The ethics of flogging a dead horse
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
Slow burning mild arguments based on webs of mutual misunderstanding can be quite funny. Remind me a bit of some of best sections of script from The Big Lebowski.
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
You could say that. Or you could say that we use it in the process of managing complexity. i.e. reductionism helps us manage complexity in the same way that encapsulation in object oriented software engineering does.Pattern-chaser wrote:But don't we employ reductionism to help us in the process of seeking understanding?
If you see reductionism as seeking understanding, yes, I can see that it as the opposite. But if we see it as managing complexity, we could also call that "coping with". So we could view cling-film wrapping meat products as a way of coping with a world which is, as they say, red in tooth and claw.Cling-filmed meat is surely an attempt to avoid understanding, and avoiding any appreciation of what it is we're actually doing? In that sense, it's the opposite of reductionism, isn't it?
So perhaps reductionism can be used for two purposes which look as though they have a common root but which diverge into being almost the opposite of each other. Or perhaps this actually tells us something a bit deeper about reductionism - that we think it's about understanding but it's actually about "coping with"?
- Papus79
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
- Papus79
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
You make it sound like Fight Club!Papus79 wrote:Think we almost need a code word for when we've fallen into 'one of those' as a signal that everyone agrees that the thing just needs a flush and reset.
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
I can't remember if I ever shared this or not (if I did it might have fallen off the map:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/m ... on-moloch/
Another article discussing how it translates into online behavior:
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/t ... -of-beefs/
I think of Donald Hoffman's analogy with the Australian jewel beetle almost going extinct because the males were mating with beer bottles. Seems like the internet is full of various kinds of game theory traps where we tend to get sucked into moth self-immolation behavior. Not the most pleasant thing to contemplate for sure but I think the more people who are actually aware of these patterns the more can see them coming, say f--- that, and keep a life raft for sanity in any given situation.
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
In the sense of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy's "mostly harmless", I would suggest that our posts are "mostly pointless and futile". There is worthwhile stuff posted here, and it seems reasonable to assume that some may learn something by reading it, no matter how rarely....
"Who cares, wins"
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
The images were not simply someone taking a seat on a dead horse, but smilling and waving into a selfie camera making a victory sign.
The image im my head was not so bad.
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
- Sy Borg
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
Oops! Sorry about that. Mea culpa.
So yeah, Sculptor, there's no need to be over-sensitive about these things! I think we can say that another dead horse has been flogged enough, so to speak.
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
Manners are designed to facilitate social interaction and please other people. To discourage social interaction and make others feel badly is rude. It is also "unethical" but only in a minor, trivial way. Chew with your mouth open, if you please, when you dine alone. Sit on dead horses, if you please, unless photographers are active in your area.
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
OK, but in your last words, aren't you saying that we can behave as we like as long as we don't get caught?Ecurb wrote: ↑March 15th, 2021, 10:26 pm I haven't read most of this thread, so excuse me if I'm repeating others. There's a correlation between ethics and manners, but I minor one. Good manners are, I suppose, the codification of trivial ethics. You should wipe your mouth with your napkin after eating barbecued ribs (if you're not a vegetarian). You should write thank you notes to people who send you presents at your wedding. You shouldn't sit on dead horses.
Manners are designed to facilitate social interaction and please other people. To discourage social interaction and make others feel badly is rude. It is also "unethical" but only in a minor, trivial way. Chew with your mouth open, if you please, when you dine alone. Sit on dead horses, if you please, unless photographers are active in your area.
"Who cares, wins"
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
Manners involve public behavior. There's nothing immoral about masturbation, unless you do it publicly. Immoral behavior (among other things) harms others. Public masturbation disgusts and embarrasses others, and is therefore immoral (and illegal). Sitting on dead horses harms nobody but yourself, if nobody sees you do it.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑March 16th, 2021, 5:50 am
OK, but in your last words, aren't you saying that we can behave as we like as long as we don't get caught?
Of course you can harm others and hope you don't get caught (which is immoral), or you can hope you don't get caught sitting on dead horses (which would harm others only if you DO get caught). So be careful about using dead horses as chairs. Due diligence requires a degree of care, just as it does for masturbation.
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Re: The ethics of flogging a dead horse
Yes, funnily enough, as I was writing that, I remembered Slartibartfast in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy saying that he'd been looking forward to a quiet retirement learning the octahedral heebygeebyphone, a pleasantly futile task, he knew, because he had the wrong number of mouths. I always kind of identified with Slartibartfast.Pattern-chaser wrote:In the sense of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy's "mostly harmless", I would suggest that our posts are "mostly pointless and futile". There is worthwhile stuff posted here, and it seems reasonable to assume that some may learn something by reading it, no matter how rarely....
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