The First Step is a Doozie

So, I'm going to condense several of the points Brian and I have made over the course of our writings. Its important to remember that, on some level people are simple creatures. Its also important to realize that we're capable of being so much more.

The key point to much of my philosophy on life is just this. Folk are folk. Clear, easy, obvious. We are all of us people; nothing more nothing less. The color of your skin, the shape of your parts, where and how you were born, the method you use for filling the hole in your heart; none of those things matter. The only thing that matters, ever, in any way, is what you do. Failure to act may make you an asshole that I don't want to hang out with, but only action gives you stock. Only taking action can make a person more than just a face in the crowd and only action can make a person into a monster. Whenever you say or do something that has an effect in the world you modify yourself in context to the world. If you act in ways that improve the world you live in, that world is a better place and you (or someone you care about) benefit. If the world is diminished by your presence then it is fucking stupid for the rest of us to not stand against you.

Dictators, corporate gluttons, evangelists and the various apologists all make the world a worse place by their actions, and they all justify themselves by citing some imagined inherent superiority. They deserve more because they work harder, or are Chosen, or simply have more guns. We are fucking better than this. If you think working more entitles you to more resources or dignity don't work so hard, its making you an asshole. If you think you've been chosen by some spiffy cosmic power; great, good for you, help people instead of being a self-righteous cunt.  If having a bigger stick then the next guy makes you feel superior, remember everybody sleeps sometime, and you've set a precedent.

Folk are folk. Its not that fucking hard. No one has any right or value over any other person. I don't have any rights to or over any woman because I'm a man, that would be fucking stupid. People might make claims that I aught to, but those people are all fucking douche bags. Don't get me wrong, I don't count myself a feminist, because women aren't, and shouldn't be, special. The world wouldn't be any better if it were run by women, or black people, or gays, or any group you care to elevate. Because the world is run by people who, on some level, crave power, and that tends to create a psychological predisposition towards thunder-cuntitude.

If we can all accept a little bit of accountability and keep that mantra in mind we can take this place back and make something beautiful out of it. Next time you see someone being a dick, stop them, inject a little empathy into their shit. If we can help the ones who need help and fight the ones who are going to do harm we might be able to make some fucking progress.

~Eshi

Creature Comforts

I am a fan of useless things. I don't mean like scrap metal or reality T.V. stars, though those have their place. No I mean art, music, movies, and that kind of thing. I am sure from context you deduced that I didn't use the word useless as a derogatory term, but just in case you couldn't suss out what I meant allow me to explain.

Human beings are animals. Clever apex predators who attempt to pose as higher beings for the sake of our own hubris. Our basic need to mate, live in shelter, and consume food and water makes us animals. We like to make our shelters big, though I will admit the utility of massive amounts of resources stored for future use is useful, it doesn't make us anything more than squirrels burying nuts. I feel the need to clarify that I don't think badly of my species, I just think it tends to put on airs.

Music, art, movies, and the like are not necessary things. But on that note, neither are cars or marketing or anything in the hospitality industry. These merely make surviving easier, but are in no way a requirement of survival. If the world were to fall in a nuclear war and people roamed the blasted wasteland, you would not worry about ads or whether or not the place you hide at night provides mints on your pillows. And while I will admit a car would make travel easier, it is far from necessary for a trip.

All of this extra stuff is fluff that makes life more bearable, and is the result of humans getting so good at surviving that it became less and less a worry for our species as a whole. The second that survival isn't so hard that it takes up all of our time we gain free time, and what happens when people get bored? They fiddle, explore, and generally fuck with their environs. At first this is just to make the surviving even easier. We created cities, and farms, and gave ourselves even more free time. we got so good at agriculture we only needed some people to do it, so others ended up focusing on other things. This was the birth of philosophy (which evolved into science). People had time to sit and ponder esoteric questions, like "why do I exist?". They had time to make written language, mythologies, and religions. If necessity is the mother of invention, then free time is the proud papa.

