Philosophy, Morality, and Other Useless Stuff

So I thought I’d start a thread about abstract and subjective ideas, from the fear of death, to whether or not the end justifies the means, to whether an object immersed in water is considered wet. Just a place to discuss these wandering thoughts, as they come up.

To begin, I’ve been thinking about how pseudo-intellectual it is to attempt to “both-sides” everything. One of my pet peeves is people who think that they're super deep for noticing that everyone has reasons for doing what they do. Like, yeah, people do things because they think they’re in the right. Shocker. But the idea that morality doesn’t actually exist is so basic. Yes, morality is largely a human construct, but it should be obvious that its existence AS a construct is what people are discussing. The people who say, “there’s no such thing as morality,” or, “everything is subjective,” are essentially stating why they shouldn’t HAVE to engage with ideas, and how smart this makes them feel. To me, the whole point of discussing morality is finding out what our priorities are. The trolley problem, for example, illustrates the difference between putting emphasis on deliberate action or end results. If someone says, “no way is truly correct”, they’re missing the point. And the people who make this claim tend to be the “edgy philosophers” who make a point of saying that they’re apparently “rational” for not taking a side. When it comes to matters like murder and abuse, refusing to take a side is the exact opposite of rational. It’s someone playing naïve when faced with the idea that people find actions bad. “Look at how much I don’t care” is just the laziest position ever. I wish more people would have the guts to pick a side and defend it properly.

I"ll allow this, but if it gets into religious territory, and any sort of arguing or name calling ensues, it'll be shut down.

That said, I have a pretty intense fear of death. I like to hope there's more to it than that, and really we know it happens to everyone, but it still scares me.

I was thinking about how people talk about intelligence being vilified in media, and I don’t think that’s accurate. Usually, intelligent characters are framed negatively for their roles as social deviants, such as being nerds or mad scientists. The vilification of intelligence is therefore more akin to mocking neurodivergence or sanity, especially since the characters are often associated with mistreatment, which ends up as their motivation.