Morality and burden upon society

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by timojin, Jun 30, 2017.

  1. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Does this mean you're an advocate for stem cell research?
     
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  3. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Are they not cloning stem cells in the US?
     
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  5. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Are they not making stupid claims like Trump?

    Reference please.
     
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  7. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Definately positively unashamedly

    YES

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  8. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Over the years one of the things I learned was that conservative censors fretting about musical and literary content, or sex and violence in television and movies, turned out to be right about desensitization and even conformist behavior, but this was only evident if we looked at the ideological heritage that worried so, and then look at their children and their children's children. That is to say, they were clearly right as long as they were speaking of themselves and their own.

    In truth I've become a bit resensitized in recent years. It's complex. Instead of focusing, say, on the fascinating destruction in certain horror movies and books, I perceive all sorts of other stuff about death, loss, and grief. Part of it is middle age, and accentuated by fatherhood for having something to focus on. To wit, sometime about a year ago a weird sequence of perfectly mundane events absolutely lodged homemade macaroni and cheese in my mind as a symbol of desperate deathbed regret, and I can even give you the literary and media framework—John D. Fitzgerald, Tim O'Brien, and some person or collective going by the name Takahiro—and, quite frankly, the change that occurred that night appears permanent; that is to say, something changed.

    And it's the stupidest little grotesquerie, but in its context I jut can't deal with it, and it has become something of a benchmark or milepost along my human transformation by which the frets of desensitization in my teenage years turned out to be largely insensate; what they were upset about was the perception that we were desensitized to their bullshit. At least, that's how it went in my corner of the U.S, but our desensitization discussion, as long as I've been aware of it, is subordinate to politics and personal aesthetics.

    But we do face a new desensitization potential in the idea of normalizing violence, and it does have to do with normalizing mass murder as part of our American reality. It will be interesting to watch how this goes, especially when one can is as specifically cynical as I can be.

    • • •​

    A version of an old philosophical question: If six people witness an event, they will give you six different accounts of that event; does this mean six different events have occurred?

    It's a lot easier to recognize if we pay attention to what people actually say and do compared to stylized examples.

    The thing is that within the range, some accounts will correspond more accurately to what actually happened than others.

    More directly, sure, there are sides to any story, and sometimes one of those sides is right and others are wrong.

    Consider our neighbor's side; it has an appearance of nihilism that he refuses to close. This is what it is, and so what. Still, though, as a functional proposition, fulfilling his critique—

    —in such a manner that maintains the nihilism removes any social convention. Like my example about marriage and monogamy:

    • He shouldn't cheat because [I say he should behave that way]. It's not just because I say so: He promised when we got married. But that's just one side of the story. Yes, but what is the alternative? That his promise means nothing? That our marriage means nothing? But that's just one side of the story.​

    Here are two sides to a story:

    • I am equal to you. We have equal protection under the law. This is our constitutional right.

    (But that's just one side of the story ....)​

    • I am equal to you, therefore I get to decide what rights you have or don't, and what you owe me, and I owe you nothing in return.​

    Functionally speaking, that is a pretty big dispute Americans have been having for, well, a long, long time, largely for the sake of numbers; a lot of people really lust after the abusive empowerment of that second side of the story.

    In the present consideration, it's just a weird gap in the principle that is only reconciled by saying it's not a gap, i.e., If "Those who throw out the line Well it is not against the law but it wasn't moral, are in effect saying You should have behaved the way I think you should behave", then the very conventions by which those two people would be talking to one another don't exist. It is a self-nullifying proposal unless the nihilism is accounted for. Yet, in truth, I'm not surprised that some need it to remain open. I've probably been explicitly aware of it for a quarter-century, and there are two primary resolutions; one is to give over to the nihilism, which in a way is part of the difference 'twixt taking one's own life and trying to take down a bunch of other people with oneself; but there is also adopting convention as a functional necessity of survival. That is to say, a person participates in convention because the organism tends toward life.