Things like music and art are also something that comes from this free time. Every culture on the planet has music and art. Its amazing and beautiful that humanity is able to create "useless" aspects of culture. And it turns out that activities like dancing and music even serve a purpose biologically! We are inherently emotional as a species and anything that creates catharsis keeps us sane (wow that link makes my point better than I ever could).

There are people out there who call art and music useless in the derogatory sense of the word. These people believe that artists, musicians, and actors waste their lives because they are not doing something that serves society as a whole. They don't make money, they don't provide for whatever self-aggrandizing bullshit "need" is valuable so they're failures. They say things like "get a real job" or "grow up" when talking to/about creatives. These people are assholes.

This point kind of branches off from my last post. We project value on a lot of things, and to try and validate this ultimately arbitrary decision we compare our choices with other people's choices (all of which are a kind of aesthetics), and when these choices differ some people lash out. This clash of ideals is what causes fundamentalism and other forms of intolerance. Some people value artistic expression, while others value the purpose they find from being a doctor or policeman, or even just in being a secretary. Those who would berate other's personal values can go fuck themselves. Don't try to tell other people how to live. If you are so bewildered at why they would chose that life, have a discussion with that person, get to know them better. Have empathy for your fellow human, we could use it now more than ever.

Penises, Pedophiles Misleading Titlecards

I watched a thing this morning, I know, I should have known better at this point. Thing watching and comment reading are banes unto my existence and I have no one to blame but myself. Today's thing was an examination of the links between having a penis and being a pedophile. What can I say, abnormal psychology is interesting and I couldn't help but wonder how they would justify that shit.

The problem arose around 5 minutes in when it became clear that a core component of their argument was evolutionary psychology. I have a few issues with psychology as a general thing but by and large I think it is well intended. Evolutionary psychology, however, seems to disproportionately focus on finding ways to justify being fucking terrible. There wont be a lot of links in this one, I don't want to contribute to the traffic of these cuntbags. If you're curious as to the veracity of my claims put on your grown-up pants and look it the fuck up.

*First let me just say that I quite firmly believe that are indeed evolutionary directives that can contribute to bad behavior. Greed, can easily be validated in a survivalist, high scarcity environment. Rape, while wholly fucked up, becomes an effective means of procreation in dire circumstances. Pedo- and hebophilia start making sense when a significant portion of the population doesn't live past twenty five and we really fucking need to breed. However, when considering the evolutionary value of any fucked up activity it is important to remember the context of all evolution. Survival. All "evolutionary behaviors" are fundamentally dependent upon a state of scarcity and an immanent need to survive as a species. The crease in this thinking arises when these behaviors start feeding on themselves and destabilizing the species that harbors them.

When your whole world is freezing over and you will probably only just barely find enough food to feed yourself, greed is handy. In this situation being a little greedy can keep you healthy enough to replace the neighbors who died of starvation and keeps your from dying alongside them. This mentality starts breaking down when we run into a situation where modern agricultural techniques could feed the world with relative ease. Outside a context of natural scarcity greed becomes monstrous.

When everyone absolutely needs to procreate for the species to survive, consent is secondary to success. It's fucked up but understandable. But when a significant percentage of the population could choose keep it perpetually in their pants and the rest would just keep soldiering on, consent goes from a preferable option to an obvious prerequisite.

We know better now. We understand that teenagers essentially have nothing more than hormonal paste between their ears. Anyone willing to show some attention is liable to garner an undue amount of affection from someone going through puberty, that's exploitation and we know it to be fucked up. We understand, at least those of us who actually qualify as people, that sex, gender, color, sexual preference and/or ability set do not have a bearing on what rights a person deserves. Every day more and more of us understand that manufacturing scarcity and hording resources is going to get all of us fucking killed.

