Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

To quote Addo of Nex, "appealing to nature is the crudest form of mythologizing."

http://thedrunkardmuse.blogspot.com/2014/04/appealing-to-nature-crudest-form-of.html

Say what? I didn't know Addo had a blog. I like it...

I did say pharmacological help, not "artificial". Regardless, I'll take a little temporary pain for long term gain.

No, you didn't explicitly say "artificial"; but your reasoning registers the natural/artificial binary.

 

[Dak]

No, you didn't explicitly say "artificial"; but your reasoning registers the natural/artificial binary.

It doesn't have to. Depends on what sort of outcome you prefer. If one likes being sick more often, then by all means use every crutch available. Vitamin C tablets aren't "natural", and neither is gallons of OJ if you want to get real picky. But in either form, Vitamins perform a different function than Tamiflu et al. If you like the immediate function of pharmacology that's fine (I've used some when absolutely necessary). But don't complain about any potential adverse future results for flippant use. This boils down in a way, as usual, to TANSTAAFL (not in a literal way in this case), which people prefer to loathe and buck(or ignore) than to grow up and deal with. That's why we have the MRSA explosion etc.

 

[Einherjar86]

If you like the immediate function of pharmacology that's fine (I've used some when absolutely necessary). But don't complain about any potential adverse future results for flippant use.

I hate this comeback. "Don't complain when you get sick more later on...!"

The point is that the divide between artificial and natural breaks down at all points. It's contingent every time upon conditions that do not subscribe to the same natural qualities that the distinction itself prescribes (to use pharmacological lingo).

Ultimately, either everything is natural, or nothing is. I'm inclined to say that nothing is. "Reality went out the window the moment we started mediating sensory input through a nervous system." Appeals to the natural will never rid themselves of their ideological conditions.

 

[Dak]

I hate this comeback. "Don't complain [about the consequences] later on...!"

Everyone hates it, because it's paternalistic and because they damn sure will complain about the consequences of their choices. It's why I don't bother giving out warnings in 99.9% of cases, and then do a little mental eye rolling when I hear the complaints later.

Vitamins work differently from pharmacological products, and there are consequences, or side effects (to use pharmacological lingo). It has nothing to do with natural and artificial.

 

[Mort Divine]

Please tell me a vitamin that can aid me with my acid reflux better than Nexium.

 

[Dak]

Acid reflux isn't a virus. But it is a symptom (eg effect) of something. If I began to have issues with acid reflux I would take an inhibitor to prevent organ damage while I try to figure out any dietary causes and eliminate them.

I'm mildly lactose intolerant but I don't take a pill for that, I drink coconut milk instead. My MIL is way LI, and is this biiiiiig believer in pills pills pills, and then was surprised when she didn't have any bloating etc from the coconut milk. smh

 

[Einherjar86]

Everyone hates it, because it's paternalistic and because they damn sure will complain about the consequences of their choices. It's why I don't bother giving out warnings in 99.9% of cases, and then do a little mental eye rolling when I hear the complaints later.

I hate it because it isn't an argument. It's a deflection.

Vitamins work differently from pharmacological products, and there are consequences, or side effects (to use pharmacological lingo). It has nothing to do with natural and artificial.

Yes it does. Your attitude partakes of a long tradition of what I'll just call "naturalism." Let my body heal itself is a naturalist argument, whether you use the word or not.

 

[Dak]

Unless the person is trying to avoid laying the whole thing out because they don't know, how is it a deflection? I've never had to deflect because someone wanted more. Usually they are just insisting they have to do x.

Your body does heal itself, given the materials. It has an immune system. You scab up when the skin is broken, etc. In that sense, yes. May as well complain that people who fuck to have a kid are naturalists because now we can do it in a test tube.

 

[Einherjar86]

No, David. Once again, you miss an important part of the discussion.

I'm not criticizing you for choosing not to use medicine. I'm criticizing you for suggesting that it's better.

Just like I wouldn't criticize people who choose to have children through vaginal birth; I would only criticize them if they tried to insist that it was somehow better than some other effective method.

