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On rosy ideas

April 4th 2012 05:38
"God takes care of idiots."

A rosy idea is one that is false, but which would be nice if it were true (because you approve of the outcome). In this case, it's nice that there are plusses to being an idiot, and it's nice that there's someone there to look out for them.

But there's more to rosiness than just outcome. There's more to its attraction. Rosiness is also about what beliefs are required for and follow from the particular rosy thought in question.

In this case, there are two sorts of entailed beliefs:

(1) Moral beliefs. For instance, that there is an objective morality, or that good is more powerful than bad.
(2) Beliefs about reality ("ontological" beliefs). For instance, that there's a big boss in control of it all.

So, if you want to think that God takes care of idiots, it's not just so you're relieved of the duty of worrying about them yourself -- it's also because you're comforted, made secure, reinforced, in your neat beliefs about morality and reality. Every religion provides not only clear guidelines on how to live life (satisfying a need for direction), but also creation stories, etc (satisfying a need for explanation).

The basic message of many rosy ideas, and of this one, is that everything turns out all right in the end. God's in his heaven, and all's right with the world.

It might be suggested, then, that the first step to any genuine morality is to reject rosy ideas. For it could be argued that actions only have meaning when the result is in doubt -- when something is really at stake. Alternatively, that people are only motivated to take action when the result is in doubt. If God guarantees a good outcome, then human actions on both counts don't really matter.

Similarly, the first step to any genuine ontology might be to relinquish notions that the universe is human-centric, or morally concerned, or neatly ordered, or is even understandable at all...

***

Note

-- The above is suggestion only, and not argument. Many, many people believe (perhaps rosily) in determinism or predestination as well as the meaningfulness of human action. Not only Calvinists, but scientists.


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Immorality of having children

March 12th 2012 20:03
Four quick thoughts on why having children might be immoral:

1. Overpopulation. You might believe that where you are (this world or this country) is already overpopulated, or is heading that way, and that, by having a child, you're adding more fuel to the fire.

2. Adoption. You might believe that there are so many children already in need of care that turning your back on them is a wrong by omission. (Putting aside the question of how easy, in practice, it is to adopt from another country.)

3. Vale of tears.

You might think this is such a terrible world, a vale of tears, that it's wrong to bring a child into it. You might think this of the universe as a whole, or the planet, or your specific country/place/situation.

Or there might be reasons why the particular potential child will have a terrible life. For instance, there might be issues of inbreeding, or some inherited curse, or there might be genetic factors why two people have a high chance of producing someone with serious disability or abnormality.

(Related questions: Should you abort a child if there's a high chance of some serious disability or abnormality? Should the rights of the institutionalised to have children be different from anyone else?)

4. Ends and means.

Why does anyone have a child in the first place?

The list of reasons is endless, right? Because it's an accident. Because it's a form of immortality, because it's a form of vicarious new life. Because Hitler or the Catholic Church or Tony Abbott told you to do so. Because you feel a duty to your family or to the species. Out of curiosity, pressure, tradition, boredom, fear. Out of desperate failed ambitions. In order not to miss out on experience. To keep your marriage together, to fulfil a promise, to take care of you when you're old, to help on the farm, to provide companionship, to provide a successor to the throne, to continue whatever work or project or mission you're engaged in. To leave a mark in the world and prove you existed.

Or perhaps you'll make a wonderful parent, and your sole desire in life (evolutionary or inculturated) is to have children (in which case having children is really not more irrational than -- is as arbitrary as -- any other goal).

Now, you might think that these reasons are noble or ignoble, good or bad. But for all of them you're arguably "treating someone as a means rather than an end" -- you're using them, selfishly or unselfishly. Did Dr Frankenstein create his monster for the sake of the monster? It's your own happiness or ego that's at stake, or your duty to God or country or family or species, etc -- the child is created to serve some purpose extraneous to itself.

In none of these cases are you having the child for the sake of the child; and, in fact, to do so might not even make sense...


