When making choices, we invoke normative ethics (how we choose A over B). Dealing with COVID-19, we can agree on a desired outcome: fewer sick people. Consequentialism is a form of normative ethics by which you choose the option that likely results in your desired outcome.
Hedonistic egoism is a form of consequentialism that prioritizes the outcome of your pleasure. Utilitarianism prioritizes what benefits the majority. For obtaining a consequence that will affect the majority & deciding whether to stay the fuck home, use utilitarianism.
Many people are still not convinced COVID-19 is serious enough to interrupt their usual hedonistic choices (not evil! We go to restaurants we like, not struggling restaurants -- hedonism). Public crises require decisions made in public interest, not self.
A useful answer to an individualistic culture that doesn't naturally act based on what benefits the majority is the theory of utilitarianism. You should stay the fuck home even if you aren't sick because it benefits the majority.
Calls to #CancelEverythingNow are a great example of utilitarianism at its best. When the risk of public harm is high & personal pleasure (convenience, too young/healthy to be affected, etc) is the main loss, make decisions with the majority in mind.
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I'm writing a series on how I went from a pathological people-pleaser who only used my words to gain approval from all the wrong people to the truth-seeking, free-expression fanatic I am now.
"This constantly changing landscape of acceptable ideas isn’t an accident;
when what’s acceptable is eternally in flux, the only way to be acceptable is by giving up originality and taking your cue from others instead." (spiritualsoap.substack.com/p/dont-yell-do…)
I’m tired of westerners blaming society for their personal problems.
Society has only provided you medicine, electricity, an abundance of food, technology, and endless entertainment but it didn’t teach you how to manage yourself well enough to use these resources, so it’s evil?
When I was younger (and miserable, unproductive, and self-deceitful), my pattern was to identify a problem and simply invent a narrative for why society was to blame.
The opportunity to create the life I wanted wasn’t enough—society should give it to me, too.
The problem with most attempts at identifying the problems in our society is how one-sided the analysis is.
Every problem is assessed in a vacuum instead of in contrast to the progress that’s occurred alongside it; this breeds a naive, entitled, unrealistic analysis of society.
I know this can be hollow woo-woo stuff, but the way contemporary leftism perfectly matches the “unhealthy feminine” versus healthy feminine traits is worth considering.
Contemporary leftist politics are deeply pathological; within its pathology, there’s an answer to some un-confronted cultural sickness.
An individual that claims compassion while applying cruelty is by definition, backwards—a group is no exception.
My theory is that leftism has become a mask for the inner turmoil of generations who were taught “kindness is everything”—even above honesty or integrity.
Leftism offers a place for those who feel such pain over being thought of as “bad” that they’ll cause pain to avoid it.
I deeply resent the progress being lost to the spread of postmodern leftism.
Where we could have been moving forward, we're instead rehashing once-settled concepts like the value of free speech.
It's an absolute waste.
Perhaps for those who don't know history, it's interesting to debate whether free speech is actually good.
For those whose knowledge of history expands past their own life, we know why you don't grant even a "good" government the power to silence its people.
Some people argue against regressive leftism because they know the ditches it will dig.
I respect their effort, but personally, I am fucking bored of debating whether or not to adopt failed ideas for the 100th time.