Fortunately, my training as a philosopher left little room for embarrassment about my beliefs (my mentor was a Popperian—of the ‘say it loud’ sort). So there really isn’t anything I could say here that hasn’t come out elsewhere. But a lot of it is somewhat unpopular:
Ethics: eudaimonist egoism—objectivist in the sense that there are facts about ethics, but relativist in the sense that there’s no reason to assume all humans are the same ethically. Consequently, I think it’s fine that I care more about my cats’ welfare than most humans’ - as long as it doesn’t lead to a lack of virtue on my part (which, of course, is an empirical question).
Economics: Markets really are the most efficient way of getting the relevant information, due to methodological individualism and local, distributed knowledge. And my spending really does indicate my preferences, which are some of the best data about ethics.
Politics: Classical liberal (preferring Locke over Mills); freedom is paramount—other people should fight for my freedom, so that I might have room to become more awesome. I acknowledge the tension between this and Nietzsche’s contention that democracy is bad because it does not provide an environment where one can learn to overcome. But I’m not a big fan of democracy anyway, and I see the political history of the US primarily in terms of a struggle between ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’.
Furthermore, governments are inherently bad—it is part of their telos. One of the great things about the US government is that it’s huge and bloated with checks and balances to make it difficult for anything to get done, which makes it a bad government. A trim, efficient government just does a good job of oppressing its people.
Life is a lot more nuanced than a lot of young rationalists or idealogues would think. There is room in the world for all sorts of people, and the diversity of even mistaken opinions leads to interesting and wonderful things. Example: while ‘christian rock’ tends to suck, most religious music is genuinely inspiring like little else. Ditto for architecture. When trying to trim falsehoods from the world, don’t accidentally lose some awesome.
On the same subject, history does matter. He who doesn’t remember history is doomed to something something… Just calling yourself an ‘atheist’ doesn’t mean you’ve pruned religion out of your language and culture—and if you do manage that, don’t be so confident that it will all still stand without it.
Sorry, was this the ‘soapbox’ thread? I’ll stop now.
Fortunately, my training as a philosopher left little room for embarrassment about my beliefs (my mentor was a Popperian—of the ‘say it loud’ sort). So there really isn’t anything I could say here that hasn’t come out elsewhere. But a lot of it is somewhat unpopular:
Ethics: eudaimonist egoism—objectivist in the sense that there are facts about ethics, but relativist in the sense that there’s no reason to assume all humans are the same ethically. Consequently, I think it’s fine that I care more about my cats’ welfare than most humans’ - as long as it doesn’t lead to a lack of virtue on my part (which, of course, is an empirical question).
Economics: Markets really are the most efficient way of getting the relevant information, due to methodological individualism and local, distributed knowledge. And my spending really does indicate my preferences, which are some of the best data about ethics.
Politics: Classical liberal (preferring Locke over Mills); freedom is paramount—other people should fight for my freedom, so that I might have room to become more awesome. I acknowledge the tension between this and Nietzsche’s contention that democracy is bad because it does not provide an environment where one can learn to overcome. But I’m not a big fan of democracy anyway, and I see the political history of the US primarily in terms of a struggle between ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’.
Furthermore, governments are inherently bad—it is part of their telos. One of the great things about the US government is that it’s huge and bloated with checks and balances to make it difficult for anything to get done, which makes it a bad government. A trim, efficient government just does a good job of oppressing its people.
Life is a lot more nuanced than a lot of young rationalists or idealogues would think. There is room in the world for all sorts of people, and the diversity of even mistaken opinions leads to interesting and wonderful things. Example: while ‘christian rock’ tends to suck, most religious music is genuinely inspiring like little else. Ditto for architecture. When trying to trim falsehoods from the world, don’t accidentally lose some awesome.
On the same subject, history does matter. He who doesn’t remember history is doomed to something something… Just calling yourself an ‘atheist’ doesn’t mean you’ve pruned religion out of your language and culture—and if you do manage that, don’t be so confident that it will all still stand without it.
Sorry, was this the ‘soapbox’ thread? I’ll stop now.