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Ok but what if there's a bigger, more precise database of violence-prone people that can be individually targeted via online radicalization? And they're "deployed" when certain important people need to be derailed/stopped from carrying on with certain events? As in, the Paul Pelosi attack. I wonder if the House Speaker was supposed to do something around this time and some dark org data mined useful nutjobs in the area (or willing to travel, idk how close that Canadian lived). Whenever an election is coming up, these random attacks spike and I'm beginning to think they may not be as random as originally thought. I wish someone had a graph with this because it's not just a pattern I see in the US. No, it's not /s, but r/conspiracy wouldn't let me post because my acc is new xD And no, I'm not one of them, the Earth is round and I'm doubly vaxxed and boosted, ty very much. I just needed to put my thoughts out there on that!

So, if it became legal to kill anyone on Purge day, you would not believe it to be an injustice, since you "do not believe in non-legal justice"? I think there are limits to everything, and I think I understand why you have run from natural morality, but it's in the name. It's *natural* morality. People have, for thousands of years, believed in good and evil, moral right and wrong, moral fairness and non-legal justice. Just saying you don't believe in those terms will not convince me: I think you do believe in them, you just don't think you do. You don't have to have a religion to believe in right and wrong.

I think you believe in your rights, for instance. You would find it unjust--morally wrong--if you were reported by Redditors and banned by Reddit for what you said, since you believe in your right to speak in the public forum.

Maybe you would tell yourself instead that they had the right to do those things. Perhaps you need stronger examples. Let's say you had someone steal $10,000 from you and then brag about it online. They had every paper trail you can imagine, their own family testified to the effect, and they even admitted it in court. The jury goes to deliberate, and come out with a not guilty verdict. Would you not find that unjust? What word would you use to describe, not the feelings you have as a result of the situation, but the wrongness you know happened in court?

Courts are fallible, and the empires they are built on rise and fall. But what remains throughout the centuries is human morality, no matter whether people deny it or not.

Examples like these are comforting but others are much less so. Most recently Dr Oz has been in the news after losing a midterm race. At the start of his career he was lauded as an academic surgeon, but he has since embraced a number of ideas that led David Gorski to label him America’s Quack. That highly qualified individuals with impressive credentials can nevertheless adopt pseudoscientific beliefs has even led to the idea of a Nobel disease:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

The point is that while various attributes (such as education) provide some protection from unsupported beliefs, it is not perfect. In fact it may even be worse than this, since Uscinski is quoted in the article as claiming we all probably entertain some conspiracy theories.

I have considered assisted suicide--or rather, I have thought about what I would do if it were legal in the United States, where I live--during some of the low points of my life.

Let's just say the patient doesn't have free will. So you decide not to follow the patient's request for assisted suicide. The patient is angry at you because... the patient has the free will to be so. Proof by contradiction.

Now let's say you argue that the patient has no choice but to do that (be angry at you because you denied death). Well then I can say that you have no choice but to argue that, meaning you don't have free will, and the notion of free will doesn't exist.

Since your argument relies on a non-falsifiable idea yet demands "proof" that the patient is incurable, it is irrational. Belief in a metaphysical idea such as free will is one thing, using it to determine whether a person has the right to assisted suicide is another.

I just don't believe doctors should be the gatekeepers to "assisted" suicide. If the patient doesn't make the determination as to whether to end their own life, it is no longer a suicide, but a mercy killing (whether mercy killings are a good idea is simply a separate argument). This is especially true in a medical setting, where the patient is not likely to push the button to end their life. Factually, it's just not a suicide anymore if it's the doctor doing it. Assisted suicide is just a false label at that point.

Let's say I was desperate enough to take the poison (as Socrates did rather for contrasting reasons, instead of compromising his morals, being instead uncompromising). I would not (in the present moment) find it only a disservice, but rather a crime against my rights as a free being to have my life unwillingly in the hands of another. I would nod my head, inwardly hating the same people who released me to death, since my fate is not in my hands, but theirs. In a sense, I am no longer a free person, but a slave to their judgement without a need for due process.

And further, how would one regulate such an industry? The doctors get paid to do the procedure--presumably well--and that creates a massive conflict of interest. The patient cannot come back from the dead to complain, and the family (if any) is given the documents signed by the patient. No one can make a claim for a wrongful death, since there is no way to prove that the doctors were wrong about the patient's desire for death and lack of cure, since the patient is dead!

