Ugliness

[Brian]

I dunno. I pretty much wanted to eat that bowl of biscuits and gravy.

And jobs exist because there's a demand for them. You don't have to fill one of those demands, but if you want to participate in the general way things work you better have a new idea. Personal choice led me to the fire service. It outweighed other personal desires to fill other demands, including some that I had to start my own business. Which isn't to say I never will...actually, I throw the idea around several times a week.

I don't really see where you're going with this. If the idea of not having modern amenities appealed to me, I could go make a place for myself in the wilderness and hunt for my food/grow things. And ultimately it's even legal with the government and laws instated by society because Idaho law still allows for homesteading and hunting out-of-season if it's your only source of food.


But I can't make mountains with my mind or invent a new color in the light spectrum, so everything I just said was already dictated to me by everyone else, just like they told me to eat biscuits and gravy.


Something tells me this is going to be moved to the Debate forum


Also, you're just a copy of everyone else who comes up with X idea of why we're not under our own control.

 

[wolfshadow]

You're being ridiculous when you say that victims choose to become traumatised or not. I would say that is proof of the weakness of your argument.

The reality is something of a comprimise. The effects of trauma start within the body, usually as an overkill response to a situation that one identifies with danger or humiliation. A facet, if you will, of the fight-or-flight perogative. One CAN however, make a consious decision on whether or not they take steps to combat the impact this will have on their life and future.

A microcosm, in the grand scheme of this debate, but something I felt worth pointing out.

 

[Unacceptance]

Unacceptance - I think you overlooked "you are allowed better times if you conform". Does that answer your question?

Not in the slightest. Since the "better" times are hollow, false, and undermined by your realization of it. However, if you want to chase an illusion...

 

[darkwall]

Sammy - Sigh ... yes, I am making sense. The fact you disagree doesn't change that. Here is my perfectly-coherent argument:

1. We are formed by our circumstances and influenced by others.
2. We cannot then choose to be who we are.
3. Because of this inarguable fact, the choices we do make are as more a product of the system that formed us than our own.

The point you completely missed about the Slavery is that it shows how much you are formed by your circumstances. You can go "ya, but I was born in the 20th century, stoopid!" but the truth is that the little things you do aren't Sammy things, they're twentieth century things. You can't choose your options, and your options make whichever choice you make meaningless. I'm not saying society forces you to read a book, I'm saying that society made you who you are, invented the book, and the fact that you then chose not to read it ... really doesn't matter in the scheme of things.

You can say that the little things you do make you an individual, but it's again like each bit of dust making its own way down - your choices are illusory, and illuminate not the workings of your brain, but the prejudices that formed it.

I am not saying that you can't choose to quit your job: I am saying that every decision you have is illusory. You would only quit your job because of external circumstances, therefore the decision is not really yours. Inevitably, other people will impact upon it.

You're not an individual, you're just a minutely differing combination. I say again, there is no "you" - "you" is just another way of sticking a single image onto "you" to differ "you" from "me". We are merely strands of evolution, differing in characteristics only because it reduces the chances of mutation.

"You" have no choices. You are not in full control of either the things around you nor the thoughts you have using symbols you did not create for yourself, let alone in control of what formed you as aperson. In the nature vs. nurture scenario, we are in control of neither our genetics, which made us who we are, nor the circumstances that refined that.

Free will, as such, is meaningless. You may "choose" to go backpacking, but you are merely following a well-trodden path indicative of the strand of society you are within, following life experiences and money/time constraints beyond your control. If you "choose" to go backpacking, then why not "choose" to go to the moon. Oh, yeah, because you are simply the sum of your experiences, and being rich didn't happen to be one of them ...

 

[darkwall]

Brian - where am I going with this? Well, I said in passing that we are defined by those around us, and people immediately went, "NO! NOT ME! BRENDA MY NEXTDOOR NEIGHBOUR DOESN'T DECIDE THE CEREAL I BUY!" completely missing the point - if everyone around us suddenly started eating shoes, we would too. Sound ridiculous? It's what happened in Stalingrad.

