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Bill3000
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of Soloralism
Jul 1999
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Bill:
I think that you are wrong.
DM/dt is negative, and will continue to be negative. We are getting worse and not better.
While you are true that individually, this may be true or false, I think as a whole, we are getting far worse. |
Moral relativity is integral to this (hee, another calculus joke). On one hand we are coming more reckless, less religious, less moral in the old sense. On the same hand we have developed our own system of morals and made other things moral. The concept of homosexuality for instance; other examples include the treatment of people with disabilities and the rights of the individual as compared to loyalty. The fact of the matter is that while we have been losing morals, on the same hand we have gained morals as well. We are not any better then we were 600 years ago in the middle ages, but on the same hand we arn't any worse.
Just because you have a christian morality doesn't mean that we are getting worse; it is just that we have been changing. Religion is not absolute because it has biases in all of it, due to the concept of human nature. We have not been evolving biologically sense we have become Homo sapiens. On the same hand we arn't de-evolving (That's impossible - evolution is by definition the adaptation to survival. To de-evolve would imply that you have lesser skills that are less suitable to your environment; natural selection only allows things that are advantageous to evolve and thrive.), so we have the same human nature.
A liberal secularist, for instance, would say that we are making the world a better place, but the only obstacles is the conservative resistance to change. That's their opinion and it isn't any worse than yours (Neither does the amount of people that hold an opinion make it better) because they have been raised that way.
However, one should note that moral relativity doesn't mean that everything goes. IMO you should act the way you ARE, through both nature and nurture. This doesn't mean that society's change of morality is wrong; it just means that one should not corrupt oneself with hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is, IMO, probably the worst thing in the entire world, because you are denying your own ideal system. Thus, strive to be yourself, but realize that you arn't superior. Balance is what is needed.
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Bill3000
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of Soloralism
Jul 1999
time: 00:30
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The only way that we would truely solve the entire ethics/moral question is when we inevitably strip ourselves of our humanity in order to continuing express ourselves (e.g., to gain more knowledge, "evolve" {Though it wouldn't be evolution since we would do it involentarily}, et cetera)
But by that time what we see as human nature, in particular the narrow-mindedness of humanitiy would be gone. (Note that this doesdn't mean that the better sights of human nature, such as emotion, sentience, or compassion and such won't be gone; only the logical fallicies of humanity). So, understanding human nature would be by then a look into the past and thus pointless. 
So, if one would accept moral relativity, you don't have to look forward to the moment when we strip ourselves of our humanity in order to realize the faults of it. By temporarily attempting to go without bias, you can see how morals are all relative.
Then again, you could also say that currently moral relativity is infalsifiable; but so is religion, the apparent basis for morality by most people who truely believe in moral absolutism.
(Speaking of which, anyone read the sci-fi book, Diaspora? That entire book pretty much summed up to me what it would be like in SMAC after the Ascent to Transcendence. )
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:30
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quote:
We are not any better then we were 600 years ago in the middle ages, but on the same hand we arn't any worse. |
I think that's a demonstrable falsehood in so many ways it's not even funny (I came close to calling you full of ****, but thought that was too inflammatory  ). Not only have we piled on ethos (anti-child labor) upon ethos (anti-slavery) upon ethos (pro-environment) upon ethos (cleanliness), but the day-to-day ebb and flow of life is much more mannered, pleasant, and non-threatening in a way a man of the 14th century, in any location on the planet, could but hope dream of.
However, contrary to your argument, many of his rules of life are still our rules of life. Honor, charity, respect for the deceased, marriage and family-hood, and even respect for authority (even if we're more liberal in allowing the individual his choice of authority). So I can't at all see how your "equation" actually works.
quote:
The only way that we would truely solve the entire ethics/moral question is when we inevitably strip ourselves of our humanity in order to continuing express ourselves (e.g., to gain more knowledge, "evolve" {Though it wouldn't be evolution since we would do it involentarily}, et cetera) |
The Godel Incompleteness Theorem of Ethics, huh?  It's too big for us to solve.
... so why are you trying?
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Bill3000
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of Soloralism
Jul 1999
time: 00:30
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quote:
I think that's a demonstrable falsehood in so many ways it's not even funny (I came close to calling you full of ****, but thought that was too inflammatory ). Not only have we piled on ethos (anti-child labor) upon ethos (anti-slavery) upon ethos (pro-environment) upon ethos (cleanliness), but the day-to-day ebb and flow of life is much more mannered, pleasant, and non-threatening in a way a man of the 14th century, in any location on the planet, could but hope dream of. |
On the other hand, some examples of ethos/morals that had been taken away (e.g., they are not considered moral today)
- paedophilia
- incest
- homosexuality (though this is fading, but still exists)
- drug usage
- superiority of race, eugenics
- polygamy
I'm not saying that they are moral; just that things that would have been acceptable in the past, isn't today.
quote:
The Godel Incompleteness Theorem of Ethics, huh? It's too big for us to solve.
