Why Does /TG/ get angry about a game that has a moral relativism

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>>51548630

"Moral relativism" is cut from the same cloth as the "shades of grey" meme.

Any backlash you see against it is against examples--real or imaginary--in games/books/TV/movies where the powers at be want the audience to sympathize with the antagonists but completely drop the ball. The way fa/tg/uys usually articulate it is declare moral relativism or shades of grey are synonymous with stories where the protagonists are assholes and the "villains" are dindus.

/tg/ likes to think this kind of storytelling is a popular trend now. Personally I don't think it is, and more than that I have no interest in the imaginary Wonder Years where genre fiction was just escapist shlock where Lawful Good heroes slew demons and dragons.

Granted,/tg/ is not a hive mind. But I've found it's not a particularly astute group overall. We tend to react only to the most extreme examples of things and pretend those extremes are the norm.

>>51548793
But morality comes from a culture's teachings, and most importantly, the nature of its people, achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves… or find themselves lacking.

>>51548630
>Does /TG/ get angry about a game

Yes.

I hope this clears up the confusion you're feeling, OP.

Because shitty DMs like exploring moral relativism by giving you stupid moral dilemmas and trying to make you feel like an asshole no matter what you do.

>>51548963

Why would you play with shitty DMs, though? Shitty DMs can ruin anything, you can't use them to measure the worth of anything.

>>51548963
For one as limited as you, perhaps.

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>>51548963
>Because shitty DMs like exploring moral relativism by giving you stupid moral dilemmas and trying to make you feel like an asshole no matter what you do.

Do good DMs like exploring moral relativism by giving you moral dilemmas and trying to make you feel awesome no matter what you do?

>>51548630
If it's done well, it's fine. Unless you're playing 3.pf, where absolute morality is a major part of the system.

You shouldn't play 3.pf.

>>51548630
Does it? I didn't realize /tg/ was a hivemind.

>>51549071

Yes, I am. I'm just highly schizophrenic.

>>51548630
Why do you think we hate Kotor 2. Kreia and by extensions the jedi exile ruin it.

>>51549099
I'm not schizophrenic, only you and me are.

>>51549023
A good moral dilemma lets you flesh out your character by considering how they'd handle a scenario where the course of action isn't obvious. A bad moral dilemma just gives you two options where it doesn't really matter what you do, because everything's getting fucked either way.

>>51548630
I'm angry that you capitalized "/tg/" and that you used "there" incorrectly.

I haven't even looked at your image yet.

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>>51549023
>Do good DMs like exploring moral relativism by giving you moral dilemmas and trying to make you feel awesome no matter what you do?
Why did you do such a thing? Such kindnesses will mean nothing, his path is set. Giving him what he has not earned is like pouring sand into his hands. And would that be a kindness? What if by surviving another day, he brings a greater darkness upon another? Magic binds all things. The slightest push, the smallest touch, sends echoes throughout life. Even an act of kindness may have more severe repercussions than you know or can see. By giving him something he has not earned, perhaps all you have helped him become is a target. Seeing another elevated often brings the eyes of others who suffer. And perhaps in the end, all you have wrought is more pain. And that is my lesson to you. Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clenched fist.

>>51548630
Moral relativism is cancerous cultural marxism that is poisoning the west.

>>51549386
How did you get that

>>51549543
Moral relativism stems from the same root as cultural relativism, which is the Critical theory, that was developed by the (((Frankfurt School))) which was composed of marxist theorists, who wanted to bring down west from within via cultural warfare, so that communism could be established.

Modern leftist insanity, including moral relativism, that is rotting the western world today, draws it's roots from those subversive (((intellectuals))). That shit must be rooted out, and met with utmost intolerance and hate for it is a virus that destroys nations.

>>51549154

> A bad moral dilemma just gives you two options where it doesn't really matter what you do, because everything's getting fucked either way.

This right there. It's why the only right answer to the "orc baby" scenario is refusing to participate in the GM's little game.

A lot of inexperienced, incompetent, or even outright malevolent GMs who try to give the players a "moral dilemma" don't actually give you one. A real ethical crossroads has nuance. It has weight. But a poorly-executed one is just a choice between several no-win scenarios where no matter what you do something punishes you and everyone is worse-off for it.

>>51549604
But Moral Relativism has some grain of truth

>>51549621
all the best lies have a grain of truth

>>51549621
Maybe so, but it is a harmful ideology that can be used to justify moral decay and degeneracy that weakness nations from within, and thus it must be opposed.

>>51549636

t. neo-nazi

>>51549917
t. leftist

>>51549982

This is true, but you don't have to be a leftist to recognize that Frankfurt school cultural marxist conspiracy theory for the crackpot shit it is.

>>51549636
>>51549917
>>51549982
Maybe it'd be best to take a deep breath before this goes any further and look at a middle ground.

There are objectively incorrect things to do, that remain incorrect morally speaking regardless of the context.
But, the vast majority of situations are part of the glorious shades of grey that make up our world and you can't boil everything down to a boilerplate answer black and white situation.

There are reasons to kill that are justified, hell there are reasons beyond self defense even.
If I get two innocent pregnant women, put them in a gladiatorial arena together, throw a knife in and tell them I'm not letting either of them leave alive until I see someone eat a fetus, for shits an' giggles, that is objectively morally incorrect.

>>51549917
I was a nazi before it was popular you little shit don't go grouping me in with those fucking newfags you fucking newfag.

>>51549386
>There is objective morality
Funny how everyone who is against moral relativism can never actually state any objective moral standards.

>>51549115
Fucketh thee, good sir. Everyone on /tg/ loves Kotor 2 and Kreia

>>51549615
>A real ethical crossroads has nuance. It has weight. But a poorly-executed one is just a choice between several no-win scenarios where no matter what you do something punishes you and everyone is worse-off for it.
I find the best ones, are the ones that don't feel like a "Choice" at all, but rather just present you with a situation, and let your character tackle it how they would.

>>51549604
>Moral relativism stems from the same root as cultural relativism, which is the Critical theory, that was developed by the (((Frankfurt School)))
What about all the philosophers before that, that didn't believe in moral absolutes? Or was Kant the only philosopher to exist before the Marxists?

>>51550402
>What about all the philosophers before that, that didn't believe in moral absolutes?
>moral absolutes
Only Edgy people deal in Absolutes

>>51550445
So, if Morality isn't relative, and it isn't absolute, then what is it?

>>51550456
>then what is it?
An illusion of Choice.

>>51550402

You're dealing with a conspiracy theory on the order of "the Illuminati were not just a small group of weirdos who came and went, but the nucleus of a secret power that infiltrated the world's governments and controls it to this day." It's just instead of government, it's academia that the Frankfurt School cultural marxists have infiltrated.

>>51548630
>/TG/
Fuck off.

I see people green txting about this sort of bad gm shit all the time, railroads, making the paladin fall, etc. But no one actually explains what happened, probably because /tg/ doens't play games. People just foam at the idea of a thing they saw that one time that might have been a bad no.

Shit's hilarious.

>>51550522
Isn't that our name

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>>51551270

He used caps, it should be written /tg/ instead.

>>51549326

Jesus fuck, get off my case, lady.

>>51548630
The problem is people don't do moral reletavism afaict.

What actually gets done is shades of grey, and then "Why didn't you choose the right option?"

Fuck that, of course players loathe it.

>>51550117
/tg/ hated Kotor 2 because it contradicted everything about Star Wars

>>51551960
Literally wrong.

Fuck you. KotOR 2 was amazing. I will fight you.

>>51551976
How can you love something that butchered the Starwars Universe

>>51552014
KotOR 2 is the best star wars game I have ever played. It made it better than it ever was.

But you're right, I can't love TFA at all.

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>>51551976
>>51551960
>Pic related

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>>51549144
>>51549099
>>51549071
Friendly reminder that all of /tg/ has been determined to be one very drunk finn talking to himself.

>>51550112
>People who are against moral relativism can never actually state any objective moral standards.

That's a blatant perversion of facts that results from your autism and has nothing to do with the validity of morality. You, as an individual being incapable of conceptualizing morality does not mean it doesn't exist, it just means you're autistic.

Here's one basic moral standard that can be easily applied regardless of culture:

Any action which benefits one individual at the expense of harming another individual is immoral in the absence of an imminent threat to the survival of a greater number of individuals than the one who benefits directly from the action.

Also:
>>51550112
>Funny how everyone who is against moral relativism can never actually state any objective moral standards.
Funny how everyone who is for moral relativism can never actually disprove that any objective moral standard exists.

>>51552589

>shifting the burden of proof

>>51552645
>implying the burden of proof solely rests on those you disagree with because reasons.

>>51552805
No he's implying the burden of proof lies on you because you claimed something first. You then tried to shift the burden of proof to him, that's not how it works, Anonymous. We're on /tg/ not in bible school.

>>51552589
>Funny how everyone who is for moral relativism can never actually disprove that any objective moral standard exists.
Because everytime we try to say something we get shush into silence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISQg6yzWJ2s

>>51552450
Moral relativism does not argue the case that morality does not exist. By nature it can't, because as a stance it has to acknowledge the concept of morality.

>Any action which benefits one individual at the expense of harming another individual is immoral in the absence of an imminent threat to the survival of a greater number of individuals than the one who benefits directly from the action.

So it's immoral for a fireman to get injured while trying to save someone from a disaster? That's what you're "easily applied" standard says. And dear Lord if TWO firemen get hurt in the act, they're really fiends for acting in a way that results in harm to benefit someone.

>>51552589
If you want to argue that something is "objective" then that thing should be readily apparent to most people. That's what is implied by objectivity.

By the way, I can't disprove the notion that invisible, incorporeal lizard faeries regulate the force of gravity either. Call the History Channel.

>>51552842
First, I just got here.

Second, one anon stated "Moral relativism is cancerous" and then in another reply chain went on to explain their point, which is not centered on objective morality. And, in fact, the chain ends with the assertion that "Morality isn't relative, and it isn't absolute, it is an illusion of Choice."

Third, Some anon replies that they believe that the other anon was asserting "There is objective morality."
Anon asserts that "everyone who is against moral relativism can never actually state any objective moral standards."
This implies that the only way to disagree with moral relativism is to believe in objective morality.
This is untrue.

Fourth, I mocked this ignorance of the truth by pointing out that the proof anon demands from others, he himself cannot provide.
If he is certain his position is fact, he should be able to not only prove it, but disprove other opposed theories.

Fifth, Anon comes along and argues "Nuh-uh, I asked you first!"

Sixth, Another anon white knights him, asserting "that's not how it works" even though they don't understand that theories are proven by trying to disprove them, not by providing examples like "It is not impossible that forcing all life in existence to experience only horrifying, torturous pain for countless eons with no possibility of escape, simply because you're bored is an inherently evil act."


>>51553013
Shush.

>>51553036
>that thing should be readily apparent to most people. That's what is implied by objectivity.
Not really. Objective just means unbiased, as in true from every perspective. Popular perception is not a factor.

>I can't disprove the notion that invisible, incorporeal lizard faeries regulate the force of gravity either.
Nobody can, they call them "gravitons".

>>51553209
>Objective just means unbiased, as in true from every perspective. Popular perception is not a factor.
My point here was that "most people" might not be smart or knowledgeable enough to understand what they're looking at for it to be apparent, but that doesn't affect objectivity.

>>51553209
Wasn't white-knighting, I assumed you were the same anon who claimed there's objective morality, I was wrong. In fact I do know theories are only proved by someone attempting to disprove them. I apologize for the confusion, friend.

>>51553233
>>51553209
I've understand your point about objectivity and popular perception, but I don't see how it helps your case. Much like it's possible for the majority of people to lack the knowledge or intelligence to understand something, having the knowledge and intelligence does not remove bias. I'm curious how you propose to demonstrate that someone, or some group for that matter, is free from any bias.

>theories are proven by trying to disprove them
Theories are never proven, they can only be disproven. And a theory that does not allow the possibility to be disproven (like unobservable lizard faeries) is fantasy. Remember that before you use "but you can't disprove it" as an argument.

>>51553347
No worries. I did start my post with "Also".
For the record, I believe objective morality exists.
But I acknowledge that it is a belief, that my example of an inherently evil act is effectively impossible to verify, and that a middle ground position like "morality is an illusion of choice" is a more logically sound position.

But I know that people that adhere to moral relativism as proven truth are wrong and need to be spoken against for reason said above.

>>51549615
>>51550337
>A real ethical crossroads has nuance
Players don't do nuance. You place the blame squarely on the GM, but most players are also terrible. Anything that is even a little bit subtle usually goes over their head.

A player doing "what the character would do" usually ends up being some exaggerated caricature and doing "what feels right" usually ends up taking the course that provide the more immediate reward.

In fact, if a player is placed in a situation where he must choose between "doing what the character would feel is right" and choosing to obtain some reward (+1 sword of slaying or whatever), they'll usually go for the reward.

GMs who try for subtlety are punished, and subtlety is actively discouraged by most people who write advice on GMing and by most experienced GMs.

GMs are usually left with two options, either play it straight good guys vs bad guys and present no dilemmas, or present a ham-fisted "orc-baby" dilemma.