We're not individuals because we're stupid little things who find it quite easy to follow the pack. No human in history has ever really lived a unique life - society inherently cannot be unique because it becomes uniform to exist, and we are imprinted with this sense of uniformity. It doesn't mean I don't love people - but we're weak-willed and impressionable, and there are a wealth of psychological experiments that prove this.

 

[darkwall]

Unacceptance - you're conforming by being on here. You've joined a society, online or not, accepted its rules, and act within its (very obvious) limitations. Does that knowledge mean that you're chasing an illusion? Of course not. We conform by wearing clothes we only wear so that an industry can exist and because religion has heaped a bunch of shame onto us. Life is a constant process of submitting to such things - whenever you communicate with anyone you are actually following very strict rules, but does this make the interaction hollow? Not in the slightest.

 

[sammy]

I'm sorry Darkwall, I just meant that you're not making any sense to me. Maybe it's the complex english language you're using (english is just my second language) maybe it's the non-excisting me...

I am not saying that you can't choose to quit your job: I am saying that every decision you have is illusory. You would only quit your job because of external circumstances, therefore the decision is not really yours. Inevitably, other people will impact upon it.

In the end, it's still MY decision to leave, no matter what the reason is. And no, my external circumstances hasn't changed, so in the end it's an internal choice, my choice.

Free will, as such, is meaningless. You may "choose" to go backpacking, but you are merely following a well-trodden path indicative of the strand of society you are within, following life experiences and money/time constraints beyond your control. If you "choose" to go backpacking, then why not "choose" to go to the moon. Oh, yeah, because you are simply the sum of your experiences, and being rich didn't happen to be one of them ...

No, if i wanted to go to the moon, I would. But why? I don't want to, I choose not to. I choose to do something that I want.

 

[sammy]

Unacceptance - you're conforming by being on here. You've joined a society, online or not, accepted its rules, and act within its (very obvious) limitations. Does that knowledge mean that you're chasing an illusion? Of course not. We conform by wearing clothes we only wear so that an industry can exist and because religion has heaped a bunch of shame onto us. Life is a constant process of submitting to such things - whenever you communicate with anyone you are actually following very strict rules, but does this make the interaction hollow? Not in the slightest.

I wear clothes because it's three feet of snow and -10 celsius. i walk around naked inside often, If it wasn't cold, i would walk around naked outside too.

 

[Unacceptance]

Unacceptance - you're conforming by being on here. You've joined a society, online or not, accepted its rules, and act within its (very obvious) limitations. Does that knowledge mean that you're chasing an illusion? Of course not. We conform by wearing clothes we only wear so that an industry can exist and because religion has heaped a bunch of shame onto us. Life is a constant process of submitting to such things - whenever you communicate with anyone you are actually following very strict rules, but does this make the interaction hollow? Not in the slightest.

So you feel fulfilled by talking to a bunch of strangers online? I sure as hell don't.

I admit to chasing the illusion, I already know people here don't give two shits about me, and logically they shouldn't. They have no claim or investment into me. Also who is to say that one submits, how about just agreeing with something that coincides?

Furthermore, has joining this site made you feel any better? if it has, I wish I could be so lucky.

 

[darkwall]

Unacceptance - yeah, man. It makes me feel a lot better to go on this kind of site where I can talk freely about things that depress me, or even mention the fact that I'm depressed. Even if I do end up arguing the whole time.

 

[darkwall]

Sammy - you don't walk around naked outside because of the Social Contract. Rousseau probably explains it much better than I do, but basically in entering any system you assume its laws.

You could only be free if you could decide the factors that make you "you". Because that is a self-defeating concept, you cannot truly choose who you are (what I was trying to explain with the slaves scenario) the decisions that you make are based on a wealth of prejudices I earlier alluded to.

You can't go to the moon because it's not possible. Sorry. You don't choose to do what you want, you choose the options society has left for you with the tools that genetics gave you and your upbringing developed in you. You're not free, and as I keep saying there is no "you" - there wouldn't have to be if others didn't exist, therefore it's just a concept projected by society that you form into an identity using a language you inherit.