 

[Dak]

I'm not criticizing you for choosing not to use medicine. I'm criticizing you for suggesting that it's better.

I didn't say not using pharmacological aids is categorically better. For example, I got some weird fungal shit from the govco water in Iraq and had to use pharmacology to get rid of it. But it generally is better in the case of a relatively healthy person vs viruses, and I already pointed out that it's still not better even in those cases if you don't care about increased odds of getting sick in the future. That's where the "well don't complain" point comes in. You have to decide if the "juice is worth the squeeze". Most people like the squeeze and complain about the juice.

It's little different than pointing out that processed foods(artificial, artificial divide~) lead to x number of different increases in risks of various health maladies, and then when people continue to buy microwave dinners et al, telling them not to complain about High BP etc later. But they do continue to consume those processed foods, and then complain because they can't afford the associated healthcare costs to reduce their pain complaints, and want others to pay for the consequences of their decisions. Yes, adjusting lifestyle vs attempting to cover up effects with pills and surgery on the dime of others is better.

Edit: lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQZ2UeOTO3I

 

[Dak]

http://gawker.com/brands-are-not-your-friend-1684232182

I was enjoying this article lampooning the "relationship" people have with brands, until it made the (should have been predictable) move to claim that brands hate you. If a brand can't be a friend, it can't hate either. Don't bemoan Citizen United et al if you are going to march right in lockstep with the rhetoric when it suits. Then there was this bit of brandslutshaming:

Brands aren't forcing themselves on us—we're standing around with our pants undone and our tongues wagging out. We make it easy for brands to succeed.

Should I walk around wearing a NASCAR jacket affixed with a piece of paper that reads "SLUT"? Wonder how much support from the SJWs of the world I would get.

Edit:
http://www.aspentimes.com/news/14957190-113/michael-bloomberg-calls-colorados-decision-on-legal-pot-stupid

Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, he said.

Hmm. Gun control for minorities. Sounds familiar.

 

[Einherjar86]

It kind of just strikes me as funny because it seems ridiculous if you were to ask whether the author actually thinks that brands possess the capacity for feelings, or something of the sort. Of course, they're indifferent to our interests and behaviors. I don't think the author would contend that point.

His specific language is:

There is nothing relatable in a brand. It's an entity designed for the single purpose of extracting money from you by any legal means, no matter if you don't need or even want what's being sold. Even if the thing being sold is very, very bad for you—the brand will persuade you it's silken and lovely. A brand will systematically and perpetually convince you that your best interests are incorrect—this is the behavior of an abusive partner, not a friend. Not even a stranger! Brands hate you.

He's saying that, in any practical sense, brands just behave like they're our enemies; or at least, they don't behave like friends. He's not attributing any agency to them. He's just comparing the way they act to the way someone who might hate you acts. I think it's a bit melodramatic to read into this article that the author thinks brands actively "hate" us. It's rhetoric; it's journalism. He isn't making a metaphysical argument.

 

[Dak]

But a brand doesn't do anything. I don't think the author means to make a metaphysical statement, but he does grant ground to the Citizens United precedent, which also does not make a metaphysical claim. Of course, I disagree with the initial premise, that is, that a brand is an instrument of hate. But I wouldn't bother to argue with someone like that author over that. I'm just pointing out an inconsistency.

In looking at most ethical/political disputes, it seems to me that the primacy of individual autonomy is the dividing line. Either you accept it or you don't, but to not accept it is a contradiction, for acceptance is an autonomous act. That isn't to say that people cannot autonomously forgo autonomy (something that the anarchist left finds either impossible or immoral), and neither is it perfect (what about those with various disabilities?). But it appears that nothing else even begins to work in any fashion, and so when looking for some sort of overarching guiding principle, whether it is used to the exclusion of all other principles or not, it must be that of individual autonomy.

 

[Einherjar86]

But a brand doesn't do anything.

And I don't think the author means to argue that they do.

In looking at most ethical/political disputes, it seems to me that the primacy of individual autonomy is the dividing line. Either you accept it or you don't, but to not accept it is a contradiction, for acceptance is an autonomous act.

