nihilism

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henry quirk
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Re: nihilism

Post by henry quirk »

iambiguous wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 11:39 pm
Dasein/dasein

"But which you construe to ever and always be rational as a result of your God-given "intuitive" "I just know" grasp of these things."

Let's review...

You wanted to know if new information & experiences could change my mind.

I said 'yes with the proviso 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 becuz he or his wares are new' and 'I'll assess it, see if it works, if it fits, or if it over-turns'.

My words, your interpretation: they don't match.

"those on the other side of the political spectrum have their own "before not a human person, after a human person" assessments."

There are folks in-forum who say a baby is not a person till it's born and takes its first breath. Others say personhood is only a legal/social status, one that must be bestowed. Neither position is 'reasonable'. Both include possibilities their proponents refuse to consider. Let's you and I consider those possibilities and those embedded in your (and Mary's) position below (insofar as you, or she, have one).

"please note how the points I raise there are not applicable to you."

"I believe what many would construe to be two seemingly conflicting [even contradictory] things:

1] that aborting a human fetus is the killing of an innocent human being
2] that women should be afforded full legal rights to choose abortion"

It's morally permissible to end a pregnancy that demonstrably threatens the woman's life. It's morally permissible to end a pregnancy a woman did not, in word or action, consent to. Abortion for any other reason is murder (an unjust, immoral, killing).

"Abortion then is a human tragedy in my view precisely because, like so many other moral conflagrations, it necessarily involves a conflict of legitimate rights."

Mary had sex of her own volition with John. They consented to the probable consequence. She reneged. She enabled the murder of her kid. So, let's take a head count: Mary wanted Junior murdered, John consented to the murder, you were too spineless to object to the murder, a doctor and at least one nurse committed the murder...that's four of you, right offa the top of my head. So, yes, it's a tragedy, just not as you think it is.

"In my view, moral dogmas are basically interchangable when expressed as sets of essential [universal] convictions."

So: the (a)morality that dictates man (any man, every man) is meat, and it's A-OK to kill him, slave him, rape him, that, to you, is equivalent to, or interchangeable with, the morality that sez a man is a person with a natural right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property. The first, as it is, without interpretation, sanctions a man, any man, every man, being used as a commodity. The second, as it stands, without interpretation, denies such sanction. And, to you, these radically different views of, and approaches to, man, they're interchangeable. Both are valid. You'd have a hard time pickin' one over the other.

"Indeed, as some note, that was the beauty of Roe v. Wade here in America. A "demcocracy and the rule of law" approach to a moral conflagration."

R v W was a bad court ruling. There was nuthin' democratic about it. Let's be truly democratic and let The People decide. Let's have a national vote on it. One man-one vote.

"Okay, so the state, the government has the God-given intuitive right to force the woman to give birth?"

The State has, potentially, the power to force women to give birth or to abort. The State, more accurately, the folks who comprise it, have no right to do either.

So: the persons responsible, by way of a consensual act, for one person (baby) being inside another (mother) are the consenting parties, the man (father) and the woman (mother). They created a person. They're responsible for him.

"Again, the only reason you can make up your mind, henry, is becasue existentially you took a leap of faith to the Deist God instead of one of these...One True Paths and then with absolutely no definitive demonstrable proof of His existence, you came to believe "in your head" that He created the universe -- the multiverse? -- and provided you with the "intuitive" capacity to "just know" that what you post here reflects the optimal truth."

No, I can make up mind about these matters becuz I recognize every person around me has, as I do, as you do, a natural right to his, and no other's life, liberty, and property. I can make up my mind becuz the universality of natural rights lends itself to man being sumthin' other than, more than, meat which, in turn lends itself to man being sumthin' other than, more than, a meaningless event.

"Pick one:"

Okay: 👍

-----

nihilism

"when these items and conveyances become newsworthy in the manner in which guns often are, you can bring them to our attention"

It doesn't matter if it's newsworthy. What matters: if a person has done no wrong with his property, you have no claim to it. What matters: if 99 do wrong with their property, and the 100th does not, you have no claim to the 100th's.

"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."

Anyone who sez a person, any person, every person, does not have a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property is wrong, wrong-headed, immoral.

"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."

Yes, these folks believe they can take property away from other folks becuz of what those others might do with their property. They believe themselves justified to take property they feel might hurt them. Like I said: guilty till proven innocent.

"transgenders you argue that they have a "natural right" to wear dresses and self-mutilate"

They have a right to do with themselves, and only themselves, as they like. What they, and you, object to is the 'and only themselves' part.

-----

I cut out so much of the same garbage from both of your posts it seemed advisable to merge what was left (the truly recyclable stuff).
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

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!!!
Now down below he insists that in excising my points he's just throwing out the "garbage". Okay, but how about when he excises his own points?

