What's the Most Universal Moral Principle?

[8livesleft]

I propose this:

Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being.

[ak.yonathan]

In order to do that you would need to enact the opposite of Buddhism in reality, as Buddhism states that life is suffering.

Sent from my RMX1805 using Tapatalk

[AgnosticDamien]

In order to do that you would need to enact the opposite of Buddhism in reality, as Buddhism states that life is suffering.

Sent from my RMX1805 using Tapatalk

Unnecessary is the key word here. Is Buddhist philosophy opposed to murder? if so, then I see that as an example of preventing unnecessary suffering and harm.

[ak.yonathan]

Well when you get down to it is any suffering really necessary? It has been said we need suffering to build character but what if we could just live in a world where said character is not needed? Say in this world bravery is not required as there is no danger.

Sent from my RMX1805 using Tapatalk

[Inertialmass]

I propose this:

Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being. 

I'd respectfully venture that there is a larger principle to which the above three worthy goals are directly attached.  Which is, simply, that something is better than nothing.  And a universe absent consciousness and awareness of that Something is tantamount to Nothingness.  So promoting consciousness and awareness, and promoting the long-term survival of consciousness and awareness in the universe, are valid First Priorities.  Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being become absolutely allied tactics or strategies in the promotion of consciousness and awareness in our Universe.  Especially so if it should turn out that life on planet Earth, should it turn out that accidental humanity, is the only potential consciousness or the one and only consciousness in the entire universe.  With each day, each year, each decade that passes, Fermi's Paradox looks more like a negative.  Yike, imagine us grubby, argumentative humans as the only Consciousness in all the Universe -- what a real responsibility to do no more harm we would then realize!

[Inertialmass]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf

Dissolving the Fermi Paradox
Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler and Toby Ord
Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University
June 8, 2018
Abstract
The Fermi paradox is the conflict between an expectation of a high
ex ante probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and the
apparently lifeless universe we in fact observe. The expectation that the
universe should be teeming with intelligent life is linked to models like the
Drake equation, which suggest that even if the probability of intelligent
life developing at a given site is small, the sheer multitude of possible
sites should nonetheless yield a large number of potentially observable
civilizations. We show that this conflict arises from the use of Drake-like
equations, which implicitly assume certainty regarding highly uncertain
parameters. We examine these parameters, incorporating models of chemical and genetic transitions on paths to the origin of life, and show that
extant scientific knowledge corresponds to uncertainties that span multiple orders of magnitude. This makes a stark difference...

[ak.yonathan]

Sent from my RMX1805 using Tapatalk

[8livesleft]

I propose this:

Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being. 

I'd respectfully venture that there is a larger principle to which the above three worthy goals are directly attached.  Which is, simply, that something is better than nothing.  And a universe absent consciousness and awareness of that Something is tantamount to Nothingness.  So promoting consciousness and awareness, and promoting the long-term survival of consciousness and awareness in the universe, are valid First Priorities.  Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being become absolutely allied tactics or strategies in the promotion of consciousness and awareness in our Universe.  Especially so if it should turn out that life on planet Earth, should it turn out that accidental humanity, is the only potential consciousness or the one and only consciousness in the entire universe.  With each day, each year, each decade that passes, Fermi's Paradox looks more like a negative.  Yike, imagine us grubby, argumentative humans as the only Consciousness in all the Universe -- what a real responsibility to do no more harm we would then realize!

That's definitely one hell of a responsibility if indeed we are "it" - the highest form of life in the universe.

Imagine that. We're the pinnacle of existence and what do we have to show for it - a 1,000 horsepowered gas guzzling muscle car headed right into a 6th mass extinction.

I hope mankind gets an awakening of consciousness and develops a real connection with the environment and each other before they do any space travel. Otherwise, it'll be the same damn thing again except on a galactic scale. (But I honestly don't think we'll get very far since we'll keep spending 1/2 of our income on the military and weapons instead of research).

[8livesleft]

I've been thinking about this and it seems there might be a more basic principle:

Might makes right.

Cultures seem to be going from one state to the other: from the chaotic might makes right system to the more humanitarian principle of harm prevention and the enhancement of well-being.

It appears that more force is necessary the more chaotic the system is but once order has been imposed, the system moves towards the humanitarian. But, things revert to chaos if the society is distressed due to environmental pressure, scarcity, disease etc...

[Kiahanie]

...promoting consciousness and awareness, and promoting the long-term survival of consciousness and awareness in the universe, are valid First Priorities.

It seems to me that a fair bit of hubris is required to suggest that the  "consciousness and awareness" of a failed species is an adequate basis for a universal morality.

[Hi there IM]

My own taste is more modest: the Hillel principle (do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you) and the Jesus principle (do with others as you want them to do with you) seem like a good place to start.

[kevin]

on what basis does any universal moral principle exist at all, much less one which is "most" universal?

[8livesleft]

on what basis does any universal moral principle exist at all, much less one which is "most" universal?

Biological and cultural evolution?

[kevin]

how is that "universal?"

does a goldfish care about human moral principles?

should it?

[8livesleft]

...promoting consciousness and awareness, and promoting the long-term survival of consciousness and awareness in the universe, are valid First Priorities.

It seems to me that a fair bit of hubris is required to suggest that the  "consciousness and awareness" of a failed species is an adequate basis for a universal morality.

[Hi there IM]

My own taste is more modest: the Hillel principle (do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you) and the Jesus principle (do with others as you want them to do with you) seem like a good place to start.

I think this fits in as a guide for promoting well-being.

I'm seeing 3 phases now when it comes to a culture's social maturity:

1. Might makes right - the most basic

2. Prevention of unnecessary harm and suffering - which takes a higher order of organization to define what's harmful

3. Enhance/promote well-being - which can't happen unless the basics are covered for everybody.

[Kiahanie]

I dunno. What about the cooperative Hunter-gatherer societies. They would seem reasonably mature on your scale.

[8livesleft]

I dunno. What about the cooperative Hunter-gatherer societies. They would seem reasonably mature on your scale.

If they were sort of isolated then yes they could get to that point. Native societies I think we're like that until they were invaded.

[8livesleft]

how is that "universal?"

does a goldfish care about human moral principles?

should it?

Ah yes I'm only talking about humans. So most universal as far as humans are concerned.

But if we're including animals I would think that most animals that can feel pain are averse to it as well and so may also follow the harm principle.

[kevin]

how is that "universal?"

does a goldfish care about human moral principles?

should it?

Ah yes I'm only talking about humans. So most universal as far as humans are concerned.

But if we're including animals I would think that most animals that can feel pain are averse to it as well and so may also follow the harm principle.

if its only human-based, its not universal. unless you are assigning generalized moral authority to human beings. that is th ecustomary religious approach.

if we include animals in general, then your harm principle is violated every time a predator kills its prey. predators cause pain whnever they kill.

so either humans assume an overriding moral authority over creation, and animals violate morality when they kill, or human morality is not universal and predators or blameless when the feed on other animals.

one or th eother.

[Shnozzola]

how is that "universal?"

does a goldfish care about human moral principles?

should it?

Obviously not sure, and not sure about goldfish, but since many of us believe evolution may have all started in the ocean, but possibly dolphins, whales, seals, walruses, etc may be a HELUVA lot smarter than we think.  And maybe they are watching our morals.  (sounds like the basis for another disney movie  :)  )

[kevin]

what morals would they be watching?

the ones where we feed the hungry, or the ones where we minister to the stranger?

[8livesleft]

how is that "universal?"

does a goldfish care about human moral principles?

should it?

Ah yes I'm only talking about humans. So most universal as far as humans are concerned.

But if we're including animals I would think that most animals that can feel pain are averse to it as well and so may also follow the harm principle.

if its only human-based, its not universal. unless you are assigning generalized moral authority to human beings. that is th ecustomary religious approach.

if we include animals in general, then your harm principle is violated every time a predator kills its prey. predators cause pain whnever they kill.

Bigger animal is preventing self-harm through eating. Prey animals typically evolve to evade them and possibly get stronger as a group since the weak are first to be eliminated.

I'm also being careful by not saying that it's absolute, rather most universal.

[Shnozzola]

what morals would they be watching?

.......... where we minister to the stranger?

Maybe when the stranger is a baby whale that divers release from netting

[Inertialmass]

Ah yes I'm only talking about humans. So most universal as far as humans are concerned.  

Again (and I don't see the hubris in my assertion -- hi Kia! -- since me 'n' my personal ego will be a bazillion godzillion generations long dead once humanity's successors venture out into the larger Universe to fill the Void with Conscious Something and with Something Conscious) a larger, more universal moral principle which actually encompasses and overarches all these other strictly human, provincial moral principles is:  Something is better than Nothing.  We may well be the only consciousness in the entire universe.  Any behavior which risks snuffing out that consciousness and its potential is immoral.  Don't build nukes.  Don't build 2 billion dollar pleasure yachts or $20,000 pleasure motorcycles that only contribute to the local entropy of Earth civilization.  Don't drop bombs on babies that'll inevitably cause the next ten succeeding generations of the victimized culture to seek violent and probably well-deserved revenge against you. 

If we humans are the only consciousness in the universe, we have a seeming even more awesome duty to survival than mechanistic Darwinism.  Yer quaint old rabbis standing on one foot motormouthing selfish tribal nonsense, or flipping over tables in the temple, or yer silly, anthropomorph, campfire tale Yahweh are all moral small potatoes compared to keeping the fire of Consciousness alive within the great Void.

[kevin]

Bigger animal is preventing self-harm through eating. Prey animals typically evolve to evade them and possibly get stronger as a group since the weak are first to be eliminated.

I'm also being careful by not saying that it's absolute, rather most universal.

i'm not seeing any "morality" in here, by any current human definition.

what do you consider "morality " to be?

[kevin]

what morals would they be watching?

.......... where we minister to the stranger?

Maybe when the stranger is a baby whale that divers release from netting

. . . or the next day when the japanese whalers kill it for dog food?

[8livesleft]

Bigger animal is preventing self-harm through eating. Prey animals typically evolve to evade them and possibly get stronger as a group since the weak are first to be eliminated.

I'm also being careful by not saying that it's absolute, rather most universal.

i'm not seeing any "morality" in here, by any current human definition.

what do you consider "morality " to be?

By morality, I mean a kind of basis for right and wrong, good and bad.

And in my opinion, it's based on biological and cultural evolution.

So, you have the harm principle, which I believe we got through our evolution. You can see a semblance of it in the behavior of our animal cousins and you can see it expressed in our laws.

[8livesleft]

Ah yes I'm only talking about humans. So most universal as far as humans are concerned.  

Again (and I don't see the hubris in my assertion -- hi Kia! -- since me 'n' my personal ego will be a bazillion godzillion generations long dead once humanity's successors venture out into the larger Universe to fill the Void with Conscious Something and with Something Conscious) a larger, more universal moral principle which actually encompasses and overarches all these other strictly human, provincial moral principles is:  Something is better than Nothing.  We may well be the only consciousness in the entire universe.  Any behavior which risks snuffing out that consciousness and its potential is immoral.  Don't build nukes.  Don't build 2 billion dollar pleasure yachts or $20,000 pleasure motorcycles that only contribute to the local entropy of Earth civilization.  Don't drop bombs on babies that'll inevitably cause the next ten succeeding generations of the victimized culture to seek violent and probably well-deserved revenge against you. 

If we humans are the only consciousness in the universe, we have a seeming even more awesome duty to survival than mechanistic Darwinism.  Yer quaint old rabbis standing on one foot motormouthing selfish tribal nonsense, or flipping over tables in the temple, or yer silly, anthropomorph, campfire tale Yahweh are all moral small potatoes compared to keeping the fire of Consciousness alive within the great Void.

If it's about our survival then isn't it still related to the harm principle?

[Inertialmass]

If it's about our survival then isn't it still related to the harm principle?   

Oh heck yeah they're intimately interwoven.

Your topic seeks to ferret out the most general or universal moral principle, and so I'm suggesting at the top of the hierarchy of moral values is the teleological goal of maintaining an eternal Something rather than Nothing.  Absent consciousness, all the matter, energy and space comprising the universe are mere Nothingness.  Concomitantly the answer to Fermi's Paradox that we've been getting for 3/4 century is that we humans are "It" -- we're quite possibly the only Consciousness in all the universe.  Mebbe all these years all these adherents to dopey religions with their dopey, meanie poo warrior sky god deities shoulda been looking in the mirror.  Assuring our survival becomes part of the greatest moral imperative given this rather newish secular knowledge.  From it flows too the interwoven moral principle to prevent unnecessary harm and suffering to oneself or to one's fellow sentient creatures.  We're important.  Don't build nuke weapons.  Don't sit eating Doritos all day long.  Spend time teaching kids stuff rather than yelling and spanking them.  Most extant moral values make natural sense.  But grounding them in the worship of some flimsy, folkloric, anthropocentric warrior king lost in the mists of ancient history does not make sense, as most of us know.

 

[8livesleft]

If it's about our survival then isn't it still related to the harm principle?   

Oh heck yeah they're intimately interwoven.

Your topic seeks to ferret out the most general or universal moral principle, and so I'm suggesting at the top of the hierarchy of moral values is the teleological goal of maintaining an eternal Something rather than Nothing.  Absent consciousness, all the matter, energy and space comprising the universe are mere Nothingness.  Concomitantly the answer to Fermi's Paradox that we've been getting for 3/4 century is that we humans are "It" -- we're quite possibly the only Consciousness in all the universe.  Mebbe all these years all these adherents to dopey religions with their dopey, meanie poo warrior sky god deities shoulda been looking in the mirror.  Assuring our survival becomes part of the greatest moral imperative given this rather newish secular knowledge.  From it flows too the interwoven moral principle to prevent unnecessary harm and suffering to oneself or to one's fellow sentient creatures.  We're important.  Don't build nuke weapons.  Don't sit eating Doritos all day long.  Spend time teaching kids stuff rather than yelling and spanking them.  Most extant moral values make natural sense.  But grounding them in the worship of some flimsy, folkloric, anthropocentric warrior king lost in the mists of ancient history does not make sense, as most of us know.

Assuming we don't survive, bacteria, microbes, tardigrades will be the flag bearers of all life that came from this planet to maybe "seed" other planets for life to again flourish and give birth to other sentients thinking they're "it." hehe

[AgnosticDamien]

Unnezezzary harm is the key. Predator animal killzzzz coz dude's gotta eat and survive and feed his kidzzz.

Christians kill coz they wanna spread their silly faith.

Big difference I see.

[Inertialmass]

If it's about our survival then isn't it still related to the harm principle?   

Oh heck yeah they're intimately interwoven.

Your topic seeks to ferret out the most general or universal moral principle, and so I'm suggesting at the top of the hierarchy of moral values is the teleological goal of maintaining an eternal Something rather than Nothing.  Absent consciousness, all the matter, energy and space comprising the universe are mere Nothingness.  Concomitantly the answer to Fermi's Paradox that we've been getting for 3/4 century is that we humans are "It" -- we're quite possibly the only Consciousness in all the universe.  Mebbe all these years all these adherents to dopey religions with their dopey, meanie poo warrior sky god deities shoulda been looking in the mirror.  Assuring our survival becomes part of the greatest moral imperative given this rather newish secular knowledge.  From it flows too the interwoven moral principle to prevent unnecessary harm and suffering to oneself or to one's fellow sentient creatures.  We're important.  Don't build nuke weapons.  Don't sit eating Doritos all day long.  Spend time teaching kids stuff rather than yelling and spanking them.  Most extant moral values make natural sense.  But grounding them in the worship of some flimsy, folkloric, anthropocentric warrior king lost in the mists of ancient history does not make sense, as most of us know.

