Normative Ethics

Prismatic

“I don’t think our present conditions can exist in terms of fiscal and monetary policy and various other elements across the political landscape,” he said. “I think it will change, I don’t know when, or to what degree. But I don’t think this can be done without leading to other things.” Warren Buffet

“Leading to other things” is Buffet’s way of courteously saying that things could get really screwed.

I’ve lived through several presidential administrations. Blips and bumps in the economy are nothing new. The public is generally fickle, of short memory, and gullibly think that an increase of percentage points in the tenths means that happy days are here again. If you know Trump’s business record and personal history, which I have known for a long time, you’d know that he’s an outright con man. If that were not the case then his business record would not be as sketchy as it has been proven to be. “The Art of The Deal” for Trump is make the deal and if any problems arise then declare bankruptcy and/or get the lawyers to handle it. Look at what’s happening to him currently and how everything is about lawyers buffering him. It’s classic Trump.

As for Obama, people conveniently forget the economic crash of 2008 and Obama’s part in recovery for the country. What a nice little task to deal with as you begin your presidency. Furthermore, a lot of what Trump claims as his achievements are effects that came over from Obama’s time. I could go on and on but by now I figure that if people are so gullible and to believe in Trump enough for a second term, then they deserve to be right up to the front of the fan when the crap hits the other side of it.

Also, read, 5 things to know about the US economy during Trump’s State of the Union" from February 5, 2019.

But if you want to know what Trump is really about, then read, This guy doesn’t know anything’: the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team.

Here’s an excerpt in Trump’s own words: “Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money.” That’s Trump not just in the context of the article, but in the context of everything in his life.

To Gloominary: Please excuse my digression but anyone trying to defend Trump to me is on a hopeless crusade. And Prismatic, I know you were just making an observation so I’m not singling you out.

Trump is older than me but we were both young when I was growing up in NYC. I know precisely what kind of a person he is, and I’m being generous when I say, ‘person’.

So, we were talking about normative ethics . . . .

One point is being a foreigner [btw not a conservative] I can be more objective in deliberating on the performance of Trump plus his warts [narcissistic, psychopath to some degree, ego-maniac, boaster, etc.].

On the other hand a American democrat’s [or even a Republican’s] assessment of Trump is more likely to be emotional, psychological and subjective.
In addition there is the real cognitive dissonance and the Trump Derangement Syndrome. The left going crazy is like football and other sport crazy fans going on violent rampage after their team lost the game arising from their cognitive dissonance that their team is a winner in their mind but the reality that their team lost, thus the rampages to deal with the dissonance. Many in the left are now an unruly mob bent to the extreme of violence [note Antifa].

The degree of the cognitive dissonance is very great, thus the sustain evil and violent reactions from his opponents to soothe the pains from the derangements.

Btw, most foreigners are exposed to very bias attacked on Trump from the left inclined media, e.g. CNN, WaPo, MNSBC, NBC and others. Because of that most foreigners have a very bad impression of Trump but without the cognitive dissonance and the Trump Derangement Syndrome as most Democrats has in the USA.

In addition, having participating in philosophical forum for so long, I am tuned to more objective, rational and philosophical, thus my being objective in assessment of Trump in terms of his present [not past] performance.

What is most critical for me in Trump’s performance is his strategy against the evil potential of malignant Islam. In Obama’s term, the sleepers of Islam had already penetrated into the White House. This is a very threat for humanity, not just the USA.

Perhaps it is true there was a rise in the economy before Obama left, but it could have gotten worse subsequently with manufacturing companies abandoning the US for cheaper labor outside the country, thus losing more jobs. That Trump could continue to sustain and then accelerate the economy with effective strategies to such heights we see today, we need to give him the credit for it.

I believe the win-win moral strategy of Trump is optimal [normative] for the current conditions in the USA and the world but it should not be sustained permanently into the future.

I am hoping in the near future someone will carry out the same strategy for the USA like Trump but without his warts [narcissistic, psychopath to some degree, ego-maniac, boaster, insecurities, low self esteem, etc.].

The degree of cognition on the part of Trump’s base is very, low. And your melodramatic casting of Trump opponents as evil, violent people who are soothing their pains is, with all due respect, ridiculous. When Bush was in office they spoke of Bush Derangement Syndrome. When Obama was in office they spoke of Obama Derangement Syndrome. When previous presidents were in office there were always those who considered the reactions of the opposition as deranged. It’s merely another political label for ‘craziness’. Separating innocent, immigrant children from their parents and putting them in cages, now THAT is evil, violent, and deranged. And please, don’t justify it to me with any talking points on immigration.

