[JohnRawls]

Maybe someone here can help me figure out where my beliefs fit in so I can maybe find some like-minded people.... Here is a very broad and loose outline of my thoughts on politics:

1) I reject any and all morality or meaning. The universe is completely amoral and without value.

2) Seeking power is the only rational way to act without values or some kind of "ultimate goal".

3) The structure of human societies is mostly beyond human control, and is deterministic though unpredictable in the short run.

4) Societies evolve in such a way as to become increasingly resistant to major changes, absent some sort of catastrophe or technological breakthrough.

5) 3 and 4 together imply that the goals of just about every political ideology which proposes a form of social organization that is radically different from that of present-day or past societies are unattainable. (This includes socialism, anarchism, communism, libertarianism, etc.)

6) One of the main goals of political philosophy is to answer the question "What kind of society is ideal?". I believe that 1-5 imply that this question is misguided. Instead, one can only ask, "For a given society, what place in that society is best?"

7) This question has a rather straightforward answer: "The top."

Utilitarian Monarchist loosely or a somekind of utilitarian moral nihilist which sounds a bit weird.

[Saeko]

How is "seeking power" - whatever that means - not teleological?

All you're saying is "I don't believe in moral values and want to do 'x.'" There's nothing particularly interesting about it.

Can you clarify the question? I don't understand....

[Lightman]

How is "seeking power" not a values-driven pursuit?

You seem like an uncareful reader of Nietzsche; you've taken the edgy bits without really understanding that the whole point of Nietzsche's philosophy is to overcome nihilism.

[Saeko]

How is "seeking power" not a values-driven pursuit?

I'm not saying it isn't a values-driven pursuit, just that it isn't an objective values-driven pursuit.

You seem like an uncareful reader of Nietzsche; you've taken the edgy bits without really understanding that the whole point of Nietzsche's philosophy is to overcome nihilism.

I disagree with Nietzsche that nihilism is something that needs to be overcome.

[Lightman]

Seeking power is the only rational way to act without values or some kind of "ultimate goal".

Yes, you did say that it wasn't a values-driven pursuit. In fact, you said it was the only rational pursuit.

[Saeko]

Yes, you did say that it wasn't a values-driven pursuit. In fact, you said it was the only rational pursuit.

I did say it wasn't a values-driven pursuit, where by "values" I meant "objective values".

[Lightman]

No, you didn't. Besides that, you haven't explained how "seeking power" is the only rational action in a valueless universe. All we've established is that you want power.

[Saeko]

No, you didn't.

Since when do you get to decide what my words mean?

Besides that, you haven't explained how "seeking power" is the only rational action in a valueless universe. All we've established is that you want power.

I haven't because that was never my goal here. As I said in the OP, I was merely giving a rough outline of my views so that people might help me classify them.

100 posts!

[Lightman]

Since when do you get to decide what my words mean?

Basic reading comprehension of the English language.

I haven't because that was never my goal here. As I said in the OP, I was merely giving a rough outline of my views so that people might help me classify them.

You haven't because it's an indefensible position.

[Saeko]

Basic reading comprehension of the English language.

Oh well, I'm glad to hear you finally graduated the second grade. But in the grown-up world, we let our conversational partners speak for themselves rather than insist that their words mean only what we want them to mean.

You haven't because it's an indefensible position.

So now you get to decide my intentions for me too?

If you want to debate me on some specific subject then make that clear from the beginning or start a new thread about it. No one will take you seriously if you insist on being an obnoxious asshole.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

The point being made by Lightman and at least Potemkin (I stopped reading around page 2), despite what you say here, you do in fact adhere to morality, you do apply meaning and value to things in this life, etc:

1) I reject any and all morality or meaning. The universe is completely amoral and without value.

Otherwise you would not be so quick to take offense to what people are saying (despite what you may think, there's no actual trolling on the part of Lightman and Potemkin) because you see them as rude or incorrect. Aside from this, the main contraction is how you are placing value on power:

2) Seeking power is the only rational way to act without values or some kind of "ultimate goal".

Either you have simply worded yourself poorly or, as Lightman says, you have learned the wrong lessons in reading Nietzsche. Seeking power is not the only rational way to act, and as we don't live in a vacuum, we can never exist without values so long as we coexist with others or live in the confines of civilization. Here is an interesting Time article (the baboon excerpt is also available elsewhere in more detail):

So what would the world be like if we eliminated the hard-charging top-ranked folks and had more kinder, gentler males around? One baboon troop that Sapolsky studied seemed to illustrate the scenario vividly. The meanest and most aggressive males in that troop often fought males of another troop in order to gain access to garbage that included meat discarded by humans at a lodge.

When that meat supply became tainted by disease, it killed off the most aggressive top-ranked males and left gentler males in charge; it also resulted in a ratio of two females to each male.

Not surprisingly the troop became much mellower. “You get a totally different troop culture,” Sapolsky says. “There’s less aggression and less displacement of aggression onto innocent bystanders. In a typical troop, if any one of high rank [is in a bad mood], your ass is going to get slashed.”

In the new troop culture, however, this type of aggression was greatly reduced. And so were the stress levels of the lower ranking animals. “The cruddy physiology you get in low-ranking males in typical troops, you don’t see in this troop,” he says.

Of course, if there were two females for every male, human men might be a lot nicer too. But Sapolsky discovered that it wasn’t just the female-to-male ratio that mattered. Other troops with similarly large female populations did not become peaceful.

