I was recomended this forum from the Richard Dawkins Forum. Not a bad lot, though a bit too liberal and humanistic for my tastes.
I identify myself as a Nihilist, in the moral, political, epistomological senses. I was once an anarcho-communist, and though I recognize that rejecting capitalism was a neccessary step in fully grasping a skeptical outlook, I have become disillusioned with both communism and democracy in general. I cannot look at humanity and the repeating cycle of stupidity and insanity it lashes itself with over and over, and think that such morons are worthy of ruling themselves. It seems to me that no political system can be justified at all save a sort of meritocratic authoritarianism, being most like how natural selection works within nature – the worthy (the strong and cunning) rule and the weak put up with it.
Because of that I have also become something of a misanthropist and an anti-humanist. I despise idealism, I hate peace, and I’d love nothing more than widescale death, war, and destruction just to clear out the complacent and shake things up.
The ‘Only the strong survive’ philosophy? Perhaps the nilistic hater of humanity? I don’t understand your views in their entirity. Not saying I don’t like you for having this philosophy, but I can’t quite understand what, or why you think this way. Perhaps you can elloberate.
I dunno know I think its much easier to kill then to let live… I would say death and destruction are the weak way. Killing and destroying is for pussies that can’t handle things or have the strength to create.
So I am often told, though in no seriousness and usually by those who drudge through life without the gift of thought; the moralists, god-lovers, and faithful zombies, being the truly sick ones.
Though maybe I am just a little eccentric.
Some. I admit I am not as versed or read in formal philosophy as I could (or should) be, it is an interest I do not get to address much. I arrived at my own views mostly just through the experiences of life, and repeated disillusionment. The Christian god (I never was really a believer after figuring out the whole Santa Claus business!), the US political system, “hippie” idealism, capitalism, communism, humanism, democracy, the list goes on. I simply got tired of all forms of faith.
I was always of a scientific disposition, and to couple skepticism and reductionism, and break down what was baseless nonsense was quite a natural and logical move.
I just may.
Something of both.
I am simply incredulous at how the masses buy into one faith or another, faith being not only religions, but also political “theories” and moral systems, believing in the promised utopias and ‘moral’ righteousness; even though they are logically baseless and often founded upon meaningless abstracts (like ‘rights’, ‘right and wrong’, etc.).
It’s like a big crowd standing under a skyscraper, fixated on all the dazzling lights and blinkers, but no one (save a very select few, the nihilists) manages to look down and see that there is no foundation for the skyscraper, it has no basis within material and informational reality. When that building comes down upon the fools, panic ensues.
But the worst thing about it, is that when they shake off the glass and rubble, they do the same damn thing all over again! They quickly see another skyscraper not too far from their previous one, and the cycle continues. Over and over again, like dumb cattle.
The triad of faith I find at the heart of this is that of democracy, religion (Christianity particularly), and liberal ethics.
Forgive me if my analogy is lacking. My primary interest is within the realms of computer science and artificial intelligence, and I shall have to carefully organize my thoughts when I get the chance. Perhaps I shall pick up greater skill at that in my time here.
You cannot create anew without clearing away the old.
Harmless… for a time. But religion always has its way of getting in the way of things, even bloodlessly. It would be better if it were simply stamped out from all public life.
Of course I could. So can faith, at least slowly and subtly through methods of decay and hypocritical zombification.
But if harm is going to come either way, it should at least be directed in a positive manner and not hypocritically. You know, to go out with a BANG. =D>
Why, is hurting people somehow wrong or immoral? I find I do not subscribe to such empty phantom terms anymore.
I always thought every government ought to have a Department of Chaos; any time a gyro stabilizes in the nation, they flick it. A pond settles, they stir it up. Peace and prosperity? They start wars (any bordering nation will do) and begin heavy rationing and crop burning. A town growing too big and too corrupt? Fire ze missiles!
Any form of stability which allows established and complacent patterns to solidify, immediately gets disrupted and conflict introduced to prompt change so that the best form their dictatorships and the meek become the subordinates.
Impractical, I know. But every day would be so INTERESTING!
Don’t mind these folks ThoughtsInChaos for they are still under the delusion of humanism in that they believe the world can be saved through charitable philantropy followed by the delusion that man’s ingenuity will somehow lead all human beings to global salvation.
Welcome to the board. =D>
Becareful of the humanist and moralist spider webs that are carved out on this site much like every other philosophical hangout.
