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You can't optimize your way to being a good person

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Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#121

Post by Clubber »

atmosx wrote: post #69
Dfiesl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing from your reply that you don't think its important to emphasise kindness as part of supporting your childrens' growth. If that is the case, what do you emphasise if anything?

You're guessing wrong. Kindness has a merit on it's own and ultimately it's a good idea for a person to decide what they want to be and take responsibility for their choices. Being kind "because there are too many unkind people out there" sounds wrong. I have no idea how they measured the "too many unkind people out there" but lets assume for a moment this balance shifts - then what? They should be unkind because the…

>Being kind "because there are too many unkind people out there" sounds wrong. I have no idea how they measured the "too many unkind people out there"

This sounds wrong because you feel we need more assholes out there, or you feel we have the proper amount?

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#122

Post by zcrossing »

bentt wrote: post #119

I was raised very loosely Lutheran (Christian). We barely went to church and stopped entirely after I was confirmed. I practice it exactly 0% now and have never in my adult life. However I feel like something got cooked into me, and maybe even my parents, that gives me a bit of guidance here. I can't explain it but I feel like I have a foundation that is preventing me from feeling the empty nihilism that plagues a lo…

[flagged]

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#123

Post by kelseyfrog »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #87
poincaredisk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Either moral systems are complete, or they are inconsistent. So you mean "incomplete or inconsistent"? It sounds like this is what you meant. Then I disagree. Two examples of a complete and consistent (and computable) moral system: * everything is good * everything is evil

Those are not moral systems, they're sentences with undefined meaning. "Good" and "bad" need to be defined, they can't exist independently, like some intrinsic property of the universe (say, like the fine-structure constant). One could say that's the essential purpose of any moral system: to define what "good" and "bad" mean.

> "Good" and "bad" need to be defined, they can't exist independently, like some intrinsic property of the universe.

I'd argue the opposite from empirics. The function of a moral framework is to essentialize good and bad so that it appears as an intrinsic property of the universe. All moral frameworks do this.

This is going to get both a bit technical and sociological, but taking a page out of Burger and Luckmann, the idea that good and bad are essential universal properties of actions is definitionally reification. I'd add that even if good an bad aren't directly essentialized, they are grounded in properties that are. Moral facts cannot escape the Münchhausen trilemma.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#124

Post by theonething »

hackable_sand wrote: post #97
Dfiesl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sentiment is that it feels like theres a lot of unkindness in the world and that makes it a worse place and you can either be part of that or you can make the world a better place by striving to be kind. Thats my interpretation anyway.

It sounds bad because the root comment is priming a negative perspective of the world. They could have said: "Most people are kind. Be kind and most people will be kind back." Or something with positive intent. Instead they seem to be priming a superiority trip.

Agreed.

Or they could said:

"Be kind because it's the right thing to do."

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#125

Post by dullcrisp »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #118
dullcrisp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if there could be a complete moral framework without the power to express Peano arithmetic.

I like this as a joke, but if your moral questions involve natural numbers in any way and your moral framework does not accommodate Peano arithmetic, then it is incomplete. :)

I am mostly joking, but I do think that if just about any logical framework is provably incomplete, then completeness is a lot to ask of a moral framework. So yes, what you said.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#127

Post by satvikpendem »

x-complexity wrote: post #110
GeoAtreides wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are not moral systems, they're sentences with undefined meaning. "Good" and "bad" need to be defined, they can't exist independently, like some intrinsic property of the universe (say, like the fine-structure constant). One could say that's the essential purpose of any moral system: to define what "good" and "bad" mean.

> Those are not moral systems, they're sentences with undefined meaning. My biggest gripe (& source of hatred) with this reasoning is that you can do this infinitely without any remorse. It's a black hole, wherein all effort becomes wasted because the other side refuses to pin down definitions, and instead goes "nuh uh, not like that" infinitely. But fine then. Here's what I think they're trying to do. Given a univer…

> the universe deems maximum entropy as a moral imperative

There is no necessary connection between entropy and morality, it is actually you who has put that connection there, hence proving the parent's point that good and evil are in the eye of the beholder; this is your personal view on entropy, not a universal one.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#128

Post by in-pursuit »

gitpusher wrote: post #23

If you spend all your time worrying about how to be a good person, chances are you're not being a good person. Just go do nice things. Volunteer somewhere. Be of service. And stop worrying so much

Why is it that only "doing nice things" or "volunteering your time" makes you a good person? Does a traffic engineer not better the lives of others? What about a farmer? Where does the food served in a soup kitchen come from if not from the sweat of the farmer's brow? The shelter over everyone's head only exists because truckers transported the materials. Simply existing in a way that isn't purely self-serving is often enough to be hugely helpful to others.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#129

Post by seanhunter »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #79
layer8 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like “step 2: draw the rest of the owl”.

Sometimes, it's not that hard to draw the rest of the owl.

Exactly. What I take away from that passage is "most of the time it's really not hard to figure out how to be a good person so you're better off actually taking some concrete positive action than spending further time navel-gazing".

Like in TFA. Just be kind to others. Be thoughtful. Be nice to people even when you don't have to be. Try to make life better for those around you. But also be kind to yourself. Don't worry about doing the best thing. Just try to do some good things. Everything will work out ok.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#130

Post by jackphilson »

gitpusher wrote: post #23

If you spend all your time worrying about how to be a good person, chances are you're not being a good person. Just go do nice things. Volunteer somewhere. Be of service. And stop worrying so much

i think its the opposite. if you do actions that you consider to be good without considering how to be good more effectively, you probably just like the feeling of thinking of yourself as a good person more than actually being a good person

doing good is less about how happy it makes you feel and more about, well, how much you do good

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