The Argument Against Arguments

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The Argument Against Arguments

fschmidt
Administrator
Many excellent arguments about religion and politics were made during the Reformation and the Enlightenment.  What made these arguments possible was the 1000 years of harsh natural selection in medieval Europe which gradually killed off the lower end of society through starvation, disease, and capital punishment.  This eugenic force lifted intelligence to the point that a significant percentage of the population could actually understand coherent arguments.  And this is what made good arguments worth writing.

Sadly this is no longer the situation.  Modern culture is both dysgenic and anti-intellectual.  It makes people stupid both through genetic decline and through an education system designed to dumb down the population.  The result is that presenting a good argument to the general population makes as much sense as presenting it to farm animals.  And this is my argument against arguments, at least arguments aimed at a general audience.

What are the practical implications of this?  Don't argue politics or religion with the general population because they will be too stupid to understand what you are saying.  Don't attempt to reform a religion, Christianity and Islam in particular.  The best you can do is to associate with some religion that isn't too bad and try to prevent it from decaying.  But if you try to improve it, you will just be met with hostility.

The only way to improve things is to raise intelligence.  There is simply no other way.  Once intelligence is raised, hopefully in a few centuries, then there will be opportunity to improve religion and politics.  But we won't be alive then.  So the only thing worthwhile for us to do is to work on some means of improving intelligence.  This is what my Arkian project is about.  So become Arkian or suggest an alternative approach to raising intelligence.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

OmegaKV
Can intelligent people really be reasoned with though? My uncle's wife was a member of Mensa, and has some kind of mental gift where she can remember every day of her life in great detail, and she is a staunch advocate for the Covid vaccine, and got very offended when I said I was not taking the vaccine. Also, she converted to Baha'i and got offended when I criticized the plans of the central authority, even though they were criticisms that should be obvious to anyone who is capable of reason. You may say this is specific to women but lots of men in my family are the same. In some ways I think your average blue collar automechanic or pizza shop owner is better able to reason than the "high IQ" crowd.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

fschmidt
Administrator
I think intelligence is necessary but not sufficient.  Down to earth work also helps.  America's founders were mostly farmers, but were intelligent.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

Virtus-Christi
In reply to this post by fschmidt
You talk of the reformation and the "enlightenment" as if they were good things, and talk about faith as if it's some self-help diet book that you can exchange for another as you see fit. There is only one Faith you should ever associate with, and that is the Orthodox Church. Truth by definition is exclusive, it's not something that you can decide for yourself and "customize" your own religion like some Rorschach test. Such an argument is inane and self-refuting, if that is what you mean.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

fschmidt
Administrator
This post was updated on .
I don't use your concept of truth, so this doesn't apply to me.

http://mikraite.arkian.net/Truth-and-Alternatives-tp1898.html
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

Virtus-Christi
Of course it applies to you, it applies to everyone. One cannot "think" or "believe" that water is not wet, it is wet. It is the very nature of water to be wet.

Therefore you cannot make up your own reality, and if you do it only applies to you and does not exist independently of you. The Truth of Orthodoxy exists independently of other, heretical doctrines. A jew can ramble about his people being the master race, but that is not objective. A muslim can say that allah commands him to murder Christians, but that is not objective. jews have turned their backs on Christ, they demanded that He be executed and that His blood be upon them and their children for all time, and therefore jews are expelled from any sort of special treatment until they repent and are baptised. muslims murder in the name of their false god, baal, and one does not attain salvation through committing such acts.

Christ is Objective, and His Church is Orthodoxy. All others who claim that their heresy is "more" truthful or "more" pure is incorrect. What is True is what is Good, and identifiable by all regardless of who they are. protestantism has irreversibly damaged the Body of Christ, sowing confusion and innumerable heresies in the West. It is to the point where if you are protestant, you can never be called a "Christian". You misappropriate the Faith to serve your own ends, and you must acknowledge that.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

TheBonesm
In reply to this post by fschmidt
You can't kill off the lower end of society. Something else will just take its place and become the new low end of society. Anyways history tells us the lower end of society existed during the reformation and enlightenment, directly contradicting your opinion: https://brewminate.com/the-growth-of-literacy-in-western-europe-from-1500-to-1800/ The link suggests that only the rich could understand coherent arguments as they were the ones able to afford education, and only when education was opened to lower classes was when lower classes were able to understand coherent arguments. Indeed this is natural selection by helping upper classes and hurting lower classes. But it is not natural selection by killing lower classes, no that is a different argument. If that were the case, then there would be no need to open education to lower classes like Maria Theresa did. By your assertion this lower class that Maria Theresa cared for is already dead due to natural selection in medieval Europe.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

fschmidt
Administrator
I said "a significant percentage of the population could actually understand coherent arguments", not all or even most.  My view is that the West peaked in the late 1700s.  The article that you linked to seems to support this.

Speaking of the inability of modern scum to handle arguments, I was banned from the "free speech" Discord server that you came from yesterday.  Typical of modern scum.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

Mazeformer
In reply to this post by fschmidt
 There's not proof that Modern culture is dysgenic or anti-intellectual, in fact it is highly intellectual that it is super annoying. "It makes people both stupid through genetic decline and through an education system designed to dumb down the population." So you mean not having debates would reverse this? Sharing of thought through discourse even with ad hominem still is more productive for discussions around the world. Dr. Lichtman Bon had said that with a discourse of both ad hominising and throughout a form of re-rehabilitation of thought through pressure, meaning to form a consensus that both idea and discourse are both helping each other evolve through series of debate, meaning debate of this theory in question, a very useful thing for a societal matter when applying Lichtman's idea of discourse and societal appliance. "What are the practical implications of this? Don't argue politics or religion with the general population because they will be too stupid to understand what you are saying" Very basic and untouched yet uninformed position to make for someone who doesn't make their own argument against argument's page coherent in the intellectual sense. I understand you probably had this shower thought at the age of 14 and it stuck with you because you wanted to be deep, but it doesn't make any sense. You have not provided any way to really improve or "raise intelligence" because in reality you are not intelligent enough to even make a generational genetic model to rehabilitate the causal principles for human intelligence for the ability of discourse. If we were to remove debate, argumentation or discourse, there will be no improvement of religion and such. The reality is that in debate, untouched ideologies fall apart. Causality form in principle and the quiddity of such can be applied towards communism, Islam or metaphysical deistic models of subjective illogicalism.

"Arkian Project"... Please... Delete this comment and don't ever make an argument for what you have said ever again.

"Best you can do is to associate with some religion that ins't too bad and try to prevent it from decaying", a very agnostic view shared by intellectually scared and puny people who couldn't provide an argument when questioned on their belief. I think the main reality for this post is that you are coping with the fact that you are unable to hold a intellectual debate for a long time, either because of your attention span or the fact that you are unequivocally just a redditor from r/deepthoughts but was banned from there because you brought this terrible thought model to here. I can debunk you again and again if you want to make "arguments" against what I have said.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

fschmidt
Administrator
Thank you for illustrating my point.  Debating what you wrote would truly be a waste of time.
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Re: The Argument Against Arguments

Mazeformer
Okay so in the terms of someone who is intellectually honest, you have conceded your point.