Moral Absolutes

[LewsTherin]

[Tolerance is what got us into the dark ages.

I would disagree. If Alaric and his tribes were more tolerant of Rome, or if Rome were more tolerant of the rest of the world, the dark ages would never have happened. The Roman Empire would probably never have happened, either.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Umm, I guess rape and incest for bad

I understand rape but incest? Unless said incest was rape I don't see much extremely wrong about it.

Not supporting it, myself, but there's nothing particularly harmful about it.

Well I guess if it is between 2 adults its okay (but still weird)

but if its done to a child who even if they agreed to it, it is wrong

 

[Agayek]

Yeah! Fuck the police, right brother? Anarchy is best, and we ALL have to have EVERY freedom!
That sounds great....until the next famine. Or until the Raiders come, looking for your food and women. Or until you realize that to support 6 billion people on this globalized world, having a central authority is almost certainly key.

In a perfect world, anarchy is the best form of government.

That said, since perfection is impossible, we need some form of government. That does not mean I trust them farther than I can spit the White House. Yes, government is necessary. That does not make it a good thing.

There is a difference between "necessary evil" and "good".

You owe your life to that authority figure, which you believe, in a willfully ignorant way, has failed miserably. Even in areas where the police have arguably been understaffed and overworked, where crime and corruption is rampant, it is no where NEAR the levels of where the central system has no authority, such as Russia after the wall fell. And in most areas of the first world, where the police and governmental structure is secure, even the mere presence of a police force has a sufficient chilling effect to render crime much harder to get into as a true work force.

The point of a government is to provide security in exchange for freedoms of a kind, most usually in the structure of a law system. Without this law system, anything goes, which is true freedom. This invariably leads to might makes right, which also leads to the strongest of a group forming a subset to protect the superset. They enforce rules which aid the superset, in exchange for some compensation, allowing everyone to continue their jobs and work for the common good. What do we call this? A PROTO-GOVERNMENT! Even when reduced to utter ANARCHY, people form into self sufficient groups with FREEDOM exchanged for PROTECTION. This may way be an intrinsic quality of ALL groups, as it is shown throughout the animal kingdom AND in humans.

Yes, that is the way of humanity. That doesn't make government any less bad. People prey on each other, that's simply a fact of life. It boils down to people feeling they need a government because they can't get their heads out of their ass and cooperate on their own.

From a moral standpoint, such things are irrelevant, though. Good and evil are not determined by what is necessary, but by the effect of an action. Again, some evil acts may be necessary, but that does not make them good.

Your actions get dictated by a flawed system because without that flawed system, society would not have progressed to the point where you, and around 2 - 4 billion others, would have survived. You owe your life to the security of that system, and the academic advances made because of it.

Probably, again I haven't done any research on it. All I know is that I will not trust it, just as I would not trust anyone trying to dictate my life. I might obey, but I will question it every single second of every day for as long as necessary.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Umm, I guess rape and incest for bad

I understand rape but incest? Unless said incest was rape I don't see much extremely wrong about it.

Not supporting it, myself, but there's nothing particularly harmful about it.

Well I guess if it is between 2 adults its okay (but still weird)

but if its done to a child who even if they agreed to it, it is wrong

By what definition do you call someone a child by?
In older times and still in many parts of the world, 13 is an acceptable deliminator of adulthood, where as the first world widely regards 16 to be held in some sort of esteem.

If the premise is ability to self suffice, then the bar may be lower or higher depending on the child. If it is ability to coherently make decisions about ones life and understand the consequences, then a trial by fire may be necessary for each action.

What is a child and what is not?

More than that, there are societies, even first world societies, where incest is legal, usually in the cousins variety. Is not your definition of weird based primarily on your experience? It obviously cannot be universal, otherwise EVERYONE would consider it weird, and there would not be legal protections for it.

I agree, while I'd like to say that A 14 year old should be able to make decisions I really believe that if it did happen at that age, I don't think a teen would be able to recognize it and understand whats going on. Incest isn't really a topic told in schools. I'm 15 and I'm pretty sure most of my peers don't know about it or have just recently discovered it like I have. True, my opinion of it isn't a universal one, but I believe that if a grown man has sex with his daughter of 10 regardless of weather she "wants it" or not is a crime just like rape

 

[Pimppeter2]

Umm, I guess rape and incest for bad

I understand rape but incest? Unless said incest was rape I don't see much extremely wrong about it.

Not supporting it, myself, but there's nothing particularly harmful about it.

Well I guess if it is between 2 adults its okay (but still weird)

but if its done to a child who even if they agreed to it, it is wrong

By what definition do you call someone a child by?
In older times and still in many parts of the world, 13 is an acceptable deliminator of adulthood, where as the first world widely regards 16 to be held in some sort of esteem.

If the premise is ability to self suffice, then the bar may be lower or higher depending on the child. If it is ability to coherently make decisions about ones life and understand the consequences, then a trial by fire may be necessary for each action.

What is a child and what is not?

More than that, there are societies, even first world societies, where incest is legal, usually in the cousins variety. Is not your definition of weird based primarily on your experience? It obviously cannot be universal, otherwise EVERYONE would consider it weird, and there would not be legal protections for it.

