Is non binary the epitome of stage green?

[Zizzero]

8 hours ago, electroBeam said:

The latter is a diplomatic side step to excuse your precious values and beliefs

Ad hominem

8 hours ago, electroBeam said:

And if you disagree, its not because everyone's opinion is valid, its because you CHOOSE to not see what damage he is doing out of fear of loosing some toxic attachments you have. 

Ad hominem - again

8 hours ago, electroBeam said:

Well its nice to think about Trump vs non binary people relative terms: non binary people can't be ridiculed so therefore Trump can't be ridiculed, but this isn't the way to lead a healthy society. Sorry some cultures, opinions and ways of life ARE better than others, and they are not all relatively the same. The latter is a diplomatic side step to excuse your precious values and beliefs. The fact is, non binary people are not hurting as many people - trump is. Trump is not comparable to non binary people, Trump is literally more evil than binary people and that's the way it is. And if you disagree, its not because everyone's opinion is valid, its because you CHOOSE to not see what damage he is doing out of fear of loosing some toxic attachments you have. 

Violence shouldn't be imposed on Trump, that's not leading to any resolution but making matters worse, but ridiculing him IS different to ridiculing non binary people - and its crazy that this has to be outlined. Just like how ridiculing a white male in the 1700s IS different to ridiculing a black slave. 

If you stand by your premise that normalization of stigmatization leads to violence being committed towards that group, then only three options remain if you care about philosophical consistency:

1. Violence towards Trump supporters as a result of ridicule must be accepted
2. We shouldn't make fun of any group as it leads to violence towards them
3. The premise is untrue

As I wrote in a previous post to a different user: You argue for the right to be a dick towards others while being appalled when the rock gets thrown back at you.

[Scholar]

--- nevermind, reading error ---

Edited October 25, 2019 by Scholar

[Scholar]

4 hours ago, Zizzero said:

Ad hominem

Ad hominem - again

If you stand by your premise that normalization of stigmatization leads to violence being committed towards that group, then only three options remain if you care about philosophical consistency:

1. Violence towards Trump supporters as a result of ridicule must be accepted
2. We shouldn't make fun of any group as it leads to violence towards them
3. The premise is untrue

As I wrote in a previous post to a different user: You argue for the right to be a dick towards others while being appalled when the rock gets thrown back at you.

We can simply alter the premise.

P1. The normalization of stigmatization of a marginalized non-political group leads to an increase of violence being committed towards that group.

P2. An increase of violence due to the normalization of stigmatization of a marginalized non-political group is unjustified if it does not have a sufficient social benefit.

C. Therefore the normalization of stigmazitation of a marginalized, non-political group is unjustified if it does not have a sufficient social benefit.

 

We can then construct seperate arguments for the stigmatization of non-marginalized groups and also political groups specifically. It might be the case that we acccept the normalization of the stigmatization and a potential greater violence towards a political group while still viewing the violence itself as unjustified.

We might even create specific examples where violence is justified. We might for example create the group of "Terrorists" or "Serial Killers" where the stigmatization and following violence is very well justified.

 

You lack both nuance in the Premise that "All normalization of stigmatization leads to equally proportional violence", which I reject, and both that all violence is equally unjustified. There might be a very fine line where we accept the freedom of normalization of stigmatization towards for example groups in the political context because of the social benefit that normalization of stigmatization gives us. You completely lack that nuance.

 

For example, we might accept the stigmatization of Nazi's, accepting the violence that will ensue as a result, because of the general social benefit that stigmatization will have (in a very utilitarian sense). While at the same time we gain no social benefit from the stigmatization of certain marginalized groups, like LGBTQ members and the like. We could also inject moral weights, in terms of how much harm these specific groups do to society as a whole, which again you do not even attempt to consider. There is a difference between someone who want to take away the rights of a certain group and someone who just minds their own buisness because they are part of a specific sexual orientation.

 

You are completely blind to that. You treat each transaction as if it was the same, as you lack any systemic approach to any of these issues. To you it's all the most basic kind of black and white calculus that will allow you to uphold your ideology of free speech.

 

This is why we make a difference between politics and other identity groups. A very important part of politics is the mechanisms of stigmatization that take place in political rivalry. That is to a greater benefit of society as a whole, even if it does lead to violence towards certain individuals. In this case it would be more desirable to simply enforce the law in a more effective way so that the violence is reduced to a minimum.

In the case of marginalized group like LGBTQ members however there is no benefit whatsoever to those particular mechanisms of stigmatization, in fact they do great harm to society as a whole. Because we cannot pick what political groups should and shouldn't be stigmatized, we just leave that area open for stigmatization, while prohibiting the stigmatization of non-political groups.

 

To you that seems insane, because you are as orange as it gets. You feel like that is immoral, while someone at green will feel the exact opposite. Again here you fail to see that you are driven by your values and that how appealling these arguments you will find is determined by what you already value.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Scholar

[electroBeam]

5 hours ago, Zizzero said:

 if you care about philosophical consistency:

I don't care about philosophical consistency - I care about making the world a better place.

It's not ad hominem. It's called reading between the lines and talking about the real issue here. Even if it hurts your precious ego.

Attacking your argument is exactly what you want me to do - because attacking your argument rather than talk about the real issue is a red herring. 

[Zizzero]

4 hours ago, Scholar said:

To you it's all the most basic kind of black and white calculus that will allow you to uphold your ideology of free speech.

To you that seems insane, because you are as orange as it gets. You feel like that is immoral, while someone at green will feel the exact opposite. Again here you fail to see that you are driven by your values and that how appealling these arguments you will find is determined by what you already value.

I had my hopes high because it started well. But at the very end of your post you simply had to fall back into bad habits and attack me personally. There is no point in talking to someone like you. Your behavior is very disrespectful, cheap and contributing to an even more toxic atmosphere on this forum than there already is. 

So, despite feelings of pessimism towards how you'll respond to this, I'll try to address your points. In case you do choose to continue to spew your theories about who I am then I wont respond to your posts and would ask you to not respond to mine from now on. This simply isn't worth my time.

 

4 hours ago, Scholar said:

We can simply alter the premise.

