Who's eating wild birds and chimpanzees? Fish are a problem, I actually find the situation very sad and I don't really eat fish besides what's bred in farms. I used the term livestock many times in what you've quoted, the sustainability of livestock is not a problem, don't you worry, we won't have to resort to cannibalism anytime soon.

Some are of the view that lessening the pain of death a.k.a humane killing is a solution. Humane killing is presented as a response to those who want animal killings stopped. Does it make sense? The worth of a human being is not measured in terms of the degrees of suffering humans can endure. Life, in and of itself, has moral value. That's why murdering another human painlessly with, say, lethal injection won't earn you the judge's sympathy and lessen you sentence. Killing a person humanely still amounts to murder. How is it that the "humane" killing of animals is not murder? — TheMadFool

So a life gone just for a few seconds (how long do you chew?) of tastebud stimulation? — TheMadFool

The options for livestock is life, reproduce, death or life, death and discontinued existence. The only moral issue is how the livestock are treated while they're alive. Vegetarians would be better off buying meat which was produced with higher ethical standards and supporting the companies that produce it. Life involves reproducing and death and natural death entails pain just as unnatural death does. Lament the living conditions of the animals yes, decrying their "murder" lacks understanding.

Introspection is the study of the self, sometimes for the sake of understanding and sometimes self-improvement or fixing problems. I understand many things but that doesn't mean I can't study more and learn more; as it is with introspection. In that manner, are most people "experts" on themselves? If your answer is "yes" then introspection becomes a little redundant, my answer would not no and so it's a little more useful. I don't think people are good judges of themselves, I think people lie to themselves and create interpretations for reasons that they don't understand. Is that true or isn't it, I won't debate that but if you don't see it that way then your perspective will be different.

Introspection is a source of information that shows.....
.....how I am, absolutely:
.....how other people are, I can’t accept. Well, introspection show them how they are, but it won’t show me how they are. — Mww

I do know about humans from science, statistics, history and so on, I also know a lot about dogs. I've owned dogs in the past, I've watched shows on dogs, I've read about them. I will never have the experience of being a dog though, so much about them is beyond what I can understand because of that. Same as how most men find men easier to understand compared to women, it's the same thing.
One reason for that is because men are men, to understand other men isn't that hard. So is introspection for a man, not also a study into all men? It can be the same for all kinds of things. It is fine if you do not see it that way, though, I think everyone has learned this way to varying extents. I find that after having any deep conversation with someone, the time they've spent looking inwards always shows. Views on things that came from within are profound, there's truth while views that come from speculation and theory often just seem idealistic and ill-founded. Not saying those are the only two options but sometimes in philosophy that's how it is.

True, it is not ideal to use introspection instead of statistics and science, history and politics.. etc. I value understanding and knowing about these things greatly but introspection is like these things in that the way you are is real and true. It is a source of information about how you are and how people are. Rationality is unlike those things because, without those things, you may be dealing in fantasy and hypothesis.

The true value of introspection is knowing your role in the creation of "the world" as it is known by you. Beyond truth is perspective as how you are is reflected in how you see the world, to try to know the world without knowing yourself is to ignore your biases and position in it. It would be an absurd undertaking in my mind. If your mood is dark then the world is a miserable place, if you're in love then the world is singing, it can be that basic but it can also be incomprehensible in complexity once factors are taken into consideration alongside each other.

Knowledge must be processed and interpreted and within this process the world once again undergoes transformations. Philosophy is not based on statistics or knowledge, it's based on interpretations. How we interpret has everything to do with us and what kind of person we are, what kind of life we've lived and are living. What we're paying attention to and what answers we've come to in the past.

It comes down a lot to context but I find ignorance is less often a result of lack of knowledge as it is people seeing the world in a particular way based on what kind of person they are without being aware of it (or possibly caring). Politically, philosophically and so on, it's easier to construct worldviews based on your biases and experiences than to know yourself and how that relates to how you see the world.

I'm not really talking about empathy or ethics but knowing the world by knowing yourself. When I am trying to understand someone's actions, I use introspection. I believe what drives other people is also within myself and when the actions of others baffle me, I usually at least find out why I am not similar. An example, a wise spender may ask himself why he spends wisely or doesn't spend foolishly and within those questions, he can find some clues as to the mentality of the foolish spender.

