I suppose the title is slightly confusing, but all will become clear. I have been approaching a point in my life where my parents (or the parents of others) have been progressing to further levels of status, whether it be employment, marriage, or otherwise, and yet I remain unchanged. This is not to say that I am lazy or unabitious, it is quite the contrary. My parents were married in their early twentys, as well as starting to concieve me. The parents of my close friends were paired during similar ages to which I have reached. A spark went off and I decided it was time to find myself a suitable spouse, trouble is, is I am a philosopher, my last heavy emotional attachment was many years ago during high school, only unemotional one-night stands followed me into college. I have made a few assumptions that I currently believe in. 1) Most marriages end in divorce due to incompatibility. 2) Said incompatibility is a result of icebergs that only begin to be uncovered a few months (or years) into the relationship, only tips, if anything, is originally visible. 3) If one was to research compatibility ahead of time, one can have a much higher chance of success with a marriage. 4) Blind dates, or searchs through random selection are too expensive. 5) Thus, if one desires his marriage to be fullfilling and extensive, one must research his potential spouse beforehand. One must also make sure he himself desires said potential spouse. Upon consideration of a few key factors that came to mind, a list was constructed of potentials. This list, while being relatively short, involved a celebrity. Lets name this celebrity Laura for reference. Immediate response triggered and the celebrity was blindly thrown off the list due to high improbability of even contact. However, a few weeks down the line, a thought brewed. If a man truly desired a woman, who at first glance is nearly unassertainable (due to celebrity status), and this man would treat her with all the proper respect and provide for her as much happiness as he could in order to receive the same, could ANY steps be taken in order to conceive this relationship? This brings me into relationship ethics. Clearly a celebrity like Laura is approached in public on a daily basis by men. Attractive women in general are constantly approached by men, however, if the woman is a celebrity she is approached at a very very high rate, this takes an exponentially increasing rate of worth down from the man. The celebrity nearly does not perceive a human being, just another ogling fan who she attempts to convey no mind to, and hence, meeting the celebrity is out of the question. If it is impossible to court the woman using traditional methods of arranging a date (just walking up and talking) then more extreme measures must be used. You have to in some way attract attention to yourself in a positive light to make you stand out among the rest. Such attractions are as follows: 1) Higher or equal celebrity status (or just celebrity status in general) 2) Very highly physically attractive features 3) Economical superiority (nearly anything can be bought in America) Upon inspection, I have none of these characteristics. Now, I am by no means unattractive, but definitely not a supermodel. So then, if these are the only ways to stand out, and I have none of them, is it basically impossible for me to court Laura? I originally said yes, but my answer was quick and blind, after thinking about it further I came up with the following, I have told this strategy to many and have received various feedback. This has potential to work on any person on the planet but there may be extenuating circumstances that may prevent some of these steps from being successfully completed. These steps require some financials, but nothing major. These steps also can be implemented by those who intend to cause harm which is where most of the ethical controversy derives from. Warning, follow these steps at your own risk, but preferably not at all: 1) Do initial research on Laura, what state she lives in, what her parent's names are, et cetera. All of this information is readily available online. Do not attempt to use yellow pages, all celebrities remove their addresses. 2) Find a private investigator in the state which the celebrity resides in. PI's range from 65-85 dollars per hour plus mileage. The investigator will make a day to day profile of Laura and report to you in written format. 3) With the newly acquired information you must now unfortunately break the law and stalk Laura. Go to a location in which she is well known to hang around. Research a few of these locations to find one where she is definitely to either leave alone from, or go alone to. Make sure it is at night. 4) With a date and place set in mind you must now find a friend who will break the law for you in which he may face jailtime, however, if the plan is executed properly with sufficient preparation, there should be no danger. 5) This friend's job is to be some form of assialant against Laura. This assailant must bring the celebrity to a very fearful state, but not panicing state. If Laura panics, she will scream for help and may ruin the plan due to outside intervention. The basic idea is to be the hero who saves the day. 6) After the assialant has established danger to the celebrity, you coincidentally arrive on the scene to fight off the assialant who flees in fear of your heroics. 7) The celebrity is now in your debt and you suggest to call the police and an ambulance to which Laura will most likely refuse because no celebrity likes paparazzi attention in negative light. 8) You have now successfully established contact and a favorable place in the celebrity's mind, all that is left is to make sure this contact remains. Offer to exchange numbers because you are worried about her, do not under any circumstance reveal that you know said celebrity at the scene, that can be revealed later. 9) Try to discuss anything personal about her, try to establish a personal connection amongst the two of you. Remember, she already feels safe with you, and if she feels safe she may exchange contact information. 10) From here on the possibilities are limitless, sure you are not garenteed marriage in this case but nothing is ever garenteed. What you do have however is a 4th type of way to stand out amongst the crowd which to some people is enough in order to start a relationship. If your relationship with Laura is successful, then there is no reason to ever reveal the events that transpired that night. You yourself can feel free to forget the endeavor completely because that is not what is important. What is important is that you are happy and Laura is happy, the methods used to incorporate such a state of affairs are irrelevant. If a man is searching for a long term relationship, shouldn't he choose from the top of his list of potentials rather than the bottom, and if by my methods the top is reachable, should it not be an acceptable goal? The time is always ticking, just like in musical chairs, find your spot now, before it is too late.