P1. The normalization of stigmatization of a marginalized non-political group leads to an increase of violence being committed towards that group.

P2. An increase of violence due to the normalization of stigmatization of a marginalized non-political group is unjustified if it does not have a sufficient social benefit.

C. Therefore the normalization of stigmazitation of a marginalized, non-political group is unjustified if it does not have a sufficient social benefit.

 

We can then construct seperate arguments for the stigmatization of non-marginalized groups and also political groups specifically. It might be the case that we acccept the normalization of the stigmatization and a potential greater violence towards a political group while still viewing the violence itself as unjustified.

We might even create specific examples where violence is justified. We might for example create the group of "Terrorists" or "Serial Killers" where the stigmatization and following violence is very well justified.

 

You lack both nuance in the Premise that "All normalization of stigmatization leads to equally proportional violence", which I reject, and both that all violence is equally unjustified. There might be a very fine line where we accept the freedom of normalization of stigmatization towards for example groups in the political context because of the social benefit that normalization of stigmatization gives us. You completely lack that nuance.

 

This is why we make a difference between politics and other identity groups. A very important part of politics is the mechanisms of stigmatization that take place in political rivalry. That is to a greater benefit of society as a whole, even if it does lead to violence towards certain individuals. In this case it would be more desirable to simply enforce the law in a more effective way so that the violence is reduced to a minimum.

In the case of marginalized group like LGBTQ members however there is no benefit whatsoever to those particular mechanisms of stigmatization, in fact they do great harm to society as a whole. Because we cannot pick what political groups should and shouldn't be stigmatized, we just leave that area open for stigmatization, while prohibiting the stigmatization of non-political groups.

Let's add nuance, but let's also stay precise. 

• You changed the premises to "marginalized and non-political groups". What about non-marginalized groups and what about political groups? Are the premises still true if we remove either or both of these attributes?
• What does it mean for a group to be marginalized? How do we measure that?
• The idea that gender isn't binary is an idea that was put forward by a political ideology - feminism. The whole concept of "being non-binary" is not scientific, but philosophical. Believing that there are more options than being male or female is merely political ideology. Is it incorrect to call people who identify as "non-binary" a political group since they all share the same political ideology?
• What about non-binary people who are political activists? Are we allowed to make fun of politically active non-binary individuals?
• You propose that we find a good balance, sensitive to the particular context, between a right to speech and regulation. Where is that balance? How do I know in a particular case whether the speech I'm about to utter is permitted or not? This needs to be clear beforehand; people need to know what they can say and what they can't say.
• Who gets to decide what the right answer to these questions is?

 

4 hours ago, Scholar said:

For example, we might accept the stigmatization of Nazi's, accepting the violence that will ensue as a result, because of the general social benefit that stigmatization will have (in a very utilitarian sense). While at the same time we gain no social benefit from the stigmatization of certain marginalized groups, like LGBTQ members and the like. We could also inject moral weights, in terms of how much harm these specific groups do to society as a whole, which again you do not even attempt to consider. There is a difference between someone who want to take away the rights of a certain group and someone who just minds their own buisness because they are part of a specific sexual orientation.

• I am not a utilitarian. I reject this moral theory. You cannot simply expect that everyone shares the same moral values as you. Also, since you are one of these people who loves to use SD to argue your point; you are aware that utilitarianism is stage orange? Quiet ironic
• We might not gain social benefit from the phenomenon of stigmatization, but we do get social benefits from the speech and jokes that you believe would lead to this stigmatization.
• If someone believes they have a right not to be offended and ask for government intervention for speech they don't like, then these people are not part of the group of people "just minding their own business", but the prior one you described

Edited October 25, 2019 by Zizzero

[Zizzero]

2 hours ago, electroBeam said:

I don't care about philosophical consistency - I care about making the world a better place.

It's not ad hominem. It's called reading between the lines and talking about the real issue here. Even if it hurts your precious ego.

Attacking your argument is exactly what you want me to do - because attacking your argument rather than talk about the real issue is a red herring. 

1. Yes, you did use ad hominem arguments and you ironically used more than one of these in this very post of yours. But I'm open to hearing why you believe what you doesn't fall into that category.
2. Yes, you do care about philosophical consistency. You are not aware of the ramifications of accepting philosophical inconsistency; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
3. If you truly don't care about being philosophically inconsistent, then there's no point arguing with you. In fact, I don't know what you're doing on an Internet forum where people exchange different viewpoints if you reject the very principles of logic and philosophy. Accepting inconsistency basically means rejecting the idea that the truth of one claim can depend on the truth of another; every claim should therefore be treated independently from every other. That is absurd. There needs to be a common ground for a conversation to be possible which in that case simply isn't there between us.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Zizzero

[Scholar]

4 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

You changed the premises to "marginalized and non-political groups". What about non-marginalized groups and what about political groups? Are the premises still true if we remove either or both of these attributes?

You would have to be more precise than that. Again, the argument was for marginalized, non-political groups. You would have to provide more context for specific scenarios, I am not going to construct arguments for every single edge-case there is.

6 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

What does it mean for a group to be marginalized? How do we measure that?

We can use many types of measurements like intuition, social consensus, social sciences. I am not in the mood to formulize this, as it is not a problem for most people to intuit which groups we should consider to be marginalized and which not. I can give you a basic definition, like people who are more proportionately discriminated against on the basis of non-political attributes like race, sexual orientation and the like. This is the entire point of creating protected classes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group

10 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

he idea that gender isn't binary is an idea that was put forward by a political ideology - feminism. The whole concept of "being non-binary" is not scientific, but philosophical. Believing that there are more options than being male or female is merely political ideology. Is it incorrect to call people who identify as "non-binary" a political group since they all buy into the same political ideology?

Gender identity is not inherently a political position. I would say what you call Social Justice Warriors might be a political group which I would not consider a protected class.

13 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

What about non-binary people who are political activists. Are we allowed to make fun of politically active non-binary individuals?

Of course you are, simply not on the basis of their gender identity. Like for example it would be fine to discriminate against a Republican veteran on the basis of their political attitude, but it would be considerd "immoral" to do so in the basis of their veteran status. You can make fun of anyone, essentially, as long as it is not motivated by their minority status. There should also be extra consideration for people who are sensitive to that type of discrimination, for obvious reasons.

