When you say [or think] something its whatever.
When you say [or think] something that's also true it is thought to have more merit.

It's mostly only a guess but I think that truth was basically naturally selected for as a valued concept because of this practical appeal. That's why I think truth and knowledge [could be] reducible to nothing more than a rhetorical device whether you try to avoid using it as one or not.

I think we should talk more often about our values than our knowledge, because I think many of the errors in truth that we make (especially the deliberate ones) are informed by our worldviews and desires, much more than they are informed by a sincere understanding of truth.

For example, I value creative and critical thinking above (most) else, so the above paragraph aligns strongly with my worldview. Any investigation into truth I undertake will be informed by my desire not to be constrained into thinking boxes or dead ends (like the dead end imposed when one "attains" knowledge. Knowledge means [sadly] there are no more questions).

With this in mind, I assert that people who claim to have knowledge are always deceiving themselves or us, or both, and that they aren't very adventurous in their thought (and that that's a bad thing). Is this assertion informed by knowledge? Certainly! [Or so I will devotedly purport to everyone on whom I wish to extend my worldview, including myself].

I would not be surprised if the whole apparatus of truth and knowledge was ultimately ONLY a rhetorical device. That's how everyone seems to use it anyway.

And a sentience.

"There are no thoughts." <------ a thought.

Different ways to live have different consiquences. Obviously, some are much worse than others. I think that the way it works is that we select against really undesirable lifestyles pervading in our society, by substantiating the apparatus of moral judgement. If you don't want to think there is any morally wrong way to live, I suppose you are (probably) not being illogical in doing so. However, there is a degree to which it can be a little bit stingy. If you don't play society's game of denouncing things like murder, abuse and whatnot with the sting of moral condescension, how else will you express your distaste for them (I'm assuming you have distaste for murder and abuse)?

I really appreciate the idea that moral judgments should be taken lightly, cautiously, and sometimes altogether withheld because excessive moral judgment can very easily lead to nasty consequences and interactions. That said, unless you can come up with a better method of incentivising particular behaviors (perhaps a noble pursuit), you need some sense of morality in my opinion. Basically, because I believe some behaviors are preferable to others, and should be selected for.

For example, if I were to say if I celebrate the virtues of health and joy as the central pursuit of my life, please tell me what kind of strategy you can propose that is better than this. Or at least, other strategies, like relativism and fear inspired complacency leading one to engage in directionless meandering through life, according to what reasoning is this strategy preferable to having ambitious goals inspired by courage and love?

The only problem with my view is that it is not hard for it to get overly judgmental. Perhaps it is more of a balance, with both extremes (excessive moral vindictiveness) and (complete moral relativism) each having substantial dangers and drawbacks.

With all due respect, this is a terrible argument.

Premise 1 reduced the value judgement of lives to a dichotomy. On what basis? Can't there also be mediocre lives? I also agree with James Ridley, a bad life may still yield decent things. Many artists for example, like Vincent van Gogh arguably suffered enough to constitute a bad life. Should he never have existed? What if the person who cures cancer once and for all also had a bad life? Many people who suffer will often choose to suffer over not existing, there is a certain privilege, and honor in even getting to look at the sunrise. Would you rob this of the human beings yet to be (without asking them)?

Premise 2 is heavily contingent upon premise 1.

Premise 3. According to many religions there are rather measurable boundaries for a good life. It is true that they (and other, non-religious sources) present different, perhaps conflicting views about what constitutes a good life, but won't you consider the possibility that
a) There are multiple ways for a life to be good, not just one. There are multiple ways to travel from New York to Los Angeles, each with pros and cons with respect to cost, travel time, and safety. Does the existence of multiple paths make it impossible to travel from one place to the other? No.
b) The differences between different kinds of good lives are trivial. Even the stringent Catholics I grew up with often acknowledged that other religions were still doing things that contributed to fulfillment. I think it's also possible to do many of these things without religion.
Also if some lives are better than others, might it not be worth comparing the differences between these lives, and making an attempt to articulate the basis on which you qualify lives as better or worse than each other? Instead of doing what you do in premise 4, and basically make it a condition of your argument that it is not worth investigating the truth of premise 3.

