How about via solar powered drone? ;) who cares if it’s been done before, pretty sure Descartes said something along the lines of there being nothing so profound and original that it’s not been said by one philosopher or another before. It’s like all those fucking plutocrats who think they are one of a kind when the goal of making money has quite frankly been done to death and is so second millennia yknow?

I need moderation in EVERYTHING too many "truths" I do not handle well in large doses, I need a balance of alternative perspectives and constant discussion - not just 'swallowing pills' to be swallowing - I need examination, and stretching... maybe that is what philosophy is - although I don't think philosophy is necessarily swallowing a red pill (e.g. accepting all things/whatever as true), but the preference to examining various 'red' and 'blue' pills & compare/contrast - examine - and pose necessary (healthy) clashes between on another... So say, if someone offered me a 'philosophy red pill' it is unlikely I would take it before cutting it open and examining the contents, lowering it's potency, then taking the inner goo as it comes.

Doing excessive pill swallowing of anything is bad for my mental health. Philosophy, logic I need moderation, because yes both can induce stress to some degree if I don't take breaks. Math follows similar. But at the same time, I can't imagine it's good for my 'head' health when I do more than 2 hours of it, because I start developing headaches (LOL). I can't say I know ANYONE that is substantially mentally healthy under the age of 30 that does nothing but take red pills - so I think psychology must be considered along side philosophy - especially for newbies and the younger generation (or for anyone..) that are not skilled in handling such truths and managing copes.

I will say this, Ethics greatly improves my mental health and makes me feel wonderful. My favorite branch of philosophy is ethics, if I had to name anything, for this reason.

I study law, and I love the ethics and theatrical portion. I love Nussbaum's take on Philosophy and Law for that reason. Yes, because WITHOUT this consideration law can cause great depression in all things really, and brain melt when you so detached and not attending to your emotional health - without moderation anything has the tendency to depress you very quickly unless you practice stoicism and such. I do not practice stoicism in any degree, so you can imagine shit effects me in many ways.

I will say this, talking/discussing philosophy with others I find very stressful. I find this forum stressful as hell. Half of it is just folks throwing bad medicine laced with nonsense and cheap red paint at others, that NO ONE is opening their mouth OR minds for.

@Swan

I’m sorry if I stressed you out before. I have an addictive personality so moderation is extremely difficult for me but you’re right. It is very much needed. Even in debate. It just irritates me when people don’t read what I say because I was neglected a lot as a child and I do actually take my time to read everything others write even if I think it’s wrong.

I shouldn’t have called God must be atheist an arrogant fool it’s true, I still believe he was behaving like one but I usually make a point to differentiate between behaviour and person as I don’t believe anyone is anything in permanence. Just a bunch of humans fluctuating between it all.

Anyway hope you have a good night and that there are no hard feelings.

Don't leave! I enjoy having you here that’s for sure.

So, if we just forge ahead with business as usual on account of optimistically believing that we can do so, for example,simply by substituting electric vehicles for fossil fuel driven vehicles, and switching to renewable for power generation, then I would count that as foolish optimism because it does not take account of the complexities involved.

I agree. Materialism got us here in the first place. I’d be happy living in a society with just the running water and small amounts of renewable energy for heating in the winter. I could get much more reading done and could tend my own little polyculture fruit forest... I’m optimistic about my ability to do this but pessimistic of others to give up the “comfort and ease”. Then you have something else strangling the planet right now besides climate change. Red Tape! Damn bureaucrats.

I’d need to come back on here one last time to get some of your mailing addresses though ^_^ can’t miss out on these conversations too much.

However, can we ever be sure that not acting at all can never lead, despite ourselves, to a better outcome than forging ahead in a state of blind optimism?

So, it seems futile to try to assess which is better between optimism and pessimism as such; because the question is inevitably complexly context-dependent.

I think waiting patiently is an excellent thing to bring up as an example of when not acting may lead to a better outcome. Although I think the potential use of Pfhorrests terms still comes in handy to describe something here. Broad pessimism can involve waiting to act, narrow pessimism is just going to be waiting.

Also, while the question is context dependant; these terms provide a useful tool to take with us into future context analyses.

