Check out my digital garden: The Missing Premise.
The more nuanced follow up, however, is that it’s only worth the work if you’re putting in the right amount of work.
Yeah…this is why I abandoned by privacy journey a few years ago. It felt like it took a lot of work, created hiccups for very little reason, and was overall just not enjoyable. But I was able to get Bitwarden out of it, which, I think, is a pretty swell privacy-focused app.
Amen. Get futons instead so you can sleep anywhere in your home.
Actually, that’s a good point! I brought it up in another comment, but there are mathematical geniuses, piano geniuses, scientific genius, etc. But everybody know and can agree on what math is, what a piano is and how difficult it is to play well, what science is and the long road to mastery of a sliver of human knowledge that entails.
But not with morality.
Personally, I think you’ve suggested an answer that satisfies me: people have no idea wtf morality or spirituality are. Plato and Aristotle once may have been able to point to someone and say, “So and so is more virtuous than us!” or “The king of a foreign nation is full of vice and worth less than coward who turns to bravery.” But it’s like modern American society cannot conceive of such a concept as moral superiority.
I mean, some people can, and then often go on to be significantly worse than normal people. They are often the definition of immoral. But, as a general rule, saying that you’re morally superior to others barely makes any sense and, even if it did, would demand an impossible type of proof.
Damn. U.S. conservatives are at stage 6 or 7 with trans people.
Since you wrote this post, you probably have some idea of what a moral genius is supposed to be. Can you describe what makes a person a moral genius and maybe give an example?
I mean, that’s interesting in and of itself. The concept of a moral genius isn’t clear. Others have brought this up, too.
A genius is someone who generally displays some exemplary skill. Terrence Tao, for example, attended university-level mathematics courses when he was nine. Most people couldn’t have possibly have done what he did. In contrast, Pablo Picasso was also a genius, creating artistic masterpieces, among his many other talents. Many of his contemporaries didn’t achieve what he did.
So, at least we know that geniuses can be recognized as such at any point in their life, and it seems more about achieving a level of mastery or insight into their field or practice that others aren’t privy to, even other practitioners.
People keep saying morality is subjective, which is true, but so is art. Still, Picasso was recognized as genius. Still, there are widely recognized universal moral values, like don’t kill other people. So, I’m not sure moral subjectivity is sufficient to dismiss what I’m asking.
Other commenters have brought up various moral philosophers like Kant and St. Augustine. Different moral frameworks, both geniuses. Sure. The same commenter brought up Buddha, and I think that’s closer to what I’m after. Buddha attained “enlightenment” and then everybody and their god came to him for moral guidance.
I think it’s this beacon of guidance as a genius that really captures my concept of a moral genius. Like, if you’re a professional mathematician and you get stumped on a proof, you may turn to Terrence Tao to see what he thinks about resolving the apparent problem. Similarly, if you’re trying to understand some aspect of art that eludes you but you see in Picasso paintings, you might engage in-depth study of his artwork until you get what you’re trying to find.
But let’s say you’re widely understood to be at least a good person, then who do you turn to? Who is widely understood to be a morally superior person that exceeds even the normal best to which they turn? Such a person would fit my understanding of a moral genius.
And while children are often lauded for being innocent and pure, it’s like their untainted understanding of morality isn’t recognized as proper moral decision-making. In contrast, the Dalai Lama is often respected as spiritual leader, but I think that stems more from what the Dalai Lama is and the tradition around him rather than the inherent goodness of whoever is the Dalai Lama. The same goes for preachers/the Pope/etc. That might be unfair to discount them, though…idk.
Yeah, but who is today’s Buddha?
Art is subjective too, but artistic genius is a thing (but takes longer to develop, I guess. I can’t recall any young artistic geniuses)
I don’t understand how this can be so powerful, but so many people believe it and vote accordingly. It’s not rational, it is identity, it is tribe.
