nihilism

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henry quirk
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Re: nihilism

Post by henry quirk »

iambiguous wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 5:36 am
When someone in a community says that it is irresponsible to argue it is a "'natural, inalienable' right to 'buy or sell grenades or bazookas or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons'", they are just being whimsical?
Actually, when someone argues that another person ought not own a property, and the person who owns, or wants to own, that property, has done no wrong, that someone isn't bein' *whimsical: that person is bein' a friggin' buttinsky. And if that someone decides to enact, by force, their desire to see a property stripped from a person who's done no wrong, that person moves from bein' an annoying buttinsky to bein' a slaver-tyrant.

*I used whimsey and responsibility in a different context in a specific response to sumthin' you wrote. I didn't generalize, so: why are you?
But when they say that it is one's natural, inalienable right, they are being responsible?
When someone who's done no wrong asserts and defends his right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property: he's bein' moral

When someone recognizes and respects the right of another to his life, liberty, and property: he's bein' moral.

You see the difference, yeah? When someone recognizes and respects your right to own a revolver: they're moral. When someone sez you have to give up your revolver, and you've done no wrong, they're immoral.
When citizens in a community come up with what they construe to be "good reasons" to prohibit the sale of these weapons, their reasons are "whimsical".
When a community forces its members to give up property, and those members have done no wrong, that community is immoral. It doesn't matter what the property is, or how good the reasons may seem. If you've done no wrong, it's wrong to take your revolver.
Then all these guys...weighing in with their own "my way or the highway" distinction between whimsical and responsible.
Again: I used whimsey and responsibility in a particular context, in response to sumthin' you wrote. I didn't generalize: so why are you?

And those guys can adhere to any fool notions they like. If everyone in their little tribes agrees, they can visit whatever nonsense they like on themselves. Not a one, though, gets to tell someone outside their tribe diddly about squat (and no one outside their tribe gets to tell them squat about diddly, obviously). See how it works? That's a moral position.
you avoid noting how your own value judgments are not rooted existentially in the life you lived
I've never avoided it. I've flat out said: it ain't so. Burden's on you to show it is.
connect the dots to God.
If you mean this in the way I described to Harbal in that post you didn't, at last check, substantively respond to, then: yes.
out in the real world what always counts is who has or does not have the actual political power to prescribe or proscribe behaviors.
Might is not a dirty word or an immoral tool. The man who successfully defends his life, liberty, and property, or the life, liberty, and property of another from murderers, slavers, and thieves (includin' those in the State House; includin' We the People) has turned might toward a moral end. The murderers, slavers, and thieves (includin' those in the State House; includin' We the People) who successfully violate a man, take his life, liberty, property without just cause, have turned might to an immoral end. So, yeah, it counts.
And then the power to enforce the law. And here the "buying and selling of grenades or bazookas or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons" necessarily comes down to one or another combination of might makes right [autocracy/plutocracy], right makes might [objectivism/idealism] or moderation, negotiation and compromise [democracy and the rule of law].
Yes, as I say: Might is not a dirty word or an immoral tool. The man who successfully defends his life, liberty, and property, or the life, liberty, and property of another, from murderers, slavers, and thieves (includin' those in the State House; includin' We the People) has turned might toward a moral end. The murderers, slavers, and thieves (includin' those in the State House; includin' We the People) who successfully violate a man, take his life, liberty, property without just cause, have turned might to an immoral end. So, yeah, it counts.
Somebody is always going to predominate, right? Only if the liberals dominate those like you they are doing so whimsically, irresponsibly and anything but resourcefully.
Anyone (conservs, libs, greens, constitutionalists, commies, capitalists, capital L Libertarians, etc) who deprives another of life, liberty, property without just cause is an immoral monster.
Even those like gib and magsj and maia who posit their own rendition of this deep down inside intrinsic/spiritual/emotional Self will no doubt differ from you regarding any number of issues. And certainly Deists themselves are all over the board morally and politically.

There are literally millions upon millions of men and women around the globe who intertwine "I" profoundly in one or another "we". Many far more willing to identity with the family or the community than with the so-called "rugged individual" mentality.

And that's before we get to the amoral global capitalists and narcissistic sociopaths who see others only as a means to their own selfish ends.
I might disagree with those on when human life begins, but I'm guessin' we'd all agree that children ought not be killed.

I might disagree with those about the status or necessity of guns but I'm guessin' we'd all agree that a person's property is his.

I might disagree with those on when a person ought be jailed for an offense or what comprises an offense but I'm guessin' we'd all agree if there is no offense a person ought be left alone.

So, yeah we's dicker on details but not fundamentals.

I reckon I'm as committed to my family as anyone, and mebbe more than many. Does this mean they, as individuals or as a group, own me? Does this mean I have a claim to any of their lives, liberties, or properties?

As I say: even the slaver, as he affixes prices to men, knows his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's. Failing to recognize or willfully ignoring the natural rights of others violates others, it doesn't negate natural rights. I mean, a person can choose to ignore that fire burns but that doesn't change the fact fire burns, yeah?
What's that got to do with what I'm asking you to imagine? If murderers used them in or out of the weapons free zone. And if the security folks were similarly armed.
It has everything to do with it. If all these gun-free places were, instead, gun-full with armed security and responsible owners many of those mass shooting wouldn't have happened or would have turned out differently. Wolves generally stalk sheep, not other wolves.
Right now there is yet another mass shooting unfolding here in America. At an "outlet mall" in Allen, Texas. At least nine dead. The shooter was taken down by an Allen police officer there on an entirely different call. Okay, what if both the shooter and the cop used bazookas and grenades instead?
A wolf among sheep, every last one denied the right to self-defend. It woulda been one helluva bang up! 'course, you know that ain't how it woulda played out, right?
My point is that John's rendition of his own "natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property" will come into conflict in almost every community with those who insist it is their own natural, inalienable right to live somewhere where "grenades or bazookas or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons" are prohibited in regard to private citizens.
No. John's natural claim to his life, liberty, and property will only conflict with that portion of the community who are buttinskies or wanna-be slaver-tyrants. The community as you see it -- monolithic in thought, conforming in all things -- doesn't exist 'cept in your head.
All henry does over and over and over and over again is basically to insist that his take on life, liberty and property is responsible and resourceful while anyone here who does not share his own point of view is, at best, just being whimsical.
No. I used whimsical once, in a specific response: so you're wrong (again). What I do insist, over and over and over: a person, any person, every person, any where, any when, has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property (and that includes you and all your buttinsky and wanna-be slaver-tyrants buddies). What I insist, over and over and over: a person, any person, every person, any where, any when, knows he has a natural, inalienable right to his life, liberty, and property (and that includes you and all your buttinsky and wanna-be slaver-tyrants buddies).
I'm not arguing that it is inherently or necessarily wrong-headed. I'm noting only that others in the community will disagree with you in having acquired existentially their own sets of political prejudices rooted in dasein.
Oh, we'll argue, yes we will. But that argument has nuthin' to do with dasein and everything to do with them buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights (sure as shit, though: they want theirs recoginzed and respected).
He believed that in order to sustain his own understanding of what "responsibly" and "resourcefully" constituted life, liberty and property for the Aryan race in Germany, it was imperative to murder every Jew he could get his hands on.
No. He and his ilk wanna rule. The jews? The gypsies? The queers? They were scapegoats cast in the role of danger. They weren't the target, they were the means.
Just as others believe that in order to sustain their own understanding of what "responsibly" and "resourcefully" constituted life, liberty and property for the citizens of their community it was necessary to prohibit the buying and selling of "grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons."
I like how you liken the motives of anti-gunners to those of the nazi. ⭐️ for you! You're right to: they're motivated by the same thing.
So, what's this bit about me "dismiss[ing] this (presumably becuz of the priviso)" supposed to mean?
henry quirk wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:04 pm
But at least we still agree that given new information and knowledge both of us might change our minds about what we do believe.
Yes with the proviso (that I assumed was understood) information, knowledge, and those who convey either, none are created equal. So, not any or every bit of new information, knowledge, nor every conveyor of either, is worth listening to. Also, that new information or knowledge has to trump an aggregate of old, tested, information and knowledge. A popinjay with the latest new & shiny won't be accepted just cuz he or his wares are new.
For you mind-changin' is just a matter of of some (any) shiny & new gettin' lad on the table. For me: mind-changin' is serious business.
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Re: nihilism

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I see yer point Barry Allen! The dominoes ... they fall ... and amazingly ... you get ... beautiful ruins.
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Re: nihilism

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Agent Smith wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 10:14 pm I see yer point Barry Allen! The dominoes ... they fall ... and amazingly ... you get ... beautiful ruins.
I've been readin' these blips of yours all over. They're interesting but never seem to connect with the thread or conversation you drop 'em into. What am I missing?
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Re: nihilism

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henry quirk wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 12:09 pm
Agent Smith wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 10:14 pm I see yer point Barry Allen! The dominoes ... they fall ... and amazingly ... you get ... beautiful ruins.
I've been readin' these blips of yours all over. They're interesting but never seem to connect with the thread or conversation you drop 'em into. What am I missing?
Your honorable parents must've told ya "Think big ... like ya always do ... henry quirk". In me case, mon ami, think smaaall and you'll be perfectly fine. See ya around stranger! My nano-sized thoughts shouldn't be much of a bother.
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Re: nihilism

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Re: nihilism

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henry quirk wrote:
iambiguous wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 5:36 am
When someone in a community says that it is irresponsible to argue it is a "'natural, inalienable' right to 'buy or sell grenades or bazookas or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons'", they are just being whimsical?
Actually, when someone argues that another person ought not own a property, and the person who owns, or wants to own, that property, has done no wrong, that someone isn't bein' *whimsical: that person is bein' a friggin' buttinsky. And if that someone decides to enact, by force, their desire to see a property stripped from a person who's done no wrong, that person moves from bein' an annoying buttinsky to bein' a slaver-tyrant.
Again, simply unbelievable.

