Logical Reasons to be Ethical

This is a post with important and valuable ideas I wish everyone to understand and either adopt or critique, because as always I'm open to a productive debate and changing my mind in light of convincing logical reasons or empirical evidence, but unlike some of my other posts, (as I indicate in the beginning of every post) this one is comparatively lengthy and dense but also more important with some insights and ideas that I notice most people not being aware and hence falling for irrational behaviour inconsistent with their belief system that usually includes values such as kindness, compassion and love for all beings. This post is closely related to my posts Confessions and Courage. The updates are relatively more important than the main content for this post.

If that's not what you believe in, feel free to skip this post to save valuable time and send me a message explaining why you think so, not necessarily because I disagree, I probably don't, but it could be a fruitful discussion if you are open-minded and open to a productive debate. Same goes for everyone who reads it till the end; I'd like to know your comments.

After reading an article about the Unabomber and a book on sociopaths by Martha Stout, which I have reviewed elsewhere, I started thinking how the world must look like from their perspective, stepping into their shoes so to speak, and how they’re fine with actions that most would shudder on even thinking about. That brought me to thinking why we are ethical, and if we even have any logical reasons to be ethical.

This is very important for me, because I strive to be as rational and logical in all circumstances as humanly possible, and yet when it comes to matters related to morality and ethics, I revert back to my automated system-1 unthinking instinctive mode and just do what “feels” right, and it escaped my notice such that it even found it’s way into one of my overarching ambitions, which involves minimizing unnecessary suffering and helping people live better lives.

I’m not saying this is wrong. I’m just saying we don’t have logical reasons to say if it’s right, and that makes it more unclear than we previously thought, and that society finds it convenient to think because let’s be honest, the majority doesn’t think much because it takes up a lot of cognitive resources and time, and it’s just easier to rely on your intuitions and follow the herd so that if things don’t go as planned, you can justify your decisions by shifting the burden of the blame onto others.

But that’s clearly not the best way to make decisions because as we know that majority might be wrong, and you need to question every single belief before adopting it as your own, else you’re just being manipulated by external factors out of your control without even being aware of them and you’re not even trying to understand and exercise your own will!

(Assuming you have any such thing as free-will, but it’s unclear and stakes are high in case you decide you don’t and it turns out you do, in other words the worst case scenario is worse than the best case scenario and the opportunity costs are too high so at least to me the rational thing to do in this case seems to be to assume you do have it, plus it’s relevant to our present discussion so for now I’ll assume you do have free-will.)

So, the question I wanted an answer to was how could we convince a perfectly rational serial killer with no sense of morality that they shouldn’t act on their desire to kill, even though that is what gives them true pleasure, in a way not any different from the pleasure a surgeon gets from operating, a teacher from teaching kids, a pianist from playing the piano, and a mathematician from solving mathematics problems?

Is the fact that it’s not the prevalent societal norm at the time the killers were born in enough on its own to justify them not committing crimes? Why do I think that it is unethical? What logical reason to I have to endorse such a strong belief and stop someone from acting on their true desires, even if it’s at the expense of others? What is morality and ethics, and do we have any good reasons to believe in everything we believe in?

Now people who read about these topics tend to think that moral relativism is true, and I was guilty of that too when I first encountered it, but now I realize that there are moral codes common to almost every human society on Earth. But recently I have also realized that these moral codes significantly differ from culture to culture across time, and what is ethical changes drastically depending on what time period you’re looking at, or what time you happen to be born in.

If we zoom out and try to look at the vast universe in a completely scientific, objective and unbiased manner, at least as much as we can, we would find that the universe- pardon my French but the emphasis is necessary to produce the desired effect, and my euphemism has the added advantage of being child friendly- doesn’t give a flying flamingo for any strong emotions we might feel when we witness a sentient being suffering or suffer ourselves, it doesn’t have any inherent morality, ethics, good or evil, or any sort of meaning, regardless of how our brain feels about that.

The universe doesn’t care, because we are insignificant both in terms of the amount of space and time we exist in, and unless we resort to something like God, we realize that are completely free to do anything we want, a freedom that drives some people to madness and some to embrace and see it for what it is- an opportunity to live life however you want because life is short and nothing matters really at the end. So basically, Nihilism or Existentialism, but not exactly, and not necessarily negative. I don’t know if what I described already has a name, and counter-arguments, so please let me know if you do.

I also tried to examine why I feel like helping others, and why people help others in general, what compels them to do such things even at the expense of themselves when they are required to make some sacrifice that goes against their best self-interests and engage in altruistic behaviour. I found that it’s purely to feel good about ourselves, ulterior motives, or a mysterious feeling of wanting to help others just for the sake of it, the feeling that psychopaths lack and are ostracized for.

That doesn’t sound great. That sounds horrible, because I used to think that helping others and alleviating suffering are one of the most noble deeds you could do, free of any social influence or ulterior motives, and it didn’t occur to me that I have no logical reasons to justify such beliefs I so closely held. No, that’s actually an understatement, because despite trying to be rational at all times, this is something that seemed to be in direct conflict with logic yet something I could not just give up so easily even if logic told me to.

If it’s not already clear, I was disillusioned when I realized helping people is mostly something people to feel good about themselves, ulterior motives, virtue signalling, or some mysterious feeling that compels them to, because it just “feels” the right thing to do intuitively. I was so repulsed by the idea of helping people at one time that I completely gave up on it until I realized that I am going about this the wrong way; I could make my axiom the guiding principle that no matter what I wish to help people and alleviate suffering to the best of my abilities, and then work from there.

Of course this is also not perfect, but by doing this I could then think how I can justify those end, maximize my likelihood of achieving my goals, rationalize my beliefs and actions to fit with that principle. Rationalizing is something I’m good at, so I need to be extra cautious, because rationalizing is only good when you have decided to stop exploring all the alternatives and evaluating the pros and cons and just go ahead with one, and the stakes are too high in this case to just go ahead without rigorously analyzing both sides, and any other sides in this argument.

So rationalizing is one option, if helping people is what I prefer over rationality and logic, and there is no good reason to prefer one over the other and there isn’t sufficient information to make any such judgment, and both seem equally alluring, both sides equally important.

Even if I did this, I won’t be satisfied till I can understand why we help others, why we should help others, what gives rise to the mysterious gut-feeling intuitions that compel some to kill and others to condemn such behaviour, and if we’re going to condemn such people and stop them from following their true desires, we’d need a new framework to think about this, find a way around it, or let them do what pleases them, which isn’t practical and realistic.

I know that sounds wrong, but we don’t know why.

Reminder- I don't hold such beliefs, I'm just playing with these ideas, and wish to investigate them more deeply, and you might have some comments to ideas that didn't occur to me, and I'd be more than happy to hear them and engage in healthy debate and discussion if you're willing to share them.

Now, it might just be another one of my brains attempts at rationalizing my feelings, but my stance is that I should help others when I feel like it because as it’s a case of judgment under uncertainty, and the stakes are high enough to think deeply about it and figure out the most rational thing to do, the risk, the worst case scenario far worse than the best case and if in fact there is no need to help others; I believe I should help others and keep that central until and unless proven otherwise logically with a significant amount of evidence and logical arguments.

