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   Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 07:59:15 JST Quinn Norton

   If you're still a centrist right now, you're just a nihilist who is too lazy to live up to your principles.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 21:37:10 JST Escarpment

     in reply to

     @quinn I don't like the term nihilist (seems like a pejorative term). I am a moral skeptic who replaces morality and principles with preferences and power as the drivers of human behavior. Humans act to align world to preference. Power is the measure of an individuals ability to align world to preference. Morality and principles are window dressing or post hoc rationalizations for this reality.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 21:37:10 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment ok, but most people aren't in fact sociopaths.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:28:48 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment ah, you also don't know what sociopathy is.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:28:49 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn This is common, albeit ignorant, response to the premise of moral skepticism. Moral skeptics are not sociopaths. Moral skepticism does not lead to the conclusion you ought to engage in anti-social behavior. The first impulse most people take refuge in when faced with this difficult philosophical idea is to conclude that "neither good nor bad" means "bad is good." That does not follow. I am not saying murder is good and charity is bad.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:32:19 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment A) that's not what grammatical gender is, though native english speakers do tend to think that. B) that's not what empiricism is for, even Popper would be like, "wtf madude"

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:32:20 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn I am saying there is no scientific experiment you can conduct to "prove" objectively that murder is bad or charity is good, because moral goodness and badness is not a physical feature of the world. Similarly, you can't conduct an experiment to prove that a bridge is masculine or a boat is feminine, even though many human beings speak languages that engage in the mass delusion that all nouns have a gender.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:33:20 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment That's quite the word salad, you should see if you can get your money back because they really fucked up.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:33:21 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn Yes, I'm aware with what that is having studied psychology at the collegiate and graduate level. However, even psychology can't escape the philosophical limitation of the fact that physical or clinical reality is not imbued with morality.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:35:23 JST Quinn Norton

     in reply to

     • Escarpment

     @escarpment have you ever visited the real world? It's an interesting place. You seem to learned some physics and thought hey there's no social system in this, maybe that means nothing is physically stopping me from being an asshole.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:35:24 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn You can certainly define sociopathy in a clinical physical sense as a type of brain structure or chemistry that lies on a very low percentile of empathy. That is a physical fact. But it is counterproductive and ignorant to label sociopaths as "evil." Why stigmatize and invoke supernatural concepts of "evil" to describe a group of people? Why not instead, given their brain chemistry and structure, work to prevent sociopaths from harming others or themselves?

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:36:25 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn I use grammatical gender as an analogy. There are plenty of legitimate philosophers who are moral skeptics. JL Mackie primary among them. This is not a fringe position. It just seems fringe to people ignorant about philosophy.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:36:25 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment i don't care about fringe positions. it's a stupid position, and maybe you in particular should read fewer books and get a service job.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:36:50 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment it would do you so much good to just wait tables for a while.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:37:54 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment you are making so many adorable assumptions about me. but serious, find a restaurant hiring in your area. go get a construction job. do something with your hands.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:37:55 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn You are reacting to something you don't understand and find scary with condescension and aggression. It's a natural response, but a more enlightened response would be curiosity and openness to learn this perspective and see the merits of this philosophical perspective.

     To me, moral skepticism *solves* many philosophical problems that moral realism cannot.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:40:19 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn Yeah, thinking the world was round was a stupid position, as was germ theory. Difficult ideas are always met with suspicion and anger by people too ignorant to approach new ideas with gentleness and curiosity.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:40:19 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment you really like to change the goal posts, even when you're not in a corner. you're really invested emotionally in not being invested emotionally, while talking yourself into ubermench bullshit

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:43:10 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment when i say no one ever invites you to a party twice, (at least a good one) what i mean is that you have chosen one realm of experience, decided it's the most important because you like it and feel confident in it, and pretend you're not a squishy human talking yourself up so you feel good like all the other squishy humans.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:43:11 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn Working with one's hands (which you also assume I don't or have never done) is orthogonal to these questions. Working with one's hands provides no additional perspective on the merits or not of a philosophical argument. Working with one's hands does not magically grant the worker a solution to a philosophical problem.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:44:21 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn No idea what you mean about ubermensch. I didn't mention Nietzsche nor believe in that philosophy. One day I'm sure moral skepticism will be as mainstream among liberals as atheism. Moral skepticism aligns with the liberal belief that criminals or drug addicts or women seeking abortions ought not to be stigmatized. So liberals are selective moral skeptics, but still revert to moralizing on certain topics.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:44:21 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment whatever you mean by moral skepticism, i'm pretty sure the main attractive feature is that you're the bestest in that narrative.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:46:04 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment maybe try therapy? for real. trying to emotionally solve philosophical problems to feel better is the road to perdition.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:46:05 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn No, the main attraction is the solution to philosophical problems that have caused me years of anxiety and stress trying to understand.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:46:52 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Escarpment

     @escarpment ok i think i'm done, i have a lot to do today, and i'm already quite behind.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:47:33 JST Quinn Norton

     in reply to

     • Escarpment

     @escarpment get a better therapist.

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     Escarpment (escarpment@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:47:34 JST Escarpment

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     @quinn I have done therapy for over a decade.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jan-2025 22:48:13 JST Quinn Norton

     in reply to

     • Escarpment

     @escarpment i recommend finding an older black lady who has seen damn near everything.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 17:49:12 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦

     @hakona LOL I might be that kind of centrist? I think small firms are a vital part of preventing strong central governments from going Stalinist and they serve local needs better than centralized governments. Otoh I think the existence of rich people is a ridiculous and shameful thing. Also property is silly but we absolutely need it as an organizing feature, it should stop being sacred and come with a truly annoying amount of regulations.

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     Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦 (hakona@im.alstadheim.no)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 17:49:13 JST Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦

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     @quinn If you're talking about midway between MAGA and Kamala Harris, I'd agree. If you're talking midway between "property is theft" and MAGA/Mussolini/Hitler, I'd have to think about it, but "property is theft" is not on the table, so this kind of "centrist" can only be studied in museums.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 18:26:57 JST Quinn Norton

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     • Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦

     @hakona i'll carry the flame in the darkness as long as i can 😂

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     Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦 (hakona@im.alstadheim.no)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 18:26:58 JST Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦

     in reply to

     @quinn
     Sorry, the word centrist has been hijacked by the people who think Musk just did a weird dance-move the other day. Pity, but thats how it goes.