Gary Carter said:The whole point of honesty is simply stating what you believe without filtering the data first; whether that information is actually accurate is really up to the listener to decide. What you wrote doesn't just apply to "honest" people—it applies to everyone on this planet, I guess. 😉
To my mind, what an honest person expresses is merely their own perception of their thoughts at any given moment. Honesty, treated specifically as a moral virtue, is actually a relatively modern concept. I was recently reading an interview with a certain celebrated novelist who usually avoids the press like the plague, and his reasoning was quite telling: he traced the idea back to Rousseau, who was perhaps the first to weave sincerity together with virtue and political philosophy. The very structure of a modern interview relies on that Rousseauian notion of transparency regarding one's motivations. It isn't surprising that in our current, rather naive era, this journalistic format has become so incredibly popular.
When you argue that the point of honesty is to speak without further "processing" information, you aren't necessarily hitting the mark. When people listen to someone describe themselves, they aren't looking for fleeting thoughts; they are searching for convictions. You see, convictions possess a level of reliability and motivational stability that mere thoughts simply lack. Honesty doesn't provide that stability, but when we frame it as a virtue, it often serves as nothing more than a convenient tool for those prone to self-deception to continue lying to themselves about why they do what they do.
Not by a long shot! Honestly, the whole notion that being "sincere" is some sort of moral gold standard is one of the most dangerous misconceptions out there. What people are actually starving for isn't mere honesty, but true authenticity. See, the thing about people who claim to be sincere is that they rarely have any clue just how much they are actually kidding themselves. The fundamental flaw in their logic is this shaky assumption—this massive, unexamined premise—that they truly understand their own inner workings and that when they speak about their intentions, those motives are perfectly transparent even to themselves. It’s one of those basic, sweeping errors in judgment that people make all the time.
Honestly, this was such an incredibly fun ride. 😍 It’s wild how the character just casually talks about killing off people from certain ethnic groups, almost like it's nothing. 🤣
(I mean, obviously, I’m not advocating for violence here, but there is something darkly hilarious about the way he just grins while saying it... like, "oh, whatever, they're just Americans..." or something equally dismissive)
That’s a whole different kettle of fish, isn't it? We’re talking specifically about Dawkins' assertion here. Honestly, I can't wrap my head around why someone would shut down a thread that clearly has so much untapped potential for debate. It seems the moderator operates under this assumption that once they’ve handed down a verdict on a topic, the conversation is effectively dead and buried. But that completely misses the point of what a forum is actually for, doesn't it?
Honestly, I think you’ve managed to find the most efficient way possible to start a thread just to convince everyone else to blow ninety minutes of their lives on this movie. I see Cate Blanchett is starring in it, which—if I’m being totally honest—is the only thing that might make it worth the effort... ☕ Plus, there's that whole French vibe going on. Just a bunch of pretentious, superficial types if you ask me... Is there any nudity?
Here is a rather trivial little example from out in San Diego:
I don't necessarily view this as some grand, cinematic manifestation of evil, per se, but rather as a clear-cut proof of concept. It just goes to show that your average, everyday person can still find a certain quiet enjoyment in being wicked, and frankly, there’s no disputing that anymore. 🤷
I’m almost at a loss for words here. I truly believe that people can make a conscious, deliberate choice to tear someone down, to lie, to manipulate, and to play those cruel little games. It’s as if malice is an energy source they feed on—and honestly, they often become even more vicious when you call them out on it. But that’s just the reality of it. Every single day, people wake up and decide to be unkind. Malice isn't some accidental byproduct of losing one's mind; it's a choice.
Regarding Africa, my take is that what they really need isn't necessarily more hands to carry water jugs from wells. Sadly, there are already plenty of people doing that heavy lifting whenever water is actually available. A person can often do much more good by staying put and donating the money they might have spent on a trip—provided, of course, that the funds are directed toward creating actual jobs or supporting education rather than just disappearing into thin air.
Edward Flores4 said:aaah .. The American dream .. grab All The money , stick IT in Your ears and go _nobody_ .. grab all the money, stick it in your ears and go 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEUjT...eature=related 👍"America, I have surrendered everything to you, and now I find myself with nothing left to give. America Two dollars and twenty-seven cents" "I shall press onward much like Henry Ford; my verses possess a distinct individuality, much like his automobiles"
Ronald Rogers27 said:What you and driftingbear20 are talking about is just hot air. Pure nonsense. It's all just bar talk—big talker stories about planes and trucks... Just endless chatter typical of those old-school social circles in the North America. I've seen enough of those types of groups in my life to know how it goes.