The previous paragraph can serve as the same answer here. But I will add that it’s foolish to think that all information about Trump from the media outlets you mentioned is biased. That’s a bias in itself on the part of those who think such. Would a Special Counsel to investigate Trump have been appointed because of a mere bias? Is it a bias to want to know the truth about Trump’s ethics re his financial history and associations with foreign governments especially when he is the president of this country? If it had not been for the free press, warts and all, then the U.S. would long ago have collapsed from political gangsterism. Why do you think Trump made an enemy of the media early on his campaign? He knew he could psychologically control his supporters with lies, with ‘alternative’ facts, he knew that the media threatened that with real facts. If that had not been the case then he would have been an open book with regard to any investigations of him and would have allowed the allowed the media to collapse on its own. But Trump is desperate to keep the book shut on anyone and anything that exposes the truth of the matter. The truth is not profitable for Trump.

That is disregarding the relationship of cause to effect. I seriously doubt that in all your personal endeavors where complications arose you ignored the cause of them.

Yes, I’m sure that when Trump converses with Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud that’s the main topic that’s brought up.

The Islamic situation, and due to the number of its adherents, is a problem that will continue to be dealt with long after Trump has left the building. A problem like that takes generations to resolve.

The Companies Offshoring Jobs at a Record Pace Under Trump

The only thing I give bad credit to Trump for is cooking the books. Something he’s had a lot of experience doing in all his business endeavors.

A better strategy. As for the rest, we are in complete agreement. Unless of course you regard me as one of the deranged. I can live with that, if it’s in the service of ‘We the People’ - here and around the world.

Prismatic, thank you for an invigorating interlude. It reminds me of the days years ago when in high school and college I enjoyed shooting down political errancy of one form or another. But you know, life moves on and so as the lyrics say, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”.

Anyway, that’s it for my political perspectives. You and others can have the last word. :slight_smile:

Del Ivers wrote

As one of the others, I will have a few if not many last words.

Del Ivers wrote

Everyone who’s malignant is always fact checking Trump or cheering for those who fact check Trump, breathlessly awaiting reports of Trump’s lies. He hasn’t lied about very much unless you count context and word changes made by the press in regards to what he said. When the press pulls a phrase out of context or changes a word or two then the truth is lost, yes, but Trump gets blamed, not the press who pulled a fast one.

All the images of immigrant children in cages the media played were actually taken during the Obama administration and the entire separation policy was put into effect during Obama’s reign. Trump’s administration only separated children from the adults who could not prove that the child was theirs with paperwork like birth certificates and such. Obviously, the fake news did not divulge that the children in cages images were stock footage taken from the previous presidency or the fact that the policy originated with Obama.

I have a lot more to say (but this site times out when you type as slow as I do), however if you wanted the truth you would not have taken the lying liberal leftist media’s word for it.

Sorry Gloom for getting off topic. Sick and tired of the Trump slammers who refuse to know shit from shinola.

Continue in the Political section in a new thread;
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=194957

Prismatic

That a mention or two of politics may be necessary or caused by some philosophical inquiry is okay. But I have no interest in rehashing politics, especially Trumpian politics. As I previously said, anyone trying to justify Trump to me is on a hopeless crusade.

This is not only about Trump, it is about politics in general. I already had my experience in political forums some time back. Apart from the players changing, the milieu is the same with people trying to prove their positions based on interpretations rather than any real and factual proximity to the actuality of whichever matter.

There’s already enough to actually deal with currently with government and society than having to deal with in forum discussions which usually devolve to invectives whether stated or implied.

But I will answer one of your statements in the new topic: “I noted your views are rather emotional and psychological, i.e. not objective and rational.”

I am not the one who felt an urgent need to make an entirely new topic on the matter.

Nonetheless, thank you for the invite. No doubt others will like to join you in the new topic. :neutral_face:

Trump killed isis in the ME.
Anyone trying to see him as less than excellent is a bad person.

The fact is that ISIS is alive and well in the Middle East: It is thriving in parts of Iraq and Syria. It also is active in Africa, and is underground in Sri Lanka and in parts of India.
It’s false to claim it has been “killed.”

Also, since Trump assumed the Presidency ISIS has new competitors who push for both the concepts of guerilla warfare and of Sharia Law, but many, many Moslems resist living under Sharia Law.