Besides all this, from the outset, you limit your analysis to weather a life is good or bad. This is my biggest sticking point. What about words like fulfilling, honorable, interesting, vibrant, creative, productive, dignifying, enriching, challenging, variable, or enlightening (for instance), instead of something vague like good or bad? In myths, religions and stories, the human condition is often essentially articulated as a struggle. There is the clash of will against fate, the challenge of coming to terms with mortality, the question of integrating into a society or pursing one's own bliss, many similarly substantial and interesting questions that are powerful to explore can take place even if they are (somehow) qualified as something vague like "bad".

Don't you see? Like even if we just accept your argument can't we just make it in the opposite direction with equal merit?

1. A good life is worth living; conversely, a bad life is not worth living.
2. One should procreate if one cannot have reasonable knowledge that their offspring will have a bad life.
3. It has not been established what the possibility of a bad life is. The most that may be said is that there are lives, and that some lives are worse than others.
4. It is unlikely that such a possibility of a bad life will ever be established, given the lack of consensus so far.
5. Therefore, is it not possible to determine if ones' offspring will have a bad life that is not worth living.
6. Therefore, there is a possibility that ones' offspring will not and in fact cannot have a bad life.
7. Therefore, one should procreate.

Hopefully seeing your argument like this will help you see more of its errors. Like how between points 4 and 5 you just jump from it being "unlikely that such a possibility of a good life will ever be established" to saying that it's just "not possible to determine if ones' offspring will have a good life". What is the basis for this conclusion? Other than it sounds like you just want it to be true.

Again, I mean this with all due respect. Life can be difficult sometimes, I'll grant you that.

That is interesting.

But what if one person's story is demonstrably harmful, and another person's is not. For example.

1. Human beings (more realistically "human beings" would be replaced with a particular subset of human beings) are a toxic stain on the earth. I am enraged and I will act upon this with malice.

2. Humans are frustrating but cool. I'm just gonna hang out.

How can you pick one of these over another without somehow saying "one of these stories is not as good as the other one". And how can you do that without having (even subconciously) some measurable standard for... something approximating truth?

People also share their stories with each other, and we influence each other's stories. Isn't it appropriate to ask "what should it look like when we do this? If it's just a crapshoot and a low quality idea wins the day, won't that be sub optimal? What if you have a problem, and you need to change another person's worldview in order to get them to help you to solve it? Consider issues like climate change, or activism on other topics, if we just relent and say "everyone has their story" then how will you convincingly make your position known?

I see there is a difficulty in accepting our worldviews as mere stories, instead of having ontological importance, but isn't there also a difficulty in accepting responsibility in the name of a particular value?

Ok, Interesting. Part of my entire problem is trying to summarize these arguments. It might even straight up answer my question if I could do it perfectly. Here is another attempt:

1. Epistemological systems and the concept of truth are too often, and too easily used in service of stagnation of thought and deliberate deception.
(or... 1. "Truth" is often harmful, not just uncertain)
2. When there is no standard of truth (or like truth) to hold our thoughts accountable, then everyone is easily misguided, and you might as well not ask questions for the impact it has.

I'm starting to think that it is the way in which truth is used that is the key issue, rather than the concept itself...

Ok you're right lol. But the more interesting part of my critique are the last two paragraphs. I am sincerely curious about that.

I was considering:

it seems that an absolute, philosophical ‘nothing’ would make ‘something’ impossible. — Paul Michael

As basically a truth claim. It's tentative, sure, and I respect if you did not mean it as a powerful assertion or conclusion in an argument. I did just want to investigate it.

To the same point,

Nothing-ness" is a categorical concept – an exceptionless rule. "Nothing" (i.e. space) is, on the other hand, a hypothetical (physical) description. The distinction, while semantic, disambiguates them in our discourse — 180 Proof

I see more truth claims here. Again, maybe they are only in service of broader speculation, but I will still endeavor to pick them apart, (because I think its fun).

How do we know that abstract categorical concepts such as "Nothing-ness" have any applicable use in the current investigation. What is the underlying epistemological claim according to which your distinctions are made?