(And when the waiter comes to settle the tab, everyone suddenly stares at their shoes and waits for someone else to pick up the check!) 😬
Ronald Rogers27
If basking in the neon glow of some corporate office while counting your stacks makes you happy, then go right ahead. I think I made my point quite clearly: the only real options are to become pathologically obsessed with wealth or to view every human being as nothing more than a tool to be used. I don't see where we disagree. The only distinction is that I am a cynic about the whole thing, whereas you seem to have swallowed the entire ideology hook, line, and sinker. Self-delusion is a powerful, terrible thing.
Larry Diaz24 said:Now, let us consider a scenario where you possess and believe in certain virtues because you think they will pay off—either through material satisfaction (meaning, you won't steal or act dishonestly, but rather work honestly to earn money) or in a non-material sense (the smiles, the approval, the admiration, and the gratitude of others because you help them instead of spending money on yourself). It doesn't necessarily mean that the distinction between these two types of "rewards" is mutually exclusive. One can accompany the other, acting as either the primary goal or a secondary consequence. Thus, if viewed through that lens, those virtues could hold instrumental value for you, even without possessing intrinsic value.
And now, if they possess exclusively intrinsic value—if you honor a virtue solely for its own sake because you believe it holds inherent worth—then you would likely have to be some sort of Socrates in today's world. And in my estimation, that would mean you wouldn't function in society at all.
Again, even the distinction between instrumental and intrinsic value isn't strictly exclusive.
I find it incredibly difficult to speak in generalities. A person truly decides only when they are confronted with the situation itself. Any decision made *a priori* carries the danger that those decisions and principles will be betrayed, causing the person proclaiming them to lose all credibility. Take one situation: I take my hard-earned money and head straight to the store to spend it on myself; not necessarily all of it, mind you. However, the narrative shifts entirely if, on my way to the store, I encounter a homeless woman with her child and decide to give her some money, say $6.75. Must I, when I wish to indulge myself, step back while contemplating the misery of the world surrounding me and ask myself what I deserve to be rewarded with, while someone else does not? Or can I act morally—even if I allow myself a reward—without such an action losing its essence? That is to say, without it becoming what I have termed "hypocritical honesty," and without losing its authenticity and credibility? 🤷
What I’m laying out here isn't some abstract theory; it’s the stuff of everyday, practical decision-making. 🤷
Ronald Rogers27 said:Friendship built on opposing philosophies... You two will eventually hit it off, and then one of you is going to end up following the other. The real question is, who follows whom? 😉
Actually, people who return money to an owner don't do it because they lack ideas for how to spend it. Therefore, returning money is immoral because the agent isn't acting on their best judgment.
Returning someone else's cash... Honestly, I find money all the time. Just a five or a twenty on the sidewalk... I don't know why that happens, maybe that's why I have zero luck in love! 😬
Anyway, if I have any clue whose money it is, I'm giving it back. Plain and simple. I'm just an ordinary worker myself—though I exclusively work with my brain—and I know exactly how hard it is to earn a paycheck.
Whether that person spends it on a pair of $1,000 shoes or a fancy suit while people are starving on the streets... NOT really my problem!
(My only problem is making sure I don't starve... and I've gotten pretty good at solving that.) 🙄
Ronald Rogers27
Well, that is a remarkably weak argument. 🙄 You seem to be operating under the assumption that returning that money is inherently "fair," and from there, you jump to the conclusion that the right thing to do is simply pay it back, rather than perhaps redirecting those funds to someone who actually needs them for something fundamental, like school supplies.
Nathan Perez5 said:I honestly don't think we should be drawing any kind of equivalence between someone just spending their hard-earned cash—even if they're blowing it on designer labels or whatever other frivolous nonsense you want to call it—and what was mentioned earlier, which is actually profiting through cheating, shady schemes, or even murder while still being able to sleep at night...
When you take a look at how things are playing out right now, I have to admit you've got a point... When you track people over the years, or even decades, you start to see how a lack of integrity eventually reveals itself as nothing more than a hollow, meaningless void. Personally, I’ve always been of the mind that a person knows exactly when they’re doing something wrong, they just choose to drown out that inner voice with enough noise to stay deaf to what they're actually feeling...
