Welcome to Atheist Discussion, a new community created by former members of The Thinking Atheist forum.

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Misanthropy
#26

Misanthropy
(06-12-2022, 03:16 PM)Minimalist Wrote: Depends on their motivations, doesn't it?

Yes, but if we're going by motivations, then it doesn't make sense to hate all humans. We don't know everyone's motivations.
Reply
#27

Misanthropy
(07-21-2021, 09:39 PM)vulcanlogician Wrote: [Image: s-l400.jpg]

It's quite the opposite for me. I don't care much for mankind, read as in mass. But I do care for individuals, read as in persons.
[Image: Bumper+Sticker+-+Asheville+-+Praise+Dog3.JPG]
Reply
#28

Misanthropy
(06-12-2022, 04:56 PM)abaris Wrote: It's quite the opposite for me. I don't care much for mankind, read as in mass. But I do care for individuals, read as in persons.

Hmm.  Charles Schulz gave Linus the opposite view:  loves mankind; it's people he can't stand.  But Linus is also 5 years old (or thereabouts) and sucks his thumb.
Reply
#29

Misanthropy
(06-12-2022, 03:49 PM)GenesisNemesis Wrote:
(06-12-2022, 03:16 PM)Minimalist Wrote: Depends on their motivations, doesn't it?

Yes, but if we're going by motivations, then it doesn't make sense to hate all humans. We don't know everyone's motivations.

To use your original example of people working to cure disease.  It sure as hell sounds "noble."  But suppose they are working for a Big Pharma company that assigned them to the project of developing a cure?  Then, like concentration camp guards, they are just following orders.

Worse, suppose the company's next project for them is on a Defense Department contract making bioweapons?  The skills involved are quite useful for good or evil.  The men who built the atom bomb did not start out to be bomb makers... it just sort of worked out that way because there was a war on.

Science is a great tool but like a gun how it is employed depends on the person using it.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
Reply
#30

Misanthropy
(06-12-2022, 06:13 PM)Minimalist Wrote: Science is a great tool but like a gun how it is employed depends on the person using it.

Not a good comparison. I bet, a gun used to save lives is more rare than science being used to save lives. At least going by by US standards.
[Image: Bumper+Sticker+-+Asheville+-+Praise+Dog3.JPG]
Reply
#31

Misanthropy
"Rare" does not mean never.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
Reply
#32

Misanthropy
Life exploits every resource it can till it eats (thus poops) itself into extinction or something stops it.

Evolution seems to be going for less complex to more complex through a series of "steps". We are just a nicer great ape, but still a great ape. That is it.

"wanting humans to be better" is like wanting a rock to be better. For some, sculpting into to statue is what's best. For others a tool. Still other just want to understand why it is a rock. If we have enough rocks we could do it all and make everybody happy.

But we don't.

To bad more people don't get it.
Reply
#33

Misanthropy
(06-12-2022, 06:13 PM)Minimalist Wrote:
(06-12-2022, 03:49 PM)GenesisNemesis Wrote: Yes, but if we're going by motivations, then it doesn't make sense to hate all humans. We don't know everyone's motivations.

To use your original example of people working to cure disease.  It sure as hell sounds "noble."  But suppose they are working for a Big Pharma company that assigned them to the project of developing a cure?  Then, like concentration camp guards, they are just following orders.

Worse, suppose the company's next project for them is on a Defense Department contract making bioweapons?  The skills involved are quite useful for good or evil.  The men who built the atom bomb did not start out to be bomb makers... it just sort of worked out that way because there was a war on.

Science is a great tool but like a gun how it is employed depends on the person using it.

(06-12-2022, 06:19 PM)Minimalist Wrote: "Rare" does not mean never.

Yuppers, but there is a sliding scale to the risks vs benefit scale.  Some people can't process that killing may actually mean saving.  Some people can't process that notion that one part of enlightenment is understanding what one doesn't know.  Another is how I feel about "it" can be distorting the reality of "it".

