Impressive. Pick your poison?

Now I take medicinal marijuana (indica) almost every night to help combat my anxiety and depression, yes I will admit, it does make you lazy and not a lot of "productive" philosophy is done while high, only brainstorming and random research. But I'm not productive at all when I'm anxious, my anxiety has gotten so bad that I could not sit down and read let alone, write something of merit. — Grre

Hmm, self medication tends to be a dead end. But, my experience is similar to yours in that I vaped cannabis a lot in college. Everyone at my college was on some kind of drug. Though, it helped me read material related to studies. Many people claim that marijuana helps ease ADHD, which is most likely true.

There are some studies linking cannabis use with an intensification of social anxiety by the very use of the drug, which is one of the reasons I don't smoke it anymore.

I read a book a long time ago where the author tried to model beauty in mathematical terms. He or she used symbols like the circle, pentagon, and the swastika as his or her samples in the attempt. The swastika ended up being a poor candidate for something which some might call beautiful. Moral of the story is that what is beautiful really depends on many factors that are not intrinsic of/towards the object itself. It's rather consensus driven.

Yeah, pretty much everything you said is in those two quotes. Ta-da!

Maybe he wanted to go out with a bang or was in the wrong place at the wrong time or was unaware that his comments would come under greater scrutiny instead of being in a comfortable position of being on tenure yet being completely unqualified for the government job he had.

Who knows such things?

*Quickly retreats to the shoutbox*

For example if I'm going through an issue of race at my job or if there is a law that I find that seems to be biased against my demographic, egalitarianism seeks to undo that issue which in that case we have the "civil rights movement" which seeks to undo the type of racial/social discrimination that affects me and those that are among my demographic. I believe egalitarianism seeks to undo the type of social/political problems all humans face because when we make things a human problem instead of a black or white, male or female issue then we can empathize with each other. — Anaxagoras

But, egalitarianism wasn't enough to get the civil rights movement started.

In case nobody caught the gist of my first post here, the boursuasi are alive and well. I recall my economics professor dismissing the term and calling them "money-bags" instead when we covered Marx, and he was on tenure too. Puzzling, coming from a liberal college where I went.

Let us say you have had a very happy day- you do all the activities you wanted, you are with all the people you wanted (or by yourself if that's what you prefer), it's that weird transition into the next day.. that feeling that all those good experiences don't even matter right NOW, that is the root of the problem. — schopenhauer1

If my memory serves me well, then Schopenhauer would have advocated not thinking about the now comparatively with the past. You seem to have missed the non-permanence instilled in Schopenhauer's philosophy or his interpretation of the Upanishads. Anyway, without mentioning the overgeneralization that is going about here in the phenomenology of human suffering, I tend to agree with the fact that suffering sucks; but, contrary to you or Schopenhauer it is not intrinsic to the human condition. If that is, you believe that suffering is non-permanent along with focusing on reducing suffering instead of increasing happiness.

There is some kind of phenomenon I call "instrumentality" in the human experience of good/pleasure. It's that feeling of dissatisfaction that underlies even the goods of life. That there is something unsustainable with even feeling good. — schopenhauer1

No, this isn't philosophical pessimism, this is plain depression speaking. We've argued before about the two and how much overlap there is between the two. I haven't read enough Schopenhauer; but, I don't think he would advocate feeling good as unsustainable as long as suffering is reduced instead of masked or covered by the happy things in life.

It would seem to require a rather drastic shift in values, and that takes time, probably much more time than we have left before the shit hits the fan. — praxis

Not according to those inclined to agree with Marxism. The revolution is always around the corner; but, seemingly never comes about as long as cooperation is enforced by a higher authority. And, that's sort of the paradox with Marxism. That people don't seem to want it, not in capitalist society at least. Marx understood this and elaborated about the need for this "shift" to occur gradually from capitalism to socialism, and eventually towards communism. China is perhaps an exception to this, in how they accomplished this shift within the span of one or two generations.

