WasatchMan

Why do you think jobs hold some intrinsic value? If we can get our needs met without working, than that frees us up to do other stuff (which would probably be setting the scope and goals of our technology). I didn't mean literally who was paying robots a wage, I meant if they are doing work I would assume it would be for the purpose of someone else getting paid. Lets say say all fast food became automatized, this would seem like a huge loss of jobs, however if nobody was able to buy fast food anymore because nobody had money, what would be the purpose of automatizing fast food? Again, technology is a tool created by humans to serve humans. It is inanimate, and it is up to people to define its scope and goals. You started off by talking about a job bubble, not saying that technology would provide for all our needs. If your hypothesis is technology will provide for all our mundane needs that humanity does not need to be wasting its time on, I say bring it on. Humans have tons of potential, and it is lost flipping burgers at McDonalds.

I don't see how the coma test applies to the ethical nature of killing non rational actors, and whether this should be considered a aesthetic or moral issue. Also, thanks for your implication that I have not read or understood UPB. That is just a wonderful slew of passive aggression.

Wealth and resources are derived from production not jobs as such. Technology has historically increased production, raising the wealth and prosperity of humanity. Technology is a human tool whose purpose and scope is to serve humanity, not compete with it for jobs. If robots make it so humans can no longer get jobs to get their own resources, who is paying the robots to work, and what is the purpose of their work?

Typically, when talking about rational actor in context to ethics, you are talking about an actor with the ability to understand ethics.

If UPB only applies to your behavior around rational actors, then killing people with severe mental illness would become an aesthetic issue. If this is true, UPB is not a very good ethical system. However I do not believe that UPB would classify killing people with sever mental illness as an aesthetic issue, because you yourself are a rational actor with the ability to empathize with others who do not have the rational capacity. In other words, behaviour does not need two rational actors in order to be true.

It was listening to that same podcast that made me think of this post. It really is just a language game, but it made me chuckle. Saying "square circles" don't exist is just another way of saying something cannot be "A" and "non A" at the same time.

...and it is one pixel in size. Then I discovered that square circles were great for playing ping-pong with.

I would have to ask, do they see it, or are they part of it?

Justice in capitalism..... hmmmm... I think voluntary interactions is justice, I am not sure how having the ability to initiate force against other people to assert your prefences could be considered justice

A recent post made me remember a Ayn Rand concept that I found pretty powerful in the past. This concept is called "anti-concepts", and is defined as: Some terms that she considered anti-concepts were: consumerism, duty, ethnicity, extremism, simplistic, open and closed mind, isolationism... Are there new anti-concepts that you can think of that has have been introduced into the lexicon since Ayn Rand's days? One that immediately comes to my mind is "Islamophobia".

"[There is a] dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an “open mind.” This is a very ambiguous term—as demonstrated by a man who once accused a famous politician of having “a wide open mind.” That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skepticism, for holding no firm convictions and granting plausibility to anything. A “closed mind” is usually taken to mean the attitude of a man impervious to ideas, arguments, facts and logic, who clings stubbornly to some mixture of unwarranted assumptions, fashionable catch phrases, tribal prejudices—and emotions. But this is not a “closed” mind, it is a passive one. It is a mind that has dispensed with (or never acquired) the practice of thinking or judging, and feels threatened by any request to consider anything. What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an “open mind,” but an active mind—a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants—a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear." - Ayn Rand

If it were a free market and I accepted a certain "currency" to store my value, I would make sure I understood how the value of the currency is maintained. I personally would not put my savings in a system that could be stolen from through counterfeiting. If there were enough people that were not savvy enough to not put their savings in a currency system that allowed counterfeiting, than I guess counterfeiting would exist, however its scope would be limited to people voluntarily choosing this system.

My initial thought is that it has a lot to do with ego and some to do with empathy. Ego in that you want to show someone something you know, empathy in that you want others to experience what you experience.

The Golden Rule : One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. Ask yourself, do you think it is a contradiction to want people to abide by agreements you make with them but it is ok for you to break agreements you make with others?

My opinion is you are projecting. You don't know her well enough to perscribe these virtues, and what you do know (not what she may have manipulated you into thinking) is negative. Women know what men want to hear, especially if the man is looking for someone to love him.

What bugs me about statists is they think their opinion gives them a right to pull a gun on people making money through voluntary trade.

That would be my answer to a statist, and therefore is my answer in this context. I am not going to play pragmatic "what if" games with a statist. The against me arguments purpose is to highlight the initiation of force, and therefore evil, that is fundamental to having a state. There is nothing to do with the against me argument that should leave you to debating "anarchism won't work" or "statism is the practical solution to civilization". The only thing to address with the against me argument is whether or not the state requires the initiation of force.

The ends don't justify the means. The "against me argument" is an argument based on logic and principles, not pragmatism. So any argument a statist presents based on pragmatic reasoning is analogous to someone during slavery saying that slaves are necessary for the maintenance of the agricultural system. Just like the argument against slavery was about morality, the argument against the state is about morality.

I don't see how philosophy would apply (not saying it doesn't, I just don't see it). Recreational sex is not evil, and with modern practices can be quite safe. However I do see it as a pretty aesthetically poor choice if your plan is to only have sex with one person during your entire single incarnation. It would seem to me like you are missing out on a lot of fun and potential connection with people you are romantic with before you find the person you marry. .

A recreational industry going after a productive industry... Talk about cutting off the nose to spite the face.

"Life or death is man’s only fundamental alternative. To live is his basic act of choice. If he chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course." Ayn Rand

To me, this sounds similar to rational egoism from Objectivism. Being alive is preferable to being dead, therefore what benifits life in the long run is "that which is good" [Paraphrased]. "My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live." Ayn Rand

I gotta disagree with this. My experience with TYT is that it plays off a certain demographics political hate for conservatism and the caricature of the un-cool baby eating monocled republican. It is hard to find anything they put out that isn't just a slanderous stew of left-right paradigm arguments from adjective. TYT lives and breathes off of hate for conservatism, not an embracing of humanitarianism.

Anyone is welcome as a general rule. In reality though, theism and philosophy are not compatible, I would even go as far as saying they are antithetical. I am not trying to be rude, but I did feel the need to be honest about this because this is a philosophy forum at its root and it will become evident that "God" is not welcome in philosophical discussions.

Tell them that adult relationships are voluntary, and if they destroy their relationship with their kid by humiliating them in such ridiculous manners, they should be prepared to deal with the consequences of their adults kids not wanting to see them once the power dynamic switches.