The only thing that matters to you is that "here and now" someone has done no harm with their hand guns or rifles or AR-15s or bazookas or grenades or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons. Even though, for any number of reasons, that might change -- someone pisses them off, their circumstances change, they become afflicted with a tumor or a mental disease.

Again, just imagine someone like Charles Whitman in that Texas tower with military grade weapons. And then on up to today where at one time these guys -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shoo ... ted_States -- had done no harm to anyone either.
henry quirk wrote:I used whimsey and responsibility in a different context in a specific response to sumthin' you wrote. I didn't generalize, so: why are you?
Well, let's just say that I don't make this same distinction about you, henry. I see you as reacting to others who refuse to think as you do about things like guns such that it does include words like whimsical and irresponsible. Or irrational or immoral when they come after your own guns.

I merely note, in turn, that this is just my own rooted existentially in dasein subjective reaction to you. Something that objectivists never do. Instead, they've got their God or their ideology or their favorite philosopher or one or another "arrogant, autocratic and authoritarian" One True Path to sustain their own "my way or the highway" mentality.
But when they say that it is one's natural, inalienable right, they are being responsible?
henry quirk wrote:When someone who's done no wrong asserts and defends his right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property: he's bein' moral

When someone recognizes and respects the right of another to his life, liberty, and property: he's bein' moral.

You see the difference, yeah? When someone recognizes and respects your right to own a revolver: they're moral. When someone sez you have to give up your revolver, and you've done no wrong, they're immoral.
Oh, I see the manner in which you make that distinction, henry. But what I don't see is you owning up to the fact that others can be just as adamant regarding distinctions [very different from yours] that they make. When push comes to shove you [like them from the other side] remain just run-of-the-mill objectivists to me.

At least until you note important value judgments you once held dear but now reject...whether because some new experiences or some new relationships or some new information and knowledge changed your mind or as a result of, say, an exchange here.

But, I suspect you never will. Why? Because, again, in my opinion, once you acknowledge you changed your mind about "important things" before you are accepting that you might change your mind about "important things" again. Like rejecting your own and others right to buy and sell bazookas or grenades or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons.

Nope, either from one or another "rooted existentially in the psychology of objectivism" rationale...God, "intuition", your own dogmatic sense of what is reasonable...I suspect you are likely to go to the grave sustaining your own renditions of Ruby Ridge.
Then all these guys...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...weighing in with their own "my way or the highway" distinction between whimsical and responsible.

Then the part where you avoid noting how your own value judgments are not rooted existentially in the life you lived
henry quirk wrote:I've never avoided it. I've flat out said: it ain't so. Burden's on you to show it is.
Look, henry, if you can actually convince yourself that no matter the historical era and culture you were born into, no matter your childhood indoctrination or the uniquely personal experiences and relationships you had over the years, no matter that you happened to read, hear and view these things rather than those things, you'd still think about abortion, guns and transgender men and women as you do today, I won't attempt further to suggest just how ludicrous that is.
connect the dots to God.
henry quirk wrote: If you mean this in the way I described to Harbal in that post you didn't, at last check, substantively respond to, then: yes.
I'll leave it to others to decide for themselves how I responded to your points to Harbal.
henry quirk wrote: Of course we won't talk about John just leavin' folks be and folks leavin' him be as a viable option. Nope, it's always who gets to dominate who with you people.
Unbelievable. Folks here can argue back and forth regarding which argument is more reasonable. But out in the real world what always counts is who has or does not have the actual political power to prescribe or proscribe behaviors.
henry quirk wrote: Might is not a dirty word or an immoral tool. The man who successfully defends his life, liberty, and property, or the life, liberty, and property of another from murderers, slavers, and thieves (includin' those in the State House; includin' We the People) has turned might toward a moral end. The murderers, slavers, and thieves (includin' those in the State House; includin' We the People) who successfully violate a man, take his life, liberty, property without just cause, have turned might to an immoral end. So, yeah, it counts.
Over and over and over again, in my view, your flagrant hypocrisy.

Might is not a dirty word or an immoral tool in regard to guns if those in political power in your community leave both yours and those who own grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons alone. If they share precisely your own political prejudices in regard to what could easily become actual weapons of mass destruction then might is a great thing. Right makes things might for you here.

But if political might is used by those at the other end of the moral and political spectrum? Over your dead body!!! God and guns seem synonymous to you. "Intuitively" you just know that when God created men and women to be reasonable, He had you in mind.
Somebody is always going to predominate, right? Only if the liberals dominate those like you they are doing so whimsically, irresponsibly and anything but resourcefully.
Then just more of the same "my way or the highway" mentality...
henry quirk wrote: Anyone (conservs, libs, greens, constitutionalists, commies, capitalists, capital L Libertarians, etc) who deprives another of life, liberty, property without just cause is an immoral monster.
If Joe has claymore mines surrounding his home and children come on his property and blow themselves up he insists he had a just cause to plant them. And the kids were trespassing after all. As long as those like you get to decide what constitutes a just cause that makes it a just cause. So, sure, since murdering her unborn baby was just to Jane, and the government comes to arrest her and charge her with first degree murder, she feels it is just as well to blow the authorities that come after her away.

Or maybe Bob goes off his rocker and armed with an arsenal of military grade weapons he rationalizes [to himself] all manner of crazy things as a just cause.
Even those like gib and magsj and maia who posit their own rendition of this deep down inside intrinsic/spiritual/emotional Self will no doubt differ from you regarding any number of issues. And certainly Deists themselves are all over the board morally and politically.

There are literally millions upon millions of men and women around the globe who intertwine "I" profoundly in one or another "we". Many far more willing to identity with the family or the community than with the so-called "rugged individual" mentality.

And that's before we get to the amoral global capitalists and narcissistic sociopaths who see others only as a means to their own selfish ends.
henry quirk wrote: I might disagree with those on when human life begins, but I'm guessin' we'd all agree that children ought not be killed.
Again, in a No God world there are still those who kill children. Sociopaths, perhaps. Or as was the case when China adopted their one child policy parents who wanted boys would kill babies born girls. Then the fact that your own God created a human biology that results in such things as miscarriages and still births. Not to mention all of the "acts of God" that have result in the deaths of millions of children down through the centuries. Only at least with IC's Christian God it can be argued that they are now in Heaven. What of the slaughter of the innocent and your God, henry?
henry quirk wrote: I might disagree with those about the status or necessity of guns but I'm guessin' we'd all agree that a person's property is his.
What property in what set of circumstances? Again, down through the history, in different historical and cultural contexts, property was understood in very different ways. Still, I recall reading once where Ayn Rand actually argued that the only reason more primitive cultures focused more on "we" instead of "I" was because there wasn't a Joh Galt around to set them straight!!

And on and on. What you disagree about and what you assume all rational and virtuous folks would agree regarding is flagrantly biased to reflect your own political prejudices. Which, in my view, you cannot even grasp the extent to which is rooted existentially/subjectively in the life you lived. Instead, it is ultimately about your "intuitions" derived from a God who, apparently, created you to be the model citizens for all things Rational.
henry quirk wrote: As I say: even the slaver, as he affixes prices to men, knows his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's. Failing to recognize or willfully ignoring the natural rights of others violates others, it doesn't negate natural rights. I mean, a person can choose to ignore that fire burns but that doesn't change the fact fire burns, yeah?
Tell that to the slaves, henry!!! Instead, any number of slave owners rationalized institutionalized slavery precisely because black people were not perceived by them to actually be people at all. Some even went further and evoked the Christian God. And then there's Hitler and the Jews. And the capitalists sustaining what many construe to a system of wage-slaves.
I mean, imagine if instead of handguns and rifles and shotgun, these guys...used grenades or bazookas or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons to accomplish their righteous intentions.
henry quirk wrote: Better yet: imagine if these weapon-free zones the murderers gravitate to were instead premises patrolled by armed security or armed personnel on site zones.
What's that got to do with what I'm asking you to imagine? If murderers used them in or out of the weapons free zone. And if the security folks were similarly armed.
It has everything to do with it. If all these gun-free places were, instead, gun-full with armed security and responsible owners many of those mass shooting wouldn't have happened or would have turned out differently. Wolves generally stalk sheep, not other wolves.
That's not my point henry. My point is that it's not guns the shooters and security forces have but bazookas, grenades and other military grade weapons. And any number of these shooters are so filled with rage [or even mentally ill] that security forces are not likely to stop them. Instead, they'd be blasting each other with weapons far, far, far more destructive than handguns and rifles.
Right now there is yet another mass shooting unfolding here in America. At an "outlet mall" in Allen, Texas. At least nine dead. The shooter was taken down by an Allen police officer there on an entirely different call. Okay, what if both the shooter and the cop used bazookas and grenades instead?
henry quirk wrote: A wolf among sheep, every last one denied the right to self-defend. It woulda been one helluva bang up! 'course, you know that ain't how it woulda played out, right?
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

I'm asking you to imagine if both the shooter and the cop were armed with military grade weapons because in your own best of all possible community private citizens were permitted to buy and sell them. What...if only all the shoppers in the malls were also armed in the same manner? A helluva bang up indeed!!
My point is that John's rendition of his own "natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property" will come into conflict in almost every community with those who insist it is their own natural, inalienable right to live somewhere where "grenades or bazookas or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons" are prohibited in regard to private citizens.
henry quirk wrote: No. John's natural claim to his life, liberty, and property will only conflict with that portion of the community who are buttinskies or wanna-be slaver-tyrants. The community as you see it -- monolithic in thought, conforming in all things -- doesn't exist 'cept in your head.
No, it's in your head henry that all the grenade, bazooka, artillery piece, RPG, IED, or chemical and biological weapon packing folks are the good guys that never, ever harm anyone.
Note to others:

What am I missing? How am I misconstruing henry's point here? My point is that John's rendition of his own "natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property" will come into conflict in almost every community with those who insist it is their own natural, inalienable right to live somewhere where "grenades or bazookas or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons" are prohibited in regard to private citizens.


