. Whatever authority the group of "man" has could be utilised by women through sexual partnerships with men. And something like women within partnerships withholding sex as others have compared your plan to, which has merit is out the window with your suggestion.

Feminism actually needs to take a step far back from your approach and focus on equality of opportunity, point to instances where women are not free to do what they want to do and doing something about it. Feminists don't diagnose problems correctly, their solutions are pathological and tribal and they're disinterested in complexity. If women are doing X more then men or anything like that, it must be because men are tyrannical and society is prejudiced against women and we need to reform society. That's the feminist diagnosis and solution to nearly every problem they're faced with now.

I think you're the one who mischaracterised what you wrote, you should have decided to go after unnecessary and unhealthy persistent aggression towards a group. You introduced a number of topics without intending to and you're arguing with people as if you didn't bring them up but you did. The very title would have set many people against you from the start - you led them to expect that you're going to be complaining about anti-religious posters rather than 1) this segregation idea or 2) the way in which some anti-religious posters are going about expressing their anti-religious ideas.

I thought the direction you were going to be going in was against "Gnostic Christian Bishop" who literally spams threads about God being a cunt. A ban on him would be nice, make it happen T Clark.

I'm an atheist and I don't think my views towards the religious are amicable but that doesn't mean I stand behind every anti-theist and their attitudes and reasoning. Every position is also held by an idiot but when you take the words of an idiot and characterise it as those of "anti-religious posters" you're not distinguishing between the idiot and the group. I find the same thing true of anti-religious posters, they look for worst examples of religious ignorance and then purposely fail to distinguish between the religious idiots and the religious people who aren't idiots.

Regardless of what your intent was and whether or not you dislike anti-theism/religious sentiment, you should have gone about this a different way. The valid criticism many of the posters have given - and harsher criticism which hasn't been given yet wouldn't be valid if you had focused on the undue hostility and prejudiced behaviour of the posters rather than focusing on the anti-religious content of their posts.

EDIT: I am going to say tbh, I may have projected my feelings about some of the threads and posters here onto you. The guy in your OP may be an idiot but he's innocent of undue hostility and prejudiced behaviour lol. Philosophy forums are always the same, people argue about free will, religion and morality more than anything else. I dislike all three topics by now since I've already argued on them many times before.

The point isn't that you agree with a dictionary, it's that you don't know the definition of a word while also arguing about it. Introspection entails analysing and examining one's thoughts, feelings and actions. It is not limited to self-observation and any application of rational analysis about yourself, your thoughts and feelings is considered introspection.

What do you think the definition of introspection is?

They could. All they gotta do is think about it. — Mww

I thought your position is that they don't need to, what's introspection if not "thinking about it"?

And I will admit that people are liable to have blind spots in their understandings. — Mww

The world would be a better place if people were more like you thought they were lol.

Full knowledge about the reasoning, probably not. But reasoning itself is a conscious activity, which makes explicit the subject absolutely must fully know the thoughts it is reasoning about. — Mww

I don't know if you're just playing devil's advocate here but reasoning is subject to influence from biases, emotions and interpretations which people are not aware of. Since you are seemingly completely in the dark about this, it's not just introspection you lack but basic knowledge about psychology and neuroscience. Honestly, even just realising that being tired or angry can influence how you think should be basic common knowledge. Reasoning is often just wrong in explaining behaviour, you are just offering explanations for why you're doing something without knowing whether or not it's true.

Even if you know why you did something, it's worth investigating your reasoning and asking how you came to your conclusions. I could actually give thousands and thousands of examples where people are ignorant of the reasons for their own reasoning and of examples where they'd be unable to give convincing explanations for their interpretations (which they adopted thoughtlessly). A good example is whether or not we trust someone. There's a whole science on what kind of people appear trustworthy from attractiveness to facial expressions and mannerisms, even beards make a difference. You think people literally have full knowledge of why they trust person A and not person B when the reasons are so illogical? How can that be? Obviously someone having a beard or being unattractive doesn't make them untrustworthy but that's how we're programmed to think.

Surely, you could come up with your own examples of this if you tried as well, there's just way too much to choose from for me to believe you couldn't do it.

It is in their best interests, it's just that people do not become that way naturally - hence the value of introspection. You have said the employment of interpretations among other things has left people aware, it has not. Whether introspection is redundant or not depends on whether a person can learn about themselves by using it. For you to say introspection is redundant is to say that people are on a level of self-awareness that makes it redundant. I don't know exactly what that level is but seeing as we are so complex, with so many different factors attributing to our behaviour and feelings, it must be quite high.

I think it's actually super easy to tell apart the introspective from the disinterested, the notion that introspection could be redundant because people are experiencing their thought process and biases doesn't just dismiss the usefulness of introspection but also the sciences which attempts to go into detail to explain people's behaviours. Neural science alone demonstrates how many influences on our thinking go completely unnoticed. Nobody has full knowledge about the reasoning for their thoughts and actions and really most people have very little knowledge. Introspection is a component of a larger undertaking to understand just a little bit. To say it's redundant is a huge mischaracterisation of the human experience.

Science and the like are good but as you said previously, we are not the same. Currently, introspection is the only way, besides I suppose, seeing an expert or talking with someone else, to look not just into how all humans are but how specifically you are. I think introspection has value beyond a means to know oneself but from that capacity, its value is that your introspection pertains specifically to you as opposed to all people generally. On the topic of its redundancy or being superfluous, it's just like anything else. When you're playing a sport, it's a good idea to take a video recording of yourself to see what's going on. You would think you're the one playing the sport, of course, you knew what happened but actually people are like "wow thats me!?" and so it is with introspection. Simply doing and being doesn't entail understanding, I don't see a need to say more than that.

Interpretations include cognitive biases and prejudices but that's not all they are but given you know what these things are, why would you pretend that people are in a constant state of awareness about them? Cognitive biases, particularly, by definition, are not something people are likely to be aware of. The nature and nurture influences on the self which moulds our interpretations aren't something people are automatically conscious of. You believe people exist in a level of self-awareness that I cannot agree with.

I think we can just agree to disagree on that, a debate on how self-aware the average person is would be difficult and unpleasant. A discussion on how introspection has helped me would just be anecdotal. All very anecdotal and I can't imagine either of us changing our minds.

Quality post... would vote post of the year.

Though demands are increasing, I don't know if what you're saying is true or not and even if it were true, it's irrelevant. Unconcerned meat-eaters will buy whatever product, if there's no market for meat which is being handled ethically then it will be harder for businesses that choose to operate that way to justify doing so. Many cruelties that livestock suffer really come down to laziness and lack of care rather than a choice to favour productivity over animal care.

Each would-be vegetarian can analyse the situation for themselves and decide what their truth is but if they can't buy meat which is handled ethically then meat is just too expensive for them to buy. The would-be vegetarian would surely support laws which forced the meat industry to treat their animals with care. In which case, all meat would increase in price due to increases in costs. If in that situation, you can't afford meat then it's a luxury you can't afford but that doesn't make you a vegetarian.