Does the current state of the world discourage you?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Philosophers, I think, are in a unique position to anaylze human existence while sometimes viewing it from an empathetic standpoint. Well, I suppose that’s my experience with philosophy. I think that while we are inclined to critically analyze events in our existence, we also can’t help but be touched in some way by the human condition. So, with that said, does the current world disturb you? Or, do you stay optimistic? Does any of this drive you towards nihilism?

I can’t help but sometimes lose faith in the human race when I hear of a US marine shooting a wounded Iraqi (probably as a result of the chaos of war) or a suicide bomber driving a car into a US convoy. Do you think that the media may have a direct impact on our sentiments? How, as philosophers, do we deal with the tragic nature of human existence?

Any comments are appreciated!

Rich

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lose faith in the human animal? never!

humanity is showing itself as it has always been…

“life is the will to power and nothing besides…”

-Imp

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how do we deal with tragic human retardation? we stay away from their guns and point out their stupidity every chance we get. theres nothing else we can do.

as alphas, or humans with properly functioning brains, it should be our job to get to the top level of the human stupidity and tell those stupid leaders that they are so stupid. if thats not possible, we have to make it so it is possible for our alpha kids.

some people have the ability to rally the stupid masses. they are most likely a member of the stupid masses since they are so well able to identify with the needs and prejudices that infest their minds.

as alphas, it is more difficult for us to get tangled up in such stupidity because we are the luckiest brains who ever happened to run into the correct information first. since we are so lucky, we possess a more informed and objective knowledge of everything, including that which the stupid masses and their leader think they have figured out.

i think the very first step towards utopia which should be enacted immediately is to get a third party genius involved in all important public affairs. just have a small govt organization in charge of finding genius volunteers to stand by dubyas side and explain to him why so many things are stupid.

sure hes got advisors, but they are all rich and they know rich people. i remember cheney vs edwards when edwards brought up how no-bid contracts were awarded to halliburton. cheney is up next to answer the next question and he goes, seriously he says, im not joking he says “mr edwards got something wrong there, thats not a conflict of interests… i USED TO work at halliburton”

needless to say dick is still able to receive money from his numerous ‘friends’ in the business. a third party volunteer genius like myself would not be interested in such awful abominations and not only would i advise bush to not award no bid contracts to anybody, i would tattle tale on dick cheney so fast id be assassinated by the end of the day.

so step #1 to utopia: bulletproof genius volunteer advisors for all important leadership positions. wheres the downside of that? if the gov didnt accept it, it would be proof that they dont actually want the world to be better for all, only for the rich, which is the reason i suspect why we dont already have volunteer genius advisors in this land full of geniuses run by retards.

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how do you do that? by being more powerful than them… but you won’t be, they have the guns and they’ll take you out first on principle because of your condescension.

spoken like a true nazi… SEIG HEIL!

and you have blond hair and blue eyes right? the ignorant masses are unaware of your superiority because they are just ignorant… do you need to set up camps for the ignorant masses to be seperated from the beautiful people who will follow your plan for utopia?

your arrogance is charming

if you knew the LAW, you would know that Cheney was right

ever hear of LOBBYISTS?!? get a clue…

if you want to change the government get elected or be in charge of the coup…

-Imp

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ive certainly proven myself to be able to advise gun toting morons how to go about their business more efficiently. i wouldnt try and tell them to do something they dont want, i would tell them to want to do the more efficient, beneficial things. if its a warlord hell bent on killing white people, well i think ill stay away. dubya on the other hand should make a good puppet for me.

hey i never said white people are genetically superior, i said some of us ran into the correct information first. thats the most un-nazi way to possibly describe my intellectual domination of this country as evidenced by all standards. (SATs, IQs, conversations)

is that what i said? or did i say we have to educate them, ie make them like us

LOL!!! :laughing: !! :unamused:
thats the same argument he gave. the law says you are allowed to quit your job and then award no bid contracts to them yes. does that mean that its not a conflict of interests? does cheney not have a single friend at the company? is the gov completely able to determine that no money was given to cheney? does corruption exist at all? i guess not.

