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Do you agree with this?

Harlow_Jem

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Do you agree with this? why/why not:

"Everything is a paradox, nothing has meaning, and there are no given morals. Neither side of an argument is right until man, by his own will, chooses to take on a side as something to build his facade with and give himself a personally designed meaning and purpose. But what is intellect without action and the pursuit of the execution of consummate performance. If one does not strive to be an asset to society, then he runs the risk of falling by the wayside and becoming a liability. If a man is a liability then the total sum of the worth of his existence is not merely zero, but a negative value; he has then proved that he has no right to exist if his existence contributes to decreasing the total sum of the worth of the entire human race."
 
L

Lasting_Pain

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Sounds like something a Greek politician would say. But no I do not agree with the quote.
 

professor goodstain

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That fed my Ne pretty good. It's spooky but i'm glad that person said/wrote it. Glad in the way that if it was imminent, i'd know who my friends are. And aren't. Unless that person you quoted was quoting someone else. Then i'd still be glad for the same reason. To answer though...i disagree. But these days someone that diabolicle keeps those things a secret. Which should invoke some sort of imminence. I'm guessing hitler?
 

Costrin

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Do you agree with this? why/why not:

"Everything is a paradox, nothing has meaning, and there are no given morals. Neither side of an argument is right until man, by his own will, chooses to take on a side as something to build his facade with and give himself a personally designed meaning and purpose. But what is intellect without action. If one does not strive to be an asset to society, then he runs the risk of falling by the wayside and becoming a liability. If a man is a liability then the total sum of the worth of his existence is not merely zero, but a negative value; he has then proved that he has no right to exist if his existence contributes to decreasing the total sum of the worth of the entire human race."

No.

Ultimately nothing matters, it's irrelevant. Is everything a paradox? I disagree, but that too is irrelevant. Society is irrelevant. There is no way to determine the worth of something, as worth doesn't exist. Worth is a human construct, entirely subjective.

And for me personally, I value things not by how they help society, but what I gain from it. Narcissistic yes, but there's really no other possible perspective.
 

Azseroffs

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Do you agree with this? why/why not:

"Everything is a paradox, nothing has meaning, and there are no given morals. Neither side of an argument is right until man, by his own will, chooses to take on a side as something to build his facade with and give himself a personally designed meaning and purpose.

agreed

But what is intellect without action. If one does not strive to be an asset to society, then he runs the risk of falling by the wayside and becoming a liability. If a man is a liability then the total sum of the worth of his existence is not merely zero, but a negative value; he has then proved that he has no right to exist if his existence contributes to decreasing the total sum of the worth of the entire human race."

I agree that this is what is needed to make society work, but as far as universal objectification goes, life's value is neither positive nor negative no matter what is done with that life.

mind of a nihilist, heart of hedonist
 

SuperServal

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What is an asset to society? How does one define and delineate assets and liabilities within the entire context of human society? I agree with Costrin to a degree: everything is irrelevant and ultimately meaningless in the "bigger picture" (whatever that is). On a smaller scale things seem to gain more meaning and each person is his or her own judge of what meaning is. Therefore we'd have about 6 billion different ideas on what is meaningful to each person and to society as a whole. This could not be extrapolated into a bigger picture to be clustered into general "assets" and "liabilities" to society at large. So no, I don't agree with the quote. But it is interesting.
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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I read it quickly, but I seem to agree, but I also think you should do your OWN homework.
 

Kalach

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Do you agree with this? why/why not:

"Everything is a paradox, nothing has meaning, and there are no given morals. Neither side of an argument is right until man, by his own will, chooses to take on a side as something to build his facade with and give himself a personally designed meaning and purpose. But what is intellect without action and the pursuit of the execution of consummate performance. If one does not strive to be an asset to society, then he runs the risk of falling by the wayside and becoming a liability. If a man is a liability then the total sum of the worth of his existence is not merely zero, but a negative value; he has then proved that he has no right to exist if his existence contributes to decreasing the total sum of the worth of the entire human race."

There are no absolute truths.
So, the sentence immediately prior to this one isn't absolutely true.
Thus, there are absolute truths.

Plato.


To put it another way, if meaning is merely an ultimately circular loop of interconnected references, and we can't usually see it because our perceptions of "truth" are limited to seeing arcs and not the whole circle, then after some time even this claim of the ultimate baselessness of everything is... ultimately baseless. In which case, there's room for a better claim, and bullshitting on the circularity of everything mostly just took up the time you could have otherwise used in seeking the better answer.
 

Fluffywolf

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"Everything is a paradox, nothing has meaning, and there are no given morals. Neither side of an argument is right until man, by his own will, chooses to take on a side as something to build his facade with and give himself a personally designed meaning and purpose. But what is intellect without action and the pursuit of the execution of consummate performance. If one does not strive to be an asset to society, then he runs the risk of falling by the wayside and becoming a liability. If a man is a liability then the total sum of the worth of his existence is not merely zero, but a negative value; he has then proved that he has no right to exist if his existence contributes to decreasing the total sum of the worth of the entire human race."