Truly understanding others might be impossible but there's usually a no better way to access their minds than through your own. What is true for you is more likely to be true for others than making up potential reasons, though of course, you can use experience with others as well.

As a philosopher, introspection keeps you grounded, at least you're talking about things which have some validity. If something worked for you or was true for you then it's probably going to work for others or be true for others too. Whereas rationality can explain actions through any number of explanations.

Introspection involves rationality, for sure, it's rationality that doesn't necessarily involve introspection. Rationality without introspection becomes something like ungrounded theorycrafting when it comes to understanding people and the systems that involve people. That's my view.

I do want to say that may not always be true but it's usually true. I know that psychology for example, tries to limit introspection as a tool for understanding people in favour of statistics and that has its place too.

Introspection is a useful tool, it's necessary to understand yourself, others and the world. Introspection always yields results, you can learn about others by knowing yourself and you can start to put things together. Knowing things like intelligence, ambition, laziness, focus, emotion and the list goes on without introspection might be just an exercise in theory, I don't believe you can really know them without introspection. Rationality, on the other hand, does not only not always yield results and it can lead one astray.

Lots of things make sense, seem good on paper and are 100% false. There are psychological factors like cognitive dissonance, cognitive biases like the dunning-kruger effect, confirmation biases. Incomplete information, incorrect premises, logic unreasonably applied and using argumentation that seems good but fails.

I think introspection should be a large component of any philosopher's understanding of the world. Philosophers who fail to utilise their understanding of themselves and others and rely on rationality instead fail and end up in their own little world.

"All politics is identity politics" is not a statement of fact, it's an interpretation and I make negative assumptions about why it exists. Mostly that it's used as a counterargument to criticism against identity politics. As if it's redundant to say identity politics is a problem because "all politics is identity politics". OP doesn't give a name for the person who said this or the context so maybe I'm wrong.

Honestly, the criticism of identity politics has a lot to do with the groups that are being selected for political controversy. Race, gender, sexual orientation, a list of things you've neither chosen for yourself and something that everyone has. If you believe in group histories, if you think in terms of groups rather than individuals - then it's necessary to right the wrongs of the past. These identities can't be ignored, it's immoral to ignore them.

So, I see no problem with factory workers caring about how factory workers are treated or people of a city asking for a better deal for their city but the leftist narrative of caring for disadvantaged groups or the alt-right narrative of caring about racial and cultural hegemony, can't be considered necessary. I'd rather people are politically motivated by their beliefs on what works best or by their conscience.

I think you're right Frank, OP and fdrake are misunderstanding the choice to interpret politics through the lens of the different groups involved and actual identity politics where the politics were motivated by the identity of the groups involved. Unsurprising when you know anything about either of them.

Something like "the streets are dangerous" isn't as much information as it is an interpretation and the way we interpret information or adopt interpretations is more significant than information.

A person might become very self-conscious about how they look in circumstances such as where they feel they don't fit in, they're surrounded by attractive people or near someone they like. Even people who are normally not at all self-conscious about their looks can become so under specific circumstances.

I also think emotion has a lot to do with it, a depressed person will naturally adopt negative interpretations about things and become attached to negative information. The opposite applies for a confident person.

So I don't know if extra "information" is making much of a difference to anyone but different interpretations about what things mean and what matters do. If you're watching MTV and they're telling you what's cool and trendy or if you're watching the news and they're making fun of the fashion and mannerisms of young people, that can make a difference to how you think and act.

I do not believe that I am who I am because of luck and I do not believe it is possible for me to be anyone but myself. If my parents hadn't had me then I would simply not exist. I had no choice to be born but I had no capacity for choice before I was born because I did not exist. Now that I exist, my perception of the world comes from me and only me. If something is green it is because I see it as green, that others may not see green as green is not relevant to something's greenness as I see it.

How I see things, the way I am and the interpretations I come to are not at all similar to the rest of humanity. My perception is uniquely true, what I see is true but if you saw something that doesn't make it true to me. My interpretations are uniquely true, if I think existence is wonderful and others think it's not, it still is to me. My views which are subjective are not like facts which can be proven wrong, it is always true as long as I continue to believe. As it is with meaning, my meaning.

