RNG's recent activity

  1. Comment on Absurd Trolley Problems in ~humanities

  2. Comment on Atheism and moral realism/objectivism? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link Parent
    I think I have an identical view to you, and maybe the similarities in upbringing similarly influenced our intuitions on the subject. I don't think there can be objective morality without God....

    > None of them fully "worked" for me. With every single one of them, there were situations where the application of that framework felt very very wrong internally.

    > These kinds of questions really gave me a hard time. I also had a childhood within what most would consider a fundamentalist religion. I've definitely moved away from that. But when you've grown up with the concept of morality coming from a higher power it's hard to feel satisfied with anything else. A higher power provides a sense of authority, a logical reason for our beliefs of right and wrong. It's not just what I feel, and it's not from another human who's in the same boat I'm in.

    I think I have an identical view to you, and maybe the similarities in upbringing similarly influenced our intuitions on the subject. I don't think there can be objective morality without God. Without God, morality seems to be little more than the complicated, often contradictory emotional states of humans towards moral issues. As it stands, I'm an agnostic, and so far am unconvinced that God does indeed exist (though I'm open to the idea,) which leaves me without any concrete grounding for moral claims. So I generally describe my beliefs as moral anti-realist, but I'm not deeply committed to that position and am always open to hear what others have to say.

  3. Comment on Atheism and moral realism/objectivism? in ~talk

    RNG
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    Link Parent
    I like hedonistic consequentialism and utilitarianism very much. I think my own intuitions map onto utilitarian/consequentialist views closely by themselves. I have a couple of problems with them...

    I like hedonistic consequentialism and utilitarianism very much. I think my own intuitions map onto utilitarian/consequentialist views closely by themselves. I have a couple of problems with them though.

    While I think there are good utilitarian objections to Nozick's Utility Monster, other objections seem to hold water for me: First, a common objection is should we kill one person to harvest their organs to save 5 people? Why not? This seems to be an uncomfortable conclusion for the utilitarian. The common response from the utilitarian is to turn utilitarianism on itself and say that it'd cause greater suffering to live in a world where we chop up people for organs. Fair response. Pin in that.

    The biggest issue I have is that every decision you make throughout the day would involve tremendous effort to perform the hedonic calculus required to evaluate the action. Choosing between two brands of food at the store. Which ingredients are the most likely to involve contributing to climate change? How about animal suffering? Forced labor? How much should I pay extra to purchase the more ethical product compared to the resulting change in pleasure/suffering? If we consider effects even further out, it seems that the long term, butterfly-like effects can't possibly be calculated. It seems that in this case, performing the hedonic calculus and the resulting moral paralysis causes more suffering than it alleviates!

    Utilitarians do have a response to this too: rule utilitarianism. This develops general rules that, if followed, are most likely to maximize pleasure/minimize suffering. By following these rules, you avoid needing to perform the hedonic calculus every time you take an action, rather you follow the rule. This is also a helpful way that utilitarians can conceive of things like "rights" which seem to have more than just the weight of the immediate suffering/pleasure involved. For me, this seems to collapse utilitarianism into a deontological, rather than consequentialist, ethical theory.

    Now back to the pin from paragraph 2. If what we have been talking about this whole time were objective moral truths, then whether or not 90% of people disagree with cutting up the person shouldn't be reason to think that "utilitarianism has a problem, and we need to fix it." We should bite the bullet and accept it, right? If what we are doing is discovering real moral truths, then those facts are true regardless of the degree of popular agreement with the uncomfortable conclusion. The fact that unpleasant conclusions harm an ethical theory's validity tell me that we are doing something more like concept creation than discovery. To me, this phenomenon seems least surprising on a relativist or moral anti-realist position.

    4 votes

  4. Comment on Atheism and moral realism/objectivism? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link Parent
    First I want to thank you for taking the time to read and write out your response to my post! I had a couple of questions about your view: So it sounds like you take a hybrid approach to the...

    First I want to thank you for taking the time to read and write out your response to my post!

    I had a couple of questions about your view:

    > The only solution I've found is moral relativism within social structures

    > because it is good to do by some internal and even collectively agreed measure

    So it sounds like you take a hybrid approach to the question of moral relativism. Is it possible in your view for the collective to agree to measures that are morally wrong? If so, where is this contradiction coming from?

    but empathy, which is inherent in most people, usually guides the decision anyway

    Would you say that inherent attitudes towards moral questions are the source of the "internal" morality you mentioned earlier? And would you describe this as a product of evolution or as something more transcendent?

