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Topic: Legalise it or not. (Read 4128 times) |
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #15 on: 2007-07-30 16:07:50 » |
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Well since suicide is on the table, I'd like to respond. Quite frankly I'm not sure that it is entirely off topic, as we are talking about issues of individual autonomy and ethical hedonism in cases of imbibing intoxicants, and drinking poison, either literally or in effect. I've been acquainted with a few cases of assisted suicide/euthenasia, and to me it is the ultimate issue of self determination. As such I think the individual, preferably with the assistence of other's judgements if not their actual help, has the absolute right to choose less time over greater suffering.
Mostly I think the dangers of this choice lie in the taboos of discussing such topics as a normal course of life. Most of the irrational suicides I think are decided upon in a state of irrational alienation from others, and much of that is due to religious and even legal taboos. Of course some people are simply paranoid beyond help and likely to kill themselves regardless of saner analysis, but I think many more would share their thoughts and consider the input of others if we weren't so wacky about the issue.
And of course, sometimes it really is the right choice. Once one has taken care of their business, the end is inevitable, and inevitably painful, why insist on the cruelest exit? And even if they choose more time, I would be the first to help them to whatever intoxicants they desire and would make it less painful for them the meantime. I'm a principled hedonist that way.
I think there are ethical principles of hedonism and autonomy which all transhumanists should consider both in the case of intoxicating drugs and euthenasia.
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Bass
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #16 on: 2007-08-19 22:25:13 » |
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Look at Hermit, Blunderov and Mo all going around pwning the newbs. Lol. Feel strongly about it, do you? There is no one answer that is correct here guys. This isn't an exam.
Subjectivity is the mark of a Democracy or even individuality.
That goes doubly for those nay-sayers that try to sell it as the ultimate sin.
That being said, I think that Suicide is a right. I think there is always an alternative, but I'm an optimist and I used to watch MacGyver as a kid. I can tell you that it is a right that I will always want to have at my disposal, but I also keep enough perspective to never use it. It's the little pill they give to Astronauts. It's the self-destruct on the USS Enterprise. It's millenias of proud Japanese tradition. It's nothing new.
They told me in Catholic school that it is the unforgiveable sin. I don't know if I believe that. I just know that it is always an option and that that is a great comfort and a great responsibility.
Regards,
Bass
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #17 on: 2007-08-20 14:30:17 » |
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Quote from: Bass on 2007-08-19 22:25:13
Look at Hermit, Blunderov and Mo all going around pwning the newbs. Lol. Feel strongly about it, do you? There is no one answer that is correct here guys. This isn't an exam.
Subjectivity is the mark of a Democracy or even individuality.
That goes doubly for those nay-sayers that try to sell it as the ultimate sin.
That being said, I think that Suicide is a right. I think there is always an alternative, but I'm an optimist and I used to watch MacGyver as a kid. I can tell you that it is a right that I will always want to have at my disposal, but I also keep enough perspective to never use it. It's the little pill they give to Astronauts. It's the self-destruct on the USS Enterprise. It's millenias of proud Japanese tradition. It's nothing new.
They told me in Catholic school that it is the unforgiveable sin. I don't know if I believe that. I just know that it is always an option and that that is a great comfort and a great responsibility.
Regards,
Bass
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I think tolerance is a mark of a Democracy. Subjectivity merely states our being limited to an individual if otherwise interconnected perspective. It doesn't serve as an excuse to deny objective reality. It also doesn't serve as an excuse for apathy. Issues of life, death, autonomy and freedom demand strong feelings, especially when experienced first hand. If not, I don't know what else does.
If one values individual autonomy in matters of happiness/suffering; if one values a chosen life over simply biological life; then there are good answers to these situations as well as bad ones. For an example of absurdly bad decision making I point to the case of a Republican president and congress hijacking life decisions in the case of Terri Schiavo. Perhaps there is room for discussing various correct answers, but there are also clearly incorrect answers, like Dr. Bill Frist's.
Of course we seem to agree in conclusion anyway, but I'm just reminding you that there is reason, empathy, and vision underpinning some decision processes, and not others. There is no good reason to not feel strongly about it.
