ZOMBIE FORUMS

When it is used to seriously encourage murder and mayhem.

Yeah I am with Annoying-coloured-oversized-text boy.

You would have to say that one set of moral codes is more right than another. It would work in countries with a theocracy, but not in the US. Though we still make use of the Christian morals with seemingly no qualms.

Why do it at all? If you don't like it don't go to it.

Well that is the obvious solution but like most things people don't want younger people exposed to such things since they are so susceptible. Like violence on TV, if people didn't die every 90 seconds on television do you think there would be so many fights in the world. [sarcasm]Of course I am not affected by violence in the media.[/sarcasm]

I think that warrants restrictions on children, not banning.

The fact is, all laws are based on moral codes. I mean, if killing wasn't believed to be morally wrong by the government, we wouldn't have laws against it.

In a way that is true. I guess simply I would have to say that you try to make laws that only use universal or almost universal moral standards.

I personally believe that the purpose of laws should be to allow everyone to have an equal say and should allow everyone the ability formulate their own thoughts and opinions. Thus killing is the ultimate form of imposing your beliefs. If I wasn't dead tired and thinking as about as straight as Richard Simmons I would do a lengthy post about the laws that are supersede morals.

The fact is, laws can't supersede morals. Even the idea that imposing morality on others is wrong is, in fact, a form of morality.

If Joe KKK or Mohammed Jihadi is using a website to distribute plans and tactics for murder and destruction (i.e., "Here's how you make a bomb, here's where you should place it"), that site should be shut down.

Aww, shucks. I used the instructions on how to make C-4 to blow up pumpkins and make a video. And you would take that away from me???

You know what we do to moral relativists where I'm from?

Well... nothing. But that's not the point.

There is an objective reality, or at least something that we can agree on as a common standard of reality, which amounts to the same thing for reasons too complicated to explain satisfactorily in this thread without it hitting the character limit and explooooding. This is easily proven. Therefore there is an objective standard of truth. Therefore there is an objective morality, at least as it relates to the aforementioned objective reality; I suppose we could bicker all we want about moral codes as they relate to thought, but action is another matter.

Laws really have very little to do with morals. They're simply the opinion of the guy with the biggest gun in any given area; they may reflect his moral standards, but more often they're directly concerned with shoring up his hold on the biggest gun in any given area. Many modern governments, being started by people with a residual interest in kicking the last guy with a big gun out (or, alternately, with a moderately advanced moral sense), incorporate various safeguards against this kind of blatant power-grab, but none have thus far been entirely successful.

I propose a kind of vicious intellectual Darwinism. You get to say whatever the hell you want, as long as your ISP will let you. If your ideas are good (or infectious) enough, they'll survive. If not, they'll sink back into the pea soup of obscurity from whence they came.

As to the points made earlier about information on how to build bombs, et cetera... don't make me laugh. Information on building bombs can be used for good or for evil, just like books, guns, secondary sex characteristics and just about every other source of power out there. I know I'm skirting kind of close to Godwin's Law here, but wouldn't it be a good thing if you used information like <a href="http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?lastnode_id=124&node_id=827072">this</a> to help bring down an oppressive regime? Destroy a slave-labor ring? Piss off hippies?

Freedom of information is necessary for exactly the same reasons that the right to bear arms is. The line between the two is far from clear, in fact, as evidenced by the U.S. government's attempts to place munitions-type export restrictions on strong encryption algorithms. The pen may indeed be mightier than the sword (and changing people's minds is certainly preferable to killing them), but they complement each other, and no society can ever be considered free unless it holds both in high esteem.

In answer to the original question, though, I think it's bloody perfect as long as it gets Eronarn out of here.

P-M

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Objective reality doesn't imply objective morality. It's the difference between "is" and "ought" - no one's been able to link the two yet. The fact is, the universe has laws. None of these laws has the least concern for human beings any more than, say, rocks. The universe has no way it "wants" rocks to be treated. Likewise, it has no way that it "wants" bundles of water and carbon to be treated. Morality is human-created.

I'm not saying this is a good thing. Hell, personally it scares the shit out of me. I have a genuine fear that moral relativism will cause the total collapse of Western civilization. Unfortunately, there's no way we can say certain actions are endorsed by the universe while others aren't (unless you want to claim that God/gods exists, but for the purposes of this debate I'm assuming he/she/it/they doesn't/don't). So basically, human beings have two choices: a) pretend that some kind of real moral code exists, or b) die.

Human beings didn't evolve to deal with the truth.

[EDIT: Also, keep in mind that moral relativism, the way I'm formulating it, by no means implies tolerance. The idea that we should tolerate moralities different from our own is undeniably a moral concept itself. On the contrary, moral relativism, if anything, implies a kind of might-makes-right fascism.]

I'll bite.

What is morality? It's a system of tendencies governing human actions, intended to offer maximum benefit to the group while protecting the holder of moral principles. It's a social construct, to be sure, but it is real in that large portions of it relate to the real world; therefore, an objective standard exists in that some moralities can be observed to work better than others as they relate to reality. That's the objective part of morality. This doesn't take into account etiquette, naturally; the less moral principles have to do with the real world, the more relative they become. That's the relativistic part of morality.

Yeah, I know this is a bit of a ruthlessly utilitarian approach to the moral question, but it works.

P-M

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/hands Ryven a fishy-stick of goodness

Damn skippy, basically that is why I stopped believing in right and wrong. All they exist for is to create opposites over which there is confrontation. We just all need to get along and make mad monkey love.

....yeesh, it took me 6 hours to tear myself away from that site. Curiosity combined with a site that links anything you go to with 20 different semi-related things is almost like setting a drug addict in front of their drug of choice.

Heh. Yeah, I've done most of my research there for a while. It's usually surprisingly accurate... mostly because anything you post that isn't will be torn apart in about fifteen minutes by five or six experts in the field.

P-M

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Quote:

It may be just me, but every time I've heard the term "site banning", it's always been in reference to banning someone from a site. But, like I said, it may be just me.

Me, too Ryven. I was a bit vague on the term, and avoided comment at first. When it went off topic, then I was having fun!

Still, I meant the same thing you did at first. Not that I mind it going off subject on the very first posts. Heh.

As for morality and that stuff.....

Morality, at first, seems very obvious. Whatever does the most good for the most people for the most time is the most moral thing, right?
Thinking about this is what has lead me away from my previous "the ends justify the means" mentality somewhat.

Personally, I believe moral relativism (or pluralism, if you prefer) is absolute. Everything act is morally different depending on the situation. Example: Murder is wrong, right? But if one is protecting themselves and their family, then it is acceptable. A more slippery slope is the assasination of people to protect other people. Take a look at Saddam. Many believe assasinating him is the moral thing to do. Okay, what about Kim Jong Il (assuming he would be replaced with a "better" ruler)? He's kind of crazy, and certainly isn't the nicest guy, but he has shown a willingness to change and a relative openness to foreign ideas. Should we assasinate him to help North Korea?

Oh, and cool site, by the way, Pyro. One more bookmark to check up on.