Evil? Now, perhaps. Later? Not so much.

[KitemanSA]

Unless we are today at the prologue to some SF timeline where most everyone today happens to be lucky enough to live to see the day of rejuvenation/life extension. Which'd mean immortal Diogenes. In which case near the top of my todo list is to get as far away from you and your kind as possible. Like.. Some other star system. Light years away from you and your legislated morality.

The "morality" is legislated by nature. You just don't want to accept it. Running away from reality seems appropriate for you. Funny thing is, it follows you wherever you go.

This identifies your fundamental fallacy. WRT drug use, what nature dictates is ETHICS (good vs. bad) NOT MORALITY (right vs. wrong). Personal drug use is often BAD for you, but not WRONG.

If you keep trying to DICTATE good thru legislation while doing wrong, you will wind up with messes like we have.

YOU CAN'T DO GOOD BY DOING WRONG.

[Betruger]

If you have no time to defend your comments, you certainly have time to make snide remarks. I guess it all shows what you consider important.

You have no idea who you're talking to, culturally and psychologically. I am calling it for what it is in a plain down to earth frank way as is done where I come from. No malice involved. Snidery has nothing to do with it. You're nuts and that's all there is to it.

Unless we are today at the prologue to some SF timeline where most everyone today happens to be lucky enough to live to see the day of rejuvenation/life extension. Which'd mean immortal Diogenes. In which case near the top of my todo list is to get as far away from you and your kind as possible. Like.. Some other star system. Light years away from you and your legislated morality.

The "morality" is legislated by nature. You just don't want to accept it. Running away from reality seems appropriate for you. Funny thing is, it follows you wherever you go.

Oh Really? Nature also says we can screw around with that same "sacrosanct" template for human behavior. From "natural" ways such as being hit by lightning, or horses jolting themselves by snorting, or humans chewing on some particular herbs, or manufacturing synthetic mind-screwers, and whatever crazy schemes the future holds such as totally rewriting everything you presently hold as absolute standard for "normal".

Here and now though you have to be completely off your rocker to pretend you have any authority, any sovereignty over free will between consenting adults. Cause you're so primed for moral pontification that you seem to've missed the KEY wording in my first reply - not biological needs but conscious intention IE free will being the point of contention.
I personally have visceral aversion to homosexuals, less so to lesbians although they don't float my boat either, and gays' mannerisms simply grate on me like nails on chalkboard, but none of that compares with how repulsive the idea that I or anyone should impose on them. That you pretend you can deny them the right to pursue happiness in whatever way they choose. They could bite each others' heads off like mantises for all I care.

The biological sovereignty argument is nothing like the absolute you pretend it is. It's as arbitrary parameter as any other biological vestige from evolution. REASON is the only sovereign, and it's bound to no particular morphology or lifestyle.

[Diogenes]

A lot of you seem to believe that it is the "cartels" and the "government" which CAUSE the addiction. This seems entirely nonsensical to me. I see no possible answer but that it is the DRUG that causes addiction. Nobody gets addicted to carrots or apples no matter how hard they are pushed.

I say if you make it available, it will eventually addict most people. How you can believe otherwise I simply cannot understand.

Back when Morph1ne could be purchased from the neighborhood chemist, there were no stampedes of folks trying to get addicted. To a LARGE extent, it IS the cartels (and their friendly neighborhood pushers) that DO cause addiction, since most folks don't try addictive drugs on their own.

I would have thought that you would be familiar with an exponential growth curve.



It never starts as a stampede. An infection usually starts small.




Chests of Opium brought into China:

[Diogenes]

Unless we are today at the prologue to some SF timeline where most everyone today happens to be lucky enough to live to see the day of rejuvenation/life extension. Which'd mean immortal Diogenes. In which case near the top of my todo list is to get as far away from you and your kind as possible. Like.. Some other star system. Light years away from you and your legislated morality.

The "morality" is legislated by nature. You just don't want to accept it. Running away from reality seems appropriate for you. Funny thing is, it follows you wherever you go.

