What on earth are you talking about

Can I just say that your use of good philosophy here is just... chef's kiss. Masterful use of epistemology. You love to see it.

I'm in favor of chucking all "-isms" into the dust bin, and then examining existence (and this means one's own individual existence, not the "our/we" existence) without reference to a naive self (one that is the helpless object of fortune). At least for me, the results of such examination have been astounding, especially in regard to the hitherto buried memories of my formative childhood, recently accessed.

Grotius in De Iure Belli AC Pacis, first page, cites indirectly Thucydides - is anyone in the light on where it this to be found in his History? I need direct quotation, that is a page number. Who else is obssessed with Thucydides?

Well in a deterministic universe identity should prevail.

only if every machine works perfectly and all have access to a data set that encompasses all possible knowledge there can be

The article attempts to reckon with pessimism, but ultimately just bends it back towards optimism, as usually happens. The unstated, unanswered question which this essay begs is: “is human existence so worthwhile that we must will ourselves to assume an optimistic viewpoint against all rationality, because it will encourage us to ensure the continued existence of our species?”. I say no.

There’s really not a reason to be pessimistic about anything you posted. Realistically we both live in the best time to be alive, with basically all of our needs taken care of.

You could read the news all day and decide we are doomed to death via any of the dozens of doomsday scenarios they spin, but is any of that actually valuable in your life?

I also always find it puzzling what the pessimists are complaining about. Right now they all complain about the climate and things like religion and capitalism. These things are all unlikely to cause an extinction event, humans are resilient creatures.

What is, in my opinion, a much more oppressive and pessimistic issue, is the erosion of privacy and the lust for digital control. We are at a point as a species where people in control can build systems to lock us down as a species. Evil people with inhuman ambitions are already working towards it but nobody seems to care. Great thinkers and writers tried to warn us 100 years ago but people somehow don’t bother to listen. If these systems where locked in place, you’d be wishing for a climate catastrophe.

I think you point out a great "error" in his thought experiment.

That is what one would expect from deterministic systems.

No two humans process information in exactly the same way. Why would anyone expect them to have the same conclusions?

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Ok, that hit hard!

All human beings are evil.

All human beings are good.

I believe both these statements to be true, even though they may sound contradictory.

Determinate machines are fixed state machines. Computers, if human will is determinate.

It's not remotely denialism and it's not at all hiding. Activists are by their nature optimists because they believe change is possible.

But it's only a contradiction if it's saying that extremist version. Unless I claimed that everyone was a pessimist, and only optimists can make progress, then noting that progress has been made isn't a contradiction.

Correct. This article is candyland pessimism.

The numbers you used for your years. And yes I'm sure.

I'm not clear on what you mean. Humans are very far from fixed-state.

I’m suggesting that we cannot have civil discourse where we solve every issue of a complex problem on an Internet forum. We need to pick one topic, if he wants to drill down, and discuss it. Also he didn’t provide shit for evidence (neither did I). That wasn’t an issue in our discourse.

What sort of society, according to Baudrillard’s conception of hyperreality, wouldn’t be hyperreal? Is it possible for any modern society to not be hyperreal?

All human beings are evil. This ranges from tyrannical figures to saints. It is a spectrum. No one does anything solely for others. There is always something for them to gain.

People spend time with another person to make themselves feel better. Or they do it to avoid the potential backlash of said person. Buy a gift for someone to make them happy, which in turn creates fulfillment in oneself.

Humans do not do anything that doesn't constitute personal gain, even if it is minimal.

There is also a saying that goes something like "give a man a mask and he will show his true self." I believe this to be all too true. A person will take advantage of this and do as they please. This can range from stealing a pack of gum to robbery to even more heinous crimes. It is just a spectrum or scale of how evil an individual is.

This is just my personal philosophy. I'm young, being just over 20 and kinda a pessimistic person. I bet this idea will change or evolve with age and wisdom.

I am an amateur in philosophy and haven't really read much but I'll try to give this a go.

From my point of view, the utility coach would not just deprive me of some of my freedom but also the illusion of free will all of us have. You argue that the coach maximises utility by making us pick the best choices, but I disagree that this is the case. I can easily imagine a different utility coach that instead of giving you a zap to force you to pick the "correct" choice, he has instead installed a device on your brain that releases certain hormones to adjust your mood and brain chemistry for the "correct" choice to be picked organically. These two coaches make you pick the exact same choices and thus limit your freedom in the same degree, but my version doesn't shatter your belief of the existence of free will.

At least personally I would be much more amicable to the second version because, even though I don't really believe in the existence of free will, the first option would force me in a fatalistic mindset and that would degrade my quality of life, while the second one wouldn't. Perhaps you could argue in that sense that the illusion of free will exists independently of utility. Then again I can imagine someone sacrificing their life for their ideals and their beliefs, which inherently includes their ability to make choices and what they perceive as free will, so it doesn't seem that this is the case either.

What I mean by this is that perhaps you failed to consider that utility can also be perceived outside of the self in this bargain of sorts. Say some kind of deity offers you this: you will never be able to make a free choice in your life ever again but ALL humans will be happy forever. Let's assume that maybe they send them to heaven or something. Now, not everyone will pick to "sacrifice" themselves for everyone else, but I think a lot of people would. It seems to me that if you balance your freedom or free will with something great enough, there is a tipping point somewhere and in that sense I fail to see how they are independent of utility.

Feel free to point out anything you might disagree with, I am open to criticism.