hell yes ive heard of lobbyists. its called legal mother fucking bribery. lobbies are absolutely undeniably the bane of this country.

how do you define bribery? somebody with a lot of money who wants a certain thing to happen gives money to a politician to influence his vote. bribery can be used for more than just votes, but it can also be used for votes.

how do you define lobbying? what do you think about the super high quality of the election ads that all the money from lobbying has generated?

like i said

i wouldnt get a popular vote because i would intimidate and confuse the voters. they trust a retard who looks like them, not some guy who could totally be hiding any kind of secret agenda hidden in between all the words he says that you dont understand. imagine there was an alien race that was totally intellectually superior to all of us, would you trust them without ever understanding everything about them? more than a human who ayou are familiar with?

this is our problem, our country votes based on lovability. dubya is adorable and retards can identify with him. a leaders ability to identify with the masses makes him a good ‘leader into battle’. it does not make a good person for deciding the difficult logistical thought intensive problems that come with the job of leading. not if identifying with the populace means identifying with evangelicals.

did you have an argument or are you just operating under the obvious assumption that america is perfect in absolutely every way?

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Well it’s always been this way no matter how much violence there is its still remains the same over all.
The only reason it seems to be getting worse is because of the media and technology informing people of the things in which were otherwise unknown to us.
Not to mention we need balance in life and all things to have happiness you need sadness but the overall impact needs to equal out. As sad as it may sound we need war and violence.

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no, you have proven nothing besides the fact that you would get shot like a fool

same principle genius … your “superiority” ends at the barrel of a gun… you really need to read some history… but your master race of geniuses does not exist… even plato knew that the philosopher kings were a pipe dream…

make them like you? how will you be able to get their ignorance out of your bloodline? what will you do when you find out that they can’t be educated? put them on the train to siberia like satlin did… purge the ignorant… future man needs a new auschwitz…

and you call yourself a genius? the law is the law. period. cheney was correct…

hey genius, do you remember senator daschle? what does his wife do? moveon.org spent more money than any republican…

no, you’d be seen for the dictator that you want to be and ignored or shot…

no, it isn’t “our” problem, it is your problem. you want to be in charge but you can’t be…

I never said america is perfect, but your nazi and totalitarian solutions to democratic government do not work… this isn’t philosophy, it is your rant…

-Imp

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Future man, I nearly completely agree with you, at the start.

I am young, and Im not afraid to admit in the eyes of many I may be considered neive, but I do read, and I do travel. I know how it feels to be on the wrong end of someones else’s beer bottle. I know how it feels to get shot at, because youre a white man in south america, and I know how it feels to watch a group of thugs beat up a homeless man.

All these feelings, I feel everyday when I see what the press has to say, or what a politician has to say. I read on a board a couple of weeks ago, a californian man was saying how Homosexuality should be outlawed because 2 thirds of california would rather see it illegal than permited, does he have no clue?

Imp. the law means sod all to me. Law is an idiots tool, which allows smarter men to find their own way around their personal problems. Corruption is everywhere, and corruption is unsettling. People ignore the unsettling feeling of living with corruption. People dont get angry, they dont get passionate.

What I feel has most destroyed any common sense of human compassion over the last 200 years is the disenchantment issue, that ultimately leaves people insensitive. People are unsympathetic.

Do you know where I think this comes from, truly? At the core?

Dont get me wrong, Im not some sort of science hater, I believe science is the course of progression, with regards to how we live. However, the last 150 years have seen the age where science developed at an almost unbelievable rate. I think people forget this. Our lives have become saturated with science, its the belief in science that has driven society. More so than the belief in money.

People have lost so much by this. Science tells us it will prove we are machines. We cant be allowed to ever believe this. This is what removes the personal responsibility we see everyday.

Something that annoys me, as an example. Speed camera detectors. People say they just warn you when there is a speed camera, and stop you gettng fined. So you SLOW DOWN. Fine, youre slow, but youre not slower because youve learned the consequences of speeding in a speed limit, youre slower because youve been warned you might have to face the consequences. One day, when there isnt a camera, and you dont think you have to slow to the limit, your ABS brakes, early warning system and even the quickest reflexes, they wont stop you killing youre passenger on the side, your child in the back, and the little girl you hit.