>>51553462
>I'm curious how you propose to demonstrate that someone, or some group for that matter, is free from any bias.
A fact can be objective.
A person can approach objectivity.

>Theories are never proven, they can only be disproven.
Not certain that is the case. At the very least, theories can be "effectively proven".

>>51548630
kek

>>51548630
Why Does you a fucking retarded?

>>51549615
> It's why the only right answer to the "orc baby" scenario is refusing to participate in the GM's little game.

You take the orc babby colony, bring them to safe shelter and then dedicate the rest of your life to making sure they are raised in a virtous manner, completely derailing any plan the DM had for your character.
You shut his protests with some bullshit like "before chasing a far-off good I have to do all the good I possibly can in front of me"
Campaign gets derailed by orc babbys and the DM learns to never again put hamfisted paladin-fall traps in his game about killing shit for loot.

>>51552038
How the fuck is TFA where you draw the line for Star Wars?

>>51553685
>theories can be "effectively proven".
Theories can be proven in the sense that if other things we hold to be true are true then the theory is true.
Remove the foundation and the proof topples.

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>>51548630
Because /tg/ must always get angry about something, otherwise it's the end.

Seriously, it's like people post in here without reading the prophecy.

>>51553998
Ah yes, the good word of the prophet from ages past, when /tg/ was but a fledgling, undivided amalgamation of raw and unshaped matter, a concept in all but name...

>>51553927
Every proof requires givens.
Many given are necessarily assumptions.
Not all assumptions are able to be proven.

It is what it is.

>>51553685
Be certain that it is the case. A theorem can be proven, a theory can not. The best a theory can hope for is to be commonly accepted based on the weight of evidence and/or arguments for it.

>>51553927
This is wrong. More accurately, you have given the definition of a syllogism, not a theory.

>>51554143
Ah. Well...
Potato, Potatem.

>>51554227
Gravity doesn't exist

>>51554552
Oh no!
Who killed the invisible, incorporeal lizard faeries?!

>>51549615
>orc baby scenario
>one player wants to save it, becausr it's an innocent baby
>other wants to kill it, because all orcs are inherently evil and it will grow up to be a menace
>third one casts polymorph spell on it, turning it into a small animal that scurries away, sidestepping the dilemma

Which one was the most right?

>>51554830
If it's inherently evil, and that's a setting property (like D&D having all undead have negative energy and thus be objectively evil), then there's no moral dilemma.

Also, 2 and 3 are functionally equivalent, 3 is just 2 with extra steps.

>>51554830
>Standard Orc Baby Dilemma Answer:
Assume orcs are serious enemies of the PC in some way or the question is pointless:

Is the PC edgy or a murderhobo?
If yes, you know what to do.
If not, is it physically possible for an orc to safely coexist among some members of the PC’s race, or a race at peace with PC’s, allowing for racism, being an outsider, and occasional inappropriately orcish behavior?
If so, take every reasonable measure to save the baby and secure it in a healthy home.
If not, is it unreasonably dangerous to return the baby to other orcs?
If so, kill the baby humanely.
If not, is it acceptable to the PC to allow one more of their enemy to be raised to threaten them and theirs in the future?
If yes, return the baby as safely as possible.
If not, kill the baby humanely.

>>51554861
What I'm getting at is 'is refusal to engage with the dilemma' cheating?

>>51554909
I got more of a "turning a baby into a small animal and letting scurry away is functionally equivalent to killing it." vibe from that post.

>>51550048
We need to make a distinction between objective and intersubjective.
Objective means it's physical reality and even if you don't believe it it's still true.
Inter-subjective means that while it's not a matter of opinion it still only exists in the minds of people, it's just that everybody agrees on it.

>>51548835
Morality comes from unchanging universal principles which can be known through rational thought

>>51555005
Good point.

Question though:
If literally everyone everywhere, everywhen, throughout existence, agrees on an idea, is that idea objective?

>>51554861
Negative energy has nothing to do with good and evil. It's just another force in the universe.

>>51555251
I haven't read anything D&D since 3e, but IIRC, undead are considered inherently evil because they bring in more negative energy and upset the balance/cause some form of damage to reality.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

>>51555195
>Morality comes from unchanging universal principles which can be known through rational thought
Morality changes, Nothing you say will change that

>>51550445
From my point of view, the non edgy people are evil!

>>51555276
They're evil because they're "unatural perversions of life" despite life and nature being neutral.

Really, they're evil because 9/10 your going to be smashing the Zombies face in and it gives the paladin and cleric a chance to feel special. There's nothing thematic about it.


Though I guess you could argue that because Zombies, Skeletons, and the like typically attack ANYTHING in sight without a master, that's why. "Sapient" Undead have their minds warped through coming back.

>>51555325
>>51555276
I've heard it both ways.

>>51555300
Morality doesn't change, just your perspective of it does.
Like North and South, things may vary in relation to you based on your position, but where you fall on the spectrum doesn't change the spectrum.

>>51549917
So?

>>51555370
>Like North and South
what is geomagnetic reversal

>>51555788
>what is geomagnetic reversal
Don't ruin my facts you shit.

>>51555788
North, not Magnetic North.

>>51555813
North is entirely based on the Northern Magnetic Pole, you idiot, it will change when the earth's poles switch provided we're still alive and survive the upheaval it causes.

How do I make a compelling LG vs. CG conflict?

>>51555845
What kind of conflict are you looking for?

>>51555845
Buddy Cop movie

>>51555201
I would say no because there's still the possibility of someone not agreeing. If not agreeing was literally impossible, then it would be objective. At least that's how I see it.

>>51555832
>North is entirely based on the Northern Magnetic Pole, you idiot
>What is True North aka True Geodetic North?
>What is Astronomical True North?
It's okay to be ignorant, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to infect everyone else.

>>51556020
Fair enough.

>>51556202
Then everything I said about Perspective would fall flat

>>51555845
LE villain, posing as LN, with values similar to LG PC.
CE villain, posing as CN, with values similar to CG PC.
LE and CE villain are at odds and both seek the PCs help against the other.
PCs must choose a side.

>>51556233
>Perspective would fall flat
There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm too tired to see it.

>>51556202
I like how you pretend that those weren't based on magnetic north, even Polaris itself is only considered an indicator of true north because that's the way the magnets point and another star will eventually take its place, my statement was not wholly incorrect.

>>51548630
>/TG/
Okay, look, operating from the assumption that you are neither new, trolling nor that I have anything better to spend my time on. I do, like maybe stick a finger up my ass and pleasure myself anally for hours on end, but never mind that would be more productive. Let me explain to you why.

First, game is irrelevant in this context.
Your favourite game sucks, your best friend's favourite game sucks, your mother's favourite game sucks, your dad's favourite game sucks. Every single good thing in the world that you enjoy? It fucking sucks.

Okay, why? Because it is not the same thing I like and therefore on account of that it sucks.
If by some chance we have the same tastes and preferences, you suck a little less than the guy over there, but you still suck.

Nothing personal, just wanted that cleared up.

Also because I actually have no fucking clue what game in particular you are referring to and as you might have guessed it I am bored and thought writing this wall of text was a good waste of time.

So where were we? Oh right, moral relativism.

You are wrong, and yet you are right.
You are wrong that /tg/ hates moral relativism. /tg/ doesn't actually hate anything per say except things that are done badly.
You know? There are some ideas that have been done a million times and maybe out a million times they have been done once or twice in ways that did not involve at least one person trying to play Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.

Stuff like playing a furry OC.
Playing a chaotic good drow.
Trying to genocide a whole nation of people because they talk funny.

The usual stuff. You with me?
Moral relativism just happens to be one of those things.

One out of a million times you have some Nietzsche-humping wanna be edgelord who wears a fedora like it was in fashion and literally name drops Noam Chomsky into any conversation because they want to be seen as an elitist intellectual.
Everyone hates that guy.

(Cont'd...)

>>51556293
We hate that guy with a passion, we hate him because he is an obnoxious player who either sees playing table top games as some sort of more social kind of video games and not a group activity. Or they just want to "troll".

They will decide to commence an atrocious act and when people call them out on it they will use this as their defence.

They tend not to be the well played Chaotic Evil guy but the lolrandumb Chaotic Stupid. That is why we hate the concept.

Because then the concept is played well, most people sit down and think really fucking hard about what just happened. Did they do right? Did they do wrong? Will this affect them in the long term? Stuff like that.

When it is played wrong it just feels like a massive fuck you.
And when it is the GM that does it, it just feels railroaded. You are doomed from the beginning, why bother at all?

The whole point of this, in case you haven't gotten it into the nogging is that in most cases it is done TERRIBLY WRONG. I'm not sure I could do it right. But...

If you want to get philosophical, compare Nietzsche with Kierkegaard:
Nietzsche said that life has no meaning, moral values are out the window, so why not only do what benefits yourself?
Kierkegaard said that life has no meaning, moral values are out the window, so why not try to make some sense of a senseless world and do good for the sake of goodness?
Probably so disgustingly simplified that someone is bound to disagree with me on how I defined those two.
When that guy/GM does moral relativism, it tends to be very Nietzsche in its approach; forcing you to only do what benefits your self/character.
When moral relativism is done right, I'd say is should be like Kierkegaard but that isn't a necessity. Point is, it shouldn't force the subject down the throat but make the player decide on their own after careful consideration in-character.

And that happens one out of a million times.
So we hate moral relativism, with a burning passion.

>>51556306
Oh, and TL;DR for those who forgot to take their ritalin this morning:
>We don't hate moral relativism
>We hate people who do it wrong
>Which is pretty much everyone

Now, please excuse me, I have a prostate to massage.

>>51556314
>2 full posts of pretentious talking like you are /TG/'s opinion
>tl,dr is for problematic people

>>51555845
>we need to reform the system from within vs. we need to tear the system down and take justice into our own hands

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>>51556337
If that is the worst to be said about my written diarrhoea, then I have either done well or it has not been read at all.

>>51556293
>>51556306
This is worse than that other anon that insist Morality doesn't change

>>51553588
>You place the blame squarely on the GM, but most players are also terrible.

Yeah, this is kind of the problem; if there's a mewling Orc child on the ground, it's apparently the GM's fault if the players don't treat it as an opportunity to "flesh out your character by considering how they'd handle a scenario".

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>>51554830
>>51554861
ORCS
ARE
NOT
ALWAYS
EVIL
READ
THE
FUCKING
BOOK

>>51556291
The north star doesn't move in the sky, making it suitable for a universal point in any star chart used for navigation.
You dingus.

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>>51555325
And you too
READ, NIGGA, READ!

>>51554861
>like D&D having all undead have negative energy
This incorporeal entity is the lingering soul of a departed mortal that is unable or unwilling to pass on.

"What is a ghost?"

>>51556541
Yes it does, it rotates around the point in the sky known as true north. Which, is in exactly the same direction as magnetic north. Also, don't you know another star will be the North Star in, what is it, a few millenia? or was it a few centuries?

>>51550048
You'll be shat on because
'middleground ""fallacy""'

>>51556588
Could the same thing apply to Morality

>>51556667
Morality is entirely subjective, it is an invention of sapient beings, thus there is no possible way for it to be objective, because it is not a law of the universe like the Three Laws of Motion or the Laws of Thermodynamics. Morality is an idea, nothing more.

>>51556588
>Yes it does, it rotates around the point in the sky known as true north.
Would you begrudge a star that has tirelessly worked to guide others for ages a wee bit of wiggle room?

>Also, don't you know another star will be the North Star in...
And now you want to toss it aside and replace it!
Ingrates!

>>51556719
I don't begrudge the star, and I'm not tossing it aside, the movement of Sol through the Galaxy is, last I checked anyway.

>>51556712
I object; it is my moral objective to state that morality is objectively inter-subjective.

>>51556745
Bah! Disrespectful stellar bodies...

>>51556749
Isn't that basically the same thing I said? or are you just being deliberately obfuscating to seem clever?

>>51555832
>North is entirely based on the Northern Magnetic Pole
Wow, had no idea that the proto-Indo-Europeans had the magnetic compass.

>>51556867
Yeah, they were called Lodestones, simply float a leaf on still water and place that Lodestone on the leaf and guess what? it points North! Ooooooh Magic!

>>51553897
It felt like a gauche cash-in.

KotOR2 was a very good story and could easily stand on its own two legs.

TFA felt like Disney wanted to change everything so that it was all still exactly the same, but the old merch wouldn't be compatible with the new merch.

>>51548630
They don't? When /tg/ gets mad about morality in a game, it's usually mad about alignment or some other kind of objective morality. Seems like they're a bunch of moral nihilists.

>>51553036
>Any action which benefits one individual

I believe we're meant to assume that this refers to the individual initiating the action. Being generous but if that's the case then the fireman example doesn't contradict the statement since your fireman is acting altruistically.

>>51552450

>>51556914
If the PIE people (the language of which the root names for the cardinal directions are derived from) developed simple magnetic compasses, do you know at what point knowledge of the tool was lost to Europeans?

>>51556306
Anon, you are one of a long line of /tg/tards to completely miss the point of Nietzsche. He didn't think of nihilism as a desirable end result; he thought of it as a dead end. Nihilists cast off morality after realizing that God isn't real, but for some reason they still think of morality as something that has to come from God to be legitimate. They aren't brave enough to invent new moral values for themselves.

