cynicist

Why is that the only meaningful way? Someone who insults me is not initiating force but I easily see the difference between him and my supportive friends, and to me it is a meaningful one. That thread makes me wonder what kind of existing relationships people have when they have difficulty distinguishing between the two.

I'm glad you are feeling better. The blanking out/mental fog is avoidance, and the hyperactivity is another method of the same purpose. What precipitates them?

What happened recently btw?

I'm not sure I would use the word contemptible but I was very surprised when you said you were going to stop donating and the reason you gave for it. It seemed like there was a lot going on for you emotionally then, though if you would rather not share I understand. I did get the sense that what you were saying had to do with more than just that particular show though. Did someone mention something to you about it, or are your regrets a result of self-reflection?

You feel despair and helplessness because it seems as though your actions are futile; That no matter what you do the outcome is the same, and it's overwhelmingly negative. For your emotional state to change, you believe that you would have to get rid of most of the people in your life. (whether that's true or not, I don't know, but you believe it) And yet that can't be done, so you are condemned. How could you not be depressed at the thought? I'm wondering what you would lose that would cause you to condemn yourself to this fate instead. Maybe it's comfort in the familiar, or maybe it's the easy life, if you believe the alternative is too difficult for you. It could be many things, and more than one thing. It could be that you fear even speaking to your family/friends because you believe the outcome to be certain, and that once you try you can't go back. It's something worth taking some time to think about.

Maybe so. What would you be losing if you did?

Why do you believe that you can't change it?

I've heard this advice before and it made sense, and still does from a legal liability standpoint, but I'm not sure I'd ever use it in those situations. Putting myself in their trigger-happy shoes, wouldn't this be a provocation? I can imagine them now thinking: "What's he so jumpy about? What's he hiding?" "Well this guy's clearly a trouble-maker, why can't he just get with the program?" "What a smartass, I'll show him he doesn't know as much as he thinks" "Oh it's one of those cop haters, I'll give him something to really hate" I'm more apt to be as polite/pleasant as possible and compliant until I'm out of earshot. I mean you never know when the guy has had a bad day and is going to take it out on you for this since you stand out. It's not like there are actual rules that will get him fired for misconduct unless someone wants him gone. At worst he'll get a suspension.

Why?

Love it! The creative expression of growth is a beautiful thing. I'm thinking about what kinds of symbols I'd use.

If morality exists both as an objective discipline and a subjective emotional experience, then it's prudent to explain the difference. The OP is making the mistake of thinking that because moral outrage is felt and feelings are subjective, morality must therefore logically be subjective. If you want to criticize Kevin for being overly technical/using jargon I would agree, but clearly you didn't even take the time to understand what he is saying so stop with the posturing. If you really cared it would take a simple google search to get the relevance of the terms he is using so stop being a dick.

For any games made by Valve that is a guarantee, but for everything else it depends on whether the game studio or publisher feels that porting is worth the effort. SteamOS itself is a rebranded Linux distribution; This allows them to hide all the complexity of an operating system from typical console gamers, but you can get all the same functionality by installing Steam within Ubuntu.

This is altruism, a.k.a. self-sacrifice, a.k.a. religious, guilt-trippy nonsense. That's the only way that feeling good about doing good could be construed into something bad. This idea that you should give to others without regard to your own status is a great tool used by evil people to take everything from you. Is someone who is being taxed to pay for a shelter equally as charitable as someone who donates freely? When someone tells me that they do good stuff because they can go to hell otherwise, I'm pretty horrified. No wonder people don't trust each other; Most of them are only 'good' because they have to be...

What makes you think they aren't aware?

You've already defined morality as something based on feelings, how could it be anything other than subjective? So you are trying to tell everyone that understanding this theory is really important to you, but you can't be bothered to read 30 pages? Give me a break.

One word: Pretentious

To be fair, some of that was legitimately creepy; Like the two guys that followed her for a few minutes. Most of it was actually really polite though, compared to what I expected. It makes me wonder how many women would like to have that attention. I don't see women cat-calling guys much, but I'm not sure that I'd feel bad if the situation were reversed. Is that because I'm less likely to feel physically threatened as a man? /shrug A female perspective would be helpful in this thread.

I have to agree with Ryan, I found this kind of annoying. If you are more concerned with your character than how you look, then why would you get tattoos in the first place? And why should we think that getting tattoos on your body says nothing about your character? Even if you like tattoos, you know that there people who get them for some symbolic meaning, so saying that they are meaningless when they can be used against you just seems really convenient.

