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Comment by kodt | Hacker News Reader

So those with power to enforce their ideals on society get to decide morality then?

Well, normally morality is "decided" by a social process, which also shapes the rules, so they don't often diverge by much. But my point is to separate the two issues: society decides the rules; who "decides" morality is another discussion.

That social process is exactly why freedom of speech matters.

Freedom of speech is the social process that works because ideas can be aired and then opposed or supported. Free conversations are where extremes can be moderated. Driving ideas or words underground where they cannot be easily heard or clearly countered is a path to authoritarianism.

Your argument is not very meaningful because freedom of speech means something very different in the US and in, say, France, and both of these different things can be said to "work well". I, too, agree that freedom of speech is very important, but can have a completely different opinion on whether 8chan should be shut down, because what I mean by freedom of speech is different from what you mean, and I believe neither of us means the freedom to say anything, at any place, in any medium, and in any time or circumstance. We just differ on the degree to which we limit that freedom, or whose freedoms we value.

Any freedom is some compromise. If a society has two people or more, then either one person is allowed to, say, enslave the other, in which case the society isn't totally free, or not, in which case the society also isn't totally free. So there is no such thing as absolute freedom, and whenever we say freedom we actually mean some point on a spectrum. We could argue over what that reasonable point is, but absolute freedom is something that can't exist. So instead of speaking in absolutes, let's acknowledge that we're arguing over a favorite compromise.

Isn't that obvious, based on society's dysfunction alone?

It's not a moral principle. It's an explanation of where we find ourselves. This doesn't mean we shouldn't keep striving for a just society, but we don't live in a just society.

The question is how ? how can you have a just society that everyone will agree upon ? Unless we are invent some kind of eugenics or brain wash mechanism so that everyone has the same believe, same way of thinking then its impossible.

Or maybe we can develop really advance VR so that make possible for everyone to live in their own ideal socity.

We don't all have to agree on everything all the time. You strive in a direction by moving in that direction, there is no end point, no destination, no way to "complete" the process. There doesn't have to be. Life is messy like that, even when people are generally healthy and happy and kind to each other.

The problem is which direction is it? Because whatever direction it is is ultimatley subjective.

Sure, but all meaning and interpretation of life, all ideas on what is right, and so on, are subjective. There is nothing wrong with that, since it's not like objectivity actually exists on the other side of the scale. When it comes to moral questions, what is "objectively right" simply doesn't apply, and isn't needed.

If everybody simply stuck to treating others how they would want to be treated, we'd live in a much better world already, even if it wasn't "perfect", and even if there were disagreements, and it all still always subject to constant learning and reflection.

Our main problems don't stem from out confusion about what we think is right (and by "we" I mean each of us as the individuals that actually exist, not as a collective abstraction), but from wanting what we think is right for ourselves, while having double standards for others, and rationalizations for those.

How is your system practically work ? For example, do you prefer 8chan to be banned ?

It's not my system, it's reality, there is no objective morality, and even where people agree on many things, they don't have the exact same opinions and reasons for having them, and so on. That's at all not contingent on me giving you a satisfying answer on such a tricky question about a site I don't even know.

How could it ever possibly be otherwise, are people going to enforce morality they don't believe in?

I expect so. It's reasonable[0] to believe there are policement and judges who will arrest and sentence you for drug use, thus enforcing the law, while not believing the law is right.

[0] I know there are such policemen, I extrapolate to expect there are likeminded judges too.

That itself, is a morality fwiw, plus plenty of cops absolutely do not enforce laws they feel are wrong/stupid/pointless.

And they definitely don’t enforce laws equally....

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