Once someone knows their ethics they will instantly recognize Trump for what he is.

If you met someone who is a slick con-artist, a racketeer, a grifter, a frequent liar, someone who had authoritarian tendencies, who could not accept responsibility and was always looking for someone else to blame if anything goes wrong, and is an extreme narcissist, wouldn’t you diagnose him as having a malignant personality disorder?

Isis is thriving in which parts of Iraq and Syria? As far as I know Africa, Sri Lanka, and India are not in the Middle East which was the claim.

@Prismatic

Do you think humanism is objectively superior to egoism, familialism and ethnocentrism, and if so, in what respect, or is humanism just what you believe your preference is?

While me, my friends and family are more valuable to me than others, how many others?
While my race is more valuable to me than another race, is my race more valuable to me than every other race taken together?
While my species is more valuable to me than another species, is my species more valuable to me than every other species taken together?
I’m not sure how I feel about such things.

My focus is on Team Humanity not on ‘humanism’ as it is understood at present. I do agree with many aspect of ‘Humanism’ as defined at present but not totally.
The limitation is the current ideology of Humanism focus on human beings as individuals and in loose groups but not in the sense of a ‘Team’.

A ‘team’ is generally defined as;

“[a] team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to information, resources, and skills and who seek to combine their efforts to achieve a common goal”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team

In the case of Team Humanity, the team comprised on every individual humans on Earth [or in space] aligned to common goals with the best of their ability.

Note I mentioned such a Team Humanity is not efficient in the present circumstances but I am confident it is possible in the future.

Actually it is possible to sense such a possibility of Team Humanity. For if suddenly the astronomers discovered a rogue asteroid the size of the USA heading towards Earth and which could split the Earth into pieces, such knowledge if announced to the world will definitely trigger a sense of Team Humanity to try to work as one to save the Earth and the humans therein. Unfortunately having a sense of Team Humanity out of emergency is not the way to go and in addition this is not sustainable if the asteroid missed Earth.

To strive toward achieving, maintaining and sustaining Team Humanity, a lot of strategies and processes need to be done and I think they are feasible given the trend of the current exponential expansion of knowledge and technology [esp IT and AI].

Here are some of the targets that need to be achieved for the average human being;

If the average IQ at present is 100, then we need to increase to 150, 200, 250 incrementally over a certain period of time.

It the same for emotional intelligence [EQ], if the average is 100, then we have to increase to 500, 600, 1000 over a certain period.

It is also the same for other human quotients, e.g. spirituality [SQ], rationality, wisdom [QWQ], morality [MQ], ethical philosophy [PQ], teambuilding [TQ] and various quotients where we need to increase the average by at least 3-5 folds.

We have already has a trend of increments for the above average quotients if compared to 1000 years ago, so it is possible to achieve the targets above given the current knowledge and technological advances.

Once the there is an increasing trend for the various quotients, then there will emerge Team Humanity spontaneously with continual increments.

Note if the average theoretical and practical philosophical quotient including morality and ethics is increased by 1000%, then we can ensure the strategies will be fool proof against evil and will be continually optimized.

In the above sense, yes, Team Humanity [with subset humanism] will be objectively superior to egoism, familialism and ethnocentrism.

Btw, Team Humanity must not survive at the expense of other living things since all living things are interdependently connected to all.

We can rely on thinkdr and Dr. Hartman’s axiology to provide the objective measures in terms of quantified values on the above.

Prismatic wrote

I kind of feel that those below average and those well above average are the dangerous ones to your team humanity concept. The goal should be to raise IQ and EQ to at least average so those people can be reasoned with. The crazy superior people either trample human affairs with their creativity to humanities detriment or avoid using their intelligence to push progress knowing that their inventions are often manipulated to do greater harm in the long run. It always amazes me to meet people with IQs over 160 working construction or some other normal labor intensive jobs, but I can understand the appeal to do something with your hands as they say an honest days work.

Yeah, this society doesn’t provide for a lot of healthy work for supreme IQs.
High IQ gives a lot of strain, high strung nerves, as thinking is incredibly energy consuming.
To work with the hands, especially lifting heavy stuff and all that, is the most relaxing thing for an all too intelligent person.

I would give less weightage to IQ - perhaps 5%.

What is more critical and carry higher weightages are EQ - emotional intelligence, Moral Quotient, spiritual Quotient, encompassing philosophical Quotient [40%], and wisdom quotient.