17 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

You propose that we find a good balance, sensitive to the particular context, between a right to speech and regulation. Where is that balance? How do I know in a particular case whether the speech I'm about to utter is permitted or not? This needs to be clear beforehand; people need to know what they can say and what they can't say.

I am not advocating for regulation unless it an extreme case. You know by learning. Culture changes, it is fluid. I cannot give you Ten commandmends, use your brain. If you are not dysfunctional you should have sufficient empathy to understand when you are stepping over a line and when not. Otherwise, society will nudge you into the right direction.

What you are asking is like giving a small child a list of words and actions it shouldn't take. That is non sensible, that is not rational. You teach them principles from which they can deduce what it permitted to do and what isn't.

20 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

I am not a utilitarian. I reject this moral theory. You cannot simply expect that everyone shares the same moral values as you. Also, since you are one of these people who loves to use SD to argue your point; you are aware that utilitarianism is stage orange? Quiet ironic

lol that arrogance. How much have you read on SD? Utilitarianism stemmed from stage orange, it is not inherently stage orange. That's like staying "cars are stage orange". Utilitarianism is a tool which I would posit is the only sensible tool for coming up with moral solutions. What else are you, a deontologist? I would love to hear you critique of utilitarianism.

And please, before you do, make sure it's more than "If you are utilitarian you think it's fine to kill one person to save 5!".

22 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

We might not gain social benefit from the phenomenon of stigmatization, but we do get social benefits from the speech and jokes that you believe would lead to this stigmatization.

I would disagree. Just because something generates happiness does not meant it is socially valuable. For example, if we stop using words like "retard", the harm to society is basically zero, because we can simply use another word instead from which we will derive as much pleasure. Additionally, I do not think minor pleasure in a greater amount of people justifies greater suffering in a minority of people. That's once more a silly strawman of what Utilitarianism is.

The speech and jokes that lead to the stigmatization can be replaced by other speech and jokes that do not lead to that stigmatization. Other than that I would posit that in certain cases comedy can have certain exceptions as far as these rules go, for reason that go beyond the mere pleasure that we derive from laughing about minority group.

27 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

If someone believes they have a right not to be offended and ask for government intervention for speech they don't like, then these people are not part of the group of people "just minding their own business", but the prior one you described

You can stigmatize the group "Social Justice Warrior", but not on the basis of their sexual orientation and the like inherently, instead it would be purely on the basis of their political position.

I mean just think one second about what you just wrote. If that was my position, you wouldn't be able to stigmatize against republicans because some republicans are homosexual. How can you believe that I hold that position? This is what I mean with uncharitability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

Please read this. You have a brain, most of what we are arguing would be completely unnecessary if you were to use it to try to figure out what I mean instead of using the worst kind of interpretation possible.

[Zizzero]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

I am not advocating for regulation unless it an extreme case. You know by learning. Culture changes, it is fluid. I cannot give you Ten commandmends, use your brain. If you are not dysfunctional you should have sufficient empathy to understand when you are stepping over a line and when not. Otherwise, society will nudge you into the right direction.

To make my position clear: I am pro free-speech and believe that on the level of lawmaking everyone should be allowed to express their views and to make as many jokes about whatever they want. However, that does not mean that I endorse everything anyone ever said. I don't know how much you read of me in the cultural appropriation thread, but I phrased my position as wanting people to be more empathetic, compassionate and socially intelligent. My problem is merely the push for institutional punishment because you believe that someone said something they should not have said.

If your position is that you want people to be more sensitive towards others without asking for a regulation of free speech, then we don't have a disagreement on this issue. I assumed you agree with @electroBeam who does support that the government takes some form of action because of what Piers Morgan said. The way I understand you is that you believe that individuals should behave according to utilitarianism, but don't think the government's role is to enforce everything to be maximized along the lines of utilitarianism. It sounds like you are way closer to my side than @electroBeam 's. If your core point is that people should be more sensitive towards the struggles non-binary individuals go through and think twice about how their utterances affect people with different experiences than them, then we are fully on the same page here.
If that is your position, then I don't think there's a need to go into the more specifics of our banter on what is ok to say and what isn't because it sounds like we both agree that what behavior is asked for in a certain situation depends a lot on context and the social dynamic and that because of that every attempt for rigid rules to base our behavior on is simply blind towards the nuances of human interactions.

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

lol that arrogance. How much have you read on SD? Utilitarianism stemmed from stage orange, it is not inherently stage orange. That's like staying "cars are stage orange". Utilitarianism is a tool which I would posit is the only sensible tool for coming up with moral solutions. What else are you, a deontologist? I would love to hear you critique of utilitarianism.

I am a moral antirealist; I believe that morality does not exist and therefore no normative claim can be true.

When I said stage orange I didn't mean historically. I meant that according to Kohlberg's theory of moral development which Ken Wilber integrated in his work, consequentialism is on the fifth stage of his theory which falls into the realm of orange in Wilber's model. 

Edited October 25, 2019 by Zizzero

[Thetruthseeker]

So I’m taking after all this that ‘yes’ non binary is generally a stage green value? Ha. This got complex! 

[Forestluv]

2 minutes ago, Thetruthseeker said:

So I’m taking after all this that ‘yes’ non binary is generally a stage green value? Ha. This got complex! 

Non-binary is not a green value. The green values are the recognition and inclusion of the relative existence of non-binary beings.  

[Scholar]

2 hours ago, Zizzero said:

I am a moral antirealist; I believe that morality does not exist and therefore no normative claim can be true.

We have to make a distriction between moral normativity and descriptive normativity.

Do you think that the normative statement "If you want to live longer, you should exercise and eat healthy" can be true?

You don't have to denie normativity just because you are a moral anti-realist.

 

To me morality is inherently magical and part of the human consciousness, thus it exist inside the world as consciousness is part of the world. More specifically, morality is the will, or the pull towards a certain object of consciousness. In essence it is irreducable and one fascet of reality. To say morality does not exist would be to say redness does not exist.

