Notices by h4890 (h4890@liberdon.com)

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

Exactly! There is another glitch. Equality of opportunity is impossible, since we are all unequal. That means, as amerika says, that once men start overperforming in stem, dueto biological differences, it will be seen as a badly function equality of opportunity.

Another problem is semantic. The "equality" tends to shift and swallow more and more. Equality of opportunity is so cumbersome to say, that after a while

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

It is essential for private property rights, to abolish equal opportunity. The ones who want to hire an all black, or all white teams, thus rejecting qualified applicants, will be punished by the market in the long run anyway.

So ultimately, e.opp. is self-correcting, and there is no need to artificially enforce it.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper everyone just speaks of equality, and that is when it starts to swallow all.

The term "equality" should really be outlawed.

A final argument against equality of opportunity is that it makes slaves out of service providers. It is a positive right, which makes people able to _demand_ of others that they should get access.

That means that you are no longer in control of your business, school, or institution.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

Agreed! As per my nominalist streak, I believe there are no "rights". All we have is actual behaviours in the physical world, and if they hinder us or help us. Do they bring us pain or pleasure. That's about it.

See how simple life can be if you just avoid making it complicated on purpose! ;)

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

Here it gets tricky. One could argue that survival brings pleasure. If survival meant eternal pain, I think few would be willing to survive. Pleasure and pain are also multidimensional. In order to survive, some activities are engaged it which produce pleasure.

As for the old human favourite, I think science has proven that pain and pleasure are distinct and not defined in terms of each other.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

Could you please expand? What do you mean with saying that function is independent of pleasure and pain?

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

I'd say survival does bring pleasure. I think there's a concept called survivors euphoria. I think, maybe we feel a much, much milder version of that, when we relax after a good day at work?

As for power... it is confusing. Because there is power over others, and power over myself (potential).

Sick people often dream of power over others, sane people dream of power over themselves and their lives.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

I agree, and that is why I think power is such a bad translation.

I prefer to think of it as potential. Instead of saying that power is the fundamental, I think potential a striving after increased potential sounds better and less prone to misinterpretation.

Let me have a look at the german and see how I would translate it...

Ok, macht... that is very close to the makt in swedish... now looking in the _old_

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

Maybe. What I do not like about Nietzsches thinking there is that:

1. Power is istrumental, pleasure is the result. You seek power to _do_ something, that is why it cannot be the ultimate foundation.

2. It is not so well defined. It can be twisted to mean or indicate various things.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

Yes! But note how often when you talk Nietzsche, most people only think of "power over others", the next thought they have, is that he was a nazi, and then they drop him.

I think Nietzsche is _still_ very much misunderstood by a lot of people.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper dictionary of swedish, I find...

förmåga; (ngns) möjligheter (att göra l. åstadkomma l. prestera ngt);

translated into...

ability; (someones) possibility (to do, to achieve, perform).

I think this is a _much_ better way to read power, than thinking of someones power over others, when reading Nietzsche.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

You can go the other way as well. Nietzsche both complains and praises the jew in his texts, and nothing in his texts resembles national socialism. If anything at all, I find that he makes strong arguments against it.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 @toiletpaper

I'm not so sure. A society where the individual is king, and free to live his life to the utmost. I think Nietzsche would have endorsed that. But all of democracy is definitely out of the question.

Monarcy/aristocracy I think also would be compatible with Nietzsche due to his strong focus on individual flourishing.

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84

Hmm, interesting. At the risk of trying some subjective introspection... Absense of pain, to me, is a fairly neutral state. But to me, this neutral state is vary uncommon, since at any point in time, I have many things going on, or I might think about the nature of the world, myself, our conversations, etc. which does give me certain amounts of pleasure.

There is also the distinction of attention. Does my attention reside

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84

What do you mean with

"Ironically this is an opposite to individualism, which externalizes the self..."?

Could you elaborate a bit?

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 _in_ myself? Then it is easier to tell my emotional state. Or does it reside _outside_ of myself, such as in meetings, presentations, doing business etc. Then it is not always easy to tell what you feel.

Naturally my mental "eye" shifts between the external and internal, back and forth, so you get a bit of both. I believe protracted external focus, over time, is not good for the mental health.

Finally...

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84

Ahh, I see. I think this rests on a misunderstanding of individualism. There is nothing stopping an individual from caring about others, loving others, working with people one does not like in order to realize a greater long term gain etc.

The self at all cost, to the exclusion of everything else, with an intense short term focus, this I call egoism, which is

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84

Ahh... this I remember is another one of our disagreements. On the one hand, it is just a matter of definition, and for me, I stick with the classical philosophical definition.

On the other, I think I never was able to wrap my head around what aesthetics (leaving my definition aside for a moment, for the purpose of understanding another point of view) was, and how it was related

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84

Hmm, maybe we should back up here. I was talking individualism as an ethical theory. I suspect here, maybe we are talking past each other?

@amerika @korsier @Cosmic @cjd @FourOh-LLC @verita84 Yes, many definitions exist. I imagine that if you check leftist publications it's similar to "monster" while checking more conservative or libertarian (if any) it drifts closer to "saint". ;)