I am surprised that anyone would degrade and humiliate himself to such an extent just to court a woman, any woman---and a "celebrity" is not a better women! Stalking, lying, spying. . . . No person with decency and personal integrity would do anything like that. If you have trouble with women, your lack of respect for yourself may have something to do with it. charles, http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com
You have to ignore the semantics of the content in my writing, treat it completely pragmatically. Imagine person A desiring Laura as his number one candidate for courtship. Are any and all means of developing this courtship acceptable if the persons intentions are for the best? That is the ethical question I present, the means of courtship were simply a childish example because I couldn't come up with another that would have similar impact.
The scenario in the opening post is ridiculous in the extreme. Research her family and background? Hire an investigator to garner more information on her? Then stalk her? Break the law by having a friend assault her so that you can save the day? You then further deceive her by attempting to gain her trust, all with an ulterior motive in mind? What the? In effect, you are stating that the man breaks the law, hire a hit man (if you will) to scare her or cause her some minor physical and major psychological harm all to get the girl? Basically start the relationship off on a dangerous lie and an illegal one at that. Dude! Have you lost your mind? He can only choose if she is willing to be in a relationship with him. Stalking her, lying to her, having a friend assault or assail her and have you be the hero (illegal by the way) is not the way to get the girl. It just makes the guy a desperate weirdo who belongs behind bars. Depends on what he does. Your whole little scenario is not only unacceptable and illegal, but also unethical.
Is that why over 50% of marriages fail? Personally, I think humans are basically incapable of trusting or being trusted. Baron Max
I just wondered ....would you go into a life-time business partnership with a person knowing so little about them? Or is it only for a life-time marriage? I wonder what part of the whole relationship is really based on trust? Baron Max
Interesting observation because it matches some ideas being brought forward in science. We never show our true face. We don't on purpose. It's an evolutionary arms race. We live in large flexible social groups, and I use flexible as in flexible in behavioural responses. Ants also live in large social groups, but their behaviour is more determined. The essence of a complex social relationship is that at one point in time during evolution 'intent' becomes very important. Members of a group will try to figure out what your intent is by studying you, your facial expression, your behaviour, your inactions, your history. They do this because their own behavioral response is depended on what the opposite party is will do, has done, wants, etc. It is critical that you know what the other member is going to do. You don't want to do the wrong thing and get on his/her bad side. You don't want to be attacked, you don't want to lose your food, etc. Since it is so important that you know what the other thinks, it is even more important that you do not let the other party know what you actually think. The essence is to hide your true feelings and display behaviour or an expression that will result in a response that is favourable to you. The desire to know what the other is thinking in order to direct their own behaviour has led the other party to hide their true feelings and display behaviour that will entice a favourable behaviour from the other party. A behavioral arms race is born based on social interaction. The best weapon for this arms race is a large brain capable of interpreting dynamic situations and a body capable of a large array of expressions.