This might be the only thing currently in my belief system that am consciously following despite knowing I'm not certain enough and have no logical arguments or rational justifications or good reasons to do it, but will be willing to take a leap of faith because if others really suffer as much as I have and I have any capability of helping them regardless and completely independent of any mysterious sense of moral obligation I happen to feel towards them, I must do it while not forgetting the important philosophical questions revolving around it, because nothing shall escape the domain of rationality and scientific method, and scientific skepticism.

You cannot imagine the mental agony and anger I experienced when I realized that we cannot realistically hope to formalize stuff like values and ethics in a logical and mathematical language, a perfectly rational structure, as this posed a great threat to my desire to be perfectly rational and justify all my beliefs and ambitions in terms of good reasons and logical arguments, one of them being to alleviate suffering, but now I'm holding on to the idea that it might at least be possible to develop a framework using rationality and the scientific method to discover your true values and beliefs.

Now that's not quite what I initially wanted, but such a framework could still be immensely helpful in enabling individuals to self-actualize and do whatever they want, even stuff like killing people which is what serial-killers do, and I don't currently have any logical reasons to condemn their behaviour even though I feel it's wrong (and feeling is not by itself a reliable judge of truth unless scrutinized with logic and reason; this also goes counter with my criticism for the Unabomber, which by the way applies to all "evil" people throughout history, and which I have described in another post, so there's that inconsistency in my belief system, hence the cognitive dissonance and the frustration.)

But at least such a framework would also enable people with desires less harmful to others (playing the piano, being a professional painter or writer, performing surgery) to discover their true passions, interests and abilities and set goals that are beneficial both for them and society which would benefit from their contributions; not just that, if we could pin down such values and beliefs (and possibly map them with certain genes, neural processes and behavioural patterns to build an AI database system, but that's not required) people could find like-minded companions and partners much more easily, especially if they have interests and inclinations very different from the majority and are more susceptible to feel lonely, as it's an established finding in social psychology that birds of a feather flock together, metaphorically speaking.

There's also the question of why we need social connections and relationships to flourish at all, why we have this feeling to connect with people similar to us, even though I realize we probably need external validation for our abilities and interests, but still why do we have this need, and could we logically justify, rationalize it, or is this too just a feeling, like a feeling to be good, and be "Moral" and "ethical"?

Why social connections and relationships are so essential for a fulfilling life, and why a lack of such relationships causes loneliness, what gives rise to such desires and how we could manipulate them, and whether we should, because in many cases this need for social connection leads to irrational behaviour or is something that a person has no realistic chance to fulfil.

For now, one moral dilemma is enough, let's leave that for another time. After all, one of the main reasons, I started the blog was to discover and connect with like-minded people, the others including reasons like sharing my ideas on the net and honing my writing skills. These topics are compelling me to question logic and rationality itself, which is a good thing because it's good to be skeptical of everything and question everything, but logic was something I felt would be the last thing I'd need to question.

Perhaps it concerns it's limits and scope, in which case I need to read more about epistemology. And maybe Rationality isn't as bad or useless in this case as I'm thinking, because Rationality doesn't just constrain you to solely use logic, but it also allows you to use emotions and intuitions as and when you could reliably depend upon them to guide your decision-making process, and values and goals are important prerequisites to being rational.

The problem is that now it's unclear how we could discover these values, and the stakes are too high to just neglect this question, because depending on the values you could be one who devotes their whole life to social causes, helping people and alleviating suffering, or one who completely disregard other people's interests and refuses to be constrained by any ethical rules and sees nothing wrong with killing a people or two, or maybe blowing up a few countries or perhaps the whole human civilization.

Now those are two extremes I mentioned and obviously there are lots of grey areas on the middle of the spectrum, but no one can deny it's importance. Another point to consider is that unless you're a psychopath, even if you're convinced by logical reasons that killing is perfectly fine, you'd find it hard to do something like that because your conscience won't let you, and this is a problem or not depending on how you look at it.

One way to see it is that the conscience, the constant nagging in the back of your mind that won't let you sleep for nights after committing murder, is a good thing, an argument could definitely be made in favour of that position, but then if you don't know if this feeling has any good logical reasons, you could just question the validity and reliability of your conscience itself, and act according to logic, in a case where logic permits you to murder and it's in your best self-interests to do so, and later just try to manipulate the nagging of the conscience by using neuropharmacological tools, or something like psychotherapy, behavioural tools, neurotechnological devices, implants whatever.

But whether or not you should, that's a whole another beast. One another important assumption I'm making here is that this person I just talked about is more committed to Logic than they are committed to Ethics (societally accepted rules of ethics conforming to societal norms, this is) and they have no good basis to rely upon on over the another, it'd just be a mysterious feeling, and they could decide that they would suspend their use of logic because they think their ethics, or being accepted by other members of society, or one of several other possible factors, is more important to them, and so they would act in accordance with their priorities and values.

I realized that all of it comes down to that mysterious gut feeling, the intuitions, what some people call the heart, and maybe if we could find out how it works and gives rise to these feelings, these thoughts and intuitions, we could get closer to truth, or if nothing else a greater understanding of what gives rise to it and what external factors influence it so that we can be more aware and make more informed decisions when relying on it, and know under what circumstances it'd be best to rely upon them.

I posed a question in another blog post, something along the lines of: would a greater understanding of the universe and greater knowledge in all disciplines be enough on it's own to cause any significant change in our perception of the world or worldview?

After thinking about the logical reasons to be moral, I won't say I feel more comfortable with killing anyone or more driven to help other, in other words no significant change than before, but I wouldn't deny that now the dark side even if not more alluring seems much less evil, and the light side much less logical, and the separation between them even more grey and fuzzy than before. Not enough information to draw any inferences from that could guide my decisions going forward in the future or behaviour in the present, but any number of conclusions might be drawn depending on a person's values and feelings.

If after reading this post you feel more encouraged to go ahead with your idea to be a serial killer, you have my sympathy, and spare me because I enabled you as an accessory to carry out your criminal activities but feel free to kill everyone else, (FBI look away; for legal reasons this is a joke.) if you become the next president or win the Nobel after developing my ideas, make sure to give me some credit, else things won't be favourable for you when I take over y'all as your new dark lord. (Empty threat of course, thought I could be bluffing to produce the desired effect of shock, and all ideas are borrowed anyway, but that doesn't mean you can just steal without crediting the one who exposed you to them in the first place. That's unethical. or maybe not. Still, it'd be cool if you didn't do that. Social validation and the primal need to fit in used as a rhetorical device right there, you can't escape that!)

If you fall into the majority of the neurotypical population and happen to be an average human being, you would feel disgust towards the idea of murder and your conscience would never let you sleep another day or be at peace with yourself. For the same reasons you'd believe that helping people is good- if asked for the logical reasons, I doubt anyone could give me a satisfactory answer- it usually comes down to one of the following reasons: virtue signalling, doing it because everyone else is doing it and you could receive praise and external validation, or because you feel some mysterious intuitive compulsion to help others, and feel good about yourself and your self image or to avoid cognitive dissonance because you perceive yourself as a "good" and "moral" gentleman.