There is always any number of ways to interpret something and things to utilise in how you interpret it. There's the universe scale, where you're less than an ant and the scale of your household where you are king. There's your powerlessness to stop what you can't stop and your power to do what you can do. There's the misery that you know exists and the beauty you know exists. What shall stand out to you? From what you say, your scale is immense, you look at the vast universe whereas for me, I look at myself and the scale is tiny. I am not distinct from other humans in the universe scale but I am like another galaxy to other humans in my smaller scale. What those in other galaxies to me decide, I think is irrelevant.

I interpret claims of life's intrinsic meaning as an attempt at tyranny, it is a claim of authority over the meaning of the lives of everyone else. If I decide my life's meaning, live in accordance with that and live happily and productively, when someone else claims that all human life - not just their life - has a particular meaning, it is an argument against my claim of my own life's meaning.

My meaning caters to who I am and my situation, it has been thought out and it gives me strength. The various roles I fulfil, the way I see myself and my position in the world. Whatever dogmatic, supernatural nonsense one believes should supersede me and my answer which is likely neither practical nor true,it's not something I'll ever accept.

Alright so in your last comment "you" is not me, but "one" is that right?

I got no idea what the rules are but some of the worst posters here are mods. The worst I've been called on this site is an "illiterate half-breed" and the person who called me that WAS a mod. In fact, before even knowing who were mods, I had already felt like 50% of the mods were posters I shouldn't respond to or take seriously. So I can't take the idea that poor or rude posters ought to go elsewhere seriously, given how many mods here fit that description.


Sarcasm over the internet can be difficult to detect but I'm glad it was a joke.

Justifying meanness is intricate. There's the who, the what, the why, the where. Yes, there's a meanness scale but it's more complicated than that.

My goal is to find a way that works for me, the progress of mankind... that's not a concern of mine. I have opinions about what's fair, what's reasonable, what's just, what's deserved and I make my choices based off of my interpretations. That's my ethical consideration. From there I take into account how it will be received and whether things will likely play out how I want.

Beyond the ethical consideration, there's what I find funny and enjoy, my expression of displeasure or contempt and so on. It's also unusual that when I'm being mean - it's to someone's face. I've got nothing interesting to say on this topic I think, each situation is different.

Who in their own minds is part of the degradation of society? Nobodies, including yours. Unsurprising.

@Bitter Crank said it best.

Meaning comes from interpretation, beings interpret. Others will tell you there's something truer than that... but nobody will ever subvert my interpretations.

No one would ever dare to call me an idiot. — uncanni

I mean, you seem pretty removed from reality so I can't tell if YOU'RE trolling or not. Nobody would ever "DARE" to call you an idiot? You're the kind of guy I was just criticising in this thread, you don't have control over such a thing... Violence and abuse of power would quickly become your only recourse to control people and there's consequences for that. Online you don't even have those options - you've got nothing.

As for whether I think it's okay to be mean to people I don't like. I think being "mean" is vague because there are things which are mean that I'll do and things which are mean that I won't do - because I think that's going too far. Meanness is a part of me, I never decided I should laugh when I see someone making a dumb mistake or saying something stupid, it's just how I am. As for why it's justified, clearly, it can only be because I value my enjoyment over yours. Honestly, all philosophies which act as though you're a gear in a machine, I think they're ridiculous. I am me, not the person I think is an idiot, I don't need to think their perspective is equally valid to mine.

There are people I admire and respect and so too are there people I don't respect. To me, that's better than showing everyone unconditional civility. I am happy for people to not respect me, especially if they've got an argument for it. I would not necessarily be displeased if you started to tell me what a degenerate you thought I was, I'd probably laugh and enjoy it.

I'm still here so I can't have disobeyed the rules too badly. The forum is not mine, I cannot say what it is but what it is to me is still intact. It doesn't matter to me whether people want or don't want me to be here.


I know that I am just one perspective in a sea of billions and my perspective is only important to me because I am me. That's enough though - and I don't answer to some kind of transcendent idea of right and wrong. There is no "right because right for me" because that is a claim about the transcendent. A person's interpretations are subjective but they've real consequences and real validity. The idea of right and wrong as a transcendent thing is removed from reality, it isn't something that affects me.

It is a battle for power I think, the never-ending debate about what is right and wrong. I can see that I'm different from others in ways that I never decided to be. So it is also not a choice for others to be like me, futile for me to argue it should be like that. What I should do is up to me and I'm left to react to the actions of others. I'm not oblivious towards that for example, I'll be banned from this forum if I'm caught violating the rules. Knowing that and things like that, I make my choices.