"It is immoral to kill", that statement itself contains morality, it is self-evident. By making that statement, morality has been created. Obviously it would have to be made in an genuine fashion in which the morality is actually part of the statement.

Goodness in that manner would be it's very own fascet of reality, or dimension of consciousness. Denying it to me is, as I said, like denying the color red while it is part of your conscious experience. To increase Goodness therefore means to increase that very state of Goodness within consciousness/the universe. Suffering basically is what badness is. Suffering is not bad, rather Suffering literally equals badness. As there is no subjectivity fundamentally, to decrease the experience of Badness in the universe means to decrease Badness itself.

Anything else would be utterly delusional and fails to recognize Goodness and Badness as their own fascets of existence. That delusion, however, is what all contemporary moral philosophy is predicated on. The fundamental error of the moralist, or the anti-moralist like you, is to fall into the trap of Naive Realism. Of claiming that one Fascet of Reality (namely Badness) could possibly be attached to another one (like say, the act of murder). Because the experience of badness accompanies certain other experiences, we therefore confuse these experiences to be inherently part of these certain experiences. We then claim that torture is "wrong" or "bad", because torture creates the experience of badness in that consciousness.

To denie badness or goodness would be to denie pain, suffering, joy and pleasure. When you look at your own experience, you will very clearly find Goodness and Badness. They are very much correlated to the workings of the ego. This is why in the absence of the devil, there is only Perfection left. It is not because reality has been revealed to be perfect, but rather that imperfection has ceased to exist, that Badness cease to be part of the experience of that consciousness.

 

With that framework, it will be obvious what the Good thing to do is, it is in essence, and can only be in essence, whatever will incease Goodness. Much like the Red thing to do is to do whatever will increase Redness. Yet, nothing but Redness is fundamentally Red. No action, no object, no fascet of reality other than Redness itself could ever be red. This is very obvious to us, yet we struggle with it when it comes to other aspects, which our egos exploit for it's own purposes.

The Moral Anti-realist, therefore, is simply unconscious. He is more conscious than the Realist, as he can clearly see that no object is truly Good or truly Bad. Much like someone could realize that no object is truly Red or Blue. Yet, the Anti-realist, following that revelation, cannot help but denie the entire existence of Good and Bad, because of how much it was part of the intellectual, egoic framework it has previously used. It is literally throwing out the Baby with the Bathwater.

Goodness and Badness clearly is there, as their own independet experiences. Otherwise you could, what you deem to be subjectively, never find anything appalling or attractive. Fundamentally suffering and joy could not exist. Goodness and Badness are metaphysically embued in the substance of Life itself, so to speak.

 

This is why Utilitarianism is literally the only true moral framework. Because in it's nature, to incease the experience of Goodness is more Goodness, and to decrease the experience of Badness is less Badness. This fundamentaly, it is undeniable once you can see it. To denie it would be like saying:

"When I suffer less, I don't actually suffer less. When I feel more pleasure, I do not actually feel more pleasure." It is moronic, it is delusional in the most hilarious way.

You could create a Utilitarian system that is basically about Redness. It could be to increase Redness. To increase Redness would by definition be more Redness. In the same sense to increase the Experience (!!!) of Goodness is to increase Goodness. It is so utterly obvious. Yet we have people like the realists and anti-realist who go on and claim "Redness is Good!". They claim that 1=2, that Roundness equals Squareness, that Sound is Feeling. It is delusional in the very essence of the word.

And that delusion is what currently drives all investigation of morality. Ego hijacking the creation of God.

2 hours ago, Zizzero said:

When I said stage orange I didn't mean historically. I meant that according to Kohlberg's theory of moral development which Ken Wilber integrated in his work, consequentialism is on the fifth stage of his theory which falls into the realm of orange in Wilber's model. 

In this context it is important to know that what they mean by consequentialism as it can be understood as a very particular and limited framework. Yet, I would posit that any framework they use, the reason why they are going to be using it in the first place, will always be to increase a certain Utility. Whether it is Order, Well-being, Fundamental-Principles, Consciousness or Love. As soon as you want to decrease and increase something, like suffering or well being, you are necessarily consequentialist.

Why would they be concerned about morality at all if it was not to increase a certain experience? However, both Wilber and Kohlberg fail to see what I have described to you above. They are in essence moral-naive realists. They claim that Goodness can be anything else than Goodness, which is in essence incoherent and delusional.

 

To see reality for what it is, to see each fascet of existence as it's own fascets, or in other words to see pure duality, is what even the most experience meditators fail at. How could WIlber have went through an entire life-time of meditation and self-inquiry without realizing that only Redness is Red? How strong the delusion of Mind is.

[electroBeam]

5 hours ago, Zizzero said:

1. Accepting inconsistency basically means rejecting the idea that the truth of one claim can depend on the truth of another; every claim should therefore be treated independently from every other. That is absurd. 

Rejecting philosophical consistency doesn't mean that, in fact it doesn't mean anything. It mean logic is totally irrelevant. Logic isn't needed to see the suffering imposed by trump and Piers - all that's needed is observation. 

Logic is a way for you to build a wall around life and see this suffering. To see it happen. It gives you a reason to feel good about supporting Trump. And yes you will call this ad hominem again, precisely because it takes the focus off this wall you have created, takes the focus off the observation that trump causes suffering, but non binary people don't.

Saying I don't care about philosophical consistency means I'm not going to play by your language game - what you call 'philosophy and logic'. I'm going to tell you what can clearly be observed if you go out there and try. 

There is no 'truth' in premises. And there is no philosophical consistency in real life if you OBSERVE. It's all made up in your head.

But good luck trying to convince you of that, this fantasy has been used for hundreds of years now as an excuse not to observe, and you've clearly been sucked into it.

Saying ridiculing Trump is different to ridiculing non binary people is a fact that is clearly observable. But it's not logically sound or consistent. But it's still a fact.

[Forestluv]

In 50 years humans will look back at Piers and laugh. He is immersed in such a simple construct. . . 

