Okay, nevermind. Just read another damn blogpost. How fucking dare you insult me constantly in your post, somehow say I was being rude when many people messaged me afterwards and said you were being the rude one, and then end it with "please don't be cross with me"? You're saying I was being rude? No, you were fucking rude when you KEPT pushing me to argue with you despite me saying I don't want to, despite in the past you SAYING that if I said for you to stop, you will stop. This is the third time that you didn't stop since then. Actually, every time I've asked you to stop you haven't. So that bullshit just went out the window, didn't it? Then you fucking cry with me in voice chat, and I feel sorry for you and go easy on you, only for you to release ANOTHER goddamn blogpost insulting me several times in it? 

"I don't know how you can deal with that type of behavior"
"It's clear they're instigating, especially with you"
"You have unimaginable patience"
"I saw her blogpost and I'm actually really disgusted with her"
"That's honestly so fucking disgusting that she's not respecting your wishes"
"You deserve way better than this. I hope she's not ruining your travels"
Just some of the reactions to our argument when it happened, btw. The first one who was rude was you.

2B — Yesterday at 3:24 AM
If that were the case; it is clear that the premises in that argument are ambiguous at the moment.
[3:25 AM]
Like, really, Nyan. It shouldn't be pulling teeth to get you to agree that the subject is controversial and there's a lot of nuance.
[3:25 AM]
When you first said that your argument is fact, and put up a little emoji I dismissed it as you being cute.
[3:26 AM]
But if you really do think that...I dunno what to say.
This was you being rude. As if implying that what I'm doing is so horrendous that you're at a loss for words (you're clearly not)
Anything before that was not rudeness, at most it was just me trying to avoid arguing with you and you KEPT on pushing, which, btw, is rude and unhinged behaviour. I really don't think you behave with irl friends this way, because otherwise you'd be a total loser without any friends. And I know you have friends.

2B — Yesterday at 3:51 AM
I'm just gonna let you have this one, Nyan. I'm too grossed out to continue. Sorry.
Then you said this at the end there? That was beyond rude. Implying I'm disgusting and the way I'm acting is worth being grossed out by, when YOU were the one who was being a total degenerate, brainlet dipshit towards me. Just because you want a topic to have more "nuance" then it really does, even though I do give any sort of required nuance. I admit Ukraine isn't perfect, Zelensky isn't perfect---that doesn't mean I have to accept that it's as "grey" as you think it is, just because your brain has been rotted by Posobeic or Tucker Carlson on this damn topic.

However, when I called you on it, you doggedly committed to it since it was a perceived attack on your intellect, as it is concerning a topic that we've had several arguments over and you've demonstrated such strong attachment and possibly now identity to.
You'll never change...

I'll go easy on you, try to talk to you when I'm on vacation and hardly getting out of bed just for you, talk to you in voice, entertain your dumbfuck arguments, be EXTREMELY charitable to you, hear you cry and feel terrible, go easy on you just for that, try to make you feel better, send you messages to try and make you feel better, pray for you to have a safe trip...Meanwhile, you type up another hit piece on me. Another wall of text insulting me, for everyone to read. I don't believe it's to record your thoughts anymore. You want the attention. You WANT people to see it---otherwise, you'd just make a new blog that's not public. This is quite literally how you respond to me whenever we have these stupid fucking arguments.

Reading back on it, it does sound condescending but please understand that wasn't my intention.
You're completely uncharitable to me, insult me in your blogpost, call me a child, say I was rude, say you were disgusted...and then you want me to be understanding? I've been WAY too understanding towards you. And yes, I DID know you would do it---if our argument wouldn't have cooled down. If you wouldn't have fucking cried with me, scared that you'll "lose" me, to make my heart melt. I didn't think you'd just betray me so quickly. But you did. You ruined my trust again . You ruined my birthday, keep ruining my vacation....

