Post: #1

I'm new. I want to share my story and see yours as well. I want to know why you came here, what your ethics/morals were before hand and what they are right now.

I'll begin.

I'm a bastard. My mother raised me without much help from my father (he maybe paid 50% of the agreement that had been made), she worked and bought her house without help from a man. She never attempted to prevent me from seeing him, she encouraged it (even when I didn't want to see him) and saw a father figure as a needed part of my life. In my opinion, she had a lot of respectable and masculine traits; self sufficient, accepting consequences for one's actions, providing for your kin and repaying them for providing for you. My father did help me with some she could not though, mainly: standing up for yourself and your opinion, it's better to be punched in the face then let someone ridicule you.

I can't speak for my peers but I assume I was a fucking weird kid. I was one of those kids in the 'gifted' programs and the only emotion that I would show was anger (besides laughing, if that's an emotion). Shy around people I didn't know but open once I knew them. I was an asshole too, liked doing better than other people and making sure they knew it.

Around 7th or 8th grade I became really reserved. Stopped caring about everyone. They all felt fake and dishonest, I didn't want their approval, I wanted them gone so I could learn about science and music without getting caught up in bullshit. This solidified in high school. The majority of interaction I had with people was silence, another part inside sports, and the smallest portion being with the few people I'd call friends. By my senior year I had called myself a Nihilist (morals) and I had no aspirations, I just wanted to make sure I didn't waste the gifts my mother had given me.

Now I'm a freshman in college and my last good friend stopped speaking to me recently. I hoped it was because he didn't want to be idle anymore and was finally going to take control of his life and move forward, but I have a feeling it was because of a girl. I wished him well and a goodbye. The ending of my last non-family relationship allowed me to think though, I need to stop sitting around and pissing about. I need to master myself and then my environment, then have a kid and make it into a warrior. That's why I'm here, to learn some and keep myself motivated to accomplish my goals.


As for my ethics/code of life:
-Nothing is good or bad. The strong or victorious make the rules.
-Entitlement leads to weakness and is a disgusting perversion of the natural order.
-The worst thing one can do is become a slave. Always fight your master, if you are killed nothing is relevant after that point anyway.
-Let people do what they want, unless they cross you, then give them no sympathy.

Post: #2

(04-03-2012 02:48 AM)Asmodeus Wrote:  I'm new. I want to share my story and see yours as well. I want to know why you came here, what your ethics/morals were before hand and what they are right now.

I'll begin.

I'm a bastard. My mother raised me without much help from my father (he maybe paid 50% of the agreement that had been made), she worked and bought her house without help from a man. She never attempted to prevent me from seeing him, she encouraged it (even when I didn't want to see him) and saw a father figure as a needed part of my life. In my opinion, she had a lot of respectable and masculine traits; self sufficient, accepting consequences for one's actions, providing for your kin and repaying them for providing for you. My father did help me with some she could not though, mainly: standing up for yourself and your opinion, it's better to be punched in the face then let someone ridicule you.

I can't speak for my peers but I assume I was a fucking weird kid. I was one of those kids in the 'gifted' programs and the only emotion that I would show was anger (besides laughing, if that's an emotion). Shy around people I didn't know but open once I knew them. I was an asshole too, liked doing better than other people and making sure they knew it.

Around 7th or 8th grade I became really reserved. Stopped caring about everyone. They all felt fake and dishonest, I didn't want their approval, I wanted them gone so I could learn about science and music without getting caught up in bullshit. This solidified in high school. The majority of interaction I had with people was silence, another part inside sports, and the smallest portion being with the few people I'd call friends. By my senior year I had called myself a Nihilist (morals) and I had no aspirations, I just wanted to make sure I didn't waste the gifts my mother had given me.

Now I'm a freshman in college and my last good friend stopped speaking to me recently. I hoped it was because he didn't want to be idle anymore and was finally going to take control of his life and move forward, but I have a feeling it was because of a girl. I wished him well and a goodbye. The ending of my last non-family relationship allowed me to think though, I need to stop sitting around and pissing about. I need to master myself and then my environment, then have a kid and make it into a warrior. That's why I'm here, to learn some and keep myself motivated to accomplish my goals.