I don't know how to get around them, but they are the some of the blocks I see.
Reply
#34

Misanthropy
(07-21-2021, 09:25 PM)GenesisNemesis Wrote: Do humans deserve to be hated? Does the human race "deserve a second chance"? Personally, I am actually to some degree impressed with the survival of humanity so far, seeing as we have survived two world wars, and for now haven't had a third one yet. But what we are continuing to do to our world without any change in our behaviors is also making me less impressed and it likely will all be for nought. What say you?

"Deserves" implies a superior judgement. Humans, like every other organism in the Universe, deserve nothing. We either live by the rules, or we don't live; the Universe is unforgiving. Well over 99% of all species ever have gone extinct, and we have no right to expect to be in that .001% that have (so far!) still survived.

And if we snuff ourselves with global warming, the planet will rebound. To paraphrase George Carlin, "We're not destroying the planet, we're destroying ourselves." And that isn't a matter of deserving it, either. It's simply a matter of physics. We can understand and accept that, and if we don't, off to the scrapyard we go. Check back in a billion years, there'll probably be another "intelligent" species that is rediscovering all this crap again.

Me, personally, I go with the aphorism that the more I learn about people, the more I love my dog. But I'm a simpleton, so take it for what you will.
On hiatus.
The following 5 users Like Thumpalumpacus's post:
  • GenesisNemesis, Inkubus, Dom, Alan V, mordant
Reply
#35

Misanthropy
(06-30-2022, 02:38 AM)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:
(07-21-2021, 09:25 PM)GenesisNemesis Wrote: Do humans deserve to be hated? Does the human race "deserve a second chance"? Personally, I am actually to some degree impressed with the survival of humanity so far, seeing as we have survived two world wars, and for now haven't had a third one yet. But what we are continuing to do to our world without any change in our behaviors is also making me less impressed and it likely will all be for nought. What say you?

"Deserves" implies a superior judgement. Humans, like every other organism in the Universe, deserve nothing. We either live by the rules, or we don't live; the Universe is unforgiving. Well over 99% of all species ever have gone extinct, and we have no right to expect to be in that .001% that have (so far!) still survived.

And if we snuff ourselves with global warming, the planet will rebound. To paraphrase George Carlin, "We're not destroying the planet, we're destroying ourselves." And that isn't a matter of deserving it, either. It's simply a matter of physics. We can understand and accept that, and if we don't, off to the scrapyard we go. Check back in a billion years, there'll probably be another "intelligent" species that is rediscovering all this crap again.

Me, personally, I go with the aphorism that the more I learn about people, the more I love my dog. But I'm a simpleton, so take it for what you will.

Yup, the more I learn about people, the more I learn we don't have superior judgment, and therefore it seems to me excessively self-confident to claim something like "humans should go extinct", etc.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
The following 1 user Likes GenesisNemesis's post:
  • Thumpalumpacus
Reply
#36

Misanthropy
(06-30-2022, 02:50 AM)GenesisNemesis Wrote: Yup, the more I learn about people, the more I learn we don't have superior judgment, and therefore it seems to me excessively self-confident to claim something like "humans should go extinct", etc.

We delude ourselves into thinking we have much say in the matter.

We don't. Our extinction is almost certain at one point or another. I don't think "should" or "ought" comes into play at all. For all our moral pretensions, we're no better than any other animal, and we're equally subject to the vicissitudes of time -- meaning, we will go extinct, either through our own devices, or through happenstance as with the dinosaurs.

That's the way of the world. Interestingly, it's also how we each will meet our individual fates -- long, slow cancer, or five minutes of drowning, or a nice messy airplane crash. What is large, writ small. It's almost like a Mandelbrot set.
On hiatus.
The following 1 user Likes Thumpalumpacus's post:
  • GenesisNemesis
Reply
#37

Misanthropy
That may not be the way of the world so much as a strong invocation of fatalism about a creature that, for all it's faults, at least can step out of what is and into what ought to be. We are better than other animals, ask the other animals...the ones we haven't killed outright or outcompeted passively.