And that's perfectly fine- you're being perfectly rational, because rationality depends on your values and preferences, and in this case you're acting according to your own selfish self-interests because you have a self-interest in not killing and helping others. But now let's look at it from the perspective of a psychopath, who doesn't have any such moral code or conscience, and would be able to sleep peacefully and perfectly well for the rest of their life after murdering others, or may even be able to sleep peacefully only if they do it and feel a strong desire to murder others if they happen to be inclined to be who we know as serial killers. Important thing to remember here is the neither you nor the psychopath chose their genes and brains that gave them such personality traits and desires, and so no one of you is any better than the other, objectively speaking.

The psychopath may think that there is no objective morality, and no ethics to bind him, as the universe doesn't care about good or evil and they are just human constructs that they don't wish to obey. They demand from you, the moral and rational person, logical reasons to not kill and follow the same ethical rules and you do.

They remind you how you both happen to have genes and brain you never chose or had the ability to choose, and how are allowed to act in your best self-interests and fulfil your selfish desires just because they are in line with the prevalent notions of ethical standards in the society, but they can't do the same even though they happen to have emotional desires and needs, if not stronger, then at least the same as you; desire to kill. And they ask you to give them logical reasons to not do it. I shall end it here and leave it to you to come up with your answer; I'd love to hear your reasons.

So to summarize: Now am I going to free my psychopathic desires and go hunt some humans? Probably not, because my desire to reduce suffering is as strong as my desire to by logical and perfectly rational, in a case of uncertainty it's better to go this route because the worst case scenario is too bad and the opportunity costs too high, and finally, the last but not the least point is that if I'm going to be selfish either way- by doing what I feel like at the expense of others or by helping others to feel happy myself- then why not be selfish and help others?

Second point is- a quick cost-benefit analysis shows that the worst case scenario of deciding that nothing is unethical is much worse than any best case scenario, and the opportunity costs too high, and in other words the cons outweigh the pros, and so among all the alternatives, taking into account the uncertainty, it's best for now to believe there are ethics and we have a duty to follow them, until and unless proven otherwise, and even then it would be a whole another question of whether or not to release information that is evidence to the contrary, because in spite of any belief in truth and rationality, you have to take into account the consequences of your actions, this being on of the most potent infohazards there ever could be.

This is also why I believe that even though we have not yet figured out the optimal levels of suffering and at what amount of becomes excessive; we don't know what amounts are optimal for human flourishing, but just like the case above, the opportunity cost of letting people suffer is too high, the worst case scenario much worse than the best case scenario, cons outweigh any pros, and hence we must strive to eradicate all forms of suffering, unnecessarily excessive or not, until we know exactly what is optimal, because we could always induce the optimal levels of suffering, but leaving sentient beings on Earth to suffer for no good reason and for no fault of theirs is too cruel, logical reasons or not.

This is also why, kindness, compassion and EA are values and beliefs I hold at the same level as Rationality and Logic, because I know that as important as it is to be rational and logical, it's just as important to free all sentient beings of all suffering, and this is exactly what I plan to do, a common theme connecting multiple projects of mind, and if you share the same values and beliefs as me I'd like to hear from you!

In brief, ethics can not be capture by logic, but that should not be a problem because being rational, and hence being logical, depends on your values, so if your values include kindness and compassion, then you don't need any logical justification for following your values to avoid cognitive dissonance, unless you happen to fall into the 2% of the sociopathic population.

Even if that seems counterintuitive, you could just place compassion and helping people at the same level as logic, if those are values you truly believe in, and that would also neatly resolve the issue. We must still keep in mind that we are acting upon our values, which are a product of our intuition, so we do not have any convincing response for the logical serial killer or any selfish person, but that does not make murder justifiable. That only means that we could focus more on prevention and rehabilitation rather than punishment, and even in our daily lives, adopt a more empathetic and understanding perspective.

Let me know if you have any comments or thoughts you wish to share and feel free to connect.

Update: I have realized that I have used a word in several different ways in this post, so here is my attempt to clarify the meaning of the word "logical" as I understand it. Let's get it out of the way- there ARE logical reasons to be ethical, in the same sense that it is logical to sometimes fit in with the crowd and not be ostracized by society, because very obviously it would limit your levels of success and ability to gain power, fame, wealth etc. So there are logical reasons to be ethical, in the same way that there are logical reasons to be rational, because logic and rationality in most cases could be used synonymously due to being so similar, it's just that rationality is more inclusive and takes into account your values and has a defined goal, yet that could be extended to logic too.

People- and me, at first- just find it counterintuitive that following your values, listening to your intuition and being guided by your emotions to help you make better decisions is also part of being logical, because most associate logic with just abstract mathematical symbols that have no place for things like values and emotions, and that is certainly one part of it, but we forget the emotions also have biological and logical reasons and can be analyzed using the scientific method which is ultimately based in logic and empiricism; for values, we can't say anything for sure at this point of time, but even if they can't be captured using the conventional and existing models of science and logic, we could almost certainly come up with some sort of framework to roughly define values and come up with a reliable framework to enable any individual to discover their true values.

But everything I have written in my post still remains, including the title, even though I just said that there are logical reasons to be ethical, here is a better attempt at being more clear about what I was trying to convey: If you feel that your values are consistent with the prevalent ethical code in the present society, it is logical to be ethical. Same goes for you if your values are not consistent with them but you still wish to blend in because humans need social interaction, such as if you are introverted, lonely or have social anxiety, or for your selfish desires by pretending well and manipulating people, as psychopathic people do.

But you have no rational or logical reason to be ethical if your values are very different from the values required to be ethical in any given society in any given time period, and so you are not obligated to follow them, because nothing is absolute or objective, and if you have no internal moral compass, you won't be able to act like most people do, and you might behave in a way that people disapprove of. Just like the perfectly logical serial killer I mentioned in this post who asks you for a logical reason to be ethical.

In this case, when they can not fit in because their values- a result of their genes and early environment- and do not even wish to fit in- for whatever reasons like maybe they don't care about trying to please others or whatever others think, are self sufficient so don't desire the companies of others, and don't wish money, power, fame or anything that would require them to try to fit in with the society and conform to the norms- in this case, you have no logical reasons to be ethical, and this was the point I was trying to make.

You could only appeal to your own intuition, conscience or internal moral compass that is absent in that logical person with no conscience, or you could come up with some reason that just because it's the majority that has this code, they must conform, though we already know how well that would work, because almost everyone knows society at one time also burned women believed to be witches, committed hate crimes against certain races, engaged in pseudoscientific and irrational medical practices, jailed and punished people with what are now called mental disorders but then believed to have supernatural causes.. you get the point.

Even very smart people in the history of science and philosophy have been incorrect at some point, and that's fine, because no one can ever be absolutely correct about everything, but that shouldn't stop anyone from trying, and that's why we have the scientific method and process in place now. You could also tell them about the benefits they'd gain by fitting in, but as I said, if hey don't care about that too and don't have any selfish desires that require the support of society, they won't. Let me know if you have something to tell them in this case.