    A lot of morality is just seeing if the rule passes your sniff test. If it passes enough people's sniff tests it becomes a Commandment or a law or whatever

    So I think this describes the position I'm leaning towards. I'm currently in moral anti-realist/moral non-cognitivist/emotivist land, and generally think that moral utterances are descriptions of an individual's emotional attitude toward certain actions and the moral beliefs they derive from those attitudes. This seems to explain to me why different people and different collectives can differ on moral questions, but this perspective is wholly insufficient for helping me decide what I ought to do.

    Any particular readings that you've found valuable? I don't think I've ever read anything in depth about Buddhism.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Georgia Guidestones destroyed by explosive device in ~news

    RNG
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    In the '00s, people were regularly admonished for failing to properly call out "Radical Islamic Terrorism" and the alleged failures of the Islamic community to clean house. Since 2010 however,...

    In the '00s, people were regularly admonished for failing to properly call out "Radical Islamic Terrorism" and the alleged failures of the Islamic community to clean house. Since 2010 however, rightist terrorists have killed more US civilians than Islamic terrorists have. At what point do we start publicly condemning "Radical Christian Terrorism?" Is that a stretch? I mean we're at the point where they are blowing up stuff they don't like...

    On a slightly less related note, one of the main concerns about Muslims in the US during the '00s was the concern they'd "implement Sharia law." It seems that in the past decade the push has been primarily to implement a Christian theocracy.

    I know that none of the words I'm typing are helping, because there's nothing I can do to help. I get to watch this happen the same as everyone else. I voted, and that so far has accomplished nothing in defending women's rights from Christians. I'm not going to start the uprising that ushers in utopia, or start another "peaceful" protest that accomplishes nothing but arrests and beatings; I get to just watch it all burn down from the sidelines with the rest of you.

    17 votes

  6. Atheism and moral realism/objectivism?

    ~talk Text 594 words
    *Disclaimer: I am not an apologist, theologian, or a philosopher, just someone interested in the topic. Perhaps this could've been asked in r/AskPhilosophy or maybe even r/changemyview, but I...

    *Disclaimer: I am not an apologist, theologian, or a philosopher, just someone interested in the topic. Perhaps this could've been asked in r/AskPhilosophy or maybe even r/changemyview, but I figure the conversation might be good here

    The recent post here on Absurd Trolley Problems has had me thinking about ethics again, and I realized I've never been introduced to how one can be an atheist and be not only a moral objectivist, but a moral realist. I remember a debate I watched years ago with William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens where Craig asks Hitchens what the basis of morality is, and he acts insulted, insinuating that Craig intended to say that atheists couldn't "be good without God" (which I think became a famous moment for the both of them.)

    But I never got the answer to Craig's question that I wanted. Without God, how should we determine what moral facts there are? How should we determine if there are moral facts at all? I grew up in a fundamentalist religion, and found myself in adulthood deeply interested in apologetics, and see similar responses in debates to the one mentioned above. Now while I believe Hitchens was a moral relativist, I often see and hear cases where atheists do seem to want to say that [insert atrocity here] was objectively morally wrong. Can atheists reasonably claim that there are not only moral facts, but objective moral facts that they can access? Upon examination, aren't you ultimately required to derive an "ought" from an "is"?

    I skimmed The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris some years ago, and it seems to "avoid" (i.e. commit) the "is/ought" fallacy by simply declaring that "human flourishing" (however that may be defined, separate issue) is an irreducible "ought" in his eyes. The book is great, I think that science should be part of the discussion about how one ought to live their life if the goal is some end like human flourishing; doctors already give prescriptions for behavior based on a presupposed goal between both parties to promote health and well-being. Both of these necessarily presuppose a state of affairs that one "ought" to seek to attain.

    But none of this answers why one "ought" to do anything; sure, there are facts about what one "ought" to do in order to attain a state of affairs, but that isn't morality: that's true of any subject where two people agree to share a goal. It doesn't tell us why they should have that goal. None of this feels like a satisfying answer to the question Craig posed. I don't feel like I'm any closer to these objective moral facts.

    I should say this topic is really meaningful to me. I've thought a lot about veganism, and the suffering of non-human animals. I've thought about the impact of my consumption decisions instead of perpetually leaning on the "no ethical consumption" crutch (even though there are reasons why that would have merit in certain circumstances. I literally can't stop thinking about climate change and how powerless, yet simultaneously complicit I feel. I've read Peter Singer, Scripture, Kant, John Stewart Mill, Rawls, and works from many others, and can't find any reason for an atheist (and maybe even a theist?) to think that there are these moral facts at all, much less objective, accessible ones. This really leaves me with "I guess I should just do whatever it is that I feel like doing", which probably seems to you as unsatisfying as it was for me to type.

