Buddhism isn't against hedonism, they're against simple solutions that don't work permanently. They're against simple, naive hedonism, but not hedonism in its broadest understanding: freedom from suffering.

David Pearce is a negative utilitarian. He's not advocating for personal suffering abolishment alone but total and universal abolishment for all sentient beings.

>You seem to make little distinction between the population of humans through time and an individual human being situated at specific moment such that the history of even that individual is secondary to an analysis of the specific subject.

I'm glad you enjoyed the post. As for this point: on the contrary, I follow the premise that for a trait to evolve, it has to benefit the individual in some way (increase its fitness, ready for natural selection); and I believe that the individual is at the centre of morality, as the ultimate decision-maker. However, it's true that morality operates on intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cultural / collective levels.

To thrive is to increase one's viability, or ability to survive. There is pressure to survive because our ultimate genetic purpose is to reproduce, and we need to live long enough to do so. As such, we have a sexual instinct that orients us in the direction of reproduction, even if we never reproduce or even intend to. We just love sex because it's the way we can fulfil our ultimate purpose (that love being instilled by evolution, to make it attractive to do). This is Freud's Eros or the erotic insinct. Likewise, the Pleasure Principle exists because thriving makes us feel good, and there is a pressure to thrive, and therefore a pressure to feel good. See: p. 16, "Pleasure", and p. 243, "Emotions". Because of motivational autonomy, each pressure takes on a life of its own: e.g., we want to thrive, as an end in itself.

>Survival is a selection-oriented statistical drift within a population rather than in individuals.

Again, on the contrary: try asking any individual whether or not they want to survive, and fear death.

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I don't understand? Say we are talking about apples falling from a tree, we have the observations and theories around that. Why would I ever care about some philosophical idea about apples actually falling upwards because that theory is fun and challenging of philosophy?

When it comes to physics I only really care about reality, proper philosophy should help us understand that reality.

Capitalism is about profit extraction from private property. Can't do this without exploitation of at the very least natural resources, but this ends up extending to technology and workers because wealth is extracted out of them. That's the entire point of capitalism. Exploitation is defined as making less than you produce, which is another way of talking about wealth extraction. We might be able to limit exploitation, but it can never be eliminated under capitalism. And so as long as it continues, exploitation is a given, and this will always empower justifying ideologies for that exploitation.

The author doesn't get into this, but is complaining about the intolerance from liberals. This intolerance is real, but the reason for it's existence isn't just bad people. It's the way our society is materially structured.

>We would very likely have made much more progress with physics by now if instead of trying to get the data to fit our scientific theory, instead working to create new theories to fit the observations.

The greatest criticism in physics is around the focus on String theory, which is is some kind of new theory trying to fit the observations.

We already have the core model which works for pretty much every experiment ever done to remarkable degrees of precision.

Surely science should be evidence based. Theories that are accepted are ones that match experiments and observations, rather than ones that are simply nice mathematically/philosophically?

"Perception is Reality" is inaccurate. More correct is "perception is reality," with small letters instead of capital, because perception is limited to the individual. Reality exists outside of our perception. "Tree falls in a forest, no one around, does it make a sound," etc.

"Perception is reality" means "if I perceive something to be true, I will act as though it is true." This is a useful axiom for dealing with people, to be sure, but it's terrible whenever we need to deal with the real world. You might perceive an absence of cars on the road but that won't protect you from being struck and killed by one.

>>Who decides where a given value falls within the hegemony?

>Media, thought leaders, journalists, politicians, etc don't so much decide maybe, but strongly influence people's "decisions" (formation of beliefs).

Hegemony: "leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others."

Are you saying our "media, thought leaders, journalists, politicians, etc." have dominance over our society? Curious. I can see how that argument could be made but I think it's rather soft; that is, yes, certain persons on the internet have had a direct influence over me, personally, over the past few years; but I am not beholden to them. Indeed, I no longer consume content from some influencers that, just a year ago, I would have considered high on my list of reliable sources. This isn't to say that they're not worth listening to, rather, that I don't see how this hegemony functions in practice. Further, I'm not convinced there is a hegemonic order (as the OP seems to think there is). I think there's a different kind of order, but it's certainly not hegemonic (though it is hierarchical, after a fashion, mostly because people tend to naturally organize themselves into groups with a hierarchy).

