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<p>subjunctive, *****</p>
<p>North Korea is a terrible place for agriculture, regardless of the economic ideology practiced there. North Korea is failing because of a combination of factors, but the most important one would be the geography, but Kim Jung Il is a close second. You barely can grow any rice there. It is mountainous and it is just notorious for its hot summers and cold winters.</p>
<p>North Korea (very different from communism, as there is a dictatorship and fierce class divide without human rights) gives all available food and resources to the military, allowing them to sustain a behemoth of an army for such a small country. They take the food from the people and often the aid that is sent there from other countries/organizations.</p>
<p>^ For all intensive purposes, every remaining communist nation is really a dictatorship.</p>
<p>There never were any communist countries…</p>
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<p>So supposedly it’s “for all intents and purposes”, not that it really matters.</p>
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Supposedly? That’s the phrase, though “intensive” is a common mistake.</p>
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<p>Firstly, natural law doesn’t give rise to natural right, see Hume’s is-ought problem. Also, what gives rise to natural law? </p>
<p>So, is it your God that determines morality?</p>
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One interpretation.</p>
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Natural law simply is, by nature.</p>
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It is not right because God says it, God says it because it is right. So no, though He does call upon people to treat others as they themselves wish to be treated, which is an ethic universal to most world religions.</p>
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<p>Lol, are you being serious? Actually read up on it before making a statement like that. </p>
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<p>Okay and explain to me how you’ve come to the conclusion that humans should have innate rights from observing nature? When I observe nature, I come to a utilitarianist position.</p>
<p>What religion do you belong to, out of cursorily?</p>
<p>I have already explained about the state of life and consciousness being promoted over the alternative. Honestly, I accept that I will not convince you of human rights and you will not convince me of their absence. At this point, it is useless to argue about, and we ought to return to a capitalism/communism discussion; if you like, I can make arguments for communism without mentioning human rights, since you apparently don’t care if people starve to death, though I feel that makes you generally unfit to make judgements on this systems.</p>
<p>I’m a Roman Catholic, though my morality is such that I do not need my religion to justify it.</p>
<p>I hate the whole agree to disagree ****. I like to think I’m right, does this mean I believe I’m always right no? If you feel I have made a mistake, please correct me. I can’t understand how you possibly went from:</p>
<p>humans being conscious beings </p>
<p>to</p>
<p>humans have innate rights. </p>
<p>Your justification seems to be the fact that the alternative is weak. But, that doesn’t make sense. You do realise there’s a difference between ‘humans have innate rights’ and ‘the law should allow humans to have innate rights’? </p>
<p>Also, explain to me how it’s more preferable for the law to allow humans to have innate rights then using utilitarianism.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>I’d like to see you do that Billy, make an argument without appealing to morality.</p>
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I see that there is something innately wrong in human beings starving to death, living in poverty, dying for lack of cotton paper. Maybe you have to be there and see it to think of it in more than your abstract philosophical nihilistic lens, but it is the greatest injustice. Conscious beings have the ability to suffer, and biologically/naturally, suffering is a bad thing. Thus, all should have the right to be protected from suffering. Consciousness is innately superior to a lack of consciousness; life is innately superior to a lack of life. By your very choice to continue your life, you must agree with this. The point of organizing in government is to provide benefits to the citizens of that government; thus, any such government is best founded upon principles of human rights that best allow for the continuation and improvement of human life and consciousness.</p>
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If you have the concept that rights arise from law, then you also have the concept that law can change to take away those rights. Doing so would run contrary to the mission of government to provide for the citizen, so it would be an inferior system, not to mention a wrong one, based on aforementioned principles.</p>
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Human rights provide for the good of all; utilitarianism merely provides for the good of the majority. If eight people torture a child and the happiness of the eight “outweighs” the unhappiness of the child through “utilitarian calculus,” then the action is seen as right by utilitarianism, whereas a human rights duty-defined morality would condemn the torture of any person. Any utilitarian apologists who try to correct this torture situation invariably do so by introducing some concept of rights or duty into the system, showing what is actually necessary for things to be done right.</p>
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The main point of communism is that it does right by the poor, so I suppose you don’t care about that since it’s “morality.” However, I could also say that a communist world system would be more efficient; rather than wasting energy, labor, lives, and resources in pursuits of killing one another, the efforts of mankind would be joined and directed in a beneficial direction, for the advancement of the species.</p>
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<p>I also see something wrong with a human being starving to death but that’s due to social conditioning and emotional reasons as opposed to rational reasons. Just because biologically suffering is a bad thing doesn’t mean we ought to stop suffering. Also, your wrong about life being innately superior to lack of life or conscious being innately superior to lack of conscious. Read this by Mitchell Heisman (he killed himself):</p>
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<p>No, not necessarily you could just establish a non-changeable constitution. </p>
