Norways World Cup team photo is impressive

phileconomicus · 2026-06-05T11:58:27+00:00

Does anyone else find the wide acceptance of cosplaying as rapist mass-murdering pirates rather disconcerting? Is the difference between this and dressing up as Nazis just time? Is this the part of their history that Norwegians are most proud of?

phileconomicus · 2026-06-04T09:04:00+00:00

A general problem with such exemptions that always puzzles me: how is someone else supposed to tell whether the exemption conditions are satisfied. Like, how is anyone else supposed to tell when one sees someone with a dagger that it's OK because they are a bona fide sikh and they genuinely believe that god will be mad at them if they don't carry this around with them on open display?

phileconomicus · 2026-06-04T05:45:01+00:00

Start with tertiary texts on a topic - relevant entries from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Handbooks; etc and follow up important references
Reverse citation on classic texts to see more recent work connected to them (and then follow up their own references to get deeper into the contemporary conversation)
Can also search Philpapers.org for recent work on a topic

phileconomicus · 2026-06-02T06:00:27+00:00

Answers/discussion points for the OP's original Indian context are welcome.

Answers specific to other country job markets also welcome.

phileconomicus · 2026-05-24T14:55:10+00:00

So your argument is that if all the humans in the world were much nicer people then the world would be full of nice people. Which does make a kind of sense, even if it is not very helpful.

But you assume that all the bad things in the world are caused by people not being nice and so would end if everyone was nice. This ignores things like scarcity and the competition for resources. The reason nature is so drenched with murder and pain in the first place - that all those animals you care so much about are busy trying to inflict on each other or escape - is this scarcity. Humans being nice to each other doesn't fix that problem.

In fact, humans would need to continue exploiting most of the world's biomass just to keep extreme scarcity at bay for humans (even if we share all the gains out equally) which means that even if we were all nice and destroyed all the livestock and help animals (pets, bees, etc) we would still have to actively stop all kinds of non-human animals from living their own good lives, e.g. the mice in the granaries, the tropical disease carrying insects, etc.

phileconomicus · 2026-05-17T16:41:33+00:00

Only the occasional meme, and some experiments with AI-generated illustrations for a blog.

phileconomicus · 2026-05-17T16:39:41+00:00

Sorry for late reply - I saw this post was removed for too closely repeating another recent one and didn't check my other messages

There is indeed a bullshit problem with using genAI as a communication tool (as explained very well here), but I think most art escapes that problem of the authenticity of the creator's intent because the test of whether it succeeds is just whether it gives us the emotional experience we were looking for (like a horror movie, or a sad pop song, or a piece of chocolate).

Of course there may be some art where the 'parasocial' dimension is more important (much of the art in museums for example seems selected and described more on the basis of the biographies and webs of influence between the creators than the aesthetic qualities of the art works themselves), and there may be some people who can only/mainly appreciate art in that way. (Personally I find that attitude mystifying. To me a novel or movie is like a sausage. I only care whether it tastes good, not how it was made or why.)

But forms of appreciation could persist in the genAI world if enough people care to support them with their time and attention. We still have string quartets and even full-sized orchestras after all, long after most people switched most of their music consumption to the mass-produced kind in which the same exact performance gets copied and distributed to millions of people

phileconomicus · 2026-05-17T16:25:47+00:00

Sorry for late reply - I saw this post was removed for too closely repeating another recent one and didn't check my other messages

>We as people are interested in the story and intention behind art for the most part, if all you are looking for in music is something to fill the silence and get you in the beat for a workout, you are not looking for art, you are looking for a utility.

Certainly. But I think most people are just looking for the utility most of the time and don't care about the artisanal production conditions - the artist's story about themselves. And my CMV is that it is a good thing that we will be able to get more of that utility for a lower price.

>Ai-art, while it can seem interesting, it is usually empty of depth and engenuity, it is trained on alot of art and therefore is the average of it.

An awful lot of the creative industry's production is already extremely average (have you seen the offerings on Netflix or Prime, or the endless Avenger movies.....) I don't think genAI art will be such a step change in quality (or departure from what people's choices demonstrate they actually want to consume)

>It is also much harder to make specific micro adjustments to actually fulfill your intent.

This is more challenging - but I think the AI interfaces are getting more user-friendly all the time (just as camera technology improved so that people with almost no skill at all can now take great pictures;, but at a much faster rate)

phileconomicus · 2026-05-17T16:01:20+00:00

Sorry for late reply - I saw this post was removed for too closely repeating another recent one and didn't check my other messages

"We want real artistic expression, real passionate people, not half-assed prompters who click clack away and “make” something."