>All humans view reality through various biased lenses

True; but this fact has little bearing on the point I was making.

Unless you want to argue that a left-leaning bias is somehow equivalent to a right-leaning one . . . which is patently absurd, on its face, if we take the time to understand what the Left and Right (as political platforms go) actually believe.

>And if you are unable to explain it to a conservative thinker, do you know (as opposed to believe) that the problem is 100% on the receiving end?

I do.

Because I've been explaining these concepts to people for a long time. And I've found that, when someone refuses to understand the basics, it's usually because of a deeply held conviction (i.e. bias) about how the world works.

I'm soo confused why they keep talking about the standard model in relation to gravity.

From wiki the standard model covers forces "excluding gravity in the universe".

Carroll uses the term core model to combine the standard model and GR.

In terms of detecting dark matter, isn't that in line with our predictions. If we predict there is very little dark matter in the solar system and that it would be extremely hard to detect, it seems like not detecting it is perfectly in line with predictions.

I don't know why they are framing this as a science vs philosophy thing. Dark Matter and MOND are both scientific theories.

I think the main issues is that MOND by itself simply doesn't explain everything we see. So last I herd was that the only feasible MOND theories left were "MOND + dark matter" theories. I wasn't even aware that there were any major theories that didn't include dark matter of some kind.

So since the article is based on science vs philosophy. The scientists are taking their view and position around the "core theory" simply because it does a good job at explaining observations, MOND by itself just doesn't mesh up with all the observations we have.

> Capitalism needs exploitation

It may prefer it, but it can function without it.

> Once the source is found, racist, sexist, and other bigoted beliefs get reinforced and structurally integrated into law, thus perpetuating it.

Two can and do play at this game though.

> Ultimately, liberalism (and conservatism, an aesthetic variation of liberalism) cannot resolve this problem because it exists to serve capitalism. So here we are in a world where a lot of "tolerance" from both groups doesn't amount to much, whether its tolerance for oppressed groups or even each other.

Agree, but this is kind of my point: why does do people act as if there's nothing that can be done about it other than complain about evil capitalists and demand that "someone" does something about it? Did the author get into anything like this?

> Tolerance isn't materially possible under capitalism...

This seems unlikely. For example: is it not physically possible to start "taking out" prominent capitalists and see if that alters their attitudes a bit? I mean, they do indeed love money, but they may love living even more. And one might protest that killing is wrong, but are most people not pretty ok if not often downright enthusiastic about our military and geopolitical adventures overseas that result in the death of a lot of innocent people.

> ...which depends on the exploitation of someone for its existence.

It utilizes and benefits from it, but claims that it is necessary for its existence at all seem to be meme-based. Capitalism can be moderated, but if our society and the people within it choose to not even try, I think they share some of the guilt.

(Note: I'm not ranting at you personally but more so at the collective hive mind.)

> So the amount of rsources is not a physical matter question?

Only partially - there is certainly physical matters, but there is also metaphysical matters.

An example: your opinions on various matters, and how these opinions affect your behavior, which in turn affects the overall system.

> It is literally the first question of justice.

Can you link to the resource you're referring to here? I'm curious if there is an accompany peer-reviewed scientific proof.

I suppose healthy skepticism is prudent, but hasn’t Einstein been largely proven correct? Like every time?

There are many things we cannot know, that’s part of the fun and challenge of philosophy. Not everything is material and examinable.

Well, liberalism is built on capitalism to serve and maintain the capitalist system. Neoliberalism is a more extreme form of that. Many of the critiques of liberalism, from both the right and left, concern the capitalist aspect of those political ideologies. Not every critique realizes this, though, especially from the right.