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Hermit
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #18 on: 2007-08-20 16:15:09 » |
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Thanks Mo. I couldn't have put it better myself*.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
*Who wonders why Bass imagined that there was anything here but strong agreement by a number of people not only aware of, but insisting upon their right, and the right of others, to live their lives at the sixth level of ethics (Refer e.g. http://www.churchofvirus.org/wiki/ethics) irrespective of social fashions or approval.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Bass
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #19 on: 2007-08-20 21:18:09 » |
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Mo and Hermit (since you both seem to hold the same opinion here).
On Democracy, you are wrong and by saying so, I've proved my point. If you want to tolerate it, then you are free to supply it, if not, then it doesn't matter. You see then how it is the subjectivity that is the mark. You, yourselves, show very little, if any, tolerance for Christianity. Thus you supply the individuality, but not the tolerance. Our system of gorvernment simply unites individuality in a way that creates a single dominant voice. The remaing demographic that wasn't represented "tolerates" the descision because they have no precedent not to. It's not a choice that they bear proudly. They are forced. Not tolerated.
"Objective reality" is such a fantastic term! One that should be tattooed on my arm so that if I'm ever sad I can look down on it and laugh. The necessities of objective reality has already brought on too many mistakes to count. Mistakes that I've seen people here delight in regaling us with time and time again. It's not something that I would've thought you would (dare I say) believe in. 
Tolerance is something they sell in pamphlets. If it does actually exist, it exists in the smallest philosophical units distributed in the minds of people who do not understand what goes on around them.
Kind regards,
Bass
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Hermit
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #20 on: 2007-08-21 06:02:21 » |
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[Bass] On Democracy, you are wrong and by saying so, I've proved my point. If you want to tolerate it, then you are free to supply it, if not, then it doesn't matter. You see then how it is the subjectivity that is the mark.
[Hermit] I don't have a clue what - if anything - you are trying to communicate here.
[Bass] You, yourselves, show very little, if any, tolerance for Christianity.
[Hermit] Of course not. But then I don't show tolerance to smallpox, diphtheria or cholera vectors either. And these are arguably far less harmful to humanity than Christianity (and the related memetic plagues of Judaism and Islamism) have proven themselves to be.
[Bass] Thus you supply the individuality, but not the tolerance.
[Hermit] Again, no clue if this was meant to convey meaning or not.
[Bass] Our system of gorvernment simply unites individuality in a way that creates a single dominant voice. The remaing demographic that wasn't represented "tolerates" the descision because they have no precedent not to. It's not a choice that they bear proudly. They are forced. Not tolerated.
[Hermit] This is what the US constitution and environment clearly failed to provide - and the even older Dutch constitution - and famed tolerance - does provide. No reason for the US to be proud.
[Bass] "Objective reality" is such a fantastic term! One that should be tattooed on my arm so that if I'm ever sad I can look down on it and laugh. The necessities of objective reality has already brought on too many mistakes to count. Mistakes that I've seen people here delight in regaling us with time and time again. It's not something that I would've thought you would (dare I say) believe in.
[Hermit] If you deny your perception of communicable emergent reality then you have also denied your ability to communicate meaningfully. Which may possibly explain a few things.
[Bass] Tolerance is something they sell in pamphlets. If it does actually exist, it exists in the smallest philosophical units distributed in the minds of people who do not understand what goes on around them.
[Hermit] What nonsense. Tolerance consists of your recognizing that others have the ethical right to offend you to the very core of your being, so long as no undesired physical harm is caused to anyone. The reverse should also be true. You ought to have the unlimited right to offend others as long as you avoid doing so in most of the world where logical failure means that you may face extreme sanctions for doing so. e.g don't spray paint "police academy 7" on the side of your own brand new truck outside a courthouse in the USA, as there is a strong likelihood that an officer will kill you - and the DA will abuse the Grand Jury process (used almost exclusively to get charges against officers dropped) determine that there is no reason to charge those involved*.