>>51557239
Was it ever lost? it's a simple thing that wouldn't be hard for anyone with access to Lodestones to figure out.

>>51553462
>>Theories are never proven, they can only be disproven.

First, you meant "disproved."

Second, what the actual F? If you're talking about epistemology and substitute the word "truth" where you've used the word "theory" I could be persuaded to agree with you. That's not what's being discussed however since you mention the idea that:

>a theory that does not allow the possibility to be disproved (...) is fantasy.

That statement seems to imply to me that you're speaking in terms of scientific theory, which absolutely can be proven and when proven becomes a "Law." It doesn't happen often but it certainly can and does.

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“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.

>>51555300
>Providing food for your children has been considered moral by any and or all societies that I can think of.
>Protecting the mother of your child has been considered moral by all societies that I can think of.
>Stealing food from someone has been considered immoral by all societies that I can think of whereas sharing food with someone in need has been considered moral.

I would argue that "ethics" may change but "morality" does not therefore morality is not relative, ethics are.

I can't stand the shit.

Every single fucking time I DM, the people I game with always bring out their best chaotic evil viking style murderhobos and then argue how they are actually lawful neutral because moral relativism.

It irks me the most since they never do that shit for anyone else who DM's just me.

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>>51557458
Punish them.

>>51557303
>Was it ever lost?
No it wasn't. As far as is known it wasn't discovered until far later. But this is getting away from the point. Our words for the cardinal directions have proto-Indo-European roots. Are you seriously suggesting that before they realised the sun and moon rise and set in certain directions, that they can navigate by the stars, before all that they found out that if you put a special pebble on a leaf in still water it might point a certain direction if the puddle isn't too close to the source rock, and they named that direction and figured the rest out later?

>>51557458
D&D operates on objective morality. There's specific things that are good and evil, chaotic and lawful in D&D.

Whether or not relative morality is a thing in real life is up for debate, bicker about that all you want. But D&D's alignment system is based on morality that is objective within its system.

>>51557573
My forcing their alignment to constantly shift and making the cleric lose her powers didn't stop them at all.

>>51557591
Oh well, they're wrong. Either be satisfied that you've made their chaotic evil viking style murderhobos chaotic evil and made them accurate according to D&D's objective morality, or say that you're not interested in DMing for them.

>>51557504
No, I think the sun and moon as directional guides came first, and was likely the only guide people used for many thousands of years. Whether north or south had names before the discovery of magnets is irrelevant. The concepts as we understand them come primarily from which way the compass points.

Polaris, is not something that was always there and will not always be there, and wasn't where it is now when humanity first developed.

The Etymology of the words is irrelevant and proves absoutely nothing save that the words existed not what they meant when they first came about as PIE history is largely blank and based entirely on what little survives from the era and that isn't much more than we have for the Olmecs and some of Africa's civilizations before and concurrent with Egyptians.

>>51556775
I was under no impression that I seemed clever.

>>51557674
Okay then.

>>51557375
10/10. The classics should be remembered for exactly this reason.

>>51553588
That hypothetical GM sounds like he's shit at his job.

>>51556359
So just repaint Code Geass?

>>51556745

Nope.

The apparent motion of Polaris is so small that in 25 thousand years, when the earth's axis wobble returns to the same point, it willl be the North Star again. It will have moved roughly 1/15th of a degree relative to the background stars by that point.

What is changing it from being the north star is the fact that the axis of the Earth moves around, like a top that is tilted. It makes one full precession every roughly 25 thousand years.

And north is determined by the Earth's spin. Magnetic north was determined because it matched (relatively closely) geographic north.

>>51558200
I said, last I checked, and does it really make a difference which celestial body is moving Polaris out of being the north star? and does it really matter here? it doesn't change my point.

>>51558258

Your basic point, unless this has been several people arguing it, is that 'magnetic' north is the only 'true' north. It is not. Magnetic north is an accident of circumstance, true north is based on the earth's axis. If, from above the axis, it appears to be moving clockwise, that's the north pole.

>>51558324
But is that it's origin? or what we base it off now? I was putting forth that magnetic north is where the whole north thing originated.

>>51558392

And that ignores everything. East and west are based on the sun's path in the sky, and north and south likewise. East is where the sun comes from, west is where the sun sets, north is (on the ground, direct facing) left of east and right of west, south is opposite of north. Thus north is inherently based on the Earth's rotation. Using magnets for north is a recent invention, maybe two millenia old in the west at most, but north can be attested to in ancient writings that predate that.

>>51556524
Nigga the assumed system is now 5e, not 3.5

>>51558455
Yeah, I know how you find north but who decided which was which and how? And while they may not have been commonly used Lodestones being used is probably far older than most would think.

>>51548630

Using the term "moral relativism" in regards to /prettymuchanything/ is invariably a result of brain hemorrhaging due to having been dropped on the head as a baby, exposure to rhetorics you're not equipped to comprehend, or just being naturally blessed with an eminently punchable face.

>>51558540
Its relative

>>51558457
3.5 is STRICTER about alignments, 5e let it go a bit.
So the "le orcs is always evil" is double wrong

>>51558540
>Yeah, I know how you find north but who decided which was which and how?
When you face the setting sun and the sun will rise behind you, North is on your right.

>>51562140
That really doesn't answer my question, I know how to find north no matter the time of day or night, I am not a moron. It seems you might be though, as you misunderstood the very thing you quoted. How did humanity decide what was north and what was south when the concepts originated? Also, what proof is there that magnets were not involved in discovering, or at least defining, the two concepts of north and south?

>>51562343
>Also, what proof is there that magnets were not involved in discovering, or at least defining, the two concepts of north and south?

None, but there's absolutely no evidence for the claim, either, which means it's on a par with "what proof is there that ancient aliens were not involved in teaching us the concept of north and south?"

>>51552589
>Funny how everyone who is for moral relativism can never actually disprove that any objective moral standard exists.

That's for the same reason you can't disprove God. But you probably believe in him too, you superstitious caveman.

>>51562461
Perhaps I should have said how likely is it magnets were involved? I'd say fairly likely, and my first question being ignored must mean, there is no answer and, I was too tired to realize that before I asked it. We're debating magnets historical uses in a moral relativity thread, are we weird?

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>>51555195
>universal principles
>Morality

>comparing anything made by humanity to universe
wew

>>51555195
Morality is informed by prosocial instincts we have developed as herd animals, and further influenced by societal norms and personal preferences.

Since we tend to look for the easiest way to feel secure in ourselves, retards flock to the idea of objective morality to protect their simple minds from complex thought by stubbornly clinging to what their momma said. It's funny that the "objective morality" crowd is usually the one that claims to be for individualism and freedom, while trying to dictate what opinions are right and wrong.

>>51562689
Stop your lies

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>>51562986

>>51553998
Do not speak of such blasphemies. The prophecy will never come to pass.

>>51562648
humanity was made by the universe therefore everything humanity makes is also made by the universe

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>>51563203

WHOA

>>51548630
I'm not mad about moral relativism, I'm mad about people who can't understand the difference between "there" and "their."

>>51563203
Humanity evolved within the universe it was not created by anybody or anything, anything we create is ours alone, especially things that are not psychical, such as the idea of morality.

>>51563328
i disagree with everything you said

>>51563349
If you cannot refute my argument, you must concede the point, and retreat.

>>51563389
you didn't make any argument, you just added a disagreeing statement to my statement

i could just repeat my post from before that you replied to and it would be an equally valid "argument" to yours

>>51549615
As a GM that has presented said scenario to his players, I say the only right answer is to not be a faggot and assume anything that isn't literally made of good or evil HAS to be good or evil. A devil? Irredeemably evil. An orc? It's fucking flesh and blood, it's no more dispensed towards evil than anyone else raised in a culture that glorifies violence and hatred. Take them out of that culture before it can ruin them and they'll be fine. They might be more aggressive and dominant than the average human, but they won't be evil.

TL;DR: 'orc baby' scenario is bullshit because 'always evil' is bullshit and always has been.

>>51563408
Is that not what an argument is anon? Two people discussing opposing viewpoints, but if you like a, perhaps, more coherent point, I shall comply. Even though we exist within the universe we do not belong to it, as it is not a sapient being, it is simply a place, it exists independent of us and our interactions with it. There exist no such physical thing within the universe known as morality, morality is an idea, it is no more real than the idea of government, or of laws. Yes even the so called laws of the universe are nothing more than our idea of what the properties of the universe are, they exist whether they have names or not.

>>51551868
This.

Sadly, this is something only video games seem to do well, even in games that only let you be either a living saint or satan walking. Do bad thing? Get rewarded. Do good thing? Get rewarded. There is no 'right' option unless you're trying to minmax the game and pick only the most beneficial choices.

Take for example The Bard's Tale. The 'reboot', not the original. A lot of the time, whether being nice or snarky would be better depended entirely on who you were talking to, not some smug sense of superiority a GM throws in your face. The right option was whatever allowed you to manipulate whoever you talked to, which was pretty much perfect for the Bard's character.

>>51563528
nope, an argument explains ideas and the reasoning behind them

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>>51563564

And an Internet Argument involves shouting at each other till somebody throws up their hands and leaves, accomplishing nothing! So you're doing it wrong being all reasonable and stuff.

>pic related is literally me in the upper right

>>51563564
Wrong, an argument is discussing two differing viewpoints, the word you are looking for is statement, preferably a reasoned one but a statement nonetheless.
>>51563616
Sorry, if I'm not an autist like so many fa/tg/uys, iI prefer polite discussion.

>>51555276
>Disrupting the balance and thus causing damage to reality

There's the keyphrase. Negative energy by itself isn't evil, nor are most spells that utilize it. But bringing life back in a mockery of itself that exists only to destroy and eat can never be good, because it'll never be good for anything but destroying and eating.

>>51563652
>iI prefer polite discussion.

Good for you, man. Somebody's got raise the shitty level of discourse around here.

>>51563528
>Even though we exist within the universe we do not belong to it,
I don't see how belonging is relevant. We are a part of the universe, we couldn't exist without it any more than a hole can exist without the object that it's drilled into.

>as it is not a sapient being
I don't see why it would need to be sapient. Does a river need to be sentient to be a part of the landscape?

>it exists independent of us and our interactions with it
It does not, we may be a small part of it, but we are still an integral part.

>There exist no such physical thing within the universe known as morality
Because morality isn't physical, don't engage in pointless tautology, it doesn't make you sound smarter.

>Yes even the so called laws of the universe are nothing more than our idea of what the properties of the universe are, they exist whether they have names or not.
Two issues here; one, the laws of the universe are not ideas, they are the underlying principles on which the universe runs. Sure our understanding of them can be flawed, but that's not a flaw of the laws themselves, it's our own ignorance.

Two, you can't say that information is not part of the universe when it so obviously is. And ideas are ultimately just information. Yes, this is in a completely physical sense - there's a reason, for example, that astrophysics moan about what a huge deal the destruction of information at the event horizon of a black hole is.

>>51563652
>Wrong
>repeats exactly what I said
hurr

>>51563616
>semantic goalpost move
ok

>>51563700
I've been doing my best.

>>51562571
Isn't it a touch more likely that north and south were determined by the opposite axis of east and west, or sunset and sunrise?
Or, to spell it out for you, which is more likely: that it was derived from dividing the clear path the giant flaming ball in the sky (which several religions are based on) follows reliably every day or the understanding of basic principles of magnetics?

>>51563714
>semantic goalpost move

lolwut? I just made an observation from the sidelines. I'm not even involved in your debate, I'm a spectator.

>>51562571
>We're debating magnets historical uses in a moral relativity thread, are we weird?
We're /tg/, damnit!

>>51562648
And yet it's not wrong.

>>51563528
I'm a different anon, but I can argue some of his points.

>Even though we exist within the universe we do not belong to it, as it is not a sapient being, it is simply a place, it exists independent of us and our interactions with it.
You make a lot of presumptions for a Kardashev pre-Type 1 organism, friend. We can't even figure out how galaxies don't fall apart, and you're gonna tell me we know intimately about the living status of the universe?

>There exist no such physical thing within the universe known as morality, morality is an idea, it is no more real than the idea of government, or of laws.
That they are abstract concepts doesn't make them fake. Economies and businesses very much shape our world. That they were conceived in human mind does not make them, or their influence, any less real.

>Yes even the so called laws of the universe are nothing more than our idea of what the properties of the universe are, they exist whether they have names or not.
The laws of the universe, within a specific definition of "law", are very real and very physical things. Don't believe me? Shit yourself in the face and prove that your electromagnetic field won't interact with the bullet's.

Formulas are just mental extrapolations. But whether those formulas are accurate, physical law is real.

>>51548865
/tg/ will get angry about literally anything.

>>51563909

>the understanding of basic principles of magnetics?

Well, in olden days they had magicians 'n' shit who understood about FUCKIN MAGIC ALL UP IN THIS BITCH.

>>51562648
>conflating universal with universe

>>51563328
Everything was created by that which came before it.
Unless you're adding extra meaning to "created" to become "crafted" or something.

>>51563963
And they probably noticed the path of the sun before magicical magnets.

>>51563925
Well anon, if you need it spelled out, some words like 'argument' have two or more different meanings, so when one is being used you shouldn't start using the other one suddenly at the risk of seeming like an idiot.