In short, I think that assisted (or unassisted) suicide should either be totally legal and voluntary, or totally illegal. I prefer illegality, but I consider that an invalidated opinion.

Personally, I think the reason for its illegality (and many of the legalities, social norms, beliefs, etc for societies today) is simply utilitarian and a type of societal natural selection. Something about assisted suicide must have made societies weak in the past, so societies that did not allow it were naturally stronger than societies that did. Or maybe it's just happenstance (determined happenstance, that is). But today things are different, with mental illness on the rise alongside nihilism. Maybe we are being more open minded if we allow things like that.

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I believe the downvotes are because people are interpreting this as a message they should engage people making bad faith arguments as though they were equally willing to engage in honest objective discourse. His point can be true while that particular subtext can rub people who interpret it that way the wrong way.

Definitions and usage of words change over time, but yes, "conspiracy theory" labelling has been used to discredit those deemed undesirable or deviant by governments.

Thank you! I've been waiting for a good write up on conspiracy theories!

I msged u

I'm not sure why you are being down voted, you are correct, before that most modern conspiracy theorists would just be called crazy, the term was made in order to create an association between suspicion of the government and the aforementioned crazy people

Opening a new chat isn't working for me. Maybe you could message me, u/rejectednocomments u/fursten123

Honestly I am pretty disappointed with this sub so far. I was hoping for a higher calibre of content than what I have seen.

it would have made a lot more sense if the person(person and not mind after reading that article lol) wasn’t just so heavily conditioned. we’re too late to the game perhaps

>expert in hedonism

I'm somewhat of an expert in hedonism myself

It is wild that Christianity so successfully suppressed it when in the first few centuries there were Christian sects that were interpreting the parable of the sower and mustard seed in terms of Lucretius's "seeds of things" while following a work dedicated to the discussion of an afterlife in the context of bodies with souls that depend on bodies (Gospel of Thomas).

It's like an entire branch of thought from antiquity was snipped away. The roots are still there, but no one is watering it and have collectively forgotten what's right below the surface, despite now independently confirming many of the ideas being entertained were wheat and not weeds after all.

"conspiracy theory" is a definition coined in a cia memo concerning the kennedy assassination. it can be used as a shortcut to tar and defame anyone who has unpopular inconvenient opinions, views or data. it's so much easier than having a debate and treating a person as an equal. applying the label assumes superior or even perfect knowledge about an event, it is a mammalian dominance pose, bolstering itself with status to dismiss others. it is without a doubt the cheapest and most effective technique to apply to a gullible audience invested in preserving the status quo.

Just look at people like Terrance Howard.

A genuinely stupid person...

Deep need to possess special knowledge...

Cant actually understand math at a deep level or put in effort to get a math degree...

Invents his own theory of mathematics 1x1 = 2 and thinks math and science experts are a cabal of idiots.

People who dont understand what an Argument from ignorance fallacy is, mixed with lack of education, critical thinking skills and the wanting to possess special knowledge...

> As an employer, my goal is to select the best candidate for the job. While as an applicant, my goal is that I get a job, whether I’m the best candidate or not.

With goals so ill-defined, this whole article is an exercise in going downhill as fast as possible.

Just msg, i could need someone to reflect with.

I don't believe in "some higher reality" so I don't agree with B.

I believe that what happens in B is merely an emergent phenomena. For example I have a laptop. I call it a laptop. I use the laptop. You understand what I mean when I talk about it. The laptop is a particular arrangement of atoms and an electrochemical reaction that happens in accordance with what's happening inside and outside of it and the laws of nature.

When people refer to consciousness (and values or whatever) they are merely talking about a particular arrangement of atoms undergoing a complex set of electrochemical reactions.

That's it.

The pursuit of pleasure is totally opposite to his philosophy. You should struggle and remain eternally unsatisfied. He sees pleasure as a means to an end, not the end itself.

> The source of the experience is that the incentives of search committees and the incentives job applicants don’t align. As an employer, my goal is to select the best candidate for the job. While as an applicant, my goal is that I get a job, whether I’m the best candidate or not.

The article already starts off with a common misconception. There are no conflicts of interest among rational men. Just because an applicant may want a job doesn't automatically mean that achieving it is good. By the same respect a robber may achieve ownership of a Ferrari as opposed to identifying that they deserve it. Likewise the employer has the right to be irrational and to suffer the consequences of choosing poorly. And as an applicant you're better off not associating with them based on poor judgement.