Mister Mister

well if someone is going to write it, I would want to stress the fundamental problem with utilitarianism, or morality based on effects as opposed to morality based on principles. Aside from the somewhat subjective nature of pleasure/suffering, the main problem as I see, is that it is impossible to calculate all the effects of an action. And those effects continue to have ripples into the future, so there is no point where we can stop time and measure ALL the effects of something with respect to the pleasure and suffering in all the lives affected. Morality from effects kind of requires a huge amount of "expertise", which is of course convenient for central planners and politicians, but not for the average person. Furthermore, it makes morality a backward-looking discipline, where we can only determine the effects after-the-fact. When facing a moral decision, one can only speculate at the effects that might result from it. Morality from principles, by contrast, can actually guide our decision making in a real way, which people of any intelligence can understand and benefit from.

So last night I had this dream which has been a recurring one for me, where I find myself walking the halls of high school, or in a classroom, when I remember that I have already graduated high school and have a college degree. But there has been some mistake, and there is a class that I need to retake in order to sort it out. Also, there is usually some embarrassment that I am in my 20's and still in high school, and sometimes some confusion and anxiety when I can't find the class I'm supposed to be in. It's an interesting dream for me, as I am an avid dreamer, and sometimes even lucid dream, but my dreams tend to be visual and fun and carefree, as I am a pretty relaxed person in life. But this particular dream is more cerebral and emotional, and is recurring, which tells me it has some important meaning that I haven't been able to grok. I can't help but think it has something to do with some "lesson" in life that I should have learned, or have to keep revisiting but don't get. I did pretty well in high school, and never got particularly stressed about school in general, so the anxiety is not to do with school itself, I think it's a metaphor for something. Just wanted to share, and hear if anyone has any thoughts, or if you have had similar dreams.

This is a very interesting topic that tends to pop up here and always stirs up a lot of emotion. Here are some thoughts. Stef has made a point about how the progress of morality in society tends to do with the expansion of personhood, or the extension of empathy. Reptiles are concerned only about their immediate survival and procreation, they don't even take care of their children. This still remains with us in the form of psychopaths. A key feature in the evolution of mammals is the family structure and the ability to empathize. But even in many animal societies we see strict hierarchies and in-fighting, and usually little regard for the fate of other species. We seem to have inherited these traits and only recently begun to grow out of them. In the evolution of humanity, we have seen people go from only having concern for their tribe, or race, to an entire country. Of course, the country is arbitrarily defined by violent rulers, but still I would argue that people have empathy for a greater diversity of human beings. And it is only very recent that we are starting to talk about empathy between the genders. One of the most important aspects of this show is that it emphasizes the inclusion of children with regards to morality. Anyway, my point is, that I can very easily see that at some point in the evolution of consciousness, we might encourage empathy for all animals and have a conversation about applying the NAP to them. Already, I think many people would object to hitting a dog or a cat, animals with which we easily empathize. I don't really feel that having a pet or even an animal which you milk or collect eggs from is cruel, as a lot of these animals would be easy prey for mountain lions or be subject to harsh elements without human protection. Personally I haven't eaten meat in about 4 years, and the thought of it, the sight of it, especially the smell of it has begun to sicken me. But I don't impose this preference on others, because I really feel that people have to come first. This whole discussion is pointless if we don't talk about human rights. Some of my hippy friends were circulating a story on FB about how India has extended personhood to dolphins, and made it illegal to hold them in captivity. I made the point that it was nice, but we still have some pretty serious problems with thinking it is okay to hold HUMANS in captivity, which should be more obvious except that culture is generally insane. Sorry for the rant, just some thoughts on the subject.

Private company doing the police's job in Detroit where the government is falling apart and dysfunction is rampant. They've had success reducing violence in certain areas. A really nice story in on otherwise shitty situation."The way [to improve quality of life for the neighborhood] was not to use the legal system to prosecute people, but to prevent the conditions which led, or could lead to, violent encounters"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onWC8nNpIcohttp://www.threatmanagementcenter.com/

No I think I am answering your question, I am not trying to avoid it. The question "how can you say what parents shouldn't do to their babies", is a subset of a larger question "how can you say what people shouldn't do to other people" which is the basis of any universal morality. If you think it is legitimate to define Universal moral rules, then how can you justify exceptions for certain conceptual labels? If I say people shouldn't hit each other, the onus is on the person who makes an exception for police officers or parents to explain why this is the case. Does that make sense?

well they were joking about how "dead" she is, implying that she was blackout drunk. It may be true that there are false accusations, but in this case it seems that this girl brought on a lot of shame and hatred in exchange for what?