I agree, while I'd like to say that A 14 year old should be able to make decisions I really believe that if it did happen at that age, I don't think a teen would be able to recognize it and understand whats going on. Incest isn't really a topic told in schools. I'm 15 and I'm pretty sure most of my peers don't know about it or have just recently discovered it like I have. True, my opinion of it isn't a universal one, but I believe that if a grown man has sex with his daughter of 10 regardless of weather she "wants it" or not is a crime just like rape

And what if that 10 year old just so happens to be quite mature? At my college, we have a 13 year old senior. Is he not allowed to have sex, simply due to date on his birth certificate, when he is quite obviously more mature and competent than most adults?

In the UK, they have to actually assess each individual who is brought to court for competency, and based on that, say if it is allowed or not. This is a much better test than a simple hard line in the sand, such as "everyone above 13", but it is still an imperfect system.

Have you seen the American Educational system, if not go read my thread called "I just got in a fight with my teacher" lol

In all seriousness though, As mature as a child can be, I doubt a ten year old, regardless of intelligence has had the sheer amount of world experience to know that what her parent is doing is wrong. We all assume that our parents love us but you never do know. I don't think a ten year old would be able to get out of whatever lies their parent spun to them inorder to get them to you know.. Genius god kids might, but lets be realistic

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

As I understand it the topic wants to know what words the poster thinks are moral absolute?
Thre are words that are heavily one sided

Moral Absolute under the definition of good or what is best for all involved.

Kindness/Humanity:Helping others despite your own needs.
--------
Humble/Humility:Not being to full of pride, greed, ,envy ,vanity ,lust, you know all the things that make humans so "contradActed"!
========================================================================================
Moral Absolute under the definition of evil or what is bad for all involved.

Genocide: Killing off a sect of humans for reasons of genes, gander, philosophy(IE religion,ect) or intelligence. You could say if there was a race of mutated something that had to be killed then genocide is not evil but such real world uses are rare.
--------------
Rape:Involves the act of sexual intercourse where one participant is unwilling and thus is an act against the greater good, because then any one of use can be bent over and violated physically... instead of just being molested and raped in the wallet by the media and government.
--------------
Snobbery/Pettiness:Subjugates and separates people into categories for more refined abuse,belittling or unreasonable status raising.
========================================================================================

Morally ambiguous terms under the definition of good or evil.

Philanthropy:Can be use for good or ill, decrementing vile and or untrue propaganda while doing a good deed may not always be sacrosanct.
--------------
Euthanasia:The act of suicide is ambiguous to the needs of the many and the greater good, if the weak minded were culled we would be better off, more boring but better off.
--------------
Murder:Cold blooded premeditated murder is not always evil, when an evil man is killed the world becomes a better place, plus its used as an a word for outrageous since "the traffic was outrageous" just sounds wrong.............
--------------
Greed/lust/*insert here*(yay PUN!): Is morally a-centric , there is nothing wrong with wanting something the line is often crossed when it disrupts the world around it.('coughworldfinicalcrisiscough or world wide super population boom or death and stagnation via STDs')
--------------
Killing ,Kill ,war ,conflit ,greed are more ambiguous words than murder...
========================================================================================
This brings to mind for me a train of thought most pristine....

Stupidity and ignorance have 2 interesting effects on human social structures it keeps the majority in check while the minority in leadership potions do as they wish if the needs of the greater good are just stability with a semi convenient life style then they(stupidity/ignorance) are badly needed if you want stability mired with justice and above board/beyond reproach fairness then these 2 words are the absolute worst in all of humanity...... perspective and foresight can be 20/20 if we are only willing to care, look, think then act doing nothing leads use further and further on the path of the real words most favorite words....

/incoherent intellectual

-------------
Ururu117

Anarchy leads to revolution of government checks and balances as a government or a way to stabilize and control the masses always comes out of the chaos of pent up indignation. And the more I see the corruption of the new noble order called the US political system I think its time once again history reminded why the aristocrats where raped and pillaged by the unwashed masses.

 

[Agayek]

Again, anarchy is NOT a perfect government. It is NECESSARILY suboptimal. This can be proven in game theory; it leads to a suboptimal production of goods and services, and dead weight loss. The reason is quite simple: what was once done by a centralized authority is now done by a MULTITUDE of small central authorities. This leads to HUGE dead weight loss in the long run, UNLESS a central authority is collectively enacted (which usually happens quite quickly, given historic precedent).

http://freedomdemocrats.org/node/2571

Under Classical Game Theory, it would be viable but not particular stable under an external threat. That is, if we make the Neoclassical assumptions of rational, utility maximizing agents in order to evaluate outcomes in any Game with a defined set of strategies, then it can be shown that cooperation will arise from an iterated prisoner's dilemma game if the agents are sufficiently future-oriented(discount rate of utility payoff is sufficiently low). But if such a "government" came under an external threat (from strangers), then the discounted rate of utility payoff would rise sharply and any cooperation would thusly break down.

Therefore, from neoclassical assumptions, minarchy would seem to be the libertarian requirement(monopoly authority to provide for the common defense, etc).

Basically the form of government I support. Very limited central government, whose jurisdiction does not extend past common defense and infrastructure.

Haven't found anything on the efficiency thing yet, and I don't have time to keep looking. If I stumble on something later I'll post it.