Update: What would I do if someone attacked me? My lawyer cousin asked me when I criticized an incident where Indian lawyers were fighting like wild animals. My solution? Weapon or martial arts instant kill, or maybe even with the right words manipulation and deception tactics deal deeper damage, but both of them are too unsophisticated, inhumane, uncivilized for my taste and go against my morals. Figuratively, metaphorically, kill them with love and empathy, by being polite and making them realize you understand and you're superior at emotional regulation and making them feel guilty and ashamed for acting worse than a little kid who doesn't have control over his impulses. I lost all respect for lawyers when my lawyer cousin showed me a video clip of lawyers fighting in a courtroom, and I told him that I used to think that lawyers are more clever than that, and 1) good with words and logic, and hence use more sophisticated tools like wit or deception to harm others, 2) good lawyers would not even use such things for their selfish impulses and follow the law, because they're lawyers, and 3) these people are not just resorting to violence but also manipulating the law in such an obvious way to evade taxes and charge exorbitant fees to satiate their greed and avoid law by rewriting the law.

I describe this incident elsewhere where I once got very depressed after watching a video of chick-culling. Today I got to know some equally bad things from my uncle, and I didn't let the fact that I'm not better at emotional regulation- and my ability to override my morality with logic- to distract me from the fact that this is equally bad and just because I'm not feeling negative emotions doesn't mean that the beings are not suffering. People donate to charities, do volunteering work, do philanthropy and whatnot just to feel good about themselves or virtue signalling or whatever, but they don't stop to think why they did it and if it's really the best method to help those beings. They must not judge the severity and urgency of a cause based on emotions, because as I talk about in many other posts, I could just use the right words and the right word to say it, with the right logic, language skills and knowledge of psychology to make them feel bad about any cause, absolutely anything, even something unethical, so they must think. That's what no one does- question, think, why are you doing this and is this the best way to do it, why do you believe in what you believe and why are you acting they way you're acting? Coming to the two other incidents.

I'll put it very bluntly without sugar coating and euphemisms and if you're someone sensitive I hope you stop reading now if you didn't already pick up the hint to stop reading earlier. First: bull fighting- they intoxicate the bull, themselves get drunk, hurt the bull and themselves get hurt. Another funny thing- my cousin was showing my family bullfight videos and everyone was laughing when the humans got hurt, and I was once again reminded of how little immature schoolkids laughed when someone fell and hurt themselves instead of hurting them and I never understood why; still don't, to be honest. And I also realized that you just tell me those people deserve it, but once again I'd politely but firmly disagree and put forward my belief- again open to critique- that irrational people who harm themselves and others must be helped.

This is a recurring theme that you'll understand when you read my other posts and I'll also explain later in greater detail, but I believe that someone being 'stupid', 'evil', 'foolish', 'dumb' or anything that predisposes them to irrationality is no excuse to help such people, because it's not their fault that they're not as smart as you and you could have been in the same position as them just by random chance or accident of birth, and by Kant's Categorical Imperative you must help them because that's you would have wanted for yourself, Rawl's Veil of Ignorance that shows how you could have been born with those genes in that society in that time and suffered the same way, and also if you need a more selfish reason: everything is interconnected by a chain of cause and effect and every action of yours has a butterfly effect that is going to come back and harm you, an idea which again I developed myself but have another obscure philosophical terminology indirectly related but supporting my idea, if that's your thing- dialectical materialism.

No, I won't take "I believe in absolute idealism so this doesn't apply to me" and yes I don't know any philosophy I'm just saying this cause I randomly came across it when a friend sent me a meme and I realized it's actually similar to my ideas; so basically just like when I first read the wiki pages of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Sartre. If you're someone who doesn't like thinking too deeply, just question yourself if you're okay with other humans being tortured and you yourself being tortured. If you're okay with it, my ideas don't apply to you and I respect your opinion but still have good reasons to change your mind, and if you have no good reasons behind why you believe what you believe and it involves suffering, then you need to trust me here, though if you are someone who doesn't think deeply, I believe that you've probably stumbled upon the wrong blog here, please re-check if this is the blog you intended to read.

So that's bullfighting. Now it's going to get more graphic. And those who know anything about Indian religions are going to find it morbidly funny in a twisted way. Hindu milkmen who keep cows for milk separate their calf from them. Isn't that cruel? Yes, that's cruel, but I know you're probably not too affected by this. You should, but you're right if you're thinking there's more and I'm going to exceed your expectations by what's coming next. They separate their calf, cut off their head, then- because apparently that's not enough- they show the same head to the parent cow so they can extract the milk and once they start getting the milk, they take away the head. How does that sound?

Now, even after my newfound indifference and philosophical moral theories and knowledge of psychopaths, I find this absolutely disgusting and I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that it did cross my brain, ways in which such humans could be given a taste of their own medicine; of course not through torture, as you might know, I think that's too unsophisticated and that's what stupid people with retard-level intelligence quotient resort to; I know means much more potent and traumatic, involving logic, language, psychology and deception. But I'm not a psychopath, and I don't believe that the people are evil, no one is evil, and I believe they are doing the best they can do with the cognitive abilities and environment they grew up in, and I have several ways to accomplish my goals with zero suffering and prevent it from happening in future, again using logic and language for those with at least average intelligence, and for the more closed-minded idiots- I apologize for antagonizing them, and I have empathy and understand where they're coming from and shall avoid using such derogatory subjective value judgments even though many people might think that with all due respect, no offense, they're idiots, and they'd be right, but the problem with thinking about it this way is that you'd be less likely to help the 'idiots' and think that they deserve it, which is why me calling them idiots is different from others calling them idiots; I wish to help them and make them see how they're wrong, while others might even punish them without making them understand and in no way preventing it from happening again in the future or others like them doing the same thing, themselves acting in an even more iditic way without even being aware of it; and the funny thing is that no one would call them out for it and think that it could actually be done in a better way that doesn't hurt the 'evil' or 'idiot' people and also helps prevent if from happening again in the future; which is why I have a general dislike towards human society and sometimes feel sad about the irrationality of humans, but I believe it can change, and if I don't give up, it has to. I was talking about how I'd influence the closed-minded people, and for that I have some psychological, neuroscientific and other behavioural and linguistic interventions that are out of the scope of this discussion.

smiles- why foolish people must be helped-- I'll come to this shortly.

It's also funny how I'm sometimes so sad about how these beings suffer, at other times able to mock the hilarity and absurdity as a coping mechanism or even just the absurd way the universe works, and at other times completely apathetic or indifferent which is the ideal state of calm and composure I'd like to maintain without being too neurotic and thinking logically without being swayed by emotions, and I'm getting better at it everyday.

