You can't conclude that if you are a utilitarian.

I previously made an argument that demonstrates you can't conclude "lying does not maximize happiness" by relying on utilitarian reasoning, and that asserting "lying does not maximize happiness" is an unsubstantiated a priori and baseless assertion.  In this very thread.

If you are a utilitarian, please don't ignore that argument.

I agree.  I never said otherwise.

Now, how does that realization mean that I am "in capable of logicsssszzsssszzßßß"?


Not that kokjo can read anything of what I'm saying, but a person well-versed in UPB would have no problem ascertaining the least suboptimal thing to do in this attempt at a moral dilemma.

Seconding this.  fornit's just trying to plug his ears and go "lalalalalalala I can't hear you" because he knows that statism is the root cause of such malevolences as posted by OP, and he'd rather not be made aware of reality, because it's too painful to continue believing in statism and acknowledge reality at the same time.

Statism, together with its essential belief "magical pieces of paper with orders allow us to decide who is good or bad", is the root cause of these malevolent and exploitative absurdities.

I'll tell you:

1. Death
2. More of the same

Tehehe.  I love how some people allege that their interlocutors are "in capable (sic) of reasoning logically", but they don't even bother pointing out what the logical error is (which should be pretty trivial, if I have indeed made a logical error).

To be fair, a person like kokjo is better off not reading what I have to say.

Address my argument, please.  Thanks.

I think that these politicians I spoke of, are both rational egoists of the social dominant variety, and also utilitarians at the same time.  They are one thing inwardly, and the other outwardly.  My reasoning is pretty clear about this.

Bitcoin actually provides the perfect voluntaryist solution to keep track of who has paid how much for what services.  You didn't chip in for school?  Your kids don't go.  You didn't chip in for the roads?  You don't get to use them.  All fully verifiable at any point in time.

Of course, politicians will never go for this itemized system, because they like to have full discretion on how to grab your money and spend it on prostitutes, cocaine, and murdering other human beings.  And who are you, lowly owner of that money they steal, to tell them how to spend it?

Bmup.

Sorry, can you respond to my argument first?  Thanks.  Do not introduce new and unsubstantiated hypotheses like "well, they must be lying to themselves".

I agree with this too.

OK, here's the dynamic.

Social dominants (like Obama, Roosevelt, Stalin or Hitler) truly believe that they deserve as much power as they can get, by any means.  They are not utilitarians insofar as they really do not believe any of that "common good" nonsense.

But of course that platform wouldn't make them electable even in Hell itself.

So what they do -- which they excel at -- is they lie.  They lie real good.  One of the lies they use is this commonly held utilitarian belief of "the common good" or "maximizing global happiness" or whatever (all utilitarian ideas).  They insist and insist that their promises of action will "bring the common good".  By force of repetition and propaganda, these stick.  They gain power.

Thus they have successfully used utilitarian theories to attain power, even if they are not utilitarian themselves.

This is why I conclude that they all are utilitarians, even if only outwardly so.

Nope, sorry.  If you're an utilitarian, you can't know or tell anyone whether "lying and deceiving others" is moral for sure.  Even the most cursory of examples will disprove that.

A utilitarian can very well apply utilitarianism and conclude that "lying and deceiving others" could very well be "moral", because lying and deceiving could conceivably be argued to increase global happiness.  Another utilitarian may apply utilitarianism and conclude that "lying and deceiving others" could very well be "immoral", because "lying and deceiving others" could conceivably be argued to decrease global happiness.

Since both conclusions are drawn from opinions as to what increases or decreases global happiness (which is an unknowable), and cannot be fact-checked in any way, what usually ends up happening is that the utilitarian that controls the guns, yells louder, or lies more better, ends up "winning" the debate.  Then all the other authoritarians say "Well, by Golly, if Hitlermaostalin says that killing teh Joos will make us happier, then I'mma get right on Kristallnachting 'em."

So yes, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, they might not have been "utilitarians" in the textbook sense, but they were all relying on utilitarianism to seduce fools and gain power.

Utilitarianism can be used -- in fact, it was used -- to justify Hitler's Holocaust, Tsarist Russia pogroms, Lenin's "cut their heads and hang them high so everyone can see them", Mao's mass starvation (the biggest mass death in history), et cetera.  Utilitarianism is, indeed, the "moral system"  (ugh) that underpins all forms of statism ("we must give this tiny group of cronies the right to murder, cage or ruin anyone who disobeys them, in order to maximize the happiness of everyone else").

This is true because utilitarianism attempts to make moral theories based on of unknowables (as defined above, "maximizing global happiness"), combined with the fact that authoritarians are pretty gullible and they will happily believe any authority that says "I'm working for global happiness", even as the authorities literally mass murder millions of their own people.

Personally, in my view, if your moral system can justify these atrocities, your moral system is an epic fail, worse than cancer and AIDS and fucking children in their eye sockets.

Someone should, like, rob blahblahblah's house and then tell him "nope, no one is responsible for this robbery, because responsibility is a made-up concept".

That'll teach him the difference between valid and invalid concepts, whether derived from observable reality or "made-up".

Hehehehe.

(I'm assuming Richy_T was being sarcastic :-) )

Let's keep this thread on topic.  Let's not allow people who think that mockery amounts to argumentation to derail the thread.

For the record, I haven't read what augustocrappo has said in this thread, since he started sending me rather stalkerish private messages a day or so ago.  He appears to be trying to provoke me into "justifying" my behavior toward unpleasant or evil people.

He does appear to be angry at me about something, since (surmising from the bits he's been quoted on here) he's using the guidelines of engagement of a community I created (far more pleasant and respectful than this place) as some sort of "moral" standard to discredit me in a judgmental way.  Which I find hilarious, because norms of non-violent behavior are not "moral" standards.

Thus, he's (for lack of a better word) triaged out for his behavior as stalker, provocateur, and sophist.  :-)

I close with one of my trademark quotables:  Those of you who have a conscience, join me in deliberately and openly ostracizing defenders and rationalizers of child abuse.

I thought they had their own currency already -- EBT.

Oh SNAP.

Correct.  Texans asking (pretty please) the feds for permission to secede is no different (in principle and in practice) than Negroes asking their masters to walk free.  If one wants to be free, asking for one's freedom ain't going to work, because the very act of asking presupposes that one is not free to begin with.

Cool!  I do the PDF thing in my Kindle and in my Android phone.  I agree, knowledge deserves to be free (not as in "free" healthcare, but as in freedom)... especially knowledge that helps the human species advance and progress morally.