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[McTraveller]

Everything we do is meaningless beyond the meaning we ascribe to it.

Objection: premise stated as fact without evidence.

[methylatedspirit]

Everything we do is meaningless beyond the meaning we ascribe to it.

(an incomplete list of) Premises below this:

• it's impossible to decide the meaning of life by being inside the system of life.
• just because events have cause-and-effect to them doesn't mean there is universally evident meaning behind it.

I mean, I absolutely agree with both, but I also take both (plus others that need to be taken as an axiomatic rule) for granted. "Shit happens regardless of our, or any other entity's ability to derive meaning out of it. If there is universal meaning, it cannot be accessed from within the realm of the living."

My objection to McTraveller's objection is: How would you even begin to disprove "everything's meaningless except what meaning we give it" without already taking it as false? How would you prove "everything's meaningless except what meaning we give it" without already taking it as true?

My belief is that this looks like you're differing over axioms, and I can't imagine that being very productive at all...? There's probably good conversation to be had in asking why we take on the axioms we do, but I don't feel it makes much sense to split hairs on things that descend so directly from the axioms.

[McTraveller]

The (an?) alternate premise is "things inherently have meaning, not predicated on us having to ascribe anything, but given by something outside of ourselves."

[methylatedspirit]

Fair enough.

...great, what now? Supposing that you believe it for the sake of illustration, as someone who doesn't believe your premise, how could I ever unconvince you of it? And how would you ever convince me of it? I could say that things inherently have external meaning in groups of entities, but those external meanings are local and cannot be transferred out of those groups. I think it's a reasonable first approximation for talking about how people act, but I'm ultimately basing that assumption on "it looks like that". How am I gonna show evidence for that without invoking itself?

In my head, this is like how elliptical and hyperbolic geometry is based on rejections of the original Parallel Postulate; you haven't made a better or worse geometry, you just made different ones. You haven't made a better or worse way of thinking about the world, you just made a different one.

[martinuzz]

Last week was already a sad moment, when the Taliban passed a new law that forbids women from attending university or any other post-primary school education.
Today they also passed a law that forbids women to work at local and foreign NGOs.

Hate it that I was right when I said that anyone actually believing the Taliban's promises about women rights was not in their right mind.

[Eric Blank]

I have been working for this place for two weeks, it is one of the worst organized I've ever worked at, and the crew I'm supposed to be working with on weekends makes no effort to explain expectations. Residents tickets aren't updated with new preferences, my coworkers don't mention that one cart is complete and the next should begin, they expect me to call out information haphazardly, but I never recieved training on that part of the job anyway. Then the cook is getting all upset I'm not reading it out like she wants, and then getting stuck, and ignoring me when I do call out what she wants on the next one because she's not listening to me. I'm apparently too loud tlfor their liking as well, so I get to use my whispering voice. While the other aide is talking over me about nonsense unrelated to the meal were serving.

It's nonstop BS, I can't communicate with these people, and they're getting angry at me for it. Which is making me angry.

[hector13]

New job time.

[Great Order]

Last week was already a sad moment, when the Taliban passed a new law that forbids women from attending university or any other post-primary school education.
Today they also passed a law that forbids women to work at local and foreign NGOs.

Hate it that I was right when I said that anyone actually believing the Taliban's promises about women rights was not in their right mind.

And of course, the reasoning is to protect women.

Pretty sure that the women *are* being protected by following this. They're being protected from being beaten and raped by the Taliban for refusing to follow their incredibly discriminatory laws by following them.

[bloop_bleep]

If you don't rape and murder women to enforce your position of power, how are you going to maintain a moral society?

[Eschar]

Last week was already a sad moment, when the Taliban passed a new law that forbids women from attending university or any other post-primary school education.
Today they also passed a law that forbids women to work at local and foreign NGOs.

Hate it that I was right when I said that anyone actually believing the Taliban's promises about women rights was not in their right mind.

And of course, the reasoning is to protect women.

Pretty sure that the women *are* being protected by following this. They're being protected from being beaten and raped by the Taliban for refusing to follow their incredibly discriminatory laws by following them.

Yes, when the "protection" is protecting against the same people claiming to offer the protection, it's uhh not called protection, it's called a racket at best.

[King Zultan]

I don't get why the Taliban is allowed to continue to exist, they're a bunch of bastards and need to be gotten rid of.

[Il Palazzo]

'I don't get why the Taliban is allowed to continue to exist, they're a bunch of bastards and need to be gotten rid of.'
- Alexander the Great, 330 BC

[scriver]

My Total War learnt knowledge says Alexander's men who stayed on the Indian border were the original Taliban

[nenjin]

Didn't get a call or a text from the one person I was hoping to hear from. 

[hector13]

Is there anything stopping you from calling or texting them?