The simplest construct we can create is a purely dualistic/binary construct. This could be male or female. Masculine or feminine. Heterosexual or Homosexual. Like all dualities there is an infinite number of connections that can be formed between the two poles. For example, there are an infinite number of connections between masculine and feminine. Between heterosexual and homosexual. . . Yet each of these binary constructs have another duality in another dimension: binary vs. non-binary. Yet it's really hard for a mind to see this dimension because the human mind is conditioned to think in opposites. A simple example would be a binary construct of East or West. We can construct a line that connects New York City (East) to San Francisco (West). There is an infinite number of points we can draw on the line between New York and San Francisco. . . Yet we can move off any point on the line North or South. This would be a non-binary relative to the New York to San Francisco line. We could set up another binary construct of North or South and their is an infinite number of points along this North - South line. And there are infinite number of points that have various degrees of East-West and North-South. 

The human mind can easily see these binary and non-binary constructs because we grow up conditioned with this construct. As well, there aspects of relativity (The amount of East-ness relative to West-ness) is not personal. It's not a relative experience. One person doesn't say "I identify as bi-directional.". No, we can see points on an external map and there is no personal attachment or identification to those points. And personal survival does not depend on defending an East-West binary construct and preventing a North-West binary construct. . Yet when we move into gender constructs, it's a whole new ballgame. Now we introduce personal attachments, identities, self-survival etc. As well, we introduce relative internal experience. Relative internal experience is much more difficult for a mind to understand that relative points on an external map. . . I understand that this involves transcendence of personality constructs, yet I couldn't help laughing at Pier's child-like simple mind. He can barely comprehend a spectrum along a single binary construct. This is the equivalent of only being able to see the single line connecting New York to San Franscisco. I wanted to cajole Piers and say "Look Piers!! Non-binary Chicago!! Non-binary Stockholm!! Guatemala City!!". 

Imagine a globe. The equator is "binary" and every point off the equator is "nonbinary". For those that are attached and identified to the equator, this will be oh so uncomfortable and threatening. Yet the true explorers smile as we prepare for a trip. . .  Every location off the equator is "non-binary" how many points are there? You got it, infinite. . . I see binary-ists all shocked "What!? They want dozens of new pronouns. A hundred new pronouns!! This is lunacy!!". . . Lol. That is like saying "Some are saying there are dozens of cities off the equator! A hundred cities off the equator! This is lunacy!!". . . Please. . .dozens of nonbinary pronouns is small potatoes. There are millions, billions of non-binary locations. 

For those with in tune with relative beingness and experience, it gets even better. I just describe an intellectual construct. . . There are also empathic, intuitive, resonative and experiential constructs. It's not limited to intellectual models of binary and non-binary as I described above. You can actually take a non-binary trip yourself - you can BE it. You can directly experience tons of different non-binary locations. Each location with it's own flavor of experience. Just like each city off the equator has it's own flavor. I'm so excited to see all the new non-binary flavors yet to be revealed. We are at a very early stage.  

Humans restricting themself into a binary construct. Yet you don't need to. You can explore through others and through yourself.  Yet humans are creatures of conditioning and habit. And so scared to exit their gopher hole of safety, security and comfort to get out and explore. . . Piers, the frightened gopher. . .  

[Zizzero]

13 hours ago, Scholar said:

In essence it is irreducable and one fascet of reality. To say morality does not exist would be to say redness does not exist.

Very interesting. What you describe sounds like naturalistic moral realism. 
I would say that redness does not exist. I would say that there are things that we call "red", but not that there is such thing as "redness", but that redness is merely a construct of our mind.

I believe that's where we see things differently; I believe that morality and color are nothing other than stories we invent which are a natural byproduct of our mind trying to make sense of what our senses perceive. I don't know how much knowledge you have on different areas in philosophy, but since you do seem to have quite a lot of knowledge, what I'm trying to describe is nominalism in metaphysics and I especially share some of Kant's views that we structure the world through our perception and one of the things I, unlike Kant, would put into that category is morality. 

The simplest, and maybe strongest, argument is the good old Ockham's Razor. I believe it's perfectly possible to explain our human experience without having to accept that morality exists - so, I avoid it. And I also don't have to accept the premise that suffering equals Badness for example. 

Also, to kind of express my dislike with utilitarianism. Even if I were to agree with you that Goodness and Badness are real, then this does not yet explain why I and everyone else are obligated to maximize Goodness. You can call it irrational if I don't, but to why is someone obligated to make the world better?

[Scholar]

2 hours ago, Zizzero said:

Very interesting. What you describe sounds like naturalistic moral realism. 
I would say that redness does not exist. I would say that there are things that we call "red", but not that there is such thing as "redness", but that redness is merely a construct of our mind.

I believe that's where we see things differently; I believe that morality and color are nothing other than stories we invent which are a natural byproduct of our mind trying to make sense of what our senses perceive. I don't know how much knowledge you have on different areas in philosophy, but since you do seem to have quite a lot of knowledge, what I'm trying to describe is nominalism in metaphysics and I especially share some of Kant's views that we structure the world through our perception and one of the things I, unlike Kant, would put into that category is morality. 

The simplest, and maybe strongest, argument is the good old Ockham's Razor. I believe it's perfectly possible to explain our human experience without having to accept that morality exists - so, I avoid it. And I also don't have to accept the premise that suffering equals Badness for example. 

Also, to kind of express my dislike with utilitarianism. Even if I were to agree with you that Goodness and Badness are real, then this does not yet explain why I and everyone else are obligated to maximize Goodness. You can call it irrational if I don't, but to why is someone obligated to make the world better?

You think redness is a story? You believe the Color of Red is a thought?

 

You are completely trapped in materialism, you have a lot more, very basic, meditation to do. Redness is not a story, it takes delusion of the greatest degree to think that it is. I am not saying that to offend you or put down your opinion.

 

Obligation and "ought" is conditional and depends on a hypothetical imperative. It makes no sense to frame it outside of that, you are still viewing morality from the most basic and delusional framework. Even here you are trying to put what I am describing to you into some sort of intellectual framework like naturalistic moral realsim. It has nothing to do with that, it only on the surface resembles it.

Increasing Goodness means increasing Goodness. End of story, there is no obligation for anything. If you were to further reflect upon it, the only obligation there is are the laws which govern our existence. By essence nothing that we can choose to do can ever be a true obligation. That framework falls apart if it is closer inspected. But once more, you are using utilitarianism as some sort of objectivist moral system.