I think you misspoke. If I don't accept individual autonomy, then I haven't contradicted myself; for I have no individual autonomy with which to accept anything.

I think you mean that one either advocates individual autonomy, or one chooses not to advocate individual autonomy; but both decisions are choices, and this appears to indicate some form of autonomy.

 

[Dak]

I think you mean that one either advocates individual autonomy, or one chooses not to advocate individual autonomy; but both decisions are choices, and this appears to indicate some form of autonomy.

Yes, that's why I said the primacy of of it. To make a declaration regarding accepting it or not is to place your autonomy as a priori primary. Something like "What I say/accept/believe is of no consequence" would after some fashion affirm a non-primacy of autonomy yet fails to support the realization of the non-primacy of autonomy as any sort of guiding principle.

 

[Einherjar86]

Supposing that autonomy is "a priori primary" (a tendentious claim, in my opinion, especially when we're dealing with declarative statements, or any kind of human language); I do not see why that automatically makes it more relevant or valuable to systems of ethics and economics than, for instance, communal responsibility.

EDIT: actually, I don't see the logic or sense in appealing to individual autonomy as a justification for anything at all. Ultimately, the presence of autonomy can only be judged socially, and that means between subjects. It can never be proven solely from the reasoning of a purportedly autonomous subject.

A subject, perhaps, experiences something like autonomy. This is fine; but there's absolutely no need for this subject to prove that she experiences autonomy to herself because she just experiences it. And besides, the proof would ultimately fall upon the experience itself, and would thus not be a "proof" at all.

If we want autonomy to matter in any real sense, then it must be judged socially, and this means within a group - a practice that actually precludes proof since it is impossible for me to prove to anyone else that I am autonomous. The very notion of idealizing autonomy as some preexisting energy or ability that grounds our experience is irrelevant, because any action falls back on belief.

 

[Dak]

Supposing that autonomy is "a priori primary" (a tendentious claim, in my opinion, especially when we're dealing with declarative statements, or any kind of human language); I do not see why that automatically makes it more relevant or valuable to systems of ethics and economics than, for instance, communal responsibility.

EDIT: actually, I don't see the logic or sense in appealing to individual autonomy as a justification for anything at all. Ultimately, the presence of autonomy can only be judged socially, and that means between subjects. It can never be proven solely from the reasoning of a purportedly autonomous subject.

My point is that you cannot coherently, in an ethical sense, do anything else. We can of course simply act, lacking any ethical coherency. But the actions not guided by a primacy of individual autonomy (of course by saying principle we are talking about a universalization) lack any coherency, and lacking coherency the actions would also lack even the beginnings to a claim of something we might call ethical or moral. Now you or other people might be willing to concede that ethics or morals are a fiction, but I doubt this would be a popular or practical view, whether true or not.

By lacking coherency I of course mean that to dismiss the autonomy of others I assert my own. This does not reject individual autonomy, it merely rejects that others are individual subjects, and therefore rejects that there is a group - thus nullifying a claim to an ethics, as ethics requires a group.

A subject, perhaps, experiences something like autonomy. This is fine; but there's absolutely no need for this subject to prove that she experiences autonomy to herself because she just experiences it. And besides, the proof would ultimately fall upon the experience itself, and would thus not be a "proof" at all.

Why the talk of proof or needing to prove that we all experience autonomy as a prerequisite?

If we want autonomy to matter in any real sense, then it must be judged socially, and this means within a group - a practice that actually precludes proof since it is impossible for me to prove to anyone else that I am autonomous. The very notion of idealizing autonomy as some preexisting energy or ability that grounds our experience is irrelevant, because any action falls back on belief.

It's also impossible for me to prove I exist materially either. "Feel me" is as pointless as "Look I am willing this". I don't see where this critique is going. You're jumping towards ideal, I'm not saying it's ideal. It's merely what we have to work with, and it's certainly alienable. I don't want to get into discussions of "rights" and whether or not there is free will. Autonomy is relative to heteronomy, and no discussion of the subject in this sense precludes the group(s).