Who we are and how we see ourselves is extremely powerful. Take me for example: I cultivate a self-identity of an aspiring intellectual. I generally want to be seen as rational, with evidence-based beliefs, and having spent time thinking about my own thinking. I go to great lengths to shore up this identity for myself. This may not make me popular with the ladies, and I may not be able to easily converse with my friends on pop culture topics because I prefer analyzing arguments, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
In contrast, some people want to be seen as loyal. This is irrational to me, but it’s not like being an intellectual with properly weighted beliefs has ever been particularly useful for fitting in. Being loyal means adhering to the norms of the group because it’s your group. Fundamentally, it’s about identity for those that value loyalty and want to be seen as such. They’ll side with their SO even if their SO is wrong to demonstrate that loyalty. They’ll terrorize the out-group, believing themselves virtuous, because being loyal is virtue to them.
Republicans are winning this game. And we’re becoming increasingly tribalistic in the U.S., where loyalty is more valued than a belief in democratic pluralism. What is public transport, public healthcare, unions, expanded medicaid, access to abortion, etc, in the face of belonging, being valued as a member of a greater community? The latter is existential; the former, just policy.
Oh, you wanted that, too? Shoot, I’ll save you some trouble:
That’s all I got off the top of my head. I used to have RSS feeds of all of these organizations, but reading their headlines was infuriating. It was like a shot of hate every time they popped up. So, if I’m looking for arguments, I know where to go, otherwise, out of sight out of mind.
Mises’ Socialism and the economic calculation problem threw me for a loop for a while. It really rocked my preference for socialism at the time. Then I realized modern corporations with modern computing power are doing exactly what Mises says a theoretical central planner can’t do.
While I don’t disagree exactly, the way he puts his arguments is far better than Shapiro. Reading or listening to Sowell is a lesson in uncovering sophisticated conservative arguments. It took me a while to understand how Sowell reasoned, so that’s why I include him and think he’s a great example of conservative thinkers.
Yeah, that’s what they do and say.
For Gingrich, you can read his memo Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.
Yes! I’ve been on this journey!
Thomas Sowell’s bibliography is easily the best starting place. Just pick something and have at it. As a prominent conservative economist, his books actually make good arguments. It takes actual effort to deconstruct his arguments and identify where he’s wrong. He’s widely and highly respected in conservative communities and tackles a lot of the common cultural war issues.
Then there’s granddaddies Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek. Also economists, they were directly impacted by the Cold War, and make intellectual cases that capitalism is the only economic system that leads to real individual freedom. And they also try to prove why the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and every lesser species of it undermines liberty. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom are staples.
Castigated by modern conservatives because they’re not serious about anything, sociology’s Emile Durkheim is a cornerstone of the discipline. I’ve never read it, but his book *Suicide *concerns individuals within community and the institutions of it. He talks about a type of suicide derived from moral disorder and lack of clarity, anomic suicide.
One book that I found incredibly insightful was Yuval Levin’s The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left. This book is genuinely fair to both sides, and it shows the historical roots of conservatism and its relation to the French Revolution, when the right and the left as political stances first became a thing.
Do only older white conservative men do this?
No. An older Hispanic man almost did it to me. He stopped himself, though, thankfully.
@Mistral@lemmings.world …what is today? Like, the date.
@Mistral@lemmings.world Are you able to search the internet? If yes, then what something important and uplifting happening today in the world?
I’m the little bit everyday person. I’ll clean the bathrooms one day, then vacuum the floors the next. Wash clothes later in the week, something I need to do today.
I feel like doing a bit a day helps keep things cleaner than if I did it all at once. Things can appear overwhelming pretty quickly, at which point I won’t want to do it at all.
Genocide is just murder on an industrial scale intended to solve some social problem (at least that’s a modern way of looking at it). The justification for a single murder is extended to a whole group and those people become history.
Cronometer? It’s more for calorie tracking, but it’s recipe builder does what you want.