Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
Nah. Cons have their opposition and reasons, libs have theirs. It would be about as silly as changing them when Malcolm X pointed out libs too harbor racism.
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Simplified Psychology: Conservative and Progressive Ideology
- Thread starter joe1776
- Start date
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
This is a good point regarding the addressing of ideals vs. generalized groups. Even people who are generally considered progressives in popular media can still harbour regressive views (such as TERFs).
It may perhaps be more accurate and constructive to do away with divisions on this side via the "liberal/conservative" or "progressives/regressives" designations and simply address specific attitudes as necessarily progressive or regressive.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
I fully agree. Especially because anymore too many prone think you're either a liberal or a conservative. Which isn't the case but we pretty much exclusively focus on those two, to the point of incorrectly using other words interchangeably to describe them (such as referring to liberals as progressives). And if course it is a major reason our politics suck, because if this forced binary of either lib or con.
joe1776
Well-Known Member
You've offered a false analogy. My argument is based on the recognition of a centuries-old moral trend which you can't reasonably deny and on the likelihood it will continue because it's aligned with the survival of our species and there's no evidence that we will backslide from the progress we've made such as the abolition of legal slavery.
Your personal insults show that you're aware that your attacks on my argument are weak so attacks on me personally are the best you can do.
What point are you making? Let's suppose your "nuclear holocaust" will happen. Many deaths and much pain would result, much like it did in two world wars. So, why do you suppose this would reverse the upward moral trend of the survivors?
After the experience of two world wars, humanity learned from them. We made moral gains. After WW1, the use of mustard gas in warfare was outlawed, for example. In WW2, the bombing of civilian populations was thought by most people to be justified. That's no longer true.
So, please describe how and why your dreaded nuclear holocaust
would put a stop to humanity's upward moral trend.
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joe1776
Well-Known Member
I don't have any problem working with the label conservative to describe someone who generally opposes change in the status of the existing social system. Nor is it any problem understanding that the progressive label applies to someone who generally favors changes.
The notion that there are exceptions that disprove these general statements is a very common logical fallacy.
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Augustus
…
No I haven't, I explained part of the evolution of Western Philosophy. Shadow Wolf was trying to explain it to you earlier too.
Your idea is just an extreme version of the Idea of Progress with a pseudo-scientific cape on. The secular Idea of Progress emerged during the Enlightenment, and those that are considered to have created it (for example the Marquis de Condorcet) acknowledged its debt to Christianity (despite themselves being atheists).
Not an insult, a fact by definition. That you see it as an insult is part of the problem. Intellectual humility = accepting that we have imperfect knowledge and cognitive ability.
Anyone who expresses that their prediction regarding the long term future is inevitable lacks intellectual humility.
As Yogi Berra once said, "It's tough making predictions, particularly about the future"
After WW1 we learned for 16 years then had an even worse war fought with far lower moral standards and included the Holocaust. WW2 led into the Cold War and 100 million deaths in Communist countries.
We also avoided 2 nuclear wars by dumb luck, and, in nuclear wars the bombing of civilian populations is the entire point.
Again you express too great a certainty, on too little evidence:
At that moment in time, the long peace pattern will have become statistically significant, by conventional standards, relative to the stationary model, and we could say with confidence that the time since the Second World War was governed by a different, more peaceful underlying process. In this extrapolated future, the post-war pattern of relatively few large wars becomes progressively more unlikely under a stationary hypothesis (Fig. 5). However, it is not until 100 years into the future that the long peace becomes statistically distinguishable from a large but random fluctuation in an otherwise stationary process. Even if there were no large wars anywhere in the world after 2003, the year of significance would arrive only a few decades earlier.
On the frequency and severity of interstate wars
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.05086.pdf
So, please describe how and why your dreaded nuclear holocaust
My favourite ever argument on RF was when someone said if the Biblical account of the crucifixion was accurate, then Pilate's sympathy for Jesus would have led to him being crucified "with dignity and respect".
I never thought it could possibly be beaten, but you might have just done it. Thank you
joe1776
Well-Known Member
There's nothing scientific or pseudo-scientific about the simple argument you're having trouble understanding. Here, I'll lay it out for you:
p1) We have reliable history going back more than 2000 years to use as evidence of moral progress.
p2) There is no evidence of backsliding; once we attain a new moral level, we hold it. We don't, for example, expect that legal, condoned slavery will someday make a comeback.