This identifies your fundamental fallacy. WRT drug use, what nature dictates is ETHICS (good vs. bad) NOT MORALITY (right vs. wrong). Personal drug use is often BAD for you, but not WRONG.

Nature dictates morality. Do you think the biblical prohibition from eating pigs or blood is just a matter of opinion?

If you keep trying to DICTATE good thru legislation while doing wrong, you will wind up with messes like we have.

YOU CAN'T DO GOOD BY DOING WRONG.

And you can't do right by trying to legislate against the nature of mankind. Laws should reflect natural law, not oppose it.

Nature is going to make abortion illegal. Those that support it are leaving fewer descendents behind to defend it than are those who oppose it. Nature grinds slow, but nature grinds fine.

[MSimon]

If you have no time to defend your comments, you certainly have time to make snide remarks. I guess it all shows what you consider important.

You have no idea who you're talking to, culturally and psychologically. I am calling it for what it is in a plain down to earth frank way as is done where I come from. No malice involved. Snidery has nothing to do with it. You're nuts and that's all there is to it.

Unless we are today at the prologue to some SF timeline where most everyone today happens to be lucky enough to live to see the day of rejuvenation/life extension. Which'd mean immortal Diogenes. In which case near the top of my todo list is to get as far away from you and your kind as possible. Like.. Some other star system. Light years away from you and your legislated morality.

The "morality" is legislated by nature. You just don't want to accept it. Running away from reality seems appropriate for you. Funny thing is, it follows you wherever you go.

Oh Really? Nature also says we can screw around with that same "sacrosanct" template for human behavior. From "natural" ways such as being hit by lightning, or horses jolting themselves by snorting, or humans chewing on some particular herbs, or manufacturing synthetic mind-screwers, and whatever crazy schemes the future holds such as totally rewriting everything you presently hold as absolute standard for "normal".

Here and now though you have to be completely off your rocker to pretend you have any authority, any sovereignty over free will between consenting adults. Cause you're so primed for moral pontification that you seem to've missed the KEY wording in my first reply - not biological needs but conscious intention IE free will being the point of contention.
I personally have visceral aversion to homosexuals, less so to lesbians although they don't float my boat either, and gays' mannerisms simply grate on me like nails on chalkboard, but none of that compares with how repulsive the idea that I or anyone should impose on them. That you pretend you can deny them the right to pursue happiness in whatever way they choose. They could bite each others' heads off like mantises for all I care.

The biological sovereignty argument is nothing like the absolute you pretend it is. It's as arbitrary parameter as any other biological vestige from evolution. REASON is the only sovereign, and it's bound to no particular morphology or lifestyle.

Yep.

See my:

viewtopic.php?p=76574#76574

for the consequences of letting aversion rule political life. The short version: what ever schemes you use to get at those committing the "wrongs" you are adverse to will eventually be used on you.

[MSimon]

Nature is going to make abortion illegal.

Maybe. Maybe not. Traditionally abortion was used to allow the family to better provide for the remaining offspring. Very useful in hard times.

If that is the majority of what abortion is about these days (there is some indication that it may be) then the practice could last indefinitely.

And it is natural. Except rather than eating our young we kill them.

[Diogenes]

If you have no time to defend your comments, you certainly have time to make snide remarks. I guess it all shows what you consider important.

You have no idea who you're talking to, culturally and psychologically. I am calling it for what it is in a plain down to earth frank way as is done where I come from. No malice involved. Snidery has nothing to do with it. You're nuts and that's all there is to it.

Thank you for that informed opinion. I will take it under advisement.

Unless we are today at the prologue to some SF timeline where most everyone today happens to be lucky enough to live to see the day of rejuvenation/life extension. Which'd mean immortal Diogenes. In which case near the top of my todo list is to get as far away from you and your kind as possible. Like.. Some other star system. Light years away from you and your legislated morality.