Humans are animals, no rational person denies this. However, we don't have to be base. The whole of human history is driven by people developing techniques for overcoming scarcity, for making the question of survival obsolete. We are tripping ever closer to a world where these aren't problems so much as bitter memories, so why are we still clinging to a mentality dependent upon them? We have a responsibility to ourselves to progress, to move towards ever more wondrous futures. That requires not only striving for greater freedom and power, but greater civility and accountability. Crediting behavior to evolutionary factors removes accountability just as readily as an omnipotent egomaniac in the sky. I'm all for examining our words and actions, but only to find ways to be more empathetic, better socialized, and more capable of doing good in the world. If you feel the need to justify an action, it was the wrong one. Humanity prides itself on its rationality, so lets start being rational and put down these childish things.

*I'm not condoning any of this shit. I don't support any of these despicable activities. Don't be a dick.

NEEEEEEEEEEEEERD!

It has always boggled my mind that people make fun of people for their obsessions. I was, and still am, a geek, and in high school people who played Magic The Gathering were made fun of for it. This is not a new phenomenon. People who are obsessed with things are classified as weird, though only on certain things.

Everyone is a geek about something. I am a geek about gaming of various varieties (card-video-table top). Some people love renaissance fairs, LARPing, movies, or theater. These people are often made fun of for it, which I think is unfair. What of people who are obsessed with cars, football (of either variety), music, or TV shows? They show the same amount of commitment, and sometime the same wild levels of it, where money is no object--see anyone who buys an RV to tailgate with, or where fans will dress up in costumes, or cover rooms in paraphernalia. These hobbies have a strong enough social presence to circumvent any large-scale abuse, despite often being just as ridiculous.

Nothing brings people together like an adversary, and degrading people who are different provides an adversary to group around and encourages feelings of goodwill within said group. People begin to feel a part of something bigger, part of a greater power than themselves, a sensation which can be quite addictive. Driven by feelings of connectivity and triumph, these groups then tend to seek out people to mock to re-experience those intoxicating feelings. Football has been popular with a ton of people for a long time and so fans get a pass for painting themselves and dressing like pirates or vikings or whatever. But those socially awkward kids who paint themselves and dress like pirates or vikings or whatever and play D&D number quite a bit less, so fuck those guys amirite?

It is not bad to try to be part of a group, but at the cost of alienating people I don't think it is worth it. As always I default to the "don't be a dick" school of thought. Everyone is obsessed with something, so making fun of them for that obsession is like making fun of someone for needing oxygen to live. So hey, maybe cut people some slack when they get excited about a thing. Except for bronies. Those guys are fucking weird. (sic)

You Know What's Fucking Awesome?

I think we've all pretty well established that I don't have an excess of positive feelings concerning the world we live in and the people inhabiting it. That said, its no way to live and its not completely accurate. To demonstrate this I've decided to write a semi-regular installment here called unsurprisingly, "You Know What's Fucking Awesome" (or for the acronymically inclined YKWFA). Naturally, these posts will include things I think are genuinely interesting and have significant positive potential. It should be pretty fucking awesome.

Today's point of interest is nihilism. Now, I know that word has some stank to it thanks to a fucked up pop perception and an unfortunate internal schism. We're going to keep this as basic as possible, I'm not looking into some of the more philosophical expressions as these are typically better left to those with an excess of free time and a willing disregard for meaningful discourse (fuck Descartes). For the philosophically minded among you I'm ignoring; metaphysical nihilism, mereological nihilism, and partial nihilism. I'm giving these ones a pass because they are stupid, meaningless, and stupidly meaningless respectively and I will straight up word fight you if you don't understand that. Our big targets today are going to be existential and moral nihilism and they are awesome.