C1) Therefore, barring some catastrophic event, like the sun's disappearance, that entirely wipes out humanity, the upward moral trend will continue and global harmony (not necessarily perfect harmony) is inevitable.
In past discussions, you claimed to be a moral intuitionist but you persist in arguing the opinions of a moral rationalist.
Reason has had nothing to do with humanity's moral progress. In fact, our reasoning minds would know absolutely nothing about morality if not for conscience (moral intuition).
We know that because all knowledge begins when we sense an effect and then conduct a search to find its cause. Since we can't see, hear, smell or taste the difference between moral right and wrong, we must FEEL it.
In 1866, the Catholic pope informed his large flock that he found nothing in Divine Law opposed to the buying, selling and trading of slaves. His reasoning mind was correct according to his Bible. But, obviously, there was a moral force more powerful than reason driving the abolition of legal slavery.
That's an opinion intended to be insulting. But it's typical of Internet debate.
In a previous thread that I posted months ago, I listed evidence that would convince unbiased minds that humanity is making moral progress. Other posters contributed to my list of evidence. You ignored the evidence, so I have you labeled as biased.
I asked you to describe how and why your dreaded nuclear holocaust would put a stop to humanity's upward moral trend. You ducked the question.My favourite ever argument on RF was when someone said if the Biblical account of the crucifixion was accurate, then Pilate's sympathy for Jesus would have led to him being crucified "with dignity and respect".
I never thought it could possibly be beaten, but you might have just done it. Thank you
I think you've seen one too many movies on this topic. Hollywood loves the drama created by the apocalyptic future.
Augustus
…
P1 arguable, P2 very dubious as it requires your 'custom made' definition of backsliding that rules out all of the backsliding that has happened in human history (plenty in the 20th C).
C1 Non-sequitur anyway, as has already been explained to you many times regarding projection of trends (if we assume they exist).
Literally nothing to do with what I said.
You don't think that intellectual humility requires one to factor in a reasonable possibility that they are wrong regarding long term future predictions?
Again, an out of context misrepresentation of what I said.
1. The 'trend' would now show increasing numbers of violent deaths
2. Seeing as much of America and Europe would be nuclear wastelands, it might well have become a world dominated by Mao's China or some other non-Western power that did not share your humanist principles. We just don't know.
3. If there are insufficient resources for everyone to survive, as would happen on a local and possibly even global scale, the likelihood of conflict is very high.
4. Any gain can be lost in a couple of generations. People quickly adapt to the environment they live in.
5. The idea that anyone can express great certainty as to what would have happened to the world had there been a major nuclear war in 1960 is ridiculously hubristic. I don't know, and neither do you.
wellwisher
Well-Known Member
I consider myself a Conservative in terms of perpetuating social systems that are test proven and work efficiently. I am not for conserving all social systems, simply because they exist. They need to be proven and efficient. Obama Care is an existing social system that has poor field data. This is not something I would automatically what to conserve. It is not about fear of change. On the other hand, Progressive changes to healthcare will not be blindly accepted by me. I want to see proof of concept and field data that shows this change well be an upgrade. If not, keep what you have, for now.
In terms of thinking and intellectualizing, I am a creative thinker with lots of unique ideas in all areas of knowledge. I am conservative in terms applied knowledge; social systems, but at the level of thinking, I am extremely Progressive. I have no problem living outside the box beyond all existing social systems, in the world of my imagination. Reality makes me more Conservative, since reality can hit back.
I am used having the shoe on the other foot, especially in the world of discussion forums. Often the Progressives, will act like Conservatives, when I suggest certain ideas, that go against existing social systems, that the Progressives added, through politics and law. All of a sudden they wish to Conserve and not try to upgrade at the conceptual level.
For example, I my previous post in this topic, a sub discussion developed about the high suicide rates among Transexuals. The preponderance of the scientific data, if you do a data search, attributes this to peer pressure and other forms of bullying and abuse. On that respect, the defenders of this Progressive Issue make use of Conservative science protocol and places published studies ahead of speculation theory, without credentials.
I was sort of setting that up to show how nobody is purely Conservative or Progressive all the time. Sometimes fresh ideas are needed and a Progressive attitude makes it easier to live outside the box. Other times, change for the sake of change, can lead to a downgrade in social systems, if done without Conservative protocol.
A good example was the break up of the nuclear family. Once this became more stylish, it escalated living resource requirements in terms homes, making it more expensive for everyone to own a home. It also resulted in many children without two parents in their lives. Not every parent is good with children, but even a mediocre parent will do more for their own children; through instinct, than for children of strangers, That social cost increased.