All henry does over and over and over and over again is basically to insist that his take on life, liberty and property is responsible and resourceful while anyone here who does not share his own point of view is, at best, just being whimsical.
henry quirk wrote: No. I used whimsical once, in a specific response: so you're wrong (again). What I do insist, over and over and over: a person, any person, every person, any where, any when, has a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property (and that includes you and all your buttinsky and wanna-be slaver-tyrants buddies). What I insist, over and over and over: a person, any person, every person, any where, any when, knows he has a natural, inalienable right to his life, liberty, and property (and that includes you and all your buttinsky and wanna-be slaver-tyrants buddies).
Note to others:

Hey, I tried, right? But, for some, once a wiggler, always a wiggler. They have to avoid above all else the points I raise because nothing is allowed to come between their God given intuitive convictions and the comfort and consolation that comes with knowing they are "one of us" [the good, smart guys] and not "one of them" [the evil, dumb guys].
henry quirk wrote: Tell me why this is wrong-headed.
(note the bold, underlined, challenge: you haven't taken it up)
I'm not arguing that it is inherently or necessarily wrong-headed. I'm noting only that others in the community will disagree with you in having acquired existentially their own sets of political prejudices rooted in dasein.
henry quirk wrote: Oh, we'll argue, yes we will. But that argument has nuthin' to do with dasein and everything to do with them buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights (sure as shit, though: they want theirs recoginzed and respected).
Yeah, we get that part henry. If they don't share your own intuitive God-given capacity to grasp the right to buy and sell guns and weapons of all kinds they are "buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights."

And even though all of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...guys will say the same thing about you, you, like all of them, really are telling it like it is.
I'm sure that Hitler justified the Holocaust..."intuitively" and otherwise...as his own natural, inalienable right.
henry quirk wrote: Even a casual review of the history shows otherwise. He, like so many, like yourself, drummed up good reasons to violate life, liberty, and property.
He believed that in order to sustain his own understanding of what "responsibly" and "resourcefully" constituted life, liberty and property for the Aryan race in Germany, it was imperative to murder every Jew he could get his hands on.
henry quirk wrote: No. He and his ilk wanna rule. The jews? The gypsies? The queers? They were scapegoats cast in the role of danger. They weren't the target, they were the means.
Please. They wanna rule because, among other things, they want to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals. They were just as convinced that this was the right thing to do as you are that buying and selling every and all kind of weapon is the right thing to do.

Note to the Jews here:

Did you see Jews sent to the death camps back then more as targets or means?
Just as others believe that in order to sustain their own understanding of what "responsibly" and "resourcefully" constituted life, liberty and property for the citizens of their community it was necessary to prohibit the buying and selling of "grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons."
henry quirk wrote: I like how you liken the motives of anti-gunners to those of the nazi. ⭐️ for you! You're right to: they're motivated by the same thing.
No, again, my point is that in a No God world, there appears to be no way for mere mortals to demonstrate [philosophically or otherwise] that either side in these debates is objectively/essentially/inherently/necessarily right or wrong. And that our individual value judgments here are subjectively rooted in political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein.
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Re: nihilism

Post by henry quirk »

iambiguous wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 5:05 pm
"The only thing that matters to you is that "here and now" someone has done no harm with their hand guns or rifles or AR-15s or bazookas or grenades or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons."

Yes. Here, in America, we punish someone for crimes committed, not crimes he may commit (that's how it used to be, anyway). Don't you know this? Innocent till proven guilty, not guilty till proven innocent.

"immoral when they come after your own guns."

If I've done no wrong, and they come my shotgun, yeah, they're friggin' immoral. If anyone, who's done no wrong, has life, liberty, and property taken, the taker is a thief.

"if political might is used by those at the other end of the moral and political spectrum?"

If murderers, slavers, and thieves come for me and mine, or our various properties, yep, there's gonna be a problem. I expect if I came to you under the guise of authority and demanded your life, liberty, or property, when you'd done no wrong, you'd fight back too (mebbe not though...you've already admitted you'd give up your gun if legislators simply said you'd had to...I'm guessin' you're so whipped you'd do just whatever TPTB commanded, includin' bustlin' your keister into the boxcar).

"If Joe has claymore mines surrounding his home and children come on his property and blow themselves up he insists he had a just cause to plant them."

He doesn't need just cause to plant them. He has a right to turn his land into a mine field. It's his property. So, teach your kids to stay the hell offa other people's lawns when not invited. Or, let 'em get retroactively aborted.

"So, sure, since murdering her unborn baby was just to Jane, and the government comes to arrest her and charge her with first degree murder, she feels it is just as well to blow the authorities that come after her away."

If Mary -- the lovely creature who, along with John, done broke you -- is carrying nuthin' but human meat, then nobody ought give her grief for roto-rooterin' that right out. If she carries a person, well, that's the basic question isn't it? What is the pregnant, Iam-shatterin', Mary carrying when pregnant?

"Or maybe Bob goes off his rocker and armed with an arsenal of military grade weapons he rationalizes [to himself] all manner of crazy things as a just cause."

Or mebbe he goes off his rocker and plows his Tesla through a crowd of Antifa of BLM. We just can't be sure he won't...he is white (obviously a racist)...let's be safe and take his car before he can do wrong.

"in a No God world there are still those who kill children"

In an amoral world (exactly the kind you and so many in-forum imagine we live in) killing kids is amoral. In a moral universe (exactly the kind we all actually live in) killin' kids is murder.

"China adopted their one child policy parents who wanted boys would kill babies born girls."

Yes, that slaver state encouraged parents to murder their kids.

"Then the fact that your own God created a human biology that results in such things as miscarriages and still births. Not to mention all of the "acts of God" that have result in the deaths of millions of children down through the centuries. Only at least with IC's Christian God it can be argued that they are now in Heaven. What of the slaughter of the innocent and your God, henry?"

You can blame the God you claim not to believe in for whatever you like. Me, I'm grateful that His Creation produced me, a wildcard, to live in this marvelous clockwork of a Reality...and, should I ever meet Him, I'll tell Him so.

"down through the history, in different historical and cultural contexts, property was understood in very different ways."

No it wasn't. What differs are the ways slavers and thieves presented and present their slavin' and thievin' ways to their prey. Some are blunt: they take. Others are connivers, they hoodwink. But as far as what constitutes property, that hasn't changed. It's been the same everywhere and -when, to everyone.

"any number of slave owners rationalized institutionalized slavery precisely because black people were not perceived by them to actually be people at all."

Yep. They were, like you are today, willin' to violate the lives, liberties, and properties of others. Unlike you, though, not a one would have thought it right that he should be violated. As I say: even the slaver, as he affixes prices to men, knows his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's.

Thank you for the opportunity to hammer that home.

"And the capitalists sustaining what many construe to a system of wage-slaves."

Yep, capitalism is a horrorshow (unlike Free enterprise which is *ahem* a God-send).

"so filled with rage"

Like you?

"if both the shooter and the cop were armed with military grade weapons...and...private citizens were permitted to buy and sell them, they'd be blasting each other with weapons far, far, far more destructive than handguns and rifles."

In a free society, that's a possibility, yeah. Kind of a self-correctin' problem, though, don't you think?

"in your head henry that all the grenade, bazooka, artillery piece, RPG, IED, or chemical and biological weapon packing folks are the good guys that never, ever harm anyone."

I never said that or hinted that. Admit it: you made that up. Or, you can post a citation. Or, you can just dissemble, obfuscate, and inveigle...like always.

"even though all of these...guys will say the same thing about you, you, like all of them, really are telling it like it is."

The difference between me and them is I won't violate them, but, like you, they'll sure as hell violate me. Like you, like many in-forum, they'll justify any atrocity in the name of whatever they can pull directly out of their rear ends. They'll offend. Me, I'll just self-defend.

"They wanna rule because, among other things, they want to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals."

Nope. As I say: they were scapegoats cast in the role of danger. They weren't the target, they were the means.

"buying and selling every and all kind of weapon is the right thing to do."

Again: a person, any person, every person, any where, any when, has a natural, inviolate right to his, and no other's, life liberty, and property. An't nuthin' in there about what folks ought to have. Ain't nuthin' encouragin' anyone to arm up.

"in a No God world, there appears to be no way for mere mortals to demonstrate [philosophically or otherwise] that either side in these debates is objectively/essentially/inherently/necessarily right or wrong."

It's not a No God world.

"And that our individual value judgments here are subjectively rooted in political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein."

None of that is true.

-----

And, yeah, I snipped out all your assessments and repetitions and self-aggrandizements and a goodly chunk of your moralizing.

Sue me.

-----

Quoting is off on my end (hell if I know why), so: I made do.
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Yo, AJ!

Got a challenge for you.

Saytr is bombarding my nihilism thread over at ILP with endless excerpts from folks he feels put me in my place: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... &start=650

Again, from my frame of mind, as a moral nihilist, I am only interested in nihilism as it pertains to conflicting goods. To conflicting value judgments.

Given a particular context.

So, please peruse the excerpts Satyr has dumped on my thread over there and note what you construe to be most powerful argument rebutting the points I raise on this thread.

Also, given a particular context, encourage Satyr to do the same. How would, for example, his hero Stephen Hicks react to the points I make here -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529 -- given a particular set of circumstances.



AJ...

