the psychology of objectivism - one possible narrative

This is because you are an-hedonic, love, so emotionality is non-sensical to you. Which is why you are posing pleasure as an end goal and I am not.

I need no pleasure because unlike you, I am not denying my emotions.

Now go back to your let-s-destroy-the-universe crap.

Take it down a notch, kiddo. You’re running the risk of becoming irrelevant :wink:

I’m not arguing that. Or, rather, I’m not arguing that so much as suggesting that each of us as individuals will determine [in our heads] which option is seen as better or worse; which option is seen as rational or irrational; which option is seen as moral or immoral.

And then beyond a particular concensus in a particular community, where can the philosophers/ethicists go?

Morality of course never goes away. Why? Because human wants and needs never go away. Morality is derived from the fact that embedded in the “human condition” is something rather obvious: that wants and needs ever come into conflict. Morality then is just a particular set of rules for a particular set of behaviors out in a particular world at a particular historical juncture. The rest is dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. That and opting for either “might makes right” or “moderation, negotiation and compromise”.

And, for folks like me, the dilemma embedded in dasein. Though I didn’t really “opt” for it. In fact, I wish I could figure out a way to “opt out” of it!!

But that’s my point. What is seen as more moral “to me” may not be seen as more moral “to you”. Or “to them”. My argument then revolves how I perceive [and you perceive and they perceive] these conflicting value judgments from the perspective of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

After all, that which the ubermen construe as promoting a “thriving life” will not often be seen by the “sheep” as doing the same. The only difference then between law of the jungle thuggery and the KTS crowd is that Satyr, Lyssa, Magnus et al always feel compelled to dress up the part about “might makes right” by concocting these fantastical intellectual contraptions [an actual “philosophy”] in order to separate them from the…retards? If only in their heads.

Imagine children being raised by the likes of Satyr and Lyssa! Or Magnus!! What’s the expression…“I weep for their future.”

Again, I believe that many objectivists react as they do to my “dasein dilemma” [some all but frantically] because they begin to sense that they are not really able to make it go away. “Oh, shit”, they’re thinking, “what if that is also apllicable to me?”

And, of course, if it is, then their carefully crafted world of words might come crashing down all around them.

I mean, look at the manner in which Satyr, Lyssa, Magnus and their ilk react to it…here and there!! Maybe not hysterically, but not all that far removed either.

Trust me: To think as I do here can be truly, truly demoralizing. “I” becomes merely [or largely] an existential contrapment/construction/fabrication swirling about value judgments that are not necessarily any more rational or moral than any others.

And that’s before you fall over into the abyss and are gone forever and ever.

You did not here respond to any point I made or inconsistancies I pointed out. You simply gave a global emotional reaction with some scattered assertions that do not respond to points I made.
Which is fine. I wasn’t posting to you.

Hmm. Let me think: Does that make it go away?

Uh, nope? :laughing:

So, how about God. Your God. Does He?

No, I mean really young. :banana-linedance:

And I haven’t resorted to the dancing banana since von rivers was here. I think. :wink:

You were writing down everything I couldn’t be bothered to type :slight_smile:

What is ‘that which makes an argument go away’ a criterion for?
The use of power has made some arguments go away or marginalized them off to a little white noise in the distance.
A very effective plague would make all arguments go away.
I think it is possible that technology will make arguments go away. When people are so distracted and or merged with machines and or controlled, a state may be reaching in which arguments no longer take place. We can see places and times where this has happened to some degree, but technology was insufficient to fully eliminate arguments. I suppose I consider us being seduced and manipulated into such a state without arguments - rather than overtly coerced - as more likely, and not unlikely at all.
ARguments could be eliminated via a global idiocy - via evolution of some kind - where we no longer have the language skills to muster arguments.

But in general I think it is an odd criterion as part of arguments, unless someone is arguing that their argument will eliminate argument. Not merely that it should eliminate argument, but people are too stupid, but that despite the diversity of human minds and their capabilities their argument WILL eliminate arguments. Their beliefs are viral to a degree parallel to the universal plague I mentioned above.