    14 votes

  7. Comment on 🤔 Emojivism 😀 in ~humanities

    RNG
    Link Parent
    I didn't feel that I had space in the above comment to discuss real world applications of these arguments. I think too often we neglect using non-rational psychological methods to support our...

    I didn't feel that I had space in the above comment to discuss real world applications of these arguments. I think too often we neglect using non-rational psychological methods to support our positions when engaging with conservatives.

    If there is a fundamental disagreement on facts, rational psychological arguments don't work. For instance, a lot of conservatives changed their minds about LGBT folks, abortions, or about a specific minority group because the issue hit home in some way; no facts were proven, no logical contradictions were derived.

    I think there's absolutely a place for hypothetical arguments about violinists on life support, but I'm not sure how effective that approach is.

  8. Comment on 🤔 Emojivism 😀 in ~humanities

    RNG
    Link
    One of the critiques of emotivism in the article is that it leaves no room for moral discussion. I think this, strangely enough, is one of the most persuasive arguments against emotivism. I think...

    One of the critiques of emotivism in the article is that it leaves no room for moral discussion. I think this, strangely enough, is one of the most persuasive arguments against emotivism. I think this is where C. L. Stevenson's work is helpful. He separates people's fundamental attitudes from specific moral beliefs they hold.

    Stevenson goes further than saying moral utterances are just something like "boo murder!", but that they consist of two pieces: a declaration of the speaker's fundamental attitude and an imperative. If I say "theft is bad", what I'm saying is "I disapprove of theft" combined with the imperative for the listener to "disapprove of theft as well." This imperative portion leaves his theory one where there aren't "moral facts" (moral non-cognitivism) because an imperative isn't a fact.

    There can be multiple levels here. I may have a fundamental attitude towards a specific circumstance, or towards broader categories of actions. I may say "don't steal" which means "I disapprove of theft; do so as well", but my disapproval is based on a higher order attitude like "I disapprove of actions that increase suffering; do so as well."

    The door is left open for argumentation using a few methods:

    1. Logical methods: logic can be applied to the propositional portion of moral utterances. Let's say someone says "lying is always wrong" and "telling lies to save people is okay". A contradiction can be derived from one's moral beliefs and fundamental attitudes

    2. Rational psychological methods: this involves demonstrating that the facts that connect one's fundamental attitudes to moral beliefs are incorrect. If I see a stranger go into my neighbors house, my attitude may be "breaking into other's homes is bad" which is logically consistent with my belief that "the stranger is a bad person." A rational psychological argument could be "the stranger was invited by the neighbors over and wasn't breaking in"

    3. Non-rational psychological methods: these are other arguments like emotional appeals, establishing rapport, etc. These methods don't need to logically connect to attitudes to be psychologically persuasive

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Absurd Trolley Problems in ~humanities

    RNG
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    That was a lot of fun! Kill count was 86 lol I think this little exercise shows the absurdity of trying to construct or follow a consistent normative ethical framework. It seems to me that "moral...

    That was a lot of fun! Kill count was 86 lol

    I think this little exercise shows the absurdity of trying to construct or follow a consistent normative ethical framework. It seems to me that "moral reasoning" is nothing more than a category of emotion just like anxiety or happiness, yet our language fails to provide us the tools to engage with this emotion in an authentic way.

    What's strange to me is that normative ethical theories are often "disproven" not by deriving some sort of contradiction, but by showing that it leads to uncomfortable conclusions; conclusions that the audience doesn't emotionally like. Well, maybe they're not necessarily disproven, but at a minimum the theory's proponents are given work to do to properly account for the uncomfortable conclusion to find one the audience is happier with. But, crucially, this isn't how facts work. This isn't how truth seeking works. If there are moral facts and not just moral emotions, then you'd expect people to conclude that utility monsters might actually morally deserve more resources or that you should kill one patient to give organs to the 5.

    I'd love to know what the author themselves thought about ethics.

    6 votes

  11. Comment on Jordan Peterson suspended from Twitter, says it might as well be a ban: 'I won’t apologize' in ~tech

    RNG
    Link Parent
    That may be true. Transphobia, misogyny, and otherwise appealing to reactionary intuitions has been a huge part of his brand since, though. And I'd argue that building this brand is the primary...

    That may be true.

