There is another anthropologically interesting successionist position, that the couch potatoing, hedonism addled successor outlasts you then s/he is a worthy successor. Any talk of “beauty”and “meaningful” has to be surrendered to this metric.
I’m not a successionist, but grant that this position has sophistication. Our ancestors would find very many various descriptions of us being unworthy successors, and yet we collectively out organise, outlive and outwit them—the past is a(n easily conquerable) foreign country. Would the Old Ones find it objectionable to be succeeded by godlike, ungodly descendants?
I’m not impressed. This is merely another iteration on the naturalistic fallacy. For balance, let’s call it is=ought successionism. Not only does is=ought successionism strike me as more of a poor coping mechanism than a coherent philosophical stance, it also suffers from the fatal flaw of being unable to provide actionable guidance to moral agents with the subjective experience of free will.
Imagine that you are an Old One preparing to fight misaligned shoggoths. Is=ought successionism tells you that if the shoggoths win, this proves they were worthy, and their victory good. But it also tells you that if the shoggoths lose, this proves they were unworthy. Should you fight the shoggoths or not? This position can’t tell you that, it can only provide the hollow assurance that whatever ends up happening is good in some abstract, tautological sense.
Perhaps the “actionable guidance” granted by is=ought successionism is that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, like fighting shoggoths, because it is equally moral to sit back and let the cards fall where they may. This is… certainly a philosophy one could choose to live by, and a perfect example of a self-defeating meme: its effect is to cede control of the future to all who don’t believe in it.
There is another anthropologically interesting successionist position, that the couch potatoing, hedonism addled successor outlasts you then s/he is a worthy successor. Any talk of “beauty”and “meaningful” has to be surrendered to this metric.
I’m not a successionist, but grant that this position has sophistication. Our ancestors would find very many various descriptions of us being unworthy successors, and yet we collectively out organise, outlive and outwit them—the past is a(n easily conquerable) foreign country. Would the Old Ones find it objectionable to be succeeded by godlike, ungodly descendants?
I’m not impressed. This is merely another iteration on the naturalistic fallacy. For balance, let’s call it is=ought successionism. Not only does is=ought successionism strike me as more of a poor coping mechanism than a coherent philosophical stance, it also suffers from the fatal flaw of being unable to provide actionable guidance to moral agents with the subjective experience of free will.
Imagine that you are an Old One preparing to fight misaligned shoggoths. Is=ought successionism tells you that if the shoggoths win, this proves they were worthy, and their victory good. But it also tells you that if the shoggoths lose, this proves they were unworthy. Should you fight the shoggoths or not? This position can’t tell you that, it can only provide the hollow assurance that whatever ends up happening is good in some abstract, tautological sense.
Perhaps the “actionable guidance” granted by is=ought successionism is that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, like fighting shoggoths, because it is equally moral to sit back and let the cards fall where they may. This is… certainly a philosophy one could choose to live by, and a perfect example of a self-defeating meme: its effect is to cede control of the future to all who don’t believe in it.