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I take issue with your first statement. Since life is suffering, the only sure way to end suffering is to end life. It follows that the goal of a truly benevolent Singularitarian organization should be to end all life in the universe. Let there be paperclips...
Calling someone a troll is meaningless; my posts consist of words and thoughts like any others. I still can't think of any rational reason why anyone would want to adopt this missionary mindset, but as a supreme individualist I'm not going to make an issue out of it as long as they stay out of my business.
Why are people here so uncomfortable with adversarial positions? Remember the wise words of the Sith Master Uthar Wynn:
"Without strife, your victory has no meaning. Without strife, you do not advance. Without strife, there is only stagnation."
What kind of bizarre religious thinking are you pushing here? I can't imagine why I would want to place others needs ahead of my desires. How is that rational? My advice is to maximize your positive impact on yourself and forget the world -- it will get along just fine without your help.
Not for rebellion's sake so much as for the sake of survival and power. As one who enjoys the benefits of modernity, I find it perplexing that modernity has become something that is, from any rational Darwinian perspective, a form of cultural suicide. What I'm looking for is a civilization whose prophets have more resemblance to Nietzsche than to Jesus or his secular disciple, Marx. I just don't see much future for non-Nietzschean modernity; it is a dying culture of empty cathedrals and hospital-tombs. If secular people continue to abort themselves into extinction, the future will belong to the fundamentalists. I see nothing particularly rational about this!
Your brother makes an excellent point, which is something I’ve always found amusing about atheists: despite their professed godlessness, their values have an uncanny resemblance to those of their Judeo-Christian heritage. It’s extremely difficult to find an atheist who takes his/her atheism seriously and is willing to really think “outside the book” about what kinds of morality are possible and act upon those ideas. Very few can resist the moral inertia of their culture; those who do are generally thought of as “evil”.
As an example, I have no trouble imagining a scientific civilization that is brutally unegalitarian, aggressive, atheistic, polygamous, Eugenicist, Darwinian, etc. in its values; in fact this would be my preference. As another example, I've always found the Star Trek Mirror Universe more appealing and more human than the normal one. But to espouse such ideas in a society dominated by Judeo-Christian values is to be labeled a “Nazi,” etc. We in the West are mentally colonized by these values from day one, even (or perhaps especially) here on this forum of rationalist moralists, and it is very difficult to find truly free thinkers who are willing to challenge the prevailing ethos.
As an avid irrationalist and Sith-in-training, I’ll take a stab at your question. Irrationality offers all the things rationality does not: creativity, a sense of “magic”, ecstasy, revelation, cosmic awe, passion and pure psychic power. Who has historically had more influence on human civilization, the irrationalist prophets or the rationalist philosophers? Until there is a rationalist whose power can compare to a Moses, Jesus, Mohammed or even Hitler, I will continue to be skeptical of rationalism. Faith in reason is simply another form of religion, which, taken to its logical conclusion, seems to result in human beings being replaced by machines. Rationalism is a kind of psychological Skynet which seeks to terminate all competing belief systems and reduce the landscape of ideas to logical paperclips. Singularitarians who fear a universe reduced to paperclips are really just projecting the barren state of their own inner landscapes onto the world!
Right, LW seeks to make rationality the absolute mental fuhrer by subjugating all other psychological imperatives to its dictates. I'm challenging this basic assumption, but since my challenge is non-rational, it seems we are at an impasse. I guess I'll see you on the battlefield :)
In the sense that rationality is just a technology; the will or "utility function" which directs it is the seat of power, and it is non-rational. This is why rational debates of the kind favored here tend to be shallow and rather impotent. The ability to manipulate the non-rational mind is where the real power lies, as anyone who works in advertising or political propaganda will tell you.
Eating dirt is more appealing to you than seeking personal power? Perhaps you need to rethink your worldview from the ground up...
"I have studied you, and found nothing but weakness." --Darth Sion
If your worldview is truly up for grabs, I suggest that you investigate the full range of worldviews on offer, including the “dark side” or “left-hand path” philosophies of the Sith, the Satanists, the Nietzscheans and other irrationalist paths of power. You can get a good historical overview of “dark side” belief systems by reading “Lords of the Left-Hand Path”, which should be quite a revelation to you as a life-long Christian. Whatever you do, do not limit yourself to the light side or right-hand paths of wretched moralism, collectivism, rationalism and legacy Judeo-Christianity, because I think you will find that in our dark universe, the Dark Side is stronger than the Light Side, irrationality is more powerful than rationality, the individual is more important than the collective, and "evil" always wins!
UPDATE: More downvotes please! I feed on negative points like Darth Nihilus feeds on the Force!