<p>What is your favorite philosophy/philosophical idea? I personally like the pragmatic/philosophical side of Buddhism; it makes life a lot more bearable. Also, existentialism makes sense, though I'll have to admit, it's pretty bleak...</p>
<p>I prefer simply to make observations.</p>
<p>On Laziness
The bane of the world. The reliever of dermatitis?</p>
<p>On Linguistic Subjectivity
I regard, as suspect, the notion that every idea the human mind can formulate is "meaningful". This has relevance to subjective analogues of P/NP, but is instead rooted in biology: the human mind is fit only randomly and vestigially beyond what has been in its evolutionary favour, and at some point increased intelligences would have not supplied substantial relative advantage. We are capable of thinking all kinds of nonsense.</p>
<p>On Happiness
I refuse to justify my Eternal Happiness (I'm hypersensitive, so if I let little things bother me I would always be sad). Apart from that I am in concord with Buddhism's Four Noble Truths, but not the Eightfold Path. That said, I appear to be sexually attracted to livid, whiney Democrats, for unknown reasons.</p>
<p>On Sovereignty and Mass Behaviour
See laziness. No; see stupidity. I don't condone the enforcement of normativity.</p>
<p>On Large-Scale Economic Policy
Objective thinking forces me to reject any "philosophy" that approves simultaneously of family and equality; they are incompatible. I regard nepotism (preference for biological relatives in * any decision) and biological family as nearly directly responsible for the rift between economic socialism and economic libertarianism. If people were raised communally (orphanages do not cut it, because most orphanages are cheap, psychologically dangerous and *designed to fail) then the ideals of adult economic libertarianism would be achievable alongside the ideals of juvenile economic socialism. Beware: This thinking has been applicable after the agricultural revolution, the archaeology supports it only in part before the agricultural revolution, and to achieve some ideals (and especially to force the co-existence of two ideals) we must sacrifice others. Some regard family as an ideal; pre-agriculturally, many nomadic-type societies are capable of binding family, lib'nism and soc'lism at the cost of egalitarianism. Prioritize what you please. Most of my other ideas are far less sweeping, and more-or-less conditional.</p>
<p>On Justification
It is evidence from Reasonable Persons' abilities to do things without full justification; and the disturbing ability of justification to waste time (read: situational disincentive); that we do not always need to give it. That said, I regard myself as an amateur mathematician, and I answer to everyone. Irony is cute.
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<p>On Legality and Constitutional Discretion
I oppose the formation of a constitution that allows its subsequent Acts to be written in plain language. In this I am not necessarily limiting it, but I wish to force it to define difficult concepts. This gives the court significantly more power in some ways, and significantly less power in others, but at least certain legal questions can be settled in Math departments and not social arguments. SEE DIRECTLY BELOW. I nearly recoil at the prospect that a State may enforce a specific moral as opposed to a derived ethic, and propose that laws be minimalist and derivable from one another (like physics).</p>
<p>On Human Life
Ideally, if you are as yet unable to register fundamental responsibilities unto the bdy of sentient beings, your right to life may become valid only when someone or some state claims you and submits that it will sponsor your existence, and only if you are regarded as potentially a person. That sounds cold, but in practice the only thing that separates me from the bleeding-heart libs is a utilitarianesque rejection of the rights of certain species. I would like a clause added to the UN UHRD extending the definition of "person" to all ** sentient humanly communicable humanly co-interested beings that actively seek to exist and can fulfill certain responsibilities **, but nothing else.</p>
<p>On Physical Property and the Individual
Truly, everything and everyone in this universe is or will be mine and mine alone, but I shall tolerate person-symmetric and person-egalitarian laws. For my protection it is in my interest to encourage the existence of a State whose interest is "justice".</p>
<p>On Rights
I observe that as the legal system operates, you can lose rights by violating or failing to uphold certain responsibilities attributed to your existence. HOWEVER, I submit that it would operate much more efficiently if you could just voluntarily relinquish some of your rights from the outset, so that you can merrily decline certain responsibilities without being jailed as a result. It would also be nice if States could issue special rights in return for special favours, but only as outlined in a Constitution, and not to the discretion of the Executive.</p>
<p>On Intellectual Property
No short comments. This is too complex.</p>
<p>On Leaders
I find myself referring to biology as the basis of much of my philosophy, and this, by far, is .... no exception whatsoever. Not all neurologies require leaders, but pragmatism holds their existence now because of the state of normal people. It is a well-established fact that the human genome is today evolving faster than it has been evolving in hudreds of thousands of years [to which I attribute, in part, the rise in ASD diagnoses], so take that as you will.</p>
<p>I'll cut this post off here. I think I have justified my answer to your question: local existentialism, global nihilism, social "biologism" and economic phenomenology. As in Mathematics, we may be inspired to find one of many solutions and only posteriori prove that it is in fact valid. Similarly, we may refuse to justify our objective a priori and simply define reality outright, with all due respect to Gödel.