This all he can muster:
Satyr wrote:A plea for help from Karen.
Damsel in distress!
Will the cavalry cum-a runnin'?
Show him how it's done okay.
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

What is Nihilism?
Curated by TheCollector
Nihilism Sometimes Overlaps with Existentialism and Absurdism
So, what is the difference?

How about this: Given a particular set of circumstances most here will be familiar with, let's attempt to note how we might make a distinction between them. Where does one description end and another begin?
Towards the 20th century, the doom and gloom attitude of Nihilism softened. It eventually evolved into the less anarchic style of Existentialism. While Existentialists shared some of the skepticism about power systems and religion as their predecessors, they also believed the individual had the power to find their own purpose in life.
Doom and gloom if that's where you construe nihilism takes us. But others embrace it instead as a liberating force in their lives. Why? Because unlike other Isms that anchor you to Good or Evil, Right or Wrong, True or False in regard to what you think, feel, say and do around others, nihilism opens the door to endless possible new options. You do what want to do because doing it will gratify you. And for whatever entirely personal reason. It's not "what ought I to do?" but "can I get away with doing it?"

And this can revolve around whatever you come to construe [existentially] to be the right thing to do or around flat-out sociopathic behaviors.
From Existentialism, Absurdism emerged. The Absurdists argued that the world might well be chaotic, turbulent and absurd, but we could still celebrate it, or perhaps even laugh, but only in a wry, cynical way.
Absurdism seems particularly ambiguous to me. Sure, you can go in a constructive, life-affirming direction [re Nietzsche's Übermensch] or in a destructive "fuck it all" direction. Whatever seems the most absurd to you.
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

iambiguous wrote:The only thing that matters to you is that "here and now" someone has done no harm with their hand guns or rifles or AR-15s or bazookas or grenades or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons. Even though, for any number of reasons, that might change -- someone pisses them off, their circumstances change, they become afflicted with a tumor or a mental disease.

Again, just imagine someone like Charles Whitman in that Texas tower with military grade weapons. And then on up to today where at one time these guys -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shoo ... ted_States -- had done no harm to anyone either.
henry quirk wrote: Yes. Here, in America, we punish someone for crimes committed, not crimes he may commit (that's how it used to be, anyway). Don't you know this? Innocent till proven guilty, not guilty till proven innocent.
Come on, what does that really have to do with my point? Okay, someone with grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces, etc., has done no harm to anyone. But then someone does piss him off or his life does change or he is afflicted with a brain tumor or a mental disease. Then what?

Back to the list of "shooters" above. What personal experiences reconfigured them into mass murderers? And, again, suppose they used bazookas instead of handguns or rifles?
henry quirk wrote: I used whimsey and responsibility in a different context in a specific response to sumthin' you wrote. I didn't generalize, so: why are you?
Well, let's just say that I don't make this same distinction about you, henry. I see you as reacting to others who refuse to think as you do about things like guns such that it does include words like whimsical and irresponsible. Or irrational or immoral when they come after your own guns.

I merely note, in turn, that this is just my own rooted existentially in dasein subjective reaction to you. Something that objectivists never do. Instead, they've got their God or their ideology or their favorite philosopher or one or another "arrogant, autocratic and authoritarian" One True Path to sustain their own "my way or the highway" mentality.
henry quirk wrote: If I've done no wrong, and they come my shotgun, yeah, they're friggin' immoral. If anyone, who's done no wrong, has life, liberty, and property taken, the taker is a thief.
And around and around you go. As though gun laws are always going to revolve around the way citizens are now [peaceful, posing no danger] and not anticipate them becoming something altogether more threatening. And for any number of reasons. It just comes down to where in each jurisdiction the line is drawn. Some nations prefer minimal restrictions, others considerable restrictions. And both sides have access to reasonable arguments able to defend each point of view. Accept for the "my way or the highway" fanatics like you.
Look, henry, if you can actually convince yourself that no matter the historical era and culture you were born into, no matter your childhood indoctrination or the uniquely personal experiences and relationships you had over the years, no matter that you happened to read, hear and view these things rather than those things, you'd still think about abortion, guns and transgender men and women as you do today, I won't attempt further to suggest just how ludicrous that is.
How about responding to this, henry? Again, how is this not applicable to you?
Over and over and over again, in my view, your flagrant hypocrisy.

Might is not a dirty word or an immoral tool in regard to guns if those in political power in your community leave both yours and those who own grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons alone. If they share precisely your own political prejudices in regard to what could easily become actual weapons of mass destruction then might is a great thing. Right makes things might for you here.


But if political might is used by those at the other end of the moral and political spectrum? Over your dead body!!! God and guns seem synonymous to you. "Intuitively" you just know that when God created men and women to be reasonable, He had you in mind.
henry quirk wrote: If murderers, slavers, and thieves come for me and mine, or our various properties, yep, there's gonna be a problem. I expect if I came to you under the guise of authority and demanded your life, liberty, or property, when you'd done no wrong, you'd fight back too (mebbe not though...you've already admitted you'd give up your gun if legislators simply said you'd had to...I'm guessin' you're so whipped you'd do just whatever TPTB commanded, includin' bustlin' your keister into the boxcar).
You simply iterate your "as long as 'here and now' I'm hurting no one with anything that I choose to own" then the community is morally obligated to let me own it argument. Yes, it's possible that those who do come to own grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs and biological and chemical weapons will never cause others harm. But many, many citizens will argue [reasonably] that they are not willing to take that chance.
If Joe has claymore mines surrounding his home and children come on his property and blow themselves up he insists he had a just cause to plant them.
henry quirk wrote: He doesn't need just cause to plant them. He has a right to turn his land into a mine field. It's his property. So, teach your kids to stay the hell offa other people's lawns when not invited. Or, let 'em get retroactively aborted.
Note to others:

Bingo! He really means it!!

This actually is as far as the "my way or the highway" moral and political fanatics will take it!! All the way to Adolph Hitler who, as far as he was concerned, owned Germany!!!
So, sure, since murdering her unborn baby was just to Jane, and the government comes to arrest her and charge her with first degree murder, she feels it is just as well to blow the authorities that come after her away.
henry quirk wrote: If Mary -- the lovely creature who, along with John, done broke you -- is carrying nuthin' but human meat, then nobody ought give her grief for roto-rooterin' that right out. If she carries a person, well, that's the basic question isn't it? What is the pregnant, Iam-shatterin', Mary carrying when pregnant?
Well, for the particularly fierce "my way or the highway" moral fanatics like you, whatever you say she is. Right, henry? Your God-given intuitive capacity to "just know" these things need be as far as it goes of course.
Or maybe Bob goes off his rocker and armed with an arsenal of military grade weapons he rationalizes [to himself] all manner of crazy things as a just cause.
henry quirk wrote: Or mebbe he goes off his rocker and plows his Tesla through a crowd of Antifa of BLM. We just can't be sure he won't...he is white (obviously a racist)...let's be safe and take his car before he can do wrong.
Hmm. You seem to be a bit off the rocker here yourself, henry. The point being that when someone does go off his or her rocker, God help those who come between them and their bazookas. Only, your God isn't even around anymore.
henry quirk wrote: I might disagree with those on when human life begins, but I'm guessin' we'd all agree that children ought not be killed.
Again, in a No God world there are still those who kill children, Sociopaths, perhaps.
henry quirk wrote: In an amoral world (exactly the kind you and so many in-forum imagine we live in) killing kids is amoral. In a moral universe (exactly the kind we all actually live in) killin' kids is murder.
Right. Again, your God-given intuitive capacity to "just know" these things are rational. A moral universe indeed. But it damn well had better be one where you and your "arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian" objectivist ilk determine what is moral. Even if occasionally off their rockers.
China adopted their one child policy parents who wanted boys would kill babies born girls.
henry quirk wrote: Yes, that slaver state encouraged parents to murder their kids.
And now that state capitalist autocratic nation is doing everything it can to encourage new births.
Then the fact that your own God created a human biology that results in such things as miscarriages and still births. Not to mention all of the "acts of God" that have result in the deaths of millions of children down through the centuries. Only at least with IC's Christian God it can be argued that they are now in Heaven. What of the slaughter of the innocent and your God, henry?
henry quirk wrote: You can blame the God you claim not to believe in for whatever you like. Me, I'm grateful that His Creation produced me, a wildcard, to live in this marvelous clockwork of a Reality...and, should I ever meet Him, I'll tell Him so.
Fine, and then He can explain to you why He hardwired human biology so that "an estimated 23 million miscarriages occur every year worldwide, translating to 44 pregnancy losses each minute" NIH

Not to mention all the babies and infants and toddlers and children who were, are and will be maimed and mutilated and massacred in these "acts of God":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events
henry quirk wrote: I might disagree with those about the status or necessity of guns but I'm guessin' we'd all agree that a person's property is his.
What property in what set of circumstances? Again, down through the history, in different historical and cultural contexts, property was understood in very different ways. Still, I recall reading once where Ayn Rand actually argued that the only reason more primitive cultures focused more on "we" instead of "I" was because there wasn't a Joh Galt around to set them straight!!

And on and on. What you disagree about and what you assume all rational and virtuous folks would agree regarding is flagrantly biased to reflect your own political prejudices. Which, in my view, you cannot even grasp the extent to which is rooted existentially/subjectively in the life you lived. Instead, it is ultimately about your "intuitions" derived from a God who, apparently, created you to be the model citizens for all things Rational.
henry quirk wrote: No it wasn't. What differs are the ways slavers and thieves presented and present their slavin' and thievin' ways to their prey. Some are blunt: they take. Others are connivers, they hoodwink. But as far as what constitutes property, that hasn't changed. It's been the same everywhere and -when, to everyone.
Just like Rand. Forget about the fact that historically and culturally there were many, many, many conflicting assessments of human social, political and economic interaction -- of life, liberty and property. Nope, the only thing that counted was how she grasped them.