You can argue that "oh well humans just cannot cooperate, this is us with our heads up our asses), but the EXACT SAME THING happens when automata and robots are given this exact same task. It is, in essence, an intrinsic value of ALL groups, for the very reason that trust is a very complex subject. It is actually literally impossible to establish trust on such a large scale as you are talking of, due to the two generals problem. There are simply too many factors to consider for it to ever be viable, even in a PERFECT WORLD.

http://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000161.txt

Given a game-theoretic interpretation of the claim in 1, and consequently a
game-theoretic interpretation of the intuitive and Hobbesian arguments for
the necessity of the state, we can reformulate them with the following
argument:

1. People are egoistic rational agents.
2. If people are egoistic rational agents then the provision of public
goods is a Prisoners' Dilemma (PD).
3. If the provision of public goods is a PD then, in the absence of
coercion, public goods won't be provided.
4. Such coercion can only be provided by the state, not by an anarchy.
5. Therefore public goods won't be provided in an anarchy.
6. Therefore the state is necessary for the provision of public goods.
7. The provision of public goods is necessary for a "good" society.
8. Therefore an anarchy won't be a "good" society.
9. Therefore the state is necessary for a "good" society.

4. Overview of my criticisms/position.

I think the game-theoretic model is the best (and most plausible) way of
interpreting these sorts of arguments. However I think that its premises 1
to 4 are false. Against premise 2, following Taylor (1987: ch 2), I argue
that the prisoner's dilemma is not the only plausible preference ordering
for collective action, and in some of these different games Cooperation is
more likely than in the prisoners' dilemma. The static model of the
prisoners' dilemma game is unrealistic in that most social interactions
reoccur, thus I argue a more realistic model is that of an iterated
prisoners' dilemma, where cooperation (under certain circumstances) is in
fact the optimal strategy (following Taylor 1987, and Axelrod 1984), thus 3
is argued to be false. Finally I argue that premise 1 is false, that indeed
we do and should expect people to be (somewhat limited) altruists.[4]

There are some things in this paper that I disagree with, but it addresses most of my points.

Personally, I feel that government should exist to protect against the few who are not the limited altruists he discusses, but any authority beyond that point is "evil", and having even that much authority is an evil, no matter how necessary.

More than that, the government is NOT a necessary evil. It is something which leads to the most benefit of the most people. This is essentially the collectivist definition OF good; something which selflessly benefits. More than that, people preying on each other ISN'T a fact of life; as shown in many countries and tribes, it simply isn't intrinsic. People are not built, pre-programmed, to attack and use each other. More than that, it DOES matter from a moral stand point. The intention of an action IS the moral stand point; things can be good or evil depending entirely on intention. Intention matters.

Intentions mean exactly nothing. All that matters is what you did, not why.

Government limits and controls what people can do, in the best of cases to protect them, and in the worst to control them. That easily falls under my definition of "evil". At this point, this is simply a semantic argument and will go precisely nowhere.

"During war, the law goes silent" is a particularly apt Roman saying for this sort of thing. What is necessary BECOMES what is good. To say that being necessary cannot be a tipping point between good and evil is to deny history, and to deny the very laws we stand under.

Apparently we're functioning under different definitions of "good".

Again, I define good as something that brings no harm to anyone else, and evil as something that brings harm to another. If you want to argue the semantics of that, go right ahead, but I'd really rather not.

Trust is not necessary; cooperation is. But do not dictate that the very structure you require to survive, and that is required for a large part of everyone else to survive, is flawed or evil, simply because you want the ability to do as you like. Such an outlook is simply selfish and juvenile, and might be border line on what most of society WOULD consider evil. We all depend on the infrastructure the government provides, and our first world technology secures, in order to survive as we do. To advocate destroying that is probably as evil as it gets.

I have never once said the government should be abolished. If that was what you inferred, then we have some confusion on our hands.

In the real world, government has to exist. There is no question of that. That said, giving it any more power or control over people than is absolutely necessary is a terrible idea.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Have you seen the American Educational system, if not go read my thread called "I just got in a fight with my teacher" lol

In all seriousness though, As mature as a child can be, I doubt a ten year old, regardless of intelligence has had the sheer amount of world experience to know that what her parent is doing is wrong. We all assume that our parents love us but you never do know. I don't think a ten year old would be able to get out of whatever lies their parent spun to them inorder to get them to you know.. Genius god kids might, but lets be realistic

The american education system in colleges is pretty damn good, considering.

I am being quite realistic, having met several people like this. It isn't as infrequent as you'd think for someone to reach maturity quicker than another, and be horny at a younger age. More than that, what does world experience have to do with anything? I didn't remember any real world experience as a teenager when my cherry was popped. Isn't that something of a catch-22, where you need experience to get experience?

Yes, there must be an institutionalized system for preventing abuse of children, especially in this day and age. No one I think is disagreeing with that. But there must be some better way to do it besides being prejudiced on the basis of age.

There maybe one, but how many children are taught about incest in particular. No one told me about it when I was growing up, not to long ago. You have to remember that these are children. Didn't you believe that your parents were right and would never harm you? Its different than just saying some kids are more mature. Even mature kids still believe their dad is the best.

 

[UBourgeois]

Unwilling OR unable. Behavioral evolution has the very interesting tendency towards ostracizing fringe elements of a society, which is where most creativity and open ended mutation occurs. Rape is often the only way such fringe elements can reproduce. This is evident most obviously in gangbang behavior in ducks, where unusual patterned males rape normal females. This sort of behavior actually most likely caused a mutation against a duck illness to spread, which has aided a particularly weird looking (from a duck perspective) sub-species of duck to become more dominant in Asia.

The mating ritual for praying mantises is to sneak up on the female and essentially rape her (failure results in death).

My point is that you shouldn't just compare mating habits of two very different species of animal to justify actions.

