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LOLz well done, selling happy faces to the most cynical crowd on the internet :D Look at these comments! My oh-my. Seriously though, good piece - if a bit shal

by jd115 5y ago

LOLz well done, selling happy faces to the most cynical crowd on the internet :D Look at these comments! My oh-my. Seriously though, good piece - if a bit shallow. It's a good start. People need to hear this. Cynicism is the only evil in the world. The opposite, of course, is innocence - and, since this can't exist in pure form, the closest second is gullibility. Not ONE person here will agree that gullibility is a good thing, but I say it's our saviour. It is truly the best you can do in life. Look, it's not that cynics are wrong... No. They are right. That's the problem. The problem is that they are right. And that's the root of all evil. They are limited - enslaved - by their reality. There's no escaping it. So the only thing they feel they can do is fight back, with all their might... And you know where this leads? Straight to hell. I'll make it more painful. The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. The ones who fight injustice are the most cruel. The ones who fight intolerance are least tolerant. Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? If it's more important to be right - you're already on the loosing team. If it's more important to be good - now you are ACTUALLY right.

The_Colonel 5y ago
> The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. I can understand the other points, but not this one. Can you expand on that?
- iamacyborg 5y ago
  It's a nice catchy slogan that falls apart at the tiniest scrutiny.
  - toyg 5y ago
    Worse, it's a political agenda camouflaged as philosophical stance.
    - JohnWhigham 5y ago
      That's the OP's original point: people who spend their entire lives "fighting corruption" get blinded by their righteousness and zealotry and in effect become corrupt themselves.
      - the_af 5y ago
        How? Becoming corrupt is not the same as getting blinded by zealotry (you can be an honest, true believing, incorruptible zealot). Seems like lazy wordplay to me... or something out of Star Wars, like falling to the Dark Side.
    - toolz 5y ago
      That's not my impression, my impression is that it's laziness channeled into virtue signaling to show all the other lazy people out there that if they are fed up with having to struggle for results then instead they can redefine the struggle as evil and their ideal circumstance of doing nothing and being praised for it may become a reality. Of course this mindset can only ever attract other lazy people and even then only from a distance. Even lazy people desire relationships with people putting in the effort.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
I don't think it's this black and white. 'Candide' makes a good argument against the other side of the coin, toxic optimism or whatever you want to call it. Horrible things absolutely do happen and ignoring this doesn't make things better. Maybe the problem is an inappropriate amount of faith. Not in the religious sense of the word, but as in confidence in external things. The optimists have far too much, the cynics have far too little. Maybe we should look to the mean. Having no faith at all offers up a breeding ground for corruption on both personal and institutional level. Having too much obscures it if it's already there. > Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? Often the question that should be asked is "why aren't you doing the things you know you should do?" Most people already know what is good, yet they do other things instead out of sheer momentum of habit, or because they don't realize they had an option.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  >Often the question that should be asked is "why aren't you doing the things you know you should do?" Why is there a "should"? Is there a unique and universal way to determine what someone should do? Given the same situation two different people can act in two different ways. Is there a rule implying that one is right and the other is wrong?
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    By this I mean acting according to your own judgement. It's not an objective should, but a subjective one. Moral incontinence is a problem most people will struggle a lot more with than convoluted scenarios involving trolleys.
  - solveit 5y ago
    Nothing of the sort is implied. Everyone can have their own should (or not, as the case may be). But if you know you should do something, presumably you're past such useless philosophising. I know I should be nicer to the people I love, and > Why is there a "should"? Is there a unique and universal way to determine what someone should do? Given the same situation two different people can act in two different ways. Is there a rule implying that one is right and the other is wrong? strikes me as a rather obtuse response to that.
dsign 5y ago
> Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? I'm stealing this.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  This is basically Aristotle 101. If you like this sentiment, grandpa A should be on your reading list. Not that he’s objectively correct, but Nichomachean Ethics is the foundation on top of which the European ideas of “good” and “evil” are built.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  Good artists copy, great artists may steal; but they also happen to have excellent judgement in what to steal.
bluetomcat 5y ago
Let me give you a concrete perspective on living in post-communist Bulgaria, which is a rather cynical, nihilistic and fatalistic society, at least by Western standards. There is no meaningful political debate about future policies, what we have instead is name-calling between politicians using a pre-defined set of labels ("anti-communist", "communoid", "Soros-funded foreign agent with a neoliberal agenda", "rusophobe", "rusophile"). It's an inherently fruitless construct which fortifies itself as time passes. The wider population believes in "conventional wisdom" and also recognises these labels. For the anti-communist camp, all of the evil in this country was conceived by a few state security officers during the early 1990s, who were directing a puppet show in front of the population. For the pejoratively called "communoid" camp, all of the evil was caused by the new "democrats" who sold profitable state enterprises for pennies to questionable individuals. It's a self-inflicted reality which persists much longer than is needed. The state security officers are now mostly dead or in their late 70s, those state enterprises are bankrupt from long ago, yet somehow it is still a relevant identification issue when it comes to your political beliefs.
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? you can be both but if you don't try to not be wrong, you'll never be good.
ejlo 5y ago
The ones who fight cynism are the most cynic.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  A true cynic wouldn't care to fight because they'd see the effort as hopeless...
  - e0a74c 5y ago
    Sounds more like a nihilist than a cynic to me
hoseja 5y ago
Good is an optimizing function for groups of cooperating people. Once the groups get so big they are taken over by psychopathic elites (this is mostly inevitable) is when the concept of good is ultimately detrimental. Sacrificing for your fellow man is only desirable when that man does not deliberately position himself to consistently profit from such sacrifices.
mda 5y ago
I am not sure throwing slogans really help making a coherent argument. Cynicism is the only evil in the world? I am cynically rolling my eyes on this one.
wayoutthere 5y ago
> The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. > The ones who fight injustice are the most cruel. > The ones who fight intolerance are least tolerant. I have not found this to be the case; and this phrasing is needlessly reductive. See also the paradox of tolerance. And “tolerance” as a bar is pretty damn low; it’s not something you should be patting yourself on the back for. It’s just showing humanity to those around you. Part of the problem is that we live in a world where “lie, cheat, steal” legitimately does make your material conditions better most of the time. So we’re all typically equal parts “good” and “bad”, and we even have different definitions (e.g. an evangelical Christian may legitimately feel like they’re doing good by shaming gay people). Cynicism is a recognition that not everyone shares your values, and some in fact have values that directly conflict with yours. It’s often useful, and I disagree with the original article.
e0a74c 5y ago
> Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? "That's just, like, your opinion, man" In all seriousness, though, no one has your moral obligations. They're yours and yours alone by definition (unless you believe in gods, fairy tales and whatnot).
Layke1123 5y ago
The ones who fight corruption are the ones who make a difference in the world. THAT is cynical.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
> the ones who fight x are the most x Are we sure about this one? Do we have evidence that safe spaces in college universities are worse than South Africa’s apartheid regime or the systemic genocide of natives in Canada/America? Do we have evidence that the southern poverty law center is performing hate crimes worse than the kkk?
lexapro 5y ago
>The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. >The ones who fight injustice are the most cruel. >The ones who fight intolerance are least tolerant. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. This is what this sounds like to me.
igorkraw 5y ago
This reads somewhere between propaganda and faux-intellectual gibberish to me, what are you actually trying to say?

