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FAO: Drug Users | MESSAGE: Please boycott foreign drugs or overdose already. Thanks! (pg. 13)
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| AMBIVALENT. GERMS. |
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| infiniteJEST |
| Don't do it, Hal! |
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| srussell0018 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
I don't see how that can be a problem because of the following:
All right, I can give you that, but it isn't a problem because subjective systems can be shared and agreed upon.
There's nothing objective whatsoever about language: It's a intersubjective system of signs not unlike morality, because it needs at least two people in order to work (if you lived alone, morality and language would be pointless). Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the world says the word "bird" stands for Sushipunk's flying friends. As a matter of fact, where I live the word is "pássaro", and it sounds nothing like "bird". So, does it mean that, if we both meet, we can't pick a common word? And, if we've got different systems of morality, can't we pick a common system and follow that one?
And that's my point.
It's immoral to me because I reckon that sort of behaviour is undesirable - and I'm not alone in this, surprisingly enough. Those around me probably share the same opinion (unless everybody thinks it's cool to kill people and no one told me) and, more tellingly, I'm willing to bet people where you live probably frown upon this sort of behaviour. It does seem to be a universal and this is good news if you want to refrain from adopting a nihilist stance in morality: if there are (even if just near-)universals we can agree upon, then there's some material we can work on. For example:
These guys found desirable traits admired in most cultures they investigated. Sure, it'd be too naïve to say these are the "moral universals" we're looking for but it's a hint that due to our common genetic make-up and similar environments, it's unlikely that two peoples (or two persons for that matter) will come to have opposite moralities - unless one of the persons really deviates from the norm.
And that brings us back to Columbine. They didn't open fire because they felt like it. Both kids had been bullied for months, and one became depressive and the other became a psychopath [source in a popular news site] - and that's hardly surprising. So they had a system of morality not much different from ours probably, and they sought to right a wrong. The difference between us and the trouble high school shooters is that we don't go to such extremes in order to make ourselves heard. The "immorality" here came not from a difference of kind (it is moral to correct a wrong) but from a difference of degree (it's not moral to correct a wrong in such a way that the author of the immoral behaviour you seek to rectify won't have a chance to do it right). Though, of course, our tolerance regarding the immorality of this violent correction differs from time to time and from place to place: If you're a high school student, you can't kill bullets, but if you're the US government, you can kill criminals. And, if you're the Brazilian government, you can't.
In any case, it's not a disagreement we can't work on. So, just like English became a lingua franca, there's no reason to believe a subjective system of morality can't be adopted by all peoples when dealing with one another even if we behave differently among ourselves.
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I see what you're saying. However, I don't think using language being used to support your stance here works all that well. Language obviously varies a great deal from country to country and even region to region, much like morality. Yes, groups of people could come together to decide on a moral code that they'd all like to live by.
That, in the history of humans, tended to be how societies developed. The problem, is that there will always be outliers, and there will always be dissenters from those common social mores. For there to be a truly objective system of morality (and by that I mean more than a code of conduct) it would have to be accepted universally.
If you and I sat down to make a list of all that we thought were moral and immoral, it could go on forever and never come to match.
I do understand what you mean about certain groups of people coming together and adopting one system of morality, but that only makes it objective for that group. Even then, as Hal said, this involves a certain degree of trust that they really do believe in that system of morality, and aren't merely saying that they do :p.
As to the Columbine shooters, you're saying what parts of what they did were moral, and what parts were immoral, but this is all based on your views on morality. I haven't done a lot of research into Columbine specifically (frankly the whole subject makes me kind of sick, which is why I've been trying to shy away from it), but it is possible that both shooters held drastically different views of morality than you or I. So, to them, what they were doing could have been completely morally acceptable.
This might be easier if we broke the topic down a little more than from "objective" and "subjective" to something else, because at least to me, saying morality can be "objective" would mean to suggest that all people in all places at all times would have to all believe in the same system. Even in cultures where there is close to an objective view of morality, there will always be people who don't adopt the same system of beliefs, or even come close to it. |
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| EgosXII |
what's your IQ eddie????
wanna start a high IQ club? :gsmile: |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
what's your IQ eddie????
wanna start a high IQ club? :gsmile: |
I have no idea what it is right now and I've killed quite a few brain-cells since then but the psychologist administering the exam said I managed, with a cold and a hang-over, to score a "High Superior Intellect" (Superior Intellect is 120-129 - around 6 percent of the population). He also administered the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) which prophetically revealed that I was well-adjusted but may experience problems with substance abuse and drinking, in the future.
I was so relieved there was nothing seriously mental about me that I went out and got lit, that night. :p |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| Whoa, this thread EXPLODED! |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
Whoa, this thread EXPLODED! |
:stongue:
I'm off to university right now, but I'll address Enydo here when I come back :) |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
Telling drug users to just go overdose already because it indirectly causes other people problems is like telling depressed people to just kill themselves because then they won't be sad anymore. It has a lovely, childlike deduction to it you must admit, but is an ultimately vapid, insensitive, and ignorant urging that utterly fails to address the root of a very complex issue with anything but the most hamfisted of irony.
You cannot and will not ever stop people from doing drugs any more than you can tell them to stop having sex. To do so is futility precisely in the vein of abstinence-only sexual education as AIDS awareness in Africa as supported by the oh-so-lovely Catholic Church. Just don't do it and the whole problem will go away!. You cannot change human nature (to which intoxication and its pursuits are so very much a part of), but sometimes you can change governments.
Cease all of this human nature until the government changes! NOBODY IN AFRICA HAVE SEX UNTIL THE CATHOLIC CHURCH APPROVES THE USE OF CONTRACEPTIVES! |
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| enydo |
I look forward to reading Lira's post while inhaling copious amounts of STRAIGHT MEXICAN-CARTEL-PRODUCED MARIJUANAS THAT I SURELY OWN AND PURCHASE REGULARLY.
Woe is me. If only I could see the error of my ways and just clean myself up. But I can't. I'm hopelessly addicted. A wreck. My life is in shambles. I don't know if I can pick up the pieces at this point. Even if I were to quit NOW, what then?? I'll have to live my whole life knowing I've actively supported such a horrendous situation. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
My stars, Austin! Had you not been slinging nickles at the hemp pushers down in little TJ all this time, that lady Mayor might still be alive!
BLOOD MARIJUANA |
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| Quazar |
Everyone just do acid, it's made in the USA and we can all make awesome cartoons together!
(does MDMA still largely come from the US, or is most of that coming from Mexico now?) |
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| srussell0018 |
| This was a good thread until Austin. |
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