This is an example of removal of self responsibility. Its our plague.

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imp you said nothing. why are you wasting your time. im saying the world is in deep shit and needs a radical solution. you are saying that my solution will be difficult. i agree.

why did you type that? do you realize that i responded to the first time you said this and you just quoted me and repeated yourself?
if i tell george bush that he can save a lot of money by selling the iraq reconstruction to the lowest bidder and hes not tangled up in dick cheney then either he is going to realize that i am correct and he is not, or he does not care about the american people.

i believe that it is possible that he cares and he also does not know all. having a volunteer genius advisor would simply add to the knowledge that the leader has access to. YOU KNOW that thats not hard to understand i dont know why i just typed all that.

thats great imp, im totally wrong, being smart doesnt mean anything. we should let the world be completely ruled by people who have better guns. why did you just type that.

i know for a fact that some people are better suited for thinking about things than others. if i had to choose between me and roomate when it came to analyzing a logic problem, i would choose me because i am plain simply better at it.

the way we pick a leader is by choosing the guy who identifies with the subjective emotions that the masses feel. sure my stance on gay marriage wouldnt fly in the bush white house, but my logical solution to some logistical problem that beats what their puny brains could have thought up? everybody would vote for that if they understood it.

but im saying they dont have to vote for it. im saying that a genius volunteer will always be there to volunteer his ideas, not force them, volunteer them. i can explain to bush that the christian bible is crap and he shouldnt persecute gays and he can ignore me, fine. but if i have a solution to some problem in iraq and he has no dogmatic or economic problem with it, only an intellectual problem with conceiving it, then surely all will benefit.

should i be absolute dictator? yes of course, but i wouldnt let the masses know, because their stupid subjective dogmas arent going to agree with mine or some such nonsense that will alienate them from me and they dont want to see aliens telling them what to do, even if it helps them in ways they dont understand. they want to see a guy who is just like them because they are more ready to believe that a guy like them wants the same things as them.

imp im starting to believe that you are like PoR in that you dont actually want a discussion here you just want to say stupid shit for no reason. maybe you just want to incite me to spew forth more of my priceless wisdom?

like i said, ill get their ignorance out by doing whatever happened to me. not eugenics. yet.

yeah PoR youre right, he followed the law. the answer to the question ‘did dick cheney follow the law’ is yes. fucking read what i posted.

did i say anything about republicans? did i say that TV ads are good? oh wait i guess i did, but apparently you never heard of sarcasm and you believe its possible that i think every part of the political system is crap except for the campaign ads.

yep i guess whats best for this country is a leader chosen not based on some kind of actual measurement of good leadership, but how well he panders to his specific half of the audience. it doesnt matter if hes ‘smart’ as in ‘able to make logically informed decisions efficiently and consistently’ all that matters is that people wuuuv him.

people liked hitler, they probably even thought he was a good military strategist until they started working for him. would it have helped germany to have a smart person in charge of the military during ww2? would that have made the teeniest difference?

oh look at that you are arguing. could have fooled me. well this quote here doesnt sum up your argument, it actually is your entire argument. youre not saying anything at all imp. this is what you do, you quote me and point out some irrelvant stupidity that resulted from your inattention and you dont actually say anything except ‘adoydoy future man wrong’

im saying we should have a guy whos a pretty face for the masses, and who, for the time being actually does have the final say in what to veto and whatever. keep the pres we have today, he should be good for unifying the masses (if hes not a worthless shit). and we should ALSO have a guy who is good at other stuff besides that. why should we not? why we should stop ourselves from appointing a volunteer who has no final say? clearly you do not understand that that is what im talking about.

