Check out my digital garden: The Missing Premise.
Yes. As a black man, America has produced a long very involved legacy of which I’m proud being my heritage.
Sure, it was absolutely founded on treating people like as sub-human, and there are people today that are trying to return me to that state, but fuck them as they’ve been fucked for the last century and a half. I’ll be damned if I let them represent America.
Contrapoints and PhilosophyTube were two big ones. I’d still watch Carlos Maza if he produced anything, but he hasn’t in like two years, so…I’ll include him, too.
The “solutions” to this are called theodicy and are definitely a fascinating rabbit hole. They’re all unsatisfying, but philosophically interesting
Huge fan of water, personally. I drink literally a gallon of it every day. Usually more.
The KKK was never left wing.
God damn. Who tells people these things? And why does anyone believe them?
RSS reader. Curate your own news
Some people like waste particles on their exposed toothbrushes. It keeps them healthy like vaccine: a daily tiny dose of literal shit.
I have the Purple Harmony pillow. It took some getting used to, but yes, it’s worth it. I use a silk pillow case because of my hair: 4C hair is dried out by cotton and people recommend not sleeping on it as a result. My hair has never been longer though, so I think that’s true too.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Lucid blog, about fascism, and Patricia Roberts-Miller’s blog, about the rhetoric of demagoguery.
I did this sort of thing once at a Halloween party. I was by myself just dancing and it was fun af. Some random dude told me twice that I was the best dancer there, and I got to dance with a really hot girl for 2 seconds.
So follow Kat’s advice. Just say fuck it and have fun!
Cronometer? It’s more for calorie tracking, but it’s recipe builder does what you want.
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)
You’d think so…
I had the 1000XM4 until recently and it was fantastic, too. My SO would often get mad at me for not paying attention when I was in the computer.
That’s not exactly wrong, but it’s not the only reason. I’ve never been particularly interested LGBTQ+ issues, and Contrapoints’s transition first was kinda like, “K, I’m glad I’m learning about this stuff, I guess, but I have other interests.” After all, what drew me to both in the first place were their philosophical analyses and how they applied it to social issues. They were important to me for how they showed me how philosophy can be used, as opposed to DarkMatter5555 (I think that’s his name. Also, add him to the list), who I also used to watch, but that dude never grew out of the same stale template of animating god and the angel and regurgitating the most basic atheistic ideas.
So, my purpose in watching them was to learn how to apply principles to reality with a little learning along the way. But when they started focusing in on their transition, I just dropped off.