One thing needs to be said of thinking time though. One could make an argument that most situations that demand action would be best carried out with a well thought out plan, strategy, mindset etc. However, we won’t always be given the time that might be required to do this in every context. In these situations it may be best to go in with the right default position if that makes sense? So upon entering any situation that requires action or becoming aware of a situation that will require action, we should be asking ourselves how much time do we have to think about how we want to act? If we don’t know how long, how long do we give ourselves to think in any situation?

I have to say Pfhorrest, this is an impressive and formidable piece of writing!

It makes a lot of sense to me. I’m gonna have to cite you in my work! Some really strong arguments here.

Yeah the term dominate leaves a dirty taste in ones mouth. Enlighten is an ego trap, convince and persuade are probably the more neutral terms. However with trolls it can leave the grounds of neutrality pretty quickly.

Wow. This is extremely helpful! I need to do more research on trolls, my fiancé is the troll slayer in our family hahaha

Why do some people endlessly seek negative excitement and domination rather than collaboration?

@uncanni probably addiction. I can get caught up in dominating if I feel like the other person is trying to compete instead of collaborate. But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel good sometimes to feel like you are dominating and I think this is the core conflict in most people. It can be addictive and I think I saw someone here a few days ago mention feeling like they were high on nicotine in some of these debates but can’t remember who.

I’ve known for years about my personal addictive and obsessive tendencies. Although sometimes it surprises me how quickly we can even become addicted to that which should be all good for us. Like studying ethics haha

Do you ever feel like they just keep needling at you too? Like you spend awhile trying to get through to them reasonably and then end up feeling bad when you lose your temper. Feels like intellectual bullying sometimes but this me vs you thing is so base to me. Need to learn to ignore certain people more I think (unless they start to be a bit more diplomatic I guess, people change)

Okay, but you should like, apologize for God must be atheist for calling him arrogant and a fool, when all he did was point out inconsistencies in your arguments.

You sound like an entitled manchild. No one owes you anything on an anonymous internet forum.

I sound like? Was I speaking? Can you like, not like uh use like filler words and stuff because like, yknow like it makes you sound like sooooo unintelligent.

No one owes anyone anything on an anonymous Internet forum? Thank you for agreeing that I shouldn’t apologise to God must be atheist and proving my point. I’m surprised you’re still afloat with all the icebergs you crash into.

wait he’s dead now? :( this makes me sad

Have you thought about trying to write essays and send them into human rights magazines and publications? 1500 words or less could see you in Mother Jones if you apply with the editor. I’d welcome seeing an article focusing on women there but unfortunately here on the philosophy forum we do try to gain a holistic and deep view of everything.

Also, if you started a discussion here to discuss women’s rights across the world I’d speak positively to that.

Birthrates naturally reduce when living standards go up.

This here is true, however let me show you something:

I think this presents what you’re trying to say without focusing on any one demographic and it will do you much better to understand from a wholistic viewpoint than such a focused one.

I hope you understand you are preaching to the choir here, pretty sure most here are aware and sympathise with the plight of women. They are our mothers, sisters and partners plights after all. Standing up for women’s rights is a good and important thing to do... but it isn’t the only good and important thing that needs done.

My bingo is not necessarily "alt-right", but your criticism is certainly classified as "left":

— alcontali

That's a very weird distraction you're mounting there. Anyways, I don't think anyone outside the alt-right, with the exception of the people mocking them, is using the term "soy-boys", so this is rather a shibboleth.

Have to agree with you there. It’s a pretty strange way to phrase things. “Not necessarily alt-right” is very strange and to generalise to just “left” as opposed to “alt-left” is suspicious too. I feel like people who are centre left or centre right or centre don’t blankety imply right or left is bad. They tend to imply alt, meaning to the extreme end of either demographic as bad.

I have a Step-son and me and my partner are trying for our own. You’re not the only parent here for sure. Also Congrats on the Grandkids!

Rather than pumping funds pooled internationally for combating global issues into areas that have shown little give. There are such international targets and the payback for funding to help family planning and education for young women is pretty damn good.

Oh like climate change and global warming? So girls schools yes? The continuation of our species no?

How do you know ‘willful ignorance’ when you see it? You’re displaying ignorance of the difference between ‘metaphor’ and ‘analogy’. Are you Evil? See my point. If not never mind.

Tonight’s homework for you, should be learning the difference between metaphor, simile, analogy, cognitive dissonance and projection. ;)

Also, if good and evil exist, then evil are those who don’t believe in morals and good are those who do. So which one of us does that make evil I wonder.

