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halcyon posts: 26
, Vagrant message
"who are not even people"

Who are these creatures that aren't people, exactly? Can they aspire to become people someday?
? Pthagnar Benedictine Ovulation
posts: 209
, Quaestor, United Kingdom
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oh, i mostly had in mind environmentalist/vegetarian type arguments from people who try to make people continue to pattern match the liberal 'all people deserve such and such rights!' and extend it to animals, ecosystems, Cultures, etc.. so eating chickens is bad because chickens are people too. polluting the earth is bad because it harms our precious bhumi gaia mother etc etc etc.

but i also include those weird people on the left, and even a lot of rightist christians, who come up with arguments against abortion on the same level — it's got human DNA, hasn't it? that means it's a PEOPLE.

ne: oh yeah, also like the tumblr multiple-personalities/tulpa people.

nne: OH, and people who treat dogs like they are fully paid-up people, rather than associate members of the personhood club. dogs have many endearing qualities, and it *is* wrong to eat them if you're not absolutely starving, and it is correct to say that what would just be 'harsh treatment' for some animals is cruel [hitting dogs to punish them is fine, i guess, if you're doing it sensibly as a conditioning thing and also rewarding them by giving them lots of pats when they do good, and playing with them lots generally; but just beating them because you are angry at the dog is very bad and not *just* because of virtue ethics type reasons in that it shows you are a bad person, like it does with people who 'torture' flies or w/e], but with the full recognition that they are dogs, and you are not the dog's mummy — the dog's mother is the dog's mother — and that you are falsely ascribing all sorts of psychological notions to them that dogs very likely just do not have.

food animals might be able to become people some day, but not while a) there's no way to make cheap and good artificial meat and b) they keep being made in such big numbers. foetuses probably also require some more magic tech to make it a convincing argument that they are all people.

i don't want to know what it will take to make it sane to have ecosystems etc be people. some sort of neopagan revival, and i cannot see myself thinking this would be as good an idea as the last two.
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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oh right you aren't an american prot i can't hit you over the head with cryptoprot benoist
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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neopaganism is protestant
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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"we must purge religion of alien ideas put there by heretical and politically harmful sects" well,
? Pthagnar Benedictine Ovulation
posts: 209
, Quaestor, United Kingdom
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u see that

Vp2J4gA.jpg

thats u that is
halcyon posts: 26
, Vagrant message
Pthagnar: So yeah, demanding that you must treat objects which are not demonstrably sapient as if they are, whether or not you buy that there's a good chance they might be sapient, seems like inconsistency to me. Applying the same standards, I could show these people they'd have to do a lot of things they won't like, including (if they are against eating sapients) stop eating, because anything might be sapient. (Maybe ducks are not sapient, but roast ducks are.)

(That comment about consistency was intended in a very general sense, somewhat independent of how you defined your terms. I only used words like "nonpersons" to be accommodating, in case you wanted an illiberal crack. No offense intended. (More questions later. Though most of my responses are questions framed as objections.))

Nortaneous: Am I wrong? I thought I'd pull out quotes on everything, but if you need citations for any particular claims, I'll go look for them. (Also, I am more of an actual liberal than a social democrat.)
? Nessari ?????? ?????? ????????
posts: 932
, Illúbequía, Seattle, Cascadia
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quoting Pthagnar:
u see that

Vp2J4gA.jpg

thats u that is

you missed lorax_free3-300x284.jpg
? Radius C / 2π
posts: 113
, Hydrogen, United States
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The Doug Flag <3
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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no, i am familiar enough with moldbug, but how is he not a consequentialist? "minimize violence" sounds p. consequentialist to me, or are you saying he does not really believe it

i am not sure how he escapes advocating drugging the entire population of the world or genetic modification or somesuch, perhaps by not thinking of it
halcyon posts: 26
, Vagrant message
What I am getting at is that when it comes right down to it, Moldbug does not want us, yes us, to take actions designed to fulfill our own ends. He does not advocate that we adopt a consequentialist stance like he does when doing so would counteract his ideals, ideals which he, just like Kant, has deduced from first principles. Not even Kant, I think, is such a strident anti-consequentialist that he does not want us to take actions in keeping with Kantian ideals that would bring those ideals to fruition in everyday life.