My condition is these average quotients should be increased by > 500% as compared the current status of the average person. Then an efficient fool proof Team Humanity will emerged spontaneously.

When there is a critical comprising the average of >500% then those in the minority will not be powerful to create problems for the majority.
In addition, the majority will contribute to increase the various quotients of those in the minority.

There will come a time in the future, where those in the lowest 10% will have a score of 500% over the current people today.

What is a high EQ officially anyway? What sort of beliefs and actions constitute it?

With all the untreated and rampant mental illness today as well as societal degeneracy in general, how would these extremely high EQs for all come into being?

Also much of what we breathe and consume is poisoning our nervous systems which controls the EQ. Sounds like nice pie in the sky the IQ and EQ improvements.

I try to be fair in my dealings with others, whether they’re friends, family, associates, acquaintances or strangers, whether they’re white or non-white, it’s just I’m more likely to be generous with friends, family and whites, and of course there’s nothing abnormal about that, yet conventional consequentialist ethics like utilitarianism don’t take friends, family and race into account, even tho it’s human nature to do so, because there’s a left-wing bias in philosophy, not just in political philosophy, but even in strictly ethical, perhaps even in epistemological and metaphysical.

The right uses these feelings of kith and kinship we have to manipulate us, but my feelings are my own, as far as I know myself, I won’t support their wars just because they tell me it’s in our best interests to, it’s usually only in the elite’s best interests, and even if it were in ours, like we wanted their oil or some other resource for our collective benefit, I would never support a war against another people unless we were desperate and there was no alternative, I’d rather cut back on consumption.

With the left it’s the opposite, since they’re anti-white, they’ll guilt trip us into thinking we need to invade this or that country to spread democracy.

Of course liberals and conservatives will invoke nationalism, anti-nationalism or some combination thereof in order to justify war and further subjugate us, I’m speaking more archetypally than practically.

Btw, I am not stating my proposals will work immediately today and now.
Humanity must start right now and hope to reap benefits within 50 years, if not 75 or 100.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

At present the EQ models are quite crude and this will be improved with greater precision in the future.

One promising view of EQ is its dependence on empathy.
Empathy is in one way related to mirror neurons in the brain, thus providing a possible objective basis to EQ.

Note many of the above hypothesis are work in progress but there are high optimism due to the current trend in the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology [IT and AI] leveraged on two significant fields, i.e.

The Human Genome Project | NHGRI​
genome.gov/human-genome-project

The Human Connectome Project
humanconnectomeproject.org/

Note beside EQ, I mentioned;
It is also the same for other human quotients, e.g. spirituality [SQ], rationality, wisdom [QWQ], morality [MQ], ethical, philosophy [PQ], teambuilding [TQ] and various quotients where we need to increase the average by at least 3-5 folds.

I think humanity has about as much chance of destroying itself and life as we know it in our post/transhumanist quest to expand our capabilities, as we have of expanding our capabilities.

When it comes to the physical sciences and understanding the here/now, I think science is pretty reliable, but when it comes to understanding the distant past/future, I think it’s just guessing.

I don’t know how life began (abiogenesis, panspermia, Abrahamic or Vedic creationism, something else?), I don’t know exactly how it evolved, I don’t know how many mass extinction events there’ve been, or whether we’re on the verge of one because of some earthbound asteroid, or because of our greed, not only greed for wealth and power, but greed for knowledge.

There’re some truths we can’t handle…there may be some truths we’ll never be able to.

But I know science is hiding loads of stuff about UFOs and prehistory.

Life may be far more ubiquitous than they want us to believe.

So in light of all that, I’m not in a rush to expand our capabilities.

I think we should tread carefully, or stay put.

And I don’t think valuing oneself, one’s tribe and one’s species over others is in any way, shape or form irrational, or on its way out for that matter anytime soon, if ever.

For me, results precede actions in importance for determining good, bad and right, wrong.
It’s not that actions aren’t intrinsically important, just not as intrinsically important.
It’s intrinsically good to be honest, reciprocative and noncoercive with others, but if you or someone you care about is in need, and there’s no alternative, there’s such a thing as white lies, white theft if you will, and under extraordinary circumstances, even white murder.
essentially there’s such a thing as, necessary evils.
While it’s better for people to meet their needs honestly and noncoercively by helping others meet theirs, this’s not always possible, for society is corrupt and resources are limited.
While it’s better for people to turn to government to fairly and/or necessarily redistribute resources, that’s not always possible either, for the same reasons, and in such cases, theft may be justified.