Heh, I certainly have.

I only care about what's practical, I think most of the times I've argued with you, you admit that you're being unrealistic and impractical but stand by your position anyway and I think you'll end up doing that again if we continue to debate this. I haven't read any of your posts besides those directed at me, maybe you've been saying very sensible and reasonable things, don't know but I haven't thought of any sensible disagreements to what I'm saying.

All I know about trolling is that I've done it before and I'll do it again - I get something out of it.

The word "responsibilties" holds a certain importance to me, so when a forum that I barely visit and consider entirely dispensible has rules that I haven't even read, I am unhappy about saying I have a responsibility to abide those rules. There are consequences for not abiding by them, that's what I'd prefer to say.


Sure, it's a personal philosophy. My values, my thoughts, my personality - they can't be separated from me. My personal philosophies are right because they're right for me. If my values and preferences changed, the philosophies that were true because of them or good because of them will lose their value. And to people who never had my values or preferences, there may not have ever been any value. I only expect the same out of others, I only object in cases like these where you'll agree that your actions lead to outcomes you don't like, I think it's clear then that your way is not working.

Yes, it's my choice to be hostile, I do not need validation from anyone but myself. I have the capacity to be unkind. When I believe it is right to be unkind then it is right. I know that no matter what I believed there'll be people who disagree, it was never an option to act in accordance with all the responsibilities people think I have.

In this forum and in life, you can only try to act in a way that leaves you without regret. That most often leads to an outcome that favours you. My hostility is measured, I won't be hostile where I think that the result will be unfavourable for me. So with the troll, I am not defeated but rather I aspire towards a favourable outcome.

If I had the power to make it so nobody ever trolled me then that would certainly be a favourable situation for me but seeing as I don't have that power, it's unrealistic. Applying an unrealistic solution can't be favourable.

Yeah, I don't troll on this forum, not much at least. I don't know what point you're disagreeing with but the reality is that you cannot control the troll and your reaction is the only thing that can be controlled. If you try to control the troll, you reveal your own powerlessness and you spiral into greater frustration and anger but if you handle yourself well then you will win in every sense. Spectators will support you, you'll feel good about yourself and the troll who failed to upset you will be revealed as a troll.

Whether the troll thinks you deserve to be trolled or not is irrelevant and it's only worthwhile to note that because if you are a reasonable and sensible person then perhaps the troll has misjudged you. Regardless of what the best outcome is of being trolled, to not aspire towards that but instead try to control whether people troll or not is delusional. You absolutely cannot control that and if you try to exercise a power you don't have then you'll look like a fool.

Even within lies, you can find worthwhile truths. I'm happy to troll people if I think that there's no chance of having a reasonable discussion with them. Sometimes I'll troll people just because I don't like them. Trolling to me is a course of action that follows feeling no respect towards someone, thinking either they or their ideas are absurd. From my perspective, if you're being trolled by me, you deserved it for saying idiotic things.

I don't think there's always value to trying to have a discussion in earnest with people because of either one or both parties. Though, I also think that people troll because they want to take part in conversations where they have nothing of value to contribute.

Trolling is a hostile action, which often works because people haven't accepted that they can't control the actions of the troll. The only option is to recognise that this person is trying to get under your skin and show them that it won't work. If you get annoyed you lose, if you show you can't be annoyed then you win. I think people who hate trolls probably lose more than they win. You can try to disregard that and justify your frustration but how can it be that the troll successfully trolls you and you got frustrated but that's showing your virtue? That's delusional.

Being trolled is an opportunity to build your character and know more about yourself. Ultimately, if you accept that there are always going to be those who will violently disagree with every idea you have and everything you are then you won't be surprised when your paths cross. It won't be surprising that people will do their best to upset you and you'll see it for what it is and handle it with grace. You cannot isolate yourself from it AND use the internet.

Money is important to most people but money does not only represent material wealth. Travelling, hobbies and the freedom to do what you want to do besides also having what you want to have. It equates to social status, protects you from illness and injury and the list goes on. Even if you don't want money, just having it could mean you have to work less or take a job which is more enjoyable without worrying about the salary. It protects you from bad bosses and nasty co-workers, worries about the sustainability of your lifestyle.

