/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-and-white_dichotomy

>Occasionally the depiction of light as "good" and darkness as "evil" has subversions; in logical terms this is relatively accurate, as excess light may cause burns, blindness and skin cancer while shadows may serve for protection purposes, while symbolically it shows how the appearance does not imply morality. Mild examples include the traditional colour scheme of the Japanese culture, in which white is the colour of death (bones, snow, excessive light), and dark is the colour of life (ashes, which nurture growing plants)

Oh Japan, always being different.

So what's your personal philosophy /jp/?
Moral relativism? Don't ask, don't tell?

[Anonymous No.]

I dont care.

[Anonymous No.]

looks like many weaboos write at wikipedia

[Anonymous No.]

Didn't we have this thread a while ago? (Posed a question if we think we, /jp/sies are evil)
My answer was:

I don't even know if I believe in "evil".
What is the definition of evil?
Can it be defined in a non-relative context? I don't think it can.
Is an asteroid evil because it hit a populated planet thus killing many species? No, even if it caused a lot of suffering. There is no "will" there.
Does "free will" even exist? Our brains function by deterministic processes, and quantum mechanics barely even plays any role (no more than it does by causing one tiny error in the function of your RAM, if at all), and even if our brains' workings depended upon some quantum mechanical processes, it would still not grant free will, just randomness. Our behaviour is determined by everything we have experienced and are experiencing, by some genetic factors and environmental factors (such as the early development of the brain, which would still be different for persons with the same DNA). We do however have a "will" and for all intents and purposes we'll think it's free, even if all our behaviour depends on our previous memories and the state of the brain. It doesn't mean we would do things we wouldn't want to do, we'll do whatever we need to do.
...

[Anonymous No.]

(at the question of someone asking if "inherent good" exists):

While I don't know your definition of "inherent good", I do think we've evolved to be social creatures which can have empathy for other creatures similar to them in some regards (having consciousness, experience, or more specific things like looking similar, or being part of the same "tribe"). Such empathy leads to better survival of the species, thus it's why we're more prone to have it. There are people who don't have such empathic responses, for example, due to physiologic or psychological issues, but I doubt we can call them evil anymore you can call a lion or a spider or a hawk evil (it's their nature).
What about morals? While most people have varying morals, good ones can be derived either from natural empaty, or more abstract forms of it like the golden rule (don't do to others what you wouldn't do to yourself in some contexts) or minimizing group harm (aim to minimize global suffering). Most religiously based morals are actually immoral in my opinion as they can make harmless things into immoral things and lead to forcing your beliefs onto other people.
As for us, /jp/, I don't know, you can only value your actions yourself. Most of /jp/sies are pretty neutral and don't cause suffering to anyone, so I wouldn't call anyone here immoral. If your question is wether having some fetish is immoral, then the answer is of course not since having such a fetish doesn't cause other people any direct harm (unless you have one which could cause other people direct harm/suffering and you act upon it).

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589636
Considering how many /jp/ers play eroge and fap to loli, I would imagine that most of /jp/ consists of moral relativists.

Also, inb4 /new/

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589658

There's nothing morally relative about that. It's a perfectly reasonable non-relativistic belief to say "if what I do does not hurt other people, it isn't bad".

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589664
Don't you think it hurts yourself, in a way? Isn't harm of any kind bad by nature?

[Anonymous No.]

I am a moral absolutist. Absolute right and wrong exists.

However, I'm not sure what it is, and neither are you. Only Shikieiki knows where it is.

So let's do our best to find out what it is, and conform to our best guess.

[Anonymous No.]

Moral relativism is fucking stupid and this thread cannot end well, so let's not.

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589658
All you have to do is define those things as white. You aren't hurting anyone by masturbating, are you?

[Anonymous No.]

Morality is absolute. Be it because the gods say so or because humanity must dignify itself above petty squabbles and base desires.

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589684
I don't think it can exist.
Given 2 animals, A and B.
A eats B's kind to survive.
From A's perspective, what he does is right as if he does not do it, he will not survive, it's the law of the nature.
From B's perspective, his life is precious, so A is wrong by attempting to end his life and the lifes of other members of his species.
Moral standards have to be defined in some way for them to work. It's usually defined in a way to benefit your species, or better yet, conscious organisms.
If you try to force an absolute morality, you will have victims you have done nothing wrong, yet you will deem that as moral from your perspective.
Thus, true absolute morality cannot exist.

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589735
I don't think animals are capable of thinking about the consequences of their actions. It's just impulses like "shit, I'm hungry" and "fuck, fuck, he's gonna eat me"

[Anonymous No.]

Nothing lasts forever. What is wrong today it will be right tomorrow.
No action is perfect. It always carries unseen consequences.

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589735
How about giving B's dead, be it because of accidents or natural deaths, to A, while keeping A's populace low? A compromise can be reached. Or search for an alternative source that benefits both.

See? Morality can be reached for ALL parties.

And now I feel like Byakuren.

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589755
It was just an example. I did not name what animals A and B were. You could imagine some conscious organisms instead of them if you want. Oh, and btw, we humans(primates, mammals) are still animals, we're just primates with less hair that learned to walk upstraight and have an enlarged frontal cortex which allows us to have human language which itself allows us to build complex hierarchies and thoughts leading to modern man, however to assume mammals don't experience similar emotions and feelings as us would likely be wrong and arrogant.

If you want a different example, you could imagine 2 human tribes whose religion defines people outside their tribes are evil (think of it as similar to fundamental Christians vs Muslims), and thus they in their "absolute" morality will go and slaughter each other.
Or another example, in the future, the human manages to create a general AI which is based upon his own brain, however electronic. It then uses this new conscious artifact as a slave, since it's a device, ignoring the fact that his experiences are the same as a human's. Is slavery right or wrong in this situation?
I don't even want to go into silly sexual morals some religions have introduced.
Is a man right to steal a piece of bread to feed himself and his children (assuming that was his only choice possible)?

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589760
You didn't think this all the way through, did you?

Preventing suffering is better than alleviating it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589794
Absolute morality is taken from a 3rd person view. Imagine yourself over the clouds, watching as your creations kill each other in your name. Absolute morality goes beyond groups POV.

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589805
If I was watching from the clouds, why should I care about all the wide variety of reproducing and unique patterns in the physical world that I made? I would probably find it "interesting" to see the more advanced patterns survive, however it should be noted that such patterns exist in all kinds of sizes and varieties.
Actually, if I would even be reluctant to interfere with natural evolution processes, no matter how cruel they are.
As for my own 1st person perspective of morality, I like to consider one which limits/reduces/prevents suffering to conscious artifacts which are capable of phenomenal experiences (and thus pain and suffering). This might be seen as absolute, but if you try to set up scenarios where some suffering is unavoidable, you'll just have to treat it as an optimization problem where you try to reduce the suffering since it cannot be eliminated. It's pretty sad, but it's reality.

[Anonymous No.]

Don't know don't care. I'm just a selfish bastard.

[Anonymous No.]

>>6589830
Since we humans are such screw up, reducing suffering is what we do most. If we actually got our shit together, things like Africa, wars, and internet trolling would not happen.

We also would have no need for Heaven either. A pound of prevention is worth more than a ton of cure and all that jazz.