I think that if any animal has ever had some say in whether or not it went extinct, it's us. That we've chosen extinction, in so many other words, should not be minimized and is, itself, an expression of internalized misanthropy. "Why should I do the good thing when I know no one else will?" and "Does it even matter?" are as close to pure misanthropy as I think we've ever managed to express..and here we are. I think that people forget (or were never aware) that we came equipped with overwhelming advantages even before we became fully modern. We don't need anything to fall from the sky, or for some new bug to crop up and make us all sick. We're fully capable of killing ourselves and are very busily working toward that end as we speak. It's not for inactivity, indecision, or inevitability that we find ourselves here.

From where I sit, I see two broad groups of people. Those who love gods, and those who hate men..and notably absent between both parties is any love of man. I hope that changes.
Reply
#38

Misanthropy
(07-06-2022, 07:16 PM)Rhythmcs Wrote: From where I sit, I see two broad groups of people.  Those who love gods, and those who hate men..and notably absent between both parties is any love of man.  I hope that changes.

Quote:From an article titled Philosophical Misanthropy:

A long list could be given of Enemies, Fugitives, Activists, and Quietists. Across the world’s philosophical traditions, these four misanthropic stances recur again and again. Each shows us a particular way of trying to live out a misanthropic vision. Granted, we’d need to spell out their details in light of some interesting questions I’ve not discussed. What is the relation of misanthropy to religion? Is it sensible or fair to condemn humanity, rather than specific groups of humans? What if the misanthropic verdict is exaggerated? And even if it’s true, should we broadcast the bad news about humanity?

All of these are important questions, but we’re only likely to want to explore them if we’re already persuaded of the philosophical seriousness of misanthropy. This means rejecting the dictionary definition of it as ‘hatred of humanity’. There are many ways to be a philosophical misanthrope, only one of which is characterised by hatred.

Exaggerated and inaccurate emotions are, in general, one of the failings of human nature which misanthropists critique. The real problem is that we ourselves are our own worst enemies.
Reply
#39

Misanthropy
(07-06-2022, 07:16 PM)Rhythmcs Wrote: That may not be the way of the world so much as a strong invocation of fatalism about a creature that, for all it's faults, at least can step out of what is and into what ought to be.  We are better than other animals, ask the other animals...the ones we haven't killed outright or outcompeted passively.  

I think that if any animal has ever had some say in whether or not it went extinct, it's us.  That we've chosen extinction, in so many other words, should not be minimized and is, itself, an expression of internalized misanthropy.  "Why should I do the good thing when I know no one else will?" and "Does it even matter?" are as close to pure misanthropy as I think we've ever managed to express..and here we are.  I think that people forget (or were never aware) that we came equipped with overwhelming advantages even before we became fully modern.  We don't need anything to fall from the sky, or for some new bug to crop up and make us all sick.  We're fully capable of killing ourselves and are very busily working toward that end as we speak.  It's not for inactivity, indecision, or inevitability that we find ourselves here.

From where I sit, I see two broad groups of people.  Those who love gods, and those who hate men..and notably absent between both parties is any love of man.  I hope that changes.

We have an overlay of rationality and culture on top of a psychology that has been sculpted by evolution to be tribal.
On hiatus.
The following 1 user Likes Thumpalumpacus's post:
  • Rhythmcs
Reply
#40

Misanthropy
(07-06-2022, 08:18 PM)Alan V Wrote: Exaggerated and inaccurate emotions are, in general, one of the failings of human nature which misanthropists critique.  The real problem is that we ourselves are our own worst enemies.

How do you define an exaggerated or inaccurate emotion?
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.