 

[Einherjar86]

My point is that you cannot coherently, in an ethical sense, do anything else. We can of course simply act, lacking any ethical coherency. But the actions not guided by a primacy of individual autonomy (of course by saying principle we are talking about a universalization) lack any coherency, and lacking coherency the actions would also lack even the beginnings to a claim of something we might call ethical or moral. Now you or other people might be willing to concede that ethics or morals are a fiction, but I doubt this would be a popular or practical view, whether true or not.

It isn't true that "actions not guided by a primacy of individual autonomy lack any coherency."

The self doesn't cohere; as Ezra Pound wrote, "I cannot make it cohere."

Actions can be guided by a primacy of sociality. It's possible, in my opinion, that a philosophy or ethics of the social, the communal, may cohere far more successfully than an ethics of the individual.

By lacking coherency I of course mean that to dismiss the autonomy of others I assert my own. This does not reject individual autonomy, it merely rejects that others are individual subjects, and therefore rejects that there is a group - thus nullifying a claim to an ethics, as ethics requires a group.

Language doesn't testify to the intentions of a coherent subject.

Why the talk of proof or needing to prove that we all experience autonomy as a prerequisite?

If you're going to talk of a priori principles, then I want proof of them.

It's also impossible for me to prove I exist materially either. "Feel me" is as pointless as "Look I am willing this". I don't see where this critique is going. You're jumping towards ideal, I'm not saying it's ideal. It's merely what we have to work with, and it's certainly alienable. I don't want to get into discussions of "rights" and whether or not there is free will. Autonomy is relative to heteronomy, and no discussion of the subject in this sense precludes the group(s).

No, material existence is entirely different than proving interior intentions. That's where you're dead wrong.

Your body registers in a material sense in a way that your intentions (prior to acting on them) do not.

 

[Dak]

It isn't true that "actions not guided by a primacy of individual autonomy lack any coherency."

The self doesn't cohere; as Ezra Pound wrote, "I cannot make it cohere."

Actions can be guided by a primacy of sociality. It's possible, in my opinion, that a philosophy or ethics of the social, the communal, may cohere far more successfully than an ethics of the individual.

Any argument against the coherency of the individual also negates any coherency of the group. That route is a nonstarter.

Language doesn't testify to the intentions of a coherent subject.

If you're going to talk of a priori principles, then I want proof of them.

By making a choice I must affirm my own autonomy to do so. This is what Kant was suggesting validated the idea of free will. I'm not even trying to go that far.

No, material existence is entirely different than proving interior intentions. That's where you're dead wrong.

Your body registers in a material sense in a way that your intentions (prior to acting on them) do not.

Registers to who? To what? Those things which lack coherency?

 

[Einherjar86]

Any argument against the coherency of the individual also negates any coherency of the group. That route is a nonstarter.

Emergence, complexity, systems, etc. etc. etc. I don't need to bother trying to bring you up to speed from - well - the eighteenth century.

Bees and ants do not have agency or individual autonomy; and yet there is a coherency to them as a group. It's a nonstarter to claim that we need individual autonomy in order to talk about coherency at various levels of complexity.

I won't argue this with you any further because it's a waste of my time.

By making a choice I must affirm my own autonomy to do so. This is what Kant was suggesting validated the idea of free will. I'm not even trying to go that far.

Kant's not the authority in this case. Developments in cognitive philosophy and neuroscience seriously call that claim into doubt.

Language doesn't express the coherence or unity of a central self; language functionally divides the self, makes it inauthentic. If free will exists, it doesn't share living space with the likes of you. You have an image of a self - an illusion, a dream of being a person. Your body makes decisions without you, and tells you about it after the fact.

We need to begin seeing ourselves as parts of a system, not as precious little gems of self-contained genius and intention.

Registers to who? To what? Those things which lack coherency?

Step on a scale. Log your weight. Now step off.

Okay, now step back on the scale; but this time, think about some really heavy intention or interior thought you have.

Log your weight again, and tell me if it's higher.