Why go out at all? You’re saying you’d rather be stabbed to death than die naturally?
It’s immoral by my definition because it benefits you directly but hurts others. Moral actions are those that benefit others but only benefit you indirectly, by encouraging others to act similarly. In other words, actions that you would have done unto you. Immoral actions are those that might hurt others but are directly beneficial to you. You might steal from somebody, but you wouldn’t want anybody stealing from you.
Get how I’ve worked it out? Importantly, both actions encourage others to act similarly, so if you act morally, you reap the full indirect benefit of living in a moral society. If you act immorally, if you steal, you end up with a society where everybody steals from each other, and none of the good you gain from stealing can be held on to for very long, because it’s soon stolen by someone else.
These “empty phantom terms” aren’t just artifacts of foolish religion, they’re valid classifications of actions relative to their effect on society. Just because I say something you do is immoral, it doesn’t mean I think you’re going to hell (because it doesn’t exist). It just means the thing benefits you directly and hurts others.
Hurting people is usually immoral, simply because it hardly ever benefits the person you hurt, and you wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t benefit you.
Humans are not as stupid as you might think. Religion had its purpose, it was pragmatically true at one point.
Stability is the purpose of life.
Apparently I am not under that particular delusion, because I have no frigging idea what you just said.
Well, not in the sense of putting a gun in your mouth; they’d die not as nihilists, but as defeatists or pessimists that way. I think a nihilist death would go along the lines of starvation or most likely dehydration. Either way, you can’t be a nihilist for more than a week.
Naturally? You mean, old and decrepit, in a bed? Hell yes I’d rather be stabbed.
And what led you to this conclusion? Why do you base morality on the Golden-Plated Rule?
I rather like the idea of the second society; people would become crafty real quick.
I say they are empty phantom terms in the sense that they are meaningless abstractions. If there is no God, then everything is permitted. Not to say that everything is desirable by a person of reference.
But why is exploiting people immoral?
“Pragmatically true”? Explain.
Teleological nonsense. There is no purpose to anything.
However, the exploitation of one organism by another is the ultimate basis of biology and life.
Why? Because it fits the data, because it’s malleable, because then morality isn’t set in stone, but you can still say definitely whether an action in context is moral or immoral. I’m just providing definitions of the terms “moral” and “immoral” that fit what they have been applied to in the past.
Yeah, but they’d also get wiped out real quick by a moral, organized society.
Sure, all actions are permitted, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be classified based on their effect on the doer’s society.
For the same reason, it harms people and benefits you. I thought that was kind of obvious.
Well, there’s no such thing as absolute truth. All we can know is whether believing something will be beneficial or not. See: Pragmatism. If you can find a better source on Pragmatism, use it. Wikipedia’s articles kind of suck.
Here’s what I wrote for someone else. Some of it might not be relevant:
“The truth is that which works” - John Dewey
We can never really know whether the pen we see to be red “really is” red, or whether reality “really is” as it seems. We can’t know the thing in itself. What we can know is that if we get a test at school on what color a pen that looks red to us is, and we answer “blue”, we’re going to get a bad mark. Similarly, if I choose to believe that rocks are magically nutritious, I’ll probably die (or realize that that belief is “wrong” and throw it out). The truth, ultimately, is what works, what benefits us most to believe.
Well, you’re right, there isn’t really a purpose. I meant purpose as in, what we are designed to do. Humans are designed for homeostasis, it’s a fact. Here again is something I wrote for someone else:
Life’s purpose is to preserve its identity, to preserve its pattern. It’s not a purpose, really, but a developed drive. Certain things happen to be formed so that they’ll remain the same for a long time, others are formed so that they’ll change and lose their identity (be destroyed) rather quickly. So, a rock is better at survival than a mound of dust. Over the millenia, things that were easily destroyed were weeded out, and things that were good at surviving, survived. Qualities that were good for survival and thus survived were: self-replication, the ability to react and make decisions, and the drive to survive. So now we humans, the best at surviving, reproduce and make decisions with survival as our objective. And, seeing as that’s what we base our decisions on, that’s effectively our purpose. To survive and preserve our patterns.
As for exploitation being the basis of life, sure, I’ll buy it. Exploitation is fine if you can get away with it. But you can’t get away with exploiting other humans, because it usually comes back to bite you.