>>51563714
>1
Belonging is relevant because it imply's the universe decides for us what we will or will not do, it does not, so far as we know anyway.
>2
It does need to be sapient to own something, or for something to belong to it, we seem to exist independently within the universe and we don't know if this is the only universe and if we can leave this one do we belong to it?
>3
Can you prove that the universe wouldn't exist if we did not? No? Then, you cannot claim we are integral to it.
>4
It wasn't a tautology, it was restating my earlier point in a more detailed way, close yes but no dice.
>5
Those laws exist whether or not we are here to understand and observe them or not.

Yes information in light is what scientist are referring to there, our thoughts do not exist independently of us until we put them on paper, or into technological devices and even then it has a limited time to exist before it is destroyed or disappears

Also I said you were wrong because you were, while argument has multiple definitions, the first one (google it) is what I was referring to originally, and the only one relevant. We argue using statements reached hopefully with logic and reason.
>>51563999
Yeah, thats true and I was assuming the created by a deity meaning which is what I thought the anon at the top of my post was stating.

>>51564077

t. autist

>>51564182
>Belonging is relevant because it imply's the universe decides for us what we will or will not do, it does not, so far as we know anyway.
Except nobody mentioned any decisions until you did just now.

>It does need to be sapient to own something
Except you're the one who's saying it needs to own something in the first place. Does a forest own a tree? No.

>Can you prove that the universe wouldn't exist if we did not? No? Then, you cannot claim we are integral to it.
I can, since we are here, a part of the universe like any other, made of the same matter and energy, occupying the same space and time, on top of the same vacuum. There's nothing to separate us from anything else on an intrinsic level.

>It wasn't a tautology, it was restating my earlier point in a more detailed way, close yes but no dice.
You said that no such thing as a physical non-physical thing exists, that's a perfect tautology there. It's like I said that no orange which isn't an orange exists. Same shit.

>Those laws exist whether or not we are here to understand and observe them or not.
Yes, that's what I said, thanks for repeating it I guess.

>Yes information in light is what scientist are referring to there
Not only in light, in everything that moves past the event horizon.

>our thoughts do not exist independently of us
This is purely semantic because of the way you define "us". Look at the ideas you're dealing with instead and you'll see that this isn't giving any insight.

>Also I said you were wrong because you were
Well, good job at being wrong yourself then. When this conversation started it was with an exchange of opinions that were not backed by arguments, we only moved on to actual arguments later. Deal with it.

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>>51554055
Otherwise know as the 90s.

>>51563114
The signs say otherwise. 9 of the 17 Dreaded Shitposts already came to be.

>>51563203
>>51563253
I remember the good old times when 'nature' included men, their myriad cultures, accomplishments and Pompey graffiti.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_History_(Pliny)

>>51564300
Your original statement implied that we belonged to the universe, maybe I misinterpreted it, I do tend to read too far between the lines at times.

Again possible misinterpreting of your original statement.

So you dislike me pointing out the obvious, fine.

I was agreeing with you on that point, long-winded perhaps but allowed, no?

All information is made of light or other matter which has no life outside of earth as far as we know, right?

Perhaps do not exist outside of our minds would be more accurate?

I assumed it started when I first responded to you, was that not clear? Going off of my assumption you are the one who was wrong, I don't care which of us is wrong, and we won't likely agree as I was operating off of a different assumption than you were.

>>51564637
>All information is made of light or other matter which has no life outside of earth as far as we know, right?
No, anon. Information isn't made of light, it's a thing in and of itself. It doesn't have substance. Light can potentially carry information, just as anything else in the universe that I can think of can. Usually we don't think of most things that exist around us as carriers of information, but that's technically wrong, it's just that most information isn't telling us anything that we're interested in.

>I assumed it started when I first responded to you, was that not clear?
An argument between us started, sure, but we weren't making arguments yet. Those are different things.

>>51560029
And in fact, since the default setting for 5e is Forgotten Realms, orcs are more often neutral than evil.

It's goblins that are evil incarnate

>>51564754
Well whether the matter and light that crosses the event horizon has any useful information to be gleaned is the question then? thanks for the information at any rate

I understand where you're coming from, but personally dislike using the same word to mean two different things in a discussion unless absolutely necessary, I apologize for the confusion, I am way too tired to argue with any real clarity, don't really know why I started it.

>>51564846
No, the issue isn't whether the information that gets destroyed is useful or not, the issue is that information being destroyed in the first place seems to violate some perceived laws of nature. It was supposed to be impossible, and yet most of the information when something falls into a black hole is lost, only the mass, kinetic energy and electric charge remain IIRC, because those things can be measured from the outside.

I don't remember it exactly anymore, I'm not an expert myself either.

>I understand where you're coming from, but personally dislike using the same word to mean two different things in a discussion
It's not my fault that people started using the other one. I only used a single one until way later when it became obvious everyone was getting confused.

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Would that make Kreia Right in Kotor 2?

>>51564996
She was right in the way she showed the absolute light and dark sides are simplistic and dumb, not being able to appreciate her ideas is childish.

>>51564910
Well, it may not be destroyed, simply rendered unreachable or unobservable? It could still be there inside the black hole, where we have no way yet known to see the information.

Technically it's my fault I was the one using definition 1, you were using definition 2, and neither of us made it exactly clear to the other.
>>51564996
No she isn't right and never was about the Star Wars universe at least, I appreciate her ideas but she was wrong 100%.

>>51565175
>Well, it may not be destroyed, simply rendered unreachable or unobservable? It could still be there inside the black hole, where we have no way yet known to see the information.
That just flips it over and violates a different law.

>>51565202
Then we're fucked either way, man, because from what I understand about science if something seems to violate a law it's the law that's flawed and not the thing that appears to violate it.

>>51565246
Yes and no. Like I said before, it's just ignorance. Knowing that you're ignorant is a lot better than being ignorant of your own ignorance.

>>51565175
>No she isn't right and never was about the Star Wars universe at least, I appreciate her ideas but she was wrong 100%.
But the Jedi and by extension the Jedi Council in Kotor 1 and kotor 2 was the natural conclusion of the Jedi code and their teachings. their Behavior was no different from the clone war era jedi and council. I would even hazard to guess the Jedi from the clone wars were destine to fall either war in being hunted by the shadows.

>>5155133
trips checked, good job exposing that newfag

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>>51555195
...?

>>51549326
>there are people who unambiguously think Kreia was trying to steer you to the path of moral neutrality, and not that she was a Sith Lord manipulating you into "thinking for yourself" and coincidentally helping her in her plan to kill or maim an enormous amount of innocent people to prove a point to an unthinking universal force

Grey is just a lighter shade of black.

>>51565331
I never got the impression she wanted to make a point to the force itself, she just wanted to prove that the force isn't everything because she had a grudge with it

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>>51565292

>>51565276
Yeah thats true.
>>51565278
In legends the Jedi order originated as an order of what? Warriors! they were returning to their roots in that way, the flaw in the code was forbidding attachment and forbidding emotions it wasn't flawed in any other way, because those two flaws were not there originally, they were added because the whole republic was like WAHHHH Jedi powerful, no let them breed make more powerful Jedi, it was fucking stupid that the Jedi ever bowed to the republic, and that was the original flaw.

>>51549326
>there are still people who unironically think KoToR 2 actually had good writings on morality or that the game's plot wasn't a mess

>>51565417
Obsidian was just screwed by the publisher. Like they were with Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol, Fallout New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity!

>>51565461
So they're shit contract negotiators.

>>51565417
All of humanity does. Anyone who doesn't isn't human.

>>51565417
It's not that its writing was really amazing, it's just that it was amazing compared to other star wars stories. It stood out very brightly.

>>51565512
It stood out because it was wrong, Star Wars is not and never was, a black and grey morality franchise when the story involved the Jedi in any way, it was always BLACK AND WHITE.

>>51565542
And black and white is great when you're 8 years old. To me KotOR2 had the very best story that ever came out of the entirety of star wars, just because the black and white thing is a retarded cancer that always brought all the others down.

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>>51565572

>I don't like Star Wars
>That's why I like KOTOR 2

This whole thread is amateur hour at the philosophy house- it's worse than a 10:00pm Starbucks, and that's saying something.

The problem most people have with moral relativism is that they're either unwilling to open the floodgates of what that entirely entails, nor do they understand that both Relativism and Nihilism can take on many forms that aren't simply the milquetoast American version (Americans have never been good philosophers, for good reason).

Shakespeare, for instance, when writing the Tempest clearly is expressing a nihilism, the void of death and lack of any meaning only saved by the Poet-King who replaces Plato's Philosopher-King as a figure who orders man's existence and gives him meaning (even if it ultimately one man's project). Still, Shakespeare had a place for love, religion/faith (though not necessarily a Godly one), and for there to be a semblance of justice and just desserts in the world: everyone by the end of their play got their due, so to speak, with even the Machiavellian (Machiavelli himself was also not too hot on the whole God and church thing) character finding his place in the society created. Did it devolve into YOLOSWAG420BLAZEIT? No. Did it devolve into soggy, soppy 'everyone is the good guy'? No. There are options within the West alone, and don't even get me started on what East Asia has available for both.

>>51565633
>I get confused every time an issue has more than one dimension to it
I like star wars, I wouldn't care otherwise.

>>51565681

The core of Star Wars is a Hero's Journey, not a Guy Who Navigates a Messy World's Journey. If you don't like the black and white, you don't like the thematic heart and soul of Star Wars.

>>51565644
Lets be even more honest here, nobody is any better than anybody else when it comes to being a philosopher. Also, hating on Americans because everybody else around the world always begged us to intervene when shit hit the fan post WW-2, and then get surprised and butthurt when we do something, without being asked to. We get so much flak for that, but a great portion of the blame lies with Europe and the UN, and so many other countries that beg the developed world for help when they get themselves into the shit, that hating America alone for it, is a blind and bullshit worldview and I'm honestly tired of seeing it.
>>51565681
Except if you look deeper and are willing to wade through the shit in the Legends continuity there is a lot of great writing with a black and white morality universe.

>>51562571

As to your question, how likely is it magnets were involved? Not likely at all. The likelihood I would rate at 0. It took a while to work out that lodestones pointed north in the right water suspension, while anyone with eyes could follow the sun's path in the sky.

>>51565801
>nobody is any better than anybody else when it comes to being a philosopher.

Dude, not that guy, and he's kind of full of it, but that's just plain wrong. Bad philosophy is all over the place, good philosophy is strict and careful and logical. You can divide good philosophers from bad by how readily their arguments hold up under critique.

>>51565780
The hero's journey isn't black and white, lucas's taoism superpowers in space are black and white, even though that makes even less sense.

>>51565869
By that I meant no country is better than any other country at it, America has had some good Philosophers, it's just that it's literally a dying art all over the world.

>>51565913

Okay, that's fair, and a statement I can support 100%.

>>51565940
Sorry that I wasn't clear in my initial post, friend.

>>51565974
So long as you admit you are wrong no problem

>>51567596
Wrong about what exactly?

>>51567934

Ignore him, he's just trying to stir shit up.

>>51567971
Sure, just thought he was the Anon I was talking to.

>>51565381
>the flaw in the code was forbidding attachment and forbidding emotions it wasn't flawed in any other way, because those two flaws were not there originally, they were added because the whole republic was like WAHHHH Jedi powerful, no let them breed make more powerful
I am not familiar with a lot of the extended lore, but I have to say this:
Jedi forbidding emotions is retarded.
Jedi striving to control their emotions is just sensible.
Jedi avoiding attachment is also just sensible.
Attachment leads to fear of losing that attachment, fear leads to yada yada yoda....

>>51569445
Away Sith the Jedi Code is always right

>>51569445
No attachment is fine, if you simply learn how to let go.

>>51569515
>Away Sith the Jedi Code is always right
Only the Sith believe in absolutes!

>>51569563
>No attachment is fine, if you simply learn how to let go.
Well, that's true, but then it's not much of an attachment.
I would qualify a Jedi Problem Attachment as something they are so attached to that they fear losing it.
I would have no issue with a Jedi loving and marrying another and reproducing, if I were certain in their ability to gracefully accept losing them all forever.
It's sketchy territory though and when forming a code, it is often best (easiest) to avoid all sketchy areas entirely.

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>>51569563
>>51569661
Atris should have reformed the Jedi Order. She was a True believer of the Jedi Teachings and their Code. Unlike Darth Traya and her Sith apprentice Meetra Surik

>>51568013

Nope, that was me.

>>51550068
A hearty chuckle was had.

>>51563962
YOU TAKE THAT BACK YOU SON OF A BITCH!

>>51569563
This. They are a specific type of space Buddhists.

Attachments aren't bad, but they are the root of suffering. You want to detach yourself from your attachments to stop suffering. It's like grief over someone dying, you want to process the grief and get to the point where you can appreciate the person that you knew without being an emotional wreck over their death--it's a bummer they died but it's good that you got to share their life.

Sith are the people who lost their shit because of the grief and never recovered. It's like being the punisher--obviously powerful and they definitely can be capable, but they're both suffering personally and causing others to suffer and they're trapped in a mindset that reinforces that behavior. They're traumatized people trapped in their cycle of violence, but with magical superpowers that keep them from making introspective breakthroughs.