I'll make this very simple and Orwellian. If there was no words for things like happiness, you would not be able to think of happiness. You would see people smile, but you would interpret this in a multitude of ways. Your choices. Are not. Your own.

 

[sammy]

if I am not me, as you keep saying, then who am I? What am I? A speck of dust floating around? A mindless creature open to society to form as they wish?

I walk around naked often in the summer.... why are you telling me that i don't do it? Who are you to pretend to know anything about me?????

I'll make this very simple and Orwellian. If there was no words for things like happiness, you would not be able to think of happiness. You would see people smile, but you would interpret this in a multitude of ways. Your choices. Are not. Your own.

You keep saying if this or that... There is a word for happyness. Why? Hell, I don't know who invented the word/meaning happiness. But it excists. Therefor I know what it is. But I choose if I want to act on it.

 

[darkwall]

Repeating what I said above, you are a variety of experiences tied to a body. You are nothing more than a combination of these things. People say that you are a you and they are a me, but in fact it's all done for simplicity's sake. You are a vessel, incapable of having anything that truly belongs to you and is not touched by others. Although if you do invent that new colour, let me know.

The thing I am trying to say with the "happiness" is that the word happiness means the same thing, however many different things it describes. It is a complete concept, invented by someone else. When you put it in a sentence, you are therefore using other people's thoughts to express yourself.

 

[Unacceptance]

Unacceptance - yeah, man. It makes me feel a lot better to go on this kind of site where I can talk freely about things that depress me, or even mention the fact that I'm depressed. Even if I do end up arguing the whole time.

Well, at least you get something out of it then. Good luck with your real life approaching deal there. Though I wouldn't hold it so all or nothing if I was you.

 

[sammy]

I am sorry again, don't mean to offend you, but that's a load of bullshit.

I just invented a new colour, I call it plarclus, but I can't describe to you what it looks like, cause no one has ever seen it, except me, inside my head. You know, the place wher I have my thoughts, dreams, images, feelings, choices and all that.

 

[darkwall]

Listen Sammy,

You aren't inventing a colour because you can only visualise the colours you yourself have seen. That's what I'm trying to explain. All you're doing is inventing a word.

You think using words, even inside your own head. Because other people are familiar with those words, society touches even inside of your head. The thoughts you have, the objects you touch, your targets in life - just like the colour example, they are inextricably connected with the exterior world.

I'm not talking bullshit: you just disagree. My viewpoint is clearly thought out and consistently argued, because I have thought about this a lot, something that it is clear from the lack of structure at your end that you have not done.

We're not individuals, we're a bunch of chemicals reacting to other bunches of chemicals. Our choices are predisposed according to the chemicals involved. Stop seeing yourself as a human and start realising that you're just another extension of nature, the same as the toad, the cloud, the sun. Freedom doesn't really come into it.

 

[Punisher]

I walk around naked often in the summer....

Can I come see you in the summer instead of winter ?

And the colour plarclus, sounds very sexy...

 

[sammy]

Darkwall, I'll just repeat this, because you ignored it:

I walk around naked often in the summer.... why are you telling me that i don't do it? Who are you to pretend to know anything about me?????

I'll leave it to that now. Because I know I lack a lot of structure in my arguments. Which can be explained by two things, the language, and that I speak straight from my heart.
And both reasons are not adequate for a discussion like this.

 

[sammy]

I walk around naked often in the summer....

Can I come see you in the summer instead of winter ?

And the colour plarclus, sounds very sexy...

Of course you can!
plarclus is pretty, my mind does actually consist of things that Darkwall doesn't know about....

 

[darkwall]

Sammy, I ignored it because it wasn't really relevant. To freely walk around naked would mean getting arrested, therefore I assumed that you were talking about your backgarden. Unless you're a European naked hiker, in which case, that only goes to prove that our societies form us as you would get arrested for it here. Either way, not really a major thing.

Yeah, you can warp the things I say - "ooh, Darkwall is acting like he knows everything in my head" or you can be logical and just accept that none of us are free or unique and that that isn't necessarily a bad thing, just something that has to be accepted to understand humanity.