TDB Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 <p>I've taken a shot at a UPB FAQ http://brimpossible.blogspot.com/2013/01/upb-faq.html. Please comment if you have a question that should be included or can expand or correct an answer.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysterionMuffles Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 link doesn't work though I would appreciate if it did, as some UPB aspects are tough to understand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest darkskyabove Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 The "UPB Universally Preferable Behavior simplified" link is broken. The other link is valid: http://brimpossible.blogspot.com/2013/01/upb-faq.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest darkskyabove Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 After fixing the link, I went and read the blog (yeeeegh!) Had I only known. Stefan would, probably, not agree, but here is my response to the link's fallacious mudhole: I'd like to relate a story. It is apost-apocalyptic story, so, with the nearing apocalyptic economiccrises, and with the latest generation's saturation with video games,my story should captivate most, if not all, that are still breathing. So, my story goes, the end has alreadyhappened. All of Earth's governments went bankrupt and collapsed.Leaving the remnant of surviving humanity to its own devices. True"anarchy" at last. No laws, no police, no courts, nogrocery stores. Every one for themselves. Now, there's already been massive lossof life. And I mean MASSIVE. Of the 6+ billion humans, over 5 billionwere wiped out. Erased. In a matter of months. (Wow, that's what I'dcall Megadeth) Let's pick up the story where YOU, asurvivor, are conflicted over your moral choices: to accept some"universal" morality, to be "amoral", or to fudgethe line somewhere in between. Well, I could try to give you some"rational" argument for morality. But, I won't. What I willprovide is a more visceral interpretation. Just in case any stillbelieve that morality is some "ivory tower" concept,bandied about by their elders. There YOU are, faced with a moraldilemma. Should you just take this other person's food (killing themif necessary) because you are hungry? To YOUR knowledge, no one elseis around. No witnesses (wink, wink). Think hard. Your very existencedepends upon your actions. If you refrain from making an immoraldecision (you do not steal the food, you do not commit assault, ormurder), you win!!! If you succumb to evil, and commit theact, you LOSE. Why? Because, I, or someone like me, iswatching, or will discover the truth. And if you choose wrong, itwill cost you your life. If you wish to choose evil, you are a threatto others. And some of those others aren't playing games withphilosophy. For you, and your born or unbornchildren's sake, please, understand. The only reason evil hasflourished is that it is supported by the State. Without the State tointerfere, I am free to go thug-hunting. Because I practice a veryliteral form of the Non-Aggression Principle. Abide by it, and I willbe the best friend you didn't know you had. Violate it: all bets areoff. Except the bet that you will die. Run that through your debate processorand find all the nit-picky holes in my reasoning. Oh, you can't:because your already dead. There's your moral dilemma, in a nutshell. It's easy to "debate" realityfrom a comfy chair in front of a computer monitor. Try it out in thewilds, or in a dark alley at 2:00AM, or when dealing with YOURgovernment. Some may ask: Why didn't such a moralprinciple take root long ago, before Statism? I assume it was becausethey didn't know any better. The abuses of power were not as fullyunderstood, at least not publicly. WE know now. You may not, but, WEdo. And if you think mine is just anothermetaphoric example: keep on thinking that. Every prediction of theend has been based on everything but reality. The reality is thathumans have sown the seeds of their own destruction. And its name isbankruptcy: can you spell GREECE?, or CYPRUS? Do you believe you'llreceive an email warning you of the collapse of your government? Thefinancial problems of the US Empire dwarf those of theaforementioned. Do you think it can't happen here? Soldier on, in your "belief"that morality is just a word to dissect and find fatuous disagreementwith. There are plenty of so-called humans that will play the gamewith you. You may wish to consider THEIR motives, or lack thereof. Me, I'll play the safe money. Treatpeople with dignity and respect. So far it's worked magically. Oh,and I already live on the edge of the wilds, so when the shit hitsthe fan (and it will, soon) I won't need YOUR arm-chair philosophy tosurvive. (And I don't need no grocery store; but, I'll bet you do.