:wink:

Then on cue:
henry quirk wrote: It doesn't matter if it's newsworthy. What matters: if a person has done no wrong with his property, you have no claim to it. What matters: if 99 do wrong with their property, and the 100th does not, you have no claim to the 100th's.
Over and over and over again, I note how in regard to guns as property people who once did no wrong with them will find themselves enraged at another or will find their circumstances change or will go off their rocker, etc., and do things that lots and lots of others certainly construe to be wrong.

Then back to these guys -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shoo ... ted_States -- who no doubt once in their lives did no wrong to others. Only henry wants a world where these guys could have legally had access to grenades, bazookas and the rest of any and all weapons of mass destruction they could get their hands on.

More "garbage" for henry to toss?
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.
Then on cue: straight back up into the didactic clouds he goes...
henry quirk wrote: Anyone who sez a person, any person, every person, does not have a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property is wrong, wrong-headed, immoral.
Of course: His and only his God-given intuitive grasp of "life, liberty and property" count here. Although theoretically he could come upon new information and knowledge that changes his mind about them. Practically? Go ahead, start holding your breath.
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).
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.
henry quirk wrote: Yes, these folks believe they can take property away from other folks becuz of what those others might do with their property. They believe themselves justified to take property they feel might hurt them. Like I said: guilty till proven innocent.
Yeah, given the fact that others might some day want to do them harm [for any number of reasons] or that others might get pissed off at them for not thinking or behaving as the objectivists do or that others may well get afflicted with some mental disease and go off their rocker, they think it is quite reasonable to ban the buying and the selling of grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, claymore mines, chemical and biological weapons and dirty bombs.

Innocent people can find their lives changing enough to become guilty of all sorts of terrible things. Just follow the local news for a while.



Then he just chucks out the rest of our exchange above as "garbage". Again, including his own points.
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henry quirk
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Re: nihilism

Post by henry quirk »

iambiguous wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 10:41 pm
"I note how in regard to guns as property people who once did no wrong with them will find themselves enraged at another or will find their circumstances change or will go off their rocker, etc., and do things that lots and lots of others certainly construe to be wrong."

Yes, you state the obvious over & over. Joe could go crazy; Stan might be overcome by passions. And becuz he 'could', becuz he 'might be', you, and those like you, would penalize both in advance. Guilty till proven innocent. An utterly unreasonable position to hold.

Incidentally, what assurances can you give anyone, come tomorrow you won't go crazy, or be overcome by passions, and take your revolver to work, or the grocery, or a local school and start shootin' co-workers, or fellow shoppers, or kids?

"given the fact that others might some day want to do them harm [for any number of reasons] or that others might get pissed off at them for not thinking or behaving as the objectivists do or that others may well get afflicted with some mental disease and go off their rocker, they think it is quite reasonable to ban the buying and the selling of grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, claymore mines, chemical and biological weapons and dirty bombs."

Fear is not a foundation for reasonable actions or policy. Paranoia about what has yet to happen is bugfuck Crazy. Condemning one becuz of the wrong-doing of another is not reasonable.

Incidentally, these folks who would deny me a bazooka: right now, 'today', want to deny you your revolver. As you are sympathetic to their position: when will you divest yourself of your gun?

"Innocent people can find their lives changing enough to become guilty of all sorts of terrible things."

Yes. People can do wrong. When they do: take them to task. When they don't: leave them be. Innocent till proven guilty.
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: It doesn't matter if it's newsworthy. What matters: if a person has done no wrong with his property, you have no claim to it. What matters: if 99 do wrong with their property, and the 100th does not, you have no claim to the 100th's.
iambiguous wrote:Over and over and over again, I note how in regard to guns as property people who once did no wrong with them will find themselves enraged at another or will find their circumstances change or will go off their rocker, etc., and do things that lots and lots of others certainly construe to be wrong.

Then back to these guys -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shoo ... ted_States -- who no doubt once in their lives did no wrong to others. Only henry wants a world where these guys could have legally had access to grenades, bazookas and the rest of any and all weapons of mass destruction they could get their hands on.
henry quirk wrote: Yes, you state the obvious over & over. Joe could go crazy; Stan might be overcome by passions. And becuz he 'could', becuz he 'might be', you, and those like you, would penalize both in advance. Guilty till proven innocent. An utterly unreasonable position to hold.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle it is then.

Again, consider the stats here: https://www.healthdata.org/acting-data/ ... es-outlier

Now, imagine if, in America, these mass murderers [who were themselves once innocent and had done no harm to anyone] did have a legal right to purchase any and all weapons of mass destruction.