Assuming we don't survive, bacteria, microbes, tardigrades will be the flag bearers of all life that came from this planet to maybe "seed" other planets for life to again flourish and give birth to other sentients thinking they're "it." hehe   

Cute as they are I'm a little reluctant to assume the tardigrades can and will inevitably grow big brains and big consciousnesses before Sol exits its main sequence and it and Earth leave their accommodating Goldilocks stages.  It's now understood that we've benefitted from a whole whole lot of apparently highly unusual twists of fate allowing humanity to arrive at its present condition.  Just as life itself on Earth seems to have emerged thru a pile of lucky accidents and circumstances preceding its flourishing:

1   Requirements for complex life
1.1   The right location in the right kind of galaxy
1.2   Orbiting at the right distance from the right type of star
1.3   The right arrangement of planets
1.4   A continuously stable orbit
1.5   A terrestrial planet of the right size
1.6   With plate tectonics
1.7   A large moon
1.8   Atmosphere
1.9   One or more evolutionary triggers for complex life
1.10   The right time in evolution   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis


I don't seem to hold so pessimistic a long term view of humanity as you and Kiahanie.  Yeah, with angry, bible thumping Trump fans everywhere it may look grim, but that is changing in the right direction.   

In fact if you think about it we cannot and never will know if or when we are a "failed species."  We will have failed only when the last reproducing pair can't.  After that there'll be no Consciousness around to fill out the death certificates.

[AgnosticDamien]

Cauzzing unnezezzary harm izzz wrong.. eazzzy prinzzziple to live by. Kezin knowzzz thizz

[Dexter]

Modesty

[Kiahanie]

I am unsure why

big brains and big consciousnesses

are seen as the ultimate in evolution. To be sure, those characteristics perhaps differentiate us from the rest of the animal kingdom (except maybe cetaceans), but it seems terribly anthropogenic to assume these are desirable traits on a universal scale.

I have previously made the argument that our large brain combined with a flexible thumb created a creature that eventually considered itself Master of the Universe, and considers itself a template for intelligence and evolutionary success.

Really doesn't  sound any more logical than deities and divinities.

From a less biased perspective we see that those two characteristics have led to a critter that does not play well with other critters, commits unspeakable acts upon Gaia's body, and cannibalizes its own. As a species we are only a couple hundred thousand years old, but our lineage is a few million years. Maybe we can outgrow this obsession with ourselves, but the future does not look promising.

Also, the notion that

Absent consciousness, all the matter, energy and space comprising the universe are mere Nothingness

is too solipsistic for my taste. I do not believe stars winkle out if consciousness dissappears. The stars just do not care. The tree falls in the forest whether we hear it or not.

Nobody puts words together quite like you, IM. I have missed you.

[GratefulApe]

Modesty

Especially on the internet!

[8livesleft]

Just as life itself on Earth seems to have emerged thru a pile of lucky accidents and circumstances preceding its flourishing:

Quote
1   Requirements for complex life
1.1   The right location in the right kind of galaxy
1.2   Orbiting at the right distance from the right type of star
1.3   The right arrangement of planets
1.4   A continuously stable orbit
1.5   A terrestrial planet of the right size
1.6   With plate tectonics
1.7   A large moon
1.8   Atmosphere
1.9   One or more evolutionary triggers for complex life
1.10   The right time in evolution   

Those conditions, though clearly exceedingly rare, if you up the scale to the trillions of star systems, you'd end up with a large enough number where life could develop, flourish and evolve.

[Inertialmass]

^^^^  But that is exactly the weird and interesting thing about the Fermi Paradox, Drake Equation and Rare Earth nexus:  If Carl Sagan and Frank Drake...



...were even approximately in the ball park, we all outta be just swamped, flooded and drowning in alien civilizations' signals comin' from every direction and from every age past.  But we decidedly are not, following many concerted years of real SETI effort to detect something.

We might really be It.

We gotta stop -- it's a moral imperative!!! -- with the deadly old timey tribal religious hatreds and stop with the deadly nukes and stop with every other behavior detrimental to the long-term survival of us or of consciousness or if it makes you feel better you can call it the survival of the anti-Entropy Principle.   

And besides, even if you 'n' Kiahanie are not comfortable with the idea of us ugly hairy featherless biped humans-as-conquerors-of-the-Universe, it still leads to a higher, more generalizable, more grounded-in-reality moral principle than that silly vicious tribal old Yahweh thingy.      

[8livesleft]

^^^^  But that is exactly the weird and interesting thing about the Fermi Paradox, Drake Equation and Rare Earth nexus:  If Carl Sagan and Frank Drake...



...were even approximately in the ball park, we all outta be just swamped, flooded and drowning in alien civilizations' signals comin' from every direction and from every age past.  But we decidedly are not, following many concerted years of real SETI effort to detect something.

There also just might be too much space between civilizations to detect each other or affect each other beyond simply "seeding" each others' systems.

We might really be It.

We gotta stop -- it's a moral imperative!!! -- with the deadly old timey tribal religious hatreds and stop with the deadly nukes and stop with every other behavior detrimental to the long-term survival of us or of consciousness or if it makes you feel better you can call it the survival of the anti-Entropy Principle.   

And besides, even if you 'n' Kiahanie are not comfortable with the idea of us ugly hairy featherless biped humans-as-conquerors-of-the-Universe, it still leads to a higher, more generalizable, more grounded-in-reality moral principle than that silly vicious tribal old Yahweh thingy.   

Definitely agree. At the very least, simply agreeing to just not hurt each other should help get us to face the same direction.

Next step would be to agree to the steps necessary to get to the next phase of lifting each other up, enhancing our overall well-being.

[Kiahanie]

... it still leads to a higher, more generalizable, more grounded-in-reality moral principle than that silly vicious tribal old Yahweh thingy.   

Well, of course. It goes without saying. No less delusional, but higher in a spiralling sort of way.

It is also arguably better than the vicious tribal new thingies. So go for it. I do not mean to criticize your moral framework, just critiquing it.

[Inertialmass]

^^^^  An ethical framework incorporating humanity/humanity's progeny playing an Anti-Entropy role in the future of the Universe is "no less delusional" than Yahweh?

We have actual evidence for the existence of humanity and for the Universe... 

For Yahweh, Hillel and Jesus we gots oral campfire tales refined and finally written down in Alexandria, Pumbedita or Rome typically a couple of centuries following the alleged events...    

[Kiahanie]

There is also actual evidence that cetaceans also exist in the existing universe. Also c**kroaches.

So your point is that it is not delusional to think / hope / believe that some random existing species from earth "playing an Anti-Entropy role in the future of the Universe" is less delusional than Yahweh?I

I often think that our species' ethics should be built around the principles of palliative care.

[8livesleft]

I often think that our species' ethics should be built around the principles of palliative care.

I agree. Just keep it simple: make life better for everyone. Don't let people suffer unnecessarily.

The most sustainable way to achieve this is to integrate better with nature. Instead of terraforming it to our needs, we have to adjust and adapt with the environment and it's cycles - like what so many native cultures were able to do for thousands of years.

But instead of relying on myths and folklore, we keep scientific records and react more measurably to whatever nature throws at us.

[Inertialmass]

...palliative care.

...make life better for everyone.  

This time I gotta completely agree with my best bud Kev kevin that there's little to none of the "universal" in we humans playing at Gaia's Gardener or trying to out-Mother Teresa Mother Teresa.  In fact evolutionary psychologists are saying that in a highly socialized species such as ourselves, tending and grooming the local environment and behaving altruistically within and among our own local tribe folk are already somewhat biologically innately programmed.  I mean, even my hyper nutso autistic mongrel Lab puppy runs way off up into the woods to do her stinky poop thing and then she licks us hard when we get home to try to make life better for us.  I totally, totally personally agree that Repairing the World and seeking maximal harm reduction have central positions in any code of right conduct, but they're as much local behaviors grounded in biological contingency as they are universal behaviors.

[Mr. Blackwell]

Do unto others before they do unto you.

[8livesleft]

...palliative care.

...make life better for everyone.  

This time I gotta completely agree with my best bud Kev kevin that there's little to none of the "universal" in we humans playing at Gaia's Gardener or trying to out-Mother Teresa Mother Teresa.  In fact evolutionary psychologists are saying that in a highly socialized species such as ourselves, tending and grooming the local environment and behaving altruistically within and among our own local tribe folk are already somewhat biologically innately programmed.  I mean, even my hyper nutso autistic mongrel Lab puppy runs way off up into the woods to do her stinky poop thing and then she licks us hard when we get home to try to make life better for us.  I totally, totally personally agree that Repairing the World and seeking maximal harm reduction have central positions in any code of right conduct, but they're as much local behaviors grounded in biological contingency as they are universal behaviors.

The way I see it, the more we follow how other species adapt and adjust to each other and their environment, the better it will be for us.

"Lesser" animals are able to attain a natural balance much quicker. They consume only what they need, populate only as the situation warrants. No more no less. This better ensures that each individual gets what it needs.

So, it's not so much taking a role of stewardship, it's more about integrating better with what's already there.

Stewardship implies a degree of control which we simply don't have and I think it's pure hubris to think that a baby species that's been failing miserably for the last 200,000 years would know how to "manage" a system that's over 4 billion years old.

[Mr. Blackwell]

Stewardship implies a degree of control which we simply don't have and I think it's pure hubris to think that a baby species that's been failing miserably for the last 200,000 years would know how to "manage" a system that's over 4 billion years old.

I agree with you 1000%

These creatures we live with know how to adapt so why thee hell do some "people" think we can protect endagered species by NOT building things on the land those species live on? Like, "OH We can't let you build a hydroelectric damn here because it will kill some stupid fish!"

or

"OH NO! You can't cut down those trees because it's the special home of some stupid bird!"

Some people...man I tell ya...they got some crazy ideas.

[Inertialmass]

Well, I'm done with this thread.  I'm unable to grasp what topic it intends to address.

[Kiahanie]

On the bright side we all ended up agreeing a human-centric ethos is preferable to one built on abstractions.

Good job, all.

[GratefulApe]

... it still leads to a higher, more generalizable, more grounded-in-reality moral principle than that silly vicious tribal old Yahweh thingy.   

Well, of course. It goes without saying. No less delusional, but higher in a spiralling sort of way.

It is also arguably better than the vicious tribal new thingies. So go for it. I do not mean to criticize your moral framework, just critiquing it.

IM doesn't recognize his own tribal tendencies. He has a blind spot. He just doesn't get it.

[Kiahanie]

^^^^^True. But I am more concerned with IM's search for meaning in abstractions. I will ask them about it next time we are in an appropriate thread.

[GratefulApe]

I propose this:

Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being.

I think it's a great question. I've been working on it in my mind. The problem I have is picking "the" most as in singular.

[GratefulApe]

On a side note as my mind can go very many places sometimes my first thought was how about no talking. That might do something. I can't recall another time in my life where everyone needs to shut up and think.

[maritime]

What's the Most Universal Moral Principle?

Trust.

In 8livesleft's platitudes? words that fall flat, having no force save breath that will be extinguished at some point: "Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being."

Or...tbc.

[AgnosticDamien]

What's the Most Universal Moral Principle?

First rule: Not allowing religion to corrupt or dictate morality.

[Kiahanie]

What's the Most Universal Moral Principle?

Trust.

In 8livesleft's platitudes? words that fall flat, having no force save breath that will be extinguished at some point: "Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being."

Or...tbc.

Trust pretty much encapsulates what social being is all about. Good point, maritime.

[8livesleft]

What's the Most Universal Moral Principle?

Trust.

In 8livesleft's platitudes? words that fall flat, having no force save breath that will be extinguished at some point: "Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being."

Or...tbc.

You don't think your laws follow that principle?

[8livesleft]

What's the Most Universal Moral Principle?

First rule: Not allowing religion to corrupt or dictate morality.

LOL unfortunately,

"God" > powerful man with army > powerful man > average man > weak man

"Godsaidso" is an offshoot of might makes right which is the main basis of order and authority in more primitive/chaotic systems.

[AgnosticDamien]

Yeah, many gods seem to have no problem with slavery. Makes you think how people can even worship such a God.

[8livesleft]

Yeah, many gods seem to have no problem with slavery. Makes you think how people can even worship such a God.

They didn't have much of a choice.

Back in those days, the God of the victors is who everyone worshipped. The army enforced it.

Now, it's plain geography.

The circumstances of your birth determines your God and your community reinforces it so you don't stray.

[AgnosticDamien]

^ That's true. I was talking more in the case of today. People who live in free societies where they are able to freely choose,  for some reason still worship a God who condones slavery. Francis comes to mind. Then again he's probably a closet atheist with the aim of representing and promoting Christianity in the least convincing way.

[maritime]

What's the Most Universal Moral Principle?

Trust.

In 8livesleft's platitudes? words that fall flat, having no force save breath that will be extinguished at some point: "Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being."

You don't think your laws follow that principle?

Your principle assumes a fundamental arrangement to our origin of being that makes possible the creation of laws that help us aim for the good, does it not? If being's highest good is to prevent harm, prevent unnecessary suffering and promote well-being, your statement of the principle must be more than a statement uttered. Name that fundamental arrangement that supports being knowing there is a higher good and that laws give aim. Wishful thinking doesn't cut it.

[8livesleft]

What's the Most Universal Moral Principle?

Trust.

In 8livesleft's platitudes? words that fall flat, having no force save breath that will be extinguished at some point: "Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being."

You don't think your laws follow that principle?

Your principle assumes a fundamental arrangement to our origin of being that makes possible the creation of laws that help us aim for the good, does it not?

Please explain "fundamental arrangement to our origin of being."

If being's highest good is to prevent harm, prevent unnecessary suffering and promote well-being, your statement of the principle must be more than a statement uttered.

Again, it's not just a mere statement. It forms the basis for most of the laws of civil society. It is the principle that best aids in our desire to survive and thrive.

Do you disagree that human beings want to survive and thrive?

[maritime]

Fundamental arrangement to our origin of being that there would be a highest good to aim at, that supports being/life knowing there is a higher good and that laws give aim. To suggest prevent/promote as the most universal moral principle, as basis of laws that form civil society to  aid our desire to survive and thrive suggests reason beyond your own reasoning. Reason is principal (maybe). Name the first act of goodness, act of yielding (whether active or passive).

[8livesleft]

Fundamental arrangement to our origin of being that there would be a highest good to aim at, that supports being/life knowing there is a higher good and that laws give aim. To suggest prevent/promote as the most universal moral principle, as basis of laws that form civil society to  aid our desire to survive and thrive suggests reason beyond your own reasoning. Reason is principal (maybe). Name the first act of goodness, act of yielding (whether active or passive).

Sorry but I still don't understand what you're asking.

Again, do you disagree that humans want to survive and thrive?

Because that is basically the core of this discussion.

[AgnosticDamien]

It's not our fault Christians can't see what's wrong with murder or rape without their God telling them it's wrong..

[maritime]

Fundamental arrangement to our origin of being that there would be a highest good to aim at, that supports being/life knowing there is a higher good and that laws give aim. To suggest prevent/promote as the most universal moral principle, as basis of laws that form civil society to  aid our desire to survive and thrive suggests reason beyond your own reasoning. Reason is principal (maybe). Name the first act of goodness, act of yielding (whether active or passive).

Sorry but I still don't understand what you're asking.

Again, do you disagree that humans want to survive and thrive?

Because that is basically the core of this discussion.

Let me put it this way. You've reasoned that a universal principle exists, a principle to support your hypothesis that survive and thrive is an ultimate good humans should or do aim for. You have overlooked that humans work with what is built in, already supplied--LIFE is life's raison d'être. Survive and thrive to what end is the question, and sorry, your answer of prevent/promote lacks zest! That's right, lacks LIFE, unless you provide the fundamental arrangement of the origin of being and reason which allows you to think your reasoning is so great as to suggest a universal principle of ultimate good. You say No God but here's a principle, and a universal one, at that.