The same with you, henry. Only you need a God to fall back on and Rand would have held you in contempt for being so weak.
any number of slave owners rationalized institutionalized slavery precisely because black people were not perceived by them to actually be people at all.
My point is that it's not guns the shooters and security forces have but bazookas, grenades and other military grade weapons. And any number of these shooters are so filled with rage [or even mentally ill] that security forces are not likely to stop them. Instead, they'd be blasting each other with weapons far, far, far more destructive than handguns and rifles.
I'm asking you to imagine if both the shooter and the cop were armed with military grade weapons because in your own best of all possible community private citizens were permitted to buy and sell them. What if all the shoppers in the malls were also armed in the same manner? A helluva bang up indeed!!
henry quirk wrote: In a free society, that's a possibility, yeah. Kind of a self-correctin' problem, though, don't you think?
No, actually, I think that if every citizen in America today were armed with grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces of all kinds the problems would be...worse?
No, it's in your head henry that all the grenade, bazooka, artillery piece, RPG, IED, or chemical and biological weapon packing folks are the good guys that never, ever harm anyone.
henry quirk wrote: I never said that or hinted that. Admit it: you made that up. Or, you can post a citation. Or, you can just dissemble, obfuscate, and inveigle...like always.
Above you noted that those who have "done no harm" to others ought to be free to own anything they can afford. Then I noted all of the contexts in which things might change for them and they do choose to harm others. Only this time with grenades and bazookas and the like.
henry quirk wrote: Oh, we'll argue, yes we will. But that argument has nuthin' to do with dasein and everything to do with them buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights (sure as shit, though: they want theirs recoginzed and respected).
Yeah, we get that part henry. If they don't share your own intuitive God-given capacity to grasp the right to buy and sell guns and weapons of all kinds they are "buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights."

And even though all of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...guys will say the same thing about you, you, like all of them, really are telling it like it is.[/quote]
henry quirk wrote: The difference between me and them is I won't violate them, but, like you, they'll sure as hell violate me. Like you, like many in-forum, they'll justify any atrocity in the name of whatever they can pull directly out of their rear ends. They'll offend. Me, I'll just self-defend.
Come on, henry, if you are in a community where the political power is in the hands of those above who, like you, practice a "my way or the highway" approach to rewarding and punishing behavior, they will construe you as violating their own dogmatic moral and political prejudices if you dare to defy them. Just as you will defy them if they embrace a political agenda that comes after your guns or embraces a transgender lifestyle. That's how it works for those of you ilk. It's just that if you are someone like Satyr over at KT, you merely call people disgusting names or ban them or "disappear" them from the discussions. But if you are someone like Adolph Hitler acting out his own rendition of life, liberty and property...?
henry quirk wrote: He and his ilk wanna rule. The jews? The gypsies? The queers? They were scapegoats cast in the role of danger. They weren't the target, they were the means.
Please. They wanna rule because, among other things, they want to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals. They were just as convinced that this was the right thing to do as you are that buying and selling every and all kind of weapon is the right thing to do.

Note to the Jews here:

Did you see Jews sent to the death camps back then more as targets or means?
henry quirk wrote: Nope. As I say: they were scapegoats cast in the role of danger. They weren't the target, they were the means.
Darn it. I keep forgetting your God-given intuitive capacity to "just know" these things are true "in your head". The Holocaust was the means employed by Hitler to target -- exterminate -- the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals. But it's how Hitler understood this distinction that mattered.
henry quirk wrote: I like how you liken the motives of anti-gunners to those of the nazi. ⭐️ for you! You're right to: they're motivated by the same thing.
No, again, my point is that in a No God world, there appears to be no way for mere mortals to demonstrate [philosophically or otherwise] that either side in these debates is objectively/essentially/inherently/necessarily right or wrong. And that our individual value judgments here are subjectively rooted in political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein.
henry quirk wrote: It's not a No God world.
So say you. And so say...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
...them.

And the one thing you all share in common is that there is absolutely no substantive or substantial evidence available to you to actually demonstrate His existence.

Or, if there is, by all means, link me to it.
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Re: nihilism

Post by henry quirk »

iambiguous wrote: Sun May 14, 2023 11:08 pm
"Come on, what does that really have to do with my point?"

Everything. I can offer a list as long as my arm of items and conveyances that, should a body go koo-koo, can be devastating. By your logic, every last one ought be removed from the grocery store, sporting goods department, car lot, etc. Guilty till proven innocent: that's your bag.

"Then what?"

'Then what?' right 'now'? What happens ' now' when a nutjob goes off?

When you get a chance, take a look at this site...

https://homemadeguns.wordpress.com

"both sides have access to reasonable arguments able to defend each point of view."

No sir, they do not. Any people, society, government, or State the undergirds its conventions, procedures, policies, or legislation with violations of individual life, liberty, and property is wrong, wrong-headed, and down-right immoral.

But, hey, let's play a game: you, the anti-gunner (who owns a revolver), make your 'reasonable' arguments why I, the natural rights promotin' shotgun owner ought not have my twin-barreled instrument of DEATH, and I shall respond 'reasonably'. (As you like: you may substitute any instrument of DEATH you like for the shotgun...won't make any difference to my position).

"How about responding to this, henry? Again, how is this not applicable to you?

You mean this..."Look, henry, if you can actually convince yourself that no matter the historical era and culture you were born into, no matter your childhood indoctrination or the uniquely personal experiences and relationships you had over the years, no matter that you happened to read, hear and view these things rather than those things, you'd still think about abortion, guns and transgender men and women as you do today, I won't attempt further to suggest just how ludicrous that is."...?

It's not worth responding to. My views on murder, property, nutjobbery, all extend out of my recognition of my own natural rights and the natural rights of others. As I say, I am not a receptacle into which the world pours an outlook. I'm a free will and an apprehender: I go a'lookin', and I'm never satisfied with the 'shiny & new'. It's gonna take more than the mewling of a a shallow tart and her cuckold husband to 'move' me. More than the caterwauling high school-level 'rhetorician' to break me.

Or mebbe you mean this..."Over and over and over again, in my view, your flagrant hypocrisy.

Might is not a dirty word or an immoral tool in regard to guns if those in political power in your community leave both yours and those who own grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons alone. If they share precisely your own political prejudices in regard to what could easily become actual weapons of mass destruction then might is a great thing. Right makes things might for you here.

But if political might is used by those at the other end of the moral and political spectrum? Over your dead body!!! God and guns seem synonymous to you. "Intuitively" you just know that when God created men and women to be reasonable, He had you in mind."...?

First off, I don't give a sparrow's fart what you think about me. You're just words on a screen to me (and not particularly 'thoughtful' words either).

Second, there's not much in the second and third paragraphs I haven't already responded to. It's not about 'right' vs 'left' (really, you think the 'right' has my back? you think I have 'theirs'?). Its about, fundamentally, the free man vs the slaver. No free man looks at mass destruction kindly, and no slaver ever takes mass destruction off the table (which side of the Russia-Ukraine conflict are 'you' on?)

As for God, and his place in my thinkin' as end-point & explanation (rather than beginning & 'justification'): when you've demonstrated you understand my view, we can talk about it. Right now, you obviously don't understand.

"You simply iterate your "as long as 'here and now' I'm hurting no one with anything that I choose to own" then the community is morally obligated to let me own it argument."

Yes. Can you counter me? Have at it, if you can. If not: shut up about it. Like my granddad -- RIP -- used to say: 'shit or get off the pot'. Your 'incredulity' over my views is no longer convincing. Counter them...'reasonably'.

"Yes, it's possible that those who do come to own grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs and biological and chemical weapons will never cause others harm. But many, many citizens will argue [reasonably] that they are not willing to take that chance."

What are their 'reasonable' arguments for depriving others of life, liberty, or property, when those others have done no wrong? List these 'reasonable' arguments for me. I got a fiver sez you, as their mouthpiece, ain't got a single argument that doesn't involve folks provin' their innocence or that's 'reasonable' in any way.

"This actually is as far as the "my way or the highway" moral and political fanatics will take it!! All the way to Adolph Hitler who, as far as he was concerned, owned Germany!!!"

With this you demonstrate that you clearly don't understand a friggin' thing about my views. Hitler? Again? Really?

"whatever you say she is. Right, henry?"

Nope. And sure as hell not whatever 'you' say she is either.

"The point being that when someone does go off his or her rocker, God help those who come between them and their bazookas."

That's not the point at all. Hell, it's not even 'a' point: just more faux-incredulity.

"But it damn well had better be one where you and your "arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian" objectivist ilk determine what is moral."

I'll ask again: how is respecting the life, liberty, and property of every person a bad thing? That's the sum total of my 'arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian objectivism'. What's your 'reasonable' counter? That's your homework. Your semester grade is ridin' on it. Don't come back till you can state your case...'reasonably'.

"He hardwired human biology"

Of course He didn't. I know you don't accept this (bein' nuthin' but a materialist, necessitarian, 'meat machine' type of guy) but it's not logically possible for free wills to be without the possibility of evil and natural disaster. And it's not possible that omniscience and free wills can exist in the same universe.

As an aside: we both know you don't give two drizzly shits about miscarriages or abortions or any of it. You're far too self-absorbed. No, all of that is just your grocery list of crimes you levy against a God you claim not believe in. Like so many in-forum: you protest just a little too much.

"Just like Rand."

She ain't my goddess in polyester. Take your complaints about her to the Objectivists (I'm not one of 'em, nor am I a Libertarian).

"Forget about the fact that historically and culturally there were many, many, many conflicting assessments of human social, political and economic interaction -- of life, liberty and property."