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>Moral Relativism
But that's just compromising with evil.

>>51570802
Good and Evil is Subjective

>>51570802
No matter what you think about good, evil and moral relativism I think most people could probably agree they don't want a guy wearing a mask who's incredibly willing to murder arbitrating it

>>51570894
Fuck you. I want to skullfuck people with my sword of darkness and wonder why I'm being so edgy

>>51571839
because you're actually really boring and also really powerless

>>51570847
But that's wrong. You can make a claim that some moral actions are relative, but Good and Evil? Nope. That which can be strictly defined as good is good throughout human culture, and those cultures that work against that good are evil cultures, hence why nothing dictatorial countries do that is strictly evil is at all illegal in their country.

>>51571931
Good and Evil amount to benevolence and maliciousness.
If you drop that then it becomes a matter of which side you're on. Someone you agree with it Good. Someone you disagree with is Evil.

>>51548793
The correct way to look at moral relativism is that just because there isn't an absolute moral high ground doesn't mean you can't act in accordance with your own morality.
Just because someone is not objectively right in his morality, doesn't mean he has to or should give a shit. Moral relativism is cut from the same cloth as nihilism, the concept is that in fact nobody on high is telling you what is right. This immediately implies that you are the one who needs to come up with what your morality is.
If you go against what many other people find to be morally acceptable, or maybe just fail to match up too much without direct opposition, you can expect to get your shit pushed in.
If you go with the grain, you can expect people to back you up or at least fail to attack you on strictly moral grounds.

The key problem is that people like you think that taking the moral high ground is something necessary to act. Not really.

>>51548630
Morality is individual. I shouldn't have to say anything else for you to be able to understand.

>>51572786
>The key problem is that people like you think that taking the moral high ground is something necessary to act.
I disagree.
The key problem is that many of those extolling moral relativism are, in fact, using it to justify their immoral behavior or desires.
As such, they must be resisted and their lack of wisdom exposed, at the cost of unjustly criticising the few individuals wise enough to support both the belief of moral relativism and a rigorous personal morality.

>>51572991
>The key problem is that many of those extolling moral relativism are, in fact, using it to justify their immoral behavior or desires.
That's not a flaw of moral relativism but a flaw in people trying to bend it to their own ends, it's like saying special relativity and the discovery of mass-energy equivalence is bad and immoral because it can be used for immoral ends.
Moral relativism merely says that a person cannot be [absolutely] wrong on the moral level. They can still be effectively wrong if everyone else disagrees, and they can still be absolutely wrong on multiple other levels, like logical breaks or factual errors.

If you were able to act without attempting to wrest the moral high ground you could condemn them for these faults - and for thier lack of morality.

>As such, they must be resisted and their lack of wisdom exposed, at the cost of unjustly criticising the few individuals wise enough to support both the belief of moral relativism and a rigorous personal morality.
The lack of wisdom doesn't come from moral relativism, it comes from idiots trying to use it to sound profound.
Should quantum theory or points of genetics like mtDNA be banned from speech because most plebs who use the term to sound profound and educated have no fucking idea what they're talking about?

>personal morality
A lack of personal morality IS a type of personal morality, it's functionally the "living in the moment doing whatever I want" ideal. You can still condemn them for being utter faggots and immoral - moral relativism, see, doesn't protect them from this, because if enough people think they're being immoral they are effectively immoral, just like if enough people think up is down and down is up then the two terms suddenly swap meanings. Moral relativism makes all moralities (and lack thereof) equally valid, but supplements that the notion that what is and is not moral within a society or community is defined and not reliant on global absolutes.

>>51573117
>That's not a flaw of moral relativism but a flaw in people trying to bend it to their own ends
No, it's the *problem* with moral relativism and it's like saying the *problem* with special relativity and the discovery of mass-energy equivalence is that it can be used for immoral ends.
Learn to read the actual words used.

>Should quantum theory or points of genetics like mtDNA be banned from speech because most plebs who use the term to sound profound and educated have no fucking idea what they're talking about?
Quantum theory or genetics are not ideas or philosophies that can be used and spread poorly and dangerously just by speaking about them.
One could argue that the free application of quantum theory and genetics should be restricted from those who don't know what they're doing.

>A lack of personal morality IS a type of personal morality, it's functionally the "living in the moment doing whatever I want" ideal.
A lack of personal morality would not be a *rigorous* personal morality.
Learn to read the actual words used.

>>51573369
>Learn to read the actual words used.
That's even worse. Everything can be used in a fucked up way, that's how the universe physically works.
Hell you can turn quite literally any broad version of a philosophy into something dangerous because it's just that - broad.
It's not a problem with moral relativism any more that there's a problem with the discovery of mass-energy equivalence, regardless of the ends it was applied to.

>Quantum theory or genetics are not ideas or philosophies that can be used and spread poorly and dangerously just by speaking about them.
Genetics is quite easily spread poorly and dangerously just by speaking about them, see people who use flawed understandings of genetics to claim that for example Greeks were actually ancient Turks or that Persia and the the Levant has been replaced to a large extent by "sandniggers", or that homosexuality can be 'bred out'.

>One could argue that the free application of quantum theory and genetics should be restricted from those who don't know what they're doing.
What do you mean application? Do you mean thinking about the implications of QT and genetics? Or do you mean, for example, implementing large-scale experiments? Because the latter is analagous to someone with a flawed understanding of moral relativism being held up as a beacon of what it means, while the former is analagous to someone using moral relativism as a personal guideline. If he fucks up you punish him.
The biggest problem, as I said, is that people believe you need moral high ground to act and have this mistaken impression that the law has a mission to be morally righteous instead of reliable, consistent, socially reasonable, and orderly.

>Learn to read the actual words used.
A lack of personal morality, in that there is a consistent lack of personal morality, is indeed a rigorous personal morality. Now if you mean it's D&D Chaotic that's something else entirely. Is that what you meant?

>>51573450
>The biggest problem is that people believe you need moral high ground to act
An assertion you have yet to support.
>and have this mistaken impression that the law
And now you're moving on to law...

>A lack of personal morality, in that there is a consistent lack of personal morality, is indeed a rigorous personal morality.
Okay, a lack of personal morality can be achieved through sheer laziness and is therefore not necessarily a strict adherence to anything. It is not rigorous.

>It's not a problem with moral relativism any more that there's a problem with the discovery of mass-energy equivalence, regardless of the ends it was applied to.
>Genetics is quite easily spread poorly and dangerously just by speaking about them
>do you mean, for example, implementing large-scale experiments? Because the latter is analagous to someone with a flawed understanding of moral relativism being held up as a beacon of what it means

Yeah, I'm not even going to invest in responding to this nonsense.
I'm done.

>>51573691
>An assertion you have yet to support.
Everything you say implies this.
If you didn't need the moral high ground to act you wouldn't care about whether or not they conform to an absolute standard of morality.
Moral relativism is not a defense against amorality, which you fail to understand. It obliterates the idea of an absolute morality, but in its places says that you should probably be acting with the contextual morality of the society you're in, if you don't want to get done in by people angry about you not following their morality.

>and now you're moving onto law
Yes, because society is built on law. Someone who acts in an immoral manner can be arrested, even if moral relativism holds.

> I'm done.
Go read up on what moral relativism actually entails and maybe you won't get blown the fuck out next time.

>>51555195
What is the unchanging universal principle that says you can't fuck your sister in the ass?

>>51553036
>I can't disprove the notion that invisible, incorporeal lizard faeries regulate the force of gravity either. Call the History Channel.
Last time I checked that was exactly the sort of bullshit they liked airing.

>>51572736
That which is good is that which brings about the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of individuals or reduces the greatest amount of harm. That which is bad does the opposite.

It's not just a matter of numbers, though, and not over the strictly short term, so be careful with any counter-examples you put forward.

>>51573753
Interesting projection, Clem, but that's not the kind of principles we're talking about.

>>51573798
My counter example is that there is very little way to measure those things well, and that alternative metrics that can be measured more accurately like, say, average penis size, per-capita PPP adjusted GDP, religiousity, literacy, percentage legal lolis, or average family sizes are not necessarily agreeable to everyone because of differing fundamental values.
Hence, good and evil are unclear terms.

>>51573808
I'm asking you what sort of principle is involved in deciding whether sodomizing your close relatives is badwrongfun or not. Or substitute any relevant moral quandary.

Let's also put out that accepting objective moral does not equal accepting moral absolutes. I think that's where a lot of the relativists fall flat.

>>51573836
It does equate though.
If you have an objectively correct morality then that is also an absolutely correct morality (because it is either proveably correct or by definition correct under all applicable circumstances hence why it's objective), and if there is an absolutely correct morality then it must also be objectively correct (because it is correct by definition, since it is absolute).

Where nonrelativists fall flat is that they fail to accept that just because it is not absolutely or objectively correct doesn't mean it isn't effectively correct and doesn't mean you can't act in the framework of your morality or the morality of your community as a whole.

>>51573732
>If you didn't need the moral high ground to act you wouldn't care about whether or not they conform to an absolute standard of morality.
Belief in an objective morality does not necessitate or imply a dependency on a moral high ground to act. People who believe in An objective morality act in morally questionable ways all the time.

>Moral relativism is not a defense against amorality, which you fail to understand
I understand that just fine.
It's your nonsensical arguments that escape me.

>Yes, because society is built on law. Someone who acts in an immoral manner can be arrested, even if moral relativism holds.
And that's fine, but irrelevant.
Mildly related, but irrelevant.

>Go read up on what moral relativism actually entails and maybe you won't get blown the fuck out next time.
I wasn't this time.
I'm just not wasting effort on refuting utter nonsense.

>>51573827
Whether or not an action is good or evil isn't determined by those factors, however. What matters is the intention of the person enacting the law and their execution of it in the face of confounding factors. A person who starts off with a good idea, but remains rigid in the face of it proving non-beneficial becomes an evil actor.

>>51573828
That's starting from the wrong approach, I think. What the question should be is, does the damages, both psychologically and physically, of sausaging sis negate the benefits of tickling one's pickle and/or prodd'n 'em a duodenum? Societies make dogmatic good/bad judgements about some interactions as a package because societies that did not tended to fail or experienced lags that those societies that did wouldn't experience.

Essentially it boils down to whether or not your sister is down for it...

>>51573863
The problem there lies in the measure of efficacy. Relative views of efficacy lead one society to determine it's okay to enslave women, because hey, it works, right?

No, relativism is the lazy way out, while being ironically harder to put out than objectivism.

More abstractly, moral relativism is like that Family Guy style Rube Goldberg that just shoots him in the arm. It's a lot of work for no good purpose.

>>51573876
>Belief in an objective morality does not necessitate or imply a dependency on a moral high ground to act. People who believe in An objective morality act in morally questionable ways all the time.
If you believe in an objective morality then that implies an absolute morality. you cannot believe in a morality correct by definition (objective) if you don't also believe that this morality is correct in all circumstances. Otherwise it's the same shit as moral relativism - someone who believes in an objectively correct morality but realizes that every other morality is also objectively correct is equivalent to someone who says there is no objectively correct morality.

>It's your nonsensical arguments that escape me.
Then what the fuck is your argument?

>Mildly related, but irrelevant.
No anon. Your complaint boils down to "moral relativism is dangerous because people use it as a defense against immoral behaviour". My point is that the law doesn't act upon immoral or moral behaviour but on positive or negative results, so combined with the idea that it isn't actually a defense against immoral behaviour to begin with, all functions of society remain untouched, in essence.

>I'm just not wasting effort on refuting utter nonsense.
And yet you came back for more.

>>51573885
>Whether or not an action is good or evil isn't determined by those factors, however
Yes, but whether something is beneficial is derived from those factors. A society which puts a lot of weight on religious purity will rate new heresies as extreme negatives, and any policy which allows them as extreme negatives, while a society which really doesn't give a shit and is highly secular will likely not care at all beyond what these new heresies might imply on different levels, like physical danger or economic growth. They're not objective, they're arbitrary.

>>51573919
>efficacy
You're talking about differing fundamental values resulting in different metrics for efficacy, see my above example.

>>51573954
Not sure what you meant by that religious example. I think you're thinking I'm a different anon. Let me state, however, that 'evil' is more or less arbitrary. Not so much good, because the word doesn't have so much loaded connotation. I think good and harmful is a better metric than evil, because I'll fully concede that 'evil' is relative.

Which example? Again, I think you're thinking I'm a different anon, so I don't know which example you mean precisely, and I don't want to put words in your mouth.

>>51573998
Well, not good and harmful - I'd say 'beneficial and harmful'.
Beneficial and Harmful are apparently more or less objective metrics, but my example was meant to show that even though they are objective they can still be inconsistent.

For example, let's assume there are two societies in the world and each of them correspond to exactly one nation-state, and their people have uniform beliefs. This is an extreme oversimplification but just roll with it.

The first is a society, A, which puts emphasis on religiousity because it believes that you will be Saved if you believe and emphasis on knowing the histories and the fine arts. It doesn't care too much about material wealth or "hard" knowledge like mathematics or engineering.