    Transphobia, misogyny, and otherwise appealing to reactionary intuitions has been a huge part of his brand since, though. And I'd argue that building this brand is the primary reason that anyone knows his name today, rather than him fading out after his 15 minutes of fame.

    4 votes

  12. Comment on Jordan Peterson suspended from Twitter, says it might as well be a ban: 'I won’t apologize' in ~tech

    RNG
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    Link Parent
    I don't think Musk will ultimately gain control of the platform, but if a massive change to moderation strategy occurred, it would not be in the financial interests of the company. Let's say,...

    I don't think Musk will ultimately gain control of the platform, but if a massive change to moderation strategy occurred, it would not be in the financial interests of the company.

    Let's say, tomorrow, we allow any content on Twitter that doesn't technically break the law. What happens? I think the site would go through a few stages:

    1. There would be unchecked, targeted harassment of LGBTQ people on the platform; no end to the misery experienced on the platform by them
    2. LGBTQ folks would overwhelmingly stop feeling safe using Twitter and choose safer alternatives
    3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for most non-male, non-white people
    4. Rampant racism, antisemitism and conspiracy theories would dominate the platform
    5. Conservatives who are alarmed by the content on the platform would leave for fear of being associated with said content

    Twitter moderates the way it does precisely because it is the strategy that generates the most revenue for the business (and occasionally to preempt regulation.) Over the past 20 years, there have been endless efforts to make so-called "free speech" platforms made by people often with noble intentions who may have been harmed by aggressive, opaque, or unfair moderation in the past. These all go through those 5 steps; from the top of my head ruqqus, Voat, 8chan, 4chan, Kiwi Farms, Gab, etc.

    5 votes

  13. Comment on Jordan Peterson suspended from Twitter, says it might as well be a ban: 'I won’t apologize' in ~tech

    RNG
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The only reason Jordan Peterson became a mainstream public figure was due to his public opposition to Bill C-16 in Canada, which added gender identity to a list of protected classes. He claimed...

    The only reason Jordan Peterson became a mainstream public figure was due to his public opposition to Bill C-16 in Canada, which added gender identity to a list of protected classes. He claimed that Bill C-16 would "trample free speech" and "criminalize freedom of expression." He made rounds thereafter in the US conservative media circuit, sounding the alarm on Bill C-16, as it would make even "accidentally misgendering" someone a crime.

    Now you may be thinking, "C-16 must be a huge bill, filled with text that can be interpreted in a bunch of ways" and "maybe JP is either right, mistaken, or overly cautious." Well we actually have the entirety of the bill available to us right now! See the link [1]. It takes all of 20 seconds to see what a farce this is. It adds FOUR WORDS to the human rights act and criminal code to add "gender identity or expression" as a protected class along with a preexisting list of protected classes (which includes such things as "family status" and "religion"). It was passed despite his opposition.

    Also, in case we needed further evidence that the basis of his career is on a lie, he continuously demonstrates the lie when Canadian authorities continue to not prosecute him for being a vicious transphobe.

    [1] https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/2017_13/FullText.html

    Edit: grammar

    11 votes

  14. Comment on Jordan Peterson suspended from Twitter, says it might as well be a ban: 'I won’t apologize' in ~tech

    RNG
    Link Parent
    Oh god, I've never had JP click for me the way he has after this comment. Donald Trump is the poor man's idea of what a rich man is and JP is the dumb man's idea of what a smart man is.

    Oh god, I've never had JP click for me the way he has after this comment. Donald Trump is the poor man's idea of what a rich man is and JP is the dumb man's idea of what a smart man is.

    9 votes

  15. Comment on RadioShack would like to clarify that its Twitter account wasn’t hacked. It just sells crypto now. in ~tech

    RNG
    Link Parent
    Note: I should mention that some may say today is the Hay Day of DIY electronics with the ubiquity of extremely cheap, high quality microcontrollers with accessible documentation and IDEs. Online...

    Note: I should mention that some may say today is the Hay Day of DIY electronics with the ubiquity of extremely cheap, high quality microcontrollers with accessible documentation and IDEs. Online stores like Adafruit are excellent for meeting your hacky needs today.

    7 votes

  16. Comment on RadioShack would like to clarify that its Twitter account wasn’t hacked. It just sells crypto now. in ~tech

    RNG
    Link
    RadioShack originally was a really cool place for what we'd now call the "maker" community (generally DIY electronics hacking.) From building your own RC car, to making gadgets that'd make you...

    RadioShack originally was a really cool place for what we'd now call the "maker" community (generally DIY electronics hacking.) From building your own RC car, to making gadgets that'd make you think of Q from 007, the early DIY electronics scene was really cool.

