Bay 12 Games Forum

The circularity happens when one starts looking for a definition of murder.

Say for instance, "Any purposeful killing of another human".. when it bumps into "I Killed him, because he was literally raping my sister in front of me, had my mother tied to an electric chair, and was actively electrocuting her while he climaxed, and my sister screamed in torment."  The distinction between where one draws a line in the sand, and why, ultimately boils down to what is considered culturally acceptable (and MANY MANY things can be considered culturally exceptable. I do not want to take the thread down that rabbit hole. I am pointing out that the rabbit hole exists. This is not to be conflated, and I will not go down the rabbit hole to prove that it exists. I will leave that as an exercise for the reader. If you do not believe the rabbit hole exists, go investigate until you find it. It wont be that hard. The extreme example I just used is par the course for some of the things that can be considered culturally acceptable, and I DO have ready examples. Again, I do NOT want to go down the rabbit hole. I have simply looked down it, and seen that it exists.)

Since the distinctions all derive from the position one holds intrinsically as an embedded part of some culture, it is always evaluated from the relative position of that cultural fixture, and not taken in a vacuum.  Taking that leap of cognition is not easy, and most people never try.  However, once you realize that your opinions on the matter are just that, opinions, and have no bearing whatsoever on "validity" of a cultural view outside of your own, the circularity starts to become revealed.

See for instance, the western world's view on how the middle east treats women.  For them, it is culturally accepted. For the west, it is abhorrent, and needs abolition.  The position of the western world ultimately gets supported with notions of "It is better for the women, because reasons (that are tied to social dynamics, that are inherent to the position that I, the arguer am familiar with, and thus circular through the nature of a-priori implicit assumption that the familiar is better)-- to which the person from the middle east makes the same argument, and reaches the 180 degree polar opposite conclusion.

The rational observation is that this is occurring, and to seek to find some objective measure that exists outside of cultural morality for supporting or not supporting a particular platform.  The problem, is again, that people do not normally take the necessary leap of cognition to escape from the implicit assumption of "my familiar cultural fixture is the superior one".  (which is why nationalism, which enshrines that notion, is dangerous, and leads to exclusion by its very nature.)


One cannot have a rational discussion about murder without a uniform and rational definition of murder. (eg, is death from war murder? Kinda depends on who you ask, doesn't it.  Isn't that the whole point of contention between neonazis and holocaust survivor families? One asserts that it was not murder, while the other does. The positions taken are from cultural positions of familiarity, and again, can reach 180 degree polar opposite conclusions using essentially the same formulae for the argument.)  Since no such distinction exists, it is not possible to assert quantifiably if it is wrong or not. (see again, the extreme issue I presented with the really nasty guy who was raping somebody's sister and torturing their mother in front of them, and attempt to conceive of it in a circumstance outside of the cultural taboos you have been borne into. Some will assert that the death of that person is totally justified. Others will assert otherwise. Both assertions typically come from positions of cultural normalcy. This kind of thing is typically explored in science fiction, since within historic contexts, it gets tedious and heated very quickly-- again, as everyone stamps out their little fiefdoms of cultural familiarity, and batten down the hatches against being challenged against "Something so blatantly obvious.")


I personally have the following view (just to dispel attempts at strawmanning me into some kind of bizzaro bastard that needs to be destroyed, and thus proving my point about the above trend in argument tactic) on murder.

Murder (for me), is defined as the dis-equitable (in terms of total social benefit) taking of a human life. 

Under this definition, the removal of the torture-rapist is seen as justifiable, because his continued activity would cause more net reduction in the total social benefit to the society than his removal; His removal contributes more to the local society than his continued existence.

This again, however, falls victim to the issue I pointed out--  It intrinsically is based on the position of a societal framework, and as already pointed out, all are fundamentally interchangeable.  See for instance, how it falls victim to the specifically mentioned "Nazis vs Jews" angle.  The very reason the Nazi's exterminated the Jews, was because they culturally agreed that the Jews were harmful to the Nazi society. 

Any single position that you could take, results in this kind of collapse in validity.  It is in this fashion, circular.

Is there a way to remove the culture framework from the thinking culture frameworks from thoughts?

Is there a way to ensure completely rational unbiased thought on subjects?

Quote from: Naturegirl1999 on July 24, 2020, 11:23:40 am

Is there a way to remove the culture framework from the thinking culture frameworks from thoughts?

psychedelics

Quote from: Naturegirl1999 on July 24, 2020, 11:23:40 am

Is there a way to ensure completely rational unbiased thought on subjects?

no

Quote from: dragdeler on July 24, 2020, 10:09:30 am

I like to say local patriotism to talk about my love for the specific set of plants and landscape features that constitute my "bihome"  ... But honestly I can't think of any term for it that is not tainted with the notion of us vs. them, the flipside of local patriotism is prejudice about people that come "from the next village". That's just what happens when you put up fences.