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which part’s bad?

id certainly say that nothing drives this world more than money. not close.

as for being saturated with science, i fail to see the problems this creates unless, as you say, humans are found to be machines. people in the dark ages had machines that displayed their dominance over nature, the only difference today is that our dominance is much more impressive and useful.

it did also eventually take us out of complete religious dogmatism. this first step i believe to be a very beneficial one. once people started realizing that superstition is not the same as science, a whole lot of time stopped being wasted on chanting and eating crackers and leaving your sick childs window open at night so the evil spirits can leave.

youre right about the second step away from religious dogmatism being bad though. teaching about morality is nowhere to be found except on hilariously boring EWTN and hilariously stupid late night evangelism.

however i think one of the worst perpetrators of this crisis is evangelical emphasis on believing in jesus. i mean sure theyll tell you that jesus said to follow the golden rule, but they say youre ‘saved’ when you believe in jesus’ resurection and the fact that all future sins went with him to explode into the sun.

they do not say that youre ‘saved’ when you finally realise that your whole life should be in absolute adherence to the golden rule. in fact they say quite the opposite. they say you are allowed to sin and that you are EXPECTED to sin and that god is just fine with that. all you have to do is go to their special expensive building, go talk to their special god power man, chant and prestochango! its like somebody took the rap for your bullshit. oh wait thats actually what they say to your impressionable children. go ahead and sin, its motherfucking aok with god.

so in conclusion, yes science may lead us to discover that we are machines and not responsible for our actions since we are merely a product of law abiding universal processes. perhaps at this time, useful knowledge can be gained about what exactly each person is like. surely if we prove this to be a fact, we can use it to predict the moral decisions of people given sufficient description of their life and genes.

religion will never offer such greatness, and the greatness the current ones offer is quite dubious. what they do offer certainy falls way the hell short of inspiring people to be responsible for their actions

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yep, that is the case… but being in a governmental conflict of interest is a legal position…

sure they do… viva la revolution!

duck.

-Imp

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Futureman
May be you want to read this book called “lies my teacher told me: everything american history text books got wrong”
It might help you to realise where your typical American way of being aragant comes from. I feel sorry for you that you’re one of the victims.

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no, your “solution” is no solution. it is nazism and stalinism.

because it is the truth… but that’s fine, revolutionaries are first targets…

and you think he doesn’t have geniuses with educations advising him now? volunteer genius advisor?!? he has more genius advisors than he needs now…

because it is the truth. being smart doesn’t mean anything. if you were so smart you would make better guns to control the world. why does the rest of the world listen to us? because we can blow it up. period.

but in your arrogance you fail to see that there are far more people with more intelligence and education than you’ll ever know…

and you are the only one in the world with this understanding?

pathetic

he already has 1000 of them.

yes of course furher…

your priceless wisdom? you nazi puke!

hey genius, being in a governmental conflict of interest is a legal position…

no I caught you in your hypocrisy

and your non sequiturs and ad hominems are so logical…when you start saying something besides “I am a genius, I know best, I need to be dictator, listen to me!” you may have something, but until then you only illustrate your ignorance…

and in your ignorance you cannot see the thousands of educated geniuses he has in his employ…

clearly you cannot see what is already in plain sight…

-Imp

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hers what i KNOW imp: we have done stuff wrong. we have rich rich rich rich people making those wrong decisions. are either of those statements wrong yet? it is my belief that a volunteer can remedy this. one who cannot possibly profit or cannot be influenced by his need to pander to the masses, preferably one who is ‘good’ according to some kind of non-subjective standard. i think smart people fit the bill.

why the motherfuck dont they you god damn annoying child. i know youre thinking of a reason. youre just not saying it at all.

uh doydoy stalin. youre hitler; stalin doydoy. that is apparently your rebuttal

i have never been so discouraged that i didnt want to continue a full on discussion. youve done it imp. youve annoyed me more than any at ilp. i want you to know this so that you may improve your arguing, not because i hate you.

and by the way, do you really not understand the ETHICAL conflict of interests when a company gets a no bid contract to do anything and their ex-pres is vice president? and that guy happens to be the guy who was in charge of selecting a vice president for dubya? he selected himself. he said go fuck yourself publicly.