I’ll stick to talking to the OP thanks.

Have some humility and learn to admit when you are wrong. Grow up. Also the OP is about Ethics and morals so any talk of ethics and morals IS sticking to the OP.

“What about Greece in Europe with its economic crisis or places like Scotland, Ireland, wales and England due to Tory austerity and the crumbling of the £ with Brexit looming that more and more people are falling into poverty? Children are starving and dying and because you’re from the west and have it better than others you think everyone in the west is doing well as you? Ignorance. I can bring up countless more examples but I’m hoping I’ve made my point.”

Uhm it is a point if you read what I wrote which you just admitted that you didn’t.

only bothered reading the first paragraph.

- you

The rest is just a judgement based on assumptions of my condition and location.

Nope, psychological evaluation of implied bias and your writing.

I’m assuming now that most of your reasoning is wrong because you claimed you don’t read what people actually say to you. Which also implies something else, that the reason you don’t believe in morality is because if you did, for whatever reason you would have a hard time seeing yourself as a good person.

If you don’t read then how in the world do you intend to try and lecture me on nuance?

“Morality is a colour spectrum” - Metaphor

“Morality is like a colour spectrum” - Simile

“Talking to you about morality is like trying to speak to a brick wall” - Analogy

A, if you’re going to correct someone’s English, learn basic English.

B, This is a philosophy forum that welcomes people at all levels of both philosophy and English. Since it is a philosophy forum the philosophy takes priority and the sign of a poor argument is one that is based purely on English (yknow unless it’s english words in nonsense syntax).

“I agree that black and white thinking should be frowned upon. However, is that the same as saying black and white don’t exist on a morality spectrum? Is there no colour or is there many colours?”

If we take the first question and leave off the part about colours it’s not even an analogy. “Is there no colour or is there many colours” is me implying morality as colour, therefore a metaphor. If you understood the implication you might have realised that I was suggesting that different ethical stances such as Kantian ethics, Virtue theory, divine command theory, utilitarianism, natural law theory etc.. can be viewed as part of our human morality spectrum.

This is exactly what I mean about pedestaling. While you’ve been going on and on about the west (like it’s a monolith) that knows very little hardship you are completely ignoring South America, also part of the West! Y’know where the Amazon rainforest is.

What about Greece in Europe with its economic crisis or places like Scotland, Ireland, wales and England due to Tory austerity and the crumbling of the £ with Brexit looming that more and more people are falling into poverty? Children are starving and dying and because you’re from the west and have it better than others you think everyone in the west is doing well as you? Ignorance. I can bring up countless more examples but I’m hoping I’ve made my point.

What is the point in doing philosophy when you bury your head in the sand and don’t go outside your news bubble to really research what is going on around the world from multiple news sources?

If every problem could be so easily fixed by solving just one, we’d have probably figured out what it is by now. Many problems need solving and every problem deserves an allocation of the population who make it their first priority. I don’t have to make it mine though. My priority is Ethics, which ultimately still puts me on women’s side.

My counter, The universe is a fight for balance and equilibrium.

it’s a metaphor not an analogy. Wilful Ignorance, apathy and absolutism are forms of pure evil in my eyes.

Oh no, In other parts of the world you’re right it is much worse. Asia is getting better in some isolated places although I’ll need to go look for the source I remember reading for this.

I still don’t think it is wrong to state in those places that it’s not just the women who need educating, men need re-educating. Sure in some places men are definitely receiving more schooling but it’s evidently not being done well enough or women there would have more rights.

You appear to be relating the problem to the west where inequality, poverty, education healthcare and women’s social standing isn’t really an issue (hence population growth).

However we in the West still shouldn’t be trying to pedestal ourselves over the rest of the world like we’ve got it all right. Poverty isn’t an issue in the West? Do the poor have equal access to healthcare, education, and social standing here in the West? I’m sure if we’d solved those problems here we’d all be reading about whatever geniuses sorted that out. My sister would disagree with you as would my fiancé. Women’s issues are important, but to speak as if it’s the most important issue is a bit misguided. See here’s the thing, if you say priority of access to education should be given to women and succeed, then you aren’t creating equality you’re making more inequality.

If you say priority of access to education should be given to everyone and succeed then everyone(including all women) gets education.

