I noticed...

I noticed that people don’t really much care for realistic and plausible answers to philosophical and rhetorical questions and would rather hinge all of their psychology on a faulty sense of knowing themselves without realistically answering any of the questions at all while retaining a vague sense of self-fulfillment just in asking the question.

That’s because for the most part here, no one is doing philosophy. They are just busy coming here to present and defend their bias, not work through the problem with others to get a more rounded view. There isn’t enough information about anyone else to really trust in their intellect enough to allow their views to be honed against anyone else. Most of the people here speak as if they are the only voice of reason, and the only expert in the subject they are presenting. Everyone is also busy assuming everyone else is stupid and doesn’t understand, rather than clarifying their positions so that they can open dialogue.

There is little room for open and honest discourse. It’s the problem of most internet forums when the people never meet face to face. It’s a hard obstacle to overcome, perhaps impossible.

Do you think there is a way to overcome this problem or do you think it’s caused by something else?

Perhaps it’s just a spill over and amplification of the kind of entitlement we see in moderns these days? With a façade to hide behind, perhaps people are more willing to share their position with an air of assuredness, however ignorant and stupid they sound? What’s the worst that could happen, get banned and create a new identity?

I certainly do not think everyone is stupid and that I alone have a monopoly on wisdom. For that is as false as it is ridiculous
There is no rigid conformity here which allows for debate to be more intellectually stimulating. Now some have world views
that I do not share but it is not a reason not to engage them. I am not especially interested in looking for definitive answers
[ assuming they exist ] but in seeing what answers others come up with. The journey is more important than the destination

Yep.

Yep.

Yep (and yep).

Yep.

Yep.

Currently, ILP seems populated by atheists and agnostics who spout their beliefs as if they are somehow a persecuted minority. No one is doing philosophy in the sense of dialog for mutual understanding. I find few places here where a Christian can post without getting attacked by those who claim to be always correct.
We should honor each other’s opinions simply because there is no simple rightness; there is only personal opinion. Respect for this is rare here.

I do also notice that it’s most often an effect of ego or wanting to be heard and by the time they’re heard, aren’t able to properly push forth an argument and both are products of our society; ego being a rebound of insecurity and still insecurity as they seek to have themselves heard over all others and demanding that they be right so that they can fill the insecurity of having that gratification, however hollow and shallow.

The thinking engine has been largely crippled by repeated blows by societal ‘trolls’ and bullies as they don’t want to sit and listen to people explain certain thought chains. So, they beat those people down in a variety of ways as to keep their mouths shut, be greedy so as to package the information in a manner that further cripples it by selling it out to other greedy people who likewise do not understand the value and therefore pushes the agenda of the selfish and insecure as they keep down those who should be confident and sure.

I do believe there is a proper response for this and religion and other beliefs have already out-lined it: Discipline. Spare the rod, spoil the child. But, who is there to suitably punish them in such a way as to make them want to do better? What person is there that can be tolerant and patient with such adult-children and child-adults?

Who? Who?, says the owl.

Again … yep.

There are those with the maturity, understanding, and skill. But how do you really know who they are?

Just like so many other issues, if you cannot truly figure it all out yourself, it is the not knowing who to listen to that brings your fall (which is why religions have specifically chosen and promoted prophets providing a common voice for the follower types).

Let’s face it, as much as we hate to admit it, it’s all about the general reductive effect that philosophy has on all of us, philosophy, literally, reduces into the realm of the rational, leaving the emotional
substratum a uneffected. We become analysts, by
any contingencies , as factored in
erroneously along the way. But, we must not take these things as they were our voice speaking, we
have embraced so many voices along the way.

When you ask people to respect each other unconditionally, what you’re doing is asking them to deny what they see. This we can call the violence of ahistoricism.

Basically, the individual is asked to focus only on the apparent (immediate) and dismiss whatever is behind the scenes (past.) This benefits the delusional.

What is necessary is being realistic and being realistic means being flexible but being flexible does not mean respecting others unconditionally. It means sensing reality unconditionally, whereas respect is conditional upon what is sensed.

When you accept as an axiom that people can be harmonized, as James does, as many other people do, you basically choose not to be flexible. All your talk about other people not willing to face reality then becomes merely a tool you use to hide the fact that you yourself are not willing to face reality.

