GamerGate - and it's continuing aftermath.

[Mischief Maker]

Alright! Alright! I take it back. Let's switch the topic back to cooties. Please!

[Giest118]

Child molesters have cooties. I don't see how this is a change of subject.

[Durandal]

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2016/0 ... -nintendo/
kotaku is shit etc

[Opus131]

I'd be more interested to know why YOU think molesting children is wrong.

For the same reason you do, and it has nothing to do with "evolution" or "survival instincts", neither of which can actually prove whether pedophilia is wrong or not.

Much like they can't prove that Beethoven is a greater genius than Britney Spears, if you get what i mean.

And for the record, to have pedophile urges means there's something wrong with you. Obviously no one should be prosecuted if no actual crime is committed, but to argue that we should be understanding or "accepting" of someone's degeneracy is a bit of a stretch.

[Opus131]

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2016/0 ... -nintendo/
kotaku is shit etc

White knights and beta males are going to be the death of our civilization. Facts, truth, even reality. Everything must be sacrificed at the altar of the almighty vagina. Alison Rapp is a woman, and that means she has done nothing wrong and could do no wrong. Period. All arguments to the contrary stem from either hatred of women or fear.

[Giest118]

For the same reason you do, and it has nothing to do with "evolution" or "survival instincts", neither of which can actually prove whether pedophilia is wrong or not.

Much like they can't prove that Beethoven is a greater genius than Britney Spears, if you get what i mean.

And for the record, to have pedophile urges means there's something wrong with you. Obviously no one should be prosecuted if no actual crime is committed, but to argue that we should be understanding or "accepting" of someone's degeneracy is a bit of a stretch.

I think where we keep talking past one another is in some sort of miscommunication of what morality actually is, and whether objectivity can really determine anything about it.

Objectivity deals with the way things are, whereas morality deals with the way things should be.

The distinction is that where with observation you can pretty conclusively say that "that patch of grass is green," and you can ask pretty much any other guy, who will also say "that patch of grass is green." But if you observe that "this thing is wrong," you can ask another guy who will say, "no, it isn't."

When you observe some activity that offends you, the easy thing to do is to say "that thing is bad." But "that thing is bad" isn't an objective observation; the objective observation would be "that thing offends me," and you can't make any other qualitative judgment about the activity based solely on how offended you are by it.

Having said that, evolution and survival instinct can tell us why certain things offend us. Murder offends us because it makes us feel like we're in danger; it can also offend us depending on our own relationship to the victim. Pedophilia offends us because some deep-seated part of our animal instinct compels us to protect children from harm; we are in agreement that pedophiles have something wrong with them, because they lack this basic human instinct. Incest offends us because it can lead to birth defects in children who are a product of it; throughout most of history we didn't have the scope of knowledge to understand that, and so evolution 'stepped in,' so to speak, and gave us an in-built revulsion to the idea.

So basically, your objective morality is actually just a list of things that you're offended by for reasons that can be traced back to evolution. This isn't exactly a problem for you being able to function in society; the issue is that it's not something that can be taught to those who, for one reason or another, were born without it. Whereas a moral baseline like "Don't hurt people" can be taught, even to people who started out thinking that hurting people is fine.

Unfortunately, as I said before, humans have a tendency to interpret complex ideas in the dumbest way possible, so "teaching morality" needs to be done carefully and rigorously, or you get horseshit like intersectional feminism.

[Opus131]

Morality is based on virtue which in turn is based on an objective perception of a "reality" that is higher than our own. One "knows" that something is wrong the same way one knows why something is "beautiful" and so forth. In a sense, the perception of an immoral act almost has an "aesthetic" aspect to it. It is the "ugliness" of the act that makes it loathsome, or to be more exact, it is the disfiguring of something beautiful and noble that makes us recoil in disgust.

So basically, your objective morality is actually just a list of things that you're offended by for reasons that can be traced back to evolution

Which means that morality is purely relative and that "evolution" cannot prove the "wrongness" of an immoral act. For all intended purposes, pedophilia may be advantageous to us as a species, and your argument to the contrary is just wishful thinking, for "evolution" is utterly and totally unconcerned about your moral qualms and certainly about your feelings as well as those of any child.

