"Moral Ambition: Perfection and Pride, Part 2" by Tara Smith

[@justifiably_stupid4998]

This is pure gold. I would wish this to be taught to children as young as possible.

[@LynnMacKenzie-n3l]

❤ The most important thing to me is: imperfection is contextual. The lecture was superb.

[@COR2025]

Pride is life. Pride is good. A person being moral has the lightest burden.

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

I have held for years that moral perfection is the easiest thing in the world since all the parameters that are recognized in ethics freedom (to do otherwise), sufficient knowledge (to make the choice) and intent (of the outcome) are basically internal to the actor. If I am not free to do otherwise without heroic measures, and there are listed "mitigators" that affect this parameter to a greater or lesser degree, then the action cannot be judged morally. If I did not have sufficient knowledge, the next question is COULD I have had sufficient knowledge to forrsee the outcome, or was I, of necessith, dealing in an area where I could not be rationally expected to have the proper knowledge, or did I insert myself in a situation that would require specialized knowledge. Finally did I intend the outcome that occurred, good or bad?. Now, the flip side of this is that moral perfection is the least we should expect. The "only human" whine is a trap set by fools for knaves. Once you know the stakes and the parameters, you want NO PART of evil. For one thing, it is self-defeating, NOT selfish! A mystic cannot abide this because, if it is true, people have no need for his crock and no need for him or her. Just where does that leave him. AND a person is capable of doing the moral calculus BEFORE the action in question. The minute you find something that you must blank out to continue, stop and run like Heaven and Hell were pursuing you to make you into a stew of tormanted weeping and gnashing of teeth; and those will be the least unpleasant. Consider the quote from PARADISE LOST, of Satan "I am not IN Hell, I AM Hell". I find "remorse" to be a bit bogus. One could have avoided the need for it and you can never tell if it is genuine. One can regret an action but that is not from a moral failure, only one of efficiency (miscalculation, misapplication, etc). Because I do not indulge in remorse, I am said to lack a conscience. Those who say that do not understand that mine acts before the action and is almost automaitc, based on the knowledge of two things.1. Contrary to what some say of me. I do not think I can do no wrong. I KNOW I can and if it do it will be a beuat, too (If I thought I could do no wrong, that would be the first wrong in a loooong painful line of many wrongs). 2. I KNOW that if I do a moral wrong I will give back 5fold wat I gained in a coin I can least afford and a time when I can least afford. So while I CAN do wrong such as would tear the wrold. I WILL (act of volition) do no worng and do my best to avoid wrongdoing. I just don't need the consequences. Doing wrong is soooo unselfish! So from the Proscribed sense; there is nothing in wrongdoing worth the price and from the Prescribed sense, especially having a clear path to my goals, there is everything in doing the best job I can at a CHOSEN task, there is only ONE way to go

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

Now, as to the topic of original sin. There IS such a thing and Rand described it perfectly. From THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO (that is a volume I almost passed on since it did not seem to have a non-fictional angle. As it turned out, it held the things I value most in therms of knowledge) "And it is the 'blank out's' that are the blackest marks on a human soul" How so? well, there is really but one choice "To think or not to think". Where does the "blank out" occur if not BEFORE all the physical acts. As such, it PRECEDES them, be they the "whitle lie" or the murder of a billion persons. it is sort of a case of Sgt Scultz Syndrome: "I see nothing, I know nothing and I WANT to know nothing". That WANT makes it an active process which MUST occur before the acts that we call heinous and barbaric, which are, in fact the physical and temporal CONSEQUENCS of that active refusal to think and recognize the external world's pre-eminence. Since that "blank out' or EVASION is esstnaial to, and makes all immoral acts equal in one way, and since this must occur before the physical atrocities. The process of original sin is this act. Not the first time, since it can happen by accident, but the second or third, when it is apparent that one knows what one is doing and choosed to continue to do it aka "ratifying" that process In one way it is as the religionists describe it. concerned with the "Fruit or the Tree of Knowledge" and the subsequent choice. However it is in fact, the refusal to eat of that fruit, not the eating of it that is the real original sin since it is an intentional act, the evil that precedes all ohters and it is the act of evil tht makes all others possible. And in so doing you must swallow all your pride since every atom in your body and your very nature and needs tell you to take that fruit and consume it by the megaton. which addresses "Pride goeth before the fall": When a person loses their pride. guess what follows. From, I think "Art and Cognition"; " to write down, to talk down, to think down? Nothing can be left of a person thereafter. And nothing ever is" End of Story

[@mattnielsen6793]

Interesting remarks, sir. 😉

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

@@mattnielsen6793 And what makes it worse is that it has a hook in you that you can't escape. obeserve the Conservatives. They KNOW that Trtump is a rake and a lying sack of shit. It was demonstrated repeateedly "I grab their pussy, the love it" the Conspiracy theories: Birther and the picture of Ted Cruz' Dad apparently with Lee Harvey Oswald, which appeared int The NATIONAL ENQUIRER, the Head of which, aptly named David Pecker is buddies with Trump who rails against fake news media. Trumps constant flip-flops. The cottage industry he has made of ad hominem attacks and his incessent self-congratulation (gotta have the sorest arm in the Galaxy from patting himself on the back) KZbin up Trump and eminent domain, Trump ethanol madates, Trump single-payer system, etc. The Conservatives HAVE to know about these and how many of the Ten Commandments he's blown through (as I put it "He observes the Commandments: From several hundred light years away"). The religious Conservatives and their leaders HAVE TO KNOW this, Yet look at how they cling to him like a drowning man clings to a straw. They can't let go of him. They deserve whatever the Left does to them and any person of integrity will help them do it. Trump is himself a lifelong leftist and corruptocrat. Next to the Conservatives and theitr Christian leadership, the most mind-numbed, cultist "Obamabots" were a model of personal autonomy and moral righteousness. This is what becomes of those who eat of the fruit of the Tree of Wilflful Ignorance kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJrIoWhmi71_jKc