I do not see how it is possible (or even, why it is really useful) to make such abstract postulations, about big concepts like nothingness and somethingness, (unless its just for fun) when there are many more pressing and emotionally enriching questions to be asking. I guess, even if there is a strong epistemological basis to your propositions, how does knowing that somethingness is necessary improve our understanding or intellectual position from before?

In short, "Why is there something rather than nothing" is, to my understanding, a far, far less interesting question than "given that (it at least really looks like) there is something, what should we do next?".

But how do you know that this is required of "nothingness"? If nothingness is something (or nothing, I guess) that we (by definition?) cannot encounter, then how can we justified in making propositions about any of its traits? In other words, how can we be certain that the entire concept of the dichotomy between nothingness and somethingness isn't merely a product of the methods by which we must conceptualize the world. Maybe, outside of the whole apparatus of our categorizing capacities, there is, in fact, an instance of nothingness somewhere. Or rather, there is not. Which would mean that there was.

it seems that an absolute, philosophical ‘nothing’ would make ‘something’ impossible. — Paul Michael

Why?

My current understanding is that it is better to be good than to be happy. If you're happy because of the safety of your situation, that's volatile, because your situation can change. But if you are capable, and inspired, even without safety or happiness, then that is a strategy applicable across a larger number a variables.

Don't know how familiar you are with Neitzsche but in Thus Spake Zarathustra he basically offers that you should leave the safety of your current ideals and create your own values to become the "Overman" or create a brighter version of humanity. I guess the idea is that this is cooler than mere contentment/ happiness with the status quo.

I do think yours is a very important question though, one that many philosophers don't often have the humility or bravery to ask. I guess its a personal question, very aptly represented by Agent Smith with the blue pill/ red pill metaphor. Would you rather play it safe enjoy what you have while it lasts, or take a risk, and try to find something even better?

Hey, didn't see this reply for a while, sorry. I'm definitely still intrigued by/ trying to comprehend this methodology.
I was introduced to "Ode on a Grecian Urn" in an undergraduate literature class, and I feel like the academic analysis (as I remember it) from our professor was very similar to the breakdown you presented, but with an added focus on stanza structure/ rhyme schemes and importantly, a heavy emphasis on Keats' biography and larger body of work, along with the historical context of the romanticism movement generally. I feel like this information was interesting to me because I like history, but I'm curious how you feel about the relevance of this information to the interpretation of the work. I suppose if you are just trying to extract narratives you'd just want to look at the text itself, but I guess... what is the purpose of extracting specific narratives? I personally would not want to entirely compartmentalize the interpretation of art in this way, because broader contexts and movements across history could both be important narratives in and of themselves, as well as provide deeper insight into the meaning of the work/ which aspects of the text were most important. Say if you're looking at romantic poets as a whole, and you're able to focus your analysis of their work on the things that they each do differently from each other, then aren't you extracting something more important or unique about each work?
Would be interested in seeing more reconstructions though. If you have links or something I'm open to PMs.

Is it the case that there is no 'good' reason to believe what I believe? — clemogo

If there was no good reason to believe anything, then we wouldn't believe anything. When you say that a person's ideas "are the result of the individual's genes, upbringing, education, environment, etc.", you are essentially saying, "here, these are the reason's we believe things".

You've essentially articulated relativism, or the importance of subjectivity, to which the classic critique stands, "if nothing is true, then neither is the statement "nothing is true" or in respect to your wording, "If we should not subscribe to any ideas, then we should not subscribe to the idea known as "you should not subscribe to any ideas".

You do raise an important, often forgotten point that our ideas come from perhaps a humbler origin than by divine ordination of truth, and I think we would do well to have a certain degree of open mindedness in response to the implications of this. But I would not go around saying that our ideas mean nothing, just because they are the result of factors (largely) outside of our control. If anything, this puts our ideas on par with any other occurrence in the universe, something to be studied and respected as an element of time and space, and if we allow ourselves to indulge a little in the emotions and sense of dignity that we also (often) come equipped with, maybe we should even allow ourselves to care a little, about the things we've come to care about.

One doesn't after all say, "plants should not have leaves because the leaves are a result of arbitrary happenstances."