There's nuthin' to forget. Strip away all jargon, all nonsense about party and ideology, all 'philosophy', all 'religion', all economic constructs, and every society, nation, or government -- any where or when -- can be judged on how any recognize and respect individual natural rights. Any and all have all manner of rationalizations why they don't or can't (your a very good mouthpiece for those rationalizations), but there are no 'reasonable' arguments. However, if you have some: offer 'em.

As for conflicts: yes, since before we fell out of the trees there's always been one man lookin' to lord over another, or one group lookin' to lord over another. As I've said many times: there's always someone lookin' to violate another's natural rights. The highway man, a government: it's all the same.

As I say: What differs are the ways slavers and thieves presented and present their slavin' and thievin' ways to their prey. Some are blunt: they take. Others are connivers, they hoodwink. Force and coercion.

"Rand would have held you in contempt for being so weak."

And this should bother me? Why?

"No, actually, I think that if every citizen in America today were armed with grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces of all kinds the problems would be...worse?"

As thinks stand right 'now': you're right.

"you noted that those who have "done no harm" to others ought to be free to own anything they can afford."

Yep. This, of course, is not synonymous with sayin' 'all the grenade, bazooka, artillery piece, RPG, IED, or chemical and biological weapon packing folks are the good guys that never, ever harm anyone'. The two aren't even in the same universe.

"I noted all of the contexts in which things might change for them and they do choose to harm others. Only this time with grenades and bazookas and the like."

Yes, folks, accordin' to you, are guilty. They must prove their innocence. They must prove they won't go funny in the head. If they can't then no firearms, baseball bats, knives, cars, Drano, 2by4s, pressure cookers, etc. for them.

Your safety, your piece of mind, comes first.

I get it.

"If they don't share your own intuitive God-given capacity to grasp the right to buy and sell guns and weapons of all kinds they are "buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights."

Anyone who believes they have a right to another's life, liberty, and property, when that other has done no wrong, is a bad egg, yes.

"And even though all of these...guys will say the same thing about you, you, like all of them, really are telling it like it is."

I don't have to review those lists to know most, mebbe all, of them folks will not respect natural rights. You'd make a worthy addition to their ranks. You're a ready-made 'adherent'.

"Come on, henry, if you are in a community where the political power is in the hands of those above who, like you, practice a "my way or the highway" approach to rewarding and punishing behavior, they will construe you as violating their own dogmatic moral and political prejudices if you dare to defy them."

The difference between me and them is I won't violate them, but, like you, they'll sure as hell violate me. Like you, like many in-forum, they'll justify any atrocity in the name of whatever they can pull directly out of their rear ends. They'll offend. Me, I'll just self-defend.

"Just as you will defy them if they embrace a political agenda that comes after your guns or embraces a transgender lifestyle."

If they come for my property, yeah, as I say, we got a problem. But what's this about my defyin' them if men wear dresses and self-mutilate? Where did I say I would oppose them or violate their natural rights? Citation, please.

-----

There was the usual snipping of horse manure. Same as it ever was.
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

iambiguous wrote:The only thing that matters to you is that "here and now" someone has done no harm with their hand guns or rifles or AR-15s or bazookas or grenades or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons. Even though, for any number of reasons, that might change -- someone pisses them off, their circumstances change, they become afflicted with a tumor or a mental disease.

Again, just imagine someone like Charles Whitman in that Texas tower with military grade weapons. And then on up to today where at one time these guys -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shoo ... ted_States -- had done no harm to anyone either.
henry quirk wrote: Yes. Here, in America, we punish someone for crimes committed, not crimes he may commit (that's how it used to be, anyway). Don't you know this? Innocent till proven guilty, not guilty till proven innocent.
iambiguous wrote:Come on, what does that really have to do with my point? Okay, someone with grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces, etc., has done no harm to anyone. But then someone does piss him off or his life does change or he is afflicted with a brain tumor or a mental disease.
henry quirk wrote: Everything. I can offer a list as long as my arm of items and conveyances that, should a body go koo-koo, can be devastating. By your logic, every last one ought be removed from the grocery store, sporting goods department, car lot, etc. Guilty till proven innocent: that's your bag.
Okay, and when these items and conveyances become newsworthy in the manner in which guns often are, you can bring them to our attention. Someone goes nuts and uses an item or conveyance other than a gun to create a body count.

Note to others:

Not only does henry snip my own points in these exchanges but he often snips out his own points as well!! He'll note something that I posted but then over and over and over again he snips out the points that he made prompting me to respond to it in the first place!!!

Back to the list of "shooters" above. What personal experiences reconfigured them into mass murderers? And, again, suppose they used bazookas instead of handguns or rifles?
henry quirk wrote: If I've done no wrong, and they come my shotgun, yeah, they're friggin' immoral. If anyone, who's done no wrong, has life, liberty, and property taken, the taker is a thief.[/b]
And around and around you go. As though gun laws are always going to revolve around the way citizens are now [peaceful, posing no danger] and not anticipate them becoming something altogether more threatening. And for any number of reasons. It just comes down to where in each jurisdiction the line is drawn. Some nations prefer minimal restrictions, others considerable restrictions. And both sides have access to reasonable arguments able to defend each point of view. Except for the "my way or the highway" fanatics like you.
henry quirk wrote: No sir, they do not. Any people, society, government, or State the undergirds its conventions, procedures, policies, or legislation with violations of individual life, liberty, and property is wrong, wrong-headed, and down-right immoral.
Classic quirk!!! If someone does not share his own "general description intellectual contraption" assessment of life, liberty and property they are perforce flat out wrong and immoral. By definition. God's perhaps?

That way he doesn't have to address at all the points raised by those who do advocate gun control in the community: https://gun-control.procon.org/

It's simple. He is in possession of a God-given intuitive understanding of the issue such that it's practically a Divne sanction that rational men and women were put on this Earth to buy and sell grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, clymore mines and chemical and biological weapons. All they need is a "just cause". Not sure what that is? Ask henry.
henry quirk wrote: But, hey, let's play a game: you, the anti-gunner (who owns a revolver), make your 'reasonable' arguments why I, the natural rights promotin' shotgun owner ought not have my twin-barreled instrument of DEATH, and I shall respond 'reasonably'. (As you like: you may substitute any instrument of DEATH you like for the shotgun...won't make any difference to my position).
Unbelievable. Over and again, I note the arguments of those who are opposed to the buying and selling of grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, claymore mines and chemical and biological weapons in their community. But they don't respond "reasonably". Why? Because they don't respond as he does. A classic arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian "my way or the highway" fanatic pretending it's really all about "principles", "self-evident truths", "conventional wisdom" and "common sense".

And, of course, God-given.
How about responding to this, henry? Again, how is this not applicable to you?:

You mean this..."Look, henry, if you can actually convince yourself that no matter the historical era and culture you were born into, no matter your childhood indoctrination or the uniquely personal experiences and relationships you had over the years, no matter that you happened to read, hear and view these things rather than those things, you'd still think about abortion, guns and transgender men and women as you do today, I won't attempt further to suggest just how ludicrous that is."...?
henry quirk wrote: It's not worth responding to. My views on murder, property, nutjobbery, all extend out of my recognition of my own natural rights and the natural rights of others. As I say, I am not a receptacle into which the world pours an outlook. I'm a free will and an apprehender: I go a'lookin', and I'm never satisfied with the 'shiny & new'. It's gonna take more than the mewling of a a shallow tart and her cuckold husband to 'move' me. More than the caterwauling high school-level 'rhetorician' to break me.
This speaks volumes regarding the gap between what I am asking you to do and how you actually believe that you are doing it! Mr Wiggle on steroids!! And then double it!!! At least!!!!
Over and over and over again, in my view, your flagrant hypocrisy.

Might is not a dirty word or an immoral tool in regard to guns if those in political power in your community leave both yours and those who own grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons alone. If they share precisely your own political prejudices in regard to what could easily become actual weapons of mass destruction then might is a great thing. Right makes things might for you here.

But if political might is used by those at the other end of the moral and political spectrum? Over your dead body!!! God and guns seem synonymous to you. "Intuitively" you just know that when God created men and women to be reasonable, He had you in mind."
henry quirk wrote: First off, I don't give a sparrow's fart what you think about me. You're just words on a screen to me (and not particularly 'thoughtful' words either).
Right, that probably explains why you keep responding to my posts over and over and over again. That when most of the objectivists here avoid me like the plaque. They know what is at stake if they don't keep me out of their heads. While, in my opinion, you are particularly blind to your own rooted existentially in dasein political prejudices qua dogmas. You will almost certainly take them all the way to the grave because, again, in my view, your thinking is especially shallow. All you do basically is iterate your own "general description intellectual contraption" assessments of life, liberty and property. Then on automatic pilot dismiss the arguments of those who don't share your own didactic "philosophical" facsimiles. But at least i don't construe you to be an, at times, insufferable pedant like iwannaplato and AJ and Satyr.
henry quirk wrote: Second, there's not much in the second and third paragraphs I haven't already responded to. It's not about 'right' vs 'left' (really, you think the 'right' has my back? you think I have 'theirs'?). Its about, fundamentally, the free man vs the slaver. No free man looks at mass destruction kindly, and no slaver ever takes mass destruction off the table (which side of the Russia-Ukraine conflict are 'you' on?)
Yes, you "respond" by noting over and over again that only your own God-given "intuitively rational" and "natural" assessment of life, liberty, property, abortion, guns, free man, slaver etc., count. Whereas I am always willing to acknowledge that my own value judgments are derived existentially from dasein given the particular life that I have lived. And that over the years I really have changed my mind again and again regarding truly important things in my life.
henry quirk wrote: As for God, and his place in my thinkin' as end-point & explanation (rather than beginning & 'justification'): when you've demonstrated you understand my view, we can talk about it. Right now, you obviously don't understand.
Your view? Above you yourself spoke of your own God-given intuitive capacity to grasp these things rationally.