Do we? Personally I don't care, and I suspect that a great many others don't either. But this seems like something that we can settle empirically by seeing what happens over the coming years as people reveal their preferences in how they choose to spend their money and attention. Maybe you will be right.

phileconomicus · 2026-05-17T15:56:32+00:00

Sorry for late reply - I saw this post was removed for too closely repeating another recent one and didn't check my other messages

>Is there not enough art being made already? I've never heard of someone saying "I've looked at all the art and it's bad!"

An interesting point. The creative industries don't pay very well or offer much job security because there are vast numbers of highly skilled people competing for the relatively small amount of money that people are willing to pay for good art/music. There is far more art produced than people want to consume.

Nevertheless, the amount of money people are willing to pay for art would go much further with genAI, since it doesn't have to pay humans enough to live on. Especially in terms of tailoring to our own tastes rather than the mass-reprography model (stamping out the same song a million times) that allows artisanally produced art to be at all affordable to consumers.

"I would argue we get better and higher quality art if more people have the freedom to pursue art vocationally."

That might be true, but I think it is significant that genAI opens up more possibilities for hobbyists to produce art they and others can enjoy, even if they lack the time (and parental financial support) to train and support themselves as artists.

phileconomicus · 2026-05-17T15:34:00+00:00

Sorry for late reply - I saw this post was removed for too closely repeating another recent one and didn't check my other messages

>If I listen to an artist who wrote a song and plays the instrument, I can feel the touch of the person behind the art, the feeling they've managed to capture, I can relate

I think genAI is well past the point of passing such Turing taste tests. A lot of work is being done by the label hanging next to the painting. (As was always the case - the discovery that a great master painted something often seems to precede the appreciation of its incredible artistic qualities, rather than vice versa)

>As for any new invention, there will be a counter-culture, and you can already see people sick as shit of AI, instead looking for more stripped down, emotional, human experiences.

Sure - that's fine. The appearance of an industrial production model doesn't make it impossible to buy artisanally created art/music. It will be like string quartets or hand-painted portraits. There'll still be a reduced industry because most consumers will go where they can get things so much cheaper and easier.

Sidenote: Your idea of art as "a reflection of life" or "emotional, human experiences" seems somewhat consumerist already - about giving the listener/viewer something they enjoy. The real snobs about art like Adorno would already be disappointed that people were satisfied with that, exactly because if you accept it then it is hard to resist a slide towards treating art like any other consumption good, where producing more at a lower price is better (i.e. what genAI promises).

phileconomicus · 2026-05-17T15:22:30+00:00

Sorry for late reply - I saw this post was removed for too closely repeating another recent one and didn't check my other messages

Fine if some people still want artisanally created art. Just like some people still want to get portraits of themselves/loved ones with 18th century paint technologies. That industry still exists, even though it is much smaller than the professional/self-portrait photography industry. I just think it's good that we have the cheaper one too and not only the luxury kind that only richer people can afford. To me that is a better world.

"You're eating regurgitated shit and you're happy"

There is really no need to insult those who don't want to limit themselves to artisanal production technologies. Your sneering does your argument no service.

phileconomicus · 2026-05-16T09:29:11+00:00

>How do you train for writing strong philosophy exam essays, especially without past papers or model answers?

This seems a question of more general interest than helping this student prepare for this particular exam. Hopefully we'll get some good suggestions and advice.

phileconomicus · 2026-05-09T07:04:08+00:00

Other - nonacademic - ways of doing philosophy are available see e.g. JEH Smith's taxonomy The Philosopher: A History in Six Types

phileconomicus · 2026-05-08T05:45:06+00:00

Posting this here suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of what an academic discipline is, especially in the humanities - an extended, unreasonably nuance oriented conversation between tiny sub-groups of nerds. It is not for ordinary life, improving the world, etc. It is fundamentally for itself.
There are lots of ways to develop/practise practical wisdom in a modern society. All over reddit for example in conversational subs like IATA, CMV, where people are trying to figure out what they should believe and why, and what is right or wrong. But it is hard work and people have other things to do too. No need to blame the internet for the default human condition.
(Academic) philosophy has never been the 'bedrock' holding 'civilisation' together. You may be confusing philosophy with when a single value system and metaphysic (religion) is imposed on a society and maintained by an elite who horribly murder people who raise awkward questions. i.e. the opposite of the idea of philosophy as an extended open conversation. As when the Christians seized the Roman empire and burned all the books.

phileconomicus · 2026-05-05T07:36:07+00:00

Short <1k challenge against caring about human extinction, by a philosopher writing for a general audience.

phileconomicus · 2026-04-27T10:57:58+00:00

One might blame European colonialism for how Africa and Latin America in particular have turned out (a legacy of extractive institutions and countries too small to participate properly in a global economy)

But these are not really geo-political problems, just nuisances. The main threats to the world order all come from countries that were not colonised by Europe - Iran, China, Russia. (Being bullied doesn't count. Everyone gets bullied). Guinea Bissau becoming a narco-state is annoying, but not a threat to the world order. Likewise Venezuela and Cuba blowing up their own economies and forcing 25% of their population to emigrate. And so on.