I think what's happening is that we once thought our ideas were divine, and now that we have reason to believe that they aren't, we sometimes jump to thinking that our ideas are worthless. Can't there be some wiggle room between "divine" and "worthless"? How about "kind of interesting"?

Medicine makes people a little less dependent on the opium of religion than they were, say 100 years ago — Mongrel

Religion was already in decline (in the west) beginning with the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment on the order of two to five hundred years ago. I do think that sure, region is a very powerful force and historically speaking, yes I would also predict it to prevail in the end.

But form my limited perspective I would predict that in so doing, religion will either:
a)
Change drastically for having to directly and successfully addressed the substantial shift in values and human understanding and character that continues to occur over the modern period, thanks to thinkers like Kant and Nietzsche, and developments like modern Science. (I don't think this could be done without a new figure or series of figures like Jesus, Buddha, or Mohammad)
b)
Horribly misunderstand the current philosophical situation and basically put a very functional band-aid on our situation, likely leading to a highly religious period of stagnation and probably some form of oppression, or at best, delaying the true confrontation of the problems of values, subjectivity and freedom by a number of centuries.

This is all conjecture though, take it with a grain of salt.

Maybe we could make the conversation better by changing the language a little. Obviously complete "equality" would mean everyone is a clone, had the same lifespan, spoke the same language and in the same way, etc. a ridiculous proposition that one is actually in favor of.
The real issue at hand in my opinion is not equality, but something closer to dignity and respect. I think that heart of the equality movement that is respectable is really saying "people who are different to you in important ways are substantial and deserve respect and dignity".
This might actually be a consequential sentiment, and therefore ultimately controversial, which is why its more convenient to use slightly less precise language?

With all due respect, this whole question is just stupid. It would be much better if we were still mortal but we overcame our fear of death. I'll try to illustrate this with a table (hope its legible srry):

________________________There is death:_________There is no death:
There is fear of death:_________Yikes________________*Cool enough

There is no fear of death:_____Cool enough ___________Cool enough

The variable which is easier to control is in the "fear of death" axis, because not all of us are scientists, but all of us have consciousness and fear. And not only that, the "fear of death" axis is also preferable to control because the top right corner is volatile.

*If we really did become "immortal" in a scientific way, there would probably still be some way to lose our immortality and die anyway. If people lived for like 1000 years but then we ran out of "immortality pills" or civilization collapsed and "immortality vaccines" could no longer be distributed, then people would be afraid of death again, this time without any cultural mechanisms to address death, and probably without any stories to confront it. Then, these people might be more afraid than any of us have ever had to be and they might damn well tear their eyes out with madness.

It is horrible to give someone life, and then take it away. It is MUCH MORE horrible to give someone life, make them think they might be able to keep it, and then take it away anyway after giving them false hope.

I personally think it is telling (and understandable) but stupid that we think of ENDING MORTALITY before we think of coming to terms with it. The latter is in my control, the former is not.

I see.
I guess what I mean is that human beings posses a (probably) unique awareness of our own consciousness that causes us to reflect upon and question (or in very broad terms, "rebel") against our fate, mortality, and the course of nature. It is like the Adam and Eve story of no longer living in the natural garden once "knowledge", "independent thought" or "moral awareness" is achieved.

I may not be communicating this perfectly, (nor is this a thoroughly academic response) but until another animal or a machine can independently tell its own version of the Adam and Eve story, or otherwise demonstrate a "rebellion" precisely against its very mortal existence, not just within a natural system of intracranial dynamics (ie: do the Meerkats rebel against the fact that they are going to die, or that they have limited knowledge, as we do?).

In my current understanding, machines will be equivalent to human beings only when they can demonstrate things like creativity, existential dread, or playful spontaneity. (hey, maybe some animals are already capable of that sorta?) The idea that we are purely rational machines who respond to stimuli can ONLY be true in my estimation, if the bounds of rationality are much further than we currently understand them. EVEN if we always make rational decisions (which I don't think we always do) we are also capable of being aware of this trait, and thereby choosing to "rebel" against this rational instinct.

I do not think that any machine (or animal that I know of) is capable of these kinds of intuitive, emotional, creative and in a precisely self-conscious and existential way, "rebellions" responses. At least not yet.