🙂
I don't know, I really can't buy into that logic. After all, if a person truly knows when they are committing an evil act, then they would also realize that intentionally deafening oneself to the resulting guilt is, in itself, an evil act. Therefore, they are making a conscious decision to be wicked.
driftingbear20 said:I’ll be the first to admit I’m an incurable optimist and a bit of an idealist. Call me naive if you want, but I don't think people are inherently evil; I think they're just incredibly oblivious. We all just lack a certain level of awareness regarding what's actually happening in the world.
Back in 1994, Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer for a photo he took in the desert. It shows a vulture watching a starving child crawling toward a UN food camp—it was a real, raw moment, not staged at all—and it left the entire world absolutely shattered. It was as if people had no clue what was going on over there.🤷
Most people—or at least the vast majority of them—who are busy buying luxury cars and high-end fashion would trade their brand-new Mercedes in a heartbeat to save a child's life, if only they happened to be standing there in that moment. They simply don't have the perspective to realize that their new car could represent a week's worth of meals for someone else. It’s not that they choose designer clothes because they value them more than a human life; it’s more that those two realities exist in completely different universes. Their conscience isn't eating them alive because they aren't being malicious, they're just unaware. But in those rare moments when they finally *do* wake up—moments that were sparked by photos like that one—that's when you truly see the inner scream.
I honestly believe they don't care. Besides, try telling someone that. They’ll just respond like Ronald Rogers27 on a message board, telling you it isn't their problem or that you're being overly dramatic about things that don't matter. He feels nothing, and there is nothing left to awaken in people like that.
Larry Diaz24 said:Well, I always have an idea of what I would do if I suddenly had cash in my hands...😁 I'll always have some sort of plan, maybe thinking about a specific piece of clothing I could finally afford or something along those lines... perhaps it isn't the most perfect illustration... but the real question is, what constitutes a "best judgment"? Is it something that can be determined by an outside observer, or is it something exclusively held by the agent acting within that specific situation?🤷
But, it isn't quite the same thing when you're holding money you know you haven't "earned," compared to money you know you earned through your own grit, your sweat, your long hours of hard work... It’s a similar dilemma to when someone gives you a gift, say for a birthday or some other occasion; it's certainly welcome, but you find yourself wondering, "By what merit did I earn this?" though, I suppose that is a bit of a tangent since we started out just talking about money...
Anyway, this concept you call "local" honesty... hmm, it triggers just as many moral quandaries as any other kind of honesty... I'm not entirely sure what the deciding factor is...🤔...but...
For my part, I find it quite easy to conclude that it would be better to give money to someone who needs to buy schoolbooks for their children rather than using it to buy myself a pair of shoes. If you spent days working tirelessly to earn the money for those shoes, I don't see how that should shift my assessment that the funds would be better utilized helping someone else meet a more pressing need. Consequently, one could argue it would be immoral to withhold assistance from someone in dire need just because you've decided to prioritize your own desire for a new pair of footwear.
There’s actually a rather compelling case to be made against this whole notion of "local" honesty. You see, when a person acts, they generally operate under the assumption that they possess a sound judgment regarding what ought to be done; otherwise, why bother acting at all? There are certain philosophical debates swirling around this concept that might seem a bit pedantic, but they aren't entirely irrelevant to the point I'm making. Take Velleman, for instance, who explores this here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8336949/The-Guise-of-the-Good. If an individual thinks and acts sub specie boni, then the only logical reason for them to refuse someone else's money would be if they were genuinely stumped as to how to utilize it. Yet, we know that people who return lost cash to its owner don't do so simply because they're facing a sudden crisis of financial planning. Therefore, one could argue that returning the money is actually immoral, insofar as the agent isn't acting in accordance with their best possible judgment.
Nathan Perez5 said:I don't think they actually hold onto it. It’s more like they just smother that internal scream until it goes quiet... And when life finally hits them hard, they rarely connect their misery back to the things they did to others, it’s almost always about what everyone else did to them instead...
Look, it's pretty simple: people can donate to the Red Cross or volunteer at a local food bank every single day, yet that doesn't stop them from dropping a fortune on a massive OLED TV, splurging on designer labels, or buying a third car they absolutely don't need. I just don't see this "internal outcry" you're talking about. Honestly, where you're spotting it is a complete mystery to me.
Laura Rivera3 said:True. But I guess that’s just psychology at work.
Sure, but then you have to wonder if the second part isn't actually rooted in that divine spark within us, or perhaps some deeper, more profound capacity for loving the Other?