As for my ethics/code of life:
-Nothing is good or bad. The strong or victorious make the rules.
-Entitlement leads to weakness and is a disgusting perversion of the natural order.
-The worst thing one can do is become a slave. Always fight your master, if you are killed nothing is relevant after that point anyway.
-Let people do what they want, unless they cross you, then give them no sympathy.

A moral relativist with misanthropic tendencies. You sound scary dude. Does anything give you joy in life?

Post: #3

Cheer up mate, the world isn't so bad.

My morality/philosophy/beliefs:
- Interpretation of your environment is the most important component of how it affects you. (ie. you make your own luck).
- People are autonomous, therefore fucking a girl and not calling her back is not immoral because she CHOSE to sleep with you. (a la FFY)
- Strong = good, weak = bad.
- Manly women and feminine women = strong (for different reasons).
- Girly men and manly women = weak.
- Egalitarianism is a lie used to protect people's feelings, all men are most definitely not created equal.
- The above is a pity, but it's life.
- Politics is a waste of time, civilised societies have been and always will be run by greedy sociopaths.
- Violence is justified in protecting your body or your freedom, but not your ego.

I rarely think about these things, once I have and know my beliefs I put them to the back of my mind so that I can enjoy my life.

Post: #4

(04-03-2012 02:48 AM)Asmodeus Wrote:  As for my ethics/code of life:
-Nothing is good or bad. The strong or victorious make the rules.
-Entitlement leads to weakness and is a disgusting perversion of the natural order.
-The worst thing one can do is become a slave. Always fight your master, if you are killed nothing is relevant after that point anyway.
-Let people do what they want, unless they cross you, then give them no sympathy.

If nothing is good or bad, how can you possibly think anything is "disgusting" or "the worst thing one can do?" Why is the "natural order" a good thing?

This is why I'm skeptical of moral anti-realism. People who espouse it always seem to live as though it weren't true.

Anyway, here's what I think about ethics:
-Moral realism is probably correct. The best argument for it is that accepting moral anti-realism leads to compelling paradoxes such as what I said above, where it becomes impossible to generate a good reason to do anything.
-Moral philosophy is hard. Consequentialists, contractarians, and Kantians all make good points.
-Most actually occurring ethical situations don't require you to take a position on the most fundamental issues in moral philosophy. Most of the time, the action that produces the best consequences is the same one that's based on a principle whose universal acceptance you could rationally will, which is the same one that's based on a principle that two parties to a social contract couldn't reasonably reject.
-Most of the time, all of the above align with our moral intuitions but there are important situations where our intuitions fail us, such as when we feel an unjustifiably greater moral obligation to people who happen to be geographically close to us. One thing I agree with Peter Singer on is that people in rich countries are morally obligated to do more to alleviate extreme poverty than they currently do.
-If you really press me with a tough thought experiment, I usually side with consequentialism, but I reserve the right to try to wiggle out of it by appealing to some nuanced form of rule consequentialism.
-Politics should fundamentally be about justice. Not liberty, not utility, not equality, not rights (although all of those are certainly very important to justice). The conception of justice I am most persuaded by is a roughly Rawlsian one--I think a contractarian framework featuring his Original Position is the best way to think about how society should be organized.
-Enjoy life and don't waste time in getting what you want out of it. There's almost certainly no afterlife and you only get one shot at this thing which could end at any moment, so act accordingly.

Post: #5

You sound angry. Life is to short for all of that negativity. Yes, the world is a fucked up place and most people are idiots but you only live once. Be happy and make it a good one.

Post: #6

(04-04-2012 10:31 PM)houston Wrote:  You sound angry. Life is to short for all of that negativity. Yes, the world is a fucked up place and most people are idiots but you only live once. Be happy and make it a good one.

Yeah I know I sound really angry in there. Wasn't my intention but I can't edit it anymore. I'm past my anger stage though and am trying to make my, and my family's life the best I can.

Post: #7

Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.