The second is a society, B, which puts emphasis on the exact opposite. They believe that material wealth and hard knowledge is what matters, religiousity and the social sciences be damned.

Now let's say that both of those societies are put into two states, A' and B'. A' means it conforms to the ideals of A. B' means it conforms to the ideals of B.

To make the distinction even clearer let's pretend that A', despite lacking material wealth and engineering knowledge, somehow still has enough to feed the people to a reasonable degree and shelter them adequetely.

A would say A' -> B' is a very negative change, must be avoided at all costs, yada yada.
B would say the exact opposite - it must be achieved at all costs.

So is A mistaken, or is B mistaken? From a purely moral standpoint the answer is probably neither, it depends really on who you agree with.
From a national point of view, B's ideas would probably let B conquer A eventually, making A 'wrong' by comparison because they're fucking dead. It might also lead to revolt as they lose the unifying factor of religious and historical / cultural common ground.

This is pretty much my point. Beneficial and Detrimental can be measured objectively, but the metrics themselves are arbitrary.

>>51573954
>You cannot believe in a morality correct by definition (objective) if you don't also believe that this morality is correct in all circumstances. Otherwise it's the same shit as moral relativism - someone who believes in an objectively correct morality but realizes that every other morality is also objectively correct is equivalent to someone who says there is no objectively correct morality
Those are some loaded conclusions there, Sprinkles.
I'll fetch some of my pasta for you in a moment or two.

>My point is that the law doesn't act upon immoral or moral behaviour but on positive or negative results, so combined with the idea that it isn't actually a defense against immoral behaviour to begin with, all functions of society remain untouched
Cupcake, the problem is that they mentally defend immoral thoughts and behavior, then commit whatever act they want.
Law only comes into play afterwards, after the damage is done.
The idea is to prevent fools from doing whatever they want and teaching others it's okay too, thereby helping to "preserve the functions of society."

>>51574135
>Those are some loaded conclusions there, Sprinkles.
How is it loaded?
How can you claim something to be objectively correct if it is not also absolutely correct? Are you adding qualifiers onto it being objectively correct but only sometimes? Do you mean this line
>Otherwise it's the same shit as moral relativism - someone who believes in an objectively correct morality but realizes that every other morality is also objectively correct is equivalent to someone who says there is no objectively correct morality
Because that line just means that if you add the qualifier of 'objective correct to me in my own mind', then you get 'everyone is objectively correct to themselves in their own mind' and thus 'nobody is absolutely correct'.

>Cupcake, the problem is that they mentally defend immoral thoughts and behavior, then commit whatever act they want.
And that's completely on them, not on the ideology, since they didn't even understand the ideology or else have decided, after understanding, that their version of personal morality is going to be flatly immoral by the standards of everyone else.

>Law only comes into play afterwards, after the damage is done.
Right, like everything else.

>The idea is to prevent fools from doing whatever they want and teaching others it's okay too, thereby helping to "preserve the functions of society."
Moral relativism doesn't say 'it's okay'. Moral relativism says 'it's not morally wrong in an absolute sense' which has nothing to do with being okay, under moral relativism. Maybe an education of what it actually means to the common pleb is a better idea, since the common pleb manages to smash together the ideals of moral relativism and absolute morality in a fucked up manner because they're not willing to actually think about what it would entail.

>>51574092
The argument lies in the application of the (I'll grant you) Beneficial/Harmful metric as it applies to my metric in
>>51573798

The problem lies in the individual action undertaken, not the underlying moral judgements of the society. It's not just a matter of it being a A' or B' category of action, the action must be stated, and its effects on the people involved measured. If it causes a greater benefit, though 'morally' unpalatable it may be, it is still a beneficial action, and likewise in the opposite.

I want to feed a starving child an orange. That child comes from a society that puts an arbitrary restriction on oranges, and would lead to that child starving because the only food on hand is an orange. Feeding this child the orange will upset the society of the child, but me feeding the child will lead to the child not dying.

Yes, there is a cost-benefit analysis being done here, but it is still objectively better to say that an upset feeling does not outweigh the life of a person. There is no feeling that can be hurt enough to warrant physically harming someone, let alone a non-agent such as a child. This cannot be rationally opposed. It may be theoretically or hypothetically opposed, but not rationally. To state otherwise is deranged.

>People getting this upset over subjective morality being a fact
>Still can't prove a single iota of evidence for any system of objective morality

Wow I see why religion is so successful now. How can people be so convinced of something they know they don't have the ability to prove?

>>51574205
>still a beneficial action
I'm telling you that your measure of benefice can't be objectively measured. What the hell does 'happiness' mean on the objective scale? Do you just go around asking people if they're happy or not? Should 1984 (end of novel) or Brave New World be the utopian society since literally everyone is happy? It's pure utilitarianism, you're always happy in those societies, you love the leader and the government, you volunatarily get brainwashed for the most part.

>I want to feed a starving child an orange. That child comes from a society that puts an arbitrary restriction on oranges, and would lead to that child starving because the only food on hand is an orange. Feeding this child the orange will upset the society of the child, but me feeding the child will lead to the child not dying.
But what if the reason they have the arbitrary restriction on oranges is because of their belief that oranges are sacred and that you, having fed the child an orange, are trampling on their culture? You might scoff but that's a perfectly valid defense - a foreigner coming from nowhere acting on high and preaching to the lesser mortals.
What if it's an ancient pagan village where they believe sacrificing a child will help to make it rain? Even if it doesn't this helps keep society together and prevents revolt.

Now yours is quite the extreme example, so I'll be equally extreme - the amount of suffering in the future is greater than the amount of suffering possible by all humans. Therefore, the best way to reduce suffering on the long run is to kill all humans right now, in a hopefully painless manner, thus denying future generations pain and suffering.
That doesn't seem quite right.

>>51574205
>Yes, there is a cost-benefit analysis being done here, but it is still objectively better to say that an upset feeling does not outweigh the life of a person. There is no feeling that can be hurt enough to warrant physically harming someone, let alone a non-agent such as a child. This cannot be rationally opposed. It may be theoretically or hypothetically opposed, but not rationally. To state otherwise is deranged.
Jehovah witnesses would disagree with you.

>>51574205
>but it is still objectively better to say that an upset feeling does not outweigh the life of a person
Is it though? Upset feelings when widespread enough lead to revolt.

>There is no feeling that can be hurt enough to warrant physically harming someone, let alone a non-agent such as a child.
But what about punishments and laws? Isn't the whole point of punishments to quash bad feelings (it is) and promote order? If someone has stolen a billion USD should he not be harshly punished, esp. if he cannot return the money anymore?

>This cannot be rationally opposed. It may be theoretically or hypothetically opposed, but not rationally. To state otherwise is deranged.
Except rationality is based on numbers. What numbers do we want to see increase and what numbers do we want to see decrease and what's the exchange rate? You're using the "human life is priceless" exchange rate. Most governments, and indeed many people, would strongly disagree in their actions if not when you ask them.

>>51574260
Who said anything about happiness? I did very much earlier, but I'm not sure if that's what you're responding to. In any case, happiness is entirely relative, and subject to too many variables. If you're using that as your standard then by all means, stand with me and say that morality is relative. I don't think that's what we're talking about, however.

No, it's an utterly invalid defense, and shame on you for presenting it. If a society is based on a foundation of causing harm, it is a society that must not stand. That's what I think is difficult for you to accept. You see it as a gateway to globalism or imperialism, when you are choosing to tunnel vision on that and ignore the very real damage that those societies cause to people needlessly, all for the sake of not hurting someone's feelings.

Excellent strawman, by the way, because it utterly ignores the agency of the cause of the pain and suffering. It's not just that pain and suffering happens. I stubbed my toe this morning. Would I experience less pain had I been strangled in the crib? Of course, but that's ignoring the temporary nature of that pain, and the overall happiness I experienced throughout the rest of my day (and life). And no, saying that sacrificing a human is equivalent to stubbing one's toe on a macro scale is still incorrect. I do not actively stub my toe every morning, and I don't bomb marketplaces because my toe wasn't stubbed yesterday.

>>51574205
>but it is still objectively better to say that an upset feeling does not outweigh the life of a person
Oh this is where it's coming from.
What the fuck does that even mean?
Stop using word salad as if that means anything.

>objectively better to say than an upset feeling does not outweigh the life of a person
You know what an upset feeling is? Being robbed.
If someone steals all your food ( giving you upset feeling ) are you justified in killing that person to get your food back?
Or even better
If someone is starving ( holy moly upset feeling AND life of a person ) are you morally obligated to feed them at your own expense?
Obviously not, there is no system where you are obligated to do this. If you disagree there are millions of starving chinese and africans I would like to introduce you to.

Love how all the objective morality folks love saying shit that "proves" objective morality only for it to be hopeless broken when given any amount of thought.

>>51574281
Then JW's (and CS's) are wrong, and objectively so. It's offensive to say that in polite company, perhaps, but the merits of it are inarguable. Human biology doesn't give a shit if you think that maple syrup and thinking heals pneumonia.

>>51574323
It depends on why the feelings were hurt. If you're just being a dick to be a dick about it, then you're doing no benefit to anyone, you're just being a contrarian. If, however, a society is performing an action that is objectively harmful and you are correcting them, then the results of the revolt are upon the society doing the initially harmful action, not the corrector. Wages of sin, and all that.

I have a disagreement with the punitive system of judicial punishment. I think the rehabilitation is more important than anything else, and anything else is infinitely more important than full-stop punishment. The fact that rehabilitation is not optional should be punishment enough when it comes to those sorts of things, but that's pretty tangential, and I don't want to lose focus.

As far as the 'exchange rate' argument, I'm not sure it's that simple, though a case could be made. If those governments are willing to make that kind of disagreements generally, then those are harmful governments. There are specific cases in which a government may decide to put a person in danger, but deliberately causing harm? Nope, at least if it wants to claim the moral high ground.

>>51574372
>Who said anything about happiness
What exactly is your metric of choice then? Number of human lives? Because I should then be concenred with developing agriculture and putting everyone into breeding pens after making agriculture automized.

>If a society is based on a foundation of causing harm, it is a society that must not stand
According to you. For all your talk about not causing 'very real damage' for the sake of preserving someone's feelings, you're choosing to cause what that society may percieve as 'very real damage' all for the sake of preserving your OWN feelings.

>excellent strawman
>agency of the cause of the suffering and pain
Who cares about the agency? Why should the agency and cause matter, when pain and suffering is 'objectively' bad? Should I not eliminate it?
I see you're saying that 'well it was a net positive for me', but what about people who might not think it was a net positive? I'm sure there are people like that whose lives are honestly just fucking miserable. And once again how are you measuring positive and negative? Why not go full 1984 or BNW?

>>>51574447
>objectively harmful
See this? What does [objectively harmful] mean? My post here >>51574092 is meant as a deconstruction of what is meant as objectively harmful. To society A, a lessening of religiousity is OBJECTIVELY harmful.

>>51574406
Don't call it word salad when you're not reading it. Let me put this another way, since that went over your head...somehow. What I'm saying is that no amount of temporary emotional distress, such as a tribal taboo being broken, is as detrimental on the whole as causing physical harm to a person.

>You know what an upset feeling is? Being robbed.
No, that's a physical harm. Yes it causes an upset feeling after the fact, but being robbed requires someone to actually physically harm you by removing your property from you. Cart before the horse, friendo.

>If someone steals all your food ( giving you upset feeling ) are you justified in killing that person to get your food back?

Have you gone completely off the deep end? Does reciprocity not click for you? How on earth does killing someone balance out a theft, supposing that the theft did not lead to someone directly dying?

>If someone is starving ( holy moly upset feeling AND life of a person ) are you morally obligated to feed them at your own expense?
Obviously not, there is no system where you are obligated to do this. If you disagree there are millions of starving chinese and africans I would like to introduce you to.

Actually, it does, and I do give what I can without harming myself or my direct dependents. Wow, a moral objectivist who isn't a self-absorbed shitheel? What are the odds?

>>51574372
>If a society is based on a foundation of causing harm, it is a society that must not stand
Literally your opinion you're pretending is some objective truth.
>That's what I think is difficult for you to accept.
Nope. ( Not that anon )
I would not like to live in a society based on the foundation of causing harm. That's an OPINION.
>very real damage that those societies cause to people needlessly,
What the fuck kind of statement is this? Define damage, and define what makes damage necessary or needless. Then fucking justify why your so-called "needless" damage is always bad and your "necessary" damage is alright to do.
>Would I experience less pain had I been strangled in the crib? Of course, but that's ignoring the temporary nature of that pain, and the overall happiness I experienced throughout the rest of my day (and life).
(Warning: Massive strawman ahead, but I must rant ) Don't ever use happiness as a justification for life. God help humanity if we ever come across anything that's capable of actually enforcing such an ideology on everyone.
Happiness is not a moral good. Otherwise you're opening the floodgates to turning every human, initially willing or not, into a brain in a vat doped up on pleasure programs forever.
>But that wouldn't make me happy!
Right now it wouldn't, but your overall happiness would increase once the procedure had been done. Human brain isn't magical, happiness is not magic. It is very possible to deliberately trigger an unending loop of happiness hormones until your death. It's entirely feasible to engineer your brain into believing that this state is what you desired all along, and there would be no way to prove that you "really" didn't! So even the notion of consent breaks down.
But you probably wouldn't want that, right? That means your moral system clearly isn't about maximizing happiness, even if it doesn't necessarily mean reducing happiness for everyone else.