His will is still not absolute in that context. You assume that a creator has absolute authority over its creations. This is simply patently not true; free will alone means he would not be an ultimate authority (ie, people are free to choose any other authority). This does mean he would have a great deal of clout, and it'd probably be unwise to oppose him, but he is not the ONLY nor ULTIMATE authority. You may need to look into basic set theory and the definition of "ultimate authority", as not even god fits into that definition, given the perspective from our world.

You can deny this if you like, or say god MUST be the ultimate authority, but it simply, by definition, is not true.

Well then we get into the discussion of whether or not we truly have free will, or if all of our actions and thoughts are just a set of timed chemical reactions that give the illusion of free will.

And please expand on your thoughts, instead of just saying "God is not the ultimate authority you're wrong"

 

[Pimppeter2]

There maybe one, but how many children are taught about incest in particular. No one told me about it when I was growing up, not to long ago. You have to remember that these are children. Didn't you believe that your parents were right and would never harm you? Its different than just saying some kids are more mature. Even mature kids still believe their dad is the best.

I'd talk to some abuse victims if I were you, and see if they believe their dads are best. I certainly don't.

I mean before the time, obviously when they understand what is going on they are freaked out

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

As I understand it the topic wants to know what words the poster thinks are moral absolute?
Thre are words that are heavily one sided

Moral Absolute under the definition of good or what is best for all involved.

Kindness/Humanity:Helping others despite your own needs.
--------
Humble/Humility:Not being to full of pride, greed, ,envy ,vanity ,lust, you know all the things that make humans so "contradActed"!
========================================================================================
Moral Absolute under the definition of evil or what is bad for all involved.

Genocide: Killing off a sect of humans for reasons of genes, gander, philosophy(IE religion,ect) or intelligence. You could say if there was a race of mutated something that had to be killed then genocide is not evil but such real world uses are rare.
--------------
Rape:Involves the act of sexual intercourse where one participant is unwilling and thus is an act against the greater good, because then any one of use can be bent over and violated physically... instead of just being molested and raped in the wallet by the media and government.
--------------
Snobbery/Pettiness:Subjugates and separates people into categories for more refined abuse,belittling or unreasonable status raising.
========================================================================================

Morally ambiguous terms under the definition of good or evil.

Philanthropy:Can be use for good or ill, decrementing vile and or untrue propaganda while doing a good deed may not always be sacrosanct.
--------------
Euthanasia:The act of suicide is ambiguous to the needs of the many and the greater good, if the weak minded were culled we would be better off, more boring but better off.
--------------
Murder:Cold blooded premeditated murder is not always evil, when an evil man is killed the world becomes a better place, plus its used as an a word for outrageous since "the traffic was outrageous" just sounds wrong.............
--------------
Greed/lust/*insert here*(yay PUN!): Is morally a-centric , there is nothing wrong with wanting something the line is often crossed when it disrupts the world around it.('coughworldfinicalcrisiscough or world wide super population boom or death and stagnation via STDs')
--------------
Killing ,Kill ,war ,conflit ,greed are more ambiguous words than murder...
========================================================================================
This brings to mind for me a train of thought most pristine....

Stupidity and ignorance have 2 interesting effects on human social structures it keeps the majority in check while the minority in leadership potions do as they wish if the needs of the greater good are just stability with a semi convenient life style then they(stupidity/ignorance) are badly needed if you want stability mired with justice and above board/beyond reproach fairness then these 2 words are the absolute worst in all of humanity...... perspective and foresight can be 20/20 if we are only willing to care, look, think then act doing nothing leads use further and further on the path of the real words most favorite words....

/incoherent intellectual

Again, rape is not NECESSARILY an absolute evil, as it can be done for the greater good, as you say. The same applies to genocide and elitism.

Rape can be done to allow those who would not otherwise be able to spread their genes to do so. This can result in a global optima, and thus a benefit to society.

Genocide, if we expand it to the original definition meaning the elimination of certain alleles, not merely races (this more or less simply expands the definition of races and is thus valid) could have a very significant benefit to the population in the long term. This is evident in eugenics, which is widely regarded to have bad implementations (such as forced sterilization), but was widely accepted as good in the early 1900's. From a strictly mathematical perspective, the world would most likely be better off if cystic fibrosis was eliminated. This does not have to involve the killing off all people WITH it or with the genetic markers for it; gene therapy can eliminate the gene (and thus the race) without killing the person. Thus, genocide without murder.

Elitism is a significant advantage to any individual capable of being in the elite class, as it allows high end reproduction, which may allow the fitter to reproduce more, and thus benefit the population as a whole. Usually, except in aristocracies, there is a reason people are snobby.

Is sex personal to you? If so then it is an absolute evil when it is done against the individuals will and the whole being a group of individuals makes it so, if humans did not think of sex as something personal then it would not be an absolute but due to it being a personal thing its just something that can never be done against ones will and be anything but vile. Now there are instances of rushed sex that are not rape but not real intimacy either.
===================

Genocide
1.the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide

by definition and popular use is used for the indiscriminate killing of X group of Y. And because its mostly used for that one can not say "We are going to genocide cystic fibrosis or ADIS", Its like murder we it has real world variables.
==================
I'll give you elitism its much like my description of greed or lust.....but....but snobbery and pettiness are much more septic if you will there is a difference in being a club or group of people who made a community based on their likes and try and keep others who do not meet that strict set of requirements but just being a picky ass = snobbery/pettiness. Still different ends of the same stick I suppose.....

 

[asinann]

There are no moral absolutes, rape back in the caveman days) was the only way for humanity to reproduce. So without rape, we would not exist today.