I think you’ve touched upon the real issue here really, which is poverty.

As for those places you mentioned, you realise they have their own women’s rights activists as well right? Amazing women all over the world are fighting for equality yet here in the West we infantilise the rest of the world by ignoring our own problems and fixating on theirs. It’s paternalism and it’s just a form of positive racism. It’s also ignoring the women, men and others dying in our own backyards. We should help them, but be open to them helping us too and neither side should really be infantalising the other because there are no sides. Just Humans and the life they SHARE this planet with.

However, if you’re from those places then fight the good fight and don’t let me stop you. Shouldn’t try to diminish other people’s contributions just because they aren’t entirely agreeing with you but you can at least be aware enough to see where I am agreeing with you.

I agree that black and white thinking should be frowned upon. However, is that the same as saying black and white don’t exist on a morality spectrum? Is there no colour or is there many colours?

What about the young men from low socioeconomic backgrounds who miss out on an education due to an absence of both a male and female teacher in the classroom? Early education is dominated by women, young boys get given labels that effect them their whole life and female teachers generally seem to be a lot more tolerant and understanding of young women’s issues. I mean, I can’t really say that I even blame the women all that much either as they’ve had and still do have the short end of many sticks. However what I feel all female educators need to keep in mind, you’re not trying to stamp out the emotions that men feel just as men should not stamp out the emotions women feel. People are going to feel emotions, men and women aren’t always going to understand one another. Trying to stamp an emotion out of someone just makes them learn unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I hope you know I’m not saying any of this to be against women or to downplay any of the problems that women specifically face. I’d be lying however if I said my inner child didn’t cry a little reading your comment as I thought “This person hasn’t been through what you did, she doesn’t know about HER.” If you’ve ever been an undiagnosed autistic child being screamed at for not being able to recite his two times tables in front of the whole class (many of whom physically assault you each day) in less than two minutes by a women who swears under her breath and forgets her own schedule you’d feel like I feel right now.

Young people deserve a good education, whoever they are and however they identify. Once you start trying to say some more than others you justify every type of some more than others argument.

Oh perfect! Can you spread yourself out over my driveway please?

@thephilosopher You might like to weigh in here also.

https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2012/03/the-unapologetic-society.html

They probably have although I’m having trouble finding any at the moment that deals specifically with the online discourse.

In the link there is an interest read and some links to more.

I think for philosophy, there are probably a lot more issues at play because it is not like most forms of every day discourse. Then you have the online element which as you said makes people a lot braver and more willing to say things they wouldn’t normally say otherwise.

With most people but especially with philosophers you also have something I’m calling the Iceberg effect.

Take the Optimism vs pessimism debate; a theme that seemed to form was that I wasn’t taking into account and was dismissing the political, social and technological factors.

This is due to the iceberg effect, that what you see is what you get and it’s all very surface level. The criticism was that my argument was deemed as not wholistic enough and that I hadn’t thought about X, Y and Z.

However, this is assuming that the iceberg on top is the full structure. That I am only what I say and write and nothing else when what I think before I write is actually very holistic. However, I could go onto any discussion here and make a similar counter argument, that it wasn’t holistic enough. Which begs the question, why isn’t every discussion titled “my philosophy of everything, taking into every account every subject and how they relate to each other with no compartmentalisation at all.”?

You can see the difference in language used here;

You haven’t thought about X, Y, Z.

Have you thought about X, Y, Z?

The first is somebody under the iceberg effect. The second is someone who is accommodating for it. This is why philosophers are expected to ask questions more than anything else.

Suffice it to say, people are like icebergs. You can assume that what is above the surface is all there is, but you’ll be missing 90% of the person that exists below the surface.

(Not to be confused with The Iceberg Theory or the Iceberg Illusion)

Yeah, that makes sense and all sounds pretty reasonable and thought out to me. We should always consider the child we may have before we have it and think about what quality of life we are capable of giving it. That’s responsible parenting.

But you’re not a full on Antinatalist? You believe bringing a child into the world is justified if you give them a good quality of life?

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world: because everyone thinks he is so well endowed, that even those who are hardest to satisfy in everything else, have no habit of desiring more than they have. What it is unlikely that all are wrong, but this shows that the power of judging well and distinguishing truth from falsehood, which is properly what is called common sense or reason, is naturally equal in all men, and as well as the diversity of our opinions does not come from what some are more reasonable than others, but only that we conduct our thoughts in various ways, and do not see the same things . For it is not enough to have a good mind, but the key is to apply it well. The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues...