>>51574447
>I have a disagreement with the punitive system of judicial punishment. I think the rehabilitation is more important than anything else, and anything else is infinitely more important than full-stop punishment. The fact that rehabilitation is not optional should be punishment enough when it comes to those sorts of things, but that's pretty tangential, and I don't want to lose focus.
I strongly disagree.
Society is not around to make sure YOU have a good time. Society is around to make sure EVERYONE has a good time. If you fuck up, the point of the judicial system is not to make you rejoin society, it's to show everyone - look, this faggot did something, you don't want this to happen to you, don't fucking do it again. Letting you rejoin society is merely a bonus towards you - a second chance. It's a trust that your net expected contribution towards society exceeds your net expected leech from society when all is said and done.

>If those governments are willing to make that kind of disagreements generally, then those are harmful governments.
Wrong. Governments make these kinds of decisions all the time. They take money away from some people to put it somewhere else. If the US government had the choose between letting ten people die and making sure Wall Street doesn't dip 2%, they'd let the ten people die - as long as it's not made public they let the people die, because that would harm their reputation and their future dealings would be much harder

>Nope, at least if it wants to claim the moral high ground.
Why should it need to claim the moral high ground? What exactly constitutes moral high ground, besides a nice sounding thing to use on international politics? Why do you WANT the moral high ground besides to sound like a self-assured buffoon who believes he is, essentially, sactioned by God? Why can you not act with self-assurance in the knowledge that you are being true to your own morality, without attempting to make YOUR values universal?

>>51574494
>For all your talk about not causing 'very real damage' for the sake of preserving someone's feelings, you're choosing to cause what that society may percieve as 'very real damage' all for the sake of preserving your OWN feelings.

You missed the point of what I was talking about in that example. The only reason that specific society must not stand is because it is formed on a foundation of causing harm. It has nothing to do with my personal feelings.

>1984 and BNW. Black and white fallacy. It is possible to determine that a specific action is beneficial or harmful on, yes, happiness, but the causes of happiness must also be looked into. There's things like the availability of shelter, food, the ability to have healthy and productive offspring, etc. This is what makes us human. We value things that give us these things as 'beneficial'. Those actions that give us better access to these varying factors is 'good', and that which doesn't is 'bad'. I still like beneficial and harmful, though.

As for the A/B example and your 'deconstruction', it failed, because it didn't meet up with the objective of causing the greatest amount of good, for reasons we discussed after the fact. If a society causes direct physical harm to its people for the benefit of 'feelings' or positive emotional outcomes, then it is not something that should be continued.

>>51574447
>Human biology doesn't give a shit if you think that maple syrup and thinking heals pneumonia
Human biology also doesn't give a shit about continued life. Scientifically there is no moral difference between living and dying, growing and shrinking, pain and pleasure. They're a state of being, a set of time-differential numbers, a bunch of chemicals.
I'm a physics student. If I look at life from a purely physical point of view all I see is a lot of thermodynamic engines making a bigger thermodynamic engine that grows to a certain point, has the system of the engine disrupted at some point or another, and essentially throws an exception and shuts down, which spawns other thermodynamic, chemical, etc. processes. Nothing special.

>>51574515
>No, that's a physical harm
No it's not. Your property is not necessarily you, though you are your own property.
I have no fucking clue what philosophical system you have when removal of your property is considered physical harm. Even libertarians don't believe something like that.
>How on earth does killing someone balance out a theft, supposing that the theft did not lead to someone directly dying?
A theft might lead to death due to a loss of resources.
To steal from someone is to acknowledge this and steal from them anyways, knowing that it might lead to their death. You don't know, but you have shown you don't care about their life. So why should they care about yours in getting their rightful property back? That, and as the theif has shown themselves to be willing you put your own life at risk for their benefit it makes sense to kill them before they, accidentally or not, kill you.
>Actually, it does, and I do give what I can without harming myself or my direct dependents
Obviously you don't, lying shithead. Otherwise you wouldn't have internet, or a computer, or electricity, etc.
You don't need either of things to live. You can live without those things without causing yourself harm. Humanity has lived for a hundred thousand years without those conveniences. But rather than do whiteout, under your "objective" morality dictates you should do, you do the selfish thing and pretend you did "enough". But in an objective moral system "enough" is not enough. You either obey or you break the law. Clearly you already have, and don't even mind. Hypocrite. Why is every single moral objectivity a hypocrite who can't even follow their own morality to it's logical conclusion?

>>51574199
>And that's completely on them, not on the ideology
See
>>51572991
>The key problem is that many of those extolling moral relativism are using it to justify their immoral behavior or desires.
>As such, they must be resisted and their lack of wisdom exposed, at the cost of unjustly criticising the few individuals wise enough to support both the belief of moral relativism
Moral relativism is like an assault rifle.
I have no problem with someone who is capable and responsible wielding it.
Unfortunately, the problem is that most individuals shouting about how great it is and how anyone who doesn't use it is "simple and naive" are dangerous idiots.
And I feel the need to speak up and try to prevent disaster and misinformation.
The key problem with assault rifles is that too many people wielding them are not responsible.

>>51574199
>How can you claim something to be objectively correct if it is not also absolutely correct?
By being correct, but like a tattoo across Dolly Parton's chest, the middle is hard to see clearly.
Just because an objective morality exists, that doesn't mean it is implicitly understood by everyone or that the middle areas are as clear as the extremes.
Most people would agree that committing genocide and eating babies simply because you're bored is evil. [Arbitrary Example]
Most people would agree that saving all sentient life in the universe is good. [Arbitrary Example]
But people still wonder about someone stealing a loaf of bread to feed their starving family.

I believe in the existence of an objective morality but I'm aware that many of the more subtle views on morality are difficult to place on the moral spectrum. Just because a moral "black" exists and a moral "white" exists, that doesn't mean that there is no moral "gray".
Just because we aren't certain of the correct answer, doesn't mean there is no correct answer.

>>51574607
>It has nothing to do with my personal feelings.
Yeah except that IS your personal feelings. The mere fact that such a society exists at all and is at least passably stable implies that to most of the inhabitants it's okay, perfectly acceptable, not causing more harm than good, barring some form of oppression. That they must fall, and that they are even causing harm to begin with - that's your personal feelings. Even the concept that life has inherent worth and all men are equal - that's your personal feelings, not at all shared by all societies or philosophies throughout history.

>Black and white fallacy.
Bullshit. BNW and 1984 achieve perfect happiness and no suffering. Why is it not okay by your standards? It isn't a society with a foundation of harm. It's a society that is build off a foundation of happiness and the lack of all harm. You want freedom and individuality - but wait, those are personal values...

>It is possible to determine that a specific action is beneficial or harmful on, yes, happiness, but the causes of happiness must also be looked into.
Who are you to decide which causes are acceptable, and which are not acceptable?

>There's things like the availability of shelter, food, the ability to have healthy and productive offspring, etc.
All of those are in great surplus in 1984 and BNW.

>We value things that give us these things as 'beneficial'. Those actions that give us better access to these varying factors is 'good', and that which doesn't is 'bad'.
Right and as I said - you need to define what those terms mean in a way I can't bring up a counterexample. You call BNW and 1984 Black-and-White, but there shouldn't need to be a middle ground if harm is objectively bad. You didn't specify anything about the causes, and if you do, it can be nothing but personal opinion.

>direct physical harm
This is YOUR definition of good and bad. Look at my example again - with differing fundamental values, the same shit can be good or bad.

>debating morality
You fucking retards, you might as well debate whether the spiral on a unicorn's horn turns clockwise or counterclockwise. It's all just shit humans made up because we live in a universe where nothing has any inherent meaning.

>>51574682
>The key problem with assault rifles is that too many people wielding them are not responsible.
That has nothing to do with assualt rifles. You're condemning the weapon because of its user, this is obviously fucking retarded. Mathematics can be used to do good, it can be used to do evil, but mathematics remains ever neutral. The same is true of philosophy.
I understand your argument but I think you're condemning the wrong shit. Condemn the people but do not condemn the philosophy. Condemn school shooters, don't condemn the pistol for existing.

>Just because an objective morality exists, that doesn't mean it is implicitly understood by everyone or that the middle areas are as clear as the extremes.
But if it is objectively correct, then even if it is not understood by everyone, it is still absolute. Just because there are people who don't understand why 0.999... = 1 under the Reals, doesn't make it less absolutely and objecitvely true. Objective morality must be absolute morality, even if there is ignorance.

>Just because we aren't certain of the correct answer, doesn't mean there is no correct answer.
That's the same shit though. If there IS an objectively correct answer to the exclusion of its opponents, then it must be an absolute answer whether or not we, or anyone else, is aware of it.

>>51574682
>Most people would agree that saving all sentient life in the universe is good
>saying this on /tg/
[Heresy Intensifies]

>>51574517
>Literally your opinion you're pretending is some objective truth.

Yet again, please read
>>51573798 and annotate it with 'good/bad' being replaced with 'beneficial/harmful'. If a society acts in ways that causes its population direct harm, it is, under the criteria above, objectively harmful.

>I would not like to live in a society based on the foundation of causing harm.

That should, I think, be a given, but kudos for mentioning it.

>What the fuck kind of statement is this? Define damage, and define what makes damage necessary or needless. Then fucking justify why your so-called "needless" damage is always bad and your "necessary" damage is alright to do.

Public beheadings. Genital mutilation. Gang-raping virgins before stoning them to death. Y'know, that sort of thing. Note that I never said there's ever a 'necessary' damage. I've mentioned risk before, but that's sort of the thing when you think of firefighters. Yes, there's loads of risk of potential damage, but it's in societies better interest for people to accept that risk of harm for the betterment of others. If you're going to argue against that, I'll see you in Galt's Gulch.

I appreciate you putting up the warning about the strawman, and I see the actual argument you're trying to put forward and I've agreed with you already. Happiness is not the best evaluation of benefit.

> look, this faggot did something, you don't want this to happen to you, don't fucking do it again...

Funny how the death penalty states have zero violent premeditated crime then, eh? Ugh, honestly put an after the fact strawman tag on that, too, but I'm not interested in diving down that rabbit hole.

As for your governments not being harmful by...being deliberately harmful....example? I have no clue what you're on about. If the US did that, then it is a harmful government. Same with Saudi Arabia, the UK, Liechtenstein, or any other. That a current government does that is irrelevant, though troubling.

>>51574760
>Y'know, that sort of thing
Not him but this is too fucking vague to get anything done. Are you just against physical harm in general? How much money and time and risk is allowable for a criminal before we just kill his ass and be done with it so we don't waste taxpaying money keeping him confined when we have homeless people of our own? How do you measure harm? Why is taking away private propety harm? Why is happiness NOT the best measure of utility?

>Ugh, honestly put an after the fact strawman tag on that, too, but I'm not interested in diving down that rabbit hole.
You're the one using a strawman. Nobody ever said they have no premediated crime, but people who are found to have premediated murder are removed, thereby removing all the risk that they'll do it again. Maybe it was a mistake and they can contribute more in the future, but to some societies it isn't worth it, esp. when the rehabilitation comes from taxpayer's money.

>ugh
Cancerous.

>Happiness is not the best evaluation of benefit.
So the lack of harm is? 1984 and BNW rear their heads again.

>If the US did that, then it is a harmful government
LITERALLY every government in the world would do this if it could keep this hidden, because it is the logical thing to do. Human life being priceless is not actually the case in fact or in theory, considering that in wars, there are 'acceptable losses' and 'projected losses'. Societies act under the conclusion that certain things are literally worth a certain amount of dying for.
Priceless lives are the lives of those close to us, not lives in general. NOBODY is close to a government - to any state, life is a special type of resource, no matter how edgy that sounds.
You're taking your personal values and pretending they are objective, and you're so into this that you can't even concieve that they might just be your own opinions.

I'm guessing you forgot to seperate quotes but I addressed both myself and the other guy.

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>>51574760
>Ugh

>>51574720
Beneficial and harmful is also not a good metric.
You need objective metrics for objective morality, otherwise you run into the issue I just ranted about.

An AI should put every human brain in a vat and switch on the pleasure programs for all eternity, if you don't like it, for the sake of your own happiness, alter your brain to make you consent and believe it is what you want. Or worse, switch on the pain programs for all eternity but alter your brain to make you believe that is what you wanted and any time you change your mind it alters your brain into the state of wanting it again.

Why is it people can acknowledge utilitarianism is flawed for humanities well being but not the false morality of benefits and happiness?
>Public beheadings.
Execution. Killing someone is harmful.
>Genital mutilation.
A sanitation solution before modern sanitation knowledge and technology. Is circumcision objectively morally repugnant even though it probably saved lives way back when? Would it had been better if circumcision never existed and all those people died instead?
>Gang-raping virgins before stoning them to death.
If that virgin committed a crime than it's understandable. Violate others rights and get violated ( literally ). Sounds like justice to me. Good thing I don't believe in justice.

>As for your governments not being harmful by...being deliberately harmful
Blowing up the group most likely to become violent terrorists saves US citizens from potentially becoming victims of terrorism. A net benefit for US citizens.

