On June 04 2011 14:40 LemOn[5thF] wrote:
Can you define what 'common good' means from your perspective of humanist enlightened objective philosopher, who's job is to make value judgments?
First of all, I should clarify that I am not an objectivist, and I have absolutely no sympathies for such things as cartesian dualism and Ayn Rand's philosophy. But I do not believe in the subjectivity of good and evil. I do not believe in human values and human welfare as being arbitrary. I think you are an idiot if you believe that it is out of our capacity to judge whether removing the eyeballs of a child for religious reason is a good or an evil, or if you state that you can't be sure that rape is a good or bad thing. From my position, whatever promotes virtue of behavior and the harmonious advancement of the specie is a good. Virtue of behavior starts from an acceptance of duty (to do good) towards humanity, thus the humanism. Whatever promotes vice is of course an evil.
So, let's go back to the earlier context. You decided to haggle over the fact that I brought up self-cultivation as a virtue over the unconscious behaviors and distractions people are generally subjected to (which are of course vices). You said that because self-cultivation is right for me it doesn't make it so for other people (wrong, it's good for anybody to learn and cultivate themselves on relevant matters and become virtuous, and that is the common good). You equate shallow activities based on vanity like working on your body for it to look attractive and wearing nice clothes/getting a tan with such things as study and self-cultivation because ultimately it's all about the personal needs of the person and his desires, you say. But they're not equal; one works in accordance with nature and the betterment of humanity and the other does not: it is purely self-serving. You also don't believe that all human beings ultimately have the same needs and desires, which I believe is false. I believe we all have a need for relevancy, and we make choices based on that. We want attention: we want to be heard, seen, appreciated and so on. Only the way people go about fulfilling those is different. We are also all a community of the dying; we will all die at some point and what we leave behind to others is entirely up to us. If nobody believed in a common good we would have never abolished slavery and given the right to women to vote. There is a reason why we remember people like Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Einstein more than the people who dedicate their lives to getting drunk and laid as much as possible. One requires effort, discipline and a certain selflessness and the other is the default programming we all run on, which makes us go unconsciously about our day in order to gratify ourselves. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, humanity has a lot real problems to solve that we have created ourselves, and the people who are not doing their best to inform themselves and be a part of the solution are a part of the problem; and I also think if you are a part of the problem you will never be able to be truly happy, because you lack virtue, and if you lack virtue you live your life unconsciously grasping at every immediate pleasure you can and you will always end up feeling unsatiated because the body is subject to hedonic adaptation and no matter how much pleasure you might get you will always crave more. Therefore, the way to happiness is not to gratify our desires, but that is a different subject on which there is a lot to talk about.
3. Explain why existentialists believe that "in choosing myself, I choose man."
a. Through our choices, we determine or create what we will be. In those choices, we choose according to what we believe we ought to be. (Compare this view to the Socratic Paradox that we are unable to choose the bad.)
b. Consequently, we are creating ourselves according to what we think a person ought to be. This image is, then, what we think man ought to be. You are responsible for what you are and, as well, you are responsible for everyone since you choose for mankind.
c. You create an image of man as it ought to be, since we are unable to choose the worse. In a sense, in deciding, I'm putting a universal value to my act by deciding in accordance with the belief that all persons in this situation should act in this manner.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
On June 04 2011 15:09 CrownRoyal wrote:
Loco do you think you would act like u do if it was normal?
Regardless of what u do in this life it wont make the slightest bit of difference 1s after you are dead.
You're right. Here's a list of people who didn't make a difference because they died: Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Martin Luther King, Buddha, William Shakespear, Thomas Jefferson, Socrates, Gandhi, Aristotle, Mother Teresa, Voltaire, Louis Pasteur, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Einstein.
I guess these people should've just stayed home to jack off since they should've known they would make no difference whatsoever because they would die.