Utilitarianism can be used by a single person, to determined what their own actions should look like if they are to increase Goodness. To me it seems like you think Utilitarianism means that there is some sort of objectivity to obligations, when they can be hypothetical imperative of each individual.

 

 

The problem is that you have not even create a simple distinction between "thought" and other experiences or dimensions of reality. This implies you have no foundational meditation or self-inquiry practice at all, which I would implement because right now you are basically completely unconscious of what I am referring to.

The problem with Philosophy is that it was and is being constructed from an unconscious vantage point. The solution is not to do more philosophy and think about about these issues, the solution is for you to sit down and observe Isness without all the stories you are telling yourself.

You are operating under a very particular framework which was evidently shaped by what you have self-indoctrinated yourself by reading about philosophy and the like. While not all of that is wrong per say, it's very foundation is corrupted. What I am describing to you here I don't think you will find in contemporary philosophy because it has to do with consciousness work, not intellectual work. Yet you think what I am describing to you is theory, what it I think redness to be redness, and Goodness to be Goodness.

However, that is not the case. Redness being Redness is evidently the case, by the mere presence of Redness. It is undeniable, and once you are going to be aware of that, it will be as evident to you as your own existence.

How do you know anything exist? How do you know right now there is happening whatever you think or experience to be happening? It is not "I think therefore I am". It is "Am, therefore Am.".

 

 

If you deny red, you are literally denying existence. It is delusional, and the reason I call it delusional is because it is not about you being stupid or lacking knowledge, it is because the problems lies outside of your intellectual framework.

The problem lies fundamentally in the essence of your being, or what you would call in the way you perceive reality. You cannot convince someone who is delusional with arguments, because their delusion is reality to them. What they have to do is see through the delusion, once they do, there is going to be no doubt about the fact that it was a delusion. It will require no argument, just an observation.

In philosophy, all are delusional and nobody is bothering to observe or investigate that delusion. They just play with it, because after all everyone agrees with it. They construct castles after castles, with the foundation being that delusion. At this point, anyone who is new to philosophy will obviously learn about that castle, how it works, how to build new castles. Nobody is ever going to bother to look at the foundation, and thus the delusion continues. The most hilarious thing to observe is that, when they do look at the foundation, they look at it from the castles they have build upon it. After all, what else are they going to inspect the foundation with? And because the foundation is what determines the castle, of course the castles will confirm the delusion of the foundation.

The whole moralistic debates are unnecessary. It's like people are trying to build these castles on a foundation which is simply distorted. Thus they build one castle, but yet it seems like that castle is incomplete. They build another one and still it seems incomplete. Because the foundation is corrupted, they cannot create a coherent castle, it is not possible, it will at some point simply fall apart. Thus, what they do might be to stop constructing the castle altogether. Deny everything that goes contary to the delusional foundation they walk upon. Deny all aspects of existence other than thought.

Edited October 26, 2019 by Scholar

[Zizzero]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

You think redness is a story? You believe the Color of Red is a thought?

 

You are completely trapped in materialism, you have a lot more, very basic, meditation to do. Redness is not a story, it takes delusion of the greatest degree to think that it is. I am not saying that to offend you or put down your opinion.

I don't think you understand what I mean. As said, if you are interested then nominalism is the name of the position to look at and the critique of pure reason by Immanuel Kant.

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

Obligation and "ought" is conditional and depends on a hypothetical imperative. It makes no sense to frame it outside of that, you are still viewing morality from the most basic and delusional framework. Even here you are trying to put what I am describing to you into some sort of intellectual framework like naturalistic moral realsim. It has nothing to do with that, it only on the surface resembles it.

Increasing Goodness means increasing Goodness. End of story, there is no obligation for anything. If you were to further reflect upon it, the only obligation there is are the laws which govern our existence. By essence nothing that we can choose to do can ever be a true obligation. That framework falls apart if it is closer inspected. But once more, you are using utilitarianism as some sort of objectivist moral system.

Utilitarianism can be used by a single person, to determined what their own actions should look like if they are to increase Goodness. To me it seems like you think Utilitarianism means that there is some sort of objectivity to obligations, when they can be hypothetical imperative of each individual.

You are not describing utilitarianism in that case. In fact, it's not even consequentialism.
You are just saying that more Goodness means more Goodness and less suffering means less Badness. The only interesting claim there is a metaphysical one; you say that there is such thing as Goodness which is an idea I, as stated above, reject.

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

Redness being Redness is evidently the case, by the mere presence of Redness.

Circular reasoning. But given your rant against philosophy - which, believe it or not, I actually sympathize with some of the points you raised - I assume you don't perceive that as problematic. That is ok, it just gives the person you talk to nothing to work with as it is a fallacy.

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Zizzero said:

I don't think you understand what I mean. As said, if you are interested then nominalism is the name of the position to look at and the critique of pure reason by Immanuel Kant.

You are not describing utilitarianism in that case. In fact, it's not even consequentialism.
You are just saying that more Goodness means more Goodness and less suffering means less Badness. The only interesting claim there is a metaphysical one; you say that there is such thing as Goodness which is an idea I, as stated above, reject.

Circular reasoning. But given your rant against philosophy - which, believe it or not, I actually sympathize with some of the points you raised - I assume you don't perceive that as problematic. That is ok, it just gives the person you talk to nothing to work with as it is a fallacy.

You understood precisely nothing of what I wrote... but I think that is something we will not get passed in this conversation.

 

I can once more only stress for you to get a proper meditation and self-inquiry habit. You are lost in thoughts.

It will not help you, but it might someone else who is reading this:

Zizzero is basically stage orange, and what is happening here is fundamentally an attachment to reason and rationality, and in a more fundamental way to abstract thought. He believes he can come to deduce the truth by thinking it through, he does not see that his way of thinking, reason itself, is being limited by Perspective, by the way his mind perceives rather than what kind of knowledge it holds and how accurately it represents logical structures.

This is the rationalists trap. He is completely limited to abstract thought, thus anything pointing outside of it cannot be helped but put into the frame of thought. It is in a very real sense impossible for him to grasp my points as much as it is for an ant to grasp what abstract thought is. His perception if limited in a way that cannot be bridged by his current value system.