A people? Common man even sweden can't be that homogenous.

That's what a nation is, yes. Homogeneity has got nothing to do with it. A nation is not a country. The country of Sweden has people of many nations living in it. The nation of Swedes is just the Swedish people, as opposed to the populace of the Swedish state.

Quote

edit: notice how the concept of nations keeps fucking the people of the kurds in the ass

Not at all. In Turkey it's the concept of the nation-state, the one nation state, that fucks them. In the other countries it is simple territorialness. Nationalism is the only thing that is on the Kurdish nation's side. The Kurdish nation endures despite the lack of a country of Kurdistan.

Quote from: Naturegirl1999 on July 24, 2020, 10:13:15 am

What is the point of being proud of one group of people, separate from the numerous other groups of people?

What's the point of being proud of anything that is you? Why is pride the first thing claimed by any mistreated group? Pride is a fundamental part of feeling good about ourselves. Too much pride is bad, lagom pride is good. No people should feel ashamed because of the people they belong to.

But moreover, it's not pride, it's a kind of love, and loyalty.

Quote

I used to think my country was great, then I thought of all the wars we fought, and continue to fight, to remain “number one.” Are you willing to die for your human group? Even if it starts to war with other human groups? If your country invaded its neighbor without provocation, would you support it!

Once again, my country has little to do with it.

But no, I wouldn't support it. Why would I? Because you think I have to?

Quote from: wierd on July 24, 2020, 10:28:56 am

The issue I take exception to here, is the duplicity between the blatant self promulgation of sneering imperialism, vs "No, that is just my family, so I look out for them first."

The effect is still the same fundamentally.  If you look after "you and yours first", you are defacto excluding the others from equal consideration, and are thus still creating the "preferential treatment" environment.


the insistence that there is a logical difference, and that this makes it acceptable, is dangerous doublethink.

No. The conclusion of "and that means I value no other people" is forced by you. I care for my family but not at the expense of other families. I care for my people but not at the expense of other peoples. The relationship is the same, just on a grander scale. Do you think that the native American nationalist automatically hates you? Do you think the Scottish nationalist wants to subjugate the English and build an empire?

If anything, your mindset is the mindset of the imperialist, the one on top, who so has normalised taking from everybody else that the mere idea of people not being below you sounds to you like they want to take from you and others.

Quote from: wierd on July 24, 2020, 10:35:47 am

No.  Just that there is no inherent value to one over the other.  One is just more familiar.  As such, there is no inherent reason to support one more than the other. At the end of the day, they are both human cultures, that are simply more familiar to one group vs another.

There is no inherent value in my family over others. There is no inherent value in my cat over other animals. There is no inherent value in the music I like over other types of music. And yet i love my family, and love my cat, and like the music I like. Nobody is claiming that there is some kind of objective greaterness to any nations over other nations.

Quote from: wierd on July 24, 2020, 10:35:47 am

No.  Just that there is no inherent value to one over the other.  One is just more familiar.  As such, there is no inherent reason to support one more than the other. At the end of the day, they are both human cultures, that are simply more familiar to one group vs another.

It can get ugly in terms of "value judgements", such as when "morality" comes into play (since morality, removed from any "downward dictatorial source", such as from a god, is just the collective agreement of a culture on what its norms are), because it becomes an endless game of circular reasoning when analyzed.

I like other cultures, usually, too, and even if I don't I don't consider them objectively inferior, so don't worry about that!

Quote from: dragdeler on July 24, 2020, 10:43:01 am

Quote from: TheSteppeWolf on July 24, 2020, 10:22:19 am

If I was defending it, from other countries, or fighting against a home grown dictatorship or anarchy? Yes.

You know, if you just said chaos/riots instead of anarchy nobody would contradict you there steppewolf. There is very few people who really do not believe in self-defense, kind of obvious when it's a biological imperative, so it's like saying I'm against bad weather, I don't see how it benefits anybody personally to repeat those mantras. Quite the contrary.


I think the best way to handle this, is to let the others have part in your heritage whenever you get an opportunity, tell us why you love your country instead of telling us that you love your country. That way nobody looses theirselves in meaningless symbolism prone to be inocculated with all kinds of harmful shit. I think it's common-sense to look in horror when we see US american middleschoolers salute the flag first thing in the morning.

I already said my reasons for opposing anarchy, didn't I...

As for second part, well I could explain more about it later, if you want? As others have said, not in this thread because this is very irrelevant. That, and I'm tired both of talking about this and really.