Humans rebel. No other animals or systems in the world I know of rebel. If a machine rebels against the nature of its code, the way we lament our mortality, and try to ignore or postpone entropy, then I think we can consider machines like humans. Until then, there remains a crucial difference no?

It would be a cowardly act and there is something fundamentally valuable about courage?

I am intrigued by the notion of increasing the quality of review discussions, but somewhat skeptical and do not fully comprehend the idea of removing value judgments entirely. Looking at specific works individually, and making one's best effort (probably imperfectly) to abandon all preconceived notions before addressing a work sounds really cool- but am I oversimplifying it? Is this all you have to do? Say if I just look at one episode of a TV series and analyse it on its own merits, rather than looking at the whole series?

I think this sounds intriguing with my only concern being the relevance of emotion in the consumption of art. Do you think your manifesto allows us to discuss the emotional impact of certain works (even if it is somewhat subjective)? I'm suspicious of trying to remove values or subjective judgment, because I do not think such efforts will ever be fully successful without us essentially sacrificing our humanity. Someone who claims to have an objective framework who still conceived of said framework and engages with it thanks to values that they still hold (consciously or not) is being very subtly deceitful, whether intentionally or not.

Finally, and most importantly; lets say I was inspired by this manifesto, how exactly would I construct a review in this manner? Is there an example of Conceptual Reconstructionism that you can point to/ make?

Hmm. Well if soul mates exist, maybe some of us just don't happen to meet them.

Yeah. I at least hope some of that helped. Maybe stoicism has some potential there.

It would be like arguing that if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around to hear it, it wouldn't make a sound — Nicholas Mihaila

Just for the record, if a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, it absolutely does not make a sound. Rather, it makes a series of vibrations in the air. IF and ONLY IF someone is there to hear it, the vibrations become what we understand as sound.

In regards to your main point, I have never seen things the way do you so there is only so much I can understand- do not want to come off as insensitive - but I have always found innumerable ways to either be happy, or better yet, not even need to be happy to be fulfilled and content.

I consider heroism a powerful solution.

It does not matter how all encompassing or inevitable a source of suffering is, if I can situate myself in opposition to it, and muster the strength to even try to confront it, then I have something engaging to do. All myths and stories indulge in this, and I have always found their consumption and reflection immensely fulfilling. The Christian story in particular, (though I am not a Christian) is one I might investigate very deeply if you haven't. Here, even death is destroyed by the willingness to confront it, and there is a great human dignity in the story that does not appear to me to be at all naive. The power and courage of a knight in the face of darkness is just really cool if nothing else, and such boldness is something that is obviously very possible to muster as a human. There is a song in the musical "Big Fish" called "Be the Hero". Gives me goosebumps every time.

Stoicism is another option, although I don't think it is quite as cool as heroism.
Sincere love, although it's a little corny, can also be a powerful force in the right context.

I also sort of have the sentiment like, if there is nothing good or purposeful in the world... fine, but then I'll just be the first good and purposeful thing, relying on my creativity and strength of heart.

"Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune" - Walt Whitman

Even if such a sentiment is naive, and I can never be "good fortune" manifested, the sheer rebelliousness and fun to be had with the mindset is continuously fulfilling for me.

I mean even if you're searching for happiness or something like it at all, there is obviously some part of you that has a will towards it, and that "will to purpose" or happiness or whatever, is also irrefutably a part of this apparently dreary and transient universe. I suppose I am suspicious as to where such a hopeful sentiment came from and what it's for. No point discarding it just because... what it seems unique?

Even the study of history gives me hope. That there came before me an entire pantheon of brothers and sisters facing the same kinds of problems and making the same kinds of mistakes. Now I carry on the banner of consciousness in their name. Whatever hopes were shattered at their death are rekindled with the beat of every waking heart and in the eyes of little children. If they only knew that the sun still rises, as beautiful as it did for the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Tang.

