this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
698 points (97.4% liked)
Memes
8517 readers
1480 users here now
Post memes here.
A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.
An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.
- Wait at least 2 months before reposting
- No explicitly political content (about political figures, political events, elections and so on), !politicalmemes@lemmy.ca can be better place for that
- Use NSFW marking accordingly
Laittakaa meemejä tänne.
- Odota ainakin 2 kuukautta ennen meemin postaamista uudelleen
- Ei selkeän poliittista sisältöä (poliitikoista, poliittisista tapahtumista, vaaleista jne) parempi paikka esim. !politicalmemes@lemmy.ca
- Merkitse K18-sisältö tarpeen mukaan
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Based on his Twitter history he's a "rationalist" aka "gray tribe" - generally tech-savvy guys who believe pure reason sits above ideologies.
Interesting article on The Independent
I was constantly lurking on rarionalist forums until late 2016, and much less so now. When Bernie made his arguments the entire community shifted left. Given Yudkowsky's positions on responsibility (in short all of us should do everything we can to maximize utility) I am entirely unsurprised to learn that one of us is the person who merc'd the guy. My radicalization started with Yudkowsky and then it was set into overdrive by watching the DNC be selfish while the GOP had been abjectly horrid.
Whether we're successful more often or not the rationalists are mostly trying to reduce suffering and maximize pleasure for as many people as possible. That's why we're so into tech; we see it as a way to improve as many lives as we possibly can. Luigi likely saw this as the way he could do the same. The fact that he was spurred to action by his own particular suffering doesn't change the fact that he was probably right.
Thanks for the comments on rationalism - the more I read about it the more it feels like I tend toward that way of thinking myself. But assassinating a CEO only seems rational at meme level. Historically, industries consistently soldier on after incidents like this. There's an immediate reaction - in this case suddenly allowing more insurance claims - and then normal business practices gradually resume as the public loses interest. And the public reliably does lose interest, due to distractions, ever-diminishing attention spans, and the fact that all news becomes boring as it gets older. I don't see how Mangione could have expected shooting a CEO to have a different outcome if he were thinking rationally. IMO he wasn't. This shooting seems like a pretty typical, ultimately ineffective act. The people it will affect most could be the cheering multitudes flying high with revolutionary zeal, who will crash the hardest when nothing really gets better.
He should read some Kant and Hume.
He may have read both - apparently he's very well read. My guess is he would disagree with Hume on that point, but I don't know the guy.
Well Hume was right. Reason can't derive axioms. It can't create purpose from nothing. It can't solve the is-ought problem. Passion can. Passion can say "the world should be like this. Why? Because I want it to be". Reason can't do that. And thus, reason should exist only to serve passion.
OTOH reason has kept a roof over my head when my passion would have had me do Arduino projects or write D&D campaigns instead of working. Maybe Hume's gf had a job.
You were probably more passionate about keeping a roof over your head.
No, the word "dispassionate" perfectly describes when I'm forced to work on necessities instead of things I love.
This statement needs to get on a T-shirt
Or motivational poster
OTOH it won't get the dishes done or check the air in the car tires.
Why should you have a roof over your head? If emotions are irrelevant, what's the difference between that and being homeless?
Survival. The emotions are ultimately just crude tools the brain and body have for promoting the survival of the person.
Their crudeness is probably best illustrated with phobias.
If emotions are irrelevant, why survive? Why not lie down and die? You say it's not your fear of death or your love of life. Is it some form of worship of the purpose evolution has given you? That sounds emotional to drag.
I didn’t say they were irrelevant, I said they’re tools of survival. They’re obviously useful. People without any emotions at all just sit there with what looks like a catatonic state.
But being a slave to your emotions is nothing to aspire to. Far better to pick the emotional states you want to have. For me it’s enjoying deep focus on a task, having a lively conversation, sharing a great meal, laughing at a great joke, or cheering on a great play in sports.
Being a slave to your emotions is like being a ship tossed about on stormy seas. Emotional regulation is a skill that must be learned like any other. We’re supposed to teach it to young children, though increasingly I find myself meeting adults who don’t even have the basics down. People screaming at each other like angry birds!
The tougher one of course is learning how to overcome depression. That may need different strategies for different people. Mindfulness works for me but maybe not for everyone.
No, you're describing a situation where the passions are in charge, and reason is helping the passions feel good.
We disagree on what these words mean. There’s no further progress to be had here while that impasse remains.
Most scholars agree that Hume means what drag said.
IMO it should be cyclical. Passion provides ideals and goals, reason can help work towards those but also evaluate them and refine them.