Again, in my view, given the psychology of objectivism, you and your ilk are locked into a hardcore objectivist all or nothing frame of mind when it comes to gun control legislation. Even common sense itself flies out the window. You can't back down an inch from your extremist mentality here because, what, your "comrades in arms" will then come down on you for being a "traitor"?
henry quirk wrote:Incidentally, what assurances can you give anyone, come tomorrow you won't go crazy, or be overcome by passions, and take your revolver to work, or the grocery, or a local school and start shootin' co-workers, or fellow shoppers, or kids?
That's precisely my point, henry! I can't. Neither can you. We just can't predict with any degree of accuracy what new experiences may unfold in our lives and how they will impact on the behaviors we choose. Especially in regard to our emotional reactions to things that come to upset/enrage us. Yes, I could have a brain tumor a la Charles Whitman. I could become like some of those mass murderers we read about where it is revealed that they did suffer from one or another mental illness. That's precisely why there is not a single nation on Earth that I am aware of that permits its citizens to own weapons of mass destruction.
henry quirk wrote: Yes, these folks believe they can take property away from other folks becuz of what those others might do with their property. They believe themselves justified to take property they feel might hurt them. Like I said: guilty till proven innocent.
Yeah, given the fact that others might some day want to do them harm [for any number of reasons] or that others might get pissed off at them for not thinking or behaving as the objectivists do or that others may well get afflicted with some mental disease and go off their rocker, they think it is quite reasonable to ban the buying and the selling of grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, claymore mines, chemical and biological weapons and dirty bombs.
henry quirk wrote: Fear is not a foundation for reasonable actions or policy. Paranoia about what has yet to happen is bugfuck Crazy. Condemning one becuz of the wrong-doing of another is not reasonable.
It's simply mind-boggling [to me] how those like you...those swept up in their arrogant and autocratic "all or nothing" "my way or the highway" moral and political campaigns...will allow themselves to become completely oblivious to the consequences of their extremism. If fear and paranoia is gripping America in regard to gun violence today imagine what it would be like if more and more citizens were permitted to arm themselves with far, far, far more deadly weapons?

But, no, all of the points I raised above are simply swept unto the rug as you imagine all of the citizens in your own "best of all possible communities" never, ever going beyond the parameters of this make-believe world in your head.
henry quirk wrote: Incidentally, these folks who would deny me a bazooka: right now, 'today', want to deny you your revolver. As you are sympathetic to their position: when will you divest yourself of your gun?
Come on, henry, what are the odds that in America the government will ever confiscate all guns from all citizens?

Besides, as I note time and again, it's not my position on guns "here and now" that I focus in on but on how existentially I came to be predisposed to believe what I do in regard to my own particular political prejudice rooted in dasein. The same with you. Either one accepts the consequences of living in a county where "democracy and the rule of law" prevails or it all devolves down to a might makes right/right makes might Ruby Ridge mentality for everyone.
Innocent people can find their lives changing enough to become guilty of all sorts of terrible things.
henry quirk wrote: Yes. People can do wrong. When they do: take them to task. When they don't: leave them be. Innocent till proven guilty.
Come on, henry, that's not your point and you know it. Your point is that given your own God-given intuitive understanding of life and liberty and property, right and wrong/guilt and innocence revolves entirely around that.

Your whole frame of mind revolves around objectivism and right makes might. It's just that some like the Ayn Randroids and the Satyrs find you weak for choosing to fall back on God and religion as as your own "one of us" foundation.

Either that or you have yourself gone bugfuck Crazy. 8)
Last edited by iambiguous on Tue May 23, 2023 10:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: nihilism

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For Friedrich Nietzsche, nihilism is a terrible psychological problem – a coping mechanism with deadly consequences
Kaitlyn Creasy
Nihilism’ is used today to designate a wide range of attitudes. Nihilists are often typified as those who hold certain beliefs about life’s purpose or significance: they believe that there is no purpose or ‘point’ to life, or that nothing matters.
Again, to be clear, this nihilist makes a crucial distinction between 1] existential meaning and purpose and significance and 2] essential meaning and purpose and significance.

Once God is presumed to be out of the picture.

The only way in which the existential components of one's life become moot is when, for whatever reason, you separate yourself completely from others. You live in a cabin somewhere out in the wilderness, a survivalist sustaining your own subsistence and interacting with no one.

Instead, the extent that others are involved in your life is the extent to which meaning and purpose and significance come into play. Why? Because one way or another you have to devise rules of behavior regarding any number of aspects that might crop up when you live with or around others. Unless you are actually able to find someone who thinks and feels and says and does everything exactly as you do.

Good luck with that.

