Post your potentially unpopular opinions

Having followed this thread fairly closely for a few months now, here is my potentially unpopular opinion. Most of the people here posting are morons who lack any semblance of critical thinking skills and are simply repeating what their college professors from freshman year said so they will sound unique, original, and "deep." You get the same stupid things popping up again, and again, and again ad nauseum, as though they were original thoughts.

Everybody else posting "unpopular" opinions are posting things that are anything but. Since some of you don't seem to realize this, let me explain the difference to you.

Mainstream Opinions: "Abortion should be legal/illegal!" "I love/hate Obama!" "I am for/against the Death Penalty!" "I think rapists should be killed!" "Christianity is true/stupid!"

Unpopular Opinions: "The Westboro Baptist Church is absolutely right!" "I truly believe that Japanese people are a superior race!" "The Holocaust didn't happen, it is all a Jewish conspiracy!" "If a parent wants to molest their children, that is their own business and nobody should interfere!"

See the difference?

@Niccolo Machiavelli

Actually, this totally applies to my potentially unpopular opinion on some of the MBTI topics that come up on this forum (although I wouldn't call most of the people here morons, and college professors are less likely to play a role in this):

Most of the people here posting are morons who lack any semblance of critical thinking skills and are simply repeating what their college professors from freshman year said so they will sound unique, original, and "deep." You get the same stupid things popping up again, and again, and again ad nauseum, as though they were original thoughts.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but some people here just never learn. It's scary. o.o It's either this or the never-ending strings of posts on "What personality type likes to act like a maniac?"...something along those lines much of the time (usually completely insoluble questions that make me go "Great. Not this again.").

"No regrets" is a stupid life philosophy



Philosophy, et cetera: Regret's Implications

Ben Miller hits the nail right on the head with his comments:

"I think that there's been a mistake here with what regret is, and is supposed to be.

Regret need not fit logically into our idea of causation and who we are at present and why we are that way.

Regret is an emotion that tunes us in to what we could have done better and what we can do better in the future. It is not supposed to link up to the conceptual timeline of "if you go back and change event A then events B, C, and D will also change."

Regret is an emotional state of acknowledgment and recognizing that things didn't happen ideally. It does not follow from this idea that we should not regret things if we also acknowledge that going back and changing those things would alter the present as it is.

Regret serves [an instrumental] purpose--and that purpose is not at all linked up to our idea of past, present, and future and the way they affect one another.

There is no inconsistency in me regretting how I mistreated X 7 years ago, even though I also know that without mistreating X I would not be the person who I am today, nor would I probably regret having mistreated X at all. It still makes sense to regret my actions. I regret them because they could have been better ones--the present does not need to factor into my feeling of regret at all.

There are certain times where people should regret things. And we would want to say there was something wrong with them if they didn't regret. If in a fit of rage I murder my father (when I'm drunk let's say) and then I go on to be an moral saint after that, does this mean I shouldn't regret murdering him? This seems ludicrous. Of course I should regret murdering him. Just because I might be a different person because of it AND I am a genuinely good person now doesn't mean that regretting the murder is making a logical mistake. It just means that I wish things could have been different. There is just no reason to think that regret need be totally logical in its application."

Ben Miller makes many good points in the above short post, but I think the two most important points are these:

1. Regret serves an instrumental purpose. It helps us from making similar mistakes. A person who feels regret about getting into the car while intoxicated and killing another person, is much less likely to become a repeat offender than the person who feels no regret. It can also serve as a powerful motivator (especially for those who naturally have a low level of motivation). If a person regrets not practicing hard enough to make a team, they can use that regret as a motivating factor to practice harder for next year's tryouts.

2. If Joe murdered his fiancée or best friend of ten years while high on coke, we would intuitively want to say that he should regret this (even in light of the fact that it can't be changed) Examples such as these are a reductio ad absurdum of the "no regrets" mantra.

It is also worth noting that sociopaths (and people with brain damage to certain areas) are one of the few people on Earth with absolutely no regrets. Take note that this is not a deductive argument, but an inductive argument, using the characteristics of sociopaths as evidence against the argument that we should live life w/o regrets.

Looking to the Buddhist way of life isn't a bad thing. However, the typical western conception of the Buddhist take on desire is mistaken. Many buddhist sects don't aim to get rid of all desires, but just those that are harmful or "unmasterful." Similarly, we can learn to let go of the negative emotions of grief and anxiety that sometimes come with regrets, without giving up regrets in toto. We can learn to embrace them as Kathryn Shulz explains.


Related videos: TED Blog | Don’t regret regret: Kathryn Schulz on TED.com

So what if I reengage moronic disclosure on this thread? Does anyone really hold an obligation to care what the fellow person thinks outside of what is beneficial for the individual? No, because that is exactly what history entails. Power siphoned to whoever can gain it's entirety without regards to those struggling. If you are weak, you deserve to be weak because you had done nothing to further your own situation. If you are powerful by whatever means then you deserve to be powerful because you actively sought out this position in life.

World peace can happen only under two scenarios: complete altruism eluding to world organisms or complete annihilation of the human species to pave the way for the next great evolutionary sentient race to take hold of this world.