For instance, intolerance is intertwined with exploitation. Capitalism needs exploitation, so it finds a source. Maybe that's black slaves, maybe it's women, maybe it's immigrants, etc. Once the source is found, racist, sexist, and other bigoted beliefs get reinforced and structurally integrated into law, thus perpetuating it. The thing spirals downward, and in the end, until the economic structure of society is addressed (or even acknowledged), the issue of tolerance remains unresolvable.

Ultimately, liberalism (and conservatism, an aesthetic variation of liberalism) cannot resolve this problem because it exists to serve capitalism. So here we are in a world where a lot of "tolerance" from both groups doesn't amount to much, whether its tolerance for oppressed groups or even each other. Tolerance isn't materially possible under capitalism, which depends on the exploitation of someone for its existence.

Do you believe that all non-comprehensive, non-balanced perspectives are garbage?

> Liberals (well, the ones who've given it any thought) aren't speaking of tolerance as though it's a value unto itself; they speak of it as the solution to a problem whereby someone who does no harm to others is being targeted and oppressed. > > > > It's a clever rhetorical trick by opponents to obfuscate actual issues by turning the conversation away from their unjustifiable prejudice of innocent people to the liberals' justifiable prejudice of prejudiced people, an argument that obviously falls apart when examined with any depth at all.

It seems to me there's a bit of a rhetorical trick going on here as well, the notion that ~all "liberal" ideas are correct (and opposing ideas are incorrect), and all liberal people are flawless or at least superior thinkers. Of course, this wasn't explicitly asserted, and that's the power/trickiness of it.

It's just that this sub practises philosophy which is closely linked to reality. It's an evidenced based approach to understanding things.

Do you have any scientific studies to back up this rather bold and comprehensive claim?

Do you seriously think anyone cares what trauma they go through?

I think some people do I certainly don’t care , why should anyone care? Do people honestly care about famines , wars , homelessness etc , etc around the world ? Is it just something we say to make us feel somehow more virtuous than others?

What does it mean to “care “ in such a situation how would it look to actually “care “?

Did the author say anything about how government could be (but is not) a moderating force to minimize the harmful side effects of capitalism? Granted, one can blame the ineffectiveness of government on being compromised by capitalist forces (it seems extremely true to me), but then do the people who continue to unthinkingly support "democracy" have no responsibility here? Do they expect capitalists to suddenly change their character?

/rant

>> In Western countries, certain liberal values have achieved hegemony. > > > > Really?

> Which ones?

Our mainstream culture sits on top of many axiomatic memes: democracy and science are the greatest, "rights" are real/non-imaginary, etc.

Assembling a full inventory would be a very long and emotionally challenging project.

> And how is this hegemony of ideas structured?

As I see it, it tends to be distributed as independent but self-reinforcing memes.

> Who decides where a given value falls within the hegemony?

Media, thought leaders, journalists, politicians, etc don't so much decide maybe, but strongly influence people's "decisions" (formation of beliefs).

> Personally, I find a major problem with conservative and right-wing thinkers is that they tend to assume hierarchies are both natural and inevitable. This leads them to view the world through that rose-colored lens, where everything must be part of a hierarchy and if one group (or their ideas) gains recognition, it must be at the expense of another.

All humans view reality through various biased lenses - for example, when they describe the (imaginary) members of their outgroups. Rare is the person who can catch themselves doing it.

> This simply is not true; but damned if we're going to successfully explain why it's not true to a conservative thinker.

As a True/False binary it is surely not 100% true, but as a spectrum, how true is it (say, in percentage terms)?

And if you are unable to explain it to a conservative thinker, do you know (as opposed to believe) that the problem is 100% on the receiving end?

> Or is the dilemma merely the fact that some people hold certain beliefs that the general public has decided (through their "hegemonic" practices, of course) to be unworthy of respect in polite society?

This seems like part of the problem - take the various "facts" one reads about religion and religious people every day on Reddit as just one example.

> This entire article is a veiled rant about how people are being mean to the author on Twitter.

As the saying goes: Perception is Reality.

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Utilitarianism is not the only option though.

add biology and chemistry to the mix