by jd115 5y ago

The_Colonel 5y ago

> The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. I can understand the other points, but not this one. Can you expand on that?

iamacyborg 5y ago
It's a nice catchy slogan that falls apart at the tiniest scrutiny.
- toyg 5y ago
  Worse, it's a political agenda camouflaged as philosophical stance.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    That's the OP's original point: people who spend their entire lives "fighting corruption" get blinded by their righteousness and zealotry and in effect become corrupt themselves.
    - the_af 5y ago
      How? Becoming corrupt is not the same as getting blinded by zealotry (you can be an honest, true believing, incorruptible zealot). Seems like lazy wordplay to me... or something out of Star Wars, like falling to the Dark Side.
  - toolz 5y ago
    That's not my impression, my impression is that it's laziness channeled into virtue signaling to show all the other lazy people out there that if they are fed up with having to struggle for results then instead they can redefine the struggle as evil and their ideal circumstance of doing nothing and being praised for it may become a reality. Of course this mindset can only ever attract other lazy people and even then only from a distance. Even lazy people desire relationships with people putting in the effort.

marginalia_nu 5y ago

I don't think it's this black and white. 'Candide' makes a good argument against the other side of the coin, toxic optimism or whatever you want to call it. Horrible things absolutely do happen and ignoring this doesn't make things better. Maybe the problem is an inappropriate amount of faith. Not in the religious sense of the word, but as in confidence in external things. The optimists have far too much, the cynics have far too little. Maybe we should look to the mean. Having no faith at all offers up a breeding ground for corruption on both personal and institutional level. Having too much obscures it if it's already there. > Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? Often the question that should be asked is "why aren't you doing the things you know you should do?" Most people already know what is good, yet they do other things instead out of sheer momentum of habit, or because they don't realize they had an option.