Thus over and again in regard to an issue like abortion I ask you to intertwine your own understanding or God and intuition and reason into the life that you have live...as I did in the OP here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

And, over and again, in my opinion, you reconfigure into Mr. Wiggle and refuse to.
henry quirk wrote: If murderers, slavers, and thieves come for me and mine, or our various properties, yep, there's gonna be a problem. I expect if I came to you under the guise of authority and demanded your life, liberty, or property, when you'd done no wrong, you'd fight back too (mebbe not though...you've already admitted you'd give up your gun if legislators simply said you'd had to...I'm guessin' you're so whipped you'd do just whatever TPTB commanded, includin' bustlin' your keister into the boxcar).
You simply iterate your "as long as 'here and now' I'm hurting no one with anything that I choose to own" then the community is morally obligated to let me own it argument.
henry quirk wrote: Yes. Can you counter me? Have at it, if you can. If not: shut up about it. Like my granddad -- RIP -- used to say: 'shit or get off the pot'. Your 'incredulity' over my views is no longer convincing. Counter them...'reasonably'.
What's to counter? You merely repeat the same point. "In your head" no one who buys or sells grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and claymore mines and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons ever harms anyone else. So why should they be prohibited from doing so? All the points I note to counter that are simply ignored by you.

Thus...
Yes, it's possible that those who do come to own grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs and claymore mines and biological and chemical weapons will never cause others harm. But many, many citizens will argue [reasonably] that they are not willing to take that chance.
henry quirk wrote: What are their 'reasonable' arguments for depriving others of life, liberty, or property, when those others have done no wrong? List these 'reasonable' arguments for me. I got a fiver sez you, as their mouthpiece, ain't got a single argument that doesn't involve folks provin' their innocence or that's 'reasonable' in any way.
Again, back to all these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... ted_States

At one point in their lives they had never harmed anyone, right? But then something changed in their lives or they went off their rocker. Now imagine them instead with grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs and claymore mines and biological and chemical weapons.

How about a dirty bomb, henry? It's okay to buy and sell them as long as it's never actually used to go after others who come to piss them off? As long as from time to time a shrink examines them to make sure they aren't off their rocker?
If Joe has claymore mines surrounding his home and children come on his property and blow themselves up he insists he had a just cause to plant them.
henry quirk wrote: He doesn't need just cause to plant them. He has a right to turn his land into a mine field. It's his property. So, teach your kids to stay the hell offa other people's lawns when not invited. Or, let 'em get retroactively aborted.
Note to others:

Bingo! He really means it!!

This actually is as far as the "my way or the highway" moral and political fanatics will take it!! All the way to Adolph Hitler who, as far as he was concerned, owned Germany!!!
henry quirk wrote: With this you demonstrate that you clearly don't understand a friggin' thing about my views. Hitler? Again? Really?
Oh, you made your views crystal clear here henry:
[Joe] doesn't need just cause to plant them. He has a right to turn his land into a mine field. It's his property. So, teach your kids to stay the hell offa other people's lawns when not invited. Or, let 'em get retroactively aborted.
And Hitler made it crystal clear regarding his own "my way or the highway" account of ruling Germany. He wrote a book about it, remember? He constructed many "death camps" to carry it all out. Only he didn't choose bazookas or claymore mines as his own weapon of choice, did he?
henry quirk wrote: If Mary -- the lovely creature who, along with John, done broke you -- is carrying nuthin' but human meat, then nobody ought give her grief for roto-rooterin' that right out. If she carries a person, well, that's the basic question isn't it? What is the pregnant, Iam-shatterin', Mary carrying when pregnant?
Well, for the particularly fierce "my way or the highway" moral fanatics like you, whatever you say she is. Right, henry? [/b]Your God-given intuitive capacity to "just know" these things need be as far as it goes of course.[/b]
henry quirk wrote: Nope. And sure as hell not whatever 'you' say she is either.
Nope? Well, that's bullshit, henry. She is carrying whatever you say she is. Before and after 12 weeks, right? I'm the one who is fractured and fragmented here, not you.
henry quirk wrote: Or mebbe he goes off his rocker and plows his Tesla through a crowd of Antifa of BLM. We just can't be sure he won't...he is white (obviously a racist)...let's be safe and take his car before he can do wrong.
Hmm. You seem to be a bit off the rocker here yourself, henry. The point being that when someone does go off his or her rocker, God help those who come between them and their bazookas. Only, your God isn't even around anymore.
henry quirk wrote: That's not the point at all. Hell, it's not even 'a' point: just more faux-incredulity.
More Mr. WIggle bullshit. People do go off their rocker for any number of reasons relating to things like tumors and mental illness or medical afflictions in the brain. And only a complete and utter fool, in my opinion, would argue that if they do it doesn't matter if they own grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs and claymore mines and biological and chemical weapons and dirty bombs. And for this reason alone any sane community would outlaw the buying and selling of them.
henry quirk wrote: In an amoral world (exactly the kind you and so many in-forum imagine we live in) killing kids is amoral. In a moral universe (exactly the kind we all actually live in) killin' kids is murder.
Right. Again, your God-given intuitive capacity to "just know" these things are rational. A moral universe indeed. But it damn well had better be one where you and your "arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian" objectivist ilk determine what is moral. Even if occasionally off their rockers.
henry quirk wrote: I'll ask again: how is respecting the life, liberty, and property of every person a bad thing? That's the sum total of my 'arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian objectivism'. What's your 'reasonable' counter? That's your homework. Your semester grade is ridin' on it. Don't come back till you can state your case...'reasonably'.
And I'll note again that, in regard to when the unborn becomes a genuine human being and thus when abortion fits into a God-given intuitively rational and natural medical operation revolves entirely around what you insist this encompasses. Here it does fit into your own God-given intuitively rational and natural parameters of life liberty and property. And if others disagree? Well, perforce they refuse to be "reasonable"

Are you actually completely oblivious to how all of this revolves around your own arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian objectivist assumptions here, henry?
henry quirk wrote: You can blame the God you claim not to believe in for whatever you like. Me, I'm grateful that His Creation produced me, a wildcard, to live in this marvelous clockwork of a Reality...and, should I ever meet Him, I'll tell Him so.
Fine, and then He can explain to you why He hardwired human biology so that "an estimated 23 million miscarriages occur every year worldwide, translating to 44 pregnancy losses each minute" NIH

Not to mention all the babies and infants and toddlers and children who were, are and will be maimed and mutilated and massacred in these "acts of God":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events
henry quirk wrote: Of course He didn't. I know you don't accept this (bein' nuthin' but a materialist, necessitarian, 'meat machine' type of guy) but it's not logically possible for free wills to be without the possibility of evil and natural disaster. And it's not possible that omniscience and free wills can exist in the same universe.
Please. You can't even come remotely close to demonstrating empirically, materially that this God of yours even exists let alone pinning down what He either is or is not responsible for in regard to the totality of the "human condition".

And to actually ascribe human logic to miscarriages and the natural disasters that devastate us over and over and over and over and over and over again? Why on Earth do you suppose most of these guys...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
...invented Gods? And, of course, God's "mysterious ways".

Any other Deists here? Please relate your own under undertanding of God and human biology and natural disasters as they relate to free will and evil.
henry the Stooge quirk wrote: As an aside: we both know you don't give two drizzly shits about miscarriages or abortions or any of it. You're far too self-absorbed. No, all of that is just your grocery list of crimes you levy against a God you claim not believe in. Like so many in-forum: you protest just a little too much.
Truly pathetic henry. This [to me] is just another example of what I am able to reduce you [and those like Satyr...or from time to time iwannaplato, Flannel Jesus and phyllo]...down to: making this all about me. Someone, in my view, you hold in contempt, because you can't deal with the possibility that your own precious Self in the is/ought world may start to crumple some day. I get this though. After all, I can still recall when others were increasingly more successful in crumpling mine.
henry quirk wrote: I might disagree with those about the status or necessity of guns but I'm guessin' we'd all agree that a person's property is his.
What property in what set of circumstances? Again, down through the history, in different historical and cultural contexts, property was understood in very different ways. Still, I recall reading once where Ayn Rand actually argued that the only reason more primitive cultures focused more on "we" instead of "I" was because there wasn't a Joh Galt around to set them straight!!

And on and on. What you disagree about and what you assume all rational and virtuous folks would agree regarding is flagrantly biased to reflect your own political prejudices. Which, in my view, you cannot even grasp the extent to which is rooted existentially/subjectively in the life you lived. Instead, it is ultimately about your "intuitions" derived from a God who, apparently, created you to be the model citizens for all things Rational.
henry quirk wrote: No it wasn't. What differs are the ways slavers and thieves presented and present their slavin' and thievin' ways to their prey. Some are blunt: they take. Others are connivers, they hoodwink. But as far as what constitutes property, that hasn't changed. It's been the same everywhere and -when, to everyone.
Just like Rand. Forget about the fact that historically and culturally there were many, many, many conflicting assessments of human social, political and economic interaction -- of life, liberty and property. Nope, the only thing that counted was how she grasped them.

The same with you, henry. Only you need a God to fall back on and Rand would have held you in contempt for being so weak.
henry quirk wrote: There's nuthin' to forget. Strip away all jargon, all nonsense about party and ideology, all 'philosophy', all 'religion', all economic constructs, and every society, nation, or government -- any where or when -- can be judged on how any recognize and respect individual natural rights. Any and all have all manner of rationalizations why they don't or can't (your a very good mouthpiece for those rationalizations), but there are no 'reasonable' arguments. However, if you have some: offer 'em.