I am also a militant feminist who attacks the State's right to recognize or cite sex or gender without compelling medical evidence. None of it matters because I want to be elected, and philosophy (and sincerity) is not necessary in politics.</p>
<p>Well I'm no Philosophy major, but I recently read John Locke's Second Treatise of Government and I liked it. I've had to read a lot of philosphy books this year, basically a lot of the European/American philosphers from Ancient Greek times til now, and Locke stood out to me.</p>
<p>he who hesitates is lost.</p>
<p>michel foucault is my jam</p>
<p>in principal, utilitarianism, but I'm not quite as rational as utilitarianism would require.</p>
<p>making snarky comments on the internet is the way to eternal happiness.</p>
<p>
[quote]
really? [url=<a href="http://gawker.com/5037521/princetons-royalhighness-stephany-xu-used-to-smoke-opiate-of-masses%5Dthis%5B/url">http://gawker.com/5037521/princetons-royalhighness-stephany-xu-used-to-smoke-opiate-of-masses]this[/url</a>] stephany xu?</p>
<p>Overly-pretentious writing sucks.</p>
<p>By the way, it's amazing how trying so, so hard to sound like a super-smart adult on College Confidential can INSTANTLY make people hate you. And for good reason.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Overly-pretentious writing sucks.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>which is why baudrillard can blow me</p>
<p>Solipsism is serving me well.</p>
<p>@khaki
What do you mean?
Urban</a> Dictionary: pretentious
45.3</a> (p.789) Prize-winning examples of pretentious writing.</p>
<p>GeekNerd, I agree that the family system is a source of inequality, but who do you think should raise children? The government? That would make it to easy for them to brainwash children (a la Brave New World). The family system might not be ideal, but it's the best we've got. Kind of like democracy.</p>
<p>StellaNova, I'm trying hard to figure that out myself. I wouldn't be quick to defend or attack it, but otohands, maybe it's hard to change now simply because of romanticism.
With regard to your suggestion ... don't parents brainwash children? What about incompetent parents? Even if, as you suggest, we put younglingies in government-regulated care, wouldn't they benefit from niche development with economies of scale? As a less socialist model, companies could compete for government contracts. (I assume that maybe the children themselves would be tithed for the rest of their lives to pay for it, or something like that. That way, the system will only survive if it proves itself on the market. If people end up not using it at all, then nobody goes through the system, nobody tithes, and the particular company (or all of them) fails. If it proves stellar, it may be able to feed itself. For start-up residents, we can check out orphanages as they are now.Start-up money, of course, will require considerable charity/capital, but I digress.) I'm just building on your brilliant suggestion. Now you have me wondering whether brainwashing is really such a bad thing...</p>
<p>sophism. the true philosophy.</p>
<p>He laughed best probably laughed.</p>
<p>I like Kant's idea of the the "synthesizing" self. It's an entity that organizes our sensory experiences.</p>
<p>ayn rand's objectivism. not because i actually care, but because i'm a huge troll</p>
<p>I have absolutely no philosophy. There remains only philosophical litearture, nonsense, language games that bother me nonstop.
I formulate my life in its all randomness and in which I have hitherto fail to rationalize.
I'm simply insane.</p>
<p>^
^ Oh yes you are!</p>