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Hellfire ideals

March 4th 2012 13:46
Recently saw this announcement. Found the ideas intriguing. Hopefully, the the writers won't mind me reposting, so here goes:

***

Hi there!

It’s that time again. Time for the Big One. Or in the case, the Big One-Nine.

Yes our fine fetish friends, The Hellfire Club turns 19 years old on Friday March 23rd 2012.

This is an extraordinary achievement and a credit to you all. Seriously.

Collectively, we have managed to create Australia’s longest-running club night of any kind. Who would’ve thought? Certainly not us. We didn’t even know it would last 19 weeks, let alone 19 months or even 19 years.

There are now newbies attending who weren’t even born when we started. Even weirder, we are now seeing The Hellfire Club cross the generation gap, as mothers and/or fathers bring sons and/or daughters along to see how they live and love and who they really are.

Those of us who have been there since the very beginning have aged, changed, grown up a little, but we still rage against the bland conformity of mainstream limitations on joy, pleasure, experimentation and liberation.

We still believe in creating an alternative world, where things pan out differently than they do everywhere else. We still believe that when no-one fits in, then everyone can fit in. We still believe that mainstream definitions of beauty are limited and wrong, that everyone can be beautiful and desirable and lead a fulfilling and exciting love and sex life. We still want to subvert the dominant paradigm.

We hope you can join us on Friday March 23rd to help celebrate an amazing social experiment, one that you all helped create and further. Join us on the night to celebrate life and love and lust and those we’ve lost along the way as well. We’ll raise a glass to absent friends, to those present and to those we haven’t met yet.

It’s a special time, see you there...


Cheers
Master Tom & Ultra
The Hellfire Club


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Grains

March 2nd 2012 08:21
John came home from the desert, and shook the sand onto his balcony -- literally a few kilograms -- from his socks and shoes, from his backpack and equipment. Ridiculous! He had no idea he was carrying so much crap. He had a long shower, ordered some pizza, washed up, packed his suitcase, and a week later was on a plane to the Northern Territory for his next adventure.

Meanwhile, the desert earth was attracting interest. Possums sniffed at it, birds shat in it, cockroaches tracked over it, little bacteria began to grow. The ants were the most impressed, and decided it would be a good base, conveniently close to food supplies, so they set up an impromptu nest


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Final round of trivia

February 5th 2012 00:28
It's the final round of trivia. There's 20 points in it. Scores are:

-- We're on 34


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Moral struggle

December 14th 2011 19:23
What sort of examples comes to mind if you hear the phrase "moral struggle"?

Here's three that come to mine


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A few notes on meaning

November 18th 2011 01:44
In a sense, there's no such thing as a romantic relationship -- there is no such thing as a relationship. You have two people, their memories of each other, their behavioural dispositions, their environment, their social and legal contracts, etc. But it's not as if the relationship has reality in itself; this is merely a convenient way of speaking.

Well, the same is true, I'd suggest, of "meaning". It's not as if meanings exist -- this is merely a (very) convenient way of speaking. We seem to have an idea that words are containers that carry meaning; words travel from one brain to another and offload their cargo. But do words contain anything? Isn't the more realistic way of thinking to say that words are sounds and images -- physical things -- and they have physical effects that might or might not match my desires


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Review of Candy (2006)

November 16th 2011 23:22
There's an already seldom-mentioned 2006 film called Candy (starring Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, Geoffrey Rush; directed by Neil Armfield). Basically, as most reviewers pointed out, it's an Australian version of Requiem for a Dream -- young couple starts off flirting with drugs, and what follows is a downward spiral -- alienation from family, theft, prostitution, abortion, etc.

It plays out somewhat formulaically and slightly sanctimoniously (albeit it's based on true events), and one could reduce it to the South Park quote "Drugs are bad


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A dozen notes and quotes #14

November 6th 2011 02:03
I didn't recognize the person, but I remembered their dog.

***

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Memory (HP Lovecraft)

October 22nd 2011 09:54
Written in 1919 and published in May 1923 in The National Amateur.

***

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