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<p>No, they don’t. By restricting the desire of those eight people, how are you doing any good? What exactly makes that one child desire to live any more superior than those eight desire to torture? I’m also pretty sure 90% of people would be willing to kill another person to save a loved one. What would happen in such a case? Are you telling me you’d punish the person for doing that? </p>
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<p>You have to explain why the advancement of species is actually a good thing. Life is meaningless and we’re likely to become extinct and all our achievements will be worthless.</p>
<p>I wonder what Billy thinks about this: [YouTube</a> - Someone (Irish) finally stands up to Judge Judy](<a href=“Someone (Irish) finally stands up to Judge Judy - YouTube”>Someone (Irish) finally stands up to Judge Judy - YouTube)</p>
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Are you planning on killing yourself anytime soon? If so, why not?</p>
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The sad ravings of a suicidal man who likely didn’t truly understand the finality of the decision he made. If you share his convictions, why do you remain here?</p>
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Would you have advised this to the drafters of the US Constitution?</p>
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The nature of the desire and the actions in question. Again, I know that you will stubbornly cling to your nihilism in everything but action, so I was simply pointing it out for the others here who do feel that torture and death are negatives.</p>
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If the person killed was innocent, yes. If they were the ones intentionally threatening the life of the loved one, then the action would be in the defense of others.</p>
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The continuation of life and consciousness for as long as possible.</p>
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You’re free to leave if you like, though I certainly hope you don’t and would advise against it. I know I will die, and I regret that, but I am glad that I live now, and I would like to continue to live, and so I will try to afford that blessing to others when possible.</p>
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Couldn’t get the sound to work.</p>
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<p>Do you mean if not, why not? The answer would be because there’s no reason to be rational in the first place. Also, it isn’t sad ravings. He wants to die and he wants his work to be known and his achieved that. </p>
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<p>No because I don’t believe in innate rights. </p>
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<p>But, explain why they’re negative? </p>
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<p>Why? His family was going to die had he not killed that man. </p>
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<p>Don’t really see how this is relevant. The above was supposed to refute the idea of advancement of species.</p>
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<p>So, because death is impending there’s no point in pursuing life? It wouldn’t matter to you, then, if we were still living like chimpanzees in the forests, without civilization or philosophy or universities? Since it’s all going to waste, anyway? I, too, believe that death is an inevitability. Destruction, is an inevitability. But so is rebirth, and so is development (unless we force our fellow men to refuse development and advancement). But, nevertheless, human beings have such an inexplicable but driving will to live because being alive is such a remarkable thing. Why should we build for a better tomorrow you ask, since it’ll all be knocked down? Well, because we can. Because we have the tools to do so, and because doing so leads to happiness, good health, and a life well lived. And, for many people, it leads to an acceptance of death’s inevitability and the bestowing of life upon a new generation that will arise, to be more advanced and progressive than the previous. We are alive - God or no God, that fact is indisputable - so why trash it? Why not grow with it and then, when we wither, fall naturally to a state of infinite sleep?</p>
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<p>Yup, wouldn’t really care.</p>
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<p>Due to social conditioning (fear of death, religion etc). </p>
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<p>No. It doesn’t lead to a life well lived. The Amish community, African tribes etc these groups are technologically ■■■■■■■■ and their life is as lived as others and as happy as others. </p>
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<p>I really don’t care if we advance or not. I am not for or against advancing. But, to justify X (in this case, communism) on the basis of advancement of society something which isn’t categorically a good thing is just fallacious.</p>
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<p>“Social conditioning” implies society. But animals have no organized societies, no religion, no civilization, and yet they still continue to pursue life instinctively until they are killed or die of natural causes. Animals of the same species do not indoctrinate any set of beliefs or “social conditioning” in any other animal - they do not “teach” anything about life or death, since they, after all, lack our superior intelligence. Rather, they want to live because they are living things - the most fundamental and basic instict of any animal.</p>
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<p>Compare, for example, Ancient Egyptian society (where 98% of the population suffered enormously) with today’s society. Or better yet, American society in 1860 (where Afr.-American slavery and wage slavery ruled huge segments of the population) with American society today. Can you really argue that human happiness was equal in all three time periods? Progressivism has increasingly brought freedom for slaves and the oppressed, rights for historically burdened groups (in this country, for example, Afr.-Americans and LGBTs). I don’t see how you could validate the argument that primitive and civilized societies have an equal amount of happiness among their ranks.</p>
<p>Moreover, I’m curious: why do you keep your life if you bash life so much? Isn’t that hypocrisy? Are you not still here because you wish to live? And does that wish to live merely amount to the indoctrinations of society?</p>