In truth, a part of me thinks you'll never admit to doing or being in any wrong. To do so would be to prove that you are fallible, your logic sometimes unsound and that can't be had...for whatever reason. To maintain some persona? I really hope that isn't the case b/c, whether you realize it or not, you're slowly destroying our relationship for selfish reasons. I have a few friends that I can talk about weighty, involved subjects w/, but I especially cherish talking to you about them. For the most part it's fun and you do manage to bring up some compelling points that leave me pensive in the nights that follow. If you're going to behave this way though...perhaps we shouldn't have these kinds of conversations anymore, as you can't responsibly handle it.
Read this fucking part of your blog, alright? It's MUCH, MUCH more fitting for you. I can't responsibly handle it? No, you can't. You were talking with someone who didn't even want to argue, and you started attributing positions to me that I didn't even make, and ignored how careful I was trying to be, in the conversation itself and in VC. I don't know if I'll ever forgive this. I really don't. Because I've now seen how hard you betray my trust. And yeah, we're not meeting. Not until I can trust you; I can't anymore. I'm not even going to try with that, or even think about it. And don't you fucking ask me to think about it either, or pressure me into it. Right now, I despise you. You've made me despise you with your disgusting, horrible behaviour. I'm sure I'll somehow recover, feel bad for you, forgive you again and then it will all go back to normal. And then this terrible fucking cycle will repeat where you constantly ruin my days like this. I'm not the one who can't bear being wrong. You're the one who can't imagine that maybe, just maybe, you're the one with totally unhinged takes informed by retarded political pundits who you are completely blindly following like a sheep. Just like you think all the libs and dems are NPCs, you know you're being exactly the same, right?
"I support the opposite of the current thing."
So you NEED me to act like there's some merit to your position, however stupid it is---there is no merit, and stop trying to make me think there is. If YOU'RE the one who gets disgusted by an argument (which you pushed for constantly) or the way I "behaved" in it, YOU'RE the one who can't handle these things responsibly. And trust me, I'm not the only one who thinks so. In fact, I'm really questioning why I always spend my time defending you, while people CONSTANTLY tell me you don't deserve me. Really, I can't word just how much you've upset me. How fucking angry I am right now after this blogpost. After I was trying to be kind towards you...

Not wanting the conversation to devolve into a game of semantics, I laid out a colloquial interpretation of the term 'fact/factual':
In addition, I gave you several instances to walk back your imprudent assertions. By this point, I had hoped that you realized you were arguing that opinion equals fact. Revisiting the conversation, it is here that I think we hit an inflection point, where you began to represent your opinion less as "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good." and more as "Supporting one's allies is moral and good.". You're taking the moral principle underlying supporting Ukraine and citing other examples where it had been successfully applied in order to justify your stance. That's a valid operation and I don't see anything wrong w/ it, but I want to make a note of it that it is here where your stance began to switch, where the conversation departs from one concerning particulars to one of universals. Continuing on:
Are you retarded or something? Don't you see why I started using it like that, after you gave the "colloquial interpretation" of the term?

It is important to me that the person I adore so much possess this virtue, b/c I'd rather not have them go astray and, by extension, bring me along w/ them
You're the one who's gone astray. I'm willing to admit if I'm ever wrong---for that, I'd need evidence and arguments. That's how it works. If I have a stance that I believe to be true, I will think it is true. Truth is based on belief. That's an epistemic fact. But YOU want to live by moral relativism, and add some sort of "grey" area to things that don't need to have them, because retards online tell you so---and then you're willing to attack me, insult me, call me a child, call me juvenile, makes our arguments public...
Ruin my travels, ruin my birthday, ruin my days. YOU'RE the one who's ruining this relationship, AND EVERYONE can see that. I'm told CONSTANTLY about how you are. I think either you're autistic, or you're only a dipshit with me. I really pray and hope you're only this horrible with me. This really does feel like the last straw, this blogpost after I heard you cry and then tried to go easy on you. I don't know if I'll ever forgive this. Really, I don't..Please, do me a favour and get a girlfriend out there in Florida. Preferably some MAGA, pretty version of MTG who's a complete populist degenerate. Because THAT'S what you want. You want someone with some baseline intelligence, but not much more. You've ruined the idea of romance for me. We've had lots of good times, but I will not stand such terrible behaviour from your part.

"My friends agree w/ me."
"No u."
"You're an NPC/retard."

 [begin transmission]

I can't let this go.

At this point we have frustrated the issue, but once again I'm asking that you refocus your attention onto it. Why? B/c it's important to me. It's important to me b/c humility is a key virtue, particularly in the intellectual domain. It is the virtue that allows the truth of matters to be determined, as it is the mechanism by which we may be able to admit to being in the wrong and course-correct our preconceived false notions and reorient them towards the correct--or at the very least more correct--ones. For without intellectual humility we are unable to acknowledge that we may be wrong in our assertions and thus remain committed to the aforementioned false notions, leading us astray in both thought and action. It is important to me that the person I adore so much possess this virtue, b/c I'd rather not have them go astray and, by extension, bring me along w/ them. Were this anyone else I didn't care as deeply for I'd (w/ heavy heart b/c I'd wish for more people in general to be virtuous) leave the matter to rest, but you are one of my select favorites, and so I feel strongly compelled to continue to engage.

Justifications complete, let's get on to the crux of the matter. 