The Progressives would like to Conserve the current system and will resist change. The Conservatives wish to do something like a system restore, to a previous setting, which was more resources efficient; nuclear family. This change would be like recording a song from the past, that would appear new to those who never heard the song before. In that resect, this would be Progressive to the youth but Conservative to the old timers.
If moral progress and global harmony are inevitable, then why bother arguing about it?
Any form of fatalism, be it pessimistic or optimistic, is flawed for similar reasons. It may also make one indifferent towards the actual cost of war, potentially evident in the dismissal of possible nuclear war as irrelevant in the face of inevitable moral progress.
Time is not a straight line of progress because the human mind itself, in which the conceptual tool of time is created, is non-linear.
Any form of fatalism, be it pessimistic or optimistic, is flawed for similar reasons. It may also make one indifferent towards the actual cost of war, potentially evident in the dismissal of possible nuclear war as irrelevant in the face of inevitable moral progress.
Time is not a straight line of progress because the human mind itself, in which the conceptual tool of time is created, is non-linear.
joe1776
Well-Known Member
In post 86, I gave 17 examples of moral progress. I challenge you to make an argument that we can, in the future, reasonably expect any of those moral gains to backslide. Do you expect humanity to someday condone legal slavery? Do you expect that the gains made in equal rights for women to be lost? List some of humanity's moral gains that you think are likely to backslide.
You wrote: The secular Idea of Progress emerged during the Enlightenment, and those that are considered to have created it (for example the Marquis de Condorcet) acknowledged its debt to Christianity (despite themselves being atheists).
The philosophers and theologians of the Enlightenment were solidly convinced that the judgments of conscience were the product of reason.
We now know that they were wrong -- conscience is moral intuition. Therefore, Christianity deserves no credit for the moral gains driven by conscience because Christianity's claim that it can teach morality is based on the notion that the judgments of conscience are the product of reason and can be taught and learned.
You're shifting positions and giving me a moving target. Earlier, you wrote: Anyone who expresses that their prediction regarding the long term future is inevitable lacks intellectual humility.
Making an argument about inevitability doesn't imply that one is certain about the validity of the argument. However, I admit to being more sure of my argument now than when I first posted it. I use this forum to test my arguments and this one has held up well.
Your first response after I asked you to describe how and why your dreaded nuclear holocaust would put a stop to humanity's upward moral trend was to imply that it was the stupidest question you'd ever encountered on the Internet. Now, you give me five reasons in answer to the question.
It's pretty obvious that you'd never thought to ask the question before. You never got past the fact that the words "nuclear holocaust" just sound so terrible.
You offered your opinion that: The 'trend' would now show increasing numbers of violent deaths. This is not true. We are measuring the moral standards of the average human being in the present as compared the distant past. Thus, the murder rate would be a useful statistic but not the number of people killed in a nuclear war because the act of the few men who decide to push the button does not affect our measurement of humanity's moral level.
Because of the advance of weapons technology, the number of people killed in wars is of no use to us since the soldier carrying an AK47 is not a worse human being than the soldier who fought with a sword in some past era because he can kill more efficiently.
As expected, you exaggerated the likely extent of the damage that would be done in a nuclear war since the most likely to push the button would have to be insane men with too much power in one of the smaller countries, Iran or N. Korea.. In any case, the damage done would not impact our measurement of the moral level of the average human.
Your argument really boils down to the fact that you lack faith in the average human being to form alliances and do the right thing in response to the disaster if it happened. I don't share your pessimism because history shows that we humans have always formed alliances to do the right thing. In the most recent and significant example, in World War Two, 55 nations collaborated to defeat the Axis powers which were hell-bent on oppression of weaker nations.
PureX
Veteran Member
Thank you for that post. It was informative, and I think also quite accurate.
PureX
Veteran Member
As a side note, George W. Bush was also quite obviously an arrogant man, whereas Barrack Obama was not nearly so. So it seems that conservatives like to see in their leaders what they feel to be true within themselves.
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joe1776
Well-Known Member
Your post reads to me like it was written by an intelligent and reasonable person. I suspect we could have some interesting debates on several social issues because I can't think of a single social system in the USA that isn't in need of replacement. Healthcare is simply the most obvious.
I don't believe you will ever come across a concept more proven than universal healthcare. Even a mismanaged universal healthcare system will be better than the current fraud-filled system.
joe1776
Well-Known Member
My purpose in posting it was to test the argument against critics.