Existential nihilism is essentially that there is no inherent meaning in existence. It tends to come across as emo bullshit, but I would argue that meaninglessness is amazing. A lack of inherent value given anything that even remotely constitutes consciousness equates to an incredible degree of freedom. Sure, you're still essentially bound by the laws of physics, but other than that the sky is the limit. You want the central value of your existence to be how many sweet-ass buildings you've jumped off of? Fuck yeah, good for you. Like the idea of your life being centered on jacking off into a flowerbed? That's fucking weird, have fun. Now, admittedly, you can take this the other direction; devastated over the lack of intrinsic determinism of your existence. But really, if that's how you interact with that train of thought you're kind of a shortsighted asshole. The idea that existence is only worth it if there is some kind of fundamental importance built in that we have to discover is insulting to the scope and glory of the universe we live in.

Moral nihilism is similarly the idea that morality isn't intrinsic. I'm not going to hit this one too hard because Brian just got done going over what is basically the same argument, but if there isn't intrinsic morality, there can't be absolute morality. Intrinsic morality would mean there was an action that absolutely no one would think just, deserved, or enjoyable under any circumstance. Since the variability in personality and inevitability of psychological abnormality in a large enough population size makes this impossible we can pretty much say fuck moral absolutism.

Alright, now the kinda tricky part. The easy and obvious retort to this is also one we've poked at before. "Oh, so since it doesn't matter in a universal sense I could totally just like go out raping everyone I meet". Yes, you theoretically could, but that would make you a fucking monster and, this bit is super important, other people would fucking end you, because that's what we do to monsters. See, morality isn't an intrinsic thing. Ethics isn't intrinsic either, but there are consequences for actions. In a society, the group determines these consequences, hopefully, in an effort to encourage maximum freedom while maintaining the greatest degree of permanence in the society. The problem arises when we start exercising consequences (punishing people for) actions that aren't hurting anybody, but that's an ongoing rant that we can get to later.  So yeah, Nihilism is pretty fucking awesome.

~Eshi

Moral Absolutism: Amoral Gray Area

Morality is a tricky beast. Everyone, regardless of how they try to portray it, has a sense of morality that is different from others. Some people might identify as a Christian in terms of morality. You know the type: "I am a good Christian". Most of the time people say this it is not to say I believe in God, but instead, I am a moral person. Some people try to foist their moral beliefs on others, not willing to accept that they may be wrong.

We live in a globalizing world. The internet connects everyone who uses it to the whole world by itself, massive global trade efforts bring resources from halfway around the world to areas that can't get them normally, and banks are starting to oppress via debt internationally. Ever since people have explored the world and saw/traded with other cultures we have been exposed to different ways of thinking. People exposed to other ways of thinking tend to do one of two things. If a foreign tradition matched slightly with theirs or was demonstrably superior in some way they would sometimes adopt part of their practice and vice versa. If a tradition of one culture addressed a problem that another culture had, but had been unable to deal with, it would get adopted immediately.

Another way people react to other cultures is to reject it outright in the belief that they are intrinsically superior (I am looking at you France/America/a significant population of any country). This is the origin of nationalism/racism. I equate those two because they are less related and more the same thing with a different paint job- "My nation/race is superior because its mine and I'm awesome". This way of thinking is damaging to all involved pretty much.

The first way of looking at other cultures is where moral relativism is born. We see that there are other ways of looking at the world from a moral standpoint. We also begin to see these differences between us, as individuals, within our own culture. Though I would point out that we've always seen these differences but relativism drove home the point as to how far apart these views could get. I thought about this when moral relativism became open for discussion as a concept in college and had a question: If people's views are already different on morality, how can people live together in a society? The answer was quite simple. Society creates a list of ethics that people follow called laws. Laws borrow the language of morality but (ideally) are only concerned with what a society needs to function. Laws develop around the sort of things that would cause society to go to shit if they were not stopped. No murder, because we need people. No stealing, because it fucks with economies. Minimum wage, so that people have enough money to live.

Dietary stuff is left off from laws, because some people think that meat is morally wrong to eat, while others don't. Adultery if left off because people gonna fuck no matter what. Being an asshole is also not illegal, despite people who are assholes making the world as worse place. Because these are more aesthetic points and less necessary for the running of a society they are merely publicly looked down upon rather than be a crime.