Not really. Back in the caveman days sex was generally accepted by both parties by virtue of survival instinct.

I'm getting a little tired of these "no moral absolute" guys (and gals!) with unsubstantial posts. How, exactly, are there no moral absolutes? Does that mean every possible situation is rationally justifiable? Or does that just mean there are no moral absolutes? I mean, I'm not arguing that morality isn't relative, morality is simply what is generally accepted to be right via democracy (so to speak). But you can't say nothing can ever be classified as wrong or right, that's just absurd.

What it means it that any act can be justified under certain circumstances.

 

[confernal]

Very good! Somebody caught that!

 

[Pimppeter2]

There maybe one, but how many children are taught about incest in particular. No one told me about it when I was growing up, not to long ago. You have to remember that these are children. Didn't you believe that your parents were right and would never harm you? Its different than just saying some kids are more mature. Even mature kids still believe their dad is the best.

I'd talk to some abuse victims if I were you, and see if they believe their dads are best. I certainly don't.

I mean before the time, obviously when they understand what is going on they are freaked out

Again, might want to talk to some abuse victims to confirm your theories on their mindsets.
Plenty of them were well aware, far before any real abuse occurred to them, that something was up, or that it wasn't necessarily right.

You'd be surprised at the amount of disillusionment you'd get if you actually confirmed your theories first.

I'm not arguing with you, nor did I say I was an expert on the subject. From the start of the post I said that this was my opinion, this is why I consider incest an absolute evil

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Ururu117

Anarchy leads to revolution of government checks and balances as a government or a way to stabilize and control the masses always comes out of the chaos of pent up indignation. And the more I see the corruption of the new noble order called the US political system I think its time once again history reminded why the aristocrats where raped and pillaged by the unwashed masses.

Anarchy leads to nothing of the sort. It has, historically, been not anarchy, but revolt, that causes such things. In most cases, these revolts are not followed by anarchy, but by putting in temporary governmental positions which mutate into large scale governments. The French, Spanish, and American revolutions are quite indicative of that.

More than that, your indications of a "new noble order" are nothing more than conspiracy statements. "Never attribute to malice which can be succinctly described by incompetence and greed". The corruption in the US, and indeed, ALL governmental systems, is not the controlled actions of an order of people, but the individual actions of greedy people, taking advantage of the system. More than that, the unwashed masses owe a great deal to the aristocracy, and MANY of the aristocracies persist to today, or were never overthrown. Your statements are decidedly euro-centric in origin!

If a true anarchy is nothing but chaos than a true revolt leads to nothing but a change in public sentiment toward government.

So you are saying with the fake 2 party system where the rich run this country and still get paid for being millionaires, the people have no real power over a feudal government because the money is so laundered via taxation they in government get it and can do ANYTHING WITH IT with little redress from the people, if anything the financial nightmare of the last 2 years should be a clear and frighting revelation of that fact.

If a federal government steps out of its role to to set basic rules and rights for the states, run mail and some infrastructure, deal with boarder and foreign(army,diplomacy) issues then it spirals out of control its happened to many times before it will happen again.

The people are so thoroughly removed from the real moving parts of the process that all we have is an appearance of a republic because recourse and public outcry have no real power but an after thought of election cycles..

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Is sex personal to you? If so then it is an absolute evil when it is done against the individuals will and the whole being a group of individuals makes it so, if humans did not think of sex as something personal then it would not be an absolute but due to it being a personal thing its just something that can never be done against ones will and be anything but vile. Now there are instances of rushed sex that are not rape but not real intimacy either.
===================

Genocide
1.the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide

by definition and popular use is used for the indiscriminate killing of X group of Y. And because its mostly used for that one can not say "We are going to genocide cystic fibrosis or ADIS", Its like murder we it has real world variables.
==================
I'll give you elitism its much like my description of greed or lust.....but....but snobbery and pettiness are much more septic if you will there is a difference in being a club or group of people who made a community based on their likes and try and keep others who do not meet that strict set of requirements but just being a picky ass = snobbery/pettiness. Still different ends of the same stick I suppose.....

If it is personal, then it must invariably be subjective, and thus invariably be relative!

Ok this blew my brain..it was already smoking before LOL, care to go into more layman detail? All I can think is that the greater good leans to being human thus sex is something very personal no matter the reason rape equates to torture which is a good one to muse on since torture morally ambiguous, I suppose if you had a society of emotionally blank robotic humans rape would not be an issue but then a gain it would not rape on the other hand you have wild and unintelligent humans where 50% of all pregnancies are via rape by strong males but there again there are awareness issues here that bring into question is it rape?

You've in fact made my point for me; looking from a non-human perspective, it would be a GREAT thing if someone with, say, a gene that prevents a particular disease from infecting people, rapes someone. In that way, the gene, which may one day save the human race from extinction, was spread and allowed to resume production in the gene pool, where if rape had not occurred, it would have been lost, and the human race as a whole lost. This is obviously a hypothetical, but it makes the point that rape is NOT an absolute evil, as someone could see it as a good thing. It is all a matter of perspective.

But its still rape and by such vile on any level since there are so many ways to go about it without rape. Awareness and willingness are 2 different scales by which rape is measured on.

AIDs and cystic fibrosis are different in that one is a disease, and the other is genetic. Race is merely a pretext for breed, which is based entirely on genes. In genetics, we talk of wild type and diseased type, letting us experiment on different breeds. I was merely extrapolating this up to races, which has some good justifications in biology.