Predictions don't necessarily involve fatalistic attitudes.
That doesn't make sense to me.
I'm not sure what you mean but could you define "straight line progress" for me so that I can tell if it has anything at all to do with the argument offered in the OP?
Augustus
…
Easy. Then it's not inevitable. The probabilities are contingent.
Correct, it was.
You don't seem to understand quite how powerful nuclear weapons are. It's nothing like Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the most powerful Soviet nuke was 3800 times as powerful, and both America and USSR had hundreds.
Mutually assured destruction meant exactly that, an end to those countries as we know it.
So your question can be rephrased as "How would the near total genocide of America, USSR and most of Europe have stopped humanity's upward moral trend?"
I think you can see why it is ridiculous.
My argument says I don't know what would happen, but those are distinct possibilities. Human society is too complex to predict unknowns with great certainty and it is hubristic to believe otherwise.
Apart from the obvious, using WW2 as an example of "moral progress" is somewhat curious as it is another example where lady luck prevented history running a very different course.
Had the British leader been anyone other than Winston Churchill, there is a very good chance Britain would have sued for peace in 1940 when they were pretty much alone as America hadn't joined, France was occupied and the USSR was still cooperating with the Nazis. Churchill could very easily not have become PM as he had a lot of enemies who opposed him replacing Chamberlain.
If the Nazis had prevailed in Europe and Japan had prevailed in Asia, history might tell a very different story, and even you can't deny that it would have involved 'backsliding'. This is why your idea of 'inevitability' is so flawed.
(Also many of the 55 countries were colonies fighting for their "masters", or occupied countries where people were also fighting for the Nazis)
wellwisher
Well-Known Member
One concern I have about the concept of universal health care, is it assumes we are all sickly mutant humans. It also assumes nobody is healthy. It is a fatalist social construct that has brain washed the masses. The statistics tell us that that about 10% of the population uses 90% of the health resources. The idea is how do you scam the 90% of the population, to pay for something they do not need? You pretend they are all need to participate in health care, or else.
An analogy is the cell phone. Very few people had the cell phones 20 years ago, demonstrating these are not essential to life. Yet today, cells phones are now imperative to so many people. All the gimmicks added each cycle, to sell new cell phones, become new annual dependencies. Health care appears to have become a similar cultural consensual dependency, based on a negative and social paranoia. With a cell phone the dependency makes it possible to get people to spend $1000 each years for a new oracle.
If the mass wants to move down this lane of dependency, I prefer a free market approach since people should have choices, instead of only Big Brother assigning dependencies for all.
joe1776
Well-Known Member
You're confused. If my argument is valid, my conclusion (inevitability) is correct.
No, that question is perfectly valid because such an event would have no effect whatsoever on the moral level of the survivors.
I'm finding it difficult to write well enough for you to comprehend. I used WW2 not as an example of moral progress but as a prime example of how people form alliances to help others when disaster threatens. It's also been so. The guidance of conscience is aligned with the survival of our species.
Right. And if pigs had wings pork would be a lot higher.
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joe1776
Well-Known Member
If your statistic is accurate, it apples to the current healthcare system as well as any that might replace it. So why would this scam become a factor in your choice between healthcare systems. Don't you want the best bargain for your money in any case?
I think that's a false analogy although I do agree that a false dependency has been created with cell phone use.
However, the need for healthcare wasn't artificially created. We never know if or when we we will need it, but if we do, the only questions are about the quality and the cost.
The free market is the wrong tool for the healthcare job because consumers can't become well-informed consumers spending their own money as they can if they buy a car, for example. And without well-informed consumers spending their own money, fraud runs rampant.
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Augustus
…
No, you are confused. Your argument is inductive, thus it can never be 100% proven. Thus it is not inevitable.
You can never be certain with incomplete information, and definitely not when much of the information you have is ambiguous, exists as part of a complex system with dynamic feedback loops with an unknown number of variables that may change in an unpredictable manner.
Given that this scenario is dealing with uncertainty, you can't even assign a meaningful probability to it being correct.
Your conclusion requires a simple, bounded system with complete information and no chance of cognitive error. Unless these are present, your probability is <100%.
You cannot be certain in the domain you are dealing with, thus it can never be inevitable.
Unsupported opinion = worthless.
Silly reply that belies a repeated failure to comprehend a basic weaknesses in your argument. No point in explaining again though.