I do realize that this post of yours was in humor, but the one it quotes of yours was not so, and it has always struck me as odd that this criterion of ending debates and disagreement is a criterion. I don’t understand the context. But perhaps more people are claiming the complete universal effectiveness of their beliefs/arguements.

Now my position having been utterly will eliminate all future debate. All minds will agree with me until we are one.

Do you experience this?

Or is there some other reason this comes up.

I understand one might have hope, that certain key arguments would dissappear and we would all get along or function in agreement. I can understand that utopian urge, which is so utopian it rivals the most outlandish of religious urges.

But that’s a little different from (at least seemingly) presenting it as a criterion that when failed to be met functions as a critique of other people’s positions.

Or perhaps I am missing something obvious or otherwise.

And there was more oddness in there too. I went for the most glaring.

I’ve seen the username moreno over at KTS of late. Is that you? If so, it might explain a post like this. Satyr and gang over there pump out this didactic bullshit day in and day out.

Really, what’s your point? Are you suggesting that “technically” the manner in which I framed conflicting goods pertaining to the morality of abortion is not the manner in which a “serious philosopher” would frame it? Is my “epistemology” out of whack?

The abortion debate is really not all that hard to grasp existentially. Women become pregnant. But some women don’t want to be pregnant. And in some political jurisdictions they have the option [in particular contexts] to choose an abortion.

All of this is true objectively, right? It’s not just a matter of someone’s personal opinion, is it?

Now, if they do choose an abortion, how are philosophers able to determine if the choice that they made is moral or immoral? Can they determine this using the tools of philosophy?

Again:

[b]If abortion is deemed objectively moral [and made legal] then many unborn babies will die.

If abortion is deemed objectively immoral [and made illegal] then many pregnant women will be forced to give birth.[/b]

Isn’t this how it works “in reality” out in the world that we live in? Isn’t this “something obvious”?

Now, Phyllo can either react to this conflict with an intelligent argument that makes it go away or he can’t. Same with you.

Oh, and as with Phyllo, I’d like to ask you how you are able to factor in your religious beliefs here. You’re a pantheist, right?

What does “making it go away” actually mean here? :-k

If someone is shot and killed, there is no argument which can resurrect the corpse. You can’t be expecting that. Or can you?

So the objective argument must be some words which alters the meaning of your words, such that your statements are no longer applicable.
Therefore :

We can say that the unborn is not alive and therefore cannot die.
We can say that the unborn cannot live outside the womb and therefore has not rights and not right to life.
We can say that the unborn feels nothing and therefore loses nothing by being aborted.

We need only remove the word ‘forced’ in this case. I admit that is difficult since women will be inconvenienced by carrying a fetus to full term. And thus they will feel ‘forced’ to do somethings which they don’t want to do. That’s a subjective feeling, isn’t it?
We can say that there are ample means available to prevent pregnancy.

And if God is around and shows Himself and says : “Woman, thou shalt give birth”.

Every woman will be happy about that? No woman will feel forced?

or
God says : “I will take any aborted fetus to heaven”.

Everyone will be happy about that? No one feels that “the fetus should have been born and lived a full life and then gone to heaven”?

If God comes down and lays down the objective law, some people are going to say that God is a fascist asshole. :confusion-shrug:

OMG, I was relevant.

You are the center of the universe, and the smartest center of the universe of all the centers of all the universes that have ever existed and that will ever exist in the universe and outside of the universe, and so I am morally obliged to respond to you, to treat you kindly and with respect, I know that, but I am a bad person and I did not do what I was objectively supposed to do, so please sorry, it won’t happen again, if it means anything to you, I am suffering from bad conscience as I am writing this and I am considering a suicide.

I know, I love really young men, both mentally and physically, they make my banana do the saturday night fever dance, and yes, you haven’t resorted to dancing banana since von rivers was here, he was the last one to give to ya.

Dude, you have utterly destroyed every single one of KTS members, I admit it. And yes, I am emotional and hysterical precisely because I am totally incapable of dealing with what you’re saying . . . it’s way over of my head. And I simply have to respond to you with meaningless drivel because I am utterly weak . . .