[AgnosticDamien]

Yeah, well what is already built in didn't take 6 days. Did it require a conscious creator? I'm not impressed by Jesus though.

[8livesleft]

Fundamental arrangement to our origin of being that there would be a highest good to aim at, that supports being/life knowing there is a higher good and that laws give aim. To suggest prevent/promote as the most universal moral principle, as basis of laws that form civil society to  aid our desire to survive and thrive suggests reason beyond your own reasoning. Reason is principal (maybe). Name the first act of goodness, act of yielding (whether active or passive).

Sorry but I still don't understand what you're asking.

Again, do you disagree that humans want to survive and thrive?

Because that is basically the core of this discussion.

Let me put it this way. You've reasoned that a universal principle exists, a principle to support your hypothesis that survive and thrive is an ultimate good humans should or do aim for.

To clarify, I don't believe it is universal. Rather that it is the most universal.

I also don't believe that there is such a thing as an "ultimate." Rather, we're all in a situation where we're in the constant process of living and trying to make our lives better.

So, there really is no "best" life.

You have overlooked that humans work with what is built in, already supplied--LIFE is life's raison d'être. Survive and thrive to what end is the question, and sorry, your answer of prevent/promote lacks zest! That's right, lacks LIFE, unless you provide the fundamental arrangement of the origin of being and reason which allows you to think your reasoning is so great as to suggest a universal principle of ultimate good. You say No God but here's a principle, and a universal one, at that.

What do you mean lacks life? In fact, what I'm saying is that valuing one's survival and well-being is prerequisite to the desire to follow the principle.

Being alive means you've taken the steps necessary to  continue to exist. And besides merely surviving we're also taking steps to make our lives better.

So long as you're doing that, you're following the principle.

[maritime]

So, if I hear you:
There is a reasoned a moral principle that is the most universal, i.e. adapted and adopted by most. Living and trying to make our lives better evidences a desire to value survival and well being principle (prevent/promote). Which points to to the fundamental arrangement/origin of LIFE, for which there is no reason (correct me if I am wrong). "Make the most of it" sounds perilously close to "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." <another universal principal principle adapted and adopted by most.

Can this principle of "Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being" be seen as the fundamental arrangement/origin for LIFE from the beginning? If so, how?

[AgnosticDamien]

The  Universe designed us this way. Not some anthropomorphic god. IF god made humans in his image and now that there are 7 billion of us, I really do wonder what his penis size must be..

[8livesleft]

So, if I hear you:
There is a reasoned a moral principle that is the most universal, i.e. adapted and adopted by most. Living and trying to make our lives better evidences a desire to value survival and well being principle (prevent/promote). Which points to to the fundamental arrangement/origin of LIFE, for which there is no reason (correct me if I am wrong). "Make the most of it" sounds perilously close to "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." <another universal principal adapted and adopted by most.

I don't believe there is an afterlife so the most we can do is try to make our lives and the lives of our kin better.

Can this principle of "Preventing harm and unnecessary suffering and promoting well-being" be seen as the fundamental arrangement/origin for LIFE from the beginning? If so, how?

The instinct to survive and thrive is likely shared by all life forms. In more complex entities, this will or desire to survive and thrive is reflected in the principle. In that regard, because it is instinctive, it is fundamental. So, from that, we can further speculate that the earliest life forms, from which all living things have evolved from, may have also had the same instinct.

[maritime]

Ironic, I think, to not believe in an afterlife but believe LIFE, what you identify as the earliest life forms on down the line, has an instinctive will to thrive and survive because it's better to do so, because collectively life forms have found it beneficial (it is). Thrive and survive for your day in the sun, period. What put the kabosh on survive? Another universal principle, I'm supposing. What is it?

[8livesleft]

Ironic, I think, to not believe in an afterlife but believe LIFE, what you identify as the earliest life forms on down the line, has an instinctive will...

I'm basing this belief on the fact that there is absolutely zero proof of the afterlife. That's it. Give me some real proof and I'll change my mind.

With regards to the instinct to survive, it's based on the fact that life forms seem to be preoccupied with the need to take the necessary steps to continue living. And since instincts are passed on through evolution, we can surmise that early life forms must have passed this on to us.

What put the kabosh on survive?

What?

[Inertialmass]

...Thrive and survive for your day in the sun, period.

Were that actually true we'd not have gametes, vaginas, penises.

We'd probably just have some sorta pleasure crank somewhere. 

Maybe where the belly button is now.

[Kiahanie]

This "survive and thrive" mantra is disturbingly nonspecific. Applied individually this is permission for all sorts of self centered behavior. Applied to small groups it provides moral justification for practices that benefit that particular tribe.

Only at the society scale do we see the "survive and thrive" principle approaching the species level, yet this is still ambiguous. Each society will have different notions of what "survive and thrive" means for them.

Without specifying a scope, "survive and thrive" is just a blanket justification for whatever benefits me, or my family, or my Klan, state, country, cult, corporation, etc. That's cool if you really want to go there, but I gather that is not the intention of this thread.

I think it is more accurate to say there are no universal values, that we are individually and collectively responsible for creating the morals (or ethics) that we live by (not those we merely profess, which are most often elegant hand-me-downs to wear in public.)

[8livesleft]

This "survive and thrive" mantra is disturbingly nonspecific. Applied individually this is permission for all sorts of self centered behavior. Applied to small groups it provides moral justification for practices that benefit that particular tribe.

Only at the society scale do we see the "survive and thrive" principle approaching the species level, yet this is still ambiguous. Each society will have different notions of what "survive and thrive" means for them.

Without specifying a scope, "survive and thrive" is just a blanket justification for whatever benefits me, or my family, or my Klan, state, country, cult, corporation, etc. That's cool if you really want to go there, but I gather that is not the intention of this thread.

I think it is more accurate to say there are no universal values, that we are individually and collectively responsible for creating the morals (or ethics) that we live by (not those we merely profess, which are most often elegant hand-me-downs to wear in public.)

Survive and thrive, the way I see it, is our most basic "instinct." It is self-interested but the more we learn about the world, our place in it, the more we know that being selfish will be detrimental to our main goal. We cannot survive and thrive or enhance well-being on our own or even by being overly nationalistic - because as you've mentioned, the world is much more than just our home, our town, region or country. So, we can't close our minds to just one way because everyone all over has something to offer and likewise, we have something to offer to everyone.

It's just that, when it comes to scope, it's hard to expand it more than our perceived sphere of influence. And so, we limit ourselves out of ignorance.

[maritime]

What put the kabosh on survive?

What?

Survive is temporary. Why?

[Inertialmass]

I think that the reason Maritime is so terse and obscure and so Haiku-like is that she knows from experience the more she elaborates on her religious views and the more she supports violent, racist, apartheid, terrorist State Israel, the more trouble she makes for herself.

[AgnosticDamien]

What put the kabosh on survive?

What?

Survive is temporary. Why?

So life is only worth surviving and living if you're promised an eternal heaven afterwards?

[Inertialmass]

Well hellz bellz I dunno 'bout all youz transient life forms but me I got trillions and godzillions of interstellar neutrinos zipping through my body every second.  As they transit my brain they capture a high resolution, four dimensional shadow image, so to speak, of me and all my thoughts and all my precious, atheistic, universal moral principles which in turn travel on off at lightspeed to infinity and beyond, only to loop back eternally in an endless, closed universe.  I shall live forever in true physical infamy while all youz imaginary god worshipers be doomed.  Checkmate!



>>>>  end snark  <<<<

[8livesleft]

What put the kabosh on survive?

What?

Survive is temporary. Why?

So life is only worth surviving and living if you're promised an eternal heaven afterwards?

Here's my reply to that: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/17/an-apocalyptic-cult-900-dead-remembering-the-jonestown-massacre-40-years-on

And it makes perfect sense. Their lord is not "here." He's in "heaven." So, better to just skip the commute.

[8livesleft]

What put the kabosh on survive?

What?

Survive is temporary. Why?

I wouldn't call the billions of years it took for life on this planet to develop and the billions of years it will continue to develop as "temporary."

[maritime]

Individual survival.
What survives over the course of the billions of years that is worth its salt?

[Shnozzola]

I understand as theists, people don't consider this. (Especially considering Adam and eve on one of the days of the week)  But as atheists, considering evolution from scratch, where protein and carbon chains lead to rna, lead to simple "nonliving" viruses, then lead to single celled life (paramecium), then fish, mammals, and us, every step is worth its salt.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramecium

Edit- another interesting link:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/using-the-placenta-to-understand-how-complex-organs-evolve-70107

[maritime]

Survive and thrive, the way I see it, is our most basic "instinct." It is self-interested but the more we learn about the world, our place in it, the more we know that being selfish will be detrimental to our main goal. We cannot survive and thrive or enhance well-being on our own or even by being overly nationalistic - because as you've mentioned, the world is much more than just our home, our town, region or country. So, we can't close our minds to just one way because everyone all over has something to offer and likewise, we have something to offer to everyone.

It's just that, when it comes to scope, it's hard to expand it more than our perceived sphere of influence. And so, we limit ourselves out of ignorance.

Why should it be "we", why should it be "all for one". Define "we" beyond unknowing system producing knowing/conscious product that wants to be one, "we", given billions of years invested effort. Since harmonious "we" desired therefore prevent/promote ideal principle. Ideal Harmony institutes Peace. For Peace, identify what interferes and hinders Harmony so as to eliminate or subjugate. Forced peace, in other words. The end of ignorance. Maybe.

[AgnosticDamien]

Survive and thrive, the way I see it, is our most basic "instinct." It is self-interested but the more we learn about the world, our place in it, the more we know that being selfish will be detrimental to our main goal. We cannot survive and thrive or enhance well-being on our own or even by being overly nationalistic - because as you've mentioned, the world is much more than just our home, our town, region or country. So, we can't close our minds to just one way because everyone all over has something to offer and likewise, we have something to offer to everyone.

It's just that, when it comes to scope, it's hard to expand it more than our perceived sphere of influence. And so, we limit ourselves out of ignorance.

Why should it be "we", why should it be "all for one". Define "we" beyond unknowing system producing knowing/conscious product that wants to be one, "we", given billions of years invested effort. Since harmonious "we" desired therefore prevent/promote ideal principle. Ideal Harmony institutes Peace. For Peace, identify what interferes and hinders Harmony so as to eliminate or subjugate. Forced peace, in other words. The end of ignorance. Maybe.

The heck are you talking about??

[AgnosticDamien]

What put the kabosh on survive?

What?

Survive is temporary. Why?

So life is only worth surviving and living if you're promised an eternal heaven afterwards?

Here's my reply to that: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/17/an-apocalyptic-cult-900-dead-remembering-the-jonestown-massacre-40-years-on

And it makes perfect sense. Their lord is not "here." He's in "heaven." So, better to just skip the commute.

Terrible stuff. This life is worthless for religious people, that's why they glorify suffering. What's the point making this world better, when they have another eternal life to look forward to?  Atheists on the other hand, believe that this is the only life we have to live, so it makes perfect sense to desire survive and thrive.

[Inertialmass]

The plagiarized, fictional, anthromorph Creation campfire tale told in the bible can easily be had in pretty much all, nearly identical tribal folklore anywhere, and can also easily be had in very many nearly identical childrens' storybooks anywhere and everywhere:

"Daddy built his family a beautiful new house with swingset and apple orchard in the yard.  Everyone lived in Daddy's house happy and snug as a bug, until one day the children disobeyed and got into the orchard.  After that things were never quite so happy.  Don't disobey Daddy.  The End."

BOOOORIIIING!

On the other hand the unfolding, four billion year narrative of life's physical evolution on Earth is endlessly interesting, with new surprises, amazing new complexities and new interconnections revealed every day.  Who ever woulda dreamed up the -- now plausible -- hypothesis even a few decades ago that our carbon/hydrogen/oxygen/nitrogen-based life forms may well not have been even possible without our stabilizing Moon and large outer planets, and yet again possibly not possible absent our disruptive plate tectonics!!!  Forget Yahweh, there's lotsa really neat new stuff waiting to be discovered.

[8livesleft]

Individual survival.
What survives over the course of the billions of years that is worth its salt?

I don't see us as individuals that are separate from each other, our ancestors and the environment. We are continuing a legacy set forth by the previous generations and we will inevitably affect future generations. It's a never ending link. We still feel the effects of the decisions made by our ancestors and our descendants will experience the effects of our decisions as well.

All of that is because of those microscopic microorganisms that somehow survived when the planet was basically a lava pit billions of years ago.

[8livesleft]

Survive and thrive, the way I see it, is our most basic "instinct." It is self-interested but the more we learn about the world, our place in it, the more we know that being selfish will be detrimental to our main goal. We cannot survive and thrive or enhance well-being on our own or even by being overly nationalistic - because as you've mentioned, the world is much more than just our home, our town, region or country. So, we can't close our minds to just one way because everyone all over has something to offer and likewise, we have something to offer to everyone.

It's just that, when it comes to scope, it's hard to expand it more than our perceived sphere of influence. And so, we limit ourselves out of ignorance.

Why should it be "we", why should it be "all for one". Define "we" beyond unknowing system producing knowing/conscious product that wants to be one, "we", given billions of years invested effort. Since harmonious "we" desired therefore prevent/promote ideal principle. Ideal Harmony institutes Peace. For Peace, identify what interferes and hinders Harmony so as to eliminate or subjugate. Forced peace, in other words. The end of ignorance. Maybe.

Like I said before, I don't see us as individuals separate from each other - not in the past, not in the future. And I also don't see us as separate from our environment. 

So, if we value our existence and well-being, then it follows that we should take better care of ourselves, our neighbors and our environment. Hence, the harm principle.

Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists.

[maritime]

...We...we...we...we...

Why should it be "we", why should it be "all for one".

Like I said before, I don't see us as individuals separate from each other - not in the past, not in the future. And I also don't see us as separate from our environment. 

So, if we value our existence and well-being, then it follows that we should take better care of ourselves, our neighbors and our environment. Hence, the harm principle.

Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists.

^that's a weird thought to add (in bold). Who exactly is being referenced? The religious?

I am not questioning the value of existence and the need to care. Most do.

As a spokesperson for the collective (even royal) We, would you say harmony is necessary?

[AgnosticDamien]

Yeah, it is referring to religious people who kill themselves to reach heaven for example. And who's the spokesperson? You are talking to normal people on a forum, not politicians.

[Inertialmass]

I am not questioning the value of existence and the need to care. Most do.    

Most people do question the value of existence, but Maritime does not?

Most people do question the need to care, but Maritime cares unquestioningly?

Weird religious egotism.

[8livesleft]

would you say harmony is necessary?

Of course. To co-exist with others we need to find a way to do so harmoniously. And that means adhering to the harm principle as much as possible.

[Kiahanie]

...would you say harmony is necessary?

In thinking of harmony, I go to the Dine notion of hozho (diacritics missing in my tablet.) This combines English concepts of beauty, harmony, one-ness, being in balance. I believe the idea is that the natural world is harmonious in its striving for balance, the parts work together in a harmony that humans can become part of.

That makes harmony an objective quality of being in which we can participate.
Or not, to our detriment.

[8livesleft]

...would you say harmony is necessary?

In thinking of harmony, I go to the Dine notion of hozho (diacritics missing in my tablet.) This combines English concepts of beauty, harmony, one-ness, being in balance. I believe the idea is that the natural world is harmonious in its striving for balance, the parts work together in a harmony that humans can become part of.