Hermit
* Following a brief bout of commotion that started with spray paint and ended in a fatal shooting, Jonathan McCourt became the third mentally ill Iowan to die at the hands of local law enforcement officers in the past six months. Jonathan McCourt was at the Polk County Courthouse last week attending to his hand-written lawsuit seeking four-trillion dollars in damages from a local psychiatrist, the American Psychology Association and several national drug companies, when he spray painted "Police Academy 7" on his white pick-up truck, led police on a brief chase and allegedly reached for a toy gun in his waistband** before being shot in the chest by Deputy Keith Onley. The fact that McCourt was described by neighbors as eccentric but harmless and had a warrant issued for his commitment to a mental treatment facility shortly before the incident, raised complaints from advocates who say the tragedy is further proof that the state's mental health system needs to have its head checked. http://www.dmcityview.com/archives/june/06-16-05/winners-losers.shtml
** Even though this is how it was initially reported, it turns out that he didn't reach for a toy gun, he took out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter***.
***The moral of the story may be, "Smoking Kills."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Bass
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #21 on: 2007-08-21 23:06:11 » |
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[Hermit] I don't have a clue what - if anything - you are trying to communicate here.
[Bass] Somehow, I don't doubt that.
[Hermit; on Christianity] Of course not. But then I don't show tolerance to smallpox, diphtheria or cholera vectors either. And these are arguably far less harmful to humanity than Christianity (and the related memetic plagues of Judaism and Islamism) have proven themselves to be.
[Bass] It’s nice to see you employ your vaunted tolerance in action. It makes it so much easier for you to hate and rationalize that hate when you categorize Christians as Christianity. So you stave off your hate at categories instead of actual people. That’s altruistic and cute, but very quixotic. You can’t get away with hating the ideals without eventually hating the idolizers.
[Hermit] This is what the US constitution and environment clearly failed to provide - and the even older Dutch constitution - and famed tolerance - does provide. No reason for the US to be proud.
[Bass] I'm not going to waste time on this as I suspect we both agree on this subject with the exception of the use of the word "Tolerance".
[Hermit] If you deny your perception of communicable emergent reality then you have also denied your ability to communicate meaningfully. Which may possibly explain a few things.
[Bass] Objective reality? I can’t reject it, obviously, otherwise I would be a vegetable in an asylum. But I don’t prize it, as you do. I prize subjective reality. I prize individuality. I prize people. You prize objective realities that too many people have broken against and which you, yourself, rebel against. You prize categories. And you think nothing of individuals that they represent. And what does that make you? That would make you just a number. How boring. You prize arguements and debates. I prize "thought." Which this very debate is uncharacteristic of me because I respect opinions as forged by perspectives that I could not understand having not obtained the same empirical posteriori so therefore do not seek to contest them.
I was even forced to stoop to categorize us in your objective terms so that you can comprehend and this can continue.
The rest of your post seemed like pointless minutia so I did not feel obligated to quote it nor address it.
I see this discussion as over mainly and most pointedly as you perhaps inadvertently hinted at; we have no common ground.
Regards,
Bass
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #22 on: 2007-08-22 12:10:53 » |
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This thread makes less sense than the last time I posted. Bass denounces tolerance and objective reality, and further accuses others of hatred. I suppose if I tossed objectivity and tolerance out the window as he has I would quickly learn to hate and probably project that same intention on others who failed to recognize my solipsism.
[Hermit] If you deny your perception of communicable emergent reality then you have also denied your ability to communicate meaningfully. Which may possibly explain a few things.
Amen
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #23 on: 2007-08-22 12:25:09 » |
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[Bass] (...) You, yourselves, show very little, if any, tolerance for Christianity (...)
[Hermit] Responds to this.
[Bass] It’s nice to see you employ your vaunted tolerance in action. It makes it so much easier for you to hate and rationalize that hate when you categorize Christians as Christianity. So you stave off your hate at categories instead of actual people. That’s altruistic and cute, but very quixotic. You can’t get away with hating the ideals without eventually hating the idolizers.
[Hermit] Observes that Bass should try not to object to people responding to what he says (as opposed to what he means) and observes that Bass appeared to speak of Christianity the idea, not of Christians the deluded.
[Hermit provides some gratuitous parenthetical advice] (Bass, you really should not attempt to project from yourself onto others. As in this case, it is invariably incorrect. While most of humanity might be a waste of DNA, hating people is completely futile as it is almost always not their DNA which is objectionable but rather their ideas or your reaction to them. Learn to control your reactions and analyze ideas rather than the people infected by them and you can dispense with hate.)