Before coming to my reply to a friend when they said that foolish people should not be helped, the same friend when they asked me why rely on logic when emotions serve a purpose, or something similar: "Yes, relying on your emotions is a good thing in many cases, I'm not denying that. You're not going to convince someone to not kill themselves with reasonable arguments unless it's someone like me who tries to be perfectly logical or rational, I agree. But try to understand this- this is important-

Rationality is NOT about using logic all the time in all the situations for everything, that would NEVER work, that's very irrational, in my opinion. Rationality is about using emotions when emotions are best used instead of logic, and not just that, knowing how to use emotions correctly, not depending on them too much so you act irrationally and swayed by emotions do foolish or stupid stuff you regret later. Rationality allows us to use emotions, but only when you're that in a situation emotions would be better than logic, and it doesn't even have to be one- you could use the right amount of logic with just the right amount of emotions- which is like Aristotle's idea of pathos, logos and ethos."

"You say such people should be left for their own, kind of like survival of the fittest, right? Well, once upon a time I used to think the same, but I soon realized something that changed my mind. It started with me trying to investigate the cause of this irrationality- why people fall prey to such stuff that's so obvious to people like us, even though they later suffer and

many times they do know they're going to suffer, and should we even bother to help them?

And I realized- some people are just inclined in a way that makes them more predisposed to being irrational- the way their thinking and their brain works, which is a result of their genes, which is a product of their parents, early environment and random chance- and so we see that they didn't choose to be like that- have such brains and genes that would not say allow them to be more intelligent or rational, and so they have to suffer, and then I realized that it might not be our duty to help them, and we could just leave them as they are, after all isn't it their fault?

But if you understood what I said just now about the deterministic and random nature of the situation, you'd realize that you could also have been in their shoes, in their place, just for chance and where you happened to be born, which aren't things you controlled, and so you won't be justified for being too proud about your abilities that help you be more rational, and so if you have any sense of morality that makes you think that empathy, kindness and compassion are values that are any important to humans, then you would try to help them, because they suffer, and suffering is bad, and people who have evil intentions use such people and if you don't stop them and also don't help the people you'd be selfish and the people who are evil would get their own way by exploiting the gullible people and the gullible people would suffer, regardless of whether or not it was their fault or the events that led to them suffering were under their control or not. Does that make sense?

I believe everything you said about how if someone is so rigid and inflexible with regards to their beliefs that no amount of help could save them, then the best decision probably is to just leave them alone and let them do whatever they wish to do, and learn their lessons themselves, but I was just trying to say we must not completely give up on them right away without even trying, even if they seem to be true believers in their distorted worldview that's far from truth, we must at least try a little to change and help them, but beyond a point it's not just worth our time and energy, as we have much more important stuff to do with much higher chances of success instead of caring about anyone else so much.

If they’re curious and want to ask questions, sure — but going on about it like an activist is just not something I would ever see myself doing. People will believe in what they want at the end of the day, values and interests would gate-keep anyone from really changing their minds unless you were really good rhetorically. I agree. Must pick your fights wisely, spend your limited resources and time where they'd be best utilized, and in some cases as you say it might not be best to spend them on convincing others, which is some cases is already a lost cause, and it'll only be harmful for us to commit to an already lost battle."

Update: There is a second part to this post. Same name, part two. Check it out if you liked this post. I talk about this in that post in greater detail but: My updated idea of morality according to my updated worldview: directly if you’re not causing harm and taking a calculated risk by causing harm to only yourself then it’s moral. Indirectly you could be harming someone else but then if we go that route you have many butterfly effects both desirable and undesirable ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and so only directly if you’re not harming anyone, it’s moral for me, even if you’re harming yourself, you’re taking a calculated risk by making a well-informed decision by accepting the worst-case scenario and keeping in mind opportunity costs and all associated probabilities, as I describe in greater detail elsewhere. Also check out my post Friendship and other social contracts if you're interested in more applied stuff.

Update 2:

Hard work succeeds when talent barely works hard or something, saw a quote recently- that I agree but talent plus hard work is always going to outcompete just hard work and no talent and there is always going to be someone more talented than you in terms of genes or environment connections and then you realize that even hard work is determined by your genes and upbringing inclinations- and then bring in fooled by randomness and you realize how deterministic random it is which is why intellectual epistemic humility and no one is self made success no one deserves praise but more importantly no one deserves hate or that not worked hard enough bits actually a psych study that shows how talented ppl for whom hard work success look down upon others who failed but who might be just as or even more talented, which is why we must try to help the less fortunate, and which is also why simply working hard is not enough, you need to have the right talent trains connections to succeed in todays world and that’s unfair to less fortunate people from underprivileged background; at least no one must suffer due to this or be unable to achieve their dreams, desires or ambitions.

I have identified three main categories for thinking about the world: subjective value judgments involving your personal opinion, how you instinctively or viscerally feel or the emotional affect generated by system 1 depending on personal preferences, and objective scientific descriptive how things are in the real world how an external unbiased observer perfectly rational and logical alien would see happening concerning only events that we can perceive through our senses before we form value judgments about them or before it produces any affect in us the objective cause and effect event, and normative or how things ideally logically should be in order to be most efficient, productive or whatever depending on the the goal. So taking an example, say someone is homophobic or think neurodivergemt people and Aspies should be imprisoned and tortured or something. I'm intentionally taking an extreme and exaggerate example to demonstrate the principle and also for dramatic effect and cause no one can accuse me of selecting just those groups or communities cause I'm myself an Aspie and have several queer friends. So anyway, in this case, the person's subjective value judgment would be that they deserve to be segregated and die. The objective would be the biological and sociological observations that can be tested and found using scientific method and experimentation, called scientific facts about the world, events described objectively in terms of physical principles in order to understand and predict a chaon of cause and effect so we could control it.

The normative theory would depend on the person's core values- and this is the most important part of what the person thinks, keep in mind there is another 'normative' which talks about the absolte best way of doing things independent of the opinion of people, but I'm not talking about that here-and this is what is more directly under a person's control because as you might notice, the subjective judgment is produced by their visceral intuitive system 1 brain and not under their control, just like you can't help desiring what you desire or liking the flavour, songs or colours you like, you just happen to like it cause your system 1 intuitive preferences make you feel positive emotional affect towards them. And nor is the descriptive or objective perceived facts about the world under your direct control because it's influenced by a complex interaction of several external factors such as physical phenomena, social events, actions and behaviour of other people, butterfly effects, everything in the world is in some sort influencing it due to a chain of cause and effect that makes everything interconnected, and you probably can't control everything in the world and universe including other people according to your will, please let me know if you believe you can do so, but for now I'm presuming that you can not. So that leaves the normative theory which depends on the person's system 2 deliberate rational brain.

Well it's more complicated than that, because in reality even your system 2 and normative theory generating rational brain is influenced by your genes and early environment, but that's also an area of overlap with system 1 intuitive brain and it's unclear where the line divides the two, so for now we assume that it's under your direct control while keeping in mind that it might be incorrect, cause current information and evidence is inconclusive and data is insufficient to make any inferences. So if the person is inclined to have values such as hatred for all humans and he enjoys killing people, and believes that ethics are just social constructs and he will live by his own morals, then his normative theory would be the same as his intuitive theory that is to kill them all aspies and queers.