This is one of my favourite views from Descartes and one I try to remember often. Thanks for bringing it up!

Okay. So your issue with procreation is that we cannot get the beings permission before we create one, correct?

If we say, that it is wrong to create a life, is there a punishment for that?

People blind themselves to the truth and will assail your views for that reason. The reasons are many - religion and politics are two of the main fields of philosophy where I see things get out of hand because the posters have allowed their emotions to dominate the conversation rather than their reason.

If we all used logic, it doesn't mean that we will agree. It means that the conversations will be intellectual, honest, and useful.

As none of us are perfect, it’s still important to understand that we won’t be 100% logical all the time. We are human after all and we have no control over what emotions we may feel, it’s understandable to get angry or upset when we engage with each other. So long as we are capable of finding time for self reflection and use logic to examine our more emotional arguments we can learn more about ourselves and the world. Forgiving ourselves for being human also helps.

poor quality of life (human or animal) then why do it.

Who gets to decide what is and isn’t a poor quality of life? A financially poor family can find love and happiness together through hardship while a financially wealthy person can be hateful and isolated. Which is the poorer quality of life? If you were to ask someone with Downs Syndrome if they are happy in life they nearly always are and they don’t even much care for people's criticisms of them either. Some can even work and hold good jobs and they can even appear before a court to strongly argue that they are actually capable of a quality of life with a lot of positivity, happiness and love; and that this is why they feel when parents discover they are pregnant with a downs child, they should really think and morally consider the child properly before deciding to abort.

If you’ve ever met or cared for a downs person you’d find it extremely difficult to convince them that life is not worth living. They probably feel more sorry for us than we should feel sorry for them.

Good’ manifests when the actions initiated increase awareness, connection and collaboration. ‘Evil’ manifests whenever these actions increase ignorance, isolation and exclusion

I hadn’t asked you before what the opposite of our modality of ethics definition was but it makes so much sense now that I am reading it.

How do you answer people who would say this is incorrect and that there is no good and evil? Is this black and white thinking or just identifying that black and white exist in a colour/morality spectrum?

From a logical point of view, there is no reason to have children. However, the world population grows exponentially, why?

Is this sentence different from this one; From a logical point of view, there is no reason to stay alive. However, the world population keeps living, why?

Is there a difference? Is one wrong and the other right? Both right? Both wrong?

I feel like that’s what I was doing last night until god must be atheist came along and piggybacked onto someone else’s arguments which they had already put much more eloquently.

Can’t stand individuals who act like that.

I guess I just don’t understand what fascinates nuerotypicals about pointless competition and one upmanship. I’ve literally seen two people arguing for the same thing before but because they were trying to one up each other they genuinely believed they were arguing from different points. Its embarrassing to watch really.

Why can’t people just be happy that they are learning and growing together?

“Some people are worth paying attention too. Some people are also worth ignoring. If possible just allow those worth ignoring an occasional look in - they may surprise you, or help you surprise yourself.

Explicit humility only works in small doses. If we swerve away from saying anything without some degree of conviction (which can be construed as ‘arrogance’) then things get dull very quickly.”

The second paragraph here is a bit of a “does not compute” moment for me because why would you say anything with conviction if you’re starting to think you might be wrong upon listening to a logical argument? Maybe this is my autistic brain making me not understand but if I am listening to someone, and they are disagreeing with me and say something which makes sense to me then why would I continue arguing that it doesn’t?

There is saying stuff with conviction, when you believe in them but we can all change our beliefs over time if we feel we might be wrong.

Personally, I’m more likely to value someone who is always wrong but aware of it than I am to value someone who’s right a lot of the time but throws a tantrum whenever they are occasionally wrong and won’t admit it.

Not even my step son who is five cares about being wrong so long as you help him figure out what the right answer is.

Once you learn how to deal with the pain of being wrong (psychologically accurate, it’s a pain response) the world is open to you really and things get easier.

“This is a community and none of us, not a one of us here will be ever be perfect or correct in everything we say”

Yes, because saying what is true is such virtue signalling right enough. Seriously these are the responses to this? Think before responding.