What benefits are there to weighing in on the words and opinions of someone who shares such with you? A glorified patsy, authentic insight, or just releasing the reigns of your own judgement in place for someone else desire for an alternative path? Man remains as in the dark as ever with a match stick being charade as the light of our sun. I, or we if you wish to acknowledge, are a dumb, stupid, blind, short sighted race having all the signs of psychopathy, anger and rage, plus fallibility hitherto unrecognized in the animal/natural community.

Reductionism can radically change the way mankind manifests power and understanding. If instead trying fruitlessly to penetrate the greater picture it should be in turn reflected on the seeker for supplying the point to point answer process in understanding and awareness. If mankind refuses to look around trying to cope with this magnificently complex reality which we navigate in then the purpose of man, the higher animal, has been completely snubbed and requires the proper process of removal for the benefit which would far outweigh selfish qualms.

Further, a lament of the drop out, who cares? What does it matter? When does the quest for true understanding and life practice stay from inherit curiosity and stride into the egoism abundantly present? What purpose is there in higher ways of thinking and speech craft when practically it serves no other function other than elitism, navigation of proper social circles, and circumventing the undesirable persons who aren't quite there yet? How then can someone of higher standards be any better then the person repeating the mistakes over, and over, and over, and over again? What line is drawn to separate you from them? It's stupid. It's stupid in such a way that somehow the enlightened views him or herself as gifted when 9 times out of 10 it is solely based on a healthy proper upbringing and scholastic faculty realizing potential which results in further cultivation of the lucky individual. Everything you know, it is feasible to say, is very much possible for the rest minus the severely damaged and mentally impaired.

I despise elitists just as much as the dimwitted. I hate the free as much as I hate the quote unquote "enslaved". I hate for the sake of hating realizing that the the probable reason man has culminated to this point were due to being for a time and still now the apex predator.

A beautifully constructed argument with all of it's points finally plugged for fear of being pointed out and exploited is about as enticing to me as a preacher spouting hypocrisy on a street's corner. I see no difference. Other than pharisees of various disguises.

Originally Posted by Adrift

Einstein and Ayn Rand might be the only persons who're never wrong about anything and any appeals to them is not a logical fallacy.

Einstein thought the universe was infinite in time length, and a static universe. He was wrong about that.

@Candid Apple

up until I read this post I was intent on believing that we're all equal. That's logical proof that explains it on your journey that you shared with all of us. Thank you.

Originally Posted by Bunker Man

Einstein thought the universe was infinite in time length, and a static universe. He was wrong about that.

Yes, but he knew he was wrong and admitted it, so his final thought on the matter was correct.

Recursive problems will always seek to resolve themselves. If we decide to stop the process of recovery then we only have ourselves to blame.

satanism is a highly misunderstood philosophy because of all the bullshit the other religions spew out. anybody who reads the satanic bible will understand where I'm coming from and that it is actually a more respectable philosophy than the main religions everybody is accustomed to.

do unto others as you would have done to you
&
do unto others as they do to you






also, I want to meet whoever the fuck it was that came up with the earbud headphones so I can slap him/her in the face with my dick. the damn things just constantly fall out and need constant readjustment and yet somehow they seem to be the main headphones that you can find.

Originally Posted by Candid Apple

What purpose is there in higher ways of thinking and speech craft when practically it serves no other function other than elitism, navigation of proper social circles, and circumventing the undesirable persons who aren't quite there yet?
...
A beautifully constructed argument with all of it's points finally plugged for fear of being pointed out and exploited is about as enticing to me as a preacher spouting hypocrisy on a street's corner.

I think that's a huge misconception of higher thinking, though the problem with my attempting to explain that the unexamined life is not worth living to someone who claims that the only use of higher thinking is elitism is glaringly evident (for clarification please Google Plato's Cave). For the sake of my own sanity I'll give it a shot. Higher level thinking is, at the very least, an enormous part of what makes us human. It is what brought us civilization and without it we wouldn't even be living in caves. I think that many people compensate for a lack of comprehension with the reasoning that a subject is stupid and useless. Thus, they never bother to learn anything because it's too hard and it requires an uncomfortable period of not understanding before one learns something. You yourself argued that if people are weak it's their fault because they have done no more to advance themselves in the world. The same thing can be argued of higher thinking (though not necessarily education since, as you pointed out, a "traditional" education can be hard to come by). Higher thinking is not just an inherent (somewhat uniquely) human trait, it is necessary in order for us to make some sense of our lives and the universe we live in (which is an integral part of the human condition). Please go read some Aristotle if you haven't already.

As for eloquence in speaking and writing, it is the means by which we are able to describe our experiences and articulate our thoughts. People don't read Shakespeare so that they can quote it to make other people feel stupid. We read Shakespeare because he had unique insights into the human condition and, through his rhetoric and poetry, eloquently articulated and described them such that people can connect with and comprehend them. With your attitude--completely averse to any type of argument concerning anything--you are never going to grow as a person. Remove higher thinking and you're removing any non-biological goal of the human race, which may perhaps explain your rather pessimistic outlook on our species.

Also, eloquence and higher-level thinking enable me to make an argument that is both understandable in its language and makes sense in its approach to matters.

That said, may I state my (now somewhat obvious and probably unpopular opinion) that philosophy is an extremely underrated and under appreciated field, and that the whole world would be a better place if people took philosophy.