my third theme for the day....

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

conservatives say, don’t trust the government, don’t trust the media,
don’t trust the WHO or the CDC… and don’t trust education, for from
education comes “liberals”… so, if we remove everything the conservatives
want to remove, then who can we trust? who can we believe?

Certainly not scientist or doctors or big pharma… Scientist like
Fauci is suspect… so, who exactly do we trust? I think it was gLOOM
who said, he trusted his “gut” not science or reasoning or logic, but
his “gut”… so in essence has tossed away 500 years of the modern age…
don’t trust science or scientist or doctors or the media…so what is left?

if we distrust the entire modern age of science, reasoning, logic, stats,
then we have walked away from the entire modern age… we are reentering
the Medieval times…and that is just fine and dandy with gLOOM and doom…
for they have no use for science or logic or reasoning, they have no use for the modern age…

but let us take them at their word… what does the world look like if we
take away all the tools of the modern age, universities, science, (for science
must have universities to function… without the rise of the modern university,
there is no science… there is no medicine, there are no doctors…and that
is the point)…

what is left of society, the government/state, the economy if we take
away its driving forces like universities, and the science the universities create?

We are left in Hobbes “state of nature”…

a state of nature was one in which there is not enforceable criteria of right and wrong,
people took for themselves all that they could, and human life was

“Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”

and that is what conservatives want… a return to a “state of nature” in which
the strong takes from the weak and life is “solidary…”

the conservative has no need for the government, unless it directly benefits them,
do conservatives get their government checks without a strong, efficient government?

Nope…and therein lies the conservative nature? they are quite happy to deprive others
of benefits they themselves get…Paul Ryan of Wisconsin survived his childhood
and went to college on funds provided by Social Security… He didn’t do any outside
private work except for a 6 month job… every single paycheck he received
for his life, outside of that 6 month period, was a government check…
and then when he was speaker of the house, he tried to take away the very same
benefits he received to allow him to get through his childhood and get him to
college… and that is the very essence of the conservative… get himself benefits
but deny it to others…

but what are the values that drive the new GOP? The TFH party?
how do those beliefs in conspiracy theories, allow us to have
any type of domestic agenda? How does the insane conspiracy theory
of a “stolen election” provide us with a viable theory of taxes or
allow us to create actions that benefit people that allow them to
better their lives? How do I pay for my health benefits? and how
does an insane conspiracy theory about the “deep state” help me
pay for my health insurance or send my child to college?

How does “table talk stuff” about how we pay for this or pay for that,
or how do we grow as human beings, come from an insane conspiracy
theory about “Fauci and the Wuhan virus?”

how does reverting back to the Middle ages, help us in
our scientific understanding of how the universe works?

Hatred of science or education or medicine, will not allow us to become
something more, or to become/find what is possible for us…
hated of the government/state isn’t going to take us into the future…
or to tackle tabletop topics of where do we go from here?

Kropotkin

2

This is a gross oversimplification of what I said.
I’m an epistemological anarchist/pluralist.
I take my gut into consideration, among many other things, like my reason, research and experience, like the opinion of people I know and respect, fringe journalism and science, mainstream journalism and science, philosophy, popular opinion, I put all that and more into a blender (well I try to organize and make sense of it to the best of my ability) and out comes my worldview.
I refuse to put all my eggs in 1 basket.
I refuse to just let the corporatechnocrats completely uproot our lives, livelihoods and liberties without us having any input whatsoever.

I wish you would just stop talking about me because you’ve done a terrible job of representing my views so far.
According to you I just go with my gut, that’s it.
According to you I just believe in fear and hate, that’s it.
While my gut, fear and hate are features of my outlook, I would like to think there’s a bit more to it than that.
I try to clarify things to you, but nothing sinks in.
You just go right back to smearing me, either on purpose, or because you just can’t grasp what it is I’m trying to say at all.
I think that’s more your fault than my mine.

3

you say you hold these values, but not these values?

and why these values, instead of other values?