Ukraine Is Ruining My Interpersonal Relationships

I should take some time to preface that, when it comes to Ukraine, we don't exactly see eye-to-eye. Be that as it may, it doesn't preclude us from getting along. We can disagree on the matter--I don't need you to adopt my position, but it is in discussing this subject in particular that your lack of intellectual humility manifests itself. Recently, we've had the following exchange:

2B — Yesterday at 10:51 AM

Gonna have to explain to me why supporting Ukraine is "moral and good" again, Onyan.

Makima — Yesterday at 10:54 AM

I'm good. I'm unfortunately not able to convince you on this fact, so I'd rather not argue it. :smug:

2B — Yesterday at 10:55 AM

Well I didn't mean right this instant; another time.

And it's far from fact.

You know that.

Here I was asking you to explain to me your explicit opinion of "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good.". I said again b/c we've had a handful of discussions that related to the matter before. So many times in fact that you were not feeling up towards arguing your position at the moment. Fair enough. In truth, the request was made facetiously, as I wasn't ready to engage in a protracted discussion re: Ukraine at the time myself, and if our past discussions are any indication, any elaboration on the subject would lead to lengthy engagement. Hence why I replied "another time.". But what caught my eye was something else you said, mainly the unqualified implication that your opinion is fact. "...I'm unfortunately not able to convince you on this fact...". Opinion and fact are NOT the same thing; I think it is fairly uncontroversial to say as much. So, I called you out on it, betting that you were being facetiously conceited, as indicated by your usage of a smug emoji and, in so many words, essentially asserting a statement akin to the "My opinion is fact." meme a 13-year old on 4chan would say.

It is here where the conversation should've ended. It should've ended w/ something like "Relax 2B, I was only kidding.". Some sort, any sort of indication of nonseriousness. Instead, the conversation continued w/:

Makima — Yesterday at 10:57 AM

Maaaaaaybe I might consider debating it some other time...

And yeah, it's as far from fact as saying something like, "supporting allies during WW2" was moral and good. :toobs:

2B — Yesterday at 10:59 AM

It's easy to make an evaluative claim like that towards an event that occurred 80 years ago, you have the luxury of retrospect.

You know that these two events are not the same.

You continued to engage, doubling down on your position. This lends credence to the thought that you weren't, in fact, being facetiously conceited. You actually think that your opinion, "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good." is a fact and not mere opinion. You then drew up a comparison to supporting allies in WW2, which I rightfully pointed out is not a fair comparison, given that we know all of the facts of WW2 and conversely are in the midst of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, shrouded in the fog of war. 

Makima — Yesterday at 11:00 AM

Hopefully future Nyan looks back when some imperialist dictatorship is attacking an ally of ours and says, "This is as moral and good as when we aided Ukraine against Russia."

2B — Yesterday at 11:03 AM

We can hope and wish all we'd like; my point still stands that these two events are qualitatively not the same and therefore cannot support the notion that supporting Ukraine is an absolute moral good. At best that notion is a dubious claim, not even close to anything resembling a fact.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:05 AM

If you want to believe that, okay. I won't argue with you because you've already made up your mind about this.

Frankly, your reply here is highly loaded and contestable, given that if a fair assessment of the Ukraine-Russia conflict is to be considered, intent and justifications (positive and negative) for ALL participating nations (not just Ukraine) should be represented. Honestly, the entire Manichean rhetoric of Ukraine being emblematic of all that is good, decent, and democratic vs. the absolute evil and unhinged Russian dictatorship is so tiresome and dishonest. In accordance w/ your wishes and mine to not get into a heated, protracted debate, I ignored your one-sided framing of the conflict and reiterated that your comparison was unfair and therefore any moral claims re: supporting Ukraine are dubious at best, far from being absolute, far from being a fact. In response, you dismissed my essential assertion of "opinions are not facts" as mere opinion, when it is patently obvious that the two are not the same. I hope that I don't have to get into a lengthier dissertation than the one I'm currently engaged in to convince you of that. In any case, I then tried to level w/ you, hoping that you would accept the proposition that facts and opinions are not the same:

2B — Yesterday at 11:06 AM

I know my stance, I know your stance. But at the very least we can agree that your stance is dubious and not factual, right?

In the retrospect, I could've done a better job at wording here. I meant to say something more along the lines that I understand my stance and yours as well, and that both are dubious and not fact, rather than not factual. I believe both of our stances to be factual, meaning that they are informed by facts. I realize that what I said here may be interpreted as being dismissive and for that I apologize. Continuing on:

Makima — Yesterday at 11:07 AM

If you want.