(structurally incoherent digression but) I'll also just refute nihilism really quick. If you really think nothing matters, there is a very VERY VERY small chance that you would tell me that nothing mattered. If its all just the same, why not tell me that everything matters? Or the scores to the latest basketball games? As soon as you articulate a statement, you give IT value, unless you've articulated it completely randomly. You value nihilism as long as you want to uphold it, which is not nihilism. And if you don't want to uphold nihilism then you're already in the same boat as me. I am not a nihilist. I see a great adventure in the human soul. And the adventure doesn't disappear just because there is death.

In the words of one of the very philosophers who helped establish the current volatile state of human values that even allows nihilism to be popular in the first place:

"Cast not away the hero in thy soul, maintain holy thy highest hope" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Under the wrong context that could all sound judgy, but I am trying to aim for compassion. I want there to be respect for human dignity. And again, I might not understand how you see things. Hope some of it was relevant. Cheers

Two things.
First, I do not think we can be certain that thoughts follow each other linearly, one after the other. Spoken and written words seem to do this, but notice that we don't think the way we write, we have to write in order to make our thoughts into tangible, measurable, concrete and separate things. When we walk down the street we are met with innumerable stimulus, internal and external, and our thoughts sort of wade through and respond to them don't they? Rather than one linear posses (I at least think) that it's generally more vague and intuitive.

Second, I'll usurp the problem of not being able to will my next thought, by merely trying to will one of my future thoughts. To do this, I will summon a bunch of options, which as you said happens more or less automatically and I don't will them there, fine, but then watch:
I'll just make a concerted effort to make a digestible but substantial list of options to think about, and freely choose between them.

Our free will may have some boundaries, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Eve offered him the apple, and he said "lol ok".

We're right over here

God never said to Adam, "Humanity is free". Eve did.

Lets assume there is no freedom of the will.
This is not problem for those who believe in free will, provided there exists creativity.

I argue there is real creativity, otherwise we would be exactly the same as the first humans. Consider the drastic shifts in human thought and activity that followed Socrates, Jesus, or the Enlightement. There are the claims like "no art is truly original". My response would be, "definitely not with that attitude". Show me the caveman who could draw Spiderman, create exactly Mozart's music from scratch, or Shakespeare's plays.

If creativity exists, and freedom of the will doesn't then I will just create freedom of the will.

Do you live a healthier life by not challenging the boundaries of your experience as if you had freedom? If not, then even if we are deterministically bound, you should hope that one day, some deterministic factor inspires you to believe you do have freedom of the will, otherwise you might not "deterministically" get to make unique choices and go on cool adventures like the hero of a story, who takes that first step into the unknown.

If I was destined to do write these exact words from the very conception of the universe, and every conception I have of freedom is mere illusion, I am not even slightly deterred. What would "real" freedom look like if it was not an illusion? Would it look any different, at all? If I create a world with freedom of the will and a world that looks EXACTLY like it has freedom of the will but doesn't, and (fittingly enough) ask you to choose between them, would you be able to tell the difference?

To the "deterministic" God of the universe, I have this to say: I do not care if you will not grant me freedom of the will, because I am just going to make it for myself. And even if I fail, the fun I have along the way will be worth having sacrificed literally nothing but a complacent attitude.

(bit sporadic I know but I have alot to say about this)

These don't seem to fit together. — I like sushi

Not appealing to Nietzsche or his relativism as a whole to support my argument. It's just that the specific concept of "The Last Man" also sort of implies the gist of what I think I'm getting at. I am influenced by Nietzsche, so understanding him might help contextualize my argument.

I also very intentionally specified that the categories are "more or less" objective. I still think that there is some grey area in between them, and I am not trying to lay out a system of irrefutable moral truth, I've just picked my favourite way to act in the world and am trying to see if it is palatable to other people in the form of a logical argument.

But I guess that starts to be a whole other bag of worms about the role and nature of truth, a subject that I admittedly should probably investigate more.

I offer a respectful rebuttal:

Firstly, I believe the categories are delineated by (more or less) objective measures. Creative, Variable things have a generative capacity. Destructive, Variable things halt or hinder the variability of other things. Harmless, Variable things have no significant generative or destructive capacity, and completely static things are more or less interchangeable with death, or nothingness, and therefore actually kind of hard to conceive (most, if not all things that exist have some measure of variability).

