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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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"X should be cooler than this" is a summary of Kulak's philosophy right?

I can recall reading "War should be cooler than this," "Cops should be cooler than this," fifteen or so "Healthcare should be cooler than this," "Jobs should be cooler than this," etc.

It's an aesthetic approach to right and wrong.

All approaches to right and wrong are aesthetic.

Only when you've already rejected all other forms of external morality.

No even those. You're just deferring it to some authority on what is beautiful like Nature or God. But really to a tradition of what the good life looks like.

Yeah, life is aesthetics. We only interface with the world through sensory inputs, what delights our particular senses is always what wins. If you find God to be compelling and pleasing, by all means, embrace God, but you're fundamentally identical to someone who goes "nah things should just be cool".

they're the same picture

Of course.

Deontology is concerned with optimizing the good.

Utilitarianism is concerned with optimizing the pleasurable.

Virtue ethics is concerned with optimizing the beautiful.

.

Deontologists might look at me as evil, Utilitarians might look at me as cruel... but the disgust I feel when looking on their works and what they'd make of themselves, it is a righteous fury on par with any of their calls for crusade or the overturn of "oppressors"

I have to confess, a general philosophy of 'If the world is not fair and just, we can at least make it beautiful' is one that has a good amount of appeal.

Sure, but what is beautiful? And who gets to decide?

A small example, I love cars. I find joy in driving fun aesthetically pleasing cars, I love seeing them around, I'd love it if more people chose to drive aesthetically pleasing cars rather than generic fish-shaped crossovers. But I'd never want the government to act to make more people drive pretty cars and fewer people drive ugly ones, because their definition of ugly and mine might not agree. I might find my beautiful (in my perception) classic banned, and the roads full of hideous monstrosities. I want freedom of aesthetic, not a requirement of some government's idea of aesthetics.

Inasmuch as that philosophy results in libertarian outcomes (We should all be free to make our lives beautiful) it is great, inasmuch as it results in authoritarian outcomes (The government should restrict people from making choices that I find unaesthetic) it is horrible. Inasmuch as Kulak is saying "Hey if you're gonna kill yourself, jump in a volcano or something" cool beans; inasmuch as he is saying "The government should not offer the option of assisted suicide because that's for pussies" I find it both wrong and incoherent. Wrong because it's not for me to tell someone else how to make their most personal decision, incoherent because if we posit that such a person is useless because they would make this choice then it's in our interest to let them make that choice.

While not directly relevant, there’s a very short story about classic cars and government regulations that I enjoyed called “A Nice Morning

Drive”

http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19731100roadandtrack.htm

Love it.

What about the government stopping in pushes that strongly incentivize fish shaped crossovers with fleet fuel efficiency standards and pedestrian safety laws?

Oh I'm full of ideas for how to intervene or stop intervening in the car market. Fleet fuel economy standards are a nightmare. Safety standards are fascism, we should be able to sell cheap tricycles or a modern MGB to consenting adults. I also think additional licensing should be required for any vehicle with more than 200 and again at 300 horsepower, regardless of size.

Speed limits should be eliminated. People convicted of reckless driving offenses should have mandatory mechanical devices installed on their axles that create violent noise and vibration above 65mph.

A modern MGB, you get my vote! My first car was a Sprite.

I want to be your friend.

Safety standards are fascism, we should be able to sell cheap tricycles or a modern MGB to consenting adults.

I also think additional licensing should be required for any vehicle with more than 300 horsepower, regardless of size.

These statements seem to fall on opposite sides of the debate.

Not really. Both are in favor of smaller, lighter cars which burn less gas not by virtue of complicated technical tricks but by being small cars with small engines.

If the general class of driver's license only covers up to 200 horsepower, that will stop a lot of soccer mom's from driving Expeditions they can't park properly. You can drive a full size pickup with 180 horsepower, but slowly, most people won't choose to do it. So the only people driving big cars will be those who need them or really love them, eliminating most users who can't drive them well.

Enthusiasts buying sports cars would happily take an extra month of classes and a harder test, hell throw in a track handling test.

Take out big cars and sports cars, and no one needs more than 200 horsepower anyway, and with smaller engines they'll get better gas mileage. 200hp in an Avalon or an Explorer can handle just fine on the highway, just a little slower.

Oh, you just want smaller cars by any means necessary, even if those means are government-enforced. I thought your "safety standards are fascism" remark was meant to indicate anti-government sentiment.

If we're going to have government regulations, and we are, I just want them to be actually helpful and not actively harmful. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Whoever's aesthetic values converge most serendipitously with the maintenance of superior firepower, one imagines.

I have to confess, a general philosophy of 'If the world is not fair and just, we can at least make it beautiful' is one that has a good amount of appeal.

This is one of the appeals of "retvrn" neo-feudalist and neo-reactionary thought.

"If we have to lick the boot for our whole life, why not make it beautiful golden, bejeweled and embroidered nobleman's boot instead of ugly black capitalist's or comissar's one?"

It’s a fig leaf, perhaps.

The most fervent reactionaries are those who argue that it is materially/spiritually superior (ex. Moldbug), or that they will be on the top, (dictators, fundamentalists, race warriors...).

You can't justify morality by appealing to morality, so what basis is left beyond aesthetics?

Indeed...It is impossible to get from an is to an ought statement (per Hume). Thus both moral realism / moral relativism / even most forms of moral nihilism are vastly too claims intensive to be correct. Morality as it relates to reality is something we cannot even access at its most basic level...

So everyone is inevitably caving to aesthetics or social pressure when choosing their morality... so what should one do? I'd argue the noblest thing one can do from this position is to at least consciously choose to pick something that's truly beautiful.

Honestly, none. It's aesthetics all the way down.

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