The "morality" is legislated by nature. You just don't want to accept it. Running away from reality seems appropriate for you. Funny thing is, it follows you wherever you go.

Oh Really? Nature also says we can screw around with that same "sacrosanct" template for human behavior. From "natural" ways such as being hit by lightning, or horses jolting themselves by snorting, or humans chewing on some particular herbs, or manufacturing synthetic mind-screwers, and whatever crazy schemes the future holds such as totally rewriting everything you presently hold as absolute standard for "normal".

The communist philosophy is based on the notion that you can change human nature from one of self interest to that of universal altruism. Human nature has so far won every contest with the communist theory.

Human nature can evolve, but it seems to do so slowly. If you want to get the jump on the next evolutionary leap, go ahead. Just don't assume it is in the best interest of everyone else to follow you in folly.

Here and now though you have to be completely off your rocker to pretend you have any authority, any sovereignty over free will between consenting adults.

A measure of the narrowness of your scope of understanding is the belief that ONLY "consenting adults" are affected by their actions. AIDS is a most obvious example where this is not true. Drunk driving is another. Abortion is a third.

Cause you're so primed for moral pontification that you seem to've missed the KEY wording in my first reply - not biological needs but conscious intention IE free will being the point of contention.

A society can tolerate free will as long as it comes with responsibilities. Unfettered free will is destructive to everyone. As Edmund Burke said:

"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. "

I personally have visceral aversion to homosexuals, less so to lesbians although they don't float my boat either, and gays' mannerisms simply grate on me like nails on chalkboard, but none of that compares with how repulsive the idea that I or anyone should impose on them.

You are the product of your environment, which is itself is at the apogee of it's deviation from what has been the norm for a very long part of human history. It is a shame that you cannot detach yourself from your zeitgeist and see things more deeply.

"Normalizing" homosexuality has become quite the fad nowadays. "Glee" is currently leading the way. As i've mentioned, the purpose of this thread is to show how with sufficient pressure, "evil" becomes mundane and accepted over time.

That you pretend you can deny them the right to pursue happiness in whatever way they choose. They could bite each others' heads off like mantises for all I care.

Would you apply your philosophy to someone who pursues happiness through apotemnophilia? Or if not, what would YOU do?

The biological sovereignty argument is nothing like the absolute you pretend it is. It's as arbitrary parameter as any other biological vestige from evolution. REASON is the only sovereign, and it's bound to no particular morphology or lifestyle.

And it seems particularly elusive for you.

You simply do not comprehend the nature of your own philosophy, likely as not due to the fact that you didn't create it yourself, but instead acquired it through osmosis from the culture which currently surrounds you.

One can only hope that over time you will learn to hold fast to that which is true, and discard that which is merely uninformed opinion, regardless of how popular it is. THAT is a lesson for you from the example of Diogenes.

[Teahive]

Isn't it simpler to prevent the need for treatment?

You mean WoD-like simple? That's apparently not simple at all and quite damaging in other areas.

Why, did humans and narcotics evolve so much in the last hundred years that the outcome would be somehow different? Legal drugs would spread addiction faster now than it did then.

Doubtful. Modern western societies are so different from 18/19th century China that claiming the outcome would be the same is pure speculation.

You dodge the point. It WAS a crime. Right after the Civil war, the Abolitionists worked to outlaw it in every state in the Union. It was the will of the people from that point forward that it should be illegal. Were our justice system not dysfunctional, it would still be a crime yet today.

If ignoring a strawman is dodging the point, then so be it.

It's not a biological issue but a social one.

So was slavery.

Yes. So is legal punishment. So are animal rights. So are rights of aliens (both kinds), or AIs. So are drugs.
There's no way around it, law is a social issue not a scientific one.

To rephrase: "If you are of a mind to desire penile insertion of an adult vagina, why should you object to that of a little girl?" The answer, for both this and your question, is the same and has been pointed out to you several times in this thread. You do not accept it. I'm not willing to argue it further.