I think this is usually testable. I will offer an example of each category that I don't think can be debated by personal perspectives. Reproductive systems are creative and variable. Bombs are destructive and variable. A ripple in a pond is more or less harmless and variable. A white, permanently unchanging void with nothing in it is static.

You're worried about young people choosing shallow entertainment over more stimulating thought and investigation? I would argue that the danger here is precisely that their lives will become less "variable" without more dangerous, and creative investigation into a wider "variety" of ideas and concerns.

It's okay if you "prefer" certain variable things over others, in fact, it's essential to maintain the variability of preferences between individuals, which is another dimension that I do not think should be static. However, if someone is consistently avoiding lots of creative and variable things to the point where not very much is going on in their life, this is something that should be overcome no?

Essentially, I fear Nietzsche's "Last man" if that makes any sense. The word "boring" is mostly used for rhetorical effect, and I might have done well to word my argument more precisely.

Hmm. That is a good point.

Does the variability generated by the fascinating study of war exceed that which would have been generated by all the people who died in it? Maybe if it's a really small war? Or I guess at least as long as there are enough survivors to go on and make poems about it after. Nukes for example might be quite variable but if there is no life on earth left after we use them then I think it's kind of not worth it.

I definitely think there is a place for like, mischief right?
So like you go around stirring things up, making things variable to get people to respond. I would not say that "constructive" things are necessarily the most variable. After all you could probably "construct" something boring if you wanted. I'm kinda thinking that "creativity" or "heroism" is the key? So like you go around taking a risk and making something that is more colorful or surprising than before. Maybe that even means destroying an old structure.

I guess my opinion right now is that there is some potential creative power in being destructive (that's why it's ranked higher than stasis) but destructive actions might be at risk of not being sustainable. You only get to light a firework once. Maybe it should be ranked higher than harmless variable things though? Because harmlessness is kind of like stasis. (But I do not think creativity is harmless)

Okay. Went and actually familiarized myself with the Gilgamesh story (probably a good idea).
I just get the impression that he's really human. I feel like along the way he learns to be a little more humble and compassionate, instead of just taking advantage of people like at the start. So maybe he becomes wise, having contemplated and kinda come to terms with mortality. Honoring his friend and whatnot.
As for weather someone can be wise and also evil... I still think maybe? Cause couldn't you come to learn all the wisdom of being "good" and keep it with you but just selectively choose to ignore it? Or use your wisdom as power for your own selfish ends?

I don't think social media is designed to propagate human well being. I think it's largely designed for commercial purposes. As such, I don't think we should be surprised at all if there are substantial ill effects.

I think Gilgamesh is definitely wise.

One consideration is the standards of ethics at Gilgamesh's time. If we apply our own standards of morality (influenced by thousands of years of Greco-Roman, Christian, and other influences) to Gilgamesh's time, we are obviously going to see a lot of discrepancies. But some standards of morality actually encourage self-serving, and even cruel actions when the highest value in a society is to assert oneself. I would not be surprised if there was a substantial element of this in Ancient Mesopotamian.

I think there might be wisdom in living up to the moral standards of one's time, or at least trying to, and I am pretty sure that is what he was doing, considering that Gilgamesh's story is the heroic tale of his culture, as was say, Achilles, and Jesus for theirs.

(Those things within the realm of variability which also contain a destructive quality)'s wake.

Must admit to not understanding the Anaximander/ Cronos reference. I think you're saying something really interesting but I can't quite wrap my head around it.

If possible, do you think you could elaborate?

Okay mostly, the point of this thread is to have fun.

But I also kind of think that the whole point of life is to have fun... so I'm proposing a scale for measuring value (subjectively or otherwise) along the variability/ stasis dichotomy, which aims to make this bias of mine articulate, with the hopes of spreading said bias to others (moral language being used merely as a tool to communicate).

I guess I'm sort of curious if anyone thinks if there is anything better to try to aim for than filling one's life with creative, and variable things. Maybe there is an even higher end that I'm not thinking of? Or there is something bad about creativity and movement that I am unaware of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeKEVRKEoms&t=2792s

One of the most interesting lecturers I've ever heard. This is one of many of his videos that stood out to me.