Mark Torres14 said:That's a really interesting point. But why is she more satisfied? Ever notice how you get this little rush of satisfaction when you finally pay off a bill, settle a debt, or give someone a gift and they actually appreciate it? Why does that happen? A total Scoundrel would just feel miserable having to part with anything. Reminds me of that old saying, "Give a hand to a friend."😁
That's a fair point, certainly, but I think the flip side is just as fascinating to observe. Have you noticed how easily someone can commit a theft, perpetrate a fraud, or exploit another person entirely, yet somehow manage to walk away still convinced they are a fundamentally good person? It's quite a psychological feat, really.
Mark Torres14 It’s funny how things turn out, isn't it? I was just thinking about what someone said the other day, and it really stuck with me. We have kids to raise, and I really feel like our biggest job is teaching them how to actually stand on their own two feet when they head out into the world. It makes me think back to when my own kids were little and we started letting them handle small chores around the house; it’s those little moments that build real confidence. What kind of life skills do you all think we should be focusing on most? Do you think people should be corrupt to the core, or is it better to just stay hardworking and honest?😕🤷☕
He’s such a hardworking, honest guy.
I totally get where you're coming from... there's a real chance that if we raise our kids to be hardworking and principled—instead of teaching them how to be "corrupt to the core"—they might actually struggle a bit more once they hit adulthood. They’ll probably face longer stretches of unemployment because they refuse to compromise their ideals, take lower paychecks, work way harder than necessary, and ultimately never become obscenely wealthy. I remember my own father used to say that integrity always comes with a price tag, and looking at how things work in America today, it really feels like he was right. It’s just so heartbreaking when you have to watch your child go through all that struggle... as a parent, seeing them face those kinds of battles really weighs heavy on your heart. It really hits home when you see how easy life seems for those kids who grew up with everything handed to them on a silver platter. You know, I catch myself wondering if I actually made a mistake sometimes. Was I just being foolish? It’s honestly pretty easy to play the fool when you're only dealing with your own life, but when it comes down to your kids and making sure they're okay, all those rigid rules about what's "right" or "proper" just go right out the window. Honestly, I don't really think they need to be moved at all. I honestly feel like someone who lives their life with genuine energy and stays true to their word just ends up so much more satisfied, you know? It’s like they get to enjoy these much sweeter, more beautiful dreams at night because their conscience is totally clear.
Besides, I’ve always found that time is a pretty relentless ally when it comes to the truth, isn't it? I’ve always believed that if you just stay focused and keep your head down, doing things the right way, your hard work will eventually catch up to you and everyone will see what you're truly made of. There’s really no reason to worry that having those kinds of qualities makes someone "weak." In the grand scheme of things, that approach always ends up being a huge advantage.
Oh, please. Time is an ally to the truth? What if the truth is that this celebrated Western honesty is actually immoral? Who cares about a truth like that? Is it even fair to go to theaters and concerts while a huge portion of the world doesn't even know how they're going to feed their kids tomorrow? One forum regular mentioned that people here are often depressed 😢 so they need artists to give some semblance of meaning to their miserable existence. They find entertainment in what is "twisted and obscene"—ho ho, how avant-garde the culture of death or some consumerist miracle produced by the cultural industry. They don't see the twisted and obscene within themselves. And then someone comes along and suggests we should be honest with these people. Well, I'll be the first to say it. 👍
Honesty is such a slippery concept, isn't it? In some sort of grand, cosmic moral arithmetic, one person's integrity inevitably balances out as someone else's injustice somewhere down the line. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiFFdQUxO1Y 😍
Just keep in mind that even hardcore atheists like myself are labeled as Muslims over there. 🤷
I honestly don't see how anyone can argue that Zionism is somehow synonymous with fascism or antisemitism. It’s a bit like getting a participation trophy for claiming that nationalists in certain parts of the country were prone to fascist leanings. Both are distinct, absolute ideologies built on inciting hatred against anyone who doesn't belong to the "tribe" or isn't considered a true "patriot." Just as condemning nationalism isn't an act of hatred toward Americans, criticizing Zionism shouldn't be conflated with antisemitism. It seems to me that you and a handful of your clones are just trying to blur those lines specifically to shut down any meaningful critique of Israeli policy.
There’s no question about it, Raging Bull: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQhwi8kk-dE
With Puccini’s score swelling in the background, the grit of *Carmen* echoing through the scene, and seeing Jake LaMotta out there in the ring, all captured in that stark black-and-white... it’s nothing short of cinematic genius. 🙏