A common argument against moral relativism is that it looks at the world via the subjective point of view, so you could feasibly disagree with some laws, such as murder being wrong. The flaw with this is that there are still ethical laws that pose a threat to that person. Just because they view murder as acceptable, that doesn't make them exempt from the law. They still live in a society, and there are consequences for that action within that society.

I wanted to write about this because we are at a point in the world's history where we will be seeing more and more of other cultures on a regular basis and we need to not try to enforce morality on them, since that would be fucked up. I wanted to show that cultures learn from each other all the time, and that this can be healthy, and that by trying to view yourself as an authority you forgo learning from other peoples experience. There are people who believe that we should make laws more restrictive at home, such as with gay marriage. There are also people that believe they should enforce morals on other countries, such as religious extremists (I will not point specifically because they literally all do this). You shouldn't tell people how to live. Just because you find something displeasing doesn't give you the right to forbid it.

There is a major problem with my point of view. This problem is known as the "liberal's dilemma". The liberals dilemma sets up one major problem with interacting in a more accepting way. In short: You believe that you cannot tell people how to live, but in another country, they do something horrid like kill rape victims or something atrocious like that. How are you able to react? I think I have an answer. We as a global community can't afford to let wicked shit go unpunished. Anytime someone fucks with someone else's basic rights (the UN has some problems but this is at least a good start), they need to be stopped. When it comes to protecting each other and ourselves from abuse we all have and ought to have the right to do so.

On Babies and Bathwater

Alright, so, this is something we all do from time to time, but it needs to fucking stop. Guilt by association. Its a fallacy, its a dick move and its holding everyone back. Common use-case is the "ad Nazium" argument; this is when someone essentially demonizes a person or thing by using tangential associations to the Nazi party. This has been done in regards to public healthcare, environmental protection, social welfare programs and basically anything anyone disagrees with.

 Now, to be fair, it is highly effective... for all the wrong reasons. This kind of thing is emotional manipulation via over-saturated buzzword. Nazi's are the worst people available for the social discourse, they did, or could be imagined to approve of, a thing and so that thing takes on the stink of the worst the discourse has to offer. Take public healthcare. Nazi's had a form of it. Any ideas who else stumbles down that sinister and mustachioed road? Canada, a nation of people Americans tend to laugh at for being so goddamn genuinely nice. Half of South America has universal healthcare. Almost every country in Europe makes sure this is a thing. Why do all of these places so willingly adopt a policy that the Nazis also adopted? Because anyone with even an ounce of humanity in them understands that charging people for the right to not live in agony is disgusting. They realize that if people as a whole are taken care of everyone is better off.

That isn't even the only way this particular bullshit is spread either. Americans have dogged on socialism and communism endlessly for the last century. Not because the ideologies are flawed or there's some kind of logical inconsistency in the philosophies. Two reasons only. Nazi Germany (again) and the U.S.S.R. Well and a little bit of China, but mostly leading from shit with the Soviets. First, Germany wasn't the first nation to have an abusive relationship with socialism, other countries have done it with significant positive results. Second, there has never been an actual communist state in history. The Soviet Union was an Imperial Oligarchy that utilized bits of Marxist rhetoric to justify themselves to the working class. China wasn't much different. However, we still use these terms to demonize policies or groups we don't want to discuss honestly, largely for fear that it might actually accomplish something.

Belief systems are another frequent target of this insidious little fallacy. Let me make this perfectly fucking clear. ANYTIME ANYONE makes a derisive statement about another person's beliefs (or lack thereof) without having discussed those beliefs with that person, they are utilizing guilt by association. Plenty of faithful folk are pretty reasonable to talk to, plenty of those sans faith are wonderful. A vile, bile-spewing minority on both sides seeks to make everyone who even remotely sympathizes with them into a crusader for their side. Folk are folk; burning someone for what equates to a passing similarity is inexcusable. Really, it just makes everyone look bad and prevents meaningful, enlightening, dialogue.