I am not surprise you went with the issue is Kropotkin, whereas the issue
is not Kropotkin, but your conscience…with your inability to
engage in a “reevaluation of values” it is not enough to
“have the courage of your convictions, but for the courage for
an attack upon your convictions”

What I do or say, is really irrelevant… what matters is your own engagement
with your values…and why these values and not other values?

my every post is an engagement with values… why these values and not those values?

so, why these values and not those values?

Kropotkin

4

But that’s just what you do, isn’t it?
Sling mud, hope and pray something sticks, because by and large that’s all you have.
It’s easy to sling mud, much more difficult to clean it up.
Trump is just iQ45, to you.
The republican party is the TFH party.
Conservativism = fear and hate.
You’re a propagandist.
I never said the same or similar things about liberals.
I like a lot of liberals, like the folks at the Jimmy Dore show and the Gray Zone.
If I fear and hate anyone it’s the corporatechnocracy which largely controls both sides of the aisle, the mainstream left and the mainstream right.
The people are just mislead, in my estimation, I don’t hate the people.
Be honest, you hate Trump and the 75 million Americans who voted for him.
You have nothing but venom for conservatives, especially Trump supporters.

5

K: two things, ok, so you have a problem with the “corporatetechnocracy”
of the world, great, now what? what is the solution? how do we engage with it,
how do we remove it? and, by what values should we use to overcome
this “corportetechnology” you decry…

if this is the problem, according to your values, then what is the solution?

I hold that the “corporatetechnology” you so decry is really not the problem
you claim it to be… the real problem is something quite different…
but the path to change and finding the truth involves asking the right question,
which as I have stated time and time again, you haven’t asked the right question…
and thus are unable to reach the correct answer…

Kropotkin

6

I’m an ethical pluralist.
Liberty is important to me, but I’m not a libertarian, altho I lean more libertarian than totalitarian, reciprocal consequentialism is also important to me.
For me, not all people and consequences are equal, mental and physical health and wellbeing precedes hedonism and materialism.
While all human life with the exception of serial killers, serial rapists and the profoundly mentally retarded has value (I believe in the death penalty for the most egregious offences and in euthanasia for the profoundly mentally retarded) and is owed by society and government a decent standard of living if they work or are unable to work, I prefer me and my biosocioeconomic ingroup more than outgroups.
This is most definitely not to say outgroups have little-no value, they have immense value, but generally I prefer my ingroup.

My epistemological pluralism informs my ethical pluralism.

7

Apart from that, people who put more value into society oughta get more out of it.

8

What is knowledge, but abstracted, crystalized experience(s)?
What are values, but abstracted, crystalized preference(s)?
Our preferences can change.
Some are consistent, others they change from moment to moment.
But we must plan to some degree, and so it’s necessary to generalize our preferences to some degree.
But I’m not an objectivist, I tend to think values are subjective, whereas I tend to think the world is objective.

9

Profoundly and Irreversibly

That is if their families or some private entity can’t or won’t take care of them.

10

I also believe in the importance of honesty.

In the importance of trad values like the family.

Trad values are important, but it’s also important for cultures to evolve to some extent.

11

As for this:

K: two things, ok, so you have a problem with the “corporatetechnocracy”
of the world, great, now what? what is the solution? how do we engage with it,
how do we remove it? and, by what values should we use to overcome
this “corportetechnology” you decry…

I already addressed this in another thread of yours but you overlooked it.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=197651

One last thing.

In addition to the corporatechnocracy, I also have a problem with Christian Zionism on the one hand and woke on the other, because they both place the interests of outgroups ahead of the interests of me and my ingroup.

12

I generally agree with you but I beg to differ on this particular issue. It is, however, more than possible that this is a language issue and that I’m merely misinterpreting you.

The word “value” merely means “that which is useful”. The word “useful” means “that which can help us attain our goals”. Some things can help us attain our goals, others can’t. And this isn’t decided by what we want. If you want to live, eating food is necessary. Thus, food is of value. But it’s not because you want to eat food that food is valuable; it’s because if you don’t, you won’t survive. So it’s pretty much obvious to me that values are objective and that what happens to be subjective is our perception of what’s valuable. Any desire that arises within us is born out of our perception that the object of our desire is valuable – even if it isn’t.