Oddly, I think people would generally be much happier if their values were shifted toward seeking meaning and happiness, rather than wealth, status, and distraction. In a culture that values meaning and happiness, "rationing" may not feel like rationing but simply living cooperatively for mutual benefit. — praxis

So, classical and neo-classical economics doesn't really delve into cooperation and mutual benefit as much as it should. The solution to the tragedy of the commons, which is pretty much a summary of the current predicament we have with climate change, is in essence relinquished through highlighting the benefits of cooperation. Combine neo-classical economic theory with laissez-faire sentimentality, and you can't address the problem until it the negative externalities (such as carbon emissions) start affecting growth and prosperity. One solution to this problem that is compatible with neoclassical economic theory is through internalizing externalities such as a carbon tax. This seems like the only "rational" solution to the issue, yet it has its downsides. The main downside is that economies that are less well developed are going to get hit with an equivalent price to pay as more developed economies. To resolve the problem you have to determine (a nearly impossible task) the number of emissions that each country has emitted to the atmosphere of CO2 and based on the amount to create, what I would call a "guilt-tax" proportional to the amount previously emitted to the amount currently being emitted.

Anyway, my favorite field of science being game theory would never allow such an "unfair" guilt-tax to ever be implemented.

Deep question. Topic worthy, if you don't mind me saying so.

:ok:

@Devans99 you might be interested in this thread:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5743/are-causeless-effects-possible

So, it is intelligent design... Oh well. Humdrum I suppose.

Is this intelligent design or some such theme? Because you won't find many people interested in such a topic ...

4 just kind of comes out of nowhere.

Should I have felt bad for that? — orcestra

You got lucky... No need to feel bad about a happenstance.

Oh, thank you. I've never experienced it myself. I didn't know it was mainly novices that suffer. — Pattern-chaser

I could never get around the anxiety and paranoia that MJ produces. Every time I smoke it I become hyper-aware of my surroundings. A rather uncomfortable feeling, despite what others might say. Your mileage may vary.

I tend to see the picture as far more bleak, siding with the views of various Buddhists, Arthur Schopenhauer, Hegesias, etc. In that suffering is what is positively bad, whereas pleasure exists only as a reduction or cessation of some suffering, pain, lack, dissatisfaction or another. Suffering are sensations that are unwanted - they are afflictions. The hedonic value of pleasure is nothing over and above the removal of these afflictions. There is nothing extra. — Inyenzi

So, if I recall correctly Schopenhauer never advocated masking suffering with pleasure. He was for the idea of reducing suffering, not increasing pleasure. Not sure if this is pertinent, just wanted to point that out.

It's quite sobering how close all humanity is to starvation, and how real and genuine our need to eat is. Driven by these painful sensations that arise when we lack calories and nutrition, we seek out and ingest food, which temporarily reduces or negates these sensations. By consequence we maintain biological homeostasis, and the process repeats. Eating today, so that we may feel hunger again tomorrow. — Inyenzi

Not really. Food is remarkably cheap. The starvation crisis in Africa isn't as dire as it was many years ago.

Do you agree with this (admittedly) bleak view? Why/why not? — Inyenzi

So, you bring up the concept of homeostasis, yet then present the picture of there being an almost endless desire to experience what is known as pleasure. Homeostasis is self-regulation, so there's no need to insist that pleasure will endlessly be pursued. Think about tolerance, as an example. Or satiety.

And you think I'm dreaming! — Bitter Crank

Well, everything is becoming automated. The Luddites were aware of this impending doom to their welfare and claimed that machines should be banned from becoming the means of production, yet here we are enjoying ourselves due to these machines that are sorting your mail or building new electric cars.

Keep in mind that things are progressing in a manner where costs are decreasing or remaining stable comparatively to inflation. This is just me pointing out the fact that technology, productivity increases, and efficiency gains - through automation and other factors - are causing deflationary tendencies in the economy, not inflationary.

That's fine; you don't have to believe whatever catastrophizing I do here. — Bitter Crank

Yeah; but, it attracts attention and is misguided. Just trying to point that out.