[Hermit] I abhor Christianity and all that it stands for (as opposed to how it is currently, generally but not exclusively, interpreted), I loathe all that it has done to mankind in the past, and I abominate the harm it will likely do in the future, as our lives become harder. Yet to watch Bass attempt to transform my reasoned dislike of a pernicious concept into assertions that I cannot prevent myself from "hating" about a billion people, including many of my friends and family, the thousands of anonymous people I have helped without having regard to their religious psychoses, many of whom would undoubtedly self-identify as Christians, as well us the untold millions I have never met, is beyond bizarre. It is blatantly irrational.
[Hermit] Expecting tolerance for harmful ideas from rational people is stupid. Asserting that intolerance for harmful ideas, which must be reasoned, as it involves determination of relative harms, is equivalent to hatred of the people infested by these harm causing ideas, reflects a failure of reason, of language, or of both.
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #24 on: 2007-08-22 15:19:04 » |
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The last coherent thing Bass said on this thread:
Quote:| The necessities of objective reality has already brought on too many mistakes to count. |
And it wasn't coherent because it was correct, rational, or even grammatically proper, but rather because it pointed to the problem in his thinking which explains the rest of his incoherent breakdown on this thread.
For Bass's sake rather than anyone trying to unravel the drama, I would suggest that the "mistakes" you refer to probably have more to do with your difficulties interfacing with objective reality rather than that objectivity itself. We all face a few of these, often referred to as disillusion -- like the time my parents finally refused to play along with the Easter Bunny game anymore -- but I would like to encourage you to move beyond such issues as objective reality provides greater possibilities than the fairy tales could ever deliver.
I would hide all the eggs for you if it would ultimately make you happier, but once you know better it simply isn't as exciting. I think you probably know better even as you hang on to the drama of your denial.
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Mo Enzyme
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Bass
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #25 on: 2007-08-22 16:16:41 » |
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I think/believe that objective reality is not as constant as you think/believe it is Hermit/Mo.
How can objective reality remain objective if it is subject to subjective interpretation? There is no way of observing objective reality objectively. How can you call that objective? At best, it is a fragile agreement of an interconnected system of subjective interpretations. How do I even know that we are talking about the same reality? It all depends on the subjective empirical posteriori perceptions of what people call the 'objective reality.' Deny it? No, I don't deny it. I'm saying it's a vague, fragile, shifting, amorphous and only ever so slightly useful in founding one's own subjective set of skills and maxims.
Just because we all agree that an apple is red says absolutely nothing about 'red' or 'apple'. It just says what we both perceive about 'apple' and 'red' and how we perceive it are constant, not the same. And to take that even a further step into the vague and say that there is an absolute for the morals of suicide, is beyond ridiculous. The few things that we can agree on in this 'objective reality' I trust, but not as much as I trust my own perspective.
For you to say that objective reality actually determines that there is a definite unquestionable right and wrong in regards to the moral question of suicide is asinine. The fact remains that there IS NO right answer in regards to the moral question of suicide, only your subjective perception of what objective reality supposedly says about it.
Now your case for Terri Schiavo is possible from her point of view because the decision was made by a seperate entity then the one it affected. In which case, the wishes of the actual entity in question is the 'right' answer and any other conflicting decision by any other person was the 'wrong' answer. Once again individuality reigns supreme and any liberty taken against it is rape or murder from their point of view.
As far as my comments on Christianity go - they stand. I simply wonder how you Hermit can continue to respect those who devote themselves to something you seem to hate so unreservedly. But if you can hate only ideas and not the believers then I do rightly applaud you.
The people who practice the very few ideas that I do hate, merit hate themselves.
Regards,
Bass
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #26 on: 2007-08-22 17:04:20 » |
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Bass:
Quote: For you to say that objective reality actually determines that there is a definite unquestionable right and wrong in regards to the moral question of suicide is asinine. The fact remains that there IS NO right answer in regards to the moral question of suicide, only your subjective perception of what objective reality supposedly says about it.