It seems like your existence would make no difference only because you are a selfish little clod of ailments. I'm not engaging the rest of your post because you only rant nonsense. This is how I feel:
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 04/06/2011 17:16
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dogmeat Czech Republic. Jun 04 2011 16:59. Posts 6374
On June 04 2011 04:05 LemOn[5thF] wrote:
Who are you to judge what's good and what's not
Isn't that the task of a philosopher? Are all philosophers just unenlightened judgmental douchebags with a need for self-affirmation?
I'm a humanist and it's my job to make value judgments for the common good.
Wow
Loco's lack of perspective is hilarious. You're not some paragon of virtue sent to save everyone from bad taste in TV and comedy, you play a card game for a living. The sooner you learn to not sit around and pat yourself on the back for being smarter than everyone else the better off you'll be.
What are you doing if not sitting around and patting yourself on the back right now? You're pretty much implying that I'm beyond engaging by saying that I lack perspective and then resolving to personal insult instead of mentioning why I lack perspective and how I should see things instead.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
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CrownRoyal United States. Jun 04 2011 17:30. Posts 11386
On June 04 2011 15:09 CrownRoyal wrote:
Loco do you think you would act like u do if it was normal?
Regardless of what u do in this life it wont make the slightest bit of difference 1s after you are dead.
You're right. Here's a list of people who didn't make a difference because they died: Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Martin Luther King, Buddha, William Shakespear, Thomas Jefferson, Socrates, Gandhi, Aristotle, Mother Teresa, Voltaire, Louis Pasteur, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Einstein.
I guess these people should've just stayed home to jack off since they should've known they would make no difference whatsoever because they would die.
It seems like your existence would make no difference only because you are a selfish little clod of ailments. I'm not engaging the rest of your post because you only rant nonsense. This is how I feel:
it's funny that u can compare yourself to those people who understood how the world works
On June 04 2011 15:09 CrownRoyal wrote:
Loco do you think you would act like u do if it was normal?
Regardless of what u do in this life it wont make the slightest bit of difference 1s after you are dead.
You're right. Here's a list of people who didn't make a difference because they died: Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Martin Luther King, Buddha, William Shakespear, Thomas Jefferson, Socrates, Gandhi, Aristotle, Mother Teresa, Voltaire, Louis Pasteur, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Einstein.
I guess these people should've just stayed home to jack off since they should've known they would make no difference whatsoever because they would die.
It seems like your existence would make no difference only because you are a selfish little clod of ailments. I'm not engaging the rest of your post because you only rant nonsense. This is how I feel:
it's funny that u can compare yourself to those people who understood how the world works
It's funny that you can't engage actual ideas and have to cower behind the fact that neither you nor I nor anybody on this forum will ever be able to accomplish such great things and that you use that in order to justify following the herd. What is your obsession with normality? Are you that afraid of standing alone if you believe in a cause and others don't? It wasn't normal to be against slavery, yet it was the right thing to do, but you would have been one of the people supporting slavery since it was the norm. It's a good thing that many people don't think like you and try to change the things that are within their power, no matter how small.
And do you think they were simply born with the ability to understand the world, or that they actually worked hard in order to do so, by exploring and engaging ideas, which is the ultimate thing that I wish to do and promote?
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
On June 04 2011 04:05 LemOn[5thF] wrote:
Who are you to judge what's good and what's not
Isn't that the task of a philosopher? Are all philosophers just unenlightened judgmental douchebags with a need for self-affirmation?
I'm a humanist and it's my job to make value judgments for the common good.
Wow
Loco's lack of perspective is hilarious. You're not some paragon of virtue sent to save everyone from bad taste in TV and comedy, you play a card game for a living. The sooner you learn to not sit around and pat yourself on the back for being smarter than everyone else the better off you'll be.
What are you doing if not sitting around and patting yourself on the back right now? You're pretty much implying that I'm beyond engaging by saying that I lack perspective and then resolving to personal insult instead of mentioning why I lack perspective and how I should see things instead.