But even here, given some measure of social interaction, you might construe the existential nature of those interactions from a more or less splintered frame of mind. After all, not all nihilists are as fractured and fragmented as "I" am.
Alternatively, nihilists might be distinguished from non-nihilists by their alleged lack of any belief whatsoever: as represented by the Coen Brothers in their film The Big Lebowski, nihilists might ‘believe in nothing’.
Well, that's ridiculous. If you believe in nothing you believe in that. And, however tongue in cheek these characters were depicted in the film, they still went about the business of defrauding the other Jeffery Lebowski in the Bunny caper. They were actually more like sociopaths to me. The only thing the Dude actually had to fear from them was losing his johnson to their inept stupidity.
Other times, nihilism is characterised as involving an absence of commitment to moral values, like the character of Anton Chigurh from Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men who rejects all notions of right and wrong.
Same thing. When push comes to shove he is just another sociopath to me. It was all about the fucking money. The only time philosophy really came into play was when he'd flip that coin. And that seems more in sync with a particularly ominous rendition of the Benjamin Button Syndrome than, say, Nietzsche?
According to these popular understandings, nihilism involves the disavowal of various beliefs and values. It is a cognitive phenomenon involving abstract and highly intellectual stances.
Right. A "cognitive phenomenon involving abstract and highly intellectual stances." That was strewn everywhere in those two films.

But forget the Hollywood renditions here. Even when pursued by the Coen Brothers and Cormac McCarthy. What intrigues me are still the points I make in my signature threads above. And the extent to which in a No God world philosophers might come at least close to an equivalent.
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Re: nihilism

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iambiguous wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 3:27 pm
"Now, imagine if, in America, these mass murderers [who were themselves once innocent and had done no harm to anyone] did have a legal right to purchase any and all weapons of mass destruction."

Yes, let's imagine a nation of free men and women, each wholly self-responsible, some carrying the seeds of insanity or unbridled passion/berserker rage. I suggest even the probability that some of these folks might go off and cause mass death is not sufficient to deprive all of property or of a particular kind of property. You, on the other hand, like so many folks of your persuasion, say the mere possibility that some may go loopy or give into berserker rage is sufficient to take or deny access to property (even as many of you own firearms or rely on those who do to protect your keisters).

"I could become like some of those mass murderers we read about where it is revealed that they did suffer from one or another mental illness."

Knowing this about yourself: why do you own a gun?

"If fear and paranoia is gripping America in regard to gun violence today..."

It's not. You've been consuming, and are consumed by, a steady diet of garbage and propaganda. Most Americans are not frothy at the mouth, eyes rollin' back in their skulls, over the 'conflagration' (as you might put it). This is becuz there is no 'conflagration' outside the Metropolis. In my own state, Louisiana, the gun violence stats are driven up solely becuz of New Orleans and thereabouts. Take N.O. out of the mix and the numbers drop enormously. Same for Illinois (excise Chicago, the numbers drop); same for New York state (leave off NY city, the numbers drop). Your 'conflagration' is not universal or nation-wide. It afflicts the Metropolis. Why? Could it be city-life is intrinsically degrading to one's state of mind? Could be it be when folks are crammed into such overtly artificial ways of living, they go a little crazy? No, of course not. It's the damned gun's (or bazooka's) fault. Take those away and everything will be hunky-dory. Ape will not kill ape.

"imagine what it would be like if more and more citizens were permitted to arm themselves with far, far, far more deadly weapons?"

The Metropolis, in all its incarnations, would burn more brightly than it does. Outside the Metropolis, not so much.

"there is not a single nation on Earth that I am aware of that permits its citizens to own weapons of mass destruction."

Each of those 'nations' is dominated by The State. The State denies, or tries desperately to deny, individual self-defense. When it wins you get...

Soviet Union 1922-91: 20,000,000 dead.
Nazi Germany 1933-45: 10,500,000 dead.
Democratic People's Republic of Korea 1948-present: 2,000,000 dead.
People's Republic of West Taiwan 1949-present: 65,000,000 dead.
Warsaw Pact Nations (Combined) 1955-91: 1,000,000 dead.
Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1975-present: 1,000,000 dead.
Cambodia 1975-79: 3,000,000 dead.
Afghanistan 1978-92: 5,000,000 dead.
Various commie governments in Africa and South America mid 1960's - present: 7,150,000 dead.

114,650,000 people dead from being disarmed by an iteration of The State and having a different opinion from The State. Killed by agents of The State using guns, bombs, bazookas, etc.

1.16 million people per year for the past 99 years.

Compared to 18,252 homicides per year from guns; I think we're better off with keeping the guns (and, mebbe, gettin' our hands on some of them military-grade ordnance to boot).