That makes harmony an objective quality of being in which we can participate.
Or not, to our detriment.

Well said.

[Novice]

This is a tough question. I was thinking about it and finally gave up on identifying one single principle, but had some thoughts about the framework for arriving at the moral principles. My framework would be -

- Lack of bias based on any divisive factors such as gender, race, color, religion, sexual orientation, country, etc.
- Provides a maximum benefit for a maximum number of people
- Does not violate individual liberty, rights, and freedom
- Causes the least harm to other living beings and the environment

Selflessness comes to my mind as one of the candidates.

[8livesleft]

This is a tough question. I was thinking about it and finally gave up on identifying one single principle, but had some thoughts about the framework for arriving at the moral principles. My framework would be -

- Lack of bias based on any divisive factors such as gender, race, color, religion, sexual orientation, country, etc.
- Provides a maximum benefit for a maximum number of people
- Does not violate individual liberty, rights, and freedom
- Causes the least harm to other living beings and the environment

Selflessness comes to my mind as one of the candidates.

Yes, selflessness but not as opposed to selfishness but rather selflessness in the context of being part of a larger whole - in other words there is no isolated "me."

So being part of a whole, how can we best integrate/cooperate/contribute in order to better assure our own well-being?

Because let's be honest, we are a self-interested species. We wouldn't be doing things unless we felt there was something in it for us.

I don't know of any religion that didn't have some sort of heaven or "zero suffering" state.

[Shnozzola]

- in other words there is no isolated "me."

Reminds me of the words of Hindu Ramana Maharshi, when asked how to treat others. "There are no others", he said.

[8livesleft]

- in other words there is no isolated "me."

Reminds me of the words of Hindu Ramana Maharshi, when asked how to treat others. "There are no others", he said.

That's right haha

We can also liken it to a band. The best bands work together with no single element sticking out or being diminished. Each instrument is contributing precisely what the song requires. And each instrument has to work well in order for the other instruments to not have to work harder than they have to (which they could, if need be).

When the band is good, you don't hear the "band" you hear the song.

[maritime]

8livesleft:

Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists.

^that's a weird thought to add (in bold). Who exactly are you referencing with "some people"? The religious?

[maritime]

would you say harmony is necessary?

Of course. To co-exist with others we need to find a way to do so harmoniously. And that means adhering to the harm principle as much as possible.

Okay. What authority backs you up on this. Any citations? Remember your references to "We", as if you are speaking for the group, but the group cannot be the amorphous ALL ONENESS of LIFE. But if you are speaking of the ALL ONENESS of LIFE, what authority backs you up on this. Any citations?

Why do we need to "find a way" to co-exist harmoniously? What's the imperative? And again, what authority backs you up.

[Novice]

- in other words there is no isolated "me."

Reminds me of the words of Hindu Ramana Maharshi, when asked how to treat others. "There are no others", he said.

Nice to see the reference to Ramana Maharshi. He was really as selfless as one can be, a rare embodiment of practicing what one preaches.

[Novice]

- in other words there is no isolated "me."

Reminds me of the words of Hindu Ramana Maharshi, when asked how to treat others. "There are no others", he said.

That's right haha

We can also liken it to a band. The best bands work together with no single element sticking out or being diminished. Each instrument is contributing precisely what the song requires. And each instrument has to work well in order for the other instruments to not have to work harder than they have to (which they could, if need be).

When the band is good, you don't hear the "band" you hear the song.

Ramana Maharishi's quote expresses the true advaitic thought process. I feel the underlying message is the elimination of the ego, desires resulting due to ego, greed, and jealousy ultimately leading to the well-being of self and well-being of society. Different religions take slightly different routes to convey the message.

Christianity promises heaven for someone who loves their neighbor
Advaita takes the route as quoted by Ramana Maharishi, blurring the distinction between self and neighbor
Buddhism is more direct and clearly identifies desire as the source of suffering

Though, not religiously oriented, I have personally found it more enjoyable when I do something without expectation (which is rare, because it is very hard to get rid of the instinct to desire something for yourself).

Selflessness is something is difficult and is against the natural instinct, but if achieved would be best for mankind in my opinion.

[maritime]

...would you say harmony is necessary?

In thinking of harmony, I go to the Dine notion of hozho (diacritics missing in my tablet.) This combines English concepts of beauty, harmony, one-ness, being in balance. I believe the idea is that the natural world is harmonious in its striving for balance, the parts work together in a harmony that humans can become part of.

That makes harmony an objective quality of being in which we can participate.
Or not, to our detriment.

Yes, I agree, if "we" means "I" as an individual.
Necessary harmony is forced co-existence, e.g. North Korea et al
Force in the guise of preventing suffering and promoting well being, behind the scene, in plain view, at the expense of others for the what is termed the good of all.

[maritime]

would you say harmony is necessary?

Of course. To co-exist with others we need to find a way to do so harmoniously. And that means adhering to the harm principle as much as possible.

Okay. What authority backs you up on this. Any citations? Remember your references to "We", as if you are speaking for the group, but the group cannot be the amorphous ALL ONENESS of LIFE. But if you are speaking of the ALL ONENESS of LIFE, what authority backs you up on this. Any citations?

Why do we need to "find a way" to co-exist harmoniously? What's the imperative? And again, what authority backs you up.

In other words, why should I or anyone listen to you?
Don't listen to me, you might say. Listen to...who? what?
I'm not buying that LIFE's beginning was a lava pit. If so, there can be no authority ever. You had to be there to say so. All else is guesswork.

"Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists."

[8livesleft]

8livesleft:

Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists.

^that's a weird thought to add (in bold). Who exactly are you referencing with "some people"? The religious?

I was referencing the Jonestown massacre.

[8livesleft]

would you say harmony is necessary?

Of course. To co-exist with others we need to find a way to do so harmoniously. And that means adhering to the harm principle as much as possible.

Okay. What authority backs you up on this. Any citations? Remember your references to "We", as if you are speaking for the group, but the group cannot be the amorphous ALL ONENESS of LIFE. But if you are speaking of the ALL ONENESS of LIFE, what authority backs you up on this. Any citations?

I'm basing all this on my own intuition and experience that most people do in fact care about their survival and well-being.

I also hope I'm being clear that I don't think this is absolute.

Why do we need to "find a way" to co-exist harmoniously? What's the imperative? And again, what authority backs you up.

What do you mean "authority?" as in do I have a God or some guru telling me what's what? No. I have none of that. I'm basing all this on my own experience and my intuition.

That's why I made this thread to test the theory but I have yet to find anything to contradict that that is in fact the most universal principle.

And it doesn't matter whether some "authority" exists because a concept should be valid regardless of where it comes from.

[8livesleft]

would you say harmony is necessary?

Of course. To co-exist with others we need to find a way to do so harmoniously. And that means adhering to the harm principle as much as possible.

Okay. What authority backs you up on this. Any citations? Remember your references to "We", as if you are speaking for the group, but the group cannot be the amorphous ALL ONENESS of LIFE. But if you are speaking of the ALL ONENESS of LIFE, what authority backs you up on this. Any citations?

Why do we need to "find a way" to co-exist harmoniously? What's the imperative? And again, what authority backs you up.

In other words, why should I or anyone listen to you?
Don't listen to me, you might say. Listen to...who? what?
I'm not buying that LIFE's beginning was a lava pit. If so, there can be no authority ever. You had to be there to say so. All else is guesswork.

"Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists."

First of all, I'm not listing laws here. Do whatever the hell you want. I had a question in the title and I have my answer.

If you disagree, say why.

That's how discussions work.

[Inertialmass]

Okay. What authority backs you up on this. Any citations?...   

Oh look how cute!!!  The Jeeeeeeezus/Chosen People/Apartheid Zion fan demands evidentiary proof!

[Inertialmass]

8livesleft:

Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists.

^that's a weird thought to add (in bold). Who exactly are you referencing with "some people"? The religious? 

I was referencing the Jonestown massacre. 

Some people, some tribes, even celebrate cultic suicide as a measure of their devotion, though of course anthropologists and archaeologists have recently been forced to poo-poo the Masada hilltop legend:  https://www.brainz.org/10-most-notorious-suicide-cults-history/

[maritime]

8livesleft:

Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists.

^that's a weird thought to add (in bold). Who exactly are you referencing with "some people"? The religious?

I was referencing the Jonestown massacre.

Okay.

[maritime]

First of all, I'm not listing laws here. Do whatever the hell you want. I had a question in the title and I have my answer.

If you disagree, say why.

That's how discussions work.

All of my statements are rhetorical, meant to express what I think about what you are saying but are not directed at YOU specifically (platonic). To state "We" means "All" and I would like to know on what basis one should join in with what possibly might be the most universal moral principal principle. Principals Principles have a beginning, so which is it, lava pit to knowledge or knowledge to knowledge. You hold to the first, as the shoe that fits. I hold to the second. Why should it matter? Ignorance.

I'm not asking you to list laws. Most do whatever the hell they want, even participate in a Jonestown suicide (massacre) if not careful. Your statement about "some people" (without reference) suggested a thematic divide, those who are ignorant and those who are not. 

Assert that caring makes a difference, rest in a mind made up, but don't imagine that one needs to be a-theist to overcome ignorance, to care what or what does not happen under the sun.

[Inertialmass]

That makes harmony an objective quality of being in which we can participate.   

I'm surprised to see you turning toward such an intangible, amorphous, hard-to-grasp abstraction as "harmony."

IM doesn't recognize his own tribal tendencies. He has a blind spot. He just doesn't get it.  

^^^^^True. But I am more concerned with IM's search for meaning in abstractions. I will ask them about it next time we are in an appropriate thread.  

I can not internally visualize moral harmony.  Can you?  When I say "moral harmony" aloud I can only hear a buncha castrated Vienna Choir Boys singing in forced falsetto harmony.  On the other hand I can easily, tangibly visualize 8Lives's moral principle of minimizing harm -- don't build and use massively apocalyptic nuke bombs, don't build and use remote-control machine guns hoping to catalyze WW3, don't sterilize or utilize as your lab rats people you consider your inferiors, don't steal candy from babies.  I still must strongly suspect that 8Lives's harm mitigation principle is subservient and in service to the larger, truly universal moral principle that a universe devoid of life and devoid of consciousness is a meaningless, empty universe -- literally sterile.  Thus, our moral duty to survive becomes a universal moral principle.  While I agree it's expressing a nice sentiment, merely standing on one foot and saying "People!  Just be nice to each other!" is a highly local, purely anthropocentric activity and decidedly not universal.

[8livesleft]

All of my statements are rhetorical, meant to express what I think about what you are saying but are not directed at YOU specifically (platonic). To state "We" means "All" and I would like to know on what basis one should join in with what possibly might be the most universal moral principal.

Nobody has to do anything. The reason why I think the harm principle is the most universal is because I believe that most people don't want to be harmed unnecessarily. That's basically it.

I'm sure some people like harming themselves and that's up to them. But, by and large, I believe we're looking at a really small minority of people who would willfully go against the principle.

I'm not asking you to list laws. Most do whatever the hell they want, even participate in a Jonestown suicide (massacre) if not careful. Your statement about "some people" (without reference) suggested a thematic divide, those who are ignorant and those who are not. 

In the case of "harm," it's no secret what causes it and so it's not about ignorance. Most of us know what humans need to live and live well.

So, it's either a personal choice to not follow or an incapacity to do so. But, in my opinion, not to follow (as in, for example, not eating properly, not sleeping, not hydrating etc...) would likely lead to some discomfort, illness, or basically increase suffering.

[8livesleft]

8livesleft:

Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists.

^that's a weird thought to add (in bold). Who exactly are you referencing with "some people"? The religious? 

I was referencing the Jonestown massacre. 

Some people, some tribes, even celebrate cultic suicide as a measure of their devotion, though of course anthropologists and archaeologists have recently been forced to poo-poo the Masada hilltop legend:  https://www.brainz.org/10-most-notorious-suicide-cults-history/

Yeah, suicide cults are terrible....this here probably the "lesser of two evils?"

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/25/asia/philippines-easter-good-friday-crucifixion/index.html

[8livesleft]

I still must strongly suspect that 8Lives's harm mitigation principle is subservient and in service to the larger, truly universal moral principle that a universe devoid of life and devoid of consciousness is a meaningless, empty universe -- literally sterile.  Thus, our moral duty to survive becomes a universal moral principle.

The way I see it, humans are just a small part of all life itself. So, it's not just our own lives we have to think about with principle but all life. If we play a destructive role, we - who are part of all life - will be destroyed too.

*Well, not really destroyed because I don't think you can "destroy" the very basic forms of life.

[Inertialmass]

+1

Yes, we're literally a small part of all life.  And I tend not to any longer even think of my own self, my own body, as a classic, autonomous "organism" but instead as a continuously changing colony of symbionts, mitochondria, bone, blood and nerve cells, united to one another's mutual survival advantage.  Still, it is our unique collective human cognition that allows us to build a mental model of past events, and in turn extrapolate past into contingent future scenarios.  We're the only life we know of even remotely capable of perceiving and responding to long-term threats to life on planet Earth.  So back to the topic -- moralities concerning themselves solely with interpersonal human relations, with being polite to one another, ain't gonna do squat for the survival of life on planet Earth when the next Chicxulub impactor is spotted heading our way.  Still seems to me that any universal moral principle must by definition address life's place in the universe as opposed to simply offering a rule or rules for successful interpersonal human interaction.  Heck, if all that's demanded of a morality is that we be friendly toward one another we should all just convert over to Jehovah Witnesses or to Francis's mega church.   

[maritime]

And so, we limit ourselves out of ignorance.

Most recognize a principle--not absolute--we dwellers on Planet Earth, We as One.

It is not a principle proposed but a principle recognized--a possible universal moral--Prevent suffering and harm, promote well being.

Most practice and most recognize the principle. The basics, right?

In the case of "harm," it's no secret what causes it and so it's not about ignorance. Most of us know what humans need to live and live well.

So, it's either a personal choice to not follow or an incapacity to do so. But, in my opinion, not to follow (as in, for example, not eating properly, not sleeping, not hydrating etc...) would likely lead to some discomfort, illness, or basically increase suffering.

Exceptions exist:

"Again, some people don't feel that way and so they'd rather kill themselves in order to get to some unknown place that they think exists."

So ignorance is a factor. Ignorance of what? How Life originated and What Life means.

[8livesleft]

+1

Yes, we're literally a small part of all life.  And I tend not to any longer even think of my own self, my own body, as a classic, autonomous "organism" but instead as a continuously changing colony of symbionts, mitochondria, bone, blood and nerve cells, united to one another's mutual survival advantage.  Still, it is our unique collective human cognition that allows us to build a mental model of past events, and in turn extrapolate past into contingent future scenarios.  We're the only life we know of even remotely capable of perceiving and responding to long-term threats to life on planet Earth.  So back to the topic -- moralities concerning themselves solely with interpersonal human relations, with being polite to one another, ain't gonna do squat for the survival of life on planet Earth when the next Chicxulub impactor is spotted heading our way.  Still seems to me that any universal moral principle must by definition address life's place in the universe as opposed to simply offering a rule or rules for successful interpersonal human interaction.  Heck, if all that's demanded of a morality is that we be friendly toward one another we should all just convert over to Jehovah Witnesses or to Francis's mega church.   

I agree. It can't just be about ourselves, "our" people. And it definitely can't just be for show.

I knew this guy before who used to go to church every day and even looked and acted like a priest. He worked at a bank as a fund manager but was fired after getting caught doing insider trading and mishandling/stealing client's funds.

Some people have this mentality that they can get away with things so long as they "repent," pray, go to church or confession etc...which doesn't make sense to me at all when these same people end up committing the same sins afterwards. I mean what's all that stuff for? To give you peace of mind for being an a-hole?