I post on these forums not in order to harmonize people, but to figure out the best way to deal with them.

Let me repeat: if you’ve taken it as an axiom that all differences between all people are merely superficial, meaning, that they can be overcome, you’ve given up on any thinking because you’ve denied, meaning, refused to entertain, the possibility, and reality, that there is no fundamental equality.

I agree with Magnus. Anything else and we end up with a tea party Forum.

Ausseneite coming from KT and you post that here!

I wonder.

I find that I can respect others unconditionally as long as I count disrespect as respect in certain circumstances and respect others in the manner that they deserve to be respected. This benefits the realistic, as it allows for a return to basic respect once earned. Reality is conditional upon what is sensed since there is so much to sense and you can’t sense it all all the time, common sense dictates some of the time.

People can be harmonized, but the method in which certain people pursue such a goal is irrational.

I post on these forums to do both as well as to share my ongoing work which is based on the information I gain and in the pursuit of harmonization through natural interaction; even this is pitched just confrontationally enough to challenge what you said, at the same time as being fluidly flexible enough to deter a possible negative response as it is a continuance of what you said; has taken what you said and taken it further; which gives your ideas merit as stepping stones to ideas and philosophies that have been reached before by others besides me, which detracts enough away from my ego to relay it to you through my own findings of answers I’ve already come to along similar chains of thought of this and the fact that this, at the same time, exerts my dominancy over others when dominancy was not intended and yet needed for said harmonization, I find to be ironically hilarious at times, since my domination is so much more peaceful than others and quite more profound.

I think that with the way the world is, people have far more than entertained the idea, possibility and reality of a lack of fundamental equality (nice rhyme, btw, whether intentional or not; just shows that the universe does have some rhythm to it and thus base harmonization, disproving your very thesis as it exhibits its grace through you as a part of it.) Realistically, there is a fundamental equality and we have found it many times over; whether we are all living or are all dead, we are all of us together in either whether separated or right beside each other. We are together in thought and emotion, though not all on similar levels of those things, yet on some level feeling intuitively and instinctively either away from or toward love and peace either with understanding or not. The sum of each person regardless of perceived strengths and weaknesses is equal to the sum of each other based on the sheer potential of both the strengths and the weaknesses, but to attribute such base ideas and notions of equality as simply tied to the society around us and not all of nature itself is absurd and therein you find that it is humans and other short-lived entities that lack sight of the fundamental equality and that it is only a lack of sight, not an actual absence.

And, here’s the kicker; even religion has some basis, since I have already toppled politics, at least in game format, with this ideology and approach and have already broken many philosophers arguments apart with the same, not just yours and I walk through this life, now, with all of the confidence that I needed but never had while growing up, balancing myself out in the process of such interactions and creating a straight line through life where they claimed there were no true straight lines, by striking a straight line to balance through all of the deviations, deterrents and distractions, continually coming back to such a pursuit more and more often as my choices in life get solidified through respect of self and respect from others for my respect of self; which completely upholds all religious beliefs as well as spiritual dogma and karma.

The bonus? Since you were already on a thought chain that lead to me posting this, you can readily assume that if left to your own thoughts long enough; in eternity; you would have eventually came upon these same conclusions, so you can actually bypass a lot of the bullshit you might have went through in the meantime by simply making a quick connecting line to it. Psychologically sound and even more so is the advice that the full effect of such is only truly able to be gained and experienced in the long term through hard work and determination even if you can create a shortcut for a moment, you will have to learn how to bring yourself back from thoughts of negativity and pessimism to actually benefit from the energy that so many have hyped about and thus actually earn it and have it feel right and justified that you experience it, erasing all feelings of guilt for having received something in life that you did not deserve for all that you may have done that was perceived as wrong or sinful by those around you and regardless of their interpretation of those things or their perception of you, at least you would know the truth of yourself; where you’d been, what you’d gone through and how you triumphed resoundingly over it all to stand on your own two feet to actually bring thoughts to satisfactory conclusion and to enjoy life as much as possible openly and without reservation through the very same situationalness of reality that you have already mentioned; we just jumped track over to another branch of perspective and perception.

And, that truth of self is what truly defines the champions and heroes and legends of the world and of the universe and what makes it all work.