Re:The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit
by ChrisSD on Sunday May 12, 2019 @12:56PM
(#19892994)
The trouble with entirely self consistent philosophically positions is they have tended towards extremism. At least according to my reading of the history of philosophy.
As with science, we have to accept that we can simultaneously hold two theories to be "true" even when they don't square with each other. To do otherwise is an exercise in frustration. Or extremism, if you choose to discard all philosophies that do not fit with your preferred one.
Re:The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit
by nradov on Sunday May 12, 2019 @05:09PM
(#19894597)
Don't take philosophy or economics too seriously. The vast majority of it is bunk.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/a-foolish-consistency-is-t...
Secondly is the matter of epistemological framework; some people seem stuck with a particular way of finding information about the world which intentionally or not is constructed to dismiss critical engagement.
The most controversial topics of political philosophy are very interesting to me because it can be hard to find a view which is internally consistent. I'm emotionally upset when I can't arrive at such a view. To hold a view I can't justify is a horrible feeling. The kind of topics I'm talking about are issues of freedom of speech (pornography, hate speech, censorship, debate, the notion of harm and the validity of the harm principle), economics (the labour theory of value, tendency for the rate of profit to fall, objectivity or subjectivity of value, various historical arguments), social psychology (ideology in society and the flattening of culture, totalitarianism of the market, the experience of other sexualities e.g. the adult My Little Pony fan community and the Japanese lolicon phenomenon), and the nature of work (the meaning of consent and coercion, free will, the phenomenon of "bullshit jobs"). In the face of these issues, I find that it's hard to spend any energy on talking about such banalities as vim vs emacs or FOSS.