[Bananamatic]

the perception of an immoral act almost has an "aesthetic" aspect to it. It is the "ugliness" of the act that makes it loathsome, or to be more exact, it is the disfiguring of something beautiful and noble that makes us recoil in disgust

[Giest118]

Morality is based on virtue which in turn is based on an objective perception of a "reality" that is higher than our own. One "knows" that something is wrong the same way one knows why something is "beautiful" and so forth. In a sense, the perception of an immoral act almost has an "aesthetic" aspect to it. It is the "ugliness" of the act that makes it loathsome, or to be more exact, it is the disfiguring of something beautiful and noble that makes us recoil in disgust.

So what, then, causes people to turn against morality? If morality can be observed in the same way as the color of a patch of grass, what phenomenon compels people to disregard it?

If some asshole came along and said that "One "knows" that pedophilia is beautiful the same way one knows why something is "ugly"," that is, the exact same line of reasoning you just used, what method would you use to determine that that person was full of shit? Would you have any recourse but to say "nope"? Would you use more words but still just essentially say "nope"?

Which means that morality is purely relative and that "evolution" cannot prove the "wrongness" of an immoral act. For all intended purposes, pedophilia may be advantageous to us as a species, and your argument to the contrary is just wishful thinking, for "evolution" is utterly and totally unconcerned about your moral qualms and certainly about your feelings as well as those of any child.

Evolution happened, it resulted in us having instincts, and one of those instincts happens to be revulsion by acts of pedophilia. A majority of people are revolted by pedophilia, and so the evidence is that evolution resulted in people being revolted by pedophilia. No amount of you postulating weird scenarios where "pedophilia may be advantageous to us as a species" is ever going to stop this from being an objective, demonstrable fact.

Evolution also explains why deviations from this norm occur, and you touched on it by pointing out how "unconcerned" it is. Evolution is just a phenomenon; it lacks quality control. Pseudo-random deviations from an evolutionary norm (such as pedophiles) are an inevitability in such an environment. In fact, the lack of quality control is actually one of the best pieces of evidence for evolution's veracity as a theory; it explains how the human body can be so incredible, but have such a blatant design flaw like "breathing and eating through the same tube."

[Opus131]

So what, then, causes people to turn against morality?

Same thing that causes them to turn against beauty, such as in modern art. And the cause in question is turning away from the higher Self to the lower ego etc. etc.

Evolution happened

Trigger warning: i do not believe in evolution.

That said, i find it curious that you still don't understand why evolution doesn't "prove" morality. You can argue all you want that our disgust towards pedophilia is based on some kind of evolutionary development, but that doesn't mean pedophilia is wrong, and even assuming you could show that to be the case (which you haven't, btw, all you have offered so far is mere speculation), there's nothing preventing pedophilia becoming advantageous to us in an evolutionary sense, which means, presumably, that our perception of it might become altered in the future.

[Giest118]

For someone who believes so much in the gender roles supported by biology, you sure are quick to dismiss the best evidence for why those gender roles exist.

Regardless, this point is what's going to prevent us from ever seeing eye to eye, so I think we're done here.

But as a piece of constructive criticism, it might be a good idea for you to read up on evolution. You don't have to believe in it, but on the off-chance that there's some aspect of it you're misunderstanding without realizing it, it could be worth understanding better for the sake of debates like this one.

[Opus131]

The issue is not evolution as such, but your contention that you can "prove" morality with it.

[Giest118]

The issue is not evolution as such, but your contention that you can "prove" morality with it.

I don't recall saying that. I do recall saying that the course evolution has taken resulted in a baseline set of instincts that appear to have a purpose of advancing further procreation of the species. Instincts such as protecting children. As we developed language, we started calling some of these things "morals" because we needed a word to describe "things that we should/shouldn't do." We probably didn't understand these feelings of morality to be a result of instincts, but we developed language before we developed the theory of evolution, so...

If I have a contention here, it's that your system of morality is unexplainable. Functional, but unexplainable. If someone who didn't understand that pedophilia is wrong asked you why pedophilia is wrong, you wouldn't be able to convince them of anything because your answer boils down to "Just is, bro." If they asked me the same question, I could list a number of reasons, some of which are purely philosophical, some of which are biological, and some of which are designed specifically to appeal to one's sense of self-preservation. It can be taught, even to those whose instincts differ from the evolutionary norm.