And Apaosha is now going to shut down his forum and build a monument in your honor . . .

And this thread won’t be closed or moved to rant because it contains historically relevant information . . .

I’ve already explained this here and elsewhere, but I will try to explain it once again because trying to explain important things in as many different ways as possible is always fun.

We’re going to talk about cowardice.

Cowardice is the incapacity to accept what one is, what one truly wants, it is the incapacity to follow one’s instincts, to accept the consequences of one’s past decisions, including the decisions made by one’s ancestors.

Cowardice is the desire to reinvent oneself.

Instead of the real, the past, the instinctive preceding the ideal, the future, the reasonable, we now have the ideal, the future, the reasonable preceding the real, the past, the instinctive.

One desires to learn without making mistakes, to develop without making sacrifices.

Pretension: reason preceding instincts.

Hyper-rational folks such as iambiguous, phoneutria and Trixie do nothing other than this, the only difference lies in the way they do it.

Reason is no longer considered a process, no longer considered something that follows and works with instincts. Rather, reason is something one has to do before one acts.

No instinct is allowed expression because instincts reveal one’s reality, one’s inferiority.

When instincts become too overwhelming, too painful, too constipated, the brain either endures them through detachment or it fragments itself by attaching to a group of instincts it considers “good” in order to deny the remaining group of instincts it considers “evil”. The first endures chaos/pain, the second denies it through premature order/pleasure.

Bothered by its conflicting desires, the individual seeks a way to limit/deny some of its desires such that inner peace can be established.

This is repression, or desire not to desire. This is different from suppression in that suppression is a conflict between desires, not a desire not to desire. Repressing means creating peace, whereas suppressing means creating conflict.

Desires are limited/denied by something I call “artificial order”. Other names for it are “morality”, “thou shalt” and “memetic identity”. I prefer the former because it is more abstract (i.e. more general.) It is a set of “rights” that define what is allowed and what is not allowed. The opposite of artificial order is natural order which arises from one’s instincts.

Artificial order is always forceful because it is counter-instinctive, it denies instincts. But artificial order can be enforced by the other or self-enforced.

The easiest way to impose artificial order is physically, through simple reward and punishment system. In this way, the individual is distracted from his inner conflict, and for this reason, and no other reason, he is made content.

Women like to be treated like shit because it distracts them from their inner chaos. Though the experience is painful, they find it agreeable because it gives them the hope that their problem lies somewhere else. It allows them to get rid of responsibility by falsifying the reality of their need.

If a physical variant is not working, one can try a mental variant. One is no longer punished by the other, but by oneself. One simply has to learn what is good and what is bad and administrate punishment and reward accordingly. Christianity is a classic example.

Such an artificial order can be adopted from without or invented on our own. The more creative one is, the more appealing the second option is.

Drugs come in many forms, and one of these forms is the form which appears not to be a drug . . . this is the kind of drug iambiguous is addicted to.

It appears as if he has finally acquired the necessary courage to follow through his instincts. He rejects all authority on the so-called moral decisions and claims that such decisions are rooted in “dasein”. He can now do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, whichever way he wants, noone can stop him . . .

But is this so?

Has he freed himself from self-denial or did he simply move his “point of denial” from one place to another?

You see, social interaction provokes certain reactions in people. We don’t exactly know why, the reasons are too complex to be understood in entirety, and they vary from individual to individual, but it does and it makes people uncomfortable.

We are interested to know what other people think, we are interested to know what is and who is superior and inferior, but past a certain point, such genetically acquired interests become a burden and one is motivated to simply deny them . . .

One no longer desires to know what is superior and inferior . . . what other people think . . . these desires, very natural desires, become buried so that they no longer disturb us.

And then these retards proceed to call themselves independent and in tune with their instincts . . .

Yes, I am also Kovacs.

Sure.

Perhaps my post has these as implication, but if so you are steps ahead of me, since I would not have said either of those things. I thought I made it pretty clear.

