/philosophy/ - Philosophy

And now it strikes me that the left-right axis seems to run from conventionality/conservatism/stability to defiance/revolt/volatility, though I had in materialism and antimaterialism mind while I was drafting this.

>>6918

>communism

>egoist

u wot m8

The problem with social Darwinism is the biggest advocates of it are people in positions of power. The issue being is they instantly become humanist once their own kind gets killed. Don't want your school getting holocausted? Don't push the grade school Omega into a fucking corner. If you're female bend the knee and Fuck the bastard. You shouldn't have a choice anyways. Giving your kind the benefit of the doubt in any nature society is the beginning of its downfall anyways. You're a child with tits.

>>6922

That’s where I’m having trouble with the wording, that one was clumsy.

It’s a very intuitive chart and “egoist” isn’t really what the top means, because “altruism” doesn’t simply fit at the bottom, or anywhere on the map — any of these cluster attitudes can be self-focused or other-focused in intent.

It’s more that the top is ambitious impulses that seek to perfect the world, rather than leave it be.

There are a lot of people in the radical left, postmodern, communist/anarcho-communist camp who are definitely more self-focused than their espoused philosophy admits, because they see traditional order and structure as a threat to their own identity as “degenerates”. I’ve seen how that personal fear is much more animating for a certain type of person than their supposed interest in the collective good. That’s what I think goes in the top right, but it’s harder to identify by name. I’m tempted to say “leftism” according to Kaczynski’s definition.

Actual Rand-style “egoism” should probably go near the top middle, but “altruism” couldn’t fairly go anywhere.

>>6931

That radical left type is also very authoritarian in nature, which fits alongside the others on the top, because they see the extreme form of egalitarianism as something that must be imposed, at the expense of liberty (“just bake the cake, bigot”).

>Humanism

Where would it go?

>>6938

Interesting question. I think it’s too vague to map here. In its modern incarnation it’s definitely on the materialist side, but the idea boils down to “people are important” which isn’t very instructional about how the individual should live — is it better to mind one’s own business without directly hurting anyone, or can/should you presume to try to make the world better for everybody?

So only more specific interpretations of humanism could be pinned down, I think.

I know a lot of people who’d describe themselves as humanists/secular humanists, but I haven’t known any of them to be able to say what this means for how they should live any more specifically than “be nice to people” — or to show real commitment to scientific investigation into morality that is supposedly the basic definition (e.g. I know very few “secular humanists” who are comfortable even looking at straightforward science about race and culture in order to consider the implications for the way states would optimally be formed and governed; they adopt surface-level arguments about these things that sound nice to their ears, the way humanism does I guess).

I’m a spiritually-leaning traditionalist myself and I think that worldview sees people as ends, not means, more thoroughly than a lot of espoused “humanists” who put predetermined and unreflective ideological commitments over human lives on a regular basis.

Which isn’t to say whether or not I’m less of a hypocrite personally, but in my experience humanism isn’t a coherently expressed worldview or approach to life. It’s more a vague default position the incurious feel comfortable with.

This map is about the way people answer for themselves the question of how they should live, not what things they vaguely think are important.

>>6930

>the biggest advocates of it are people in positions of power.

citation needed

>>6945

Yeah, there's more to say about this.

There are plenty of powerful people who are the opposite of social Darwinists, with terrible consequences. Some realised long ago that it's easier to control a population that's weak and dysfunctional, and so dumping resources on those who struggle most, without doing anything to help them stop needing the next dump, has been a way for those creeps to bolster their own support while making sure no one can actually threaten their position of power. And even when that's not the intent, the same mindless "squeaky wheel" philosophy for resource redistribution still sees whole generations become increasingly helpless.

I personally have social Darwinist tendencies even though I have nothing to gain from it, other than what I think the right mentality of self-responsibility and realism can do to positively transform lives.

When I was pretty near the bottom of the social ladder, I started out with a victim mentality that I'd picked up from the most dysfunctional people around me.

But as I emotionally matured, I stopped seeing myself as a victim, owed something by anyone who had more than me. I realised this was the real motivation of my bitter advocacy for the "rights" of other people in my situation. It was a comfortable self-serving lie and I've recognised it at the core of a lot of "social justice activists" in my life.

I realised I could strive for better for myself and improve my own situation, which was much better than begging for scraps. So, even while I was still materially powerless, I became comfortable with the recognition that rewarding weakness in the short-term only made things worse for everyone in the long-term. And wouldn't you know it, the important parts of my life didn't only improve (mental health, sense of purpose, etc.) but even the petty material things that Marxist types obsess over.

I wouldn't call myself a simple social Darwinist, but I lean much more that way than towards "to each according to need, from each according to ability", which I've seen only results in functional people having their hard-earned resources forcibly taken again and again, by people who want to spend their whole lives putting out fires rather than preventing them, and squandering those resources on an enabled underclass suffering from learned helplessness. At some point you've got to pause from feeling bad for people who aren't succeeding, to ask what system would actually encourage them to earn their own success, rather than make life harder for those who try and easier for those who refuse to.

>>6949

do you suggest lazy niggers struggle most? not hard working white cissexual heterosexual men?

>>6959

Not sure what you’re referring to.

No, I wouldn’t suggest that “lazy niggers” struggle more, definitely not in my experience, although I can point you to whole neighbourhoods full of white cissexual heterosexual men who’ve adopted the “lazy nigger” mentality thanks to the intergenerational effects of the welfare state. This kind of incentive system is psychologically toxic to anyone, although there are groups that, numerically, have more of the traits that make them particularly vulnerable to it.

I didn’t bring race into this at all, lest I have to reveal myself as a “race realist” and invite a tedious discussion about the obvious existence of racial differences.

In a different sense though, the Third World types my state is importing more and more of, do “struggle” to succeed in a society that doesn’t remotely reflect their strengths, needs or preferences, although they and the people inviting them in bear responsibility for this mismatch and my society should not have to reorganise and degrade itself to fit them.

But realistically spekaing, here the best they can do for themselves is act out as violent, entitled criminals, since our academic and career pathways have little to offer them and the authorities are willing to indulge their thuggish survival instincts for fear a morphologically distinct group facing “disproportionate” legal repercussions for its correspondingly distinct behaviour.

Whereas the locals here have only started to “struggle” as a result of having to pay the living costs of everyone who won’t. My parents should have been able to support me coming into my own on a comfortable middle class income, but they became the “working poor” in order to fund the bloated social programs they themselves still advocate for and, when they can, seek to benefit from. Boomers, man.

>>6966

are you from germany?

do you want to escape to more fair country? where you dont have to work for people you dont want to support?

>>6967

You must be inviting him to join you in America, where you instead have to work hard to support ignoble CEOs you don't want to support.

>>6969

i wish i was a burger

>>6944

I am the guy you were replying to. Where would Situationism and/or Absurdism fit?

>>6922

No, communism fits in with the egoists. You just need to meet more communists

>>7207

0/10

>>6949

>to ask what system would actually encourage them to earn their own success, rather than make life harder for those who try and easier for those who refuse to.

Sounds like meritocracy would fit the bill here.