A real buzzkill (seriously; the environment dudes)

[wufwugy]

And look at most of the great achievers in our history and tell me they weren't idealists... (einstein, washington, van gogh, do you think these people looked around them and thought screw it whats the point?)

This could actually prompt an interesting discussion

I think everybody is an idealist to some degree, but I'm not sure idealism plays that strong of a role in behavior.

Einstein's idealism could be said to have hindered him more than helped. I'm not sure if we know much about Washington to say one way or the other, but he was more of a good military general in the right place at the right time. It could be said his ideals were for his countrymen, which could be said to not be an ideal in the first place, but an instinct and the way people naturally feel. I don't know enough about Van Gogh to say anything, but I'm not sure if idealism is important for artists being good artists

Hitler may be a good point for this idea. A lot of people will say his idealism (manifested in patriotism, racism, xenophobia) is what provoked his actions, but I think the idealism was more a symptom. If anything is to blame for WW2, the rise of The Third Reich, and their philosophy, it's the hard times brought upon Germany by the economy. They were dealing with 50% unemployment being perpetuated by actions of foreign countries, and I think their ideals simply reflected that.

In a way, I've found that cliche catchphrases are more true than I want to admit.


All in all, I do not feel that idealism is important whatsoever. Just look at the results. Examining the spectrum of human civilization strongly suggests that we are who we are, and nothing is changing that. This is tough to understand because the micro seems so different than the macro (and it may actually be). On the macro, things reflect determinism, on the micro, things reflect at least some level of freedom, but that could just be appearances. However, appearances are deceiving, and no level of freedom can be isolated from determinism.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's not in human biology to express ideals that eliminate or even reduce collective suffering, and that's why it doesn't and cannot happen. And what ideals we do have, I think are wrought by our environment regardless.

[Monty3038]

This could actually prompt an interesting discussion

I think everybody is an idealist to some degree, but I'm not sure idealism plays that strong of a role in behavior.

This could be very interesting. The first people I thought of when you mentioned this were the rocketeers and physicists who worked on the technology that eventually led to nuclear missiles, most are often portrayed as troubled by their discoveries and advancements leading to weaponization, so they could I suppose be said to be idealists... but was it their idealism that led them to their discoveries (advancement of science) which then their discoveries led them to violate more basic humanitarian ideals?

That is a pretty convoluted thought pattern, but is what I first came up with, if it makes any sense, I'll try to hash out some of the other thoughts in a bit... doing this at work now...

[wufwugy]

This could be very interesting. The first people I thought of when you mentioned this were the rocketeers and physicists who worked on the technology that eventually led to nuclear missiles, most are often portrayed as troubled by their discoveries and advancements leading to weaponization, so they could I suppose be said to be idealists... but was it their idealism that led them to their discoveries (advancement of science) which then their discoveries led them to violate more basic humanitarian ideals?

That is a pretty convoluted thought pattern, but is what I first came up with, if it makes any sense, I'll try to hash out some of the other thoughts in a bit... doing this at work now...

Actually, I'm not sure if this is a topic I can provide much for because I view micro behaviors ultimately as products of macro realities. Under that paradigm, its not ideals that affect society, but environment. Any time I see an ideal affecting things, I can see how they're more basic than assumed, and can't be isolated from environmental factors.

As for the Manhattan Project specifically, I think the ideals were normal social protections and other ones that are found everywhere human society exists, and that it's largely deterministic since any individuals without those ideals would simply be replaced by ones who do, and that it was really the natural progression of physics at the time. Ideals may even be a red herring since the causes of those ideals are biology and environment

[mbiz]

Actually, I'm not sure if this is a topic I can provide much for because I view micro behaviors ultimately as products of macro realities. Under that paradigm, its not ideals that affect society, but environment. Any time I see an ideal affecting things, I can see how they're more basic than assumed, and can't be isolated from environmental factors.

As for the Manhattan Project specifically, I think the ideals were normal social protections and other ones that are found everywhere human society exists, and that it's largely deterministic since any individuals without those ideals would simply be replaced by ones who do, and that it was really the natural progression of physics at the time. Ideals may even be a red herring since the causes of those ideals are biology and environment

Anyone care to paraphrase this for me?

[wufwugy]

Anyone care to paraphrase this for me?

I think this could be called environmental determinism. Determinism is not easy to accept, and likely impossible for humans to understand or demonstrate. But I find that every ounce of reality we have suggests environmental determinism. It doesn't feel that way on the individual level, but that may just be like we only feel like we live in four dimensional spacetime when reality is likely much deeper than that.

So when we broaden scope enough, we'll see that everything that happens is based on environment and laws, not individuals or ideals or what have you. Similar to how when you flip a coin over and over you get all sorts of different results, but when you broaden scope enough you see that the coin flipping plays by a set a rules that cannot be ignored and is rather deterministic