Well, as you stated that mankind should learn to curb our desire for things that are beyond what we need, you should give up your Internet access, electricity, and anything else that you happen to have that is on that list, as I would be justified in labelling you a hypocrite.
I'm trying to. I just bought clothes for the first time in 4 years. I just started driving again after 6 years of voluntarily going without a car. I may at some point decide I shouldn't have internet either. Point is, I'm being mindful of my consumption and trying to think about the consequence and even adjusting how I spend based on those consequences. Is that a bad thing or a waste of time if we're just all serving our own interests?
You say all those other things in an effort to display that needs are not relative, but here you actually admit that they are, as you point out that what you would consider a want is a need for someone else.
A rich person needs a Mercedes? Please answer that one for me rather than ignoring it (and about 5 other challenges to your view point.)
If I died right now, not one of your needs would fail to be fulfilled. The system marches on without me, it is unlikely that I shall one day fulfill any of your basic survival needs, so no, you do not need me alive.
And if no one was part of the system, there'd be no system and we wouldn't talking. What
exactly do you do for a living? Because despite what you say about it, you're part of the system and you're contributing. You paying your internet bill right now supports the overall network that makes so I can have internet. I put value on that fact as a societal good despite you never having directly served my needs.
No, since needs are relative, you need to tell me relative to what are those needs that you see as something beyond which we should not reach.
We need to be able to sustain the way we live now for the next 2,000 years, or accept less that'll allow us to live with a higher level of societal equity and environmental quality than we're predicted to have. There are many things, many luxuries, that our desire for is driving wildlife populations, natural resources and environmental quality to the brink. It's also continually forcing the largest group of people to bear the largest sacrifices in order to keep the system working.
If am being illlogical, and you know it, it should be easy enough to point out why I am illogical without resorting to dismissive and meaningless labels.
No, you're just inverting every statement I make and it's turning into a 15+ quote-per-post war laden with semantics. It's getting tiresome. I don't feel like I'm debating a person, I feel like I'm talking to a wall that just echoes what I say in an opposite tone.
So you do not really care if your point of view is factual or logical, you just do not want people to write it off as invalid?
Coming from the guy who has yet to defend that it's just as ok to want a cheeseburger as to be a mass murderer, based on the sanctity of human desire? We're beyond logic here, and _you_ know it. You're right, you're not being obtuse. That implies you don't know what you're doing. I think you know exactly what you're doing and I find it pretty dishonest. We're talking about real world issues and you're treating them as though they exist in a vaccuum, so things like "all human desire is sacrosanct" when in the real world, you know that's not the case.
If you are going to reject moral relativism, you shall need to provide some proof that morality is not relative, so it really does matter where you get yours.
Since when do I, or anyone, have to prove anything when it comes to morality? I reject moral relativism because it doesn't work for me in the most extreme cases. Some things I can accept and somethings I cannot, whether I want to or not. Hence, moral relativism doesn't work for me period, because I'm not going to look at two different situations happening in two different ways and say they're one in the same.
So you do accept moral relativism? This has me a little perplexed.
It's called reality, that thing you are involved in when you step away from the computer. Like I said,
this isn't an exercise for me. People will believe whatever they want, I can't change that. I can only believe what I have chosen to believe and the best I can manage to talk to some people, when they aren't too busy trying to be clever.
If it makes sense inside the debate, why would it not make sense somewhere else? All of this stuff only makes sense if it is correct, so, I don't get it.
Tell that to the victim of a regime, that their dictator was as morally justified. By the way, are you ever going to refute that, or can I go on to assume you actually believe it?
They would both be right. The sweat of a man's brow is worth to any particular individual what that individual thinks it is worth, so long as that judgement of worth is not based upon false pretenses.
It's worth what people will pay them for it. A person's worth cannot be defined in a vacuum. Their worth is a negotiation between two parties. So again, who is right? And who has been screwed at what point?
My whole point is that needs are relative, and, thus, that which is not a need is not something that you can objectively state, as you have been trying to do.
OMG, an opinion not obfuscated in semantic word games!!! Can you do that from now on, and less of everything that preceeded it?
We can objectively state it. People need food, shelter, medical care and the ability to pay for those things, i.e. a job, to live for their average 60 years on Earth. Knowing and being really honest about what the least we can live off of is the first step of actually identifying what we can let go of.
If you do not state what you are thinking as I have done, you can give up hope of being understood.
Funny, I haven't had to have one of these ridiculous quote wars in quite a while until now. I think I'm doing just fine, thanks.
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Topic: Communism Vs Capitalism (Ideology) (Read 24646 times)