And really that's the worst bit about this problem; it keeps us from really growing together as people. When you hear that someone supports a thing or believes a thing it is an opportunity for both of you to develop. Guilt by association kills that in its crib, why would you extend the empathy to try and learn from or inform someone on the wrong side? Why encourage people with different beliefs to respect each other and try to understand the world better when you can just yell at them for being idiots/heathens. Why have an honest discourse about critical issues when you can hide behind knee-jerk reactivity. This whole thing is cowardice, and we know how I feel about that one.

I hit the Nazi/healthcare thing pretty hard, but it deserves it. Hell, I'll probably come back and expand on that one in its own right at some point, assuming Brian doesn't beat me to it.

~Eshi

Satire: The Political Correctness Pitfall

I have spent most of my life trying to not inconvenience or insult anyone. I have some major self esteem issues and seek to not display myself as negative to people so they will not immediately hate me (Though I always assume that they do). I grew up fat (still am) and socially awkward, and thus tend to have some issues. I say this to try to add some context to an argument I am about to make. I think that the political correctness movement has lost perspective.

I began thinking about this a long time ago, and even more recently was shocked to see that some people where upset at someone who was trying to make a point through satire. Stephen Colbert's show is nothing but satire most of the time, so I was shocked when I saw that some people had become outraged at a joke he made referencing a dubiously named organization, even demanding that the show be canceled due to his comments. This happened a couple months ago, and I hesitated to write anything about my opinion on the subject since I am not confident enough in my own language skills to be able to effectively convey my points without seeming like someone who doesn't care about people. But fuck it, the subject has been stewing in my brain for a while so I will try my best to explain.

Satire has been around for a long time(since the mid fourth century BCE), and has been used to show the absurdity of one's opposition. It uses hyperbole to accomplish this, and thus needs to be extreme. So when Colbert makes a joke which brings light to another group's faults, he is not being racist, he is pointing at racists and saying "Look at how ridiculous they are being!". The part that most infuriates me though, is that people ignore the satire and say that the words used are offensive so they shouldn't be used at all. This misses the point spectacularly. Satire is bombastic and offensive in order to make a point. By ignoring the message and damning the delivery you are doing a disservice to your own beliefs by not pursuing the real offender. I understand that words can hurt people, but by getting angry at the words without paying attention to the context and thus meaning behind them you tend to end up ignoring the greater problem.

Another aspect of this problem (that will receive greater examination in its own right at a later date) is the moralization of language. In short: sometimes political correctness, which has the best of intentions in trying to make the world less hostile for people, grants power to terms by making them "evil". I talked about this with "profanity" as well. Language is essentially neutral when it comes to morality, its the people who use language who make certain terms sinister. If someone says "Retards should all be put down." the statement should be met with disapproval, but not because of the terms used but instead because of the colossal biggotry behind the overall statement. If a person says "This is retarded" referring to a situation (something that happens a lot in online games) they are not being derogatory to people with developmental disorders, but is instead proclaiming that the situation is in some way less than optimal. By labeling the word as offensive it has weight behind it, and that impact is what they are going for when trying to exclaim how a situation is not optimal and how that makes them feel. Unfortunately, language is clumsy and inaccurate when it comes to describing something intangible like emotional states so we tend to try to find words with weight behind them to try to add meaning. I am all for shaming people who act like dickheads, but changing the language used doesn't change whats in peoples hearts.

If the person from the first example had said "the developmentally challenged should all be systematically euthanized" the meaning is still horrendous, regardless of the change in terms. If you find what people say offensive because of the words they use, and not the message, just don't listen to them. Hell, talk to them about it in a discussion instead of trying to legislate their behavior by threatening action that could harm them (like canceling a TV show). Thats just bullying, which is what you ought to be fighting against.

Don't agree with me? Great, lets talk about it and maybe we can both learn and grow from our interaction.