I was focused on this question, which I think I have seen you ask before and also frame more as a premise in other contexts. Does this eliminate the argument? Does this argument or position you have make everyone agree?

I think that is a strange implicit critique. People agreeing, in my experience, is not controlled by the validity, soundness, truth values, rhetorical ability, truth value (as far as I judge this). In fact an argument that eliminated argument might be incorrect - an idea I tried to get across by raising issues of power in my previous post.

Makes it go away. I think that is a very odd formulation. I have no idea if this is the case, but it sounds like your political hopes are being brought into a philosophical discussion. There is some kind of conflation: political or interpersonal effectiveness is being conflated with truth value.

If I say this, you will then, it seems, ask how do you know what you are saying is correct. Fine. That can lead to a good discussion. But asking for arguments that will make debates go away seems confused to me.

Let me know if you can see the two different discussions: in one objectivist A argues why X is moral. In the other discussion objectivist A argues that his or her position will eliminate argument.

To me these are completely different categories of discussion, the latter with some kind of incredilble utopian hopes and criteria for arguments.

The guys over at KTS know full well that their arguments are not going eliminate all disagreement. In fact they seem more dead certain than most people on the issue and I agree with them. I would see this idea that one’s argument will eliminate all other positions is more a liberal position, a faith in the potency of rationality and argument.

I am pretty sure this is not simply poor phrasing on your part, since you challenge other people’s arguments by presenting other people’s arguments that have not been made to go away.

Rather than simply contesting their argument with YOURS.

So it seems like a real criterion for you: what you just said does not eliminate debate (so therefore it is not objective, sound, true, useful seems implicit also). STrange.

I think you are adding a problem. There is the problem of coming to an objective or right answer. Then there is the goal of having this answer be compelling to eveyone. Hence you participate in discussions and frame them at an abstracted, distant from yourself level. Your feet are not on the ground.

This is important stuff - the issue of people not being convinced. I am not saying that is not important, but it is a different discussion.

As long as you do not come at life from your own position and have this criterion of ‘convince everyone or your position is not useful’ you are outside yourself and ntohing can be resolved. For you anyway.

It comes off like you think the only possible use of a discussion is universal (secular) salvation.

iambiguous,

I suppose that that might be called enlightenment and/or moving away from our subjective truth to a more objective truth though still subjective.

Why do you think that is? I think that it may be because within our own minds we have everything figured out but when in relation to the outside world, which includes the environment and the minds of others, they fail because we see only with a limited perspective, our own, and the same goes for others.

Hopelessly entangled? But do you actually feel hopeless about it?
I still see no problem here. A person’s viewpoint changes if he’s a thinking person. I may be misunderstanding your words or maybe not, but I think that every situation is different and has to be judged accordingingly. Things are not set in stone I have found.

That just serves to teach us in the moment that we cannot hug our personal perspectives too closely to us. I’m not saying that we ought to let go of our own personal code of ethics or sense of morality, but I think that they evolve as we do. Anyway, it is part of life to be hopelessly entangled in things. We untangle that Gordian Knot and it tangles itself up again and again. We need to laugh at it so it doesn’t have so much power over us. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

[quote]
Transcending in such a way as Nietzsche meant - beyond good and evil. I think within a harmony of right reason and heart. Not necessary to bring a god into it.

And as always, if this is what you believe, then any time you imply or state that objectivists are bad or the problem or worse than those who are not objectivists, you are being a hypocrite, since these evaluations of yours would be based on moral leaps your epistemology would see as groping in total darkness.

And small essays with the structure
objectivists are bad/the problem (the bulk of the text)
disclaimer

would still imply strongly that the LIKELY conclusion one should draw is they are bad.

Positing likelihoods is also hypocrisy given your epistemology.

And note: this is not an argument that this or that objectitivist is right or even can be. I am focused on your situation, given your belief. You have, according to you beliefs, no ground at all to make value judgments of what objectivism causes.

They might be all utterly wrong and even bad, but you still have an epistemological block to implying and claiming what they do is bad or that they are a problem.

Magnus Anderson will be able to reply to any posts addressed to him in 24hrs, due to a one day ban.