But if he believes in logic and compassion, even if he acknowledges that ethics and morals are subjective but that every being deserves kindness, and thinks that it's bad to hate, harm or make people suffer just because they have life choices, desires and preferences difference from theirs, they would try to override their subjective feelings of aversion towards queers and aspies, and even if they feel negative emotions towards aspies, they would try with their best of ability to control their intuitive and primitive visceral part of the brain with it's irrational desires, and try to act as a civilized human who believes in compassion and kindness would, in a polite manner such that he doesn't offend them and if he can't bear being around them, just remove himself from such situations but most importantly, not harm them or bear any evil malicious intent with the aim of causing them any harm or suffering, and plan all his actions, behaviour and beliefs around the principle that he must not let his irrational subjective bias (dislike for aspies and queers) affect or influence in any way his actions and behaviour in real world, as it'd be irrational and inconsistent with his beliefs to do so and he would then have to rationalize his behaviour to avoid cognitive dissonance and go down the vicious cycle that would lead them to harm others while trying to lie to themselves in order to justify their behaviour, even if there are logical reasons to not be ethical and he thinks that morals are subjective and that he would really like torturing some aspies, if he thinks that he wouls not like that done to himself and he should apply the same standards to others, or if believes that people should not be judged by or punished for something they didn't choose (in this case the genes and environments that cause queers to be homosexual and aspies to develop aspergers) and so he must not harm them, then he would try to act accordingly, and seek help without being afraid of social stigma if the desires get too much to control, as might be the case with certain people with sociopathic or antisocial mental disorders.

There is nothing "right" or "correct" way of thinking or doing things or "evil" or whatever, and it's just social constructs and your brain cause even your reality and time are subjective, as I discuss in the post 'objective is subjective'. If you want anything that seems like a good rule for being moral, not ethical cause ethics is what society believes and society believes in a lot of irrational and stupid stuff, you don't want to associate with society's standards if you are anyone who is able to think and cares about morality in any way. The only seemingly best alternative for morality seems to be the one I had realized and later discovered Schopenhauer proposed the same which just made me more confident- its either suffering or no suffering, and all actions and beliefs must be judged my it, and if you wish to go a step further, you could try to not endorse and impose it on others- thats foolish and I would have said its so hilarious, funny and comical in several ways, if it had not resulted in lot of death and suffering in the past and even today- you could try talking about it with an open mind and asking for logical reasons to arrive at a better standard for morality, and if you find one, please let me know so that I can update my belief system too, as always I'm open to changing my mind, but until then I believe that it's my- and everyone who thinks im being logical and reasonable- responsibility and obligation to help all of those less fortunate than me, starting from those who suffer more than necessary, eventually moving to those less privileged in all of society and creating a society where no one suffer or is at a disadvantage. Need to grapple with the pareto principle though but lets keep it simple for now.

It's also essential to investigate mechanisms responsible for certain cognitive processes more than others, such as how some people are more calm, indifferent and apathetic than others, such that they aren't too neurotic, like monks and certain other neurodivergent groups, because I believe that knwoing this and developing interventions to enhance these qualities in everyone could help reduce excessive negative emotions such as anger, fear, guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, mania, and help people be much more logical, rational, cool minded, calm and compassionate with each other, create a safer society. Same goes for intelligence, even though I have realized intelligence is nowhere as important as many other qualities ans virtues that are easier to cultivate and also much more effective and stronger predictors of success, likely to help you attain your goals, I still think intelligence if used in the correct way, either computational or biological, could help us come up with optimal and creative solutions to the hard and pressing social problems and construct better social systems from the ground up while being more logical and less prone to mistakes that could prove disastrously wrong in important issues such as these.

It's also very sad how some people, unlike others, are born with genes and in environments that are much more conducive to living a fulfilling life than others, and I think that everyone no matter which society or genes, must be allowed to live fulfilling lives, not just not suffer.

I like (and obsessed with) science and logic just because I happen to have genes and an upbringing that incline or predispose me towards liking them, and have core values that makes me feel attracted or positive emotional affect for them, like scientific skepticism open mindedness etc but what if there are people who think that emotions and intuotion and homoeopathy and astrology is better than science, and inclined to believe in irrational stuff that makes them prone or susceptible to harming themselves and others? There are some who say they are gullible and deserve it, and I am very disappointed when I come across such arguments, because let's get it out of the way- no one deserves anything. That's too extreme and unconventional I know, but in my opinion, much better than beliefs that make people think that those who suffer must be left to suffer and that we are under no obligation to help such people because "they asked for it and brought it upon themselves" or something. It's true that I myself think I should not waste too much time and energy trying to talk to or convince someone being irrational and who intends to do something pseudoscientific that might cause them suffering, if they happen to be too closed-minded and nothing I could say would change their mind. In that case, I have better uses of my valuable time and mental and emotional energy and cognitive resources than working on a lost cause, fighting a war that's already predetermined to be lost, arguing in a debate that's already been fixed to be won by the opposition no matter how logical and convincing I am.

But this absolutely doesn't mean that I don't wish to help them or that this is not my problem; it is, it's just that the current solution is not too efficient and too impractical to even try, but the problem remains, the problem is pressing and must be solved through other solutions, because it's only solutions that change you never give up on the problem. Just like my research questions and startup projects, I try each and every method and solution to solve them or implement them, and if I fail, I modify the plan or try another solution but never give up on the problem. I also used to think these people are being stupid, and they are, but it's not their fault they happen to be stupid and gullible, so prone to irrationality. What if the whole society was inclined to believe in pseudoscience? It's possible, and them reality would be that anyone who believes in science would be considered "stupid" and "irrational" but the consequences would be clear because rockets would blast mid air and society will exterminate itself, human civilization would wipe out itself and everything will end, for better or worse.

But in cases that are less obvious people still believe in irrational beliefs and ideas, and it's clear cause otherwise everyone would believe in logic and science, and it's not blind faith or being irrational, it's in a large part due to the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the real world. I'm absolutely not saying that science is wrong and and logic is irrational or anything like that, if you think so, you need to reread it or better just send me a message, because that's a foolish idea and you might get yourself killed or worse into great suffering, if you're someone easily influenced by ideas and adopt anything that sounds logical and convincing, not being able to evaluate and objectively analyze ideas by holding them at a distance, scrutinizing them with your critical thinking skills without attaching your self to them emotionally. If that's you, then you also must not read my posts till you develop such critical thinking, scientific skepticism and logical thinking skills, because there are a lot of dangerous ideas and I don't wish anyone to be harmed by misunderstanding them or blindly adopting them without thinking too deeply, because that's what this blog is for: playing with ideas and having a productive debate, not building a cult around my ideology and imposing it on everyone by all possible means. Probably. Good idea though. Just kidding.

So yeah, that's kind of an overview of my update post and I expand upon them in more detail in it. But in a brief summary do reflect on the idea that nothing, including your values, morals, facts, and perception fo reality is completely objective, and everything is influenced by your subjective bias and a neuroscientific or social construct.

Remember to practice being calm and less neurotic, be indifferent and apathetic to events that cause negative emotional affect, so you cna focus on enjoying the positive parts of life that you constantly overlook, and avoid suffering too much by the negative part and hard days that also make you more prone to irrationality.