Of course, I'm strayin' far a'field from my point: a man's life, liberty and property are his, full stop. Until he is proven to have done wrong, no one -- no matter how skeert or well-intentioned -- can morally lay claim to his life, liberty, or property, full stop.

"It's simply mind-boggling those swept up in their arrogant and autocratic "all or nothing" "my way or the highway" moral and political campaigns will allow themselves to become completely oblivious to the consequences of their extremism."

I agree...

Soviet Union 1922-91: 20,000,000 dead.
Nazi Germany 1933-45: 10,500,000 dead.
Democratic People's Republic of Korea 1948-present: 2,000,000 dead.
People's Republic of West Taiwan 1949-present: 65,000,000 dead.
Warsaw Pact Nations (Combined) 1955-91: 1,000,000 dead.
Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1975-present: 1,000,000 dead.
Cambodia 1975-79: 3,000,000 dead.
Afghanistan 1978-92: 5,000,000 dead.
Various commie governments in Africa and South America mid 1960's - present: 7,150,000 dead.

114,650,000 people dead from being disarmed by an iteration of The State and having a different opinion from The State. Killed by agents of The State using guns, bombs, bazookas, etc.

1.16 million people per year for the past 99 years.

"all of the points I raised above are simply swept unto the rug as you imagine all of the citizens in your own "best of all possible communities" never, ever going beyond the parameters of this make-believe world in your head."

Your single point (more will de if everyone can have a bazooka) is simply not sufficient to deny everyone property. Hell, you don't even believe it. If you truly did you wouldn't own that revolver ("I could become like some of those mass murderers we read about where it is revealed that they did suffer from one or another mental illness."). Do the right thing, iam...give up the gun...think of the children.

"Come on, henry, what are the odds that in America the government will ever confiscate all guns from all citizens?"

That has nuthin' to do with what I said. Again: 'Incidentally, these folks who would deny me a bazooka: right now, 'today', want to deny you your revolver. As you are sympathetic to their position: when will you divest yourself of your gun?'

So: when will you, by your lights, do the right thing?

Don't wiggle away: answer the question. Climb down offa your intellectual contraption and be in the real world of conflicting goods: if you, by your own admission, cannot be trusted with that revolver, when will you give it up?

I think this conversation cannot move forward until you give up the gun or justify why you ought to keep it.

"Come on, henry, that's not your point and you know it. Your point is that given your own God-given intuitive understanding of life and liberty and property, right and wrong/guilt and innocence revolves entirely around that."

No. My point, in context, is: 'Yes. People can do wrong. When they do: take them to task. When they don't: leave them be. Innocent till proven guilty.'

You're dangerously close to callin' me a liar, iam. Get that close again and we're done. As I'm really the only one in-forum givin' you the time of day, I suggest you self-correct.

"it's not my position on guns "here and now" that I focus in on but on how existentially I came to be predisposed to believe what I do in regard to my own particular political prejudice rooted in dasein."

Okay. So how did you existentially come to believe you should own a gun while denying others a gun? Where is your reasonable undergirding for such a position?
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Re: nihilism

Post by phyllo »

Soviet Union 1922-91: 20,000,000 dead.
Nazi Germany 1933-45: 10,500,000 dead.
Democratic People's Republic of Korea 1948-present: 2,000,000 dead.
People's Republic of West Taiwan 1949-present: 65,000,000 dead.
Warsaw Pact Nations (Combined) 1955-91: 1,000,000 dead.
Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1975-present: 1,000,000 dead.
Cambodia 1975-79: 3,000,000 dead.
Afghanistan 1978-92: 5,000,000 dead.
Various commie governments in Africa and South America mid 1960's - present: 7,150,000 dead.
Where did you get these numbers?
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Re: nihilism

Post by henry quirk »

phyllo wrote: Wed May 24, 2023 1:49 am
"Where did you get these numbers?"

A variety of places. Here's a few...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide

https://reason.com/2014/05/15/be-antigo ... and-proud/

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/11/09/da ... h-century/

https://intellectualtakeout.org/2016/05 ... h-century/

https://intellectualtakeout.org/2016/05 ... h-century/

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the ... story.html

https://fee.org/articles/death-by-government/

https://healthresearchfunding.org/19-sh ... -democide/

https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM

https://www.cato.org/commentary/100-yea ... eprivation

https://about-history.com/list-of-dicta ... n-history/

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017 ... d-million/

https://foac-pac.org/When-A-Population- ... -Item/7301

i could post several more links and could easily find twice as many.

I include no government stats simply becuz no government, including my own, tells the truth.

Me, I think 114,650,000 people dead, over the past century, from being disarmed by an iteration of The State and having a different opinion from The State, is lowballin' it.
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phyllo
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Re: nihilism

Post by phyllo »

i could post several more links and could easily find twice as many.
No doubt you can, but it all seems to be based on the work of Rudolf Rummel. Not that I think it's necessarily wrong but more links don't mean it's more true.