DeathArrow 5y ago
>Often the question that should be asked is "why aren't you doing the things you know you should do?" Why is there a "should"? Is there a unique and universal way to determine what someone should do? Given the same situation two different people can act in two different ways. Is there a rule implying that one is right and the other is wrong?
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  By this I mean acting according to your own judgement. It's not an objective should, but a subjective one. Moral incontinence is a problem most people will struggle a lot more with than convoluted scenarios involving trolleys.
- solveit 5y ago
  Nothing of the sort is implied. Everyone can have their own should (or not, as the case may be). But if you know you should do something, presumably you're past such useless philosophising. I know I should be nicer to the people I love, and > Why is there a "should"? Is there a unique and universal way to determine what someone should do? Given the same situation two different people can act in two different ways. Is there a rule implying that one is right and the other is wrong? strikes me as a rather obtuse response to that.

dsign 5y ago

> Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? I'm stealing this.

wayoutthere 5y ago
This is basically Aristotle 101. If you like this sentiment, grandpa A should be on your reading list. Not that he’s objectively correct, but Nichomachean Ethics is the foundation on top of which the European ideas of “good” and “evil” are built.
KarlKemp 5y ago
Good artists copy, great artists may steal; but they also happen to have excellent judgement in what to steal.

bluetomcat 5y ago

Let me give you a concrete perspective on living in post-communist Bulgaria, which is a rather cynical, nihilistic and fatalistic society, at least by Western standards. There is no meaningful political debate about future policies, what we have instead is name-calling between politicians using a pre-defined set of labels ("anti-communist", "communoid", "Soros-funded foreign agent with a neoliberal agenda", "rusophobe", "rusophile"). It's an inherently fruitless construct which fortifies itself as time passes. The wider population believes in "conventional wisdom" and also recognises these labels. For the anti-communist camp, all of the evil in this country was conceived by a few state security officers during the early 1990s, who were directing a puppet show in front of the population. For the pejoratively called "communoid" camp, all of the evil was caused by the new "democrats" who sold profitable state enterprises for pennies to questionable individuals. It's a self-inflicted reality which persists much longer than is needed. The state security officers are now mostly dead or in their late 70s, those state enterprises are bankrupt from long ago, yet somehow it is still a relevant identification issue when it comes to your political beliefs.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago

> Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? you can be both but if you don't try to not be wrong, you'll never be good.

ejlo 5y ago

The ones who fight cynism are the most cynic.

JohnWhigham 5y ago
A true cynic wouldn't care to fight because they'd see the effort as hopeless...
- e0a74c 5y ago
  Sounds more like a nihilist than a cynic to me

hoseja 5y ago

Good is an optimizing function for groups of cooperating people. Once the groups get so big they are taken over by psychopathic elites (this is mostly inevitable) is when the concept of good is ultimately detrimental. Sacrificing for your fellow man is only desirable when that man does not deliberately position himself to consistently profit from such sacrifices.

mda 5y ago

I am not sure throwing slogans really help making a coherent argument. Cynicism is the only evil in the world? I am cynically rolling my eyes on this one.

wayoutthere 5y ago

> The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. > The ones who fight injustice are the most cruel. > The ones who fight intolerance are least tolerant. I have not found this to be the case; and this phrasing is needlessly reductive. See also the paradox of tolerance. And “tolerance” as a bar is pretty damn low; it’s not something you should be patting yourself on the back for. It’s just showing humanity to those around you. Part of the problem is that we live in a world where “lie, cheat, steal” legitimately does make your material conditions better most of the time. So we’re all typically equal parts “good” and “bad”, and we even have different definitions (e.g. an evangelical Christian may legitimately feel like they’re doing good by shaming gay people). Cynicism is a recognition that not everyone shares your values, and some in fact have values that directly conflict with yours. It’s often useful, and I disagree with the original article.

e0a74c 5y ago

> Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? "That's just, like, your opinion, man" In all seriousness, though, no one has your moral obligations. They're yours and yours alone by definition (unless you believe in gods, fairy tales and whatnot).

Layke1123 5y ago

The ones who fight corruption are the ones who make a difference in the world. THAT is cynical.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

> the ones who fight x are the most x Are we sure about this one? Do we have evidence that safe spaces in college universities are worse than South Africa’s apartheid regime or the systemic genocide of natives in Canada/America? Do we have evidence that the southern poverty law center is performing hate crimes worse than the kkk?

lexapro 5y ago

>The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. >The ones who fight injustice are the most cruel. >The ones who fight intolerance are least tolerant. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. This is what this sounds like to me.

igorkraw 5y ago

This reads somewhere between propaganda and faux-intellectual gibberish to me, what are you actually trying to say?