Like once upon a time, I wanted a high end sports car. But over time, through reason, I realized that owning one would be more of a net negative than a positive in many ways and now I wouldn't likely get one even if it would be trivial to afford. I'd like to not even need a car at all, but reason has me recognizing that that also wouldn't be a positive given that I live in an area where mass transit infrastructure is poor.
This boils down to having conflicting passions/goals and using reason to resolve them (like wanting a sports car while also wanting to afford other things and to reduce my environmental impact and not driving a sports car is a very easy way, trivial even, to have less impact than driving one).
I feel like I'm learning a decent amount from this thread. I definitely consider myself a (overly) rational person. I haven't really thought about it before, but obviously I've still got some passions driving things.
If I was to put it into words, I'd probably say I'm passionate about learning how things work and finding elegant simple solutions to problems. Which is generally tied to my selfish goal of having more free time to just experience the world without responsibilities.
Thanks for inspiring me to think about this, maybe I should go read some more philosophy...
Something I've come to realize recently is that everyone has selfish motivations, some people are just a lot more careful about how those motivations effect others. Personally I worry quite a bit about how I might be inconveniencing others with my actions, and tend to stay rather isolated as a result.
I don't think they'd find that very insightful.
It's plain hedonism. I'm sure they're familiar with the idea.
Hedonism is obviously the best ethical theory. Bentham had the right idea
Bentham developed hedonistic calculus. The foundation is a multivariate ethical vector space. He rationalized hedonism to the extreme. The passions are explicitly tempered for a calculated greater good.
That's what reasons existing to serve the passions means.
No? Once reason restricts passion, the hierarchy collapses. An action that causes yourself mild pain, but pleasure of greater extent to others, is preferable to an action that causes many others pain even if it gives you pleasure personally. Reason demands you restrain yourself from the passions that would harm others. That's not unilateral fealty. Axioms must be assumed, but the most powerful systems assume as few as possible, and leave most of the legwork to reason.
Empathy is a passion. Without empathy, there's no justification for helping others at your own expense.
It's not exactly something everyone has. There are quite a few psychopaths and sociopaths and a huge amount of narcissists out there
Do you think there are more people with NPD than ASPD?
Rudimentary Google gives me ~6.2% vs. 0.2- 3.3%, why?
Put that with the 6.2%, and that makes it sound like most personality disorders are NPD. That sounds unbalanced and suspect. Where did you get that figure? Drag always heard 1% for each.
How does that study account for the fact a high income individual is significantly more likely to have access to a doctor to diagnose them with a personality disorder?
Shut up, "drag".
I disagree. Reason can take you there by virtue of justice or equality.
How can pure reason arrive at any understanding of justice?
I am a sentient creature that feels pain and pleasure
Others appear to be sentient creatures that feel pain and pleasure
Pain is bad, so I should avoid inflicting it
You don't need empathy as an axiom to derive it rationally
Statement #3 is hearsay. I would argue the only thing you can know is that you personally do not like pain. There is no absolute good or bad, only what aligns or doesn't with your passions (using the term loosely here).
The Golden Rule of "treating others as one would want to be treated", is a logical conclusion that comes from experiencing the world and seeing that there's a high probability that others will return actions in kind. It's not perfect since everyone has different preferences (just look at the variety of sexualities and kinks out there).
It is the logical extension of noticing the similarities between yourself and others, and noticing that you do not enjoy pain. It's certainly not mathematically rigorous, but it follows from simple reasoning nonetheless. If you wanted to be rigorous, you can't even claim that you don't like pain, only that you haven't liked specific instances of pain in the past. Some estimations are necessary for a functioning framework of any kind, including ethics.
I agree that it's possible to arrive at the conclusion "pain is bad" as an individual, but I guess what I'm arguing is that there's no absolute hard line on what is and isn't ethical. Each individual person might have their own personal line, but there is no guarantee that line will be the same as another person's. Case-in-point, a psychopath is someone with reduced or no empathy for others. They may very well not consider pain in others bad at all.
So? Just because someone chooses not to follow the reason, that doesn't make the reason invalid. If anything you're only proving the failures of a passion-driven ethical model, if the psychopath's passion is inflicting pain there's nothing to keep them from behaving unethically.
Pain and pleasure are passions. You said you were gonna use pure reason. Not use reason as an aid to passions.
I mean it's the only one that explains why we actually do anything at all
AKA generic I-am-very-smart libertarian, AKA just another smug Republican. People who think ideologies are like accents - they're what other people have. Them? Nooo. They're the default!
If this guy is generic, then maybe they're not all just Republicans. He correctly identified the NAP violation.