Economic development, in general, has tended to be a dirty game, because whether in a command economy or a capitalist economy, managers prefer to externalize costs by throwing waste into the river. — Bitter Crank

So, before we claim that this will continue to happen, let's take a step back and realize that this is a big issue that people are aware of, much like how Rachel Carson's, Silent Spring raised awareness of the use of pesticides and their detrimental effects on eggshell density, which caused hatchlings to prematurely die. Furthermore, there's a shift taking place, most notably in the car industry, and in the energy sector to go electric. Indirect fusion (solar panels) is becoming cheaper than oil and gas. The fracking industry will only last so long, despite the mind-boggling fact that the US is becoming a net exporter of oil and gas, which was unthinkable some 30 years ago.

We already may be past the point where strenuous reductions of CO2 will prevent a sharp rise in global average temperature. Strenuous reductions would certainly be a good idea, but we might get the consequences of CO2 increase before we experience the benefit of CO2 decline. — Bitter Crank

Yes, no disagreement here on my end. And oil and gas companies were campaigning against nuclear, through promoting solar some 30 years ago, when solar was never going to compete with oil and gas, at the time. But, times are changing and nuclear is experiencing a renaissance.

Disinformation is a cause for concern; but, the oil and gas companies seem to have accomplished their goal of vilifying nuclear, which is still the safest and a practical alternative to oil and gas. It's a tragedy that liberals in office still think nuclear is evil and all that crap, which paradoxically Republicans have been very fond of. So, interests and goals are misaligned and are warped and distorted over at Washington due to disinformation and special interest groups. But, this is where we have to realize that economics dictates what is most cost-effective, and not any particular group of people or president for the matter.

I'm a positivist, so there you have it. That's my attitude on the matter.

So, you are saying that the complex system we call the global economy will always be able to adapt, despite diminishing resources and their consequently increasing costs, to sustain something that will continue to possess all the positive attributes and benefits of what we call civilization? — Janus

Something like that. Though you seem to be missing the point that markets are composed of people and not an abstract entity like the invisible hand that Adam Smith talked about.

I would agree that such a thing might happen, even if I don't think it looks likely, if some new cheap energy resource, like for example workable fusion, suddenly comes into play. Even then I think it would be a challenge. — Janus

The market is not a machine contra Marx. It's composed of people who drive it. Although if you read my first post in this thread you might be able to discern that it's actually a handful of people that are controlling the money stream.

What cogent reason do you have for your apparently great faith in human resourcefulness? — Janus

Well, I'm not part of the picture so I can somewhat objectively state that most people have a zest or zeitgeist for things in life. To sound philosophical there's an unsatisfiable desire for "more" than what people already have. This breeds discontentment and alienation of group interactions. But, I'm kind of not part of the composite of people who feel that way.

Are you saying that we will not need to drastically reduce consumption (the reduced consumption that I refer to as "sacrifice:) or that we will not see the drastic reduction of consumption as a sacrifice? — Janus

Yes, we won't see it. It will just be a new "equilibrium" that we adapt to. Again, to repeat, expectations change due to things within or beyond our control. Hurray capitalism!

You or I may not see such a reduction of consumption as a sacrifice, but how can you be confident that no one will, or that most, or even many, will not? — Janus

Well, it's not a zero-sum game and we don't see change unless it has already happened. But, according to the snapshot or image I can present at this moment, there is a dramatic shift in the market towards a more sustainable future due to a rise in the efficiency of existing products.

It seems to me you are just assuming that we will be able to do all these things without being able to give a plausible explanation as to how we will be able to do them. — Janus

It just happens. I can't tell you how it does happen because we don't live in a communist central command economy that determines or transcends human wants and needs.

Yes, Wallows, but where are the resources, both economic and energy, not to mention scientific and technological, going to come from to build all those robots? — Janus

Education? Human capital? Amazon is tirelessly working on automating all its distribution centers. Tesla, last week, released a fully autonomous electric car. It really never ends, as long as people want things instead of being satisfied with less, like myself. Now, there is undeniably an enormous amount of waste created through this indecisive nature of human wants and needs. And, I feel like that's the issue here. The amount of waste we produce is staggering. Just go to a food bank and realize that if your a glutton, then you just landed in heaven if you can get around the fact that the food is about to expire, which never really bothered me.

