That's where I think this philosophy partially falls apart. We are way too subject to overwhelming emotions to simply "be careful" about insulting someone. Like I said, people will kill or use violence if they subjectively think someone is looking at them the wrong way.
Why don't they do this now?
I think it has to do with incentives, which is the realm of economics.
You could argue that communities would each have different standards for living and what not, but then the country turns into a darwinian jungle like I said. Certain areas with civil people would exist, and then areas with bandits and thugs would exist in chaos and violence.
I'm not sure this would necessarily be the case, but let's say it is. Why is this a problem?
People can move to places that are civil, and places without law will continue to be without law.
Different community standards allow different groups of people to co-exist without getting into conflicts over values. I am all for different communities with different values, because I don't want the socialists messing up my capitalist paradise.
I think the escape of subjectivism is evidentialism.
Not sure I understand this.
Right, and they're all examples of irrational behavior.
No. That was rational behavior. Consistent with the facts they understood.
I know what you're saying here, I guess I just disagree. Knowledge is knowing, and knowing is based on evidence. Just like I believe there is an absolute morality (in the human context), there is absolute rationality.
Knowing isn't based exclusively on evidence. If that was true, we would never be able to progress technologically because without evidence, we could never know something new, which makes the unknown, unknowable.
To claim that all knowledge is inductive and not deductive essentially means you don't believe logic exists.
I've been told the same thing (arrogance), but I'm a little too modest to compare myself to Galileo. I can appreciate what he's (your friend) saying though.
People who stand out, take risks, put their neck on the line, stand for something (right or wrong) always get attacked for being arrogant. It is horizontal social pressure, we're hard wired to pull down people who try to rise above and challenge the dominant paradigm. It's an evolutionary defense mechanism that doesn't fit well into the society we're becoming.
The main difference between myself and most people is what I noted; that the older I get the better I become at acting less on emotional impulses. Rarely does someone hurt my feelings with an insult. Death of human beings doesn't phase me in the least.
Some guys here would mistakenly call that autism. Someone like medicalhumor gets so comfortable with me being in control, he is outraged when I show emotion.
I can relate.
That being said, emotions are something I still can't escape. I still feel compassion for those less fortunate. I still get angry when I play sports. I still get stressed when things aren't working. I wonder what the next major evolutionary step we take will be. I think Star Trek may have been onto something.
There is a great book by Neal Stephenson (all of his books are great) called "The Diamond Age". It's a great read on what the future may look like.
You argue that values are subjective. I argue that values are objective and that we just don't have enough evidence to make complete (objective) sense of them. We need to know more about the brain.
I'm not arguing that values are subjective. The entire social sciences believe that values are subjective. Economics since Karl Menger has been about subjectivity and marginal utility.
Your position isn't correct, because for values to be objective, we would need to be omniscient. Basically, God. But if you know everything, you're no longer acting. By removing uncertainty, everything is just following a script.
However, you are right that information (usually) improves decision quality. More information is generally better than less information.
But it is impossible for us to derive perfect choices without becoming God-like.
How is 2+2=4 not a factual value?
2 + 2 = 4 is a fact. It is a verifiable statement. It is logically consistent with itself.
I like chocolate ice cream best is a value statement. You cannot analyze this statement logically.
Man's values are not cardinal, they are ordinal. We basically rate things by their value to us, and so vanilla ranks lower than chocolate ice cream for me. It doesn't rank 3.76892 (a cardinal number) times lower. It is just lower comparatively.
It's short. But as always it's easy to get sucked into a Youtube black hole for hours. Or to Harris' longer lectures on the topic.
I'm just under the gun with a bunch of self-imposed deadlines right now. I want to give it fair consideration.