For my part, out of the things that I tended to find myself offended by, the common theme was "someone getting hurt." That gave me a baseline on which to base moral decisions: "Is this inflicting harm?" I don't tend to like hurting people, so if someone wanted to convince me that a particular action was immoral, they could do it simply by explaining that the action is hurting someone. Now, of course, the full spectrum of morality is more complicated than that; I'm just explaining what my baseline is, and that it has applicability to any number of moral determinations.

But this also ties into another problem I have with your morality: you cannot be convinced of anything. Your morality is what it is, forever, regardless of what changes might occur in the future. Your morality cannot be communicated, and morality cannot be communicated to you. Something either agrees with your aesthetic, or it doesn't... whether or not that determination can be justified in any context.

But like I said, your morality is functional. Isolated to your own mind, never to truly connect with anything or anyone, but functional. If a morality that is functional is sufficient for you, then carry on.

The rest of us will go on evolving.

[Skykid]

Trigger warning: i do not believe in evolution

Triggered.

[Opus131]

I'm not a creationist either, if it makes you feel better.

[Opus131]

If I have a contention here, it's that your system of morality is unexplainable. Functional, but unexplainable. If someone who didn't understand that pedophilia is wrong asked you why pedophilia is wrong, you wouldn't be able to convince them of anything because your answer boils down to "Just is, bro." If they asked me the same question, I could list a number of reasons, some of which are purely philosophical, some of which are biological, and some of which are designed specifically to appeal to one's sense of self-preservation. It can be taught, even to those whose instincts differ from the evolutionary norm.

The problem is that your "explanation" doesn't really explain anything. You are not really convincing anyone of the "wrongness" of pedophilia by pointing out to things like "self-preservation". I'm not a big fan of religious fundamentalists but really, evolutionists seem to have a very childish understanding of philosophy in general, and of simple questions like the nature of "proof", which is why they get schooled so horribly by people with real training in those things:

http://thinkingmatters.org.nz/2011/04/h ... hty-puppy/

Also, there is an obvious fallacy here, which is pretty easy to spot. That is, did you have to study evolution before you knew that pedophilia was wrong? Was there a time, perhaps in your youth, where the "wrongness" of this act wasn't clear to you, until you were presented with any of the scientific explanations you have cited? Ultimately, what you are trying to argue is not so much the wrongness of pedophilia, but our "innate" perception of this wrongness, which you ascribe (without any real proof mind you) to some kind of "evolutionary" process, an explanation that is no more rational or obvious than to say that man knows right and wrong because he has an intelligence derived from being made in the "image" of God (on the same token, is my perception of the "transcendence" of the music of Bach or late Beethoven also derived from some kind of evolutionary process as well, or is this perception purely subjective and thus not real? What if my perception of the "wrongness" of pedophilia is a subjective fantasy as well?), so to speak, but more to the point, an explanation which does not ascribe any particular "wrongness" to pedophilia as such, as i have stated.

[Opus131]

BTW, to return to the topic of goobergoper, it seems that some of the "truth" about Zoe Quinn is finally starting to come out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwVONEHmAZg

[Mischief Maker]

Trigger warning: i do not believe in evolution.

Holy shit, dude! Do you realize you're sitting on a gold mine here? If you can conclusively disprove evolution you will win the Nobel Prize for science, guaranteed, and Richard Dawkins himself would be the first to congratulate you. That's a million bucks!

You could shape modern biology for generations to come with this information. So come on! Tell us your reasoning!

[Opus131]

I don't care about science either, and my answer wouldn't be scientific (or at any rate, it wouldn't be "empirical" following a strict materialistic paradigm) in the first place. The problem at any rate with the so called scientific "evidence" or "facts" is that they are antedated by certain philosophical positions which are taken for granted and which determine the interpretation of any particular observed phenomena or scientific data. Now my objection to evolution is based on an objection of those philosophical point of views (materialism, precisely, as well Cartesian dualism, and any "empiricism" that stems from those) and not the so called "evidence" of science, which strictly speaking does not really "prove" evolution (all though as i've been told many times, science doesn't deal with "proof", a rather strange admission), at least not as such, it only seems to do so if one accepts the basic philosophical premises upon which science is based upon. I.E., since materialism is true, therefore evolution (and so on and so forth).