Vivekananda
The following 1 user Likes Dānu's post:
  • Alan V
Reply
#41

Misanthropy
A concrete example could be when people believe that there's more crime than there is, that other people are more criminal than they are...and..if you've been listening to the nuts here in the us, this makes them feel a certain way. While we might think it reasonable (or less unreasonable) to act some way x if crime is dialed up to eleven, responding to and conceiving of people in your area -as though- crime was dialed up to eleven when it actually sits around one, would be an exaggerated and inaccurate emotional response.
The following 1 user Likes Rhythmcs's post:
  • Alan V
Reply
#42

Misanthropy
(07-07-2022, 12:06 AM)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: We have an overlay of rationality and culture on top of a psychology that has been sculpted by evolution to be tribal.
Exploitable, I think.  We can apply the vast in-group favoritism/bias/privilege that characterizes a tribal society in the pejorative sense to a much more expansive concept of society.  That's what we've been doing through largely organic means or processes for some time.  The scale of our societies today is beyond the conception of our earliest modern tribal ancestors.  I see the reality of where we are..warts and all, as a proof of concept and direct refutation of ideologies condemning the human species, in whatever language.
The following 1 user Likes Rhythmcs's post:
  • Thumpalumpacus
Reply
#43

Misanthropy
(07-07-2022, 12:42 AM)Dānu Wrote:
(07-06-2022, 08:18 PM)Alan V Wrote: Exaggerated and inaccurate emotions are, in general, one of the failings of human nature which misanthropists critique.  The real problem is that we ourselves are our own worst enemies.

How do you define an exaggerated or inaccurate emotion?

I assume other people are more like me than not.  I experience emotional responses to day-to-day situations which are all out of proportion to their importance.  In other words, I am psychologically primed to jump to conclusions, I assume based on an out-dated fight or flight response.  The result is that, more often than not, I repress the expression of my felt emotions because I realize they are exaggerated and inaccurate to the situations by which they are triggered.  

So all I have to do is to wait until I see more of what is happening, and to calm down, to respond more proportionately.

My misanthropy is as much about myself as about others.  I don't trust our human nature, and actively dislike it in many ways.
The following 1 user Likes Alan V's post:
  • mordant
Reply
#44

Misanthropy
(07-07-2022, 11:07 AM)Alan V Wrote: I assume other people are more like me than not.  I experience emotional responses to day-to-day situations which are all out of proportion to their importance.  In other words, I am psychologically primed to jump to conclusions, I assume based on an out-dated fight or flight response.  The result is that, more often than not, I repress the expression of my felt emotions because I realize they are exaggerated and inaccurate to the situations by which they are triggered.  

So all I have to do is to wait until I see more of what is happening, and to calm down, to respond more proportionately.

My misanthropy is as much about myself as about others.  I don't trust our human nature, and actively dislike it in many ways.
Another factor is that people have varying levels of feeling "grounded" or a stable sense of self. My wife, whose mother died when she was 9, and who grew up basically feral due to her father generally not being home or emotionally available, often has the additional emotional burden of a sense of unreality, of rootlessness, of being "untethered" to anything or anyone, a certain restless vague need to "escape" which is triggered by certain things such as friends excluding her from plans like middle-schoolers, etc. These same things do not bother me in the slightest as I come from basically the opposite background, an intact and loving family. The most I can say is I'm baffled by such behaviors at times, but able to shrug them off in ways that she can't nearly as easily.

I am sure that in this and many other says, people have all sorts of distracting and unhelpful emotional responses to all sorts of things. Often, responses that they are by turns unaware of or that they think is typical of everyone else also. Then hilarity ensues as we project on others our own coping mechanisms. For example one person in our neighborhood lies quite regularly, and so their typical assumption is that no one is being honest with them.

Sometimes I think the mental model of reality in between our ears is far less accurate than we imagine it to be.
Reply
#45

Misanthropy
(07-07-2022, 08:05 AM)Rhythmcs Wrote: A concrete example could be when people believe that there's more crime than there is, that other people are more criminal than they are...and..if you've been listening to the nuts here in the us, this makes them feel a certain way.   While we might think it reasonable (or less unreasonable) to act some way x if crime is dialed up to eleven, responding to and conceiving of people in your area -as though- crime was dialed up to eleven when it actually sits around one, would be an exaggerated and inaccurate emotional response.