    Consider this tendency akin to the Cogito: This is the experience I am having; I can either deal with it or hold out and see what happens.

    Thus we participate in conventions such as personal relationships, families, communities, and larger societies, even striving toward a unified human notion of civilization.

    And as you note, there are at least two sides to every story: One can participate in society, or hold out. The nihilistic gap in the principle on this occasion reflects dimensions of holding out.

    For instance, none of it really matters if the civilized society itself, by which every element of our neighbor's assertion exists, isn't real.

    In the spirit of humans climbing the mountain because it's there, willful autoextinction of the species is not something we should undertake simply because we have the capacity to try.

    Thing is, most people just don't think their principles through like that.

    But that's also the thing about nihilism; it is self-consuming.

    To the other, few are the properly tautalogical truths in the world, so we're not calling off society over this kind of stuff.

    Still, though, I love the part about "informed consent"↑ when the question is fraud. That's the kind of practical conflict such self-obsessive principles lead to in everyday life, and surely enough, the way around it is to call off the conventions about that part of everyday life. And the self-centered morality of the circumstance↑ is as mysterious as it is predictable.

    • • •​

    At which point, though, you seem to have achieved functional meaninglessness; it's not a question of good or bad person, nor of culpability↑, but, rather, an apparent rejection of utility or purpose.
     
  9. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    It's something I recall from the past. you can google it if you're interested. My personal feeling is that I wouldn't want to be the beneficiary of an aborted child. the idea sounds ghoulish, like eating your child to keep from starving.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2017
  10. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    That's not a reference, so Fuck Off.

    No one should believe anything you post as credible.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2017
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  11. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I stay alive because I enjoy living and although I know the alternative will arrive I have no desire to hasten the arrival

    Do I think my life has a goal?

    NO

    Do I buy into gods great plan?

    Guess

    Hint it is NO

    If anybody has any inkling of life's purpose please enlighten me

    To all and every single anybody

    live the life you like to live or as close to it as you can

    To those of you who think you have no purpose

    EVERYBODY has a purpose

    Some as shining examples as to the joy of life

    Others as bad examples

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    Accept whichever you happen to be

    And from the outstanding cartoon

    Charlie Brown

    Life is like a gigantic supermarket

    As you wander through the isles in

    wonder at everything on display

    of which you can help yourself to as much

    as you are able

    Try not to arrive at the checkout with 6 items or less

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  12. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Well, as I said, you can easily google the subject if curious. My reference is something I recall when the topic was a heated issue in the media, when they were looking for alternatives to killing children for stem cells.
     
  13. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    So killing children is akin to stem cell research?
     
  14. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Why do you think it's been an issue?
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Aesthetics.
     
  16. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Uh, I think you made an issue. At what time in pregnancy?
     
  17. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    MY POINT WAS: unwed female producing
    Asian 12 %
    Whites 28.4 %
    Pacific isla 47. 7 %
    Latinas 52.5 %
    America in 68.1 %
    Blacks 69.7 %
    The same we can see where most of welfare payment recipient are.
    I can say getting pregnant out of wedlock creates parasites for the society
     
  18. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I can say drug users inflicting self harm create parasites

    While both are part of the human condition I know if I could eliminate one of the groups I am certain of which I would pick

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  19. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    You brought it up. I simply shared my feelings.
     
  20. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    That's a lie.

    And, you didn't share your feelings, you just posted youtube links.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2017
  21. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    No, it's not.

    Once again, bs: My personal feeling is that I wouldn't want to be the beneficiary of an aborted child. the idea sounds ghoulish, like eating your child to keep from starving.
     
  22. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    So you can not make any argument but try to provoke me.

    You hiding something?

    :EDIT:

    Or are you actually that stupid.?
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2017
  23. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    13,077
    I haven't kept up with stem cell research but as I understand current treatment consists of obtaining the stem cells from the patients own body before returning them to the problem area where they rebuild defects

    That's it

    Do you have some other type of procedure in mind?

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