However you want to use those words and how strict you want to be with the definition of factual. Certainly more "factual" than anyone who believes the opposite.

"If you want." No, not if I want. It is an epistemological reality that opinions and facts are not the same. It is these dismissive, snide, childish little remarks that you make a habit of employing when you're cornered that get under my skin. Another indicator that you're cornered: the invocation of semantics. The final indicator that you're cornered: petty insult. By now any charitability on my part of interpreting your conceit as being facetious is spent. The Ukraine-Russia conflict is a highly contentious, multi-faceted issue. To dismiss anyone who believes in the opposite of yourself is to not give the problem its proper due, to trivialize it, and to--more egregiously--display a lack of intellectual humility. Not wanting the conversation to devolve into a game of semantics, I laid out a colloquial interpretation of the term 'fact/factual':

2B — Yesterday at 11:11 AM

I'm not playing semantics: when I say factual, I mean it is truth. So, do you really mean that when you say that your stance is a fact?

Are you sure you want to make that strong assertion?

Makima — Yesterday at 11:12 AM

That supporting Ukraine is moral and good? Then, yes.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:13 AM

Just as I would say supporting our allies in WW2 was moral and good, as was eliminating terrorists in the middle east, or removing Saddam from power, or supporting Afghanistan against Russia, etc etc

2B — Yesterday at 11:15 AM

And those examples are the same, in your mind? Despite me pointing out to you that you have retrospection at your disposal?

Having that in mind, you still contend that you can make the same evaluation?

In addition, I gave you several instances to walk back your imprudent assertions. By this point, I had hoped that you realized you were arguing that opinion equals fact. Revisiting the conversation, it is here that I think we hit an inflection point, where you began to represent your opinion less as "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good." and more as "Supporting one's allies is moral and good.". You're taking the moral principle underlying supporting Ukraine and citing other examples where it had been successfully applied in order to justify your stance. That's a valid operation and I don't see anything wrong w/ it, but I want to make a note of it that it is here where your stance began to switch, where the conversation departs from one concerning particulars to one of universals. Continuing on:

Makima — Yesterday at 11:16 AM

Statistically, it's looking good.

2B — Yesterday at 11:16 AM

Now that you're invoking statistics, you're invoking probabilities. Far from anything being absolute.

Not fact.

Wanna walk back anything?

Makima — Yesterday at 11:17 AM

Hey, I just said it's looking good.

Lol, no.

2B — Yesterday at 11:17 AM

Okay...

"Statistically, it's looking good.", is a vague statement as it's unclear just what exactly 'it' is that you're referring to. I took it to mean something like "Based on the aforementioned examples of supporting allies in WW2, eliminating terrorists in the Middle East, etc., my position of 'Supporting Ukraine is moral and good' appears to be vindicated.". To which I indicated that you're appealing to statistics in that case, thus appealing to probabilities, thus the opinion is far from being absolute and therefore it is far from fact. Then I gave another opportunity to walk things back to which you rudely declined.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:17 AM

Based on all the other times it's been moral and good, I'm pretty sure I can trust my intuition on this one. You're big on intuition, right? Like that.

It's a transcendent, eternal moral good that can be beautifully applied to a variety of circumstances.

2B — Yesterday at 11:20 AM

Then yours is an argument based on induction. Again, my point is that your claim is not a factual one.

[11:20 AM]

Still don't want to walk anything back? Last chance.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:21 AM

https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1579436437023633408

When 2B keeps asking me if I want to walk anything back

"Based on all the other times it's been moral and good..." here is where your argument explicitly turns into one of induction, once again invoking probabilities and in turn introducing the possibility of falsity. Once again, I ask you to walk your painfully foolish stance back and once again you decide to mock me.

2B — Yesterday at 11:21 AM

Okay, but memes aside?

Makima — Yesterday at 11:22 AM

The meme was my answer.

No.

2B — Yesterday at 11:22 AM

So you're willing to admit that an inductive argument is a factual one???

Makima — Yesterday at 11:23 AM

You said you don't want to play semantics, right? That, by fact, you mean the truth, correct?

Yes, I think supporting your allies when they are attacked by a corrupt dictatorship being morally good is a fact.

So, are we arguing Ukraine, or are we arguing semantics...

2B — Yesterday at 11:24 AM

If that were the case; it is clear that the premises in that argument are ambiguous at the moment.

Like, really, Nyan. It shouldn't be pulling teeth to get you to agree that the subject is controversial and there's a lot of nuance.

When you first said that your argument is fact, and put up a little emoji I dismissed it as you being cute.

But if you really do think that...I dunno what to say.