[8livesleft]

So ignorance is a factor. Ignorance of what? How Life originated and What Life means.

Ignorance of one's place in life. Ignorance of being connected to others, to the environment, to other living things. Ignorance of playing a role in continuing a legacy which started billions of years ago and of one's role in future generations.

So, if a person was ignorant of those things, they would be more likely to act more selfishly or destructively, thinking that nobody else will be affected by their actions. They may also do things that purposely hurt others because they think they have no connection with those people.

[maritime]

^That all sounds awfully religious .

Pivotal existence, then.

Interesting to think your (rhetorical) life is pivotal and so and so's (say a figure from the past like Jesus) is not. Jesus who? Oh, Christ. Suffered much?

[Inertialmass]

They may also do things that purposely hurt others because they think they have no connection with those people.   

^That all sounds awfully religious .     

That is completely true but I didn't anticipate that you, Maritime, would be agreeing with the obvious point that it is ignorant religious tribalism that gives you and your religious brethren the clear conscience to incinerate those Other guys, the Other religious adherents, because they are less than human, they worship a false god, so it's cool to incinerate them with remote control attack drones, with remote control automatic machine gun fire hoping to catalyze WWIII, intimidate with threats of occupation, intimidate with threats of nuclear annihilation.

Yep, hurting others because you've convinced yourself you have no human connection sounds awfully, awfully religious.

[8livesleft]

^That all sounds awfully religious .

It's the other way around. Most religious principles to me resonate with people because they're based on or are grounded on natural human values.

It's a natural thing to not want to feel pain or discomfort. It's a natural thing to want to feel pleasure, comfort. It's a natural thing to want to feel loved and to love. To be treated well and not to be treated poorly. etc...

Religion or god didn't give us those things. Mankind evolved to value those things. They predate religion.

Pivotal existence, then.

Interesting to think your (rhetorical) life is pivotal and so and so's (say a figure from the past like Jesus) is not. Jesus who? Oh, Christ. Suffered much?

What are you on about here?

[maritime]

Pivotal existence. Maybe you don't hear yourself when you speak .

Those who are not ignorant, remember, know 99.9% of what there is to know about life's origins. You have put yourself in that category. Pity and question the selfishness of being like minded with Jonestown-like believers (that's where faith in God will get you, suicidal group think).

Connected and playing a role, continuing a legacy, suggests memory is important. Memory persists but memory is cloudy given all the mumbo jumbo, imaginary god possibility. Going from cloudy to blue sky thinking, clear as a bell, no ignorance, requires what exactly.

Ignorance of one's place in life. Ignorance of being connected to others, to the environment, to other living things. Ignorance of playing a role in continuing a legacy which started billions of years ago and of one's role in future generations.

So, if a person was ignorant of those things, they would be more likely to act more selfishly or destructively, thinking that nobody else will be affected by their actions. They may also do things that purposely hurt others because they think they have no connection with those people.

[Inertialmass]

Pivotal existence...  Going from cloudy to blue sky thinking, clear as a bell, no ignorance, requires what exactly. 

Nonsentences.

[Mr. Blackwell]

Pivotal existence...  Going from cloudy to blue sky thinking, clear as a bell, no ignorance, requires what exactly. 

Nonsentences.

That explains a lot actually. Maritime, you have your answer. In order to illustrate that you have clear thinking and are not ignorant you must speak in nonsentences.


I offer this as an example of clearly non-ignorant thinking expressed via nonsentences.

Yes, we're literally a small part of all life.  And I tend not to any longer even think of my own self, my own body, as a classic, autonomous "organism" but instead as a continuously changing colony of symbionts, mitochondria, bone, blood and nerve cells, united to one another's mutual survival advantage.

[8livesleft]

Pivotal existence. Maybe you don't hear yourself when you speak .

Those who are not ignorant, remember, know 99.9% of what there is to know about life's origins.

No that's not what I said. I specified what people could be ignorant of and that has to do with our inherent connectedness to others, the environment, the past and the future.

Knowing that we're connected does not automatically mean that we know 99.9% of every single entity past present and future. That would be ridiculous.

Connected and playing a role, continuing a legacy, suggests memory is important. Memory persists but memory is cloudy given all the mumbo jumbo, imaginary god possibility. Going from cloudy to blue sky thinking, clear as a bell, no ignorance, requires what exactly.

Well, I don't know how to be "clear as a bell" but one way would be to focus on reliable data and facts. People in past generations got us to this point and further back, people from earlier generations went through what we're going through. What this means is that we can learn from their mistakes and their triumphs.

[maritime]

Would you not say that having God belief puts one in the ignorant category? Isn't the whole idea behind testing out a proposed universal moral principal meant as replacement for outdated and outmoded god thinking?

The 99.9% (or maybe it was 99.7%) is your certainty factor that no God exists. Enough scientific material proof to almost say for certain but small allowance for a surprise.

Those who are not ignorant, remember, know 99.9% of what there is to know about life's origins.

[8livesleft]

Would you not say that having God belief puts one in the ignorant category?

Not necessarily. Unless the belief places a barrier between yourself and others.

Isn't the whole idea behind testing out a proposed universal moral principal meant as replacement for outdated and outmoded god thinking?

I'm not proposing a "new" principle to replace religious one's. What I'm asking is if the harm principle is the most universal. It exists, that's for certain and I'll even go so far as to say that religious principles are based off of it. It exists and persists regardless of religion.

The 99.9% (or maybe it was 99.7%) is your certainty factor that no God exists. Enough scientific material proof to almost say for certain but small allowance for a surprise.

Those who are not ignorant, remember, know 99.9% of what there is to know about life's origins.

Ah ok. Yes, I'm quite sure that's the case but I'm not 100% sure. At any rate, it's my opinion that the less we rely on religious thought and focus more on adhering to the harm principle based on facts and verified data, then we'll be better off for it.

[Kiahanie]

...would you say harmony is necessary?

In thinking of harmony, I go to the Dine notion of hozho (diacritics missing in my tablet.) This combines English concepts of beauty, harmony, one-ness, being in balance. I believe the idea is that the natural world is harmonious in its striving for balance, the parts work together in a harmony that humans can become part of.

That makes harmony an objective quality of being in which we can participate.
Or not, to our detriment.

Yes, I agree, if "we" means "I" as an individual.
Necessary harmony is forced co-existence, e.g. North Korea et al
Force in the guise of preventing suffering and promoting well being, behind the scene, in plain view, at the expense of others for the what is termed the good of all.

Please see above below reply to IM.

Harmony/beauty is not "necessary": it simply is, a quality of the observed world.

Hozho is not enforced. Beauty, harmony, the turning of gears simply are. Whether we participate as grease or sand is up to the individual.

I would not use North Korea (or the US, UK, Sweden, et al) as examples of harmony, whether forced, unforced, moral, amoral or immoral. I believe you are confusing morality with legality, which implies force for enforcement.

[Kiahanie]

^^^^^True. But I am more concerned with IM's search for meaning in abstractions. I will ask them about it next time we are in an appropriate thread.  

I can not internally visualize moral harmony.  Can you? . . . .

Nope. I would get a headache even trying. There is nothing objective about "morals." They may be based on something objective, but are always subjective from the understanding of that basis, to expressed principles through to application of those principles. Nothing wrong with that, that is just the way things are.

So now we get to hozho. I do not speak for the Dine people, but what appeals to me about their concept of beauty is that it accepts the world as it is: acorns fall and oaks grow, squirrels eat the acorns and coyotes eat the squirrels; mountains rise and erode, the sun and moon and stars dance their patterns across the sky every day; a bear tries to eat me and I try to make a robe out of the bear: I go to work to make a profit for someone else and take home enough to live on. The gears mesh and turn and the world works. There is nothing "intangible" about that. It simply is.

The tangibility of that harmony may be easier to recognize when we strip the gears through our misapprehension that the world is ours to consume: climate warming, dead coral reefs, the American horse, other species dying out before their time. Sometimes it is easier to see disruption than smooth flow.

I personally see no absolute or external imperative to maintain that harmony, but I do recognize that a world that works is a desirable feature for most life forms. And I have experienced the subjective beauty when meshing with the gears as well as the pain of having been caught in them.

[Inertialmass]

I offer this as an example of clearly non-ignorant thinking expressed via nonsentences.

Yes, we're literally a small part of all life.  And I tend not to any longer even think of my own self, my own body, as a classic, autonomous "organism" but instead as a continuously changing colony of symbionts, mitochondria, bone, blood and nerve cells, united to one another's mutual survival advantage.

Thanks.

I guess?

However, you quote two very ordinary, complete sentences each with ordinary verb and ordinary noun.

[8livesleft]

There is nothing objective about "morals." They may be based on something objective, but are always subjective from the understanding of that basis, to expressed principles through to application of those principles.

Yes as long as humans are involved - which is always. But there are ways to make things less subjective. Like, for example, using verifiable facts as much as possible, quantifying things as much as possible, avoiding heresay, questionable info etc...

We can't just throw everything out just because it can't be absolute. We just have to work around those limitations.

[Kiahanie]

^^^^^I dare not throw out the objective. I am a materialist after all. I apparently failed to be clear.

But just to be perfectly clear, I am a bit of a mystical materialist.

[maritime]

...would you say harmony is necessary?

In thinking of harmony, I go to the Dine notion of hozho (diacritics missing in my tablet.) This combines English concepts of beauty, harmony, one-ness, being in balance. I believe the idea is that the natural world is harmonious in its striving for balance, the parts work together in a harmony that humans can become part of.

That makes harmony an objective quality of being in which we can participate.
Or not, to our detriment.

Yes, I agree, if "we" means "I" as an individual.
Necessary harmony is forced co-existence, e.g. North Korea et al
Force in the guise of preventing suffering and promoting well being, behind the scene, in plain view, at the expense of others for the what is termed the good of all.

Please see above below reply to IM.

Harmony/beauty is not "necessary": it simply is, a quality of the observed world.

Hozho is not enforced. Beauty, harmony, the turning of gears simply are. Whether we participate as grease or sand is up to the individual.

I would not use North Korea (or the US, UK, Sweden, et al) as examples of harmony, whether forced, unforced, moral, amoral or immoral. I believe you are confusing morality with legality, which implies force for enforcement.

Maybe. Harmony is necessary but not enforced--you speak of nature taking its course, self correcting, karma, bittersweet, yin/yang (?). What is unnatural can be enforced harmony, kept from self correcting, karma thwarted (?), isolation from/alternative reality, appearing as One in agreement.

So we are beholden to nature and corrupted nature.
Principled nature and unprincipled nature.
...and in this thread asking "what is the most universal moral principle".

[Inertialmass]

"Like I told Barack, if I reach something where there's a fundamental disagreement we have based on a moral principle, I'll develop some disease and say I have to resign."  -Joe Biden 

And of course for the past four days, ever since Biden said it, Righty Conservatards are having a field day with this, shamelessly quoting out of context the part where Biden told Obama he would resign -- as if Biden will resign as soon as he and Kamala have any sort of disagreement based on moral principle.

Those many, many Conservatards who habitually quote libs out of context to deliberately alter the original meaning of a statement are dishonest and have no moral principles!  Or maybe they're honest but are stupid and simply suffer from poor comprehension???   

[8livesleft]

^^^^^I dare not throw out the objective. I am a materialist after all. I apparently failed to be clear.

But just to be perfectly clear, I am a bit of a mystical materialist.

Hehe sorry, I was referencing folks who believe that atheists have zero objectivity, zero basis, no moral compass.

[maritime]

Fundamental arrangement to our origin of being that there would be a highest good to aim at, that supports being/life knowing there is a higher good and that laws give aim. To suggest prevent/promote as the most universal moral principle, as basis of laws that form civil society to  aid our desire to survive and thrive suggests reason beyond your own reasoning. Reason is principal (maybe). Name the first act of goodness, act of yielding (whether active or passive).

Sorry but I still don't understand what you're asking.

Again, do you disagree that humans want to survive and thrive?

Because that is basically the core of this discussion.

8livesleft disagreed that ALL humans want to survive and thrive by referencing some people (Jonestown, a link to another story in the Philippines that I did not view, the religious hypocrite).

Aiming for a/this highest good (ppp), aka others over self, is not foreign to most but there are aberrations. Describing why to aim for this highest good allows one to prod others along kindly or by mockery, applauding or smiting even. All in good spirit, to keep up the spirit, in search of spirit.

"We are the world, we are the children...there's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives..." What allows there to be harmony among the disparate?

ppp: prevent promote principle

[8livesleft]

8livesleft disagreed that ALL humans want to survive and thrive by referencing some people (Jonestown, a link to another story in the Philippines that I did not view, the religious hypocrite).

Yes, I agree with you. There are no absolutes when it comes to humans and even other living things. We can only work with probabilities and likelihoods - a heck of a lot like quantum physics actually.

Aiming for a/this highest good (ppp), aka others over self, is not foreign to most but there are aberrations. Describing why to aim for this highest good allows one to prod others along kindly or by mockery, applauding or smiting even. All in good spirit, to keep up the spirit, in search of spirit.

"We are the world, we are the children...there's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives..." What allows there to be harmony among the disparate?

ppp: prevent promote principle

I agree here too. The more we help others, the more we expand our sphere of influence or connection to include the very world we're living in, the better for everyone.

But, I'm putting a little twist here since I believe that in doing so, we directly benefit from such seemingly selfless acts - which all the more makes it a worthwhile endeavor.

Ultimately, we are a self-interested species. But, we are a deeply connected one. Connected to others and the world. So, in order to assure our own survival and well-being, we need to ensure that those we're connected to and the world we're in are also moving in the right way with us.

"Rise together or fall apart" kind of thing.

[Mr. Blackwell]

"Rise together or fall apart" kind of thing.

A rising tide lifts all boats.


A house divided will not stand.

[Kiahanie]

Maybe. Harmony is necessary but not enforced--you speak of nature taking its course, self correcting, karma, bittersweet, yin/yang (?). What is unnatural can be enforced harmony, kept from self correcting, karma thwarted (?), isolation from/alternative reality, appearing as One in agreement.

So we are beholden to nature and corrupted nature.
Principled nature and unprincipled nature.
...and in this thread asking "what is the most universal moral principle".

I am sorry, but I have no idea what you mean to say. I have trouble assembling words into meaningful sentences, but it becomes much more difficult when I have to deal with unsentenced words.

I have the same problem when writing, so please let me know when my sentences do not make sense.

[maritime]

^Right. I am talking to myself more than I am to you, I suppose. Sorry about that.

I have this notion that harmony will be enforced in an unnatural way, used as a necessary means for control.

Which has nothing to do with how you think about harmony and what you shared.

[8livesleft]

^Right. I am talking to myself more than I am to you, I suppose. Sorry about that.

I have this notion that harmony will be enforced in an unnatural way, used as a necessary means for control.

Which has nothing to do with how you think about harmony and what you shared.

The more natural a principle or rule is, the less it needs to be enforced.

[maritime]

And the more natural principles / rules are?

[8livesleft]

And the more natural principles / rules are?

The harm principle for one. Nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself.

Even animals know not hunt/attack animals larger than themselves.

[maritime]

What about all those warnings on cigarette packages?

[8livesleft]

What about all those warnings on cigarette packages?

That's for the other aspect of human nature: we're also pleasure seekers. So, we need to be warned about things that seem pleasurable but are really harmful.

A lot of times, we keep doing it even after knowing the risks. So, the reminders become more constant, more alarming - notice the pictures on the packs? We're also seeing these commercials of cancer victims.

Even after all that, we still keep at it. Then the line between hobby/pastime and addiction starts to blur and we need more help than commercials and pictures.