So how do you define morality? Well the words "parent" and "children" are not really relevant when talking about morality. Rather the question is "how can we tell people what to do to other people". Well that's the whole point behind morality to begin with. Unless you can prove to me why something which is normally immoral becomes moral when a parent does it to a child. There are some adults who are uncircumcised, so why don't we cut up their penis by force?

Yes the Bomb in the Brain series, especially part 2 goes into this. What kind of emotional trauma do you think brought on your overeating? How do you feel when you get the urge to eat? What do you feel if you don't eat?

Competition in the market is not the same as competition in Nature. In Nature, there is no such thing as property rights. A snake will happily sneak into a birds nest and take their eggs. One monkey will attack another monkey for a banana. A squirrel's buried nuts are not safe from other squirrels. So by agreeing to respect property and trade, we are in a much different relation than in nature. This tends to reward not the biggest and strongest and most ruthless, but the most innovative, creative, and communicative. Thus the market is inherently cooperative, which allows for the production of goods that no one person could ever make.

You think other people's shit stinks but not your own.

But I thought that you don't believe in morality. Your opinion that something is "awful" does not make a moral imperative. I think a man having anal sex with another man is kind of gross but it's not immoral if its voluntary. I also think heroine use and pork are awful. "How can we tell them what to do with their babies". How can a person "own" a baby? Put wife or slave in that sentence and see how it sounds.

Yes. But it should be said that the word feminist applied here means the modern (college) feminist and the resulting welfare state, not classical feminists in history. Sadly the word is corrupted. On http://www.cnn.com/LIVING there is right now a headline: Raising a boy not to be a rapist. As if rapist is natural and popular and must be programmed out. Imagine if there were a headline "Raising a daughter not to circumcise boys". Yes that's really obnoxious. Recently I read another article with a similar title, maybe "How not to raise a rapist" that was much more sensible. Among the first words were "DON'T ABUSE YOUR CHILDREN".

All of this is good discussion, and I am not defending some feminist narrative, or the idea of "rape culture". I am really trying to understand the mindset of the teenage boys in the video, and the people who were so outraged that they got sentenced to a few years of Juvenile Detention, ruining their "promising futures". Maybe the majority of people don't engage in this "blaming the victim", I don't know, but even these few tweets make me sick. It's clear that in many areas, however, society does blame the victim, especially victims of state injustice.

so you have government transferring wealth from employers to connected insurance companies who will probably end up denying those employees' claims anyway. and then people say the rich employers are getting justice and shouldn't complain. Fascinating

http://rantagainsttherandom.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/so-youre-tired-of-hearing-about-rape-culture/ When I saw the title of this, and the blog description, I was expecting the typical radical feminist hysteria, but I was really shocked after seeing the video, and the collage of social media posts. I am really at a loss to understand what conditions produce these kinds of people. I would be very interested if Stef did a show about this. Anyone have any thoughts?

Yes it's a very interesting idea. In the same way that religion would be very difficult to sell if children weren't indoctrinated from a young age, Stef's theory is that the belief in the goodness and necessity of the State begins with parents imposing arbitrary irrational authority on their children.

Having leukemia is a medical condition it is not behavior. UPB and other ethical theories describe human behavior (that's what the B stands for).

Yes I don't think dream interpretation is or should be considered to be a science, any more than the interpretation of a painting or a movie or a song, until/unless we have a more solid understanding of dreams and consciousness in general. It is a process that involves some speculation, creativity, and imagination, which means we should be careful, but does not mean that it cannot be useful. The scientific method is great in many ways, but does not have a lot to say about creativity and imagination and I don't think we should allow ourselves to be convinced that these most mysterious aspects of consciousness have no value.