... so why are you trying? |
Good point. Because we have been following a pattern that each former truth that we used to have turned out to not be absolute, to not be in the center of the universe. Thus, it only makes sense to extrapolate this. Plus, it helps my own sanity.
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Bill3000
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of Soloralism
Jul 1999
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
Except for a very short period in ancient Greece, I'm not aware of any time where pedophilia was considered moral. It was tolerated until very recently, sure, but I don't know of ethos that actually encourage to such behaviour. |
One that's alive today, actually.
http://www.gettingit.com/article/56
quote:
An essay by anthropologist Gilbert Herdt, editor of Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia and the author of Sambia Sexual Culture, shows how radically different cultural perceptions of a proper masculine upbringing can be.
Bizarre homosexual rites are practiced extensively by numerous Melanesian tribesmen in New Guinea and adjacent islands. Young boys must "accumulate" semen for several years, either by regularly receiving anal penetration, or by swallowing the ejaculations of older males they fellate. This ancient custom springs from a religious belief system that regards sperm as the essential conduit of masculine energy; puny boys, they believe, are only transformed into virile warriors if they ingest large quantities of sperm.
"If you boys don't drink semen, you won't grow big," a Sambian elder tells prepubescent initiates. "You should not be afraid of eating penises ... it is just like the milk of your mother's breast. You can ingest it all of the time and grow quickly. A boy must be ... inseminated... If [he] doesn't eat semen, he remains small and weak."
Ten to twenty percent of all tribes in Melanesia -- an Oceania region stretching 3,000 miles from Irian Jaya to Fiji -- have mandatory "boy-inseminating" practices, claims Herdt. Boys here are separated from their mothers when they are 7-14 years old, and installed in "bachelor's houses."
The Marind-anim of Southwest New Guinea -- who were ruthless headhunters -- give the boys to maternal uncles who "top" them in anal intercourse for six years. The nearby Jacquai tribe refers to the adult penetrator as "mo-e" (anus-father) and the receiving child as "mo-mog" (anus-son). Big Namba chiefs of the New Hebrides Islands have numerous boy lovers; the Keraki of the Papuan lowlands sodomize lads at a bull-roarer ceremony; and the Great Plateau Kaluli "engage" youths to older men selected by their fathers.
Although many boys tremble initially ("I felt afraid... the penises were enormous," recalls Kalutuo, a Sambian from the Eastern Highlands) they all adjust quickly, because they believe semen is an elixir for manhood.
Many tribes -- like the Etoro of the Papuan Plateau -- claim that semen does not even exist in boys until it is orally or anally "planted."
This myth seems valid to tribesmen because boys start ejaculating when they achieve adolescence -- they are allowed to penetrate younger boys then, to maintain the tradition.
The "butching" of Melanesian boys with homoerotic activity is not unique in the annals of history. Spartan soldiers were carnal tent-comrades when they conquered Greece in the Peloponnesian War. They believed genital bonding between buddies enhanced battlefield loyalty and valor. The warlike Romans -- Mediterranean masters for 500 years -- were also a pederastic people. Catullus' poems reveal that men seeking boys' bottoms were not regarded as sissies; the habit was at least as "studly" as pursuing women.
The aggressive, arrogant, sperm-sucking warriors of Melanesia would probably agree with Spartans and Romans that the current "gays in the military" phobia is laughably obtuse; physical love between GIs, they would suggest, is beneficent for morale. Gay male lust is often castigated as "feminizing" in Western society, but Melanesians in Herdt's studies refute this: the sole purpose of homosexuality in their culture is to create "a fierce warrior masculinity that is the inverse of femininity."
The New Guinea data contradicts the religious fundamentalists who regard same-sex desire as a decadent post-civilized vice. Melanesians subsist on yams and superstitions -- they are among the Earth's most primitive peoples.
"Semen warrior tribes" are rapidly disappearing, due to oppression imposed on them by Christian European colonialists in the last 150 years. The "heroic homosexual" customs will probably vanish soon, buried under the inhibitions and scientific knowledge promulgated by missionaries and bureaucrats.
Herdt's observations will remain, though, as documentary evidence of an institutionalized queer culture that is often incestuous, always non-consensual, and impelled by erroneous nutritional assumptions. One wonders, though, whether the Melanesian model is actually any weirder than the vast, civilized, imaginary construct that modern humanity flutters inside, like a bird imprisoned in an invisible cage. |
Also - the ability to do something without being considered immoral, is still a moral. Consider homosexuality; most people today don't ENCOURAGE people to be homosexual, but just to be tolerant of them.
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30-03-2005 00:12
Moving to New Mexico.
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