Now your case for Terri Schiavo is possible from her point of view because the decision was made by a seperate entity then the one it affected. In which case, the wishes of the actual entity in question is the 'right' answer and any other conflicting decision by any other person was the 'wrong' answer. Once again individuality reigns supreme and any liberty taken against it is rape or murder from their point of view. |
Sounds odd for you to say how asinine and yet end up at exactly the same conclusion I do. Again and again even . . . almost as if there were some objective reality at work. Strictly speaking Terri Schiavo's case wasn't a suicide because by the time the issue arose, she was incapable of making any decisions for herself much less carrying through with them.
But the value remains the same for suicide, individual autonomy -- respect for an individual to make life decisions for themselves or to assign those decisions to people they trust if they become incapacitated. Indeed I think these legal and social realities are probably easier to agree upon than the particular redness of an apple, and so when violated they seem all the more horribly wrong than any disagreement on color.
Even though Terri Schiavo probably had no real point of view anymore, the concerted GOP efforts to intervene in her socially and legally (via marriage) arranged decisionmaking still seems like a "rape" as you so strongly put it. The ethical point doesn't lie in any particular conclusion, but in how decisions are made and who makes them. It was objectively wrong for Dr. Bill Frist, George W Bush, Dennis Hastert and the rest of the neo-con fascist politicos to intervene in Schiavo's case.
The fact that they did so out of a "pro-life" Christian political agenda only adds fuel to some of Hermit's points, but I'll leave that to him.
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Mo Enzyme
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Blunderov
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #27 on: 2007-08-22 17:44:58 » |
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[Blunderov] Solopsism is really rather tired IMV. It's the first philosophising most people learn to do and to the extent that it may lead to a life of further enquiry I suppose it has some use. The Hermit refuted it rather nicely I thought. Somewhere, I forget where, he said (if I understood him aright) that if all information originated with oneself why go to the senseless trouble of endlessly announcing the fact? Preaching to the choir you might say.
My view is that it is sufficient that the illusion is complete. We, who fondly imagine ourselves to be "real", might be someone's simulation. (There are people who think that this is in fact highly probable.) Do we care? No. Why? Because when we, like Dr. Johnson, kick a rock, it kicks back.
This is all we require of the rock. No more. No Less.
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #28 on: 2007-08-22 21:47:12 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2007-08-20 16:15:09 Thanks Mo. I couldn't have put it better myself*.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
*Who wonders why Bass imagined that there was anything here but strong agreement by a number of people not only aware of, but insisting upon their right, and the right of others, to live their lives at the sixth level of ethics (Refer e.g. http://www.churchofvirus.org/wiki/ethics) irrespective of social fashions or approval.
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Thanks for this wiki refresher.
I had a particular one-word revision that might make this clearer.
Quote:| CoV wiki: In the fifth and sixth stages, starting at about age 24, people are guided by both absolute and relative moral principles; they follow these for altruistic reasons, though, and not because of what they might gain individually (the final two stages are differentiated in that the fifth is based on adherence to democractic processes and rule of law, the sixth allows for the possibility of civil disobedience in the interests of changing laws). |
Here I wished to suggest "empathic" for "altruistic", such that it would read as follows:
"In the fifth and sixth stages, starting at about age 24, people are guided by both absolute and relative moral principles; they follow these for empathic reasons, though, and not because of what they might gain individually (the final two stages are differentiated in that the fifth is based on adherence to democractic processes and rule of law, the sixth allows for the possibility of civil disobedience in the interests of changing laws). "
I think this is reasonable in that empathy transcends both individuals and small groups (levels1 thru 3) and large groups (community, city, state, etc., level 4). Also some Randian inspired objectivists dislike "altruism" in favor of (the arguably more accurate) "enlightened selfishness". I personally think "empathy" in the sense of the Virian Virtue is more accurate than either term. Even though all three are arguably synonyms, as this is CoV wiki I think it makes memetic sense to prefer the Virian "empathy" all other things being equal.
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Mo Enzyme
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Re:Legalise it or not.
« Reply #29 on: 2007-08-23 00:33:59 » |
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I do my best to ignore the Randites. I wouldn't push to block the change, but would note that altruism speaks to the lack of direct personal benefit, while empathic speaks to the motivation of reducing self suffering through identification of other suffering. I wouldn't have thought of them as synonyms.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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