And now it seems like you're doubling down and not wanting to admit something as innocuous as "an inductive argument is not fact".

"Yes, I think supporting your allies when they are attacked by a corrupt dictatorship being morally good is a fact.", and here is the full switch, from the original position of "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good" to "Supporting your allies is moral and good". It is an important difference to point out, even though the former can be a particular instance of implementing the latter--but the former is a practical consideration in which matters such as history, geopolitics, global politics, corruption, etc. must be carefully weighed and the latter is a pure, moral consideration that is removed from all of that. Depending on which moral framework is used to evaluate these two, the conclusion can be different. In any case, both are currently open to debate within their respective fields and nothing is conclusive--on both fronts, nothing can be considered 'fact'. I hope that it is clear that I am not delegitimizing your position; I'm inclined to agree w/ you on the pure, moral front, but it's important to have the mature realization that these things are not finalized, not settled, and that while you may believe your opinion on them to be facts/truth, they are not necessarily facts/truth. At this point I'm still shocked that you're being so reductive in your assessment of the Ukraine-Russia conflict from a moral standpoint as well as failing to reject the notion that your opinion is not factual.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:27 AM

I do agree the subject is controversial, yes; but I think it's nuanced in the sense that I agree Ukraine isn't some sort of perfect country, but I think it's very obvious that aiding it is not only in US unipolarity interests, but also morally good since it's being attacked by an aggressive, much larger state.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have been pretty severely brain rotted by political pundits and/or politicians who are helpful idiots and think that not supporting Ukraine, or being against aid to Ukrainian war efforts, is somehow something that should be politicized and used as a weapon, just because the President is Biden.

When, I'm 99% certain, that if Trump was the President and, to say, if he was doing the same thing they would be supporting him to hell and back, costs be damned.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:30 AM

I just used an inductive argument. You were the one who didn't want to play semantics...I used other arguments as well, now and in the past.

To your credit there is some indication that you do appreciate the nuanced nature of the conflict--you don't go into detail on matters that might go against the pro-Ukraine narrative you're supporting--but it's a start I suppose. I'm not quite sure where you were going w/ the mentioning of semantics; I offered my definition of facts as truth in order to bypass that discussion. It doesn't have anything to do w/ this matter of inductive arguments.

2B — Yesterday at 11:31 AM

Right. Now, is an inductive argument fact? Does it necessarily lead to the truth? Or can it, in a probabilistic manner, be incorrect? (edited)

Makima — Yesterday at 11:33 AM

Sure, it can be wrong. I didn't say that part is "fact"---you're the one who tried to assure me you don't want to play semantics or word games. Before that, if you noticed, I was being pretty careful with how I was using the word...

2B — Yesterday at 11:34 AM

Okay. So we've established that inductive arguments can be wrong. You admitted that your stance (to be charitable, at least in this case) was an inductive argument, citing other instances of supporting allies throughout history. Therefore your stance can be wrong.

Contradicting your previous assertion that your stance is fact.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:35 AM

You make up some strange arguments from my part and try to "win" the argument all on your own, with minimum input from my part..

2B — Yesterday at 11:35 AM

Because a fact is never wrong. Else it isn't fact.

I'm just tracing out the logic here. You can correct me if you see a flaw.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:36 AM

No, if you read upwards I didn't use my "inductive reasoning" to ascertain it's a fact. I used that argument after we moved away from arguing about facts just to provide some additional reasoning as to "why it's looking good." (exactly what I said.)

If you noticed, I immediately followed it up with "it's an eternal truth to help our allies." when I saw what game you're trying to play.

I'm reading the above over and over and I cannot understand what you are getting at. All I did here was establish that you used inductive reasoning to vindicate your belief that "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good", by looking at other instances in which the moral principle "Supporting your allies is moral and good" had been applied (WW2, terrorism in the Middle East, etc.) You even said so yourself above: "Based on all the other times it's been moral and good, I'm pretty sure I can trust my intuition on this one. It's a transcendent, eternal moral good that can be beautifully applied to a variety of circumstances.". That is an inductive argument, to establish that "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good.". As I rightly pointed out, inductive arguments can be FALSE. Since your argument is an inductive argument, therefore it can be false. If an argument can be false, it is not true, and therefore it is by definition not fact. Hence, your opinion, your argument is NOT fact.

2B — Yesterday at 11:40 AM

But that isn't the contention. Never disputed some pure, moral law that "it's good to help allies".

