Okay, let’s see if you do continue to participate on that board.
Yes, that is precisely my point. All these “guys” live lives that may well be far, far removed from the life that you lived. Very different experiences, relationships and access to ideas.
Why on earth then would anyone expect them to share value judgments regarding these things?
I don’t expect everyone to know the same things about math, physics, history, geography, etc.
But here there are going to actually be right and wrong things to know. Unless we go way out on the limb where conjecture is still the rule.
That doesn’t mean that some people are not more knowledgeable about those things than other people. It also doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to detect who is more knowledgeable.
True, but, again, this can be calibrated to be either closer to or further from what can be demonstrated to in fact be true for all of us.
Communism as a political ideology did in fact exist historically on planet earth. But then it becomes a question of whether some can demonstrate in turn that it ought not to have.
Exactly what do you think that I would get out of a discussion with those guys in that particular forum?
Well, if you go into the discussion convined that your own value judgment is the right one, then the only thing you ever can hope to get out of it is that everyone accepts that.
No, I’m not saying that he is right. I am saying that based on the components I describe in my own understanding of moral nihilism, there does not appear to be a way [sans God] for mere mortals to determine and then to demonstrate what it is alleged [by moral objectivists] that all rational men and women are obligated to accept as right.
I don’t care what “all rational men and women are obligated to accept”. That’s a crazy idea from the start. As far as I’m concerned, nobody is obligated to accept anything nor to demonstrate anything.
On the contrary, when engineers use the laws of nature in the construction of airplanes or dams or bridges or skyscrapers, the consequence of not being in sync with the most rational understanding of these relationships can be catastrophic.
You do agree, don’t you?
All that I’m required to do is to improve my ability to distinguish a fresh fish from a rotting fish…
Or…
“All that I’m required to do is to improve my ability to distinguish a robust capitalism from a rotting communism.”
The default premise here always being that you are simply “more knowledgeable” about this than those who disagree.
That part I get, believe me.