My arguments still stand from the previous conversations. I remember your analogy about preventing suffering in the future by removing an explosive someone might step on. If there is no one to step on the bomb you’re not preventing the suffering of anyone.

To prevent the suffering of X, X must first exist. You claim to prevent the suffering of X, but X does not exist. So whose suffering are you preventing?

We went over this haven't we? I have responded to this haven't I? You don't believe people can prevent future outcomes. Essentially your (weak) argument is basically.. "I don't believe in conditionals.. wah wah wah". But even other forms of ethics relies on "Could happen IF.."

I believe people can prevent future outcomes, I just don’t believe you can prevent suffering and injustice without other people involved. The question of “whose suffering are you preventing” still remains.

I am not explaining my objection yet again to this kind of argument.

I do not require you to do so. But I will state it anyways. You’re preventing no suffering and no injustice. Your behavior effects no one but yourself, so as far as ethics go, it’s all self-concerned and self-congratulatory.

I haven’t, though I love a good memoir. You’re probably right. But when I think of Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe I find comfort that not all is lost on the man of wealth and power and genius.

I don’t know if it’s a problem with the way I think but I cannot imagine a group where I cannot see one. I prefer to speak in terms of reality, where a group or community is an actual, physical grouping of people rather than a thought. A real group implies proximity, interaction, and relation, which are wholly absent from human taxonomy and classification.

That is true. Insofar as these false identities are freely chosen one can hardly avoid to use them. It’s in the census, for Christ’s sake. This is the legacy of racism.

Wealth and power can come at great effort and cost, and often take entire generations to achieve. Rarely is tribulation absent and contentment fully present. Better to embrace the former to better appreciate the latter.

It’s not a group, is my only point, because no such group exists outside of the human mind. It’s as arbitrary as grouping people by shoe size. Any commonality of skin-color or eye color or height cannot serve as a basis for meaningful conclusions because arbitrary demarcations necessarily lead to arbitrary statistics. This can only serve to distort the real problems. Worse, the use of such statistics can justify injustice, as we’ve seen. Culture is formed through proximity and interaction, regardless of the superficial characteristics of those involved, so we should avoid making such specious connections.

I think you’re right that it does depend on the choice of how one seeks fulfillment, whether to be happy or interesting. One who seeks contentment must seek ways to dull the tribulations of life, while one who seeks to be interesting might embrace them. Perhaps Taoism isn’t the way to go.

I can’t help but cringe when someone brings up “black-on-black crime” for the same reasons I cringe when I hear about “white privilege”. Two racist assumptions occur the moment we consider such propositions: that human beings can be demarcated on grounds of race, and that this arbitrary demarcation has some bearing on individual behavior. From there it isn’t long before we’re talking about essences like “blackness” and “whiteness”, and other absurdities. But crime is an act of individuals, not groups, so it would make more sense to look at individual circumstances rather than invent racial ones.

We’re all to blame. State power grows in inverse proportion to the decrease in social power. We’ve given up on educating and rearing our children, passing that responsibility to the state, then wonder why people seek statist solutions. It’s all they’ve ever known.

That is more accurate.

There is no difference if the injustice is caused by the de facto situations of being alive in the world as a human animal or by the hands of a person. That is the big leap that's hard for people to understand. Do not put people in these circumstances in the first place. Why is that so hard? Can a human prevent this for someone else?

Also, why the hell would it matter if everyone started from the same unjust position? It's still unjust, just for everyone, instead of one particular set of people. Global antinatalism doesn't discriminate.

You could never point to this “someone else” you’re saving from this so-called injustice, because they do not exist. In other words, you’re not preventing people from being put in these circumstances. You’re not preventing pain and suffering and injustice at all. You cannot save imaginary people.

Individualism places the locus of cultivation in the individual himself. So despite the general societal views of what is considered success and happiness, the individual may still consider himself far more successful and happier than others, regardless of his lot in life.

As you know, I can never follow your injustice angle because when the supposed injustice occurs there is never any victim of it. At no point in the continuum of procreation is anyone forced to do something against their will.

So I think it’s wrong to say someone is placed into this situation, as if taken from the city of god and positioned in the world by the whims of someone else. It presupposes a different existence. Rather, in the world is where we begin. Each of us start and end here. There is no other state of affairs.

I find the whole antinatalist project, at least insofar as it makes ethical claims, to be humbug on those grounds. There are many reasons to not procreate, but to not procreate in order to protect a person from suffering and pain and depression is nonsense.

I imagine that’s a perpetual thing with you, Mike.

I like what you wrote there. But polarization is also the logical consequence of free speech, or at least speech less confined by the conventional limitations. We’re at a point where anyone’s views can be expressed and viewed on some medium or other, which has hitherto been unseen. I suppose that’s a kind of democracy. But it necessarily leads to people reading or listening to views they’re not used to, and finally to censorship.

It’s not the discourse itself that is spiralling out of control, for an increasing accessibility to avenues of expression and communication is arguably an encouraging occurrence, but the reaction to it will lead to far greater perils.

NOS, he was just an inept leader. Simple as that. A great commentator and could engage with his supporters yes, but the position wasn't for the Tweeter in Chief. That's not leadership. In that role, tweeting and engaging the public discourse he was great, at least Twitter was happy.

Certainly taking the media commentary at face value would lead one to such beliefs, but in comparing him to other leaders worldwide, I don’t see it. It’s as simple as that.

It’s writing, and yes I’m serious. The coverage is vastly different.

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2021/04/28/at-100-day-mark-coverage-of-biden-has-been-slightly-more-negative-than-positive-varied-greatly-by-outlet-type/

All of it in the context of unjust political investigations and impeachment inquiries, not to mention the fevered media treatment unlike the world has ever seen, peering into every facet of his life. No wonder the strange admiration for authoritarian leaders: they don’t have a corrupt opposition party and administrative state obstructing their every word and deed.