Yep, and it's also interesting that almost all of the people here at sciforums will give some "justification" for lying! ..and act like it's the right thing to do, and they'll defend lying themselves, but will be overwhelmingly pissed at others who lie to them! ...LOL! Humans can't be trusted, that's a simple fact of life. Baron Max
no, the fact that they always hide their true feelings doesn't mean you can't trust them on some occasions. Trust is why you examine the other's intentions. If they seem reasonable reliable you can trust them, because breaking the trust is heavily punished in social groups, more so than makes sense. At least in the experiments they did with monkeys/apes.
I liked the Hitch reference being that the moral of the movie was that you do not need to pretend to be someone else in order to court a woman because being yourself is the best way, hence no lying. Even in my scenario there is very few lying, wouldn't you save Laura if she was genuinely being assaulted by someone? The lie is simply that you know it is staged. To get back on track, if there is some method X where you reach your end goals; 3 = existential quantifier F = method L = good result B = bad result -> = implication || = or 3x(Fx->(Lx || Bx)) So if I believe 3x(Fx->(100% Lx & 0% Bx) I think we can all see that the logical move is definitely Fx, or some method by which to attain conclusion Lx. I see most of the posts against me being along the lines of, "It is illegal!", "You are stalking!", "You wish to start the relationship on a lie." None of these counter arguments seem to fit into my logical equation because I am concentrating on the basics, that there is some method Fx that can bring about the positive goal Lx. This equation does not entail something as primitive as laws, or Laura's emotional trauma that nights. Hey, if you want to make an omlete you gotta break some eggs. Laws and the emotional status of Laura should be nearly absent from our discussions because largely they do not factor much in our desire to reach our goal. The ethical problem only lies in the percentages, or chance. I explained that Fx would definitely bring about Lx, so for all Vx(Fx&Lx), but that is simply untrue, you can fail. In all honesty, if this plan was foolproof (which it isn't) then I think 90% of people reading this may speak against it, but in the end do it anyway, everyone wants the result Lx. The problem that arises is that all your hard work can backfire against you and Laura will either see through the lie, your friend can get brought up on charges and expose you (the press will love this), there are many factors that can go wrong which certainly makes the chance nowhere near 100%. All of ethics are constructed on desire and pleasure/pain. We desire pleasure and we do not desire pain, ironically, in the world we live in, in order to have pleasure it is almost always at the expense of someone else's pain (or a collection of others). If you want to have tshirts for 10 bucks at WalMart, some Chinese person must work 16 hours a day. If you want to enjoy a safe country with low gas prices, people in the middle east have to be slaughtered over resource control, and money has to be spent on homeland security rather than the education of your children (or your personal freedoms must be sacrificed). Nearly ever pleasure you have is at the expense of pain to yourself or to others (preferably others is the common mindset). In conclusion, don't come off as some type of holy speaker who thinks that my ideas to court Laura are disgusting because I do not consider Laura's feelings on the matter. I do, I am just considering the greater good in the matter more that 5 minutes of a little scare. In order to experience any pleasure in this world some pain must be brought to upon others, there is no way around this.
Don't you mean your "greater good"? The conclusion is that you are only looking after your well being because you identified her as being your perfect mate, and without her consent, forced her into a situation which results in her almost being forced to rely on you. You decide you want her, and then use illegal and down right immoral and unethical means to get her to trust you. You honestly don't find anything wrong with that? Your actions in the scenario you posted is completely unethical. You are only ensuring the whole relationship is based on a lie. You aren't the one who will be experiencing any pain. You state that in order to feel pleasure, one must also feel pain. It is telling that it is not you who is to suffer that pain. If you truly love someone, you would do everything in your power to save them from pain. To deliberately cause them pain for your own personal gain and satisfaction makes you a selfish arse.
Woah woah, who is talking about love? I never said that person A loves Laura, he simply wants to be with her, this does not imply love, love is an emotion, philosophy is emotionless. Aside from that, yes, you have to provide pain to Laura for your own selfish desires, but you forget that Laura may also be better off in the long run. If all bodes well in the end, wasn't the means to get there worth it? If you could cure all the diseases in the world, but one innocent child had to die, would you not sacrifice the child (Swordfish example)?