In some cases men don't object. These people are called "child molesters." and are considered deviant/aberrant. They OUGHT to make up 98% of all child molestation cases, but yet we have this 20% that prefers little boys, whereas it OUGHT to be 2%.

First, I'm sure more than 2% are homo- or bisexual. Second, those numbers can only show correlation but not causation. Third, even finding causation does not necessarily suggest a course of action.

Nature dictates morality. Do you think the biblical prohibition from eating pigs or blood is just a matter of opinion?

It's clearly one that many people consider obsolete. Science allows that.

Nature is going to make abortion illegal. Those that support it are leaving fewer descendents behind to defend it than are those who oppose it. Nature grinds slow, but nature grinds fine.

Is that the same nature that made support for abortion grow in the past? Belief is not genetic.

[KitemanSA]

Nature dictates morality. Do you think the biblical prohibition from eating pigs or blood is just a matter of opinion?

And yet again you confuse ethics (good/bad) with morality (right/wrong). Middle-Eastern cultures have prohibitions against eating pork products because it was BAD for them (unethical), not because it was morally wrong (violated someone else).

[MSimon]

Burke is totally wrong in this bit:

Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

Why wrong? He gets the attribution backwards:

Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the more of it there is without, the less there must be within.

i.e. government destroys the society that it is empowered to protect with too many controls.

We saw that in the USSR where controls begat corruption. We are seeing the same thing in America. With crony capitalism on the one hand and Drug War corruption of our justice system on the other. The controls make enemies. In the case of the Drug War - 1/2 of college age kids and more than a few of their friends.

Large countries generally do not fall from without. They destroy themselves from within. We are well on the way. And yet the loudest complainers are doing the most to egg on the government in its pursuit of its control fantasies. Most amusing.

[MSimon]

Would you apply your philosophy to someone who pursues happiness through apotemnophilia? Or if not, what would YOU do?

I would put watchers on every block and make 10% of the population snitches to prevent people from doing such things to themselves or consenting others.

We know that such efforts made the USSR a TOTALLY law abiding state.

===

Or to put it more clearly: D you are insane on the matter of control. i.e. "The tighter the grip the faster the gripped will slip through your hands." I thought every one knew that.

[MSimon]

Modern western societies are so different from 18/19th century China that claiming the outcome would be the same is pure speculation.

In fact it was true in America of the 18th/19th centuries when the things D worries about were legal - over the counter. And yet what happened to China didn't happen to us. Why?

And D you say the same things about drugs as the anti-gunners say about guns - i.e. fire arms are so seductive and so powerful that the murder rate will go way up if gun availability is made easier. In fact no such thing has happened.

I will be most amused if, when legalization comes, the same wasn't true of drugs i.e. there is a lot of overblown hysteria on the subject and you are an avid consumer. Is there a cure for that addiction? If not I guess you will just have to live with it. My condolences - in advance.

The evidence we have from Holland is that the easier the availability of pot the fewer users i.e. Dutch use rate is 1/2 (on a population basis) the American rate. Portugal has legalized use: no permanent increase in use.

Which points to what I have been saying: the forbidden fruit aspect is a powerful attractant to those who would otherwise be disinterested.

A wise savant said several thousand years ago that you cannot control people with laws. You must instead focus on changing their hearts. And on that score D, your efforts are counter productive. Yippppeeeeeee. Heh.

And then there is all the evidence that drugs are not in the current sense addictive. If it was the drugs why do only 10% who try the harder (so called) drugs become regular users? If it isn't the drugs what is it?

People in chronic pain chronically take pain relievers. A simple explanation that explains everything. Occam says I have a winner. But Planck had this to say about your affliction:

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck

[MSimon]

And yet for some reason, homosexuals tend to be promiscuous on a scale unheard of among heterosexuals

More loose men than women dude.

[Diogenes]

Isn't it simpler to prevent the need for treatment?

You mean WoD-like simple? That's apparently not simple at all and quite damaging in other areas.