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDB Posted March 22, 2013 Author Share Posted March 22, 2013 Not clear what you are responding to with yeeeegh, my faq or another "simplification", my interpretation of UPB or UPB itself. If my interpretation is off and you understand UPB, please help me fix it. If you want to argue against UPB, maybe start a different thread? FOr me at least, this thread is about what is UPB, how to explain it. I am not sure enough that I understand what it is for me to either argue for or against it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDB Posted July 4, 2013 Author Share Posted July 4, 2013 Did you ever get a look at it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDB Posted July 13, 2013 Author Share Posted July 13, 2013 After fixing the link, I went and read the blog (yeeeegh!) Had I only known. Stefan would, probably, not agree, but here is my response to the link's fallacious mudhole: I didn't understand how your story related to my apparently inaccurate summary of UPB. Could you please give me an example of a fallacy that I committed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest darkskyabove Posted July 13, 2013 Share Posted July 13, 2013 I do owe you a better analysis after posting my irate rant about ivory tower morality vs applied morality. I will work on it and get back to you with a, hopefully, fair and balanced critique. Apologies for the rant. I've been dealing with this stuff for many years; this is the first venue I've felt comfortable with to examine not only the ideas of others, but to put my own views to the test. I can provide a teaser at the moment. After pulling up your FAQ again I realized I was put off immediately by the first statement: "I want to explain UPB to you. Unfortunately, I don't claim to understand it myself." My understanding of an FAQ is that it provides answers, not more questions, and should simplify rather than complicate the issue. In my re-examination I will now be able to put that aside and dig in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDB Posted July 13, 2013 Author Share Posted July 13, 2013 I do owe you a better analysis after posting my irate rant about ivory tower morality vs applied morality. I will work on it and get back to you with a, hopefully, fair and balanced critique. After pulling up your FAQ again I realized I was put off immediately by the first statement: "I want to explain UPB to you. Unfortunately, I don't claim to understand it myself." My understanding of an FAQ is that it provides answers, not more questions, and should simplify rather than complicate the issue. Great! Well, I was looking for a FAQ, could not find one, decided to start one. But I could not claim I had a deep understanding. I need a FAQ! It was an invitation to start a discussion that I hoped would end up producing a reasonable FAQ. Gotta start somewhere. I think Stef suffers from the problem of being too close to it. There's a cute phrase in psychology that I've forgotten (curse of the expert?), basically means that someone who is an expert on X, while trying to explain something about X to a total beginner, has a tendency to leave out important stuff that has become so obvious to him that he no longer even thinks about it. He's not aware that he's leaving stuff out, but to the beginner it is just incomprehensible. I think one of my problems was that I just didn't get it why Stef would say something like (paraphrasing) if it's good to kill you must always be killing. I kept thinking, there are plenty of things I do that are good, but I don't do them all the time. I think I've got the interpretation now. In UPB world, theres not good and bad, there's bad and not bad (may also include neutral, aesthetic). If X is bad, you must never do X, so you must always be doing not X. So if "not raping" is bad, you must always be raping. Bad is defined as all the stuff that rates defense/arrest/punishment, all the actions that rate retaliation. So if killing rates retaliation, you must always be not killing. If not killing rates retaliation, you must always be killing. Anyhow, with my shiny new interpretation, I think I might understand the case of "never rape" vs. "always rape". Why not even consider the alternative "sometimes rape"? Because then we have to come up with some new term that specifies what sort of rape would be forbidden and punishable and another word or adjective to specify the kinds of rape that are not. So if rape is bad, you must always be not raping. If "not raping" is bad, you must always be raping. And Stef's subsequent discussion makes more sense. It has to be possible for someone to be good at all times, to be good is to avoid the bad, if not doing something is bad, you must be doing it at all times. And because we can't do much of anything all the time, other than breathing and metabolizing, all obligations are negative obligations. Of course, that demonstrates another problem I have, in that it seems that "never kill" is UPB, but it's not. We can fix it by switching to "never murder", but that just passes the problem down the line, because then we need to decide in each case, was this killing justified by self-defense, or was it murder? Maybe I was expecting too much. I need to straighten this out in my head, maybe I should go through the book again. Am I babbling, or does that sort of make sense? I want to think about those positive obligations some more, later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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