As for conflicts: yes, since before we fell out of the trees there's always been one man lookin' to lord over another, or one group lookin' to lord over another. As I've said many times: there's always someone lookin' to violate another's natural rights. The highway man, a government: it's all the same.
Again, your point here having little or nothing to do with mine above. Both of you insist that only the manner in which you construe the meaning of "life, liberty and property" [as intellectual/philosophical concoctions] will be tolerated in any discussion and debate. About anything. She just never needed a God to "prove" that reason goes all the way back to a supernatural, Divine origin.

Then your own rendition of the contempt she felt for those who did dare to construe life liberty and property other than as Commandments:
henry quirk wrote: As I say: What differs are the ways slavers and thieves presented and present their slavin' and thievin' ways to their prey. Some are blunt: they take. Others are connivers, they hoodwink. Force and coercion.
henry quirk wrote: I never said that or hinted that. Admit it: you made that up. Or, you can post a citation. Or, you can just dissemble, obfuscate, and inveigle...like always.
Above you noted that those who have "done no harm" to others ought to be free to own anything they can afford.
henry quirk wrote: Yep. This, of course, is not synonymous with sayin' 'all the grenade, bazooka, artillery piece, RPG, IED, or chemical and biological weapon packing folks are the good guys that never, ever harm anyone'. The two aren't even in the same universe.
Okay, but what if for all the reasons I and others have noted, they do in fact configure into even your own rendition of the bad guys and have access to these weapons?

Thus:
I noted all of the contexts in which things might change for them and they do choose to harm others. Only this time with grenades and bazookas and the like."
henry quirk wrote: Yes, folks, accordin' to you, are guilty. They must prove their innocence. They must prove they won't go funny in the head. If they can't then no firearms, baseball bats, knives, cars, Drano, 2by4s, pressure cookers, etc. for them.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Anything but actually own up to the point I am making here. Their lives do change and they do find themselves [for whatever reason] hating others around them...or demanding that others go along with their own "rules of behavior"; or they do become mentally ill or afflicted with some terrible brain condition. They are guilty of or afflicted with these things. They can't prove their innocence. And they come after others with grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, claymore mines, chemical and biological weapons or dirty bombs?
henry quirk wrote: Oh, we'll argue, yes we will. But that argument has nuthin' to do with dasein and everything to do with them buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights (sure as shit, though: they wanttheirs recognized and respected).
Yeah, we get that part henry. If they don't share your own intuitive God-given capacity to grasp the right to buy and sell guns and weapons of all kinds they are "buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights."

And even though all of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...guys will say the same thing about you, you, like all of them, really are telling it like it is.
henry quirk wrote: I don't have to review those lists to know most, mebbe all, of them folks will not respect natural rights. You'd make a worthy addition to their ranks. You're a ready-made 'adherent'.
That's not the point, henry. The point is that like you, they will insist that how they feel about Guns and all those other weapons -- God or No God -- reflects either the optimal moral truth or even the only moral truth. It's your rendition of "natural rights" they think and feel about in the same way that you think and feel about theirs.

Meanwhile I'm not arguing anything about natural rights here. On the contrary, I'm suggesting that such things are rooted historically, cultural and experiential in many vast varied contexts down through the centuries and around the globe. And in a world such the contingency, chance and change can result in new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge that turns it all around for you.
henry quirk wrote: The difference between me and them is I won't violate them, but, like you, they'll sure as hell violate me. Like you, like many in-forum, they'll justify any atrocity in the name of whatever they can pull directly out of their rear ends. They'll offend. Me, I'll just self-defend.
Come on, henry, if you are in a community where the political power is in the hands of those above who, like you, practice a "my way or the highway" approach to rewarding and punishing behavior, they will construe you as violating their own dogmatic moral and political prejudices if you dare to defy them. Just as you will defy them if they embrace a political agenda that comes after your guns or embraces a transgender lifestyle." That's how it works for those of you ilk. It's just that if you are someone like Satyr over at KT, you merely call people disgusting names or ban them or "disappear" them from the discussions. But if you are someone like Adolph Hitler acting out his own rendition of life, liberty and property...?
Then you just repeat yourself...
henry quirk wrote: The difference between me and them is I won't violate them, but, like you, they'll sure as hell violate me. Like you, like many in-forum, they'll justify any atrocity in the name of whatever they can pull directly out of their rear ends. They'll offend. Me, I'll just self-defend.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

Then straight back up into the "my way or the highway" intellectual clouds...
henry quirk wrote: If they come for my property, yeah, as I say, we got a problem. But what's this about my defyin' them if men wear dresses and self-mutilate? Where did I say I would oppose them or violate their natural rights? Citation, please.
I've been citing examples of your hypocrisy over and again. And I do this by noting that only those who wholly agree with you regarding what life, liberty and property means are then said to be reasonable when in any particular community laws are passed and enforced pertaining to particular property. Or in the case of transgenders you argue that they have a "natural right" to wear dresses and self-mutilate...but not really becasue they are mentally ill.
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

For Friedrich Nietzsche, nihilism is a terrible psychological problem – a coping mechanism with deadly consequences
Kaitlyn Creasy
Friedrich Nietzsche’s well-known reputation as a philosophical provocateur is partly the result of his commitment to disabusing his readers of a variety of beliefs: their beliefs in a higher purpose, in an afterlife, in disinterested knowledge, in the absolute value of ‘virtues’ such as compassion, and more.
Not unlike me here. Only I take Nietzsche's No God world "perspective" even farther out onto the nihilist limb. At least with respect to the is/ought world. In other words, I reject even his "will to power" Übermensch "masters" mentality as just another rooted existentially in dasein philosophical prejudice. I take the "self" pertaining to value judgments and argue that being fractured and fragmented in an essentially meaningless and purposeless No God world is a reasonable frame of mind.

And then I ask those who decry this perspective to note how, in a particular context, it is not applicable to them. Just as Nietzsche and others [such as Dostoevsky] suggested that in a No God world all things are permitted because all things can be rationalized. All the way up to and including genocide. And then the viewpoint of the sociopaths who argue that a Godless universe is one where it is not necessarily irrational to predicate morality on "me, myself and I".
But he does not reject these beliefs merely because he believes they are false (he does) or because he hopes to disrupt the dominant belief system in 19th-century Europe (he does). He rejects these beliefs because he thinks they constitute a clear and present danger to his readers.
Did he? Well, you tell me. But clearly the death of God confronts mere mortals with a problem. If No God, what then can be used to anchor us to an objective morality? And, of course, down through the ages we were inundated with things that were argued to be the next best thing to God: political ideology, No God spiritual paths like Buddhism, deontological philosophies, Nature, New Age mystical paths. And the "human condition" was such that to make them true all one need do is to believe that they are true.

Then tell me "the rest is history" isn't applicable here.
Such beliefs not only deny life and devalue human existence, they also imperil our psychological wellbeing. To understand why he thinks so requires us to understand his diagnosis of these beliefs as nihilistic.
Then back and forth we'll go squabbling over what Nietzsche really meant by nihilism; and if what we ourselves think he really meant does reflect what all rational human beings are obligated to believe it means.

If only "theoretically" in their heads.
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Yo, AJ, FJ and iwaanaplato:

Yet another classic substanceless post from the guy who is forever bitching about those who refuse to take philosophical discourse as seriously as he does:

ME:
iambiguous wrote:For Friedrich Nietzsche, nihilism is a terrible psychological problem – a coping mechanism with deadly consequences
Kaitlyn Creasy
Friedrich Nietzsche’s well-known reputation as a philosophical provocateur is partly the result of his commitment to disabusing his readers of a variety of beliefs: their beliefs in a higher purpose, in an afterlife, in disinterested knowledge, in the absolute value of ‘virtues’ such as compassion, and more.
Not unlike me here. Only I take Nietzsche's No God world "perspective" even farther out onto the nihilist limb. At least with respect to the is/ought world. In other words, I reject even his "will to power" Übermensch "masters" mentality as just another rooted existentially in dasein philosophical prejudice. I take the "self" pertaining to value judgments and argue that being fractured and fragmented in an essentially meaningless and purposeless No God world is a reasonable frame of mind.

And then I ask those who decry this perspective to note how, in a particular context, it is not applicable to them. Just as Nietzsche and others [such as Dostoevsky] suggested that in a No God world all things are permitted because all things can be rationalized. All the way up to and including genocide. And then the viewpoint of the sociopaths who argue that a Godless universe is one where it is not necessarily irrational to predicate morality on "me, myself and I".
But he does not reject these beliefs merely because he believes they are false (he does) or because he hopes to disrupt the dominant belief system in 19th-century Europe (he does). He rejects these beliefs because he thinks they constitute a clear and present danger to his readers.
Did he? Well, you tell me. But clearly the death of God confronts mere mortals with a problem. If No God, what then can be used to anchor us to an objective morality? And, of course, down through the ages we were inundated with things that were argued to be the next best thing to God: political ideology, No God spiritual paths like Buddhism, deontological philosophies, Nature, New Age mystical paths. And the "human condition" was such that to make them true all one need do is to believe that they are true.

Then tell me "the rest is history" isn't applicable here.
Such beliefs not only deny life and devalue human existence, they also imperil our psychological wellbeing. To understand why he thinks so requires us to understand his diagnosis of these beliefs as nihilistic.
Then back and forth we'll go squabbling over what Nietzsche really meant by nihilism; and if what we ourselves think he really meant does reflect what all rational human beings are obligated to believe it means.

If only "theoretically" in their heads.
HIM:
Lorikeet/Satyr wrote:We'll need a context...
:wink:
And here, he can't even come up with "clever" repartee of his own. Instead, he has to lamely mimic me.

Note to phoneutria:

One thing for sure: he didn't invent you at KT as he did so many others. You actually were a challenge. Both philosophically and in exchanging witticisms.

Hey, prom75 isn't the only one who misses you dearly.
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Agent Smith
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Re: nihilism

Post by Agent Smith »

AxEy(Rxy)

Ta keep it simple ... my best shot!
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