More to the point ...

There is no data on how much gun ownership there was in any of those situations.

It's not clear if gun ownership would have saved any of those people.
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Re: nihilism

Post by henry quirk »

phyllo wrote: Wed May 24, 2023 12:07 pm
"it all seems to be based on the work of Rudolf Rummel. Not that I think it's necessarily wrong but more links don't mean it's more true."

Yes, I noticed this too. I asked the search engine different permutations of the same question (how many citizens have governments killed in the last century?). All permutations of results had links in some way related to him and his findings. I'd never heard of him till I did the searches.

"There is no data on how much gun ownership there was in any of those situations."

No verifiable data, yes.

"It's not clear if gun ownership would have saved any of those people."

Of course not. Damned clear, though, without guns, those people had no chance to save themselves.

Anyway, as I say, this is far a'field from my true point (a matter of principle, not statistics [I used them to jab at iam, not support my point]).
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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
According to Nietzsche, however, these intellectual stances [above] do not by themselves count as manifestations of nihilism. As presented so far, there is a key element missing. On Nietzsche’s view, the beliefs that there is no point to life or that there are no moral values become nihilistic only when the individual holding such beliefs finds in them a reason for rejecting life and existence as a whole, for disavowing or disengaging with life itself. Nihilism involves a fundamental repudiation of life itself. It is life-denial, the negation of life.
Those who conclude that in a No God world there is no essential meaning and purpose to life may come to conclude as well that in the absence of some ultimate meaning and purpose there is no reason to go on living.

And, for some, this is a perfectly reasonable frame of mind. And, sure, no doubt about it, some have probably taken their own life as a result of it...disengaging forevermore from the despair this can trigger in particular individuals.

But I suspect that far, far, far more nihilists of this sort end it all because their actual day to day existence itself becomes insufferably bleak.

After all, as I like to point out, even if there is no essential meaning and purpose to human existence, that doesn't make all of the countless experiences you can have any less fulfilling and satisfying. The food you eat, the music you love, the relationships you share, the arts you explore, the sex you enjoy, the sports you play, the jobs you savor.

Existentially, meaning is often bursting at the seams in the lives of many of us live. And that hardly excludes nihilists.

Instead, nihilism is examined by some philosophers in a way that is not really applicable at all to the lives we live. Whereas Nietzsche's own reaction to it is often deemed to have revolved around a basically constructive frame of mind:
What does it mean to deny or negate life? To flesh out one sense of nihilistic life-denial, let us take the abovementioned belief that there is no overarching purpose to this life and world. On Nietzsche’s view, it’s quite possible to believe in the purposelessness of life as a whole without taking this belief as a reason to negatively evaluate life. In fact, Nietzsche himself both holds this belief and positively evaluates life; he thinks that, even without an overarching purpose in which all human beings participate, life is well worth living!
Instead, the travail in his own life often revolved around one or another medical affliction. From childhood on. Some of which were said to be entirely psychosomatic. Then the bouts of depression. Then his descent into madness. Again, however, each of us as individuals may live lives that others have no real understanding of at all. Endless "failures to communicate" in other words. And that has almost nothing at all to do with nihilism. Especially in places like this. Instead, we are often confronted over and again with the insufferable objectivists. Human existence must have an essential meaning and purpose, they tell us, because they have already found it.

On the other hand...
But if an individual thinks that life is worthwhile only if there is some higher purpose to it, and they come to believe that there is no such purpose, this latter belief will serve as a reason for finding life not worth living. In this case, since the individual’s belief in the purposelessness of life leads to a negative evaluation of life itself – thus serving as a reason to deny life – Nietzsche would designate the belief nihilistic. In this first sense, then, nihilistic life-denial involves negative judgments of life and existence: that existence is not worthwhile, that life is not worth living, or that it would be better not to exist.
So, by all means, fit yourself in there somewhere. Philosophically or otherwise.
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Joker
Ștefan Bolea meditates on madness at the movies.

[Note:

I decided to examine this in my own nihilism thread as well. And that is because the Joker character is often described by some as the embodiment of nihilism at the movies.]
Most of us possess a sense of reality, but what if our senses deceive us? Would I still know what was real if, for instance, I had a microscopic brain tumor that made me hallucinate that the people around me were devils, or that a beautiful sunny day was a dark nightmare? What if I then felt the urge to start shooting people?
Okay, was the Joker a madman? Seriously, was he clinically insane?

At the cambridge.org site, he is described as someone afflicted with "antisocial personality disorder".

Okay, but...

