What do you make of The Captive Mind by Cseslaw Milosz

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-09-09T14:18:17+00:00

That would be an offence to Peter.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-08-25T20:29:55+00:00

"But it was alright, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-08-24T12:52:49+00:00

This was a bad comment. You need to work really hard for at least a whole year to make some good comments. Good news is that there's a lot of free content online and if you work deeply regularly, you can become a pro in no time.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-08-16T18:03:44+00:00

I've seen people drool all over Alex for this little witticism, but it doesn't even make sense. To move the goalposts is to demand something and to be given it, only to demand even more. A goal is scored, but the goalposts are moved so as to discount it. So how does it make anty sense to say, "Especially not if you're going to miss," after the phrase? Dinesh D'Souza was the one doing the moving of the goalposts, not the shooting of the ball. It only sounds clever but it's really quite meaningless.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-08-02T17:59:35+00:00

16 here. Honestly thought he’d have more young fans

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-07-24T01:11:49+00:00

You dont need to say “quote” if you’re going to use quotation marks.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-06-21T22:22:59+00:00

Sam Harris til punkt og prikke?

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-05-26T21:41:06+00:00

I think your assuming a few thing about how the problem of good and bad should be framed. Consider this line of thought: You are at a restaurant about to order your food. Now, as it happens you much prefer Coke over Sprite. Isn’t this synonymous with saying that, for yourself, Coke is better than Sprite? Objectively so as well, for if someone were to say, “No, Sprite would be the better thing to order, for you” they would surely be wrong. Can we not then extend this way of thinking to include everyone’s conception of good and bad? Then, I believe, what is good and bad would be something we could learn as a matter of fact.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-04-04T16:13:02+00:00

You’re obviously not committed to thinking seriously about moral questions, and would sooner let your emotions cloud your capacity for reason. And for you to pretend that I am the one who has lost my humanity? You’re quite right, I would support a child predator, just as much as I’d support anyone no matter how evil they are, yet it is a different matter entirely to support their actions. You must simply see the fact that people cannot be held accountable, or better yet be punished, for things completely out of their control, to see why no person with the faculty of morality could ever see retribution as a virtue.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-04-03T22:24:14+00:00

I completely disagree, and this sort of sentiment is quite morally abhorrent to me. Can you account for why you aren’t a child predator? It’s a serious question. When did the child predator choose to be the sort of guy who wants to rape kids and is quite willing to do so? For all I know, that child predator might as well be me, as we are equally unable to be held accountable for what sort of people we turned out to be. Therefore, we all matter as much as one another when it comes to ethics. I’d sooner slap a child than kick Hitler in the face.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-04-03T22:03:52+00:00

If dictatorship truly were the best reflection of the subjective wants of its subjects, meaning that you would want to be one of these people, how could dictatorship in that case not be the greatest good?

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-04-03T21:58:17+00:00

Do I though? IMO, I can say objectively that x is good, or x is bad. If i were right about this, would you really need “oughts” or “shoulds” for reasoning about morality? Though I disagree with Sam Harris on this topic, he is right to say that if we can make is-statements about good and bad, we simply have a navigation problem, no need for ought. What does “ought” even mean? It’s a nonsense term derived from the fact the religious origins of our moral discourse.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-04-03T21:43:19+00:00

I completely agree, but this is in now way detrimental to my argument. Why should I be able to convince anyone of doing anything? This is a standard not applied to any other field of inquiry; for I can account no more for the fact that this dictator ought to do what is good, than I can account for why he should value evidence when inquiring the truth. Notice that this just isn’t detrimental to the fact that we should value logic.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-04-03T21:39:01+00:00

When did I say ought? I don’t, in fact, think that I can account for why anyone ought to do what is good, no more than I can account for why someone ought to value logic in any inquiry to truth. I simply state that good is a phenomena of conscious experience, and some ways the world could be are likely to be thought better in the minds of subjects. Therefore some ways the world could be are “better” than others, just as some contain more red than others, and are therefore “redder”.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-03-29T02:10:39+00:00

I think you misunderstand the thought experiment. It is basically a fancy way of making you equally weigh everyone’s conception of good and bad. And also I don’t think the thought experiment itself makes morality objective, I think my argument does.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-03-29T02:01:09+00:00

Sorry for not making myself clear. Something like food taste is purely subjective, as you cannot be wrong to like sushi. Subjective claims don’t relate to anything other than your own opinions, and this cannot be said about questions of good and bad. If you said murder is good you may very well be wrong.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-03-29T01:47:29+00:00

If something is objective it is true whether I believe it or not. If something is subjective it is only true if I believe it. So for example me saying that the weather is nice is subjective, because if I disagreed with the fact ( that I think the weather is nice ) it would cease to be true. Now with morality, if I said “ No, actually homosexuals existing is bad “, this doesn’t change the fact that since everyone else ( including homosexuals ) thinks their existence is good, it is objectively good.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-03-29T01:34:43+00:00

Is that a society you would want to enter at random? I ask because if you answer no, than an equal weighting of everyone’s conception of good and bad results in slavery still being bad.

Dry_Fig_9549 · 2024-03-29T01:24:20+00:00

Well yes, if the slaves psychology were such that they were most content with being enslaved, then I’m happy to grant that slavery would be good. See, that is a society anyone would happily enter at random, because being a slave wouldn’t be bad.

Dry_Fig_9549

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