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Echarmion

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How can a perspective that is a natural result of capitalism not be part of capitalism? You're drawing an arbitrary line here between capitalism and t...
January 16, 2021 at 13:04
It's a bit of a human habit to imagine inanimate forces as living, usually even sentient, beings. This seems in line with conceptualising the planet a...
January 16, 2021 at 12:42
I guess the question is how much honest delusion we credit Trump with. If someone sees a possible consequence of their actions, but simply doesn't car...
January 16, 2021 at 12:11
That's a very interesting take on the problem. Thanks for sharing it! For what it's worth, I agree with a lot of the things you write. I think you're ...
January 16, 2021 at 08:52
One reason it's more frequent - or seems that way - might be that if you get banned here, you get your very own gravestone in the form of a post in th...
January 15, 2021 at 08:08
The people that I am aware of all had some peculiarity in their style or preoccupation that was evident long before the "suicide by mod". They all see...
January 15, 2021 at 07:06
No. I don't. It makes no sense to refer to the rational self-intetested decisions of individuals as an "invisible hand". They're not invisible, for on...
January 14, 2021 at 21:55
And the name dropping about the Frankfurt school. Superb. It's very avant-garde to blame the Frankfurt school instead of the Jews, the Illuminati or t...
January 14, 2021 at 21:15
I just wonder why you'd be against helping them? Like we can disagree on the right approach, but certainly there is something that can be done.
January 14, 2021 at 19:53
And Adam Smith was referring to God. He was a religious person, and it's not exactly subtle. The thing is, though, that there has always been an over-...
January 14, 2021 at 19:51
But noone succeeds all by themselves, do they? They all rely on good parenting, education, opportunity afforded by outside sources. People can make mo...
January 14, 2021 at 18:46
This brings to mind a more general question: I have often felt that when discussing with people who appeared honestly have a different opinion on soci...
January 14, 2021 at 12:40
Sure, I don't disagree. Just wanted to point out that even if one were to disagree, and argue that there really isn't sufficient evidence to conclude ...
January 14, 2021 at 09:46
One doesn't actually need to conclude that the candidate is beholden to the source of the money. It'd be sufficient to observe that only candidates wh...
January 14, 2021 at 09:19
Based on relevance to continued practice of one's freedom, so life would rank highest, as the conditio sine qua non, then bodily autonomy, since you c...
January 13, 2021 at 18:13
As I have said before, the idea that the market is some kind of "force" is unfounded. There is no such thing. It goes back to Smith's "invisible hand"...
January 13, 2021 at 18:05
The question is, how do we turn the absence of knowledge (are we in a simulation or not? What are the simulators like?) Into knowledge about the likel...
January 13, 2021 at 17:23
You can ditch the "somewhat". The reason I ask is this: since the evidence you have is not different from the evidence some random person in a BLM pro...
January 13, 2021 at 17:09
Which raises the question of why you bring up the murder rate. Do you have an argument to make there? The implied claim here is that the disparity can...
January 13, 2021 at 16:36
In your estimation, do the wealthy nations that struggle with the problem of mass migration also exploit the countries that the immigrants are coming ...
January 13, 2021 at 12:58
Well you have to pay for maintenance, so if something major breaks just after you bought, you might then not be able to easily afford the repairs. Whi...
January 13, 2021 at 10:50
You could, but I wouldn't. I suppose that'd be some kind of moral realism or evolutionary morality. I'd consider that an is-ought-fallacy though. I th...
January 13, 2021 at 09:55
What's the "extent" here? The strength of the associated emotions? In one case you have something that's measurable - like an emotional reaction. In t...
January 13, 2021 at 09:36
So, suffering is deontological? Only a relation between a person's will and some state of affairs, or even perhaps just another person's intentions? I...
January 13, 2021 at 08:13
"The market" is not something that exists like a market in your local town. It's a theoretical model that explains the formation of price according to...