And even if done as means to prune the whole the level of extreme needed to justify it is..well.... moot because of that its an absolute because there are little to no instances of justified genocide.

Snobbery and pettiness are merely the extreme ends of the spectrum. They are no more septic, and I would say, perhaps even less, as they do not actively try to convert to the same degree as elitism does. Snobbery actually tends to make people UNWILLING to convert, where as elitism actively converts, causing more elitism. Simply put, snobbery is self defeating.

Ah Thus why it is an absolute and elitism is more ambiguous because it has some merit the whole can enjoy, like greed,lust,murder,killing,ect. I would still say Genocide and rape are extremes that require extremes to make them reasonable thus they are absolutes if not everything is ambiguous and moot due to mitigating circumstances.
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Warping up our convo into 1 post, hope you don't mind
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Again, this is simply an argument from conspiracy. There is no need to use such paranoia, when it is perfectly explainable by simple greed and corruption.

Conspiracy
1: the act of conspiring together2 a: an agreement among conspirators
b: a group of conspirators

Yes there is greed and corruption involved but if they where not maintaining the statuesque and driving law and rules(DMCA..HELLOE?!?!) then there would be no conspiracy....

But beyond that, a true revolt and revolution must intrinsically lead to a CHANGE in the government, not merely a change in public sentiment. A mere change in public sentiment requires neither a revolt nor a revolution; a change in the government at fundamental levels requires to go outside of the governments jurisdiction, ie, a revolt of some kind. This is the main reason for amendments in most constitutions; when public sentimentality changes so much such that a revolt is imminent, an amendment can change the fundamental rules while not going outside of the system, thus preventing a revolt. It is a tactic against revolution. Do not castrate revolution and revolts so much as to say they merely change public sentiment, as this is by and far the least of their powers.

I am not talking a mere change is a populaces mindset but a real hope that things will get better a real appreciation for government and feelings that the government is not cheating them...of these you may only find during and after a revolt or at the end of ancharcy...LOL...gaa...humans....FAIL!!!!...

More than that, how can you possibly say any government, based entirely around capitalism and various freedoms, is feudalistic? Do you even know what feudalism is? It is simply untenable to have a feudalism in the face of such things. Yes, corruption is so permeated into most governments as to make them go hand in hand, including the US government system. However, to say there is no redress, no oversight, nothing of that sort, is to deny the situation we are currently in, with many of the incumbent senators thrown out of their positions on their asses for doing a bad job. What of the watch dog organizations, who have brought cases against house Representative in their own congress? The list goes on of the obvious oversight done to reduce corruption. Is it enough? Hardly. Is it there? Definitely.

oh sht...feudal-federal ZOMG!!! my spell checker is broken, I meant federalism IE where the states fall under the banner of one large over reaching governmental body.

More than that, the main false hood is that there IS public outcry. Where was the outcry when Bush lied to our faces about WMD's? Where was the outcry with TONS of things? The public was SILENT. This was primarily a failure of the public as well as the governments corruption; when people are no more concerned about their government than their daily bread, it allows even more corruption. One must be pro-active, lest our dear leaders tarry. This is not a failure of the government, but of the populous.

And the reason why? There is no way the many can truly effect government, years of a system that sides with those in power(Nixson should have been hanged,Reagan/Dubya impeached,Clinton laughed at and ) the system is broken and the people have fell to their default roles as sheep as they do in most human societies when it takes a life of effort or war to to truelly change things.

Also, the financial crisis was deregulation and people living outside their means. More of a failure of the market place than the government, though the regulations bit definitely is. Welcome to lobbyists 101.

Point to take away is, no need for conspiracy theories; greed and incompetence is a good enough explanation.

And who perchance made the the profit in allowing things to fail?
I do not think the issue with the collapse lies with the public, when an industry changes itself to seek out maximized profits on short term gain with heavy protections to the people at the top the resulting nightmare is made by the hands of the populace who are jsut trying to get by.

But the trouble is there is a good bit of conspiracy going on when you have the minority in power abusing things yes it can be simplified down to to X or Y but most things can be if you wish to only dismiss it.

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BTW thank you for this lovely conversation!

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Not at all a problem, and thanks right back at you.

=^^=

First and foremost, the greater good can be objectively assessed on many scales, one of which is the collective, but another of which is the long term good for the human race. You've made no real points AGAINST rape, other than saying "rape is bad" and "rape is vile", besides that it somehow violates some "greater good" parameter. I've defined SEVERAL situations in which rape is not only good for the long term survival of the race, but ESSENTIAL. In that context, NOT raping would cause the destruction of seven billion lives, and arguably would be a crime against humanity, where as the rapist would be an unsung hero for future generations. This is not merely a simple hypothetical; as indicated, it has HAPPENED in other species, and most likely happened in our own; our mitochondrial eve is simply too young to see it.

The trouble is its still needed as there are better ways to to do it rather than having groups people roaming the country side looking to assault people in order to "save" them, there's not much difference in this and having a government randomly cull great swats of its population just because it can.

And that is the problem here there is little to no justifiable rape you have just not prven to me in any hypothetical means thats its a must when fluids transfer is easily done without the assault perhaps not without menacing... and a social structure that's on the edge of collapse but not rape because 9.95 times out of 10 its used as means of dominance or aggression and 0.05 done as a means of survival.