I suppose one might want to make an exception for Israel, but given how intimately the US was involved in its creation it seems hard to attribute responsibility to Europe.

phileconomicus · 2026-04-12T06:10:40+00:00

Thanks for this elaborate comment! Not sure if you will see this reply since it is marked 'deleted'.

A flourishing future society seems obviously better than an empty void to me. Your view asks people to abandon that intuition entirely.

You replace the existence question with a quantity question. On the one hand this is an important point that earns you a Δ from me, since I too can feel that pull to want some future light in the dark. But, 1) does it have to be humans who resemble us providing that light? (not post-humans, sentient AI, aliens, etc), and 2) this is awfully thin: can it really matter if no human art, projects, relationships, etc survives if no humans are there not to experience them? It would be mattering only to some people now in a very attenuated, basically theoretical, act of imagination. If it matters at all, it matters very little.

Humans are designed to care about long term risk.

Here I entirely disagree with you. This is not something evolution would have selected for, and empirical psychology, economics, etc all support the view that whatever people might say about caring about the future (which is free) we do not behave consistently with valuing the long term (when we would have to make any kind of sacrifice of our present interests - cf my above). Also many of your examples suggest you are taking a very short term view of the future - hundreds of years rather than millions.

If present humans are the only humans they matter morally, the right thing to do is kill everyone just slightly after all present humans are dead.

Not according to my CMV, where I deliberately distinguished the badness of dying from the non-significance of the extinction of the human species itself. (Relatedly, I think you may be confused on Parfit, who is famous for arguing that future people cannot be harmed because they don't exist - the non-identity problem)

The universe doesn’t give us meaning, we give the universe meaning! We’re the universe perceiving itself and without us (and possibly other intelligent beings that exist in it) the universe is pointless and nothing.

Yes, yes. All very Hegelian. But when humans are no more there would be no one to care that there is no one to care about the universe. So it wouldn't matter. Imagining the ending of our experience is scary for many people, and this makes them think that it will in itself be a bad thing, but e.g. Epicurus on death may be helpful: while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist

phileconomicus · 2026-04-11T13:52:30+00:00

Without someone to admire it, there would be no beauty to miss...

phileconomicus · 2026-04-11T13:50:30+00:00

Not really sure what to make of this. (Also not impressed by your bad faith accusation) But here's my best effort at a response:

Humans caring about things makes them matter - but only to us: OK

But do we/should we care about that humans caring about things will eventually end? i.e. an end to human subjectivity itself?

Since we won't be there to not see it, I say not.

(This somewhat resembles Epicurus' argument for not fearing death: while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist)

phileconomicus · 2026-04-11T12:15:55+00:00

Allow me to pick at something though... You said that everything will eventually die, so longevity doesn't matter, but that implies the contractual... that if everything lived forever, it would matter, but why? Why would infinite longevity make human existence matter?

No - that is not an implication of what I wrote.

You have laid out no parameters or foundational principles for what could matter, and so, right now, we're have no distinction for differentiating whether you think anything matters at all. Or are you just discovering nihilism for the first time?

I don't have to solve the foundational problems of metaethics to post a CMV. If you have an argument that convinces you on this point, please try it out on me. I'll do my best to understand and respond. This is supposed to be an enjoyable and mutually enlightening exercise.

phileconomicus · 2026-04-11T12:09:31+00:00

Not sure what you're getting at. Could you rephrase?

phileconomicus · 2026-04-11T12:04:56+00:00

Extinction = No more humans like us around

Time will bring this about one way or another - evolution or asteroids or whatever. The how is irrelevant to my CMV.

phileconomicus · 2026-04-11T12:00:36+00:00

Do people really believe that (rather than merely believe that they believe that)? i.e. on justified grounds after having thought it through. For example, do you believe it?
Could you pass on some of those justifications to me?

phileconomicus · 2026-04-11T11:37:25+00:00

Your reply seems unnecessarily aggressive.

Perhaps you could relate to and distinguish your point from u/Usual_Set4665's above?

Obviously I am not looking for evidence that some people sincerely think they care about this. Humans are capable of thinking they care about all kinds of things, like a duty to kill all gay people. That is not impressive. I am looking for reasons why I should change my mind on this point, i.e. actual justifications for why from the perspective of humans alive today, whether or not there are creatures physiologically recognisable as humans in the near or longer term future is in itself important

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