Is that really what you think people are doing when they watch horror films? Building up their resolve against evil? Glancing at society now, I'd be fooled into thinking it's not working very well; More likely it's a failure to process trauma in their own lives that causes horrific 'art' to resonate for them.

As Lars suggested, it is the me+ syndrome. You are not interesting or unique enough as an individual and must compensate for that with external flair. Another way to look at it is that it's a way to manipulate people in order to distract them from looking too closely at you because you don't have anything positive to offer. So at best it's insecurity and at worst it's a trap. My rule of thumb is the more of that I see on a person the more dangerous they are. (Stefan refers to them as adornments) There was a really good podcast Stefan did about this guy with a large tattoo on his chest and I think a girl with colored hair but I can't remember which it was off the top of my head. Stefan had this really interesting theory that tattoos were a way of externalizing trauma, like I can't deal with this thing in my head but it has to exist somewhere... similar to the idea of cutting yourself with a razor being a release from mental anguish as well as a physical manifestation of that internal pain. If I find it I'll come back. Stefan does go into some detail on it in podcast 874 @ 0:41:05

Yes, it's really annoying. I've figured out that the definition of free will for them is that our behavior is tied to some mystical element like a soul that we can't understand or measure. (essentially that choice has an entirely random element to it) I've never seen someone who was not religious try to argue this, and I think their conflation of free will with religious nonsense has a lot to do with why they seem so unwilling to consider an alternative to determinism. (I won't even get into the excusing of responsibility that comes with it) Unlike you I find using 'free will' as a term very helpful, but I can understand why you avoid using it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd3QwyuuCFQ

Yeah this is correct, except I would add that that sense data can contribute to objective truth without requiring logic while logic cannot do the same. Logic itself is reliant on some fundamental axioms that we derive from sense data. (like the consistency of matter and energy for example) I don't know much about post-modernism besides what I've read on the internet and from Stefan's e-book (The God of Atheists), but is that extremely valuable tool comprised of euphemisms? As far as I can tell, post-modernism is simply language manipulation of some form or another. Thanks, that's very helpful. I understand what you are attempting to do now. I don't think it's possible since philosophy is fundamentally opposed to things like religion, and so trying to make them compatible would involve watering down one or the other to something that scarcely resembles what you started with, but I won't try to dissuade you from it.

Yeah, I have a problem with this argument. Logically, if what you are saying is true then everyone should expose themselves to the most horrific and vile types of films to strengthen their resolve against evil. In reality, that would be traumatizing. The act of rape is hidden because people don't want to do that to themselves, and as Violet pointed out, seeing violent acts over and over is dehumanizing. (as made evident by reports on soldiers in iraq)

No it's not the same. If I refer to the christian god I am still talking about an all powerful, all knowing entity described by the bible, even if I don't believe that it exists. The way you are describing reality is the opposite of what that word means. It would be like an atheist describing god as a, 'completely impotent being with zero knowledge'. The scientific method is an example of empiricism in practice, not part of empiricism itself. You could make the argument that empiricism is itself a principle (fundamental truth from which others are derived from) but the case that it's a set of principles is a weak one. If you think that what I quoted is an argument that logic is a form of observation you have misunderstood it. Her point was not that logic doesn't exist apart from experience, it was that truth can only be arrived at when you utilize both logic and empiricism, and that divorcing one from the other results in a failure to know the truth. You need to be more precise here. It's true that axioms are common within both math and philosophy but they don't necessarily mean the same thing in both disciplines. A mathematical axiom does not have to be a self-evident truth for example. Quoting from Wikipedia: I'm not surprised you are choosing to use math as an example though. It fits within your framework, which is basically identical to pure logic. I'd recommend some of Ayn Rand's epistemological material for more on why that doesn't work when it comes to establishing truth. Basically summed up as, contradictions do not exist in reality yet as you pointed out they can exist when considering two internally consistent logical arguments, and when that happens we must abandon one in favor of whichever one does not contradict the real world. To put it another way, when you try and separate what is true from all sensory experience as you are doing here it falls apart since all knowledge comes from our experience of reality. (think about how arithmetic began, which certainly wasn't just popping into our heads out of nowhere) I have a feeling that this theory comes out of a desire for contradictions to be able to exist, which would explain why you would try to disconnect the truth from empirical reality. Are there any circles you are trying to square in your mind using this theory?