Cheney: “so who’d we decide to give that multi billion$ contract to”
Somebody Else: “well we went through all the processes of selecting one such as which ones the cheapest and whatnot… wait wait no we didnt. but anyway itll be halliburton”
Cheney: “OH MY GOD WHAT A COINCIDENCE GO FUCK YOURSELF”

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almost forgot, you didnt understand the hitler reference, and it illustrates my point wonderfully

hitler was great at pandering to the anger of the masses. he was an awful general. i dont know much about ww2 beyond the history channel, but from what ive gathered hitlers stupidity is almost the entire reason why he lost and certainly his failures saved the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of non germans. i mean imagine what would have happened if russia stayed out of the war.

if i were hitlers genius aide (and he felt sufficiently motivated to listen to anybody ie he wasnt crazy) then wed be hialing Future Man forever for damn sure.

sure there are advisors, but are there volunteer advisors who gain nothing from their political doings? not a salary, not campaign contributions, not even a desire to be wuuved by the public will stop a volunteer genius from making the correct objective decision. sure bribery could, but how hard would it be to force these volunteers to sign a contract that forces all kinds of audits or limits how much money they are allowed to have. besides, the pres has the final say in step #1, if he thinks the volunteer genius is wrong hell say no. where is the problem. spell it out imp, i guess im too stupid to glean it from your verbosity.

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if you want to discuss epistemology start a different thread

  1. the decisions are not wrong, that is your unfounded opinion
  2. they have thousands of volunteers now
  3. there is no one beyond influence
  4. there is no non-subjective standard
  5. smart people are still people

nice ad hominem

when you propose to be the next hitler or stalin and think everyone should agree because you think it is logical or right or good, I’ll call it for what it is… everyone can see right through your proclamations…

improve? you have yet to prove anything philosophically beside the fact that you make unfounded assertions about subjects of which you have no actual knowledge… your claims of superior intellect are not an argument…

yes I do. and you obviously do not understand ethics or you would not have raised that objection… which ethical standard will you use? look up the standard of ethical egoism and tell me about ethical conflict… but the point edwards was making was legal…

in the senate no less…

-Imp

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Wow, if only all the world leaders were as ‘smart’ as the great ‘Future man’ Truly then we would all live in utopian nirvana. I will have a word with some political theorists I know, Futureman, to see if they can devise a system which would legitimate a move to unconditional authority for you.

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I think the current state the world is in acts upon me as an inspiration to get out my thoughts, and spread them out far, try to encourage people to make life better by trying to provide them with a train of thought that can combine the best of two or more viewpoints.

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:laughing:

On the other hand, I got some sympathy for his position, having once been there myself.

–H.L. Mencken

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cripes, you people only listen to the words i say that make you respond in annoying ways.

while i would love to be this volunteer genius and i think i would do a great job, thats not what i am proposing. i am saying that perhaps having 50/50 split elections each term leaving only one half of the country’s favorite man in charge of so much is not a good idea.

if kerry were elected, wouldnt bushheads be shitting their pants anticipating an immenent terror attack and just wishing they could punch john kerry into invading iran? (or perhaps that sentiment to a lesser degree)

what im saying is that our leaders sometimes do things that we would not approve of? if that is not what you believe, then my proposal is meaningless. if you think that no-bid contracts given to ex-associates of somebody involved in the decision making process is fine, then fine. if youre ok with the fact that a large number of the people in iraq, who i saw on pbs, who receive the exorbitantly expensive sounding items complain about their low quality and are amazed at their high price, then fine. if you think its ok that these people have complained to bush and nothing at all has changed then motherfucking fine. dick cheney made a perfectly ethical decision. hooray for america, it could not possibly be better in any way. i envy your ignorance.

im proposing a third party, unpaid, non-campaigning, non-ignorant-masses-pandering, non-partisan, high iq person. i dont know how this person would be selected, id say have all the philosophy department heads across the country vote. surely it should not be the masses; surely it could be; surely we can find a group to entrust with selecting him; surely it is possible that it will be good. you say it will be bad?