Remember to be grateful and always mindful of this absurd universe that you have been born into by an infinitesimal probability, by random chance, with all this strange way of doing things and thinking, how mysterious, fascinating and wonderful it is that you can feel or experience anything at all, the qualia or subjective mental states, that are a result of just seemingly lifeless matter made of atoms going around in random ways doing their own thing, causing other beings to behave and talk and act in certain movements and cause frequencies in the air and use their limbs to imprint certain symbols that actually make sense and build cool and awesome stuff that allows them to look far from this thing we call our planet, and how all this started at all..

maintain this sense of joy and wonder, it makes life much more fun and interesting, but don't overdo it as I warned you earlier it causes some really bad headaches and migraines, and could mess with your sleep cycle and productivity. Not even getting to qualia, how everything is so systematic as is created by an intelligent creator, like a simulation, and this is coming from someone who doesn't believe or rather have blind faith in imaginary humans in the sky who tell people to act violent against other religions or act in a certain way and who are all knowing all benevolent yet have large egos and want people to give them flowers and food and their time and attention instead of trying to spread love and help those who suffer, the same people he apparently created who greatly suffer due to none of their own fault, innocent babies and people compelled to commit acts like torture and sexual harassment and incurable genetic diseases and mental disorders that mess with their whole reality, the same gawd. Anyway, coming back to the main topic. If nothing else, just remmebr that nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth taking too seriously, no idea or belief is worth your well being and mental health, and you must never suffer, make others suffer and always try to help those who suffer and who are less fortunate than you are, and be grateful and compassionate, because everyone deserves to be loved, and no one deserves to suffer, including you. (I sometimes wish I could apply my own advice to myself, and then I would- There is much more but I am already.. neglecting my other projects and sleep and everything and writing too much, reasons I explain in meta-post, lets just end it here. Ending soon.)

Never attribute to malicious intent what you could attribute to stupidity, so you're more likely to try to understand and help rather than label them as evil and a lost cause. If there is anything that you need or desire, but doing so goes against any rules or lessons that you have been conditioned to unquestioningly accept for no good reason, question it. Question everything, but don't let any societal or neuroscientific construct- fear, pride, shame, what others might think, emotions, intuition- hold you back and let influence you without it being rigorously scrutinized by your logical and rational brain; do what you feel like doing, just make you have thought about it and accept all the possible consequences including the worst case scenario and associated opportunity costs; and other decision making tools such as alternatives or counterfactuals. Also keep in mind that you must do what you like, not what you think what you like, which is why experimentation and explorations is important.

I'm also absolutely not saying that you should engage in hedonism and take foolish uncalculated risks that give you intense short term pleasure but harm you in the long run also making you susceptible to harming others and giving you a false sense of reality and illusion of fake pleasure. I'm saying that you should instead strive for eudaimonic pleasure that's an even greater kind of pleasure with no diminishing marginal utility such as I explain elsewhere- a scientist doing research or artist creating art, as opposed to a drug addict doing drugs- that would allow you to live a fulfilling life; live rationally in a way to optimize for maximum amount of happiness over the long term with no significant harm, or probability of harm, as I never explicitly say probability but you must learn to think in terms of probabilities; probabilistic thinking if a very useful and powerful way of thinking about events in the universe, even considering the possibility that having perfect knowledge about everything would make it all perfectly deterministic (cause and effect) but we are nowhere close to having perfect knowledge and it's uncertain even if it's possible, as we are constricted by not just the epistemic uncertainty but our neurobiological limitations, so you can rest assured that if you don't plan on trying to be immortal, it would help greatly to think about everything in terms of probabilities, because deep down it's all physics and mathematics, and in the quantum world it's always probability functions and grey fuzzy areas and region of uncertainty, and same goes for events and knowledge; you can never be certain, just go really close to a cent but never really get to hundred, and that's for cases when you are sure, which you can't be without lots of good reasons and empirical evidence.

All negative emotions associated with suffering and neuroticism make you act in stupid ways and harm yourself and others, and you must through any means and techniques, learn to think more logically, rationally, calmly, engage in activities and subjects that are intellectually stimulating for you, and practice meditation till I figure out a way to develop accessible and effective interventions to eradicate all such mental states from the roots, through neurotechnological, pharmacological, behavioural, psychological, biophysical, sociological, neurobiological and other tools. I don't think I'm being overconfident or overambitious, and I know it's going to be difficult but I'm going to try my best, because I know how difficult it is for those who suffer to live.

That's just one aspect of it, in which I wish everyone to explore and discover their inclinations and live according to their values without thinking about anything that prevents you from dohg what you desire or even more importantly forces you to act or behave in any way that makes you suffer. I also wish to create a society where no one is disadvantaged or underprivileged by accident of birth, and eventually understand all- and if possible, manipulate and control- all external favtors to eradicate suffering, make it easier for everyone to self actualize, and enhance to transcend the limitations of biology that result in unnecessary suffering. Suffering here includes all diseases, disabilities, disorders, illnesses, and anything and everything that anyone any type of harm or stress; all forms of physical, mental or emotional pain. If I'm too ambitious and still somehow alive, then try to wrap my head- now hopefully with much better computational and cognitive resources and time- around hoe immaterial matter gave rise to consciousness and eventually sentience.

Negative emotions and neurotic feeling sneed to go away first, and of course I could easily be selfish and live my life in peace with my personal philosophy and techniques that I have developed to allow me to live a fulfiling life, but that's too selfish and unfair to those who are less fortunate than me, and so I wish to share the framework and ideas that have made me much better able to enjoy life, starting from a time when I was unable to comprehend even simple english word and felt intense anxiety and depression suicidal all the tine multiple attempts, to the way of being capable of enjoying playing with much more complex ideas and also express them clearly enough for them to make sense and build upon ideas of great philosophers, let alone comprehend words and put together simple sentences, which I was unable to do once upon a time in a not too distant past, not even exaggerating (see post flowers for algernon) so i know its malleable and transient, and not only that i might lose my abilities and motivation again so must make the most out of it in the little time i have, but also that others can be helped and these who think its not possible to change such"fixrd and immutable" traits and abilities which is almost everyone could be shown that is is possible because i have experienced it and fortunately its also happens to be by research interests and passions obsession so i can bot just help those who suffer fron cognitive deficits but also those who have it much more subtle relative disadvantaged like low iq that causes difficulties (enhance for those who want it, not just rich) while somehow preserving diversity individual differences just the right balance tradeoff.

Remember that there are no objective morals and values, and you can live however you are inclined, but that this makes it your responsibility to choose a good criteria for morals, and no matter what your logical mind might be telling you, you need to only do stuff that reduces suffering and helps beings, and never ever causes harm or suffering to other sentient beings- and that's coming from a person whose whole life is based around logic and who has been multiple times accused of annoying people by overusing logic to overanalyze small decisions to figure out the most optimal decision to maximize the probability of attaining my desired goal, and using logic to analyze every component in every chain of cause and effect by closely observing every event in my daily life and surroundings, so you could trust me on this when I say such a thing for morals. Also remember to detect and question whenever you encounter subjective value judgments that are more obviously subjective and have no absolute scientific basis in reality, and hence could be used to mean anything you want if you know the right words and ways of thinking.