If it's a question of how large a sheet of abstract ideals an ethical system proposes to drape over your life without justifying each one in turn with respect to their consequences, then Moldbug makes that intentionalist misstep when he asks you to subordinate your ends to his ideals without bothering to show which bridging ought-statements this move coincides with, in what manner that you'd have to own up to these ought-statements being implied by your current ends, and what this implies about how you ought to behave and why. Now don't get me wrong, this does not mean Moldbug is a slave. Supermen need not demand that others behave like masters in Nietzsche's fanboyish way.
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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is that how consequentialist/deontologist works wrt theories of state tho? my professors went on about how rawls was a consequentialist (the state should maximize these consequences) and nozick was a deontologist (the state should refrain from violating these rights, consequences be damned), seems to me that moldbug is in the former category

whether or not he wants each individual to take actions designed to fulfill their own personal ends isn't relevant to either the question or to whether or not someone is a consequentialist, unless you're saying utilitarians aren't consequentialists.

maybe there's some nonstandard use of the terms in trve neechy circles but if you're going to use words in a nonstandard manner at least make it clear that you're doing so
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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i could go on about how game theory demands subordination of what may appear to be your own ends in the service of maximizing your own ends but i'm guessing you know all that already
halcyon posts: 26
, Vagrant message
Where did I say that Moldbug is not a consequentialist political philosopher? I only ever intended to argue that Moldbug is proposing a system that brings other people into slave morality, because his system does not preserve the independence of disciples. Rawls believes he can convince other rational theorists to converge on his system, (a cornerstone of his theory) whereas Nozick's attacking style is like, "Does adopting position A, B, or ... generate the least bullshit results?" repeated over and over. Compare these two analytic philosophers to Moldbug's approach. If someone whose ideals differ even slightly from Moldbug's reads his actual arguments and agrees with them straight up, that man thereby enslaves himself to another's dreams. But you're the one who's taken philosophy classes, so I probably expressed myself badly.
halcyon posts: 26
, Vagrant message
Game theory does not necessarily ask you to subordinate some of your ends to other ends. If you ask game theory to maximize ends A, B and C, and the results negate your other ends D, E and F that you did not tell game theory about, then you can't blame game theory because GIGO. The more ends you tell game theory about, the better the quality of its output.
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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hence "what may appear to be"
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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apparently it is a debated issue whether nietzsche advocated master morality or not, i am not sure how much of this is real and how much of it is that nietzsche scholars are librul civet-felchers
? Nortaneous ? ?????
posts: 467
, Marquis, United States
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brian leiter gently inserts a wee baby civet into his gaping asshole whilst moaning, "lock 'em all up! lock 'em all up!"
halcyon posts: 26
, Vagrant message
So Moldbug may appear to be hijacking your utility function, but... what, exactly? To be charitable, Moldbug says he doesn't really want disciples but independent thinkers only. He's providing geeks with parts to build formalist ideologies for themselves. (Does every worthy formalist geek get hired as an expert for a different city?) But it is also a fact that he pleads with his readers to mortify their will to power and support the state, etc, but maybe he's just being dramatic for the lulz. That kind of thing?

Note that I'm not necessarily saying Moldbug's theories are shit, just that his arguments are by and large shit. There might be better arguments with which to bridge other people's oughts onto Moldbug's ideals, but that's not likely to interest him. His favorite arguments seem to involve firepower because convincing other people gives the game away to universalists, right? He just wants to be left alone as an absolute slavemaster in his own little corner of the world with the chance to out-compete everyone else. I'm not sure I'd like to see that happen for a million obvious reasons involving self-defense alone. (Assuming Moldbug is right that his splendid efficiency will soon spawn imitations worldwide, etc.)

I recall Nietzsche being extremely disgusted with everyone and their sniveling intention-based thinking, so I suppose he would've been less disappointed if they had been more hardheaded about taking what will satisfy them. If this does not imply some form of consequentialism, then the people Nietzsche loves would be rather pathetic, because they'll want a lot of things, but they'll get them less often.
halcyon posts: 26
, Vagrant message
So again, Moldbug wants his slaves anyway. He doesn't want them through argument, but by force.

(Unless all you meant is that Moldbug is shortsighted or something... Oh, if you were saying that liberal-type thinkers have deluded themselves into thinking game theory dictates certain stances are rational when in reality they've sacrificed certain ends to others, well, everyone is aware of this potential problem, and this objection is not always valid. Sometimes people just haven't thought things through. Everyone has to figure out where their priorities lie. But yes, it's better to treat arguments that try to connect ends to each other as tentative suggestions rather than absolute commandments. "I think you should do X because Y" instead of "Thou shalt X." You can always counter this kind of advice with "Yes, but that works against my priority Z." up to arbitrary levels of complexity. Nevertheless, sometimes people are just confused, or haven't considered the ramifications of their ideas.)
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