[maritime]

The more natural a principle or rule is, the less it needs to be enforced.

And the more natural principles / rules are?

The harm principle for one. Nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself.

What about all those warnings on cigarette packages?

We need to be warned about things that seem pleasurable but are really harmful.

Hard to enforce what is free choice, right?
So maybe free choice is the more natural principle or rule.
Free to hurt ourself or not. Free to heed the warnings or not.
When we're a group we become less free, sometimes by consent of the group and sometimes not. The group decides what is harmful and what is not. Should ALL be GROUPED as one, and if so, under what authority given the question, what's the most universal moral principle for ALL. An authority that allows free choice or an authority that decides choices for you (i.e. we warned you but has become necessary to enforce for well being, keep from harm and suffering).

[Inertialmass]

^^^^  Wait. 

Lemme get this straight.

You are actually using one of the most powerful and ubiquitous of all chemical addictions to illustrate human free will???   


 

[8livesleft]

The more natural a principle or rule is, the less it needs to be enforced.

And the more natural principles / rules are?

The harm principle for one. Nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself.

What about all those warnings on cigarette packages?

We need to be warned about things that seem pleasurable but are really harmful.

Hard to enforce what is free choice, right?
So maybe free choice is the more natural principle or rule.
Free to hurt ourself or not. Free to heed the warnings or not.
When we're a group we become less free, sometimes by consent of the group and sometimes not. The group decides what is harmful and what is not. Should ALL be GROUPED as one, and if so, under what authority given the question, what's the most universal moral principle for ALL. An authority that allows free choice or an authority that decides choices for you (i.e. we warned you but has become necessary to enforce for well being, keep from harm and suffering).

Yes, we all freely choose to do what we want to do or to be part of a group and to abide by its rules. So, choice is indeed there. But I don't see it as a principle but rather something that's simply a part of our nature.

So, every group has its own authority figures and its own set of rules. It's up to you to choose which group to follow, how to follow it.

But, for every group, it seems to me that you see many elements of the harm principle being used - especially in government. So you have the basic rule of preventing unnecessary harm and promoting well-being, which then is applied to the laws: don't kill, don't hurt, don't steal, in some places, don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, go to school, drive properly etc...

[Kiahanie]

I am somewhat disturbed by the generous but undefined use of the word "freedom." It sounds as if freedom means the ability to act without adverse social or legal consequence. That does not sound at all reasonable.

What do you folks mean by Freedom? It is possible you are using different definitions. That can lead to confused discussion.

[none]

what about autonomy, maggots?

[8livesleft]

I am somewhat disturbed by the generous but undefined use of the word "freedom." It sounds as if freedom means the ability to act without adverse social or legal consequence. That does not sound at all reasonable.

What do you folks mean by Freedom? It is possible you are using different definitions. That can lead to confused discussion.

How I use the term in this context is that we're free to choose options available within the confines of our abilities and rules of whatever group we're in.

For instance, our work requires that we attend 5 days a week, from 8am - 5pm. Within that time, we have to abide by the rules set by our boss. Outside, we abide by the rules set by our town or state. So, there are things we can and can't do within those rule sets.

Not following means probably getting fired, fined or jailed.

[8livesleft]

what about autonomy, maggots?

yeah sure, we're constantly making decisions on how to do things after all. But we can't do everything - hence groups and their rules.

[Mr. Blackwell]

I am somewhat disturbed by the generous but undefined use of the word "freedom." It sounds as if freedom means the ability to act without adverse social or legal consequence. That does not sound at all reasonable.

What do you folks mean by Freedom? It is possible you are using different definitions. That can lead to confused discussion.

How I use the term in this context is that we're free to choose options available within the confines of our abilities and rules of whatever group we're in.

What if you find yourself living in the confines of a group that you completely disagree with but do not have the means to relocate? Thinking about North Koreans here.

[8livesleft]

I am somewhat disturbed by the generous but undefined use of the word "freedom." It sounds as if freedom means the ability to act without adverse social or legal consequence. That does not sound at all reasonable.

What do you folks mean by Freedom? It is possible you are using different definitions. That can lead to confused discussion.

How I use the term in this context is that we're free to choose options available within the confines of our abilities and rules of whatever group we're in.

What if you find yourself living in the confines of a group that you completely disagree with but do not have the means to relocate? Thinking about North Koreans here.

That would suck. Majorly suck.

But take out the draconian methods and you'll find that North Korea is structured like every other poor country. Elites ruling over the poor masses.

People are resilient however and find ways to assist each other cooperatively. I've read though that North Korea is trying to curb even that by "rewarding" people for telling on their neighbors and even their family members.

So yeah, the Kims suck.

[Mr. Blackwell]

I am somewhat disturbed by the generous but undefined use of the word "freedom." It sounds as if freedom means the ability to act without adverse social or legal consequence. That does not sound at all reasonable.

What do you folks mean by Freedom? It is possible you are using different definitions. That can lead to confused discussion.

How I use the term in this context is that we're free to choose options available within the confines of our abilities and rules of whatever group we're in.

What if you find yourself living in the confines of a group that you completely disagree with but do not have the means to relocate? Thinking about North Koreans here.

That would suck. Majorly suck.

But take out the draconian methods and you'll find that North Korea is structured like every other poor country. Elites ruling over the poor masses.

People are resilient however and find ways to assist each other cooperatively. I've read though that North Korea is trying to curb even that by "rewarding" people for telling on their neighbors and even their family members.

So yeah, the Kims suck.

So here is the big question.

Do we have an obligation or the moral authority to force the Kims to change their rules? Because the group I'm in thinks we do and I'm not a huge fan of that.

[8livesleft]

I am somewhat disturbed by the generous but undefined use of the word "freedom." It sounds as if freedom means the ability to act without adverse social or legal consequence. That does not sound at all reasonable.

What do you folks mean by Freedom? It is possible you are using different definitions. That can lead to confused discussion.

How I use the term in this context is that we're free to choose options available within the confines of our abilities and rules of whatever group we're in.

What if you find yourself living in the confines of a group that you completely disagree with but do not have the means to relocate? Thinking about North Koreans here.

That would suck. Majorly suck.

But take out the draconian methods and you'll find that North Korea is structured like every other poor country. Elites ruling over the poor masses.

People are resilient however and find ways to assist each other cooperatively. I've read though that North Korea is trying to curb even that by "rewarding" people for telling on their neighbors and even their family members.

So yeah, the Kims suck.

So here is the big question.

Do we have an obligation or the moral authority to force the Kims to change their rules? Because the group I'm in thinks we do and I'm not a huge fan of that.

I'm not a fan of countries jumping in other countries' business. All it ends up doing is making the problem bigger in my opinion and it also causes unrest that lasts for generations.

As hard as it seems, the people must work things out on their own.

[Mr. Blackwell]

You are digging yourself in pretty deep.

Should I just mind my own business if I see my neighbor beating his wife or kids or dog or cat? Because, I mean...we have laws against that.

[8livesleft]

You are digging yourself in pretty deep.

Should I just mind my own business if I see my neighbor beating his wife or kids or dog or cat? Because, I mean...we have laws against that.

You have the police for that.

The difference between those 2 scenarios is you have a system in place to manage domestic issues.

There is no global rule or authority to manage how a country runs itself.

[Mr. Blackwell]

You are digging yourself in pretty deep.

Should I just mind my own business if I see my neighbor beating his wife or kids or dog or cat? Because, I mean...we have laws against that.

You have the police for that.

The difference between those 2 scenarios is you have a system in place to manage domestic issues.

There is no global rule or authority to manage how a country runs itself.

Isn't that the problem though? Do we need more police control? More government control?

Would that solve the moral conundrum?

or

Would less police control and less government control be a better solution?


We can't just let people decide what's best for themselves. That leads to chaos and anarchy. Don't you think we should just have a unified One World Government to rule us all?

[8livesleft]

You are digging yourself in pretty deep.

Should I just mind my own business if I see my neighbor beating his wife or kids or dog or cat? Because, I mean...we have laws against that.

You have the police for that.

The difference between those 2 scenarios is you have a system in place to manage domestic issues.

There is no global rule or authority to manage how a country runs itself.

Isn't that the problem though? Do we need more police control? More government control?

Would that solve the moral conundrum?

or

Would less police control and less government control be a better solution?

I think it depends on the culture and situation. If you were to lessen the police presence in my country now, you would likely see a much more massive uptick of criminal activity - what with more people being hungry and all.

[Mr. Blackwell]

You are digging yourself in pretty deep.

Should I just mind my own business if I see my neighbor beating his wife or kids or dog or cat? Because, I mean...we have laws against that.

You have the police for that.

The difference between those 2 scenarios is you have a system in place to manage domestic issues.

There is no global rule or authority to manage how a country runs itself.

Isn't that the problem though? Do we need more police control? More government control?

Would that solve the moral conundrum?

or

Would less police control and less government control be a better solution?

I think it depends on the culture and situation. If you were to lessen the police presence in my country now, you would likely see a much more massive uptick of criminal activity - what with more people being hungry and all.

What depends on the culture and situation? How much policing is done? Like what? More policing is neccessary when times are tough and poor people become so desperate that they have to break the law in order to survive?

[8livesleft]

You are digging yourself in pretty deep.

Should I just mind my own business if I see my neighbor beating his wife or kids or dog or cat? Because, I mean...we have laws against that.

You have the police for that.

The difference between those 2 scenarios is you have a system in place to manage domestic issues.

There is no global rule or authority to manage how a country runs itself.

Isn't that the problem though? Do we need more police control? More government control?

Would that solve the moral conundrum?

or

Would less police control and less government control be a better solution?

I think it depends on the culture and situation. If you were to lessen the police presence in my country now, you would likely see a much more massive uptick of criminal activity - what with more people being hungry and all.

What depends on the culture and situation? How much policing is done? Like what? More policing is neccessary when times are tough and poor people become so desperate that they have to break the law in order to survive?

Do you disagree?

[AgnosticDamien]

Most humans are really stupid and need to be told what is right and wrong. Take away laws and you'd have Europeans colonising and murdering indigenous people around the world as they have been for centuries. Let's not pretend most humans are good by nature. I am, but I'm not convinced most are.

[Inertialmass]

^^^^  Pardon me, but I must respectfully question whether you are indeed good by nature.

Obviously you are good.  But haven't you let slip that your childhood wuz spent immersed, inculcated, indoctrinated, imbued in Jeeezus???

Therefore, you are good because you wuz trained in it, not born that way.

Blackwell, Kev and Francis wuz all born innately good.  The rest of us just have to accept and live with our lower birth rank.   

[Kiahanie]

How I use the term ["freedom" --krw] in this context is that we're free to choose options available within the confines of our abilities and rules of whatever group we're in.

For instance, our work requires that we attend 5 days a week, from 8am - 5pm. Within that time, we have to abide by the rules set by our boss. Outside, we abide by the rules set by our town or state. So, there are things we can and can't do within those rule sets.

Not following means probably getting fired, fined or jailed.

That's good. Freedom exists only in context, like everything else.

The consequence is that, in the concrete specifics, "freedom" for a North Korean is very different from freedom for a Norwegian. Freedom of a Black person in Chicago is quite different from a wealthy White New York real estate tycoon.

So it seems necessary to provide considerable context when discussing "freedom". Which so far has been missing from the discusdion.

[8livesleft]

How I use the term ["freedom" --krw] in this context is that we're free to choose options available within the confines of our abilities and rules of whatever group we're in.

For instance, our work requires that we attend 5 days a week, from 8am - 5pm. Within that time, we have to abide by the rules set by our boss. Outside, we abide by the rules set by our town or state. So, there are things we can and can't do within those rule sets.

Not following means probably getting fired, fined or jailed.

That's good. Freedom exists only in context, like everything else.

The consequence is that, in the concrete specifics, "freedom" for a North Korean is very different from freedom for a Norwegian. Freedom of a Black person in Chicago is quite different from a wealthy White New York real estate tycoon.

So it seems necessary to provide considerable context when discussing "freedom". Which so far has been missing from the discusdion.

Yup I completely agree.

Nobody is completely free. At the very least, our biology limits what we can do. The conditions of our birth can also dictate how much freedom we have. And even when born in "ideal" conditions, the environment could change our status that would limit the freedom and privilege that we used to have.

But still, there are many examples of people willfully changing their status and abilities to surpass whatever it was that was hampering their freedom - be it disability, poverty, addiction, abuse, oppression etc...humans have the ability to change their situation and expand their freedom.

[8livesleft]

Most humans are really stupid and need to be told what is right and wrong. Take away laws and you'd have Europeans colonising and murdering indigenous people around the world as they have been for centuries. Let's not pretend most humans are good by nature. I am, but I'm not convinced most are.

I still think that most people, if given the choice, would choose the right way or at least have the right intentions. Ignorance, narrow mindedness, group think, emotional/psychological distress among other things just makes it hard to do. But, if people knew the full extent of the consequences of their actions, I think they'd likely choose not to do things that are detrimental to their own and others' well-being.

[maritime]

"The more natural a principle or rule is, the less it needs to be enforced."
"The more natural principles / rules are?"
"Nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself."
"What about all those warnings on cigarette packages?"
"We need to be warned...seem pleasurable but are really harmful."

You'll hurt yourself if you smoke cigarettes, be warned; harm is accumulative and the warning is meant to limit responsibility for hurt when you freely choose over and against the warning. You may or may not know if your addictive tendencies and addictive additives interfere with your free choice. You may know and curse the day you first smoked and the sustained time spent coughing  your lungs up (if such a thing were possible).

You are free to not work an 8-5 job with non-smoking rules. You are free to smoke as a black in Chicago. You are free to smoke as a wealthy white NY real estate tycoon. You are free to smoke in North Korea.

The harm principle cannot be the more natural principle or rule because somebody has to tell you not to hurt yourself. You are free to hurt yourself.

Tobacco smoking is popular and, at least for men, culturally acceptable in North Korea. As of 2014, some 45% of men are reported to smoke daily, whilst in contrast only 2.5% of women smoke daily, with most of these being older women from rural areas. Smoking is a leading cause of death in North Korea, and as of 2010 mortality figures indicate that 34% of men and 22% of women die due to smoking-related causes, the highest mortality figures in the world. There are tobacco control programs in North Korea, and although smoking was not prohibited in all public spaces, the smoking rates have declined since their peak in the 2000s.

However, according to state media KCNA, North Korea's supreme people's assembly has introduced smoking bans in some public places to provide citizens with "hygienic living environments".[1]

All three leaders of North Korea — Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un — have been smokers and the country has struggled to balance their public image with its anti-smoking efforts. In general, North Koreans tend to prefer strong tobacco and different classes of quality range from homegrown to sought-after foreign brands that are considered status symbols. As a percentage of the available arable land compared to consumption, the tobacco crop is over-represented in North Korean agriculture.

[AgnosticDamien]

You are free to smoke as a black in Chicago.

Yeah hopefully without the fear of getting a knee forced down their neck for 10 minutes by your friendly neighborhood white cop.

[8livesleft]

The harm principle cannot be the more natural principle or rule because somebody has to tell you not to hurt yourself. You are free to hurt yourself.

You don't think it's natural to be told not to do things? Our parents do that all the time. You can even see animals do that to younger animals.

And when it comes to smoking, there's a bit of a disconnect with how much it can actually harm. You see the pictures, you see the warnings but some people have been doing it with seemingly no ill effects, so there's that thing going on. Add the stress relieving effect it has and the habit becomes all the more difficult to break.

The harm principle becomes more apparent when it comes to things that are undeniably harmful such as walking in traffic, playing with fire, sharp things, jumping off a building etc...in other words things that nobody has to tell you are harmful.