Where is the willingness to sacrifice our precious lifestyles, not to mention the knowledge as to precisely how and to what degree to do it going to come from? — Janus

Nothing needs to be sacrificed. That's a myth that I see pushed by nay-sayers of the economic system that governs capitalism. We will simply adapt and change the way we behave. If you get my gist here, it's like placing the horse behind the cart. Expectations are malleable and not concrete.

"Oh, well we should try to look on the bright side", because that would likely be nothing more than wishful thinking. — Janus

Substitute "wishful thinking" with "expectations" and my point should become more clear.

It seems to me that we would do better to think that collapse, or at least a great and rapid reduction and transformation, of civilization as we know it is inevitable, and perhaps much sooner than we think, and to try to prepare as best we can for that, than to vainly hope that we can sustain "business as usual" indefinitely into the future. — Janus

I don't believe in the notion of "collapse and inevitable" here. Others might differ.

I know this kind of sentimental issues may be trivial to many of you given the complexity of the questions many of you have written in this forum but please bear with me or at least recommend me some other please to talk about this. — Alan

So, you've heard the concept of reciprocity I'm sure. I say start from scratch. Become friends with a woman instead of "falling" in love, and go from there.

Not to give you the impression that I am disagreeing with you here, Bitter Crank. I agree with most of what you say on the forums and think Marx was right in some or most regards, although the jump between capitalism to socialism to communism isn't quite that continuous. There is quite a bit of jump discontinuity between each economic system. Anyway, I'm more of a guy that thinks progress should be continuous rather than instilled through revolution contra evolution.

My gripe is only that the picture you paint is devoid of all else considered or caeteris paribus.

Fossil fuels are not just our achilles heel, they are the bulging aneurism in our aorta that will burst, bringing this whole fandango to an abrupt and clumsy finish. — Bitter Crank

You underestimate the power of the markets. The invisible hand works its magic through the ever-increasing creative destruction that we are perpetuating.

But, "consume less"! Not really, just change the means of production to robots and the endless demands of productivity increases and all boats will rise.

I'm just going to be blunt and call you out on your catastrophizing here. The markets have lifted countless people in India and China out of destitute poverty. You might brush that aside and counter with another knee jerk response that this has happened at the cost of the environment, especially in China. But, it goes without saying that there is no free lunch and we might as well accept the fact that the world is becoming a better place despite what Marx or Engels might have said some 100+ years ago.

We don’t wish to know what it is we dislike, we prefer to just dislike it and then dismiss it - and this is often the best course of action, yet it is not always the best course to take. — I like sushi

OK, so nobody likes the cognitive dissonance that the trolley dilemma induces or any other ethical dilemma. So what? I remember quite vividly the feeling of dissatisfaction and dissonance that I felt when I first encountered the trolley dilemma.

The hypothetical presents an item that can be regarded, turned over and looked at from multiple angles. It is a means of modeling and preparing for future events. I am not saying we should sympathize with the devil, but if we wish to avoid becoming the devil we better understand the roads to hell to some degree in order to understand them - and it’s foolish to think they are marked out explicitly for us to avoid. — I like sushi

Yeah; but, I like living in my bubble. Don't burst it, please.

By stripping down any given hypothetical and removing each answer as it dawns on you I find that once the biases are ripped away, layer by layer, underneath the worded thoughts something else is partially exposed - such experiences are traumatic by nature it seems. — I like sushi

So, you want to burst my bubble. But, you know what happened to Socrates.

But, let me invert the situation for you. It is through the Humean hurrah and boo responses that moral behavior is conditioned and reinforced. Just watch the news as an example. So, your method is going to produce unhappy people despite good intentions.

And the supranational plutocratic ultra-rich complain that taxes are "too high". Give me a break.

As a semi-trained economist I'm just going to throw this out here:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-offshore-wealth/super-rich-hold-32-trillion-in-offshore-havens-idUSBRE86L03U20120722

Private wealth held offshore represents “a huge black hole in the world economy,” Henry said in a statement.

Yeah, go figure. Any thoughts about this "issue", @andrewk?