Is that more a manifestation of genes or memes? Nature or nurture? And doesn't that make all the difference in the world? After all, in a free will world, if someone behaves as they do because of a brain tumor or because they are afflicted with some serious mental illness, how then can we really hold them responsible for what the do? Morally or otherwise.

Or, instead, is Joker a sociopath? In other words, for any number of reasons given the life he lived -- he was abused as a child, he was raised by sociopaths, he lived a grim and brutal life largely beyond his control -- he simply came to view the world as revolving solely around gratifying his own selfish wants and needs.
Joker, a psychological thriller directed and co-written by Todd Phillips, is a meditation on this disassociative sort of madness. It emphasizes the philosophical problem of the ‘liquid’ divide between perception and reality: if my perception is biased, then my reality transforms as well.
Again, that's why it's so crucial [if possible] to pin down the etiological components of someone who chooses the behaviors as he does. If his perception of the world around him is largely "beyond his control" then the only realistic option is to separate him from the rest of us and try to treat him as a "mental patient" rather than as a "criminal".

On the other hand, if Joker is a sociopath and/or a moral nihilist who rationalizes his selfish and at times destructive behavior, say, philosophically, we may or may not be able to offer him a new philosophical narrative that prompts him to change his behaviors.

With actual madness however...
A second, connected, problem of madness, is the dissolution of the distinction between inside and outside. I can project my inner being onto the world, changing its color and tone. If I can’t tell that I’m doing this then I’ll live in a labyrinthine inferno, a prison of my own projections. No one can reach out to somebody with this kind of insanity. No one really exists for them, and after a while their own broken mirror reflects no one. The subject devours the world, also disintegrating in the process.
...how much of this is so engrained physiologically in Joker, that all we can do is to stop him from devouring our world along with his own.
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Joaquin Phoenix portrays Arthur Fleck, a failing stand-up comedian with a psychological disorder that causes him to laugh at inappropriate moments. The film provides a backstory for the character of the Joker in the Batman stories. Under the pressure of successive disasters and injustices, Fleck descends into madness and goes on a killing spree.
Well, here, of course, if Joker in both films is derived from the Batman films, comparisons will be made between Joaquin Phoenix's Joker and Heath Ledger's Joker. The Christian Bale Batman movie is the only Marvel/DC Comic Book film I have ever seen. And that was some years ago. So admittedly it's all rather fuzzy to me now. As I recall, the Heath Ledger character was something akin to a Hannibal Lector. He had layers of depth that set him apart from your typical thug sociopath. Closer to, say, the sociopath who might have majored in philosophy at college.

For instance...

"Joker has a unique character and he is different from other villains in movies. While they committed crime based on personal revenge, economic fulfillment, Joker does it his own way. He does not obey rules, laws, or even morals. Based on those ideas, the writer includes Joker as a nihilist." Satrio Jagaf from Moral nihilism as Reflected by Joker in the Dark Knight Movie

So, sure, a lot of our reactions to films of this sort will revolve around what we first bring to them: ourselves.

But then back to this author's assumption that the key to understanding Joker's behavior is madness. Which would diminish the film's interest for someone like me. Like the manner in which the fascinating character Nathan Landau in Sophie's Choice turned out to have a mental disorder propelling him one breakdown to the next.
In the process, though, he adopts the persona of Joker and becomes the symbol of a revolution against privilege in Gotham City, and a hero to rioters who fail to grasp the depth of his disorders. Madness is notoriously difficult to perform, because, on one hand, the actor must keep his emotions in check while acting as if they are out of balance, and, on the other, his exaggerations must be credible, otherwise the movie becomes a melodrama or caricature. But watch, for instance, arguably the most disturbing scene of the movie, in which Arthur smothers his mother with a pillow as he delivers the crucial line: “I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realize it’s a comedy.”
So, does that clinch it for you? Does that make him a madman more so than a sociopath more so than the more sophisticated moral nihilist?
Arthur’s tone is neutral, as if his actions are completely severed from any emotion. The scene is a cold description of gestures with no reference to sentiment. The apathy of the murder is chilling. The brilliance of Phoenix’s performance of madness makes me think of other great deranged villains from past decades: Jack Torrance from The Shining; Bobby Peru from Wild at Heart; John Doe from Se7en.
Same thing though: were these characters construed by you to be propelled by madness? Jack Torrance clearly was. But I'm more ambivalent regarding Bobby Peru and John Doe. Bobby Peru struck me as just basically the out and out sociopath, while John Doe is summed up more accurately here:

"Even though the subjects of Greed, Sloth, and Pride were not ethically good people, John's method of dealing with them was demonic to say the least. Despite being insane, John was far from unintelligent and was capable of working everyone involved in his scheme, victims and law enforcement, with no trouble." Fandom.
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Closely linked to the central theme of madness in Joker is the idea of the ineffectiveness of psychotherapy. “You never listen,” complains Arthur to his therapist, “All I have are negative thoughts.” Dialogue is seen as fake, and because access to the awareness of others is blocked, one enters the realm of solipsism, where pain is incommunicable. The other person may be falling apart, yet I cannot see through his mask.
Human psychology. Once that is introduced all bets are off. Our psychological reactions are always going to be an extremely complex and convoluted intertwining of nature and nurture, of intellect and emotions, of libidos and drives, of conscious and subconscious and unconscious reactions to the world around us.