This is a trap orange has a tendency to fall into, it will deem any critique of that trap as irrational, as unworthy to engage in. It will interpret every statement with it's own limited lense, which distorts what is communicated and thus makes it easy for the rationalist to deconstruct. The rationalist cannot point to anything but thought-formulas and figures of authority.

 

The rationalist cannot see reality, he can only see thought. The ant cannot even begin to understand the limitations of it's behaviour, yet the human can. In the same way, anyone who went past the rationlist perceptions will have the no trouble in identifying precisely where the limitations of the rationalists are. Pointing out these limitations to the rationalist, much like pointing it out to an ant, cannot really work, because the perceiving of the limitations requires the extention of perspective which is the very thing that is not present in the rationalists perspective.

Edited October 26, 2019 by Scholar

[Zizzero]

5 hours ago, Scholar said:

You understood precisely nothing of what I wrote... but I think that is something we will not get passed in this conversation.

 

I can once more only stress for you to get a proper meditation and self-inquiry habit. You are lost in thoughts.

It will not help you, but it might someone else who is reading this:

Zizzero is basically stage orange, and what is happening here is fundamentally an attachment to reason and rationality, and in a more fundamental way to abstract thought. He believes he can come to deduce the truth by thinking it through, he does not see that his way of thinking, reason itself, is being limited by Perspective, by the way his mind perceives rather than what kind of knowledge it holds and how accurately it represents logical structures.

This is the rationalists trap. He is completely limited to abstract thought, thus anything pointing outside of it cannot be helped but put into the frame of thought. It is in a very real sense impossible for him to grasp my points as much as it is for an ant to grasp what abstract thought is. His perception if limited in a way that cannot be bridged by his current value system.

This is a trap orange has a tendency to fall into, it will deem any critique of that trap as irrational, as unworthy to engage in. It will interpret every statement with it's own limited lense, which distorts what is communicated and thus makes it easy for the rationalist to deconstruct. The rationalist cannot point to anything but thought-formulas and figures of authority.

 

The rationalist cannot see reality, he can only see thought. The ant cannot even begin to understand the limitations of it's behaviour, yet the human can. In the same way, anyone who went past the rationlist perceptions will have the no trouble in identifying precisely where the limitations of the rationalists are. Pointing out these limitations to the rationalist, much like pointing it out to an ant, cannot really work, because the perceiving of the limitations requires the extention of perspective which is the very thing that is not present in the rationalists perspective.

Holy moly!

You know, your post, I think, is really a signal. And it's a signal that it's about time that I'll draw an end to my time as a member of this community. I mean when you compare my first posts on here with what I wrote the last few days, you can clearly see a decline in patience. Now, that's healthy to a substantial degree because I'm not as tolerant towards taking shit from others as I used to, but it's also a part of me resisting what this forum is.

Calling me stage orange is kind of a weird thing to say. And it's said by someone who has no idea about the amount and type of personal development work I've done the last few years. I mean I would actually go so far as to say that orange is probably the tier 1 stage that I have integrated the least. My deficits in personal development lie in me not focusing enough on orange values, but over focusing on typically green and yellow ways to self-actualize. To quote Tyrion Lannister: "I wish I was the monster you think I am". Especially attributing philosophical thinking as stage orange is kind of weird. Have you ever been to a philosophy course on college level? These are the least orange people you'll ever meet .

What came clear to me on my time on this forum is that SD is this thing where everyone thinks they are an expert on, but we cannot agree on anything. You can literally go through the stage yellow examples thread and see a bunch of examples that are really kind of anything - but definitely not yellow. The funniest thing was when I read the claim that Ken Wilber was partly still stuck in orange. I mean...sure, Ken Wilber, the guy who's probably the biggest expert on this topic - ever -, is stuck partly in stage orange. 
Generally we all seem to be too confident in our assessments of spiral stages and way too narrow-minded in our judgements. Listening to a guy talk for 15' is simply not enough to assess their stage on SD. Too often are people just looking at superficial stuff like fashion, diet, party affiliation, or whether they are using words like "oneness, system, logic, equality" thinking this is a determinant criteria for where someone is. It's like you give people this fun tool and now they want to use it as much as they can. Just to add my two cents; focus on the very basics of this model and really, really try to understand what a stage is and why there isn't just one stage which never changes. And be more conservative in your assessment of people's stage. You do not want to end up in a situation where you have a too specific idea of what a stage is. It's better to have an image that's too broad than an image that's too narrow.

But what's really bothering me about your post is the extreme level of disrespect you show towards me. I mean, we all know gossip and people saying negative things about others behind their back which really isn't a classy thing to do. But you know this situation when there's this kid in school that's so unpopular that the popular ones don't even bother going somewhere where he doesn't hear them before talking bad about him? Now, that's some intense level of disrespect!
(Someone might jumps in now saying that calling someone stage orange is not saying something negative about them and that I don't understand SD if I think that one stage is better than the other. To which I respond that this total bullshit within the context of this forum. Within this forum SD very well is used as a measurement for how true something is and how good of a person someone is. Ideally we would treat SD assessments as neutral information like telling someone that their eyes are brown. That's not a positive or negative to hear. But if I tell someone that they're turquoise or coral, then that is going to be seen as a compliment and on the flip side; carrying around the label of orange is undoubtedly seen as a negative. Just look at the amount of bashing and ridicule things that are being perceived as orange receive like materialism, libertarianism, pickup, MGTOW etc.. It's kind of this arrogant "the unconscious masses are orange and we, the mystics, are so much better"-mentality, but I'll get to that in a second. On this forum your perceived "level of consciousness" is the currency through which other users determine how valid your perspective is.)

Some food for thought: Whatever stage someone's on, there is always a stage that comes after that one (and even if wrong, then nobody has even come close to reaching that final stage). You therefore know that if you regularly move up the spiral, you will change your mind constantly and you will change the lens through which you look at the world constantly. Every stage thinks they have the answers, but also every stage must consider that the stages afterwards might have different answers. But here's the catch: every stage can only speculate what the coming stages would be like, but every stage also wants to believe that they are right. People therefore characterize the stage above them as merely a modified version of their current stage which is beautifully shown in the yellow examples thread. And people characterize the actual stage that's actually above them as being the stage that's below them. With these thoughts in mind, the question arises; how do we ever really know whether something is a stage above or below us?