That thread was a minefield! — andrewk

It was a difficult yet ultimately rewarding thread. *Grows emotional.*

A disgusting way to express whatever you're expressing. — tim wood

So, let me try and be more explicit. What's your issue here as you seem to have taken a combative tone? Returning to the OP, and what I have said, marijuana is legal in my state yet illegal on a federal level. You seem to have turned a blind eye on this fact, which puzzles me.

I point you toward Plato's Crito and Phaedrus. Kant's Groundworks for a Metapysics of Morals. — tim wood

Okay, I'm not well versed in Kant, as much as I should be... Plato, I'm more acquainted with.

Thoreau — tim wood

Hmm, that's a tricky one. Wasn't it Emerson or Thoreau that watched the village ablaze and did nothing, while afterward he was imprisoned for his inaction?

But, if you're looking for figureheads to prop up, then perhaps Nelson Mandela needs mentioning here, don't you think?

So mocking me is essentially mocking yourself as not merely ignorant - we're all ignorant - but stupid in that you cannot or will not recognize kinds of sense and arguments that run back as far as writing, made by people whom ignorant people sometimes find fashionable to dismiss because, apparently, they think it makes them look smart. Don't be one of those people. — tim wood

I haven't mocked you, while I don't deny others have. So, nobody is pissing on your shoes and claiming it is raining here, or not me at least.

Give me some reading material, as you claim you aren't here to preach or teach; but, share some thoughts, which aren't entirely clear to me as of yet.

What does it matter if the grass is greener on the other side, if you're on this side? — Shamshir

Love thy grass as you would your neighbors green one.

Or just get some AstroTurf and stop worrying.

No. I haven't the strength or time. — tim wood

Oh dear...

And you and others are not really interested - that from the tenor and progress of the thread. — tim wood

How presumptuous. I'm going to assume you think I've been trolling you or some other nonsense, when in fact I'm quite interested in how you are deriving your conclusions. Or as a teacher would say, "Show your work." Maybe I would be able to learn something from you.

No, we have not. Not in any way whatsoever. — tim wood

Then elucidate how have you arrived at your conclusion, because we can run around in circles saying that drugs are bad because they are illegal, and they are illegal because they are bad.

Forgive me if I have construed a straw man out of your position; but, you haven't been entirely forthcoming in presenting your reasoning.

It would seem to be that you're trying to decide if something is immoral, and you're looking at the thing itself to tell you. But morality/immorality exists prior to the thing questioned. — tim wood

So, we have turned towards some moral absolutism or objective infallible truths about drug use. I don't see how you arrived or anyone for the matter could arrive at this conclusion.

The “mock outrage” I am referring to is psychological projection. We hear of a murder and we feel disgusted because we KNOW we’re capable of murder and this person has reminded us of our faults and insecurities, of the path we’ve taken to avoid being a murderer, yet we don’t sympathise with the human we mark them as a “monster” or “subhuman” when given a different set of circumstances the chances are we’d do just as they have done. — I like sushi

I would disagree. There seems to be some cognitive distortion at play here in stating that anyone is capable of committing murder. In principle, it is possible. In practice not really.

We say to our friends and family “how can a person do such a thing!” yet inside we know full well that people can be driven to extreme actions and our refusal to address this directly could lead us, in purposeful naivety, to do something abhorrent; although maybe not as abhorrent, then we can rationalise and say “at least I’m not a murderer!” — I like sushi

If a person says "that's abhorrent" or "how could they", I'm going to assume that they mean what they say. Stating otherwise is some sort of fallacious distorted way of perceiving reality or the intent of other people, at least in my view.

Extrapolate this to some moral problem. Anyone can say how they should act, but more often they never do act as they say. I think Rousseau commented about this? — I like sushi

Do go on, what did Rousseau say?

It is a reflection of what I need to attend to in my own actions more than it is my dislike of the actions of some hypothetical other - of which you are one being a rather abstract entity online :D — I like sushi

Just trying to stay sane here. Your position is quite a perplexing one.

But the immorality of breaking the law never goes away - how could it? - except for people who won't acknowledge this concept. . — tim wood

Again, aren't we painting with a broad brush here? I will acknowledge that some laws just flat out should never be broken, like murder or theft or libel; but, drug use? Not quite sure about drug use.