Torture however is more like 5 or 3 out of 10 likely to be for the greater good one could even argue a higher number if you wish to equate

Furthermore if a society has weeded out personal thought and freedom and the majority accepts it as like french kissing then its not rape its a hand shake.
Awareness and willingness need to be counted for if the society is robotic then willingness is removed altogether and its not rape if its animistic and devoid of awareness then its not rape in its pure definition.

More than that, every genocide ever committed has had justification, and been accepted by the society and group doing it. There ARE levels of extreme need that dictate extreme action, that we almost ALWAYS look back poorly on. However, if not for genocide, we most likely would not have beaten back our hominid brothers and become the dominant force on Earth. Each of us dictate our lives to this extreme act. We are all born of genocide; every living creature is.

Without awareness its not genocide but nature.....and yes I just went there.

The exact POINT of relativism is that even extremes can have justifications. EVERYTHING is a shade of gray. To deny this is to deny basic reality and logic, not to mention historical references.

Everything is a shade of gray if you wish to dismiss it's importance, you'll find that many things lean one way or another even if the rare item is truly imbalanced to one side.

As for your statements on government, they seem relatively inane. The populous DOES effect the government in a fundamental way. This is why such bullshit things as creationism and ID can somehow weasel their way through the courts. That whole gay marriage issue, and all these other social issues of no real relevance to anyone BUT THE POPULATION can become so overblown. To deny we as people have power is to deny the system itself.

I do inane and incoherent well >>

A democracy works as a chain of events the people cast their picks around and up the ladder of government/politics these people tend to be well off more so than the average voter this already sets into place 1 or 2 levels of disconnection between the many and the few and they are given a life akin to nobility at the higher levels of government where they should be forced to live off their millions with no paycheck, health care or travel expenses to keep them relevant to the real world not just the world of the higher classes.

This disconnected allows society to become complacent from the top down as greed and corruption drives what the minority do with society.

The many either revolt and be jailed or killed, become activists or active in changing government by not becoming a friend of it or see that nothing can be done and there is not need to do anything, this placidity is as corruptive and vile as the greed and corruption from the top because it allows society to change quickly to a point where the masses eventually revolting in mass creating anarchy. When 30-50% of the populace rioting that is the start of ancarchy and I am so losing my train of thought here......

Let me simplify, if I can.... over the years both the public and government have gotten use to public outcry so much so everyone on the public end thinks soemone else will do it(vote as well) on the governmental end they can dismiss the outrage in many ways, those with a refined 2 party system that gives each other back rubs and blow jobs in private who both are deathly afraid of change and progress you will have decline because the stabilizing factors are gone.

Sorry long winded rambling is what else I do well >>

Now, does that mean we cannot be manipulated, and pushed into making silly decisions by fear tactics and other such things? Of course not! But that is primarily the fault of the corruption of the people, for falling for such tricks, for refusing to become educated, for being willfully ignorant. The system is corrupt, but only because we allowed it to become so. The fault lies on our shoulders, not on the governments. After all, the constitution is relatively sound, from a security perspective. The major flaw in ANY system....is people. And the people have failed in this regard.

Can you blame the public for not being smart if the systems in place pushes them into ignorant and simple roles?

In the end its everyone fault the people refuse to leave their safe little worlds and are to busy to be bothered to think or act this leads to government(all levels) slacking on its job to make the people safer,smarter and everyone richer by default.

We need a war on complacency and corruption at all levels of society...but huamns(on a large scale mind you) are to pathetic to think out of the box like that...

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Again, you somehow misinterpret rape. Rape need not be menacing nor an assault. In fact, most forms are NOT assault. Date rape is the most prevalent form of rape, and it is almost universally not assault; it is merely lack of consent.

I might be splitting hairs here but there are 2 kinds of rape one with clear awareness and one without awareness that?s then later realized.
Date rape lacks awareness(cognitivity ) thus is not the prominent definition/use of rape, the instant the person realizes it, and it becomes rape in the intended definition/ use.
Strictly speaking awareness(cognitivity ) is as important to it as willingness.

More than that, you are generating numbers out of the abyss. How are you justifying these numbers, without any relevant statistics? I have not done so because I need not do so; all I must do is justify an existence proof, and the mere fact there IS a justification for rape as a good thing means it CANNOT be an ABSOLUTE evil. You can attempt to disregard it as insignificant if you want, but when arguing absolute, even the smallest flaw causes a universality proof to fail miserably.

The proof is in the frats .
I was alluding with my numbers that rape can never really be good no matter the circumstance, because of that it?s an absolute.

This is simply wrong BY DEFINITION. The definition of rape, genocide, and all these other terms is NOT made in the context of awareness. More than that, how do you define awareness? Dolphins, great apes, dogs, and a number of other animals, even some reptiles, are self aware to varying degrees. Are you to argue that they are capable of genocide, but their cousins, who have not passed the litmus test, are not? Arguably the most war like genus on the planet is the ants, who enact genocide on each other to degrees unheard of by mankind.

I disagree because if both people are willing and aware it?s not rape, its only rape when its one sided and the other becomes aware of the transgression.
The same for genocide in nature it?s a normal natural thing called natural selection or extinction because of that it?s a normally used term for human on human culling because there is a cognitive thought in it .

Or are you saying ants can rage genocide on ants and if so where there not be grammatical issues involved??

The definition of genocide says NOTHING of awareness, and to impose this boundary onto it is simply categorically incorrect.

So realistically(and grammaticallicly) can animals rape and commit genocide and murder?

One could argue that to disregard the ambiguity and shades of gray and instead impose a flawed black and white system dismisses its importance far more than allowing for unreasonable precision.

