You gave me grief for not looking at a link you said is about the brand of physics that is or influences your personal views and philosophy; heres why I'm not looking at it: given your toxic views about life and the universe, I'd rather not expose my brain to that - I'm borderline unbalanced as it is.
rotting bones wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 3:29 am
Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 2:07 am
I'm more and more inclined to think that whatever good or bad happens to you is at best incidental to happiness anyway.
It's the old Stoic saw that unhappiness is a product of our opinions, and the gap between our opinions and reality.
A lot of people have horribly miserable lives even though, they are, by any objective standard, leisured, wealthy and comfortable. See most of recent mainstream literature for examples!
1. Even if I did want to be happy, I would try to want something else because
I think wanting to be happy makes you unhappy like nothing else.
2. The Stoic position is that even a slave can be happy. My objection is that the happiness of slaves is part of what enables the condition of slavery to exist.
the happiness of slaves is not a factor in the perpetuation of slavery.
Though, given your argument that everyone is being violently oppressed into a slavery-type situation (lately by "culture", below), and that historically violent suppression has been done to all slaves, only demonstrates that the emotional state of slaves
is not a factor in slavery.
Slaves should be unhappy and revolt against their condition.
So, the only happiness is misery, but slaves should be unhappy...does that mean slaves are the only happy people, since they are miserable; or...?
And thats another reason I take issue with your philosophy: its coming off as {appearing to be} a bit of machocism and a lot of tearing wings off flies & watching them stumble around as they bleed to death. There was an old strain of thought in child rearing, that the kid must be handled roughly and with what we'd today classify as physical and mental abuse, because as they put it back then,
the kid needs to learn the world is tough.
3. I think the only genuine happiness is the misery that comes from striving after freedom for everyone. This is not incompatible with traditional schools of thought considering it's the misery and the triumph of Christ on the Cross.
...despite your hatred for Christianity.
rotting bones wrote: ↑Sun Feb 13, 2022 4:11 am
keenir wrote: ↑Thu Feb 10, 2022 2:47 am
hm. does this apply only to slavery? (if no, what else does that resting state apply to? if yes, does it only apply to Confederate-style slavery?)
Not really. At its root, "rebellion" is not a conscious process. It's a post hoc anthropomorphization of physical processes analogous to Freudian repression. As systems grow in complexity, wires get tangled. Paranoid masters see this and blow up, accusing everyone of conspiring against them. "Rebellion" is an organization of miscellaneous material grievances under the umbrella of self-defense against the master's paranoia.
keenir wrote: ↑Thu Feb 10, 2022 2:47 am
I mean,
I can't think of any violent uprisings in plantation-era Hawaii, for example.
It seems fairly obvious to me that
workers only agree to live in such conditions as a result of violent subjugation.
So which part of Hawaiian history leads you to that conclusion? the long list of immigrants? Thats like arguing that Irishmen only exist in 19th and 18th Century New England because they are {at that time} so subjugated that they relocated from their homeland to New England for the opportunity to be in such conditions [as a result of violent subjugation].
keenir wrote: ↑Thu Feb 10, 2022 2:47 am
Maybe it would be easier if you told us what faiths you
don't oppose, so we can start from that point.
(though it seems you only oppose monotheism)
I've also peripherally criticized Confucianism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Those just didn't blow up as much.
...which leads one to infer that you don't have much problem with beliefs that don't get argued about online....and yet you enjoy physics, which has a history rich in arguments even to this very day online.
Also it is possible to leave a household in which Christianity or Buddhism is practiced. it is not possible to leave or rebell from anything involving physics.
Faith implies intellectual subordination to spiritual masters.
Only if your search for knowledge looks exclusively in the confines of your religion.
You could say that, to an extent, spiritual joy is the oppression that I'm trying to free myself from.
Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 4:47 pm
All that being said, I think you'd enjoy Nietzsche's objections to Stoicism -- and I do think Nietzsche had a point there!
Not only don't I like Stoicism, I don't like Neitzsche either. Religion is too artistic, affirmative and arrogant as opposed to being truthful for my liking. Physics is literally the only thing I like.
I'd feel almost apologetic for defying all contemporary theories that try to predict how I should feel about anything. That is, if I didn't think the 21st century tendency to
imprison us all in the orbits of our traditional cultures[/quote]
you never explained that comment.
represents a resurgence of the caste system. As long as this trend continues, I will say that I hate culture and I want to destroy it.
...and never said what you'd replace culture with.
Or how.
rotting bones wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:42 pm
keenir wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:36 pm
oh i'm familiar with the sentiment and the phrase - I just don't consider it an absolute...more of one of those phrases that needs a "because..." after it.
In that case, I disagree that acceptance is a resting state. As far as I'm concerned,
the resting state is rebellion, which has to be violently suppressed to produce a state of acceptance. This suppression is so violent that not only is the rebellion suppressed, but the memory of the violence is itself suppressed.
keenir wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:36 pm
most faiths do; Stoicism isn't an outlier in holding that position.
Faiths I've opposed here previously: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam
all monotheistic.