this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Politics
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The solution to the "both sides" argument is to develop a rigorous system of values based on purely logical reasoning with a definitive answer to what is ethical and what cannot be tolerated. As long as people follow emotional arguments and lines of reasoning based on higher-level concepts that fail to highlight the chain of proof that has led to their truth, then uncertainty will cause inaction and complacency.
I see how you got the mathematician part of your name.
Unfortunately, most people rely almost exclusively on emotive reasoning and even those who try to do better have trouble nailing down the exact values of humanity with mathematical sharpness. It stands high on my list of reasons to expect humanity not to survive the century, unfortunately. If you have a novel process to this end to point to I would be quite interested.
I find that the policies built on "logic only" tend to break down because they ignore emotion and feelings entirely. People are emotional by nature and our feelings, sense of well-being, sense of justice, sense of oppression, and so on are very real in that they drive how we react and respond to each other. Trying to make a utopia based on people not reacting to their emotions is like trying to make a utopia where people don't need to eat - it might be nice, but it's unrealistic.
Imagine if someone came up and kept stabbing you with a rusty pin every day, and whenever you jump away and say "ow!" they roll their eyes and say "logically, this shouldn't bother you, because it only hurts for a second, you're not bleeding and I know that this pin won't give you tetanus. You're being very irrational right now." Based on their logic, they're right, you won't be measurably hurt, but it still has a real effect on you and you'll want to do everything you can to stop getting randomly stabbed by a rusty pin every day. Your lived experience is real to you.
Your arguments have nothing to do with my comment and distract from the point. There is nothing similar between lacking the need to eat or being abused with a nail and the fact that consistent and fair political ideas must be rational in nature. I didn't claim that emotions are not relevant.
Emotions represent beliefs which, if they match what ia metaphysically true, will ve logical. Emotions that conflict with facts represent miscalculations. The point is that, since ethics can be based off of logic from starting principles about humans and the universe, it should be followed as such instead of being tugges in any given direction by populism.
At any rate, you're right that others don't support the idea.