That values are objective, however, does not mean that what’s valuable for one is valuable for another. What’s good for me is not necessarily good for you. Some things might be good for both of us but there might be things that are good for you but bad for me and so on.

I didn’t read the post where you said that you listen to your gut but the moment Kropotkin mentioned it I knew that you were merely saying that you take your gut into consideration when making decisions (instead of ignoring it in favor of what other people have to say.) If you want to control others then the easiest way to do so is to destroy their inner voice – their gut – by making them ashamed of themselves.

13

Ashamed of themselves is only the glossy surface. Afraid of you is the real message.

When a Peter Kropotkin calls someone like Gloominary this that or the other, the message isn’t “be ashamed of this or that within you,” but “a powerful group of people will pose serious problems for you if you don’t learn to be ashamed of this or that within you.”

It’s not what Peter Kropotkin says you are, it’s who Peter Kropotkin represents when he says you are that, and what measures those people are in a position to impose as a consequence.

In other words, it wasn’t necessarily to make you feel shame of yourself that soviet courts called accused exploiters of the people.

People that you can actually control out of a pure sense of shame, no implied retaliation, are what we call “decent people.” And to be decent, you have to be free.

14

Consider this:

Someone like Gloom has to ask himself, work out in explicit thoughts whether he has anything to be ashamed of, and he posts some of the results of some of those thoughts here.

Someone like Peter Kropotkin will not take a moment of pause at any countervailing suggestion. He will plow right through. He is incapable not only of feeling shame, but of envisioning the feeling.

15

Shame is a counterpart of honor.

It is the price of dishonor.

16

Honor is the actual real currency of freedom.

17

Thus:

Death before dishonor.

18

What slaves are sensitive to is something else. It’s ridicule.

19

In order to stop someone from doing something, you have to lead them to think that doing that something is less preferable than doing something else. You have to make them think that the consequences of doing that something are not as good as they thought. In this particular case, that something is listening to one’s brain. A gut feeling is merely a part of your brain trying to tell you something (that is neither necessarily correct nor necessarily rational to accept at that time.) One way to prevent people from listening to their brain is to question that practice a lot – everywhere and as frequently as possible – until they feel enough pressure. If they fail to defend themselves from all the doubts that are constantly raised, they will give in. They will start believing it. They will start thinking that taking into account what they think is a bad thing. They will end up devaluing their brain. That’s what I attempted to convey. They will end up thinking – not necessarily consciously – that they are dumb and that they should just accept what the authorities are telling them.

Shame is an excessive response to the realization that you made a mistake, an irrational effort to make up for it. It’s basically your brain freaking out, pushing you to do a million different things all at the same time and all with the aim to make up for the mistake. The result is an emotion that we call “shame”. Note that there is a big difference between 1) realizing that you made a mistake, 2) making a rational effort to make up for one’s mistakes, and 3) making an irrational effort to make up for one’s mistakes. Shame is number three. It’s not a good thing. And they want to promote it as much as possible because they want to motivate you to make up for your perceived mistakes by – guess what – obeying the authorities.

20

Yeah, this is sound. But the reason it digs away progressively, the driving force, is the implied threat. If it were homeless people telling you, every time you see one, that your way of thinking is dumb, you might have the opposite reaction, it might reinforce your commitment with time.

I disagree. I think shame is an emotion that comes on when you notice something about something you did or are doing that you didn’t take into account before doing it, that has a consequence that is detrimental to your honor. That is different from just generic mistake. If you realize, for example, a split second in time, that you are about to trip on something, you can either #1 keep your shit together and pivot or #2 panic, flail your foot wildly in a million attempts to correct, and fall. But #2 isn’t shame. It’s maybe panic, and a similar thing of different nature might occur under different circumstances.