Couple this with the Benjamin Button Syndrome -- all the interacting variables in our life that we are only so much able to grasp and control -- and it is virtually impossible not only to grasp why others do what they do but why we do what we do as well. There are "trained professionals" like psychiatrists and psychologists who are educated to come closer to understanding human psychology in general as a "discipline" but even then, in not having actually lived a patient's life, they can really only go in so far.

And, of course, with Joker we are dealing with an entirely fictional character. A comic book villain. His "backstory" having been created by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson.

And with all the usual twists and turns...
So Joker is also a meditation on ‘ontological insecurity’, as R.D. Laing put it, and on a sort of existential paranoia. If I lack empathy, the other may seem to me like a robot, a computer program, or a ghost. I may even doubt the existence of the other person. I may even come to doubt my own existence: the other never sees me, therefore I fail to see myself, therefore I fail to exist.
Psychobabble let's call it. Unless, of course, in considering your own life it seems rather prescient. In any event there are any number of aspects that encompass our lives which are for all practical purposes clearly visible. And of those that are not perhaps better words might be ambiguous or ambivalent or uncertain or confused.

I just happen to prefer "fractured and fragmented". But even then, only in regard to my value judgments.
Invisibility is a socio-political problem: many may feel that they don’t have a place, that they are worthless, that they don’t mean nothing, that their lives make no ‘cents’, as Arthur writes in his journal.
On the other hand, some take invisibility down into the philosophical depths...layers that are rarely explored by others. Black or white: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Man

As for Joker, what did he mean by a life that makes no "cents"? Is that in reference to the essential meaningless of human existence...or does it also include the manner in which capitalism, in reducing so much down to dollars and cents, creates a systemic alienation like no other political economy before it.
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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
Understanding nihilism as life-denying in this first sense allows us to recognise one of Nietzsche’s most striking insights: if life-denial involves the negative judgment of this life and world as they actually are, then even beliefs and values that we typically understand as bestowing meaning and value upon life can function as covertly nihilistic.
Of course! All we have to do is to pin down what human existence out in the world that we live in actually is!! You tell me what you deny about it and I'll tell you what I deny about it. Then after agreeing on that we move on to the things we don't deny about it.

And then if that seems to come down to distinguishing between the either/or world and the is/ought world, I won't deny that I told you so.

On the other hand, the objectivists among us will have little or nothing to do with indicating covertly all of the things in the world around us that they deem to be nihilistic attributes. And not just in regard to my own frame of mind. You can refuse to agree with what they believe about things like race and gender and homosexuality and Jews and be a nihilist too. Or the despicable liberal/globalist rendition of that.

Though, unlike me, any number of those on the other end of the political spectrum are in fact not in the least "fractured and fragmented" in setting the record straight.
Let us return to the individual who believes that life is worth living only if there is some higher purpose to it, in which all human beings participate. For such an individual, it is not only nihilistic to disavow her belief in a higher purpose; it is also nihilistic for her to believe in a higher purpose.
That's confusing. How is it nihilistic to believe in a higher purpose? Other than by way of being so obsessed with embracing one's own Kingdom of Ends that any and all behaviors are then justified in going after those who do not or will not share it. It's like those who argue that fascism can be rationalized given a certain set of assumptions about the human condition, but the Nazis were nihilists when they took it too far and endorsed and participated in the Holocaust.

Or, perhaps...
After all, Nietzsche argues, if we think life is worth living only if there is a higher purpose in which we participate – and it turns out that there is no higher purpose in which we participate (something that Nietzsche insists we must accept) – then one’s belief in a higher purpose is life-denying because it implicitly devalues life as it actually is (that is, as devoid of higher purposes). In other words, given that there is no higher purpose, belief in a higher purpose as that which is required to make life worth living covertly devalues life: it indicates that life, as it actually is, is not worth living.
Uh, maybe? For most though the emphasis is placed on their own belief that there is in fact a higher purpose. Otherwise, how to explain the fact that they already embody it. Besides, who is to say what life "as it actually is" is?
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