Those are exaggerated facts, not exaggerated emotions. If the facts were as believed, the emotion would be as expected. Nothing exaggerated about the emotion. What I think Alan means is that there is an emotional response that is appropriate given rational assessment of a thing and emotional reactions which aren't. How do you set the standard for what is reasonable in emotions?


(07-07-2022, 11:07 AM)Alan V Wrote:
(07-07-2022, 12:42 AM)Dānu Wrote: How do you define an exaggerated or inaccurate emotion?

I assume other people are more like me than not.  I experience emotional responses to day-to-day situations which are all out of proportion to their importance.  In other words, I am psychologically primed to jump to conclusions, I assume based on an out-dated fight or flight response.  The result is that, more often than not, I repress the expression of my felt emotions because I realize they are exaggerated and inaccurate to the situations by which they are triggered.  

So all I have to do is to wait until I see more of what is happening, and to calm down, to respond more proportionately.

My misanthropy is as much about myself as about others.  I don't trust our human nature, and actively dislike it in many ways.

It sounds like the intensity of these emotional responses cause you distress, rather them being in any way unreasonable. That means they're of a proportion that makes you uncomfortable, not one that is disproportionate. They may be intense in the beginning, but that doesn't make them disproportionate. I would think that by saying they are disproportionate you are expressing an emotion about the emotion, that it troubles you in some way that they are more intense than you ideally would like them to be. That doesn't make them disproportionate in general, but disproportionate given your preferences which themselves are emotional reactions. Maybe your reacting to them in this way is disproportionate? Potato, potahto. The problem is that reason alone cannot determine what is proportionate or not because that measurement is always in reference to some goal, which is an expression of value, an emotional judgement as to what is desirable. That's not being objectively disproportionate but only disproportionate or exaggerated to where you would like them to be. Emotions themselves are neither exaggerated nor inaccurate from an objective standpoint. They simply are what they are. Reason has nothing to do with it because there is no such thing as "reasonable emotion."

ETA: I missed this in my first reading, but you note that you have to wait in order to respond properly. That's acting in response to emotions, which is not the same thing as emotion itself. A common trope says that you aren't responsible for your emotions, but you are responsible for how you act based upon them. The two are not automatically connected, or necessarily related. A response to an emotion can be exaggerated, but what's exaggerated in that case is the response, not the emotion; and that response's proportionality is, again, subjective. If you're prone to rash responses when faced with intense emotions, that's a you problem, not a problem with the emotions.
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.


Vivekananda
Reply
#46

Misanthropy
(07-07-2022, 08:23 AM)Rhythmcs Wrote:
(07-07-2022, 12:06 AM)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: We have an overlay of rationality and culture on top of a psychology that has been sculpted by evolution to be tribal.
Exploitable, I think.  We can apply the vast in-group favoritism/bias/privilege that characterizes a tribal society in the pejorative sense to a much more expansive concept of society.  That's what we've been doing through largely organic means or processes for some time.  The scale of our societies today is beyond the conception of our earliest modern tribal ancestors.  I see the reality of where we are..warts and all, as a proof of concept and direct refutation of ideologies condemning the human species, in whatever language.

We've certainly be successful at reproducing, which is the only metric of natural selection. But white-tails will eat themselves into famine and we seem pretty happy shitting up our own nest too, so when, not if, our population crash comes, it will most likely be a result of our own actions.

We see folks who have no problem at all with 400ppm CO² but who think we should have an early-warning system for incoming comets or asteroids. I think we both agree the former is much more likely to kill a lot of humans than the latter. It ties into your explication of inaccurate emotional responses above.
On hiatus.
Reply
#47

Misanthropy
Emotional make-up is as varied as fingerprints.