You can definitely do all those things but what's the likelihood?

[maritime]

"Nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself" as the more natural prinicple/rule, not needing to be enforced.

To which I say, You are free to hurt yourself.

[8livesleft]

"Nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself" as the more natural prinicple/rule, not needing to be enforced.

To which I say, You are free to hurt yourself.

And again I ask, what's the likelihood that you would hurt yourself if the link to actual harm was clear?

What I'm saying is, with smoking, drugs, drinking, eating unhealthy food, we know it's not "healthy" to do those things but we see others doing so with no ill effects and we don't feel ill effects when we do those things. So, the link is not as clear.

But, when we're talking about clearly dangerous things, where we see people doing the act and immediately becoming ill or dying, how likely are we to follow?

[maritime]

"The more natural a principle or rule is, the less it needs to be enforced."
"The more natural principles / rules are?"
"Nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself."

Sure, who needs to be told. Sure, natural to be told up to a point. The point is, you're not free of someone telling you not to hurt yourself, not free of enforcement, preemption. e.g. Suicide hotlines, bridge and rooftop access restricted: don't hurt yourself; protective custody may become necessary. We are risk adverse, don't want to hurt ourself, so experience fire, sharp objects, roadways, crosswalks, never with the intent to hurt self or others but the potential for harm exists, risk is accepted and prepared for to the extent possible.

If the harm principle is the more natural principle or rule, if nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself, why choose to hurt yourself (individual or collective). Because of some great idea to make NOW better or the FUTURE better. Better for the other or better for the self. Do you think you're hurting yourself? No, you think you're helping yourself.

[maritime]

Since the most universal moral principle concerns WE as a whole, if Nobody has to tell US not to hurt ourself, since the prevent and promote has long been the course of action, what works against the principle, what is the source of our troubles. Foundation-wise.

[8livesleft]

If the harm principle is the more natural principle or rule, if nobody has to tell you not to hurt yourself, why choose to hurt yourself (individual or collective). Because of some great idea to make NOW better or the FUTURE better. Better for the other or better for the self. Do you think you're hurting yourself? No, you think you're helping yourself.

There's this risk:reward thing that we consider when we do things. If the perceived risk/harm overshadows the reward by a large margin, we're less likely to do it. If the opposite were true, then we're likely to do it.

[8livesleft]

Since the most universal moral principle concerns WE as a whole, if Nobody has to tell US not to hurt ourself, since the prevent and promote has long been the course of action, what works against the principle, what is the source of our troubles. Foundation-wise.

Ignorance or lack of awareness is the main thing.

If we were aware of the full extent of the consequences of our actions then we're more likely to choose the option that would better prevent unnecessary harm and better promote well-being.

[maritime]

How would awareness become partial?
If awareness from the beginning, why ignorance along the line to the point where we have to consider Is God Imaginary as a question?

[8livesleft]

How would awareness become partial?
If awareness from the beginning, why ignorance along the line to the point where we have to consider Is God Imaginary as a question?

I don't see what God has anything to do with this.

[maritime]

Questions are the point. Awareness is partial, partial to this understanding or partial to that understanding. If a coherent beginning (all is one), why the separation, why partiality. A moral imperative, is it not, for one group to point out to another group that their understanding is a dead end.

[8livesleft]

A moral imperative, is it not, for one group to point out to another group that their understanding is a dead end.

I suppose we could see this occurring today with whole countries agreeing to rules regarding climate, nuclear weapons and such.

It is in every country's interest to follow or be part of the larger group.

[none]

Questions are the point. Awareness is partial, partial to this understanding or partial to that understanding. If a coherent beginning (all is one), why the separation, why partiality. A moral imperative, is it not, for one group to point out to another group that their understanding is a dead end.

what is the "dead end",??? can that be articulated?

[none]

well you ignorant fvck what is it?

[maritime]

-1000, impressive!

[Inertialmass]

-1000 karma/14,046 posts = None negativity rate of 7.1%

-145 karma/1880 posts = Maritime negativity rate of 7.7%

Most apt universal moral principle?

Mariners who live in glass ships shouldn't throw stones!

[maritime]

And our positivity rates are?

[Inertialmass]

^^^^  Positivity is priceless!!!

[AgnosticDamien]

Now that I've had a think about it - the most universal moral principle is trying to prevent harm, one way or the another.

[Mr. Blackwell]

-1000 karma/14,046 posts = None negativity rate of 7.1%

-145 karma/1880 posts = Maritime negativity rate of 7.7%

Most apt universal moral principle?

Mariners who live in glass ships shouldn't throw stones!

Says the guy with more than double both of their rates combined 

[Inertialmass]

Like I always sez, I'm quite proud of the fact that each and every time, whenever our ignorant, fuktarded, rednecked, morally unscrupulous, lying-through-their-teeth, judge-jury-'n'-executioner Second Amendment Gun Lobby here at IGI would copypaste another fake, mindless, bullscheeeet propaganda quote allegedly from "Thomas Jefferson" or "Blackstone" or "Einstein" and I would look it up and I would publicly smash it to bits for the phony baloney nonsense that the fake lazy Internet copypaste quote wuz, I'd automatically receive five or ten more minus karmas. 

I wear those negative karma proudly.  I earned 'em, dammit.   

[Mr. Blackwell]

Whereas I'm convinced that 25 to 35% of mine came from you just because you don't like me. 

[Inertialmass]

Yep it's all about Blackwell.  The universe revolves around Blackwell and Blackwell's probs.

[Mr. Blackwell]

Yep it's all about Blackwell.  The universe revolves around Blackwell and Blackwell's probs.

IGI is really just the Inertialmass show. You are the star we all revolve around.

[AgnosticDamien]

So Christians who claim moral authority don't realise that there are tribes in the Amazon rainforest that seem to have done a pretty good job figuring out ways to live morally, while having no exposure to the outside world and Christianity. I should keep quiet though, missionary tards might be on their way to spread diseases and wipe them out with their all loving Christianity.

[8livesleft]

So Christians who claim moral authority don't realise that there are tribes in the Amazon rainforest that seem to have done a pretty good job figuring out ways to live morally, while having no exposure to the outside world and Christianity. I should keep quiet though, missionary tards might be on their way to spread diseases and wipe them out with their all loving Christianity.

Did you watch this?

It's about a Missionary who went to the Amazon to try and convert a tribe to christianity but instead became an atheist after living with them. He also has possible proof that counters Chomsky's concept of language.

[AgnosticDamien]

So Christians who claim moral authority don't realise that there are tribes in the Amazon rainforest that seem to have done a pretty good job figuring out ways to live morally, while having no exposure to the outside world and Christianity. I should keep quiet though, missionary tards might be on their way to spread diseases and wipe them out with their all loving Christianity.

Did you watch this?

It's about a Missionary who went to the Amazon to try and convert a tribe to christianity but instead became an atheist after living with them. He also has possible proof that counters Chomsky's concept of language.

Thanks for sharing. Will give it a watch! Missionaries should be banned from entering other countries though. No indigenous person should be unfortunate to experience indoctrination and preaching by these absoloute waste of space missionary tards.

[8livesleft]

So Christians who claim moral authority don't realise that there are tribes in the Amazon rainforest that seem to have done a pretty good job figuring out ways to live morally, while having no exposure to the outside world and Christianity. I should keep quiet though, missionary tards might be on their way to spread diseases and wipe them out with their all loving Christianity.

Did you watch this?

It's about a Missionary who went to the Amazon to try and convert a tribe to christianity but instead became an atheist after living with them. He also has possible proof that counters Chomsky's concept of language.

Thanks for sharing. Will give it a watch! Missionaries should be banned from entering other countries though. No indigenous person should be unfortunate to experience indoctrination and preaching by these absoloute waste of space missionary tards.

We should do more in preserving these tribes because they've managed to survive on their own for so long living in perfect harmony with their environment. Living off the land, taking care of it, taking only what they need.

Instead, here we are trying to change them to be more like us. Living in a way that requires so much destruction.

They should be the ones teaching us. Not the other way around.

[AgnosticDamien]

Very true. We have a lot to learn from them. Makes me sad that millions of them were wiped out by European empires. Missionaries should be jailed if ever caught visiting indigenous tribes. These tribes may still have not have developed immunity to certain diseases. This is how Europeans decimated their population, by spreading diseases which they had no immunity to, and deliberate genocide and murder. Any missionaries visiting them today should feel ashamed and just leave them be. Christians are the ones who need civilising , pretending to be all high and mighty while flaunting their murder and rape manual called the Bible.

[8livesleft]

Very true. We have a lot to learn from them. Makes me sad that millions of them were wiped out by European empires. Missionaries should be jailed if ever caught visiting indigenous tribes. These tribes may still have not have developed immunity to certain diseases. This is how Europeans decimated their population, by spreading diseases which they had no immunity to, and deliberate genocide and murder. Any missionaries visiting them today should feel ashamed and just leave them be. Christians are the ones who need civilising , pretending to be all high and mighty while flaunting their murder and rape manual called the Bible.

Not just Christians but every dominant group is guilty of this type of behavior. Look how the Mongols were, for example.

If the Aztecs/Mayans developed a technology or system of subjugation like the westerners, then the whites would be saying the same stuff about them and we'd be calling their gods and priests as barbaric - which they definitely were.

It's a bit less today but we still see it in the treatment of minorities/impoverished worldwide.

[Shnozzola]

I've referenced it here before, but there's a movie about native Canadians, called, "Where The Spirit Lives".  Extremely sad, but the Christian schools were still kidnapping kids out of villages, forcing them into schools, telling them to stop their heathen ways, up until 1980 or 1990.  😓

[8livesleft]

I've referenced it here before, but there's a movie about native Canadians, called, "Where The Spirit Lives".  Extremely sad, but the Christian schools were still kidnapping kids out of villages, forcing them into schools, telling them to stop their heathen ways, up until 1980 or 1990.  😓

There's this other movie of the same theme called "Rabbit Proof Fence" this time in Australia.

True story of these young kids who were taken from their home and brought to these Christian education camps.

Kind of like what the Chinese are doing to the Uighurs.

[AgnosticDamien]

Very true. We have a lot to learn from them. Makes me sad that millions of them were wiped out by European empires. Missionaries should be jailed if ever caught visiting indigenous tribes. These tribes may still have not have developed immunity to certain diseases. This is how Europeans decimated their population, by spreading diseases which they had no immunity to, and deliberate genocide and murder. Any missionaries visiting them today should feel ashamed and just leave them be. Christians are the ones who need civilising , pretending to be all high and mighty while flaunting their murder and rape manual called the Bible.

Not just Christians but every dominant group is guilty of this type of behavior. Look how the Mongols were, for example.

If the Aztecs/Mayans developed a technology or system of subjugation like the westerners, then the whites would be saying the same stuff about them and we'd be calling their gods and priests as barbaric - which they definitely were.

It's a bit less today but we still see it in the treatment of minorities/impoverished worldwide.

It's true unfortunately. We do tend to bash europeans more. I guess it's because we can still see the effects of their empires even today. But other empires did terrible things too. Mongols caused great destruction and killed millions during the 13th and 14th century. Japanese did it to China during world war two. China is doing it to the Uyghurs today. Germans to the Jews. Israelis to Palestinians today. Wonder when this crap is ever going to end.

[Inertialmass]

Twenty-three million Russians and nineteen million Chinese killed in WWII and all Netflix ever wants to do is promote endless movies about Christian and Jewish suffering during that era.

Half a million or one million dead in the gratuitous, illicit US/UK/Israeli Invasion of Iraq and all the US news ever wants to promote is the occasional, random Islamist suicide terror bombing or knife attack or homemade Hamas rocket fired into the Judean desert sand.

Oh, oh, oh and don't forget Israeli spy satellites seem to show that Iran is doing some construction work out there in the desert too!  Better fire up the nuke-laden B-52s!!!

[AgnosticDamien]

There's a great bias in the west. Nazis are widely critisized, but Israelis get a free pass. How does that work? Israelis are no different to how Nazis were. They are doing to Palestinians what was done to them.

[GratefulApe]

Modesty

I thought this one was the closest to something that is actually achievable. Some people would argue over what is modest but modesty is something that you can observe with your own eyes and ears. But still all of this posturing and word and thought play so we can all have a slogan to live by seems a bit ditzy.

[Dexter]

I think it would be beneficial to provide a list of moral principles to choose from. A lot of the suggestions aren't actually moral principles.

[GratefulApe]

I think it would be beneficial to provide a list of moral principles to choose from. A lot of the suggestions aren't actually moral principles.

The only moral principal that I get or have is should not murder. Murder can come in many different ways. You can physically murder someone, emotionally, financially, resources. So that's the only one I work with. But I don't see any real common ground when asking for "the most". It's an empty question.

[Inertialmass]

Early on in the thread it struck me that many proposals were offering people's personal likes rather than offering universal moral principles. 

Lotsa those old clichés are ditzy.  Not to mention arrogant.

Like, how dare they put out the one-sided, unprovenanced claim that Jesus or Allah or Yahweh or Krishna is always right there by their side, always their best bud?

[Dexter]

The only moral principal that I get or have is should not murder. Murder can come in many different ways. You can physically murder someone, emotionally, financially, resources. So that's the only one I work with. But I don't see any real common ground when asking for "the most". It's an empty question.

Nonmaleficence is indeed a moral principle, but it goes beyond murder.

[GratefulApe]

The word quark comes to mind.


^GratefulApe, you might appreciate this conversation, Art Bell with Brian Greene, discussing the quark...