The contention is whether we should support Ukraine. That isn't a pure, moral consideration, but a practical one as it dredges up corruption, imperialism, politics, etc. (edited)

Makima — Yesterday at 11:41 AM

Cool. And I have arguments against all the three things you mentioned as well, which I've stated before. (edited)

2B — Yesterday at 11:45 AM

Alright, then to be clear: the specific claim that "The West should support Ukraine", that you supported here today, was based on induction. Yes or no?

Not regarding other supporting arguments; like I said, we can discuss those another time. 

Makima — Yesterday at 11:46 AM

@2B No, but that certainly is good evidence for people who like arguments based on statistical analysis (assuming they agree with my previously mentioned examples.)

I never said it was only based on that, either. That's just one of the arguments I used...

Fortunately for me, every argument seems to lead to me being right, so that's pretty great.

Here I recognized, perhaps a bit too late (but I did write up about it above) that there was a practical and a pure moral discussion going on in parallel, which I agreed w/ you that "Supporting allies is moral and good.", but we very much differ on how we arrive to that conclusion. But here you're reluctant to acknowledge that you used an inductive argument, despite saying that you did mere moments ago. And I do believe that you have other arguments that justify your opinion that "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good.". I'm still open for discussing that another time, provided we can get through this current mess.

2B — Yesterday at 11:51 AM

I'm just gonna let you have this one, Nyan. I'm too grossed out to continue. Sorry.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:52 AM

Lol. I didn't even want to debate you but you kept going on with it constantly and then you act like a baby. Whatever.

[11:52 AM]

Next time, keep it to yourself.

"Fortunately for me, every argument seems to lead to me being right, so that's pretty great.", and with that, I had to stop out of utter disgust. Between the dumb smug emojis, mocking me w/ memes, asinine little utterances of "lol" and "lmao", and now this severely off-putting display of self-satisfied conceit, I couldn't stand to talk to you anymore. Never had you treated me w/ such disrespect and carelessness before. Never. We had a great many debates in the past, and some of them did get heated, but we did more-or-less manage to keep ourselves in check. Was it perfect? No; every once in a while we exchanged catty remarks, and to your recollection we had insulted each other on the odd occasion (I don't remember that being the case at all). Still, it was important to me to exercise my intellectual humility by establishing common ground, remaining respectful of your opinions despite thinking you wrong, and admitting where I was wrong/walk things back when it was appropriate (and despite how painful it might've been).

But this, this was a new low. You've never demonstrated such conceit as you did on this day. I asked you about this in voice last night and you said that this is how you truly are, that you've always been this way. I don't believe that to be true. The person I know wouldn't make such an outright arrogant (and frankly, stupid) assertion that their opinion (stance, argument, hypothesis, whatever you want to call it) is fact. That isn't you, you are MUCH better than that. I still think that you didn't mean to defend that assertion, that you were being cute, intentionally juvenile for comedic effect. However, when I called you on it, you doggedly committed to it since it was a perceived attack on your intellect, as it is concerning a topic that we've had several arguments over and you've demonstrated such strong attachment and possibly now identity to.

In truth, a part of me thinks you'll never admit to doing or being in any wrong. To do so would be to prove that you are fallible, your logic sometimes unsound and that can't be had...for whatever reason. To maintain some persona? I really hope that isn't the case b/c, whether you realize it or not, you're slowly destroying our relationship for selfish reasons. I have a few friends that I can talk about weighty, involved subjects w/, but I especially cherish talking to you about them. For the most part it's fun and you do manage to bring up some compelling points that leave me pensive in the nights that follow. If you're going to behave this way though...perhaps we shouldn't have these kinds of conversations anymore, as you can't responsibly handle it. 

I can't fairly condemn you w/o acknowledging my own sins in this matter. What has become expressly manifest to me is that I was pushy when I shouldn't have been. You weren't in any mood for argument, I knew that. You made your outrageous assertion, I could've ignored it but I didn't. Instead, I lazered in on it and took you to task. For that, I apologize. Again, I also apologize for some of the clumsy wording in the original conversation. Reading back on it, it does sound condescending but please understand that wasn't my intention. Getting feedback on this entire...debacle, some of the others have commented on that specific point and I'll try to be more careful next time.

Finally, I know you're going to be upset once I post this, not just b/c it contains some criticism levied your way, but also b/c it's publicizing our spats. Please bear in mind that this entire conversation is already out there in public, I'm only adding further clarification and my thoughts on the matter. Irrespective of that, though, this is my blog; I am recording and commenting on this incident b/c it is important to me and I want to capture/resolve my thoughts and feelings on it. Writing is the best way I know how. Or, you might profess to not care at all...citing something like you knew I was going to do this anyway. In any case, please don't be too cross w/ me.