It is based on basic physical functions combined with life experience.

An example is the fight or flight instinct - this one does involve a (hopefully) rational split-second decision but caused by a physical release of excessive adrenalin as response to stimuli input. The decision is then based on life experience - some may have had more success with fighting back, some see salvation in flight.

It gets even more complicated than that (additional chemical releases based on having to make this choice), but let's stick with the simple.

Exactly when the adrenalin release happens is based partially on genetics and partially on life experience (learning). One or the other may be stronger in any given individual. Sometimes the chemical dominates, sometimes experience does. For instance, phobias and PTSD are dominated by instant chemical reactions, one seemingly inborn, the other seemingly caused by experience. Both are irrational and not at all controlled by "the mind".

One could go on and on analyzing the proportion of chemistry versus experience. In the end, each person will react on the basis of a combination of different factors. That makes emotions and reactions to emotions completely unique to the individual, even when there are only two possible choices.

I better stop this post because my mind is taking me way beyond the scope of the topic here.

My misanthropy is likely based on disappointment in how much we still depend on age-old inborn instincts that are out of place in today's world. Evolution takes a very long time.
[Image: color%5D%5Bcolor=#333333%5D%5Bsize=small%5D%5Bfont=T...ans-Serif%5D]
The following 1 user Likes Dom's post:
  • Thumpalumpacus
Reply
#48

Misanthropy
(07-07-2022, 12:19 PM)Dānu Wrote:
(07-07-2022, 08:05 AM)Rhythmcs Wrote: A concrete example could be when people believe that there's more crime than there is, that other people are more criminal than they are...and..if you've been listening to the nuts here in the us, this makes them feel a certain way.   While we might think it reasonable (or less unreasonable) to act some way x if crime is dialed up to eleven, responding to and conceiving of people in your area -as though- crime was dialed up to eleven when it actually sits around one, would be an exaggerated and inaccurate emotional response.

Those are exaggerated facts, not exaggerated emotions.  If the facts were as believed, the emotion would be as expected.  Nothing exaggerated about the emotion.  What I think Alan means is that there is an emotional response that is appropriate given rational assessment of a thing and emotional reactions which aren't.   How do you set the standard for what is reasonable in emotions?
I was trying to be generous.  I don't personally think that the way some of us respond to that particular perception is in any way commensurate to the threat level, even as told by nuts.  I only expect them to be nuts because they've been telling me they're nuts forever.  Someone convinces me that theres boucoup crime out there..and maybe I lock my doors and leave the flood lights on for a change.  I don't arm myself for rahowa.  I think you have it about right, though, that's generally what a person means by inaccurate and exaggerated emotional response.  We see kids do it all the time - I don't think it's all that difficult to call a ball out of bounds in that regard.  

Fundamentally, emotions can't be inaccurate, because they're not cognitive propositions.  They can't be exaggerated in and of themselves, either, they're simply off or on at whatever level.  It's still sensible, I think, to suggest that losing a lego man isn't a legitimate cause for wailing, gnashing of teeth, the tearing of garments, and self harm. So start there I suppose?
Reply
#49

Misanthropy
(07-21-2021, 11:11 PM)vulcanlogician Wrote: Was Thoreau a misanthrope or not? (I think he was, and beautifully so.) But what do you think?

I have been thinking about this, and wanted to add to my previous answer:

I think Henry Thoreau would be a misanthrope in the present.  So much of his natural world has been overrun and undermined since his time that I can't help but think he would dislike human nature if he lived today.

His influence in my own life has most certainly led me to misanthropy at last, though I had to give up on his idea of transcendence to get there.
Reply
#50

Misanthropy
I hate some people sometimes and love some people sometimes. No man stands before the same judge twice, for he is not the same man and they are not the same judge. Something like that.
The following 3 users Like Dexta's post:
  • Alan V, Rhythmcs, mordant
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)