Same goes for objective reality, if you add some raw intellect or cognitive ability to the mix, and throw in some power, influence and rhetoric, with which you can literally take over the world and people won't even notice, just like they don't notice how they are being controlled, manipulated and influenced by the rich and powerful today, and how the whole society is structured in a manner to preserve their status quo and make it unreasonable difficult for everyone except the powerful few to live according to their inclinations and values, and live a fulfilling life. Rest are left to struggle at best, and greatly suffer at worst, and we need to create a society that's favourable for all, accommodating of their inclinations, allow everyone to live fulfilling lives, an egalitarian and compassionate society where there is no hate and anger and violence, just kindness, empathy, compassion and love, for all sentient beings. Everyone deserves to be loved, without exception. (the following might have a few grammatical errors, please overlook, because of reasons I explain in my meta post, I can't afford to lose more time. Out of time. I'm too late to, make you mine, out of time! Unexpected Weeknd right?)

But what about beloef systems and social structures that have less apparent and obvious consequences or effects? What if the majority in the near future happened to have genes and environment that predisposed or inclined them to be homophobic, and think that it's ethical to commit acts of violence against queers or maybe neurodivergents? Those in power- not even the few who have welath, but literally the majority of human population that has all the power if they want something to happen and make it happen by any means- like when witch burnings, the geocentric model was the prevalent belief, it was the norm to torture mentally ill people, so why not all of this?- then who would convince them that suffering is bad? You would tell them it was unethical in the past, but even you would probably not be so stupid to use such weak and fallacious arguments, because even further back in the past the current unethical was the ethical.

If someone- with sufficiently advanced genetic engineering and neurotech or biohazards, there are several means I can imagine, with someone who has wealth and power- behavioural, psychological, pharmacological, biophysical- decides to, being, say, a sadist or homophobe himself and wanting to influence the masses, decides that it's time for chaos, even the little order and peace that's left in the already messed up world and society, if they decide that this is what they want to be 'ethical' it would be so easy to make suffering the norm. And that's very possible, powerful people already control everything, like I explain in the post series Schopenhauer, everyone is plugged into their neat little versions of Nozick's devices, and their reality is already being controlled by the multibillionaire executives of corporations that build those devices or software, apps and machines built to distract you by maintaining your attention and keeping you hooked, addicted, and as we can see it's working very well, it's like everywhere I look, my own generation, teens distracting themselves, escaping fron reality, don't even see to aware of the fact that there is something to see because they have conditioned by society (that's been conditioned by those in power, mostly those in political power or positions of wealth) that there is nothing to worry about so shut up and study and get good marks and slave away your life in a little job without too many dreams or ambitions, and drown yourself in addictive devices designed especially to hold your attentions.

Coming back to the powerful evil genius with malicious intent, he could control people's sense of ethics and what's the "right" and "correct" way of doing things such that they stay in power, and not just that, with the correct words, charm, rhetoric, language skills and scientific and sociological tools and techniques, they could control their very sense of reality and abilities and desires- its already happening to some extent by those in positions of less power being less wealthy and hence being born in environments and to parents who cant fulfil all their nutritional needs ans provide quality education and so their cognitive and emotional and physical growth is compromised, and so is their dreams, cause even if they happen to desire ambition and power, you can be almost absolutely certain that society and their own community is going to absolutely butcher and crush their dreams and make them stay in the position they were born into and this is how powerful people have conditioned them so well, they dont even have to care anymore and the underprivileged and less powerful just stay in their place without being told to and dont even try to get out of their suffering, its like the psychological principle of learned helplessness at the sociological level. (the community itself poor and underprivileged, conditioned by the powerful and privileged to believe nothing can change and this is their fate cause they deserve it or god wants it or whatever that allows them to accept their condition without even trying to change it; and you might have a more narrow definition of "underprivileged" than what I have in mind, because I have in mind those who are underprivileged not just by accident of birth in poor societies, but also genes that give them cognitive deficits or mental disorders, or anything that pits them at a relative disadvantage to others, or more importantly, make them suffer and harder to live according to their inclinations) This is why the rich might grow complacent and why it might be easy to create a better society for everyone, where no one is more privileged than the other, like Rawls veil of ignorance.

The rich person could control the reality of all possibly sentient beings- plants, bugs, animals, humans- they could make it normal and I am damn sure no ones would even question it if they are conditioned in just the right way, brought up in the right manner and taught the right stuff at a very early age, plus maybe some genetic and neural tweaks. I am so sure because even today people seem to be so fine with everything, beings are suffering and thet don't even know and if they know they don't care and if they care they are still somehow able to sleep peacefully by selectively paying attention when they happen to get in the mood and feel like maybe going to some protest or speaking up in certain situations, no one seems to actually try to eradicate all the suffering and I find this totally baffling and unacceptable in a society like ours, and now all this has made me realize- there really is nothing wrong or incorrect, there would be nothing wrong with being that seem to suffer, but the most likely event is that these beings have subjective mental states and experience the suffering just like when someone tortures you you would, and you could just not care and you could deny that oh it's humans in another country I don't know I don't care or oh it's just bug and plants and cows and crows I don't care- but I can bet all the money in the world that you would care, and you would care with all your life, when the same stuff is done to you, and then you would realize what it feels like, what compels people to go insane, why I'm ranting on the society and not just chilling and watching netflix and going out making friends or something, why my mom tells me I'm overworking and write too much and think about this stuff too much, because all my life no one really understood my ideas or seemed to care, and now I also don't care what others think, but this is important, and I'm not saying people adopt my worldview, all I'm asking is why they act the way they do and don't seem to care as much as I do and sleep peacefully every night with a clear conscience with everything that is happening, and I'd love to be criticized and to be corrected, presented with logical reasons and evidence that I'm wrong, and I'd be happy to change my mind, because trust me, I'm not enjoying this, getting up every two minutes I'm close to sleeping till it's morning and it's simply impossible to continue, and I crash.

~

I write about this elsewhere but I felt like it's relevant here too so, even though I can't find where I've written about it, I am writing about this idea in brief again here- I argue that plastic surgery, height-increasing shoes, and nepotism perpetuate harmful beauty standards and inequality in society, resulting in those who are less privileged being unable to improve their appearance and feel good about themselves. While it may seem reasonable to pursue these options to improve my chances of success, I recognize the importance of considering the consequences and impact on society. In my opinion, everyone has a moral responsibility to help those who are less fortunate, and I believe that empathy and compassion are essential for eradicating suffering.

However, I acknowledge that not everyone shares this worldview, and I believe that debate and discussion are necessary to learn from each other. Which is the reason that I included epistemic and intellectual humility to my core values recently, fewer and stronger values now. Intellectual because you always keep learning and seek out new info and never be absolutely confident that what you know is the truth, and keep learning, which is consistent with my value lifelong learning. And epistemic because you can never be absolutely certain, just a subtle difference, not much in practical matters but I discuss this elsewhere. (found it; it's in my Schopenhauer posts)