January 13, 2021 at 07:05
Thanks! Difficult to answer, certainly, but I see no indication stuff like the scientific method requires a specific cultural background to understand...
January 12, 2021 at 18:14
Are you referring to a scenario where you wish someone harm, but don't actually do anything you expect to harm them? In that case I'd agree, such wish...
January 12, 2021 at 17:24
My point is that you don't show how any of this is related to "suffering" in the usual sense of the word. You talk about danger, harm, being suicidal....
January 12, 2021 at 12:43
That is a good description of your recent posts, including this one, yes. Or perhaps the arguments you are making are simply not very convincing. But ...
January 12, 2021 at 12:00
I mean clearly it's not because you're smart and he is stupid, since everyone can see that you're not smart. But good job turning those 68 years of ex...
January 12, 2021 at 11:37
It seems like we're going in circles here where I give some example, and you then reject it because you deem it to minimize suffering. Since you're wi...
January 12, 2021 at 11:29
It strikes me as unnecessarily risky though, to hope that when things get really bad, someone will step in in time. That depends on what you understan...
January 12, 2021 at 10:44
Bismarck is not perhaps the best example you could pick here, since the reason he added the "drop of socialist oil" to the mix was to avoid a socialis...
January 12, 2021 at 09:43
You can predict the outcome of an indefinite chain of events with "some certainty"? I don't see how you could. And "foreseeable" was the word I used t...
January 12, 2021 at 08:15
The two cannot be disentangled for the purpose of morality, but if we're talking about selecting a moral course of action, then right and wrong must a...
January 12, 2021 at 08:04
What if the corruption is part and parcel of capitalism though? A capitalist system allows an ever accelerating accumulation of wealth. This is in a w...
January 11, 2021 at 21:05
That depends a bit on the exact exceptions you're going to make. I don't think "never take an action that you know will cause suffering unless you can...
January 11, 2021 at 20:41
Intentions are what determines your actions though. You have a principle (or maxim) by which you select outcomes, and then you select a specific path ...
January 11, 2021 at 17:24
I think it's quite soothing, at times, to think it's all absurd. In the words of Monty Python:
January 11, 2021 at 08:50
I think it's not just that. It's also that, in our world and perhaps especially in America, the standards projected by media (and politicians - often ...
January 10, 2021 at 18:14
Sounds interesting. Can you point me to it? I have read a bit about common cognitive biases on Eliezer Yudkowsky's blog. The fact that there are biase...
January 10, 2021 at 17:35
There is no one principle that can be universalised. You figure it out by using something like Kant's categorical imperative, or Rawls "veil of ignora...
January 10, 2021 at 17:14
Here again you are posting inaccurate figures (BLM protesters haven't killed over 40 people). Why are you posting a number you haven't fact-checked, i...
January 10, 2021 at 17:10
Best explanation I have heard is the same reason why people watch the Kardashians or Trump himself in reality TV. Trump has high status by the standar...
January 10, 2021 at 15:54
For someone interested in truth, you sure are awfully cavalier about touting your opinion of things you - by your own admission - do not understand. W...
January 10, 2021 at 15:40
But even if we all agree that they're not, it certainly deserves to be pointed out that e.g. Twitter only started caring about the lies when it looked...
January 10, 2021 at 11:13
I answered this question a couple of times now. Not sure what else I can say. If you're thinking about morality as a set of general reasons that can b...
January 10, 2021 at 10:07
I said suffering, not harm. And as I already wrote, I consider this merely a statement of fact, not a moral issue. I did give you the reason. What els...
January 10, 2021 at 06:45
I mean, what I wrote kinda says the exact opposite, but whatever. I think I'll just not be convinced that the suffering is simply bad. It is true that...
January 09, 2021 at 20:49
The thing is that life isn't a game. Life isn't optional. You can kill yourself, yes, but killing yourself is, ironically enough, also something you d...
January 09, 2021 at 20:16