[noae]
Quote from: maritime on May 26, 2013, 02:38:03 PM
Finally signed up tonight to be an [Coast to Coast] 'insider' so I could listen to the Somewhere In Time program again to see what exactly was said about this 'approximate notion' which was a part of a discussion about a Theory of Everything.

starting at 7:00
Art Bell: Well, okay, let's go to the Big Bang. I am told, or it is my understanding, that something smaller than a quark--and I don't--have we yet actually seen--I don't think we've even seen a quark yet, have we?
Brian Greene: We've seen them indirectly. It's hard to see them directly. But the indirect evidence is monumental.
B: That there are quarks.
G: That there are quarks.
B: But it's so small that we have to sort of imagine they're true.
G: In some sense that's correct.
B: And so something smaller than a quark became everything that is, all the planets, all the suns, all these nebulas and galaxies.
G: Yeah.
B: All of this.
G: All of that. In fact, I'd even take it one step further. Even space and time themselves emerged from that thing that was smaller than a quark at the beginning.
B: Fine. Let's go back to a second before the Big Bang, one second before the Big Bang. That would mean there was this tiny, infinitesimal nothing sitting in the middle of what?
G: Well, that's a somewhat common misconception, that the Big Bang was sort of some tiny nugget sitting inside of outer space and then it kind of exploded.
B: But there couldn't have been space though.
G: That's right. That's the point. There was no space. So in fact, that little tiny nugget was where you're sitting, it's where I'm sitting, and it's where every listener is currently sitting, 'cause all of those places which are now different were all the same at the beginning of time. So that little nugget that we were talking about was everywhere that we now call different because all those different places were the same.
B: God. So there was no space, hence there was no time as we understand it.
G: That's right.
B: But still, this little tiny, tiny mass, uhm, had to have been someplace. It had to have been--Excuse my mind for not embracing this quickly but it had to have been some place. And there's still-- How could there ever not be space? It's like saying, Out past the limit of the Big Bang, what's there?
G: Right, right. It's a hard idea to really encompass. But the notion that space extends all the way out to the farthest reaches of the cosmos is something that's true today but the universe gets smaller as you run the cosmic film backwards in time. And all of space itself actually shrinks together so that there is no notion of beyond where our universe ends, because our universe is everything, and it gets smaller and smaller as you run that film backwards and backwards in time.
B: You can actually do that? You could, take for example...
G: We can do that with our equations and our understanding of how the universe evolved.
B: In other words, you could look at suns and/or the marker quasars way out there and you could identify this one and that one and this one and that one and this one and that one, get a whole bunch of them, and then have a computer project backwards using the blue shift that we see...
G: Absolutely.
B: No, I'm sorry, red shift, I guess, right?
G: And it would become a blue shift in reverse...
B: It would become a blue shift as everything withdrew to one single point. You're telling me that works?
G: Absolutely. Now I should say that it works prior to our recent research. If you go back to a mere split second after the Bang, but at a tiny fraction of a second after the Bang, the previous way of seeing things does break down.  That computer would go haywire, smoke would start to pour out of it, if it was only using equations that Einstein set down and the founders of quantum theory set down in the 30s and 40s. But now we've been able to modify those equations so that the computer can go even further back in time without smoke pouring out of it. And our hope is that these new equations will allow us to go right back to the beginning, to time zero.
B: Time zero. The moment when time began.
G: That's right.
B: Now it was explained to me I thought rather elegantly that there could not be time until there were at least two objects. In other words, that there could be a reference from one object to another in movement or in something or another. That would be the beginning of time. Is that reasonable?
G: It's reasonable. I understand where that notion comes from because we think of time as the relationship between events. One event occurs before the other and that invokes a notion of time. And if there aren't things in the universe that can make things happen, if there aren't any happenings, is there really a concept of time? I however am not completely enamoured with that way of thinking about time but I'm willing to accept it.
B: What alternative would you offer as a possibility?
G: Well, I think that time is actually an approximate notion. And I think space is actually an approximate notion.
B: An approximate notion?
G: That's right. Now you're going to say, an approximate notion to what?
B: Yes.
G: And that really is where the current cutting edge of research is going on in a very vigorous way today. Everything that we're doing in our current research in physics in trying to build a unified theory is pointing towards the idea that time and space are very useful ideas when we're describing the universe and when we go about our lives. In fact, they're very useful ideas but they're not as fundamental as we might have originally thought, that they're going to ultimately be replaced by something more subtle, more profound, and we're going to ultimately see that space and time as we know them emerge from these more basic starting points. We haven't yet figured out what those more basic starting points are but everything points towards their existence. ...

http://isgodimaginary.com/forum/index.php/topic,63706.120.html

[GratefulApe]

The only moral principal that I get or have is should not murder. Murder can come in many different ways. You can physically murder someone, emotionally, financially, resources. So that's the only one I work with. But I don't see any real common ground when asking for "the most". It's an empty question.

Nonmaleficence is indeed a moral principle, but it goes beyond murder.

Oh jeeze is that a military term?

[GratefulApe]

I think it would be beneficial to provide a list of moral principles to choose from. A lot of the suggestions aren't actually moral principles.

How would you start the list? When people start talking about morals my mind doesn't really do a very good job pointing fingers at too many things like others seem to have this made up mind about the severity of crossing a moral boundary. Some people say that lying is immoral, cheating, stealing, things like that. I don't outright call those things immoral but it is bad behaviour. To me something that is immoral would be something on the scale of ruining something. The most severe thing I can think of is murdering or a premeditated desire to change someone's life for the worse on purpose.

Morals are principles more than they are laws but people want to treat them like laws so that they can put everyone under a category.

[AgnosticDamien]

10 commandments does a pretty s**tty job, THAT I can say.

[GratefulApe]

10 commandments does a pretty s**tty job, THAT I can say.

The ten commandments were part of the Mosaic Law. The mosaic law was rendered inoperative at the ascension. The ten commandments are rules for living.

[GratefulApe]

The only moral principal that I get or have is should not murder. Murder can come in many different ways. You can physically murder someone, emotionally, financially, resources. So that's the only one I work with. But I don't see any real common ground when asking for "the most". It's an empty question.

Nonmaleficence is indeed a moral principle, but it goes beyond murder.

Without looking the word up does nonmaleficence mean something like sedition?

[AgnosticDamien]

10 commandments does a pretty s**tty job, THAT I can say.

The ten commandments were part of the Mosaic Law. The mosaic law was rendered inoperative at the ascension. The ten commandments are rules for living.

Moses never existed so it should be rendered inoperative by DEFAULT.

[Kiahanie]

There's a great bias in the west. Nazis are widely critisized, but Israelis get a free pass. How does that work? Israelis are no different to how Nazis were. They are doing to Palestinians what was done to them.

Beginning in the late 50's (following Mossadeghi's overthrow) Israel was effectively an agent of U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast, a surrogate. Israel benefited from our protective mantle as they helped keep, but that cover is fraying as our policies have increased the volatility of the region as encouraged Israel on a political course that has moved away from democracy as it moved into a combative stance with its neighbors.

They did our dirty work and for that we give them a pass on meeting standards of democracy and national behavior.

IMNSHO, Israel sold their national soul for short-term term security.

[Inertialmass]

The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nmi (29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.

Israel apologized for the attack, saying that the USS Liberty had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship. Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity. Others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate.

In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3.32 million (equivalent to US$24.4 million in 2019) to the U.S. government in compensation for the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3.57 million ($24.9 million in 2019) to the men who had been wounded. In December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million ($18.6 million in 2019) as the final settlement for material damage to Liberty itself plus 13 years of interest...

A communication to the Israeli ambassador on 10 June, by Secretary Rusk stated, among other things:

At the time of the attack, the USS Liberty was flying the American flag and its identification was clearly indicated in large white letters and numerals on its hull. ... Experience demonstrates that both the flag and the identification number of the vessel were readily visible from the air ... Accordingly, there is every reason to believe that the USS Liberty was identified, or at least her nationality determined, by Israeli aircraft approximately one hour before the attack. ... The subsequent attack by the torpedo boats, substantially after the vessel was or should have been identified by Israeli military forces, manifests the same reckless disregard for human life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident#Visual_contact


Kiahanie, there are dozens if not hundreds of Israeli terror activities and incidents which have severely damaged the US and damaged our whole world and which belie the notion that White racist European Apartheid colonialist Zionism is anything other than out for its own selfish ends.

[Kiahanie]

Kiahanie, there are dozens if not hundreds of Israeli terror activities and incidents which have severely damaged the US and damaged our whole world and which belie the notion that White racist European Apartheid colonialist Zionism is anything other than out for its own selfish ends.

IM, here are dozens of not hundreds of US terror activities, coups, military actions (and supporting third parties -e.g. Israel- in their endeavors) which have severely damaged the US and damaged our whole whole world.

You need not quote old news at me. I am extensively read on the role of Israel in the middle East and beyond. We are probably looking at the same data and analyzing it differently.

I am always astounded at the way some genuinely progressive folk refuse to see the role the US has played in determining Israel's foreign and domestic policies, as if Israel alone in the entire region is an autonomous actor. These folks seem always ready to point at US militarism and foreign interference, but there is a curiously blind spot when it comes to US sponsorship of Israel and its aggressive expansionism.

I suggest Steven Zunes' Tinderbox for background.

[Shnozzola]

Getting old, and I'm sure I've said this before, but a thing I've always respected about the mennonite church is their support of the Palestinians and how they  have been treated.

https://www.fosna.org/mennonite-win-release

https://mennopin.org/brief-history-of-mennonite-involvement-in-palestine-israel/

[Inertialmass]

Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is a former intelligence analyst for the United States government. In 1987, as part of a plea agreement, Pollard pleaded guilty to spying for and providing top-secret classified information to Israel. He was sentenced to life in prison for violations of the Espionage Act.

Pollard is the only American who has received a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally of the U.S. In defense of his actions, Pollard declared that he committed espionage only because "the American intelligence establishment collectively endangered Israel's security by withholding crucial information". Israeli officials, U.S.-Israeli activist groups, and some U.S. politicians who saw his punishment as unfair lobbied continually for reduction or commutation of his sentence. The Israeli government acknowledged a portion of its role in Pollard's espionage in 1987, and issued a formal apology to the U.S., but did not admit to paying him until 1998. Over the course of his imprisonment, Israel made repeated unsuccessful attempts through both official and unofficial channels to secure his release. He was granted Israeli citizenship in 1995.

Opposing any form of clemency were many active and retired U.S. officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, d**k Cheney, former CIA director George Tenet; several former U.S. Secretaries of Defense; a bi-partisan group of U.S. congressional leaders; and members of the U.S. intelligence community. They maintained that the damage to U.S. national security due to Pollard's espionage was far more severe, wide-ranging, and enduring than publicly acknowledged. Though Pollard argued that he only supplied Israel with information critical to its security, opponents pointed out that he had no way of knowing what the Israelis had received through legitimate exchanges, and that much of the data he compromised had nothing to do with Israeli security. Pollard revealed aspects of the U.S. intelligence gathering process, its "sources and methods". He sold numerous closely guarded state secrets, including the National Security Agency's ten-volume manual on how the U.S. gathers its signal intelligence, and disclosed the names of thousands of people who had cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard


Does this seriously sound like moral little Israel plays compliant little puppet to the US's o'erweaning demands???   

[Kiahanie]

^^^^^^If you are talking to me, I have never claimed Israel is moral, or even  even right in its domestic and foreign policies.

Why pick a fight on this???

[Inertialmass]

^^^^  Oh gosh, sorry.  I just thought, since you had said this...

...Israel was effectively an agent of U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast, a surrogate... They did our dirty work... Israel sold their national soul for short-term term security. 

... that you would be interested to give some examples or some evidence.  Particularly while protesting during the Iraq Invasion I'd seen folks proffer this supposition of Israel as beleaguered little David to Washington's grumpy Goliath but I was never clear on their empirical basis for the claim.  Obviously you don't have to if you don't want to.     

[Kiahanie]

I suggested you read Tinderbox. There are more examples than I can relate. I have already read all the stuff you posted long ago. How about you read Tinderbox?

[Inertialmass]

Tinderbox: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Roots of Terrorism is there on my bookshelf randomly sandwiched between Walden Two, Skinner;  Sharing the Land of Canaan, Qumsiyeh;  Deliberate Deceptions, Findley;  a dog-eared mimeograph copy of The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs), Jabotinsky;  Resurrecting Empire, Khalidi;  and Walden, Thoreau... 


Zunes thoroughly documenting that the US is a huge exporter of arms to the ME is not at all equivalent to Zunes proving that the American tail wags the hapless Israeli dog.  Er, matter of fact, a whole whole lotta people all around the world say it's just the opposite, and that the Israel Lobby wags Congress into -- reluctantly or not -- facilitating Zionist land and water theft, ethnic cleansing, Apartheid, and the ongoing mass murder of innocent Canaanites.

Stephen Zunes and the Zionist Tinderbox

...This gross underestimation of the power of the Israel lobby is almost identical to Noam Chomsky's arguments which have already been thoroughly rebutted elsewhere. Thus it is fitting that Zunes, like Chomsky, plays the oil card, and says that the "primary reason" why the U.S. supports Israel is because of their need to control oil supplies, which is facilitated by Israel's ability to prevent "victories by radical nationalist movements" in the Middle East. As before, this is an erroneous, unsupported statement that has been convincingly debunked.

Either way if one follows Zunes' assertion that aid to Israel threatens their national security, "should U.S. policy," Zunes asks, "then, really be considered 'pro-Israel?'" He argues not: such aid is counterproductive, as it endangers Israel by encouraging militaristic elements within Israel's ruling class. This inelegant mislogic is used to bolster his case that U.S. support for Israel must be predominantly driven by arms manufacturers and big oil; no need for hard evidence though.

https://pulsemedia.org/2010/05/12/stephen-zunes-and-the-zionist-tinderbox/

[Kiahanie]

So don't read Zunes, just read what people say about him.

[Inertialmass]

As I just said, I own the book.  I'm looking at it sitting on my shelf six feet from my nose.  I read it like fifteen or more years ago and recall being unimpressed.  Political propaganda is fine and normal but I expect its purveyor to follow the assertion with the evidence. 

The author who most tugs my heartstrings on this topic, for whatever reason, is Edward Said.

With an unexceptionally Arab family name like "Saïd", connected to an improbably British first name (my mother much admired Edward VIII the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth) I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport, and no certain identity, at all. To make matters worse, Arabic, my native language, and English, my school language, were inextricably mixed: I have never known which was my first language, and have felt fully at home in neither, although I dream in both. Every time I speak an English sentence, I find myself echoing it in Arabic, and vice versa.

—?Between Worlds, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays

[Kiahanie]

^^^^^^^
Edward Said is greatly unappreciated in this country. He was a thoughtful and determined advocate for the Palestinians. He was a great loss to Palestine and the international peace community, and even to any lingering hope for  peace in Israel.

++++++

I will try to summarize how I view Israel's role in the Middle East. What attracted me to Zunes' framework is that he approached the Israeli-Palestine conflict through the lens of U.S. Foreign policy, which was what I was doing although not consciously or rigorously. That is all he is responsible for in what follows below.

Throughout our history the United States has supported authoritarian governments and dictatorships that were willing to do two things:

1) Make their country safe for American capitalism. This requred, among other things, suppressing local "economic nationalism" in favor of external investment.

2) Resist and obstruct socialist parties and oppose socialist states.
In exchange those governments were pretty much given free reign to do as they will with their own people, particularly indigenous people. Foreign policy needed to follow US policy. This regime began in the United Fruit banana republics and was carried into southeast Asia in the '50s and '60s. Israel was invited to play in the early 50s, the sandbox being the Iranian counter-revolution.

The United States did not have significant intelligence resources in the Middle East after WWIi, and relied heavily on the British Secret Service. Following the Iranian counter revolution the US used Israel as a foward outpost monitoring the politics of the Arab nations. Later Israel became an armed outpost carrying out activities too sensitive for the US.

The contract, of course, allows Israel to pursue its own nefarious activities as long as they do not compromise US foreign policy. They were about to exceed their brief when Trump took over. I am not hopeful that Clinton would have done much better than Trump in that respect, alttough she would not have done some of DJTs more egregious stunts (capital, embassy, etc.)

Israel has obstructed the socialist Ba'ath Party throughout the region, not for any direct benefit to itself, but because the party is explicitly socialist and was promoting national economic interests ( "economic nationalism") in today's terms.

Israel supported the Shah of Iran because the Shah supported US ownership of Iran's petroleum reserves, and also because the Shah ruthlessly suppressed any suggestion of nationalization (as well as anyone else who opposed him, but that was allowable under the contract).

And so it went throughout the region, just as it went in the southern Americas. That is the outline.

Saying that the US is as responsible for Pinochet's crimes as Pinochet himself, that the US enabled, supported and financed Pinochet's oppression does not lessen Pinochet's guilt. So it is with Israel, Netanyahu and his predecessors.
In no real world does the tail wag the dog.I

*   *   *   *

That is my approach to the issue. You have read Zunes and are unimpressed, you decide to use some other framework, one that I last encountered in a white nationalist / supremacist IRL forum, where the very same quotes you have been using were used with exactly the same technique: pulling incidents out of historical and political context to make Israel solely responsible for their crimes. That forum used this methodology explicitly to defame Jews everwhere. I do note with approval you are not going that far.

My dealing with those groups exacerbated my PTSD. So does dealing with you on this. I was interested in offering a more holistic view of the issue. You prefer a simplistic narrow view. OK, but you are walking in some very dirty bootprints that left marks on me, so I will not be engaging with you on this topic anymore.

[Inertialmass]

^^^^  Once again you offer no evidence whatsoever that big boogie man America controls poor hapless little Israel solely to -- what? -- control world oil? -- sell arms? -- counter the Commies?  You offer an opinion.  That's fine.