[Squire Grooktook]

Here's an objective, undeniable fact.

Spoiler

Girls with short hair are cuter.

[Mischief Maker]

I don't care about science either, and my answer wouldn't be scientific (or at any rate, it wouldn't be "empirical" following a strict materialistic paradigm) in the first place.

Fuck it, my feelings can handle it! If you bring up a philosophical concept I'm not familiar with, that's what google is for. Tell us the reason you reject the theory of evolution.

[Ceph]

Because he's an idiot.
Evolution is not a theory, it's fact. You can't explain away reality.
There you go, no need for pages of drivel only to eventually arrive at this very conclusion, which presumably you already have anyway.

[Xyga]

Here's an objective, undeniable fact.

Spoiler

Girls with short hair are cuter.

Oh yes. Yes.

[Opus131]

Evolution is not a theory, it's fact.

It is a "fact" until something else comes along. Kinda like Newtonian physics was a "fact" until general relativity.

Not that i trust anyone who doesn't understand what "proof" means to understand what it means for something to have been shown to be true conclusively and beyond all doubt even while adherent to a principle which dictates that nothing can be shown to be true conclusively, and if i may say so, "absolutely".

[Opus131]

I don't care about science either, and my answer wouldn't be scientific (or at any rate, it wouldn't be "empirical" following a strict materialistic paradigm) in the first place.

Fuck it, my feelings can handle it! If you bring up a philosophical concept I'm not familiar with, that's what google is for. Tell us the reason you reject the theory of evolution.

Well, here's something for you to start with:

http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/viewp ... oddart.pdf

I'm throwing you a bone with this because i don't really find a lot of those points to be necessary. It is sufficient for me to say that the "greater cannot come from the lesser", from a metaphysical rather than strictly logical point of view. That is, it is not possible that Bach (or the miracle of consciousness and human intelligence for that matter) could have rose out of an ape. Rather, there is an ultimate reality from which every relative and "lesser" thing descends from in various hierarchical stages, which was known in antiquity as the "great chain of Being".

The most succinct explanation of how this process of "emanation" operates can be found in the following dissertation on the problems of evil:

http://www.sophia-perennis.com/evil.pdf

Specifically, this passage:

The Absolute by definition includes the Infinite — their common content being Perfection or the Good — and the Infinite in its turn gives rise, at the degree of that "lesser Absolute" that is Being, to ontological All-Possibility. Being cannot not include efficient Possibility, because it cannot prevent the Absolute from including the Infinite. Possibility has so to speak two dimensions, one "horizontal" and one "descending," or one "qualitative" and one "quantitative," analogically or metaphorically speaking. The first contains the indefinitely diverse qualities and archetypes, whereas the second projects them in the direction of "nothingness" or impossibility. In drawing away from its source — namely pure Being — the second dimension on the one hand coagulates the qualities and archetypes, and on the other manifests their contraries; whence ultimately the phenomenon of contrastive manifestation, and consequently of evil. Being, which coincides with the personal God, cannot prevent evil because, as we have said, It cannot abolish, and could not
wish to abolish, the Infinitude of the pure Absolute.

[Ceph]

Evolution: fact.
Theory of evolution: attempt at an explanation of said fact.

[Super Laydock]

I don't care about science either, and my answer wouldn't be scientific (or at any rate, it wouldn't be "empirical" following a strict materialistic paradigm) in the first place.

Fuck it, my feelings can handle it! If you bring up a philosophical concept I'm not familiar with, that's what google is for. Tell us the reason you reject the theory of evolution.

Well, here's something for you to start with:

http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/viewp ... oddart.pdf

I do think evolution as described by Darwin is a theory untill it's a proven fact.
And I believe in evolution.

but that link really doesn't help for any credibility of your case.

[Opus131]

Evolution: fact.
Theory of evolution: attempt at an explanation of said fact.

So basically evolution is a dogma one must accept unconditionally, and the theology is only secondary?

[Opus131]

but that link really doesn't help for any credibility of your case.

Is it because it doesn't contain a "scientific" refutation of evolution?

[Ceph]

No, because it contains drivel by a stupid person.