Personal Nihilism

[Seattle]

I am saying people are morally dishonest and intellectually dishonest about stuff.

It is how they are inconsistent about killing's consequences. If you kill soldiers in a war it's perfectly acceptable. But if you kill a burglar in certain states that could get you life imprisonment.

And then they have this warped sense of morality about animals. Like they slaughter thousands of pigs but then call themselves good people and lock a murderer in prison for life.

And people have no sympathy for the downtrodden or the socially outcast. Like let say some kid was bullied his whole life and stabs a couple of the bullies, the legal system does not care and just sends him to prison for life. Or lets say some poor person always had a tough time getting money and robs a bank, well the news always casts them in a bad light. Meanwhile the banks and corporations are stealing money from honest american citizens more than poor people are.

We live in this crucifixion culture of the insane, people without hearts or compassion or empathy. There are so many people who say they hate rape-culture but who don't care about all the prisoners who get raped and killed in prison all the time. And the argument is always "longer-sentences" and pandering to politicans and the police state. And when you mention rape in prison, what is their solution then? More solitary confinement.

It is a kind of mass-delusion of a primitive species. Whatever happen to just, rewiring criminal minds so they turn into good people. Why all the focus on punishment and petty revenge. Cause we are living amongst a primitive tribal species who hasn't evolved.

Do you know 60% of prisoners are illiterate? These are mentally challenged people in prison, yet we demonize them as monsters. Yet you wont get any sympathy from the lynch mob of society. Republicans, Democrats, they are no different, all are primitive savages with no compassion.

Yes, we can all point out the problems with society. I agree with most of your views on prisons and always have thought that way. It's like that in part because they have no real influence in society (in addition to threatening society) and in part because of our collective mindset (conservative and less educated).

The prison system in smaller, more homologous, better educated societies (Scandinavian countries) is more in line with my views on this subject. That's not to say that their system could be implemented here 100% due to the differing circumstances but that's the right idea at least.

The first part of your post though is just "whataboutism". Yes, we probably treat animals that we eat more poorly than we should. We are largely meat eaters after all. Maybe that will change one day (or not).

Rape is rape and other violent crimes do have to be dealt with. There are many people who grow up poor and even bullied who don't do the same to others. We should try to deal with the circumstances that cause bullying and abuse and that might be considered at the time of determining the length of a prison sentence but it doesn't make violence OK just because someone was abused.

War is different, however if you start wars over nothing and do it continually, it's not much different to the innocent civilians on the other side.

Most educated people do think that our military should be greatly reduced in scope, do think prisons should be more about rehabilitation and that far less people should be locked up and only as a last resort.

The problem in the U.S. is that it's a big country and it's not homogeneous and isn't equally educated and more balanced economically. The most conservative, least educated, least tolerate, the most adverse to change have a large influence here. Religion has had a lot to do with that as well.

It is what it is. Like most things it's best to try to adapt to our local circumstances. Get an education, make enough money to not live in a high crime neighborhood, be tolerate, try to make society better.

 

[river]

An anthropocentric POV falling out of a denial of objective or non-human sources for _X_? Is that the proposal?

Julian Baggini: The phrase "man is the measure of all things" looks like the zenith of arrogance. Are we really so important that everything that exists has to be measured against our scales, our values and our judgment? But this is not the only way to understand our roles as the cosmic measurers. Rather than assuming importance for humanity, we should instead start by accepting our helplessness. We are the measure of all things simply because we are unable to access any better yardstick. We do not have access to the mind of the deity and nor can we adopt a god's eye view for ourselves. We are condemned to see the world only from a human perspective. Man is not therefore the measure of all things because of arrogance, but because there is no alternative. Even the religious should agree. For when they decide a religion offers the true guide to life, it is the overgrown chimpanzee, not God, who has to choose that it is the right road to follow.​

~

Man in its Hubris , thinks that we understand all things . We don't . We know that but we don't acknowledge it .

 

[TheFrogger]

When in Rome Seattle?