>>51574620
>No it's not. Your property is not necessarily you, though you are your own property.

I can't think of a single system of philosophy or law that values personal property where one's property is not considered part of a person, should they own that property. If you physically act against my property by either destroying or stealing it, you have physically harmed that which is mine. Not the body of me, of course, but I didn't realize that we were getting that specific.

>A theft might lead to death due to a loss of resources.

Yes, and in the example I mentioned that punishment might fit.

>You don't need either of things to live.
I never said I was an entirely moral agent, now did I? I'm going to ignore your pram-throwing rant after the fact.

>The mere fact that such a society exists at all and is at least passably stable implies that to most of the inhabitants it's okay...

A person reads a book. Another person reads a book, but cuts himself with a razor blade every fifth chapter. The book still gets read, but are you really going to say that the person cutting himself is having a better time at it than the person not harming themselves unnecessarily?

> BNW and 1984 achieve perfect happiness and no suffering. Why is it not okay by your standards?

Because it really is the black and white fallacy, despite your objections. It is possible to have 'free will' and still obtain the most benefit towards one another. Plus, I think it's hilarious you brought up those books when the people there were clearly both miserable and in dangerously unstable societies that directly harmed their people. I'd recommend reading more than Cliff's Notes or the Wiki article next time.

>>51574886
Not him but then as I said you need objective metrics - and those metrics, despite being objective, are also arbtirary choices.

>>51574894
>I never said I was an entirely moral agent, now did I?
>I'm not a moral agent but listen to me espouse my idea of what an objective moral system is
And anyone should listen to you...why?

>>51574894
>I can't think of a single system of philosophy or law
And I can think of a dozen different philosophies and law systems where stealing enough shit is punishable by things ranging up to and including full clan slavery.

>I never said I was an entirely moral agent, now did I?
Then what the fuck are you? You're arguing for your own views of morality?

>The book still gets read, but are you really going to say that the person cutting himself is having a better time at it than the person not harming themselves unnecessarily?
What if he enjoys it and is happy about it? Who the hell are you to say it's not okay?
And at any rate, the mere fact the society is self-sustaining and stables means that to them it's good enough. The fact that you've gone and changed that, and in the process made them angry, means to them this change is for the worse. You impose your own values as if they are objective, then claim that in fact no, your personal values and personal metrics are some sort of a universal when in fact they most obviously are not because they're not shared by that society at the very least.

>Because it really is the black and white fallacy, despite your objections
The black and white fallacy is also known as the extremism fallacy, but it does not apply in the case of simply maximizing benefit when you say that something is UNIVERSALLY good and something is UNIVERSALLY bad without degree.

>free will
Free will is a personal value, and since 1984 and BNW depend mostly on brainwashing, most people do act out of their own free will.

>the people were unhappy
>the people
>unhappy
>in Brave New World and 1984
The main characters are unhappy otherwise there is no conflict. BNW even has an explicit system to keep everyone eternally happy.
Did you actually read the goddamn books? Fuck's sake in 1984 the MC at the end of the book is basically drooling for Big Brother cock.

>>51574880
>Are you just against physical harm in general?

I'm against any form of harm, physical or not, that does not need to be inflicted. A person breaks a bone falling from a tree or the like. To keep the bone from setting improperly, you have to adjust it before the medics arrive. You're going to cause this person pain in doing so, but you'll prevent the harm later on of them having a badly healing bone. This is what you could define and extrapolate as 'necessary' harm.

I choose physical harm because it offers fairly concrete examples. I'm not responding to the 'law' section of it because I'm not going to, as it's not tied directly to the Objectivist/Subjectivist discussion, and typically leads to full /pol/ flamebaiting.

>How do you measure harm?
If it causes physical or emotional pain or distress.

As for the government thing, yes, I acknowledge that the US does these sorts of things, and regularly. I also never said that the US was a wholly moral government. In the context of discussing THOSE things, you'd better bet the word 'subjectively' better comes to bear. I can't think of any government that has ever behaved in an objectively moral fashion. It has performed objectively moral actions, for sure, but sum total? Nope.jpg

>>51574884
Never realized those letters were considered cringey. I'm not a fa/tg/uy normally, so I guess the linguistic culture's different.

>>51574886
99% of everything stated was monstrous. TL;DR, rape's okay if she deserved it. Sorry, but at a certain point I can't reply in depth to something that horrible unless it's in the context of a (blue as fuck) joke.

>>51574720
>I just watched Rick & Morty and agree with its philosophy wholeheartedly

Fuck off retard

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>>51575145
I've never watched an episode of that show, anon. This a conclusion I came to entirely on my own.

>>51575157
Congratulations, you're still an idiot and have no one to blame but yourself

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>>51575055
>I'm against any form of harm, physical or not, that does not need to be inflicted. A person breaks a bone falling from a tree or the like. To keep the bone from setting improperly, you have to adjust it before the medics arrive. You're going to cause this person pain in doing so, but you'll prevent the harm later on of them having a badly healing bone. This is what you could define and extrapolate as 'necessary' harm.
And this actually countermands your point of being against harm because once you introduce necessary harm it blurs the line immediately. If I kill someone who is a known murderer because I know that if I let him go there is a good chance he will kill someone else, who is a productive member of society, and also know that if I keep him locked up I must spend the money of those productive memebers of society who would much rather just have him removed anyway, is it 'necessary' harm to simply end him? By your logic, it probably is. He will not be giving back to society, after all.

>I choose physical harm because it offers fairly concrete examples
I can't respond to your parts about objectivity because you fail to understand that even your measures of harm are subjective and not agreed upon by everyone.
You literally cannot provide a meaningful and non-ridiculous metric for measuring benefice or detriment without immediately becoming subjective in nature. Objectivity is mathematics. Objectivity is physics. And if you measure harm from a scientific angle, then truly, the brain in the jar society trumps them all.

>If it causes physical or emotional pain or distress.
And as I said this is your personal opinion that this is the only thing that matters, with no clear way to even measure the latter.

>objectively moral fashion
Except anon there is no objective morality, that's the point of the discussion, you can't assume the answer here.

>if she deserved it
How do you determine this? Maybe the kid 'deserved' to starve for want of an orange.

>>51574960
For no other reason than anyone should listen to you. We're talking about ideas here, friendo, and everyone has the right to walk away from them.

>Then what the fuck are you? You're arguing for your own views of morality?

Is that hard to believe? That someone can both believe in an objective value system, and not live up to it by their own standards? I'd say I'm more honest to myself than someone who shifts their goalposts when it's inconvenient for them.

>What if he enjoys it and is happy about it? Who the hell are you to say it's not okay?

That wasn't what I was talking about, and you know it, don't squirrel around the argument.

>You impose your own values as if they are objective,

Wrong again. That they are my values is coincidental. My claim is that those values are intrinsic to all rational humans. And don't try putting out that rationality is subjective, or I'm pulling out that meme with the laughing whores.

>free will
Note that I put it in air quotes when I wrote it because there's a case to be made that there is no such real thing as 'free will', but it's one that I think defeats itself.

>The main characters are unhappy otherwise there is no conflict.

Then why on earth did YOU bring them up as, since you put it in >>51574260:

>"the utopian society since literally everyone is happy?"

>>51575191
>Then why on earth did YOU bring them up
Because the main character in 1984 by the end of the book as I specificed is happy, and in BNW while it's not 'literally' everyone, 'almost all' people are happy. Surely better than our world where it's not even close.

>I'd say I'm more honest to myself than someone who shifts their goalposts when it's inconvenient for them.
You're literally the only one doing that here, because you can't understand your objective morality is anything but.

>That wasn't what I was talking about, and you know it, don't squirrel around the argument.
No it's exactly what you were talking about and I'm not squirreling around the argument. Why the fuck would he be cutting himself if he didn't want it? If someone else is cutting him and he is not protesting then perhaps he accepts it? You can jump in and save him anyway because it's repugnant to your personal morality, but not because it is objectively immoral. That is the keystone of moral relativism.

>That they are my values is coincidental.
No, the only reason you espouse these values so wholeheartedly is because they are your own. It is not a mere coincidence no matter how much you think it is, the mere existence of societies like the one you proposed implies that to them at the very least when harm is considered 'necessary' or 'acceptable' differs wildly from your own views.

>My claim is that those values are intrinsic to all rational humans. And don't try putting out that rationality is subjective, or I'm pulling out that meme with the laughing whores.
Except by this definition you immediately dismiss anyone who disagrees as irrational, which kills the argument before it starts. Go on, post the picture of yourself.

>but it's one that I think defeats itself.
So then BNW or 1984 are the ideal societies then, since - let me correct myself - ALMOST everybody is happy, they have plenty in material wealth, harm is relatively minimized, and they live "satisfying" lives?

>>51575190
>And this actually countermands your point of being against harm because once you introduce necessary harm it blurs the line immediately.

In what way? I know that if I don't reset the bone it will cause long-lasting if not permanent harm to the person who fell. I would be harmful of me to not do so. That I cause him temporary pain is irrelevant, as the cost-benefit (and I loathe that term by the way) puts the person as being better off with a properly healed arm.

>And if you measure harm from a scientific angle, then truly, the brain in the jar society trumps them all.

And if you think that seeing things as beneficial or harmful to someone can only be determined by obtuse physics, then you're missing the point entirely.

>And as I said this is your personal opinion that this is the only thing that matters, with no clear way to even measure the latter.

I get that it's not your point to argue, but what would you state is something that matters? Objective standards function on both the micro and the macro level. One must take a look at the specific situation and make an evaluation of what is the most beneficial outcome. I've laid out the criteria for determining that above.

>Except anon there is no objective morality, that's the point of the discussion, you can't assume the answer here.

That's misrepresenting the statement. What I said specifically was that, in my example and with my criteria, no government has acted in a strictly moral fashion. If you're not going to approach responding to me squarely, let's not at all.

>How do you determine this? Maybe the kid 'deserved' to starve for want of an orange.

That's twice in a row. I have no obligation to debate you, so if you pull that shit a third time I'm out because you refuse to be honest about how this works, and are mischaracterizing my posts out of context.

>>51575353
>In what way?
I just gave you the example. When the hell is the cutoff for permanent harm? I mean if you don't reset the bone it doesn't necessarily cause any significant harm at all, let alone permanent, major, crippling damage.

>then you're missing the point entirely.
If you want to be OBJECTIVE then you need to use objective measurements, which are accomplished by mathematical and physical means. Nothing else is truly objective. I applaud you for taking objective metrics, and I applaud you for taking objective metrics that are relatively universal in applicability, but now you shy away from actually applying them to their logical endpoint. What is the non-physical measurement you are using to measure benefit such that this is not desireable?

>what would you state is something that matters
It's completely arbitrary, that's my point. What I would tell you if you're asking would be a metric form of my personal values, nothing objective. It would include among other things literacy, PPP wealth, and cultural / historical awareness as well as scientific advancement, etc. This, however, is not relevant.

>One must take a look at the specific situation and make an evaluation of what is the most beneficial outcome
Yes, using objective metrics - but the selection, and the metrics you actually use, remain arbitrary. And applying your metrics, we do in fact find that the brain in a jar is the most beneficial as it causes no harm, pain, emotional damage, or otherwise. At most maybe it causes physical harm but then you could just keep the body around too and treat the brain through an IV or something.

>mischaracterizing my posts out of context
I'm literally not mischaracterizing your posts. To them, the kid 'deserved' to starve. Your metrics are objective, yes, but they are still arbitrary.

>I have no obligation to debate you
Is it supposed to be a fucking privilege to talk with you? Am I supposed to be honored by your presence? What the hell is this shit?

>>51575284
>You're literally the only one doing that here, because you can't understand your objective morality is anything but.

Are we spinning our wheels here? I've repeatedly stated what my criteria for an objective standard is, but you keep acting as if I've failed to do so once.

>No it's exactly what you were talking about and I'm not squirreling around the argument.

In spite of your raving foolishness, no, it's NOT what I was talking about. The example, since you're not remembering it, is a person is doing an action on one side, and doing an action and harming themself on the other. I used reading a book and cutting one's self as embellishments because, outside of a Spencer's changing room, I don't know a lot of people who enjoy cutting. Since your argument is founded on that misunderstanding, it wouldn't be fair to critique it.

>No, the only reason you espouse these values so wholeheartedly is because they are your own.

And here we go again, circling around each other. The only thing I can do is repeat my statement that my values exist because they are objective. Yes, I chose to acknowledge them if that's what you're getting at, but people ignore good advice all the time, and you wouldn't say they were doing themselves any favors doing that.

>Except by this definition you immediately dismiss anyone who disagrees as irrational,

If you are putting out an irrational argument, you are irrational. It's not poisoning the well to state that. You didn't say that rationality was subjective, so the whores will stay where they are.

>So then BNW or 1984 are the ideal societies then, since - let me correct myself - ALMOST everybody is happy, they have plenty in material wealth, harm is relatively minimized, and they live "satisfying" lives?

Going by BNW's example, I still say no. Think of the...well anybody below Beta+. Think of the people in New Mexico. Sorry, but BNW is still a dystopia, just a glossy one. (honestly, it's been forever since I've read 84)