[end transmission]

 

[begin transmission]

I figured I'd outline a philosophical dilemma I've been contending w/ recently. I think it's a neat little puzzle to think about.
Oddly enough, it's convergent w/ the writings of none other than the good Professor himself.

We've had the opportunity to discuss the matter over some hot sake, the smoothest of whiskies, and yummy sushi. 

An experience to commit to treasured memories, for sure, but ultimately indeterminate in resolution.

For those interested, you may read his manuscript here.

Humanism

In order to understand the issue at hand, it is important to outline and understand the philosophical viewpoints involved. The first I'd like to define is that of humanism. For those that are uninitiated, you might've heard the term being thrown about by secular atheists of the 2000s era, used to express a kind of Enlightenment ontology/epistemology in which man is free to pursue his own interests towards the betterment of humanity--rationally and morally--independent of any subservience to a master or God. When I speak of humanism, I am not referring to this doctrine, though it is somewhat related. No, the humanism that I am referring to is the view that humanity holds a special place in the cosmos. Part of what imbues men w/ their exceptional character is their free will, consciousness, and their rational/creative capacities, among other intellectual capabilities. This view is foundational towards modern liberalism, individualism, and democracy; real Enlightenment era type of stuff whose development stretches back to the Renaissance era and even further then to the ancient Classical era. A central tenet of this view is that all things else, including animals, natural forces, culture, machines, and technics, are inferior and subservient to man. Why? Because mankind outclasses them in terms of the intellect. Think Aristotle observing that men are superior to animals b/c they are rational and political. Think Dostoevsky lamenting how cruel men can be compared to animals, w/ the implication being that man is a moral creature. Moreover, in considering man's relationship to culture, machines, and technics, man is superior because all of these things are created by him and are instruments of his will.

As the Professor writes w/ such palpable conviction:

Tear apart your computer—it is naught but parts put into interlocking unity by man. A man baked transistors into a crystal, a man routed each copper trace, a man designed and programmed and engineered...Know this: the machine is doomed to be man’s inferior. It is our creation and each of its parts are put into place by us. It is imperative we understand this property of computational systems.

It is this elevation to the tippy-top of this hierarchy mankind places himself that is challenged by posthumanism, To the posthumanist, this is a conceit. What do they have to say on the matter?

Posthumanism

Posthumanist thought could be credited to Spinoza ("All is One") but the more contemporary strain is credited to none other than the hammer himself: Friedrich Nietzsche. Where humanism posits that mankind is superior to all else, particularly as a consequence of being God's favored creation, Nietzsche came and certainly flipped the script when he declared the death of God, theorizing that man is not put on the Earth towards some special purpose or end. To Nietzsche, conceptualizing something of a special purpose or end is mere continuation of "herd morality"; a way for others, particularly through religion, to control and constrain his fellow man. This control includes the suppression of his will to power, that is, his ultimately irrational, creative, vital force (as a side note here, I find it very amusing that this is where the Professor unwittingly intersects and agrees w/ posthumanism). However, this will to power is not an exclusively human force, but more a feature of life itself. It is from this premise that most posthumanists craft their theories.

The theories that I found to be the most powerful and thought-provoking include the machinic and technic exercise of the will to power; the machinic being attributed to Donna Harrington in A Cyborg Manifesto and the technic to Bernard Stiegler in Technics and Time. In the former, Harrington argues that for the majority of human history mankind has relied on machines and technology to aid and augment his cognition. A contemporary example of this would be our reliance on smartphones to access information on the fly: we can easily conduct a Google search to look up information we're uncognizant of, or look up a Wikipedia page for a crash course on a subject we're unfamiliar w/ (and subsequently act as an authoritative expert in online argument). We utilize Google or Apple maps for navigation instead of trying to triangulate our position w/ the starry night sky. Our calendar apps allow us to set reminders of important dates and appointments so that we wouldn't have to expend the cognitive effort required of recollection. A little less universal, but still fairly contemporary example is the usage of eyeglasses and contacts to correct myopic vision, or the usage of deep brain stimulation devices in Parkinsons patients. In both of these instances, machines and technology enable us to experience reality to a fuller breadth that otherwise would be unavailable w/o their assistance. In a very tangible way, machines and technology have created and enabled us access to a layer of a reality that is superimposed on our naked, creature perceptive mechanisms.