Epic OP on Trump as a real and mortal danger to American constitutional democracy.

More deep-state, neocon dinner theater from Kagan. The specter of Trump’s fascism was already proven to be a canard, and has long been eclipsed by the efforts of run-of-the-mill collectivist politicians, most of whom have ruled by diktat, seized entire economies, erected police states, denied basic liberties, prohibiting people from leaving their house, opening their business, going to work, going to school. The worst thing is this is the type of febrile projection that ushered it all in.

To operate a business and employ others one needs the profit to do so, but he must also cover the costs of his forced labor whenever the state comes around to take it. So of course the profit motive exists.

What is philosophy?

At its worst philosophy is the overestimation of the power of language, manifesting in form of rhetoric concerned with creating certainty in symbols and doubt in the world. At its best it tries to settle matters of justice and conduct.

One can be a gentleman and, out the other side of the mouth, write authoritarian and paternalistic piffle. So long as his strength in manners and dignity override his cowardice in emotion and thought, he can do no harm. Even Marquis de Sade was a gentleman.

Aren't the unvaccinated about four times more likely to get infected? Whatever the statistics show exactly, it's just math and probabilities.

Perhaps. But those who are not infectious can never infect others. If we are to deign to enforce segregation we should segregate the infectious from the uninfected. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.

Oh dear; you don't know what a straw-man is.

I don't know if you are up on current events or not but maybe you're not aware of Biden's vaccine mandates for companies who employ over 100 people, even though it's in the first paragraph of Krugman's piece you quoted. If they do not enforce his vaccine mandates, to fire unvaccinated employees, they face massive fines. So much for corporate power.

His mandate should begin very soon and will effect nearly 100 million workers, you know, those people you used to support.

All of Krugman's specious and fallacious arguments were to support his conclusion, which for some reason you left out.

"All of this has a clear policy implication for the Biden administration and for other leaders like governors and mayors — namely, full speed ahead. Vaccine mandates won’t cause mass resignations; they will cause a sharp rise in vaccination rates, which is key both to finally getting Covid under control and to achieving sustained economic recovery."

Oh look, the state. Does Biden represent United Airlines or Tyson? Nope. Did I mention United Airlines or Tyson? Nope. Did I say physically forcing? Nope.

And now we're comparing vaccine mandates to smoking bans. Another false analogy, I'm afraid, just like seatbelt laws. More casuistry.

I have no problem with you refusing to get vaccinated as long as you have no problem with being restricted in your behavior so that other people won't be infected.

That doesn’t sound like a fair compromise. Only the infected can infect others, and the infected are both vaccinated and unvaccinated. So why would you restrict their behavior but not the others?

Krugman’s argument is a stupid one. The fact that governments have in the past regulated this or that activity isn’t an argument that they should keep on doing so, that they should force companies to mandate vaccines, that they should violate someone’s bodily autonomy and their right to make one’s own medical decisions, and so on. No, this is nothing like complaining about seatbelts, but it’s no surprise people keep bringing it up. False analogies and appeals to tradition are the few arguments they have left.

Absent any coherent argument they have state coercion, the last resort of the weak. Of course many people will comply when the government threatens to end their livelihood. Cruelty and coercion may be successful, sure, but achieving success through these means only serves to illustrate how their other efforts until then were utter failures.

Any day now….

But when we see that you have fallen for numerous such hoaxes it is entirely explicable.

I’m moving 600 miles north next spring. No matter: I suspect you’ll defend the paternalism long beyond then. Perhaps forever?

I cringed when I read that. “The government has always taken your freedom so you should not be angry when it takes more”. You cannot smoke in theatres or drive without a seatbelt, therefor you should let the government mandate your medical decisions, is not the first but one of the more ridiculous appeals to tradition I’ve ever seen. I wish I could scrub it from my memory, but then again this type of reasoning is the norm.

How many times have climate alarmists been right? One day, I guess.

And Riley champions the state and boss’ orders. Nothing much has changed.

The science says they aren’t required. What happened to listening to science?

You’re copying and pasting other people’s arguments.

The workers might not require vaccines.

Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v3

All you guys have are false analogies and never anything about the issue at hand. Chefs? :lol:

Last year front line workers were heroes. It was all fake, of course. Now they’re replaceable.

Foreign workers could replace NY’s unvaccinated hospital, nursing home staffers: Hochul

That you would nonetheless refuse to get vaccinated, although you have no good reason for that decision, but just because you don't feel like it, shows an antisocial attitude. Would you be prepared to sign a waiver to the effect that you will refuse medical treatment if you catch covid even if your condition becomes critical? That would be at least a step towards common decency.

It’s a step backward from both common decency and human rights to suggest that some should refuse, or be refused, medical treatments because they are unvaccinated. It’s not only antisocial, but cruel.

:up:
You’re probably right.

I was just trying to look at it from the Marxist point of view. I am neither a Marxist nor a collectivist, so I could be wrong. It just seems to me that toil, exploitation, and wage slavery would be negated if it was robots rather than workers under control of the capitalists.

The trade between worker and robot might be the start of the much-heralded epoch of social revolution we were told about. To me it would be ironic for a class struggle organized to bring back toil, exploitation, and wage slavery, but again, maybe I’m wrong.

It’s a kind of racket. If our predictions don’t come to fruition we can say our predictions altered the course of events. Rinse, repeat. Bush acolyte David Frum did the same in his book “Trumpocracy”, which warned about Trump’s push towards illiberalism. He never warned that the push towards illiberalism would come from him and people like him in the form of covid fascism.