[True that?s why terms are so varied to try and define the variables surrounding words and definitions. Rape for instance has not had a lot of trems for it over the years it?s always been strictly based on the willingness of the victim, in the last 20 years perhaps we?ve had sexual assault and date rape into its category. Rape is defined by society and the individual, water it down it it?s about willingness and awareness if a creature is not aware or cognitive then rape cannot be applied.

It really makes your arguments relatively unsound. Should focus on a logic framework to contain your ideas. Just a tip, not an insult.

If that was a insult you need to work on your humor as much as I need to work on my grammar!!
I am a 3X learning disabled adult who had a break down in elementary school because the system could not force ?im? threw their peg system. Home schooling was not so bad but I got a lot of issues with grammar and thought organization, I may be creative and crazy as hell but it does not offset the depression and frustration so well.
I seem to learn well when I have conversations like this though lately its more drool than constructive thought, I try not to lose my way to much and keep working out the kinks of my thought processessssssss(IE dozens of them?at once?.) and I will thank you again this is probably the first time I have had a really good back and forth without my bwains turning to goo.

The problem with this argument is that it goes up against history and loses. Modern civilizations have had relatively few far reaching revolutions. With what we now consider western values of free speech and freedom of movement, especially in classes, large scale anarchist movements have simply become untenable. It has been proven that, barring a huge change in economic structure, adjusting the current regime in first worlds is far more effective than overthrowing it.

More than that, the origins of this very COUNTRY contradict what you say. Most original senators were NOT well to do, even if the founding fathers WERE. This whole "the rich are in office" is a MODERN, 1950's construct, that we owe to increasing technology requiring candidates to spend enormous amounts of money on advertising, when originally this was simply not feasible.

But the US has only been around 200 years and that?s not a very long time in the scheme of things, with all the apparent apathy going around at all levels of modern human society (it?s not just the US) I have to wonder when will things start snow balling down to a point where the herd will stampede?.

To argue that this HAS ALWAYS been pervasive is simply silly, when we can trace it back to the Nixon debates as the turning point in rich makes right sort of behavior.

It?s always been pervasive that?s the nature of government but there is a difference in eras and needs of the populace. Back then there were less rules, people and regulations and more than enough jobs to go around and the people could fend for themselves (normally anyway). Now adays you have a dependant society (which is not completely inept?yet?.) who cannot work because the school systems are not setup to teach people how to handle non manual/vocab work because there are far far far far less manual/vocab jobs around anymore, all of this has magnified in the past 2 dozen years into the flaming pile of crap that no one wants to fix because they do not see that it starts with a functional and streamlined edu system. Times have changed and government has been unable to keep up.
(Might want to reply to this in PM unless this thread is already wasted)LOL

And even if it is so today, that does not mean we should push for an anarchy or even for the abolishment of our current government. As a fellow anarchist, I share your dream, but what you are proposing is simply impossible, and is a global minima for everyone involved. The best solution to this failure, of both the morals of the government, and the education of the people, is not to destroy the system everyone depends on, but to adjust it. And this is indeed happening, and the ability to do so IS there, even if you do not wish to see it.

I am not so much for anarchy as much as a reinvention of human government, I have this crazy tax idea that would force government to be more localized we have the skill to do it but not the will. I can PM it to you if you wish I have derailed this thread enough over my gov rantage. (Might want to reply to this in PM unless this thread is already wasted)LOL

YES. YES I can blame the public for being WILLFULLY ignorant to the evidence and knowledge around them. Yes, I can blame them, considering just 60 years ago, it would have been an ATROCITY and a SHAMEFUL one at that to admit freely and openly that one does this thing. You can lay the blame SQUARELY on the religious right movement for this, and for the governmental problems.

LOL You can?t blame the dog for pissing on your leg you didn?t get out of the way

Still society sets the precedent not only for government but the people as well?can we nuke modern culture?? Oh please can we can we?!?!?!

But, just as Clinton's blowjob lead to a backlash that lead to Bush, this sort of thing is self correcting. And yes, it IS self correcting, whether you wish to admit it or not. Humans are not pathetic; we are the dominant species for a reason. And we ARE attacking corruption, one office at a time, as well as attacking ignorance, one person at a time.

We are dominant spices because we haz moderate cognitive thought and opposable thumbs? I mean seriously if we didn?t have one or the other we would be stuck 10K+ years back right now?
The trouble is how self correcting is it when you have 2 parties who basically act the same but for 2 issues(2 FCKING ISSUES!!!) and who are getting the same kick backs and allowing older administration to violate anything they wish in the name of security and business without any consensuses or ryme?. corruption leads to more corruption which leads to decline, if the US was not top heavy and ran a system based where cities and counties got the brunt of the trillions the fed has access to would we not have better everything because the localities can take care of themselves and their poor? (Might want to reply to this in PM unless this thread is already wasted)

Hopefully, we are not too late.

Humanity won?t end but modern culture will collapse in a couple hundred years then we will go through a time of either anarchy or a time of corporatism (some would call it fascism) where conglomerates run everything without the allusion/illusion of government being separate past that either back to collapse/anarchy then back to more normal governmental setups, humans are kind of silly?give im a few hundred years and they forget ?a lot of things? in any case no matter the social cycle humans will remain mostly human(IE mostly silly). (Might want to reply to this in PM unless this thread is already wasted)
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Also it might help for me to say, I personally can call something an absolute if it hits the 90% mark.

Gaa I be a damn precises...I take everything figuratively ><