This brings me to the reason I think this forum has served its purpose for me: The atmosphere in here is fucking toxic. This is all relative, of course, but comparing this forum to other virtual personal development groups, you notice that something's off in here. Let me start with what I like about this place: The people take this stuff very serious. Human beings tend to attract others who are like them and likewise what I like about Leo is what I like about his community. Leo's brilliance lies in soaking up a shit ton of knowledge and going way more in depth than most people on very nuanced and complicated topics. The people on here aren't about half assing self-actualization; they read a lot of books, dive fully into the topic and are serious about what they do. Now the negative: The level of social and emotional intelligence of people on this forum is lower than average. That appears to be very obvious to me, but I obliviously haven't done a study on this to prove this claim. But if my memory serves me right, then TJ Reeves used to have a video on YT where he talked about exactly that; the people who come from actualized.org have a massive deficit when it comes to everything related to their emotions. I read too many posts of people saying that they suffer from shit like depression for what this forum pegs itself to be.
Tying this back to the post I'm responding to; @Scholar what you did there was a dick move. It was not socially calibrated, it wasn't compassionate, it was nothing of the things I once believed this forum would preach. This place is full of people who constantly talk about society needing more stage green and love, and compassion, and empathy, but then they also rather contemplate about what Love is on a metaphysical level and smoke DMT so they can say that now they have had direct experience of love instead of just just being a more loving being; someone who actively puts in an effort that everyone they interact feels loved after they talked to them. Where is the unconditional Love? I don't see it on this forum. Particularly someone as edgy as me who does disagree with the consensus on more than one topic. All I see is people with a very high opinion of themselves, dwelling in this echo chamber, who advocate that you should ridicule and shame people with different political views. Then they pat each other on the shoulder: "no, you are the conscious one!". This platform is full of shame-energy; if you're not this and if you're a devil and this is ego and you should be this..." Am I the only one who feels this? There is absolutely no "humanness" in the way people interact on here. Like what you did in your post; treating people as case studies. It's a "do your practices!"-mentality "and let's shame the people who aren't as good as us because they waste their lives not self-actualizing". Zero warmth. I mean, pickup gets a lot of criticism on here, but when I have a disagreement with someone from my local inner circle, then there's always this vibe of "despite our differences, we're in this together, brother" to it. It's uplifting, it's refreshing, it's vivid. People don't judge each other there and even normal, boring stage orange or blue people, if you guys were to come down from your ivory tower and actually interact with them, instead of just making a case study thread of example of these people's devilry and closemindedness, are actually loving beings who make way less statements of judgement than the average user on here.  I so often feel drained and exhausted when clicking through this forum, and I'm talking just reading threads, not even when I post stuff myself. A self-improvement forum should not have this effect on people; it should be the most uplifting and positive place one can imagine. Oh, and don't even get me started on the concept of "devilry" and the arrogance someone needs to have to use this word unironically. 

You want to make the world a better place? The solution is not meditation, or getting people to do DMT, or big government or taking away people's freedom of speech. Just go out, talk to people and just share positive emotions. That's all you need to do

As final remarks, before I sign off, two things anyone who spends some time on this forum needs to hear more often: 

• sapere aude
• You don't need to be anything. You'll find all the answers if you listen closely to what your heart is telling you

cheers

Edited October 26, 2019 by Zizzero

[Scholar]

@Zizzero

lol, when I read your post it reminds me of how I used to respond to Sero. I had a very similar attitude. Guess perspective changes and now I am the Bad Guy.

Good luck on your journey! I think I should have not framed it so bluntly.

 

Actually I have noticed this happening lately more and more. I am so detached from criticism in general that I have a tendency to really speak my mind without too much awareness or care about the real impact it will have on the receivers ends. It's like it's more important to me to share my authentic perspective, even if it seems arrogant and belittleling, than it is to necessarily create a change in the person I am interacting with.

The problem is that because I am not attached to criticism that comes my way, I assume that it is not problem to criticize and be completely honest about others. To them that seems like arrogance, while to me it is more of an honest expression of my perspective. There is no point for me to alter my perspective so as to suit the egoic needs of the other I am talking to, there is no true desire for that.

Previously there was, in fact I know I would have felt bad for Zizzero leaving. Now, I am accepting it. I don't care at all, despite knowing that it might harm him on his journey towards self-actualization.

 

It is like there is this ruthless selective process. My authentic expression means more to me than the effect it will have on the receiving party. Yet, part of my authentic expression is to create a positive effect on the overall progress of society, so in a way I am fully accepting of a sacrifice like Zizzero, who might forever be lost in thoughts due to my harshness.

 

I'll have to be with that for some time. I have been lately having thoughts like "True Love knows no mercy", which seems to resonate with me more and more. There is a certain harshness to full acceptance, and I am observing that harshness in myself. I can clearly see when there are egoic mechanisms at play, but in a way I am accepting of them. I don't look at them as "bad" anymore, whereas previously I would have surpressed them to come off as more evolved or anything of the sort.

 

"I am so conscious, I would never kill someone else even if they killed my daughter. I couldn't because I love them too much!", that to me resonates less and less. It seems so limited and inauthentic. True Love is to accept your will for revenge when it is there, to accept that in that moment, you are going to take revenge for the killing of your daughter, if it is you authentic desire. Surpressing that desire out of lofty ideas for Love is not true Love. True Love can be to not have the desire for revenge, but it can equally be to have and follow the desire for revenge, as true love must include that very desire.

 

What comes to mind is the quote of Lao Tzu "the greatest love seems indifferent". Maybe what Zizzero speaks of, in his limited ideal of Love, is this very indifference. The coldness, harshness and mercilessness of Consciousness. I am not sure what the right path is forward.

Edited October 27, 2019 by Scholar

[Scholar]

3 hours ago, Keyhole said:

@Scholar I'll bet he read your speech there and realized he made a good choice.  

I would not be surprised.