I don't really want to argue about something as inconsequential and subjective as entertainment or how it pertains to society as a whole. I'm pretty sure that since the dawn of man there has been trashy entertainment, and that's not going to change no matter how much Nietzsche you read and regurgitate.
It's just fun to watch, simple as that. The comparison of shows like this and going to the zoo was right on.
The point was that it's childish to come in here and tell me that I lack something and not elaborate. If you don't want to discuss the ideas you gain nothing by just telling me that you think low of them and stopping there.
Now you're assuming that it's inconsequential -- why? What evidence do you hold that it has no impact on our culture currently? Is that your argument, that because since the dawn of time we have had entertainments we shouldn't study the effects of new media on society? That makes no sense at all. It's new media and so it has new consequences. To be aware of them is what's important. And I have never advocated a Luddite position of anti-technology either. I'm not foolish enough to believe in the possibility a world where people would forgo their sources of entertainments, that was never the point either.
Why was the comparison of going to the zoo right on? I really don't see it. I don't see how anything you can see in the show or learn could be relevant to you at some point in your life other than in order to answer a Geordie Shore trivia if someone was to come up with one. Then I guess you'd feel great about scoring high. I guess I see health benefits in going to the zoo and enjoying yourself, whereas I see none watching junk TV.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 04/06/2011 18:15
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TheHuHu3 United States. Jun 04 2011 18:37. Posts 5544
You're right Loco. You're just so much better than everyone else and it's wrong that people entertain themselves. Those 17,269 posts of yours have surely contributed greatly to an intellectually superior society of super geniuses who will solve world hunger and create world peace. You probably waste more time arguing about nonsense with people that will never agree with you on LP than everyone in this thread combined has spent watching Geordie Shore. In fact by the logic of your own argument you should get off LP and cultivate your brain by doing something useful. Try not to let the proverbial internet door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Oh and I've got some news for you. We're several billion humans living on a tiny little blue green planet stuck in the middle of nowhere in the vastness of space. Nothing humans do matters or will ever matter. The world is not important to the Universe and neither is your role in it. If the choice is between obsessing over spending every moment productively cultivating the maximum possibilities for human achievement or actually enjoying my life I think I'd rather just enjoy my life.
On June 04 2011 18:21 Bejamin1 wrote:
You're right Loco. You're just so much better than everyone else and it's wrong that people entertain themselves.
Please provide a quote of where I said that it was wrong to entertain oneself. Also provide one where I said that I never entertain myself. You just seem very angry and you cannot provide a rational argument for anything that I say apparently, since you avoided responding to my previous questions in reply to your initial post.
Those 17,269 posts of yours have surely contributed greatly to an intellectually superior society of super geniuses who will solve world hunger and create world peace. You probably waste more time arguing about nonsense with people that will never agree with you on LP than everyone in this thread combined has spent watching Geordie Shore. In fact by the logic of your own argument you should get off LP and cultivate your brain by doing something useful. Try not to let the proverbial internet door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Ad hominem attacks combined a classic case of perfectionism. Voltaire said that the best is the enemy of the good, meaning that we have a tendency to give up on working towards the good of something because we only focus on the best and how far it is. This is a clear lack of perspective that you suffer from.
Oh and I've got some news for you. We're several billion humans living on a tiny little blue green planet stuck in the middle of nowhere in the vastness of space. Nothing humans do matters or will ever matter. The world is not important to the Universe and neither is your role in it. If the choice is between obsessing over spending every moment productively cultivating the maximum possibilities for human achievement or actually enjoying my life I think I'd rather just enjoy my life
That's some pretty pathetic nihilism right there. Nothing matters, huh? Why don't you just kill yourself? You wouldn't think it's important if you saw someone drowning puppies and setting cats on fire because "the Universe doesn't think we're important according to me"? Why do you bother posting your opinion if nothing has any importance? Isn't it all ironic considering that it is important for you to enjoy your life?
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
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TheHuHu3 United States. Jun 04 2011 20:23. Posts 5544
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