And, fascinatingly, the gentler culture was passed on to the next generation. Less aggression led to more time for grooming, which relieved stress even further and affected the offspring. “I think the [young] growing up in that troop are reaping some of the advantages of having calmer mothers,” Sapolsky says.

“Textbook primatology presents male baboons as inevitably aggressive, innately and genetically,” he notes. “If this [cultural change] can happen in baboons, you can’t say we don’t have behavioral flexibility,” he says.

It is far more rational and sensical to desire an egalitarian society: the benefits to everyone outweigh any benefits of having extraordinary power due to the risks, dangers, likelihood of being murdered or sent to prison, stress, paranoia, etc.

[slybaldguy]

It is far more rational and sensical to desire an egalitarian society: the benefits to everyone outweigh any benefits of having extraordinary power due to the risks, dangers, likelihood of being murdered or sent to prison, stress, paranoia, etc.

Tell that to the survivors of the Khmer Rouge.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Anyone who has read about the Khmer Rouge knows the KR weren't egalitarian.

[Saeko]

The point being made by Lightman and at least Potemkin (I stopped reading around page 2), despite what you say here, you do in fact adhere to morality, you do apply meaning and value to things in this life, etc:

Otherwise you would not be so quick to take offense to what people are saying (despite what you may think, there's no actual trolling on the part of Lightman and Potemkin) because you see them as rude or incorrect.

You are confusing emotion and value. Just because one is offended by people who do 'x', does not mean that people ought not to do 'x'. Similarly, just because it is not the case that "people ought not to x" that in no way implies that one cannot or should not be offended by people who do 'x'.

Aside from this, the main contraction is how you are placing value on power:

Either you have simply worded yourself poorly or, as Lightman says, you have learned the wrong lessons in reading Nietzsche. Seeking power is not the only rational way to act, and as we don't live in a vacuum, we can never exist without values so long as we coexist with others or live in the confines of civilization. Here is an interesting Time article (the baboon excerpt is also available elsewhere in more detail):

We cannot act (except purposelessly or through habit alone) without values. But in order to be acted upon, values only need to be instrumental, and not necessarily objective. For example, I could say "If I want x, then I ought to y", then, "y" is an instrumental value which is valuable to the extent it gets me "x". However, none of this implies that there are values which are objective in the sense that they are independent of anyone's desires or goals.

To illustrate, we can agree that it is true that "If I want to coexist peacefully with other people, then I ought not to murder them." Additionally, if I then also believe that "I want to coexist peacefully with other people", then I must conclude that "I ought not to murder people." But one can always question the second premise. What if I don't want to coexist peacefully with other people? Am I then justified in murdering them? Most people would say that I'm not. And they point out that it doesn't matter what I do or don't want, killing people is wrong.

However, the claim that "one ought not to x" all by itself, and independent of my goals or desires, cannot be justified by any facts. This is moral nihilism.

Even if "One ought not to x" by itself may not be true, it is still possible that "If I want y, then I ought not to x" is true and also that "I want y" is true. So you see, it is possible to reject the existence of moral facts without rejecting practical rationality as well.

It is far more rational and sensical to desire an egalitarian society: the benefits to everyone outweigh any benefits of having extraordinary power due to the risks, dangers, likelihood of being murdered or sent to prison, stress, paranoia, etc.

Your reasoning is circular. Your conclusion follows from your premises only if you presuppose the objectivity of the values that you're using to evaluate the possible outcomes. Obviously, things other than the things you see as most valuable are not as valuable.

[Lightman]

You still have presented no defense of the idea that the pursuit of power is the only rational goal.

[Saeko]

You still have presented no defense of the idea that the pursuit of power is the only rational goal.

I will get to that eventually. For now it is more important to see how it can be that there are no objective values, or how one can act without them.

[Lightman]

Saeko, we're not intellectual children. I am familiar with the position of the moral anti-realist. You can stop beating around the bush and answer the question.

[Saeko]

Saeko, we're not intellectual children. I am familiar with the position of the moral anti-realist. You can stop beating around the bush and answer the question.

Even if there are no moral facts, it is still possible that there are moral facts, and there is therefore a non-zero chance that there are moral facts. If there were moral facts, then one would be obligated to act according to them. But we can only achieve those values if we have the power to do so. Thus, if there were moral facts, then one ought to obtain the power with which to act upon them. Since we cannot know what those values are ahead of time, we must play it safe and get as much power as possible. Furthermore, it might to turn out to be the case that getting as much power as possible is a value, so the unpredictability of what values might turn out to be true makes it necessary to become as powerful as possible (and since there actually are no moral facts, there is no reason not to do this).

So if you do seek power, and there are no objective values, no problem. But if you don't seek power, and there are objective values, then you might have a problem, because you might not be able to actually achieve those values.

[ThereBeDragons]

What if you end up trampling over supposed moral injunctions in your quest for power?

For example, if you kill a million people to get power, and it turns out the correct moral injunction was "don't kill people," you're in trouble.

[Saeko]

What if you end up trampling over supposed moral injunctions in your quest for power?

For example, if you kill a million people to get power, and it turns out the correct moral injunction was "don't kill people," you're in trouble.

It could just as well turn out to be the case that the correct moral injunction was "kill a million people". And if you don't do it, you're in trouble anyway.

I regard values that require people to act in a way which is physically impossible (i.e. changing the past) as nonsensical.