So, it is less so the superficial and materialistic that care about money but just the sensible. Though that doesn't mean everyone cares about it the same.

Across many areas of life, people try to find sense in the senseless, particularly by rationalising motivations and perspectives and suicide is the same. To begin with, it's strange that suicide could be called an urge. Suicide should be looked at case-by-case, I've never found any reason to do it any other way. Self-harm and suicide, what's rational about it? Who'd choose it? It chooses you. There's a long list of things you're born as and some are more obvious than others, sometimes the public acknowledges it and sometimes it's less clear.

I don't believe that your "suicide" could be divorced from your philosophies but neither do I believe your philosophies can be divorced from the desires you've had to commit it. That's a relevant part of how you've experienced the world. You want to reinterpret the meaning of suicide, there's room for that and realistically, facts cannot necessarily refute interpretation but I view suicide as tragic because it's the last resort. Mostly reached by impulsiveness, psychological proclivities, suffering, hopelessness and so on. What's a pleasant road to suicide?

Everything is case-by-case, the world is vast but the same can't be said for our perspectives and how we see it. Often I see that suicidal types fixate, problems overwhelm them and they tunnel vision.

As for Antinatalism, it's an interpretation that makes sense internally because of how you've seen and experienced life. I can't say it's wrong, I'm no more capable of divorcing my philosophies from who I am than you.

Yes, those studies are linked to gun access and guns make suicide easier. That's one takeaway.

"The human narrative" probably says all I need to hear, vague and meaningless, such a thing only exists in the imagination of people. Any discussion about it would only show an inability to separate fact from interpretation or worse yet, pretend perspective is irrelevant.

Viewing suicide as a kind of philosophical stance which can be interpreted to be indicative of just whatever, it's romanticising. Humans don't kill themselves because of the way the world is, they do it because of the way they are.

What I think is that many philosophers tend to romanticise the motivations for suicide. People are selected for suicidal thoughts, they do not decide to have them. Some people won't have them and won't ever have them and others will have them regardless of anything. World views do not lead to suicidal feelings, suicidal feelings shape world views. Nihilism does not cause suicide but people with a proclivity towards suicidal thoughts will latch on to nihilism.

It is an unmovable sadness and discontent within people which can only be endured or ended with suicide. That's what drives the clinically depressed. Though the greater portion of suicides are impulsive, reckless and regrettable choices that are made without forethought.

There is nothing poetic about someone killing themselves at the height of a despair which would have dissipated in a short time after the attempt. Suicide over a lost job, bad grades, stress, lost relationship, financial troubles where very little thought was put into it are people who could have easily lived happy lives. Many of the ones who fail in their attempt DO end up living happy lives. An article on this:
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/many-suicides-are-based-on-an-impulsive-decision-2014-8?r=US&IR=T

So the conclusions we can draw from most suicide cases is that they're unfortunate and rarely conclusions are reached by unbiased rational thought. I'd say that suicide either shows that an individual had a proclivity for suicidal thoughts and things didn't go well for them or an impulsive act that doesn't represent defeat but rather just impulsiveness. This leads me to think it would be a mistake for those who do not and have not contemplated suicide to judge those who have attempted or committed suicide. The likelihood seems to be that you do not have the same proclivities or impulsiveness and not that you're some kind of brave fighter in comparison.

Well, I was not talking about white privilege but identity.

For white privilege, it's a pernicious and toxic term.

The first important point is that "white privilege" is not a fact, it's an interpretation of facts. As far as the facts go, they are what they are. Just in the 1960s and 70s blacks were being subjected to very real and overt racism from the government with deprivation of their rights, persecution by police and so on. Opportunities are low, poverty is high, things were very bad only 50 years ago. No matter how good their situation is now, they couldn't possibly now equal the average in America - and the situation now isn't very good anyway.

Actually, if white privilege was said just like you and I have said it that's already most of the controversy gone. There's still the issue of ignoring all races besides white which are doing as well (or better) than whites.

Most of the advantages listed in "white privilege" even if they're BASED on facts are malicious in nature. If you're going to talk about the economic advantages of being born white, you've stopped dealing in facts and you've entered the realm of interpretation. White people can be born rich or poor, there's no innate economic advantage in the colour of your skin. There are many such examples of this.

