It's not just writing but yes, I agree that writing pretty much guarantees an inevitability of progress. Truth is something we make, you can choose wh...
Heh, I didn't agree to discuss any topic any other poster suggests. I've got no idea what you're talking about lol. What kind of cost do you want to b...
Why are you being difficult? You're well aware of the significant medical, legal, scientific, and economic improvements over the last few centuries. W...
The cause of the upward trend is technological advancement... People invent something like a wheelbarrow... it boosts their productivity and becomes c...
Pinker provides mountains of evidence for overarching general progress in history, what kind of counterargument is there? What you cynically call magi...
That's fair, and there will be continued exploitation in new ways as we acquire the means for it. Future generations will certainly be able to add thi...
It's partly because increased means changes the calculus to tip the balance towards the moral choice. Such as how the abolishment of slavery in the We...
It's the nature of life that is cruel, not humanity itself, and moral improvement almost always coincides with increased mastery over the conditions o...
Innate to our universe? What does that mean? Healthy cooperation is based on mutual benefit, between you and the other parties, but not necessarily ou...
1) Sure. 2) No, it doesn't. Not any more than you can argue against birth control pills or condoms by pointing out sex is for making children, or agai...
Those moral heuristics just get bypassed whenever they're inconvenient, they're not as in need of flexibility as you seem to propose. You say that peo...
I wonder if you are taking morality to be man-made? And our moral choices to be made consciously? One may not be aware of the cold & calculative proce...
Pragmatism in morality is not an effective tool for mediating conflict, as it's the very cause of the conflict. Whether a moral norm is useful depends...
True. The dark side of morality always finds a way to do harm without being a potential victim. Racism, classism, retribution or harm done in the name...
I didn't mean what I said as a rebuttal, I was just clarifying my point, but I understand you. I agree. Yeah, in the case of corruption, this is proba...
My point is that you could say the same about something like gambling addiction, it's exclusively human and occurs in our human environment. Yet someo...
Yeah, your example is a good one. The US military is actually one of the more frustrating examples because criticism is so readily used as an attack o...
I think Vera Mont is correct in that temptation and opportunity corrupt (or can), and thus, power by itself doesn't necessarily tell us to what extent...
That was afterwards, and I asked for clarification on whether I misinterpreted him, as that statement contradicts what I thought he was saying. I see....
I had interpreted the meaning in the context of the rebuttal being made that corruption isn't possible, because moral people act morally, if you don't...
You're right, it is. I agree with you on that. I'm trying to create an image of perspective as a tower that's built brick by brick. Your words definit...
Those perspectives and conclusions are created within the environment established by our word choices which is the bias. By the time you're old enough...
Some responses to this thread seem to have used corruption as the misuse of power in a governance sense. I agree with how you've outlined corruption w...
I thought you were denying the possibility of someone being corrupted by power by saying that moral people always act morally, and you've defined mora...
Corruption is a moral shift, as for which moral shifts go under "corruption", I guess that's semantics or subjective, not sure we need to agree on it....
Morality itself is corrupted by power, and so it's common for the powerful elite of society to operate by moral principles vastly different from what ...
I don't think inner conflict as you describe it exists in a meaningful way. What I was saying was that social media isn't producing mental illness due...
What do you mean by "whether it fits my analysis"? You can judge foresight, or really whatever else, in whatever way you like, but at some point, the ...
I think it's a huge problem that you don't know how your own thesis is proven right or wrong. Many of us know social media produces addiction and suff...
That's just a value judgement lol. If you can tell a good speculator from a bad speculator using analysis, that should be predictively valuable, in he...
How do you separate good analysis from useless analysis without assessing for predictive value? I'm not necessarily just interested in whether a comme...
Yeah, I have no idea why I misread your scenario so badly but I re-read it and I can't remember why I read it so differently the first time but you di...
I'm not against looking backwards at all, and I interpret you to be misinterpreting me. Hindsight analysis is perfectly legitimate. Trial and error an...
Alright... Let's address your starting point then. I have so many things to address and I'm really not sure that it's helpful to address them all at o...
No... but I thought your OP was targeting liberal democracies and the modern US. No society has ever lacked the need for people to take on unwanted id...
I disagree, humans are instinctively calculative, Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in the Everyday Life is a book I could recommend on this topic...
Yes, I completely agree with that. it's hard to distinguish in your examples whether you're separating the analysis from the result. Going back to you...
I agree but those are examples of predictively valuable understandings that are proven with results. Engineering is the worst possible example because...
Which consequences are worth lying to avoid? What rewards are worth lying to get? And who decides? Humans are capable of - and perhaps masters of - ca...
It's a bit hard for me to comment on the irresoluteness of people who are resolute online... Even guessing how frequently that is the case would be be...
The hyperlinked comment addressed this topic in the exact way that I thought had been lacking, as did this recent post to me. I entirely agree with wh...
Provided parties are trying to be intellectually honest, and deal with arguments fairly, then what does respect add? I've learned a lot even during in...
I read the OP but not this whole thread. Your OP is one where misinterpreting a few words seems like it'd cause problems but I did my best to understa...
It's remarkable you cry strawman again while failing to make a single correction throughout this exchange despite being asked to do so. I have quoted ...
I expressed my problems with your argument, if you agree that I wasn't misrepresenting you then what's the problem? Yours is an absurd scheme that set...
The promise is consented to but is committed to implicitly by mere presence, that's an interesting take. You can create an ought by having people be o...
Your post has the punchline of deriving an ought from a promise that suffering people were forced into making because of a dependence on each other th...
Morality falls under the same category as sexuality in its dependence on our biology to exist. But, since it does exist and human society is dominated...
Democracy starts with the government and the very act of voting only occurs when it's fairly organised by the government. The people will never rule o...
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