I agree with the philosophy behind this. In the grand scheme it's a fairly accurate description. But this part:

"If one does not strive to be an asset to society, then he runs the risk of falling by the wayside and becoming a liability. If a man is a liability then the total sum of the worth of his existence is not merely zero, but a negative value; he has then proved that he has no right to exist if his existence contributes to decreasing the total sum of the worth of the entire human race."

I would disagree on. It's a contradiction of what you said just before that. You say that there is no purpose or meaning until we choose it to be. It is the individuals choice to choose to be an asset or a liability to society. But as we said. Neither can be considered the absolute wrong choice. You already have a biased perception of worth humankind is and let it influence your opinion. To you, being a liability to society is wrong. (To me as well.) But that assumption has no place in your opinion concerning meaning and purpose.
 

Moiety

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I like to think I'm a liability to society. "If you can't join them, beat them." I always say.
 

Totenkindly

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"Everything is a paradox, nothing has meaning, and there are no given morals. Neither side of an argument is right until man, by his own will, chooses to take on a side as something to build his facade with and give himself a personally designed meaning and purpose. But what is intellect without action and the pursuit of the execution of consummate performance. If one does not strive to be an asset to society, then he runs the risk of falling by the wayside and becoming a liability. If a man is a liability then the total sum of the worth of his existence is not merely zero, but a negative value; he has then proved that he has no right to exist if his existence contributes to decreasing the total sum of the worth of the entire human race."

I do find it funny that he says nothing has inherent meaning, then proceeds to assess what is important in life by attributing it meaning... although obviously he is in some ways following the first part of his advice and choosing this particular interpretation in a way to give himself meaning.

I learned the hard way and did come to the conclusion after years of thinking there was some foundational meaningfulness that we do have to choose our meaning in life -- there is nothing we can really "prove" to be meaningful because we just are not omniscient and thus can "never really know" and so the meaning of our lives is merely what we ascribe to them. (Even those who profess to know more or stake firmer claims are making a choice to believe in the object of their devotion, and it's their will that is determining the value by what systems they embrace.)

I also agree that someone who is not contributing, unless they are completely removed from the society, is detracting -- even if they don't actively disrupt the system, they're a resource drain. To keep balance, everyone has to put in what they are taking out, or some individuals have to compensate by providing more than they get back.

But the last statement is the subjective call -- summing up someone's existence as "generally worthless" because they do not fit this criteria is a step too far, you can only call them a negative value if you stay within the context that was described.
 

professor goodstain

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I wonder if that person said that to single out or get the attention of those who only think they could be a liability. Then in turn motivating them to contribute. I guess it would depend a little on the reputation of the person who said it. Perhaps the person who said that is blind to the contributions of the ones that he/she feels does not contribute. Or the contributions of the ones labeled as a liability don't fit the definition of the one who said/wrote that. Could be the sayer/writer has never witnessed a contribution from certain others because he/she was not present at the time the contibution of the others took place. What more does that sayer/writer want from me anyway? Perhaps the sayer/writer (in the quote) should take a closer look at themself. Now i'm thinking the one in the quote is an ENTJ. Perhaps the person in that quote otta mind their own dang biz. Wonderful. If goodstain thinks that person in the quote is ENTJ, then does he think they're all that way?
 

juggernaut

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There are no absolute truths.
So, the sentence immediately prior to this one isn't absolutely true.
Thus, there are absolute truths.

Plato.


To put it another way, if meaning is merely an ultimately circular loop of interconnected references, and we can't usually see it because our perceptions of "truth" are limited to seeing arcs and not the whole circle, then after some time even this claim of the ultimate baselessness of everything is... ultimately baseless. In which case, there's room for a better claim, and bullshitting on the circularity of everything mostly just took up the time you could have otherwise used in seeking the better answer.

The Liar Paradox is Eubulides', not Plato's and, unfortunately, absolute truth is not identical with truth (think of true mathematics and logic) The quote in question most likely belongs to one of the existentialists, I'd guess Camus or Sartre. It does, however, have an Aristotelian ring to it, insofar as it defines value in functionalist terms, so perhaps it's one the Greeks.

I don't know whether I agree or not. I think there are a lot of ways to contribute, however, so it might be true, just not in the obvious Platonic "each citizen has his job/duty/task to perform" sense.
 

Kalach

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The Liar Paradox is Eubulides'

Presumably so, but it was still Plato ventriloquising when Socrates said relativism is self-defeating. They both had hard-ons for Protagorus.

and, unfortunately, absolute truth is not identical with truth (think of true mathematics and logic)

Sez whom?

True doesn't get to be be "true" at all without some absolute foundation. It, instead, gets to be "relative." Which is fine and jim-dandy. And that there are a lot of relative truths proves nothing whatsoever about the absence of absolute truth. Not merely is relativism--aka "everything is a paradox, nothing has meaning"--a lot of wankery, it doesn't establish anything about anything other than itself.

Relativism is tiresome for exactly that reason: it attempts to go somewhere by asserting that nothing goes anywhere.

And why am I thinking true mathematics and logic? Both maths and logic are axiom-based. Chock fulla tautologies. Everything true in maths and logic is true by definition. Innit? (I should be thinking semantics, I guess you mean.)

The quote in question most likely belongs to one of the existentialists, I'd guess Camus or Sartre.

Well, there you go then. Pair of fairies.
 
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