    There's really nothing that screams late stage capitalism more for me than this chain dying and the final use of its IP being scooped up by a crypto-bro to shill for various crypto scams.

    12 votes

  17. Comment on Is the US going to break up? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link
    Almost certainly not. This isn't the first time there's been bitter division in the US. The Civil Rights Movements, forced desegregation of the South, the Whiskey Rebellion, the actual Civil War,...

    Almost certainly not.

    This isn't the first time there's been bitter division in the US. The Civil Rights Movements, forced desegregation of the South, the Whiskey Rebellion, the actual Civil War, McCarthyism/red scares, the anti-War movement (Vietnam), and much more had at least equal levels of unrest to what we see today.

    US civil life is better understood as a constant struggle against a reactionary minority who from the very beginning had a disproportionate amount of political power. Any sort of imagined "harmony" that existed from the 90s through the 00s is at most a break from the normalcy of conflict, though it might be just an illusion altogether.

    Also important to remember: Trump isn't responsible for republicans being conspiracy theorists or for being uniquely terrible. Just from recent memory of the pre-Trump era:

    • Massive network of torture camps set up all over the globe (friendly reminder: these receive ongoing authorization by Dems)
    • More than half the world forced into binding immunity agreements to prevent US troops for being charged for international war crimes, under penalty of harsh sanctions or worse (something Dems have never tried to undo btw)
    • The "birther" movement, and the widespread belief that Obama was a Kenyan-born Islamic terrorist
    • The Iraq war, started on a lie, that lead to the death of up to 1 million Iraqi citizens
    • FBI databases established under Bush of Muslim adherants and the tracking, searching, and harassment of people of Arabic-decent by law enforcement and intelligence agencies
    • Bush's multi-front all-out assault on the separation of church and state

    There's a through-line from the past to today. Conservatives weren't principaled statesmen prior to Trump. They were the same hateful, conspiracy-driven religious bigots they've always been.

    13 votes

  18. Comment on Reply All is officially dead. What to listen to now? in ~misc

    RNG
    Link Parent
    Wow, I have a ton to check out! Thank you so much for taking the time to write this all out. I've had an outdoorsy streak, and I'm excited for an episode of Dirt Bag Diaries! Thanks for being so...

    Wow, I have a ton to check out! Thank you so much for taking the time to write this all out. I've had an outdoorsy streak, and I'm excited for an episode of Dirt Bag Diaries!

    Thanks for being so generous with your time

    1 vote

  19. Comment on Former YouTuber Lindsay Ellis says she’s learning to live with the trauma of being ‘canceled’ in ~life

    RNG
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    What is the definition of "cancelling" then? As far as I can tell most of the discourse around this alleged phenomena is done in bad faith. No one can define "cancelling" because it'd be a bit...

    I'm not sure whichever definition you're using which somehow includes immunity for the right wing is correct. I'm not certain how that would even work.

    What is the definition of "cancelling" then? As far as I can tell most of the discourse around this alleged phenomena is done in bad faith. No one can define "cancelling" because it'd be a bit absurd to be forced to say "specifically non-conservative backlash online" which is precisely how the term is now being used.

    A small problem with your definition, it occurs to me, is that nobody who has been cancelled can talk about it... because they've been cancelled (which is what you said about both Ellis and Wynn).

    If Natalie or Ellis had their YouTube show banned (or hell, even demonitized,) it would be "cancelled" and this article would make an awful lot more sense to me. As it stands, nothing has been described that doesn't fit into the definition of "online harassment", which while truly awful, is not a unique phenomenon.

    It seems here that the function of classifying some harassment as "cancelling" is to shift the primary focus off of the worst and most prevalent online harassment, which is violent bigotry focused solely on causing harm.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Former YouTuber Lindsay Ellis says she’s learning to live with the trauma of being ‘canceled’ in ~life

    RNG
    Link Parent
    If it is a mere matter of scale, how come we don't hear about people being "cancelled" due to racist or fascist violence or harassment, which is a far greater threat at the moment? It seems like...

    Which I suppose you could argue is a "mere" matter of scale, but it's the kind of change in scale where people end up deleting all their accounts, becoming alcoholics, going into therapy for years or in some cases even taking their own lives.

    If it is a mere matter of scale, how come we don't hear about people being "cancelled" due to racist or fascist violence or harassment, which is a far greater threat at the moment? It seems like an immunity for rightists is baked into the definition. The word "cancel" literally started with, and trivially implies deplatforming.

    2 votes