People talking about white privilege are usually more than happy to throw in unfalsifiable, baseless claims about unconscious racism, hyperbolising the threat of police, including conspiracy theories etc.

Nobody should ever take "white privilege" as a reputable sociology term, it's rarely offered that way either. The implications are pessimistic and ugly, the term is obnoxious and it's the term is used with unfalsifiable claims and has either depressing or nasty interpretations. It's doing nobody any favours to be introduced to the term and it has literally no value of any kind.

People only offer sob stories for why the word is needed, when I hear a practical argument for why I should tolerate the term then I'll listen but mostly it's just people giving moral imperatives or being in denial about how the term is not simply describing the facts. I googled " list of white privileges" and took a look at every link on the first page. It's really not hard to find that "white privilege" goes beyond what's factual for many. It's not just white people refusing to accept the facts.

http://crc-global.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/white-privilege.pdf
https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/10-examples-that-prove-white-privilege-exists-in-every-aspect-imaginable-20170724

The problem here is not identifying obvious physical attributes like race or gender, nor is it that people think they have significance. The issue is "interpretative relevance" or the meaning we take away from those characteristics. For instance, presuming that because someone is black, he is more likely to be dangerous.

There are a plethora of ways to "know Willow" and some of them make more sense than others. It isn't just that I may have an opinion about how people are based on their race and gender, it's that I could use my opinions about their race and gender and consider them sufficient to know how to think about someone and how to deal with someone. That defines whether "Willow" can be simply characterised by gender and race or whether other characteristics are important.

I've got no problem (and it would be silly if I did) with people having their identity based on the many groups they belong to. Though I don't necessarily agree with how liberally people call things groups when they could just as easily be called characteristics, gender is an example of that.

My goal is not to eliminate race as a concept - it's to reduce the interpretative relevance of race. To remove it as something that people use to judge others and prioritise as a way to form opinions about others.

Individuals should be responsible for their actions and not the actions of the groups they belong to, they shouldn't be disliked because of what others with their skin colour or gender did. Social justice is not an excuse, there is no excuse. Racists, those who believe in racial histories and the like aren't evil - they're just stupid.

Everyone has the ability to make a choice.

It's one of the more persistent illusions of our time that the individualism is something to aspire to while it really is a degradation of society. — Benkei

What's your reasoning for favouring collectivism over individualism?

Racial histories and your prejudice against different races are not "truths", they are interpretations. Doesn't appear that many people on this forum understand the difference honestly and it's just an egotistical outlook to have, thinking your interpretations = the truth. Your "benefits" all are based on you being more knowledgable than me, which is just a convenient assumption, it cannot be anything but an assumption.

When we are talking about interpretations, the benefit cannot be "knowing more". This is a philosophy forum, I am not interested in trying to "win" arguments - there is no winning. So, there can only be the hope to expand my knowledge and develop my opinions. Your views have no practical application, there's a litany of downsides (literally) to them and now you're just hoping it's good enough to portray yourself as the one dealing with tough truths. Toxic interpretations aren't tough truths, they're dumb truths and they're subjective. Anyway, I think I'm done here.

So you are essentially conceding that my approach is more practical - in that you have said that a racially focused solution is not the way to go. What are the benefits to your "ideology"?

Are you talking about helping the old lady across the street? Empathy has its place and sure, easy to do kindness is a fine thing but in a thread discussing empathy as the world's salvation? Moral imperatives are more powerful than empathy, responsibility is more powerful, empathy isn't even necessarily at play in most of the cases you think you're talking about.

I don't ignore history, I don't believe in racial histories. I despise racists and people who believe in racial histories. I do not want to overturn the past, I want a future with no racism. I am an individualist, I want people to be judged for their individual characteristics and NOT group identities, which I reject for the most part.

The counterargument to this is not to try to be more compassionate than me, giving examples of racism, poverty and corrupt legal systems and acting as if you care more than me. Also, it isn't to say that you're justified to be using racial histories and racial prejudice because it existed historically - something you should condemn not emulate?

Also, I don't aim to hurt your feelings, no point acting like I'm a fool for trying. I merely apply my beliefs to discussions and observe the results.

"The desire to do good" is similarly not a noteworthy counterweight to other human motivations. People are hypocrites, of course, you say "help people when it's within your power" but that's just nonsense. Your "power" is actually fairly massive, you could easily pick up extra jobs and cut down on your spending and use that money to help others and make a dramatic impact on people's lives.