Have you experienced someone else exercising power over you? When you see someone being harmed by another, pictures or video footage of the atrocities of war and genocide and mass starvation, how do you feel? UPB is an interesting idea, I tend to go more with the idea of self-ownership. Only I can think or speak or move my body, no one else can do these things for me, except with force. Therefore no one else can legitimately exercise ownership over my body. Of course there may be the moral nihilists who engage in aggressive behavior, what Stef calls "honest evil", and the only thing we can do about them is reduce their incentives, protect ourself against them. By far the more dangerous is the manipulative person who makes moral arguments, i.e. "do what I say or you are immoral" but will not allow that moral argument to be validated by reason, or makes arbitrary exceptions to those rules which is inherently illogical.

A cell is not alive? You are making a distinction between life and consciousness, so I have to ask what is your definition of consciousness? No, that robot is not self-organizing, it is built from the outside in, in accordance with the imagination of its designer, not the inside out like you and me and the redwood and the bacterium. Possibly a crystal or a star or a galaxy is also self-organizing in this way, but that's pretty controversial. What do you all think?

I think the only legitimate function marriage serves, when you tear down all the constructs, is that it is a contract whereby people agree, if they have kids, they will stick around until the kids are independent. If you don't intend to have kids, but still want a monogamous relationship, as I think most people do, that's great, but there isn't so much pressure to stick together, except from people outside the relationship, whose opinion shouldn't matter. That is an incredibly valid, potentially beautiful, yet very serious and scary arrangement. People often get into this situation without having a clear understanding of what it is they want, and what values they have and would want to pass on to their children. If you are confused, it might mean that you need to work some of these things out, and develop social skills that really can suffer in our society.

Living bodies are defined as self-moving, self-organizing systems.

I just like to wear ladies clothing from time to time

Thanks Robin (can I call you Robin?) that was very well put. So do you think just like the people in flatland, there are factors involved in the emergence of reality which we can never experience directly? To make a model by Induction and then claim that rule as true is problematic, as you put it. There is a difference between gravity as a force, and attraction as a phenomenon which we can sense or measure. To then make deductions from that rule and claim THEY exist is even worse, i.e. black holes, dark matter, strings, etc. Black holes were not theorized because we measure matter disappearing somewhere in space, they were a conclusion of Einstein's equations. You could almost say they are a reductio ad absurdum, like the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment. It was then deduced that they would emit X-Rays. Then when x-rays are measured it is concluded that we have found black holes in space. Dark matter is supposed to exist because the equations used to describe a system at one scale is off by 95% when we look at the galactic scale. It's one thing to say, "if our equations are Universally applicable, there must be something holding a galaxy together that we can't measure at this point" but instead they say "we know the dark matter is there, we just haven't found it yet". I see that as a problem. As far as QM, Harriman was saying that the math seems to be correct, but doesn't absolutely mean that all matter exists in a state of superposition and contradictory identity until it is measured. This was the Copenhagen interpretation, which was contested by Einstein and others, but has won over as the dominant and unquestionable paradigm. It's still hard to get good info on what are the actual experiments and data whence the theories come. As far as I can tell, the whole problem is that, at the moment, we cannot absolutely predict the behavior of these systems, in other words that atomic motion is not absolutely determined, or just a function of momentum from the Big Bang (which I also doubt). I don't see the need to resort to the crazy "superposition" idea, but rather conlcude that this motion is a function of something we can't measure yet, or can't ever measure. I think this relates to the idea of Vaccuum fluctuation or Vacuum polarization whereby "particles" spontaneously emerge from and return to "nothing". I would say another interpretation is that opposite states of motion spontaneously emerge from and return to stillness. I suspect that this basic variability of motion has something to do with the Universe's ability to self-organize. This to me is the most fundamental question and mystery of ontology, which especially important if there is no creation event. Sorry for the rambling nature of this, I'm still working it out. Does any of that make sense?

Thanks for the feedback. I am used to performing all these songs solo, and am still learning about the recording project. Do you mean that the guitar solo didn't fit with the music because of the mix or texture or rhythm or something else? The "players" are all me btw...lol