Such is the argument for machinic exercise of the will to power, in constructing reality. Now what about the argument for technics? This is one of the propositions put forth by Stiegler. It is within the humanist framework that you will find sentiments such as art, culture, and history (technics) are created by man, b/c he is rational. Stiegler essentially inverts this and posits that b/c of art, culture, and history is man rational. Seems like a absurd proposition at first glance, but I ask you to consider your present situation. You, dear reader, are sitting there w/ all kinds of thoughts floating around in your head. These thoughts are not entirely your own, but are possibly borrowed from something you have learned through experience. A subset of those thoughts are informed by things you have read, no doubt. Perhaps you're thinking of Plato's Phaedo? Now, would you have been thinking of Phaedo had you not read it? What condition has enabled you to read it? Hopefully it is obvious that a necessary condition is that Phaedo had been published in either a bibliographical or electronic format. What condition enabled this publishing? The necessary technological conditions of either mass printing or digital storage/distribution. What enabled that? The technological conditions of written language. And that? The technology of paper, the technology of clay tablets, and ultimately, the technology of fire. I don't mean to belabor the point here, but I hope that it is now obvious that technology has enabled you to think the way that you do, and that art, culture, and history has shaped the way that you think. In a sense, technics have created you. If this 'in a sense' qualifier seems like weak tea to you, as a too-abstract of an argument of technic's creation of mankind, then okay. I invite you you contend w/ the popular anthropological theory known as the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis. Essentially it posits that when earlier man switched from a plant-based diet to one of a meat-based omnivore diet, it led to the evolution of a larger brain and smaller digestive tract. This, in turn, led to an explosion in intelligence that eventually enabled man to use more sophisticated tools, hunting strategies, form societies, etc. What does that have to do w/ technics? Well, no big surprise, but it turns out that cooked animal protein is easier to digest and makes nutrients more bioavailable in the human body. Animal protein cooked by fire. So there you have it: technics have literally created man and enabled his intellectual capacities as we know them today, both in a fact-of-the-matter materialistic viewpoint as well as in a more abstract, cultural viewpoint.

Epilogus

In summary, I do not want to leave the reader w/ the impression that humanity and technics are necessarily antagonistic in relation to each other. To do so would be to commit the same mistake as the Professor (though, to his credit, he is addressing a specific subset of posthumanists); no, I don't think that most posthumanists are not out to undermine humanism w/ the purpose to destroy religion and family, chip us with neural implants, and enslave us to evil AI overlords. The main take-away here is that humanity, machines, and technics share a sort of symbiotic relationship, where one party enables the creative capacities of the other. Man creates culture and technology with his rational capacities, but this process was created and enabled by previous culture and technology, which was created by previous man...so forth and so on, indeterminately. We'll call it a more sophisticated chicken-or-the-egg problem. It still stands, however, that the two entities have a shared history of mutual creation, and that is something to take into consideration whenever claims of one being superior to another are being made. In my mind, it is a mature realization by which addressing we will make more headway in these issues, rather than beating strawmen caricatured extremes into submission.

I do have to say...the above propositions above I found to be rather compelling as well as particularly disquieting. I cannot deny the truth behind these arguments; in order to discredit them, the problem would have to be attacked from a new conceptual angle if there is ever hope to reassert mankind's supremacy over, well, everything else. The disquietude comes partially from the dissonance that arises between these ideas and my own religious beliefs, beliefs that, as I mentioned, inform the entire Enlightenment project. If this presupposition--the supremacy of mankind and his rationality--is subverted, then the entire bastion is left in shambles. Not only is this presupposition being challenged on a theoretical level, as we have addressed in the previous arguments, but it is also being challenged empirically. At the time of this writing, AI-generated art is going meteoric and Tesla's autonomous self-driving features are on the precipice of being fully unleashed into the world. These two domains, the aesthetic realm of artistic creation and the pragmatic realm of rational decision-making are territories that were once thought to be unique and dominated by human intellect. There is a lot to address in these two examples I've cited, and I have gotten into spirited discussions w/ the Professor over them (someone explain to us what non-Turing computation is!), but we won't cover it now. However, they are indicative that we're treading into some uncharted territory, and it remains an open question as to how far these technologies will go and the implications for mankind's role in all of it.

The rest of the unease comes from the question of whether these arguments should be discredited in the first place. As I read more into postmodern philosophy, the more interesting stuff beyond critical theory or deconstruction, I find that there are some real teeth to these philosopher's claims. Perhaps I'm a bit biased b/c of my control engineering background, but I've become enamored w/ the writing of Deleuze and Guattari and Nick Land; their bold assertion of people as machines and postulations of cybernetic societies and cultures are not just merely aesthetic decisions when it comes to syntax or metaphor. In a future post I'll prolly cover a few of their ideas, as it sort of lends some understanding towards this...absolute craziness of a zeitgeist that characterizes the early 21st century, and possibly predicts the character of the second half that's still yet to come.

[end transmission]