Why don't you make these kinds of efforts? Is it because you don't care about people and you're just pretending? No, that's not the reason. The reason is that you've got many things you'd like to do and limited resources and helping others isn't near the top. Now, maybe I've underestimated you, perhaps you actually are giving it your all to help others but this would make you a special case, that's all.

So yeah, everyone thinks empathy is great because it's easy, I can sit in my room and imagine about things all day. Actually having the courage or commitment to act, not so easy. That's why in my view, you need to incentivise helpful behaviour. That's what capitalism is to some extent, you provide a service or good that is useful to others but you're also rewarded for it.

You are lecturing us on history and telling me that people's opinion is a result of their whiteness. As if you're the only person here who knows about slavery, segregation or the past extents of racism. You posit that the white race is in power in America, society may view things racially but society is flawed. Your way of thinking perpetuates racism, it is racist really, you can't have separate rules for people based on their race,

Racism existed and exists and that's clearly to the disadvantage of black people, no shit. How tragic it is that it exists, that people will group others and themselves by race and prejudice against people based on race - oh wait, that's you, right?

I believe you just gave a lecture on how it's wrong not to view things racially or else we've forgotten about centuries of racism.

That's very convenient. Let's be fair now that fairness helps the people in power. It also ignores the on-going treatment of black people. — T Clark

"Let's be fair now" I mean who's "us" and what do you mean "now"? Also, who are the "people in power"?

This is not aimed at you. I don't know you are or where you came from. Saying that we shouldn't look at race is what people who don't remember that for 400 years, all we looked at it race say. It also doesn't take into account the burden of disrespect and discrimination that our society still place on black people. "Why can't we all just be friends" is easy for a white person to say. — T Clark

Nobody chose to be born white or black but you choose to judge them based on whether they're white or black. There's a difference between a racist and what you are but honestly, you live in the same neighbourhood.

I see what you're saying, honestly, I feel that you're just being slightly contradictory. You agree with NOS4A2 about focuses on race leading to racist outcomes but you're also in favour of reparations. We can't ignore instances of racism but the solution isn't to compensate an entire race of people. The problems that exist today like you mention and more are problems to be resolved for sure but seeing as many of those problems exist purely because of an overly racialised focus (in my view), I can't see a response that is racially focused as being the answer.

Just as the term white privilege is neither banal nor just a statement of fact but highlights a racialised perspective which makes matters worse. It's the same.

I think that it's kind of pointless to argue about this reparations thing when you seem to be more or less in agreement with the overall message of this post anyway so I'm going to leave it there.

Institutional discrimination and economic redistribution are two different things, two separate things. You are right that it doesn't seem that likely for either to happen anytime soon though. If you don't think it matters whether it's called reparations or redistribution then alright, I think it matters so that was my issue.

As you say, ultimately it will require a government that has similar ideals in economic redistribution before anything happens. I just hope it is not in the form of reparations, there is no point looking backwards nor in exacerbating racial tensions.

Between the radical right-wing being free to publicly utter their hate speech and the radical left-wing dictating what can and can't be said by their political opponents, I choose the former. I think that outside of trying to incite violence or targetting races for pointless slandering, banning hate speech becomes very hard. The left will, of course, always say that they're just trying to protect the vulnerable, that's their shtick and it's what they always do. It's easy when you use terms like hate speech but when I hear about what others consider hate speech, I become deeply concerned.

I think that a discussion where the term "hate speech" is banned and you have to actually say precisely what you want to ban would play out in an entirely different way.

I made a thread which was more or less about this topic a while back

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5128/empathy-is-worthless-for-understanding-people/p1

The title says it all, I basically argued that empathy gives us an unrealistically clear picture of what someone else is going through because we are oblivious to the variety of nature/nurture differences that exist. All we can do is imagine what it's like and just as with anything else, our imagination is not a reliable way to gain information. If it's something we've also experienced, either their experience is similar to yours or it isn't.

Most people are not happy to admit their limitations when it comes to empathy. I think people confirm their biases, there is very little room for analysis when it comes to empathy. Usually, you'll just appreciate the sentiment of someone who is trying to be kind to you rather than picking apart their inaccuracies.

I would say that we can empathise, just take care not to give your assumptions greater credibility than they deserve.