Simple is a relative term. The WOD is simpler than the consequences of going the other way.

Why, did humans and narcotics evolve so much in the last hundred years that the outcome would be somehow different? Legal drugs would spread addiction faster now than it did then.

Doubtful. Modern western societies are so different from 18/19th century China that claiming the outcome would be the same is pure speculation.

It has not a D@mned thing to do with culture or time period and everything to do with biochemistry. KitemanSA thinks that the "cartels" cause it. No people, it's the chemicals which interact with normal biological processes that are the problem.

You dodge the point. It WAS a crime. Right after the Civil war, the Abolitionists worked to outlaw it in every state in the Union. It was the will of the people from that point forward that it should be illegal. Were our justice system not dysfunctional, it would still be a crime yet today.

If ignoring a strawman is dodging the point, then so be it.

Everyone prefers to ignore their own inconsistencies. You are against slavery (presumably) but support abortion, not realizing the two issues share the exact same moral foundation.

It's not a biological issue but a social one.

So was slavery.

Yes. So is legal punishment. So are animal rights. So are rights of aliens (both kinds), or AIs. So are drugs.
There's no way around it, law is a social issue not a scientific one.

Dodge twist weave. So now we know what question you can't answer.

To rephrase: "If you are of a mind to desire penile insertion of an adult vagina, why should you object to that of a little girl?" The answer, for both this and your question, is the same and has been pointed out to you several times in this thread. You do not accept it. I'm not willing to argue it further.

In some cases men don't object. These people are called "child molesters." and are considered deviant/aberrant. They OUGHT to make up 98% of all child molestation cases, but yet we have this 20% that prefers little boys, whereas it OUGHT to be 2%.

First, I'm sure more than 2% are homo- or bisexual.

Based on what? The number that I recall from my research into this issue is 1.8%, which I routinely round up to two. Kinsey tried to claim 10% in his report, and Homosexual advocacy groups have been trying to assert 1 in 6. (16%)

Second, those numbers can only show correlation but not causation.

Were the numbers not so overwhelming, you might have an argument, but as homosexual molestation of males is far larger than even the most generous estimation on the percentage of the homosexual population at large, it renders any other explanation unlikely.

Third, even finding causation does not necessarily suggest a course of action.

This is what they used to do.

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AXAOT_s ... re=related

Nature dictates morality. Do you think the biblical prohibition from eating pigs or blood is just a matter of opinion?

It's clearly one that many people consider obsolete. Science allows that.

Yes, this particular example has been overcome, but that is besides the point. Morality is based on real cause and effect relationships, not on mumbo jumbo or whims. People see the effects of certain behavior and decide that the consequences of tolerating it are worse than the consequences of prohibiting it. (same thing that happened with opium based narcotics.)

I have pointed out to others that the Victorian Era in England was Preceded by the Georgian era which was known for it's sexual excesses and debauchery. Huge numbers of the population were dying from venereal diseases and the survival response of society was the Victorian Era and it's restrained prudery.

http://austenonly.com/2010/08/22/book-r ... uickshank/

http://books.google.com/books?id=btNRAQ ... se&f=false

Nature is going to make abortion illegal. Those that support it are leaving fewer descendents behind to defend it than are those who oppose it. Nature grinds slow, but nature grinds fine.

Is that the same nature that made support for abortion grow in the past?

No, it is not. What has made the tolerance of abortion grow is the sexual excesses of the 1960s and the lecturing of the population by media and intellectuals arguing for a more libertine society. The only fingerprints of nature on it are due to the fact that when society's become populous and prosperous, idiocy can survive rather than be strangled in the crib.

The courts decreed it to be legitimate, the public did not want it. Consensus was not built prior to the fact, but what support of it there is has been built slowly from the efforts of those making money off of it, and those who have worked to spread the practice of it.

Belief is not genetic.

More than you may think.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7 ... ation.html


http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ber ... landslide/

[MSimon]

D,

So your condition is genetic?