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Comment by samsquire | Hacker News Reader

The world is filled with much good, but if you're looking at what is false, not good or rejecting what is good you shall find it hard to notice.

If you look for the good and aim toward it then you get more of it.

If you aim to look for bad and search for it you shall get more of it.

Everyone eventually reaps what they sow. And you can judge a tree by its fruit.

Rather than focus on the badness of the bad situation or stare into the abyss. Pick good responses that are independent of bad.

In other words, two wrongs don't mean right.

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Nah. I know some real garbage people who seem to be immune to Karma. No bad ever comes their way.

And some wonderful people who seem to attract all the Karma which slid right off the garbage people.

The world is unfair, and the universe doesn't care. Morality is emergent from consciousness; in a time before our big thinky brains had evolved, there was no such thing as bad and good.

Evidence: How many, many animals live and thrive is deeply immoral by human standards. With few exceptions, pick just about any horror movie and I can show you an animal who exhibits those behaviors in its normal life.

> Evidence: How many, many animals live and thrive is deeply immoral by human standards.

The fact that non-human animals live an existence of violent survival does not seem to be prima facie evidence for the nonexistence or incoherence of human morality.

Human beings are rational animals. The term rational here is being used in a specific and technical sense. Non-human animals are subject to the laws of nature in a manner that acts more directly on their passions. Human beings are also subject to the laws of nature, but the forces of nature are mediated by our rationality.

Animal Act: (1) Offspring are hungry (2) brings food to offspring

Human Act: (1) Offspring are hungry (2) Reflects and Decides to provide food (3) brings food to offspring

An act is deemed immoral if it is a misuse of the rational faculty for ends that are not in conformity with the laws of nature.

Human Act (immoral): (1) Offspring are hungry (2) Reflects and Decides not to provide food for selfish reasons (3) offspring go hungry

Animals suffer but they are not moral agents like human beings since there is no mediating rationality that can be misused for ends that are not in conformity with nature's laws. The phrase Nature's Laws is being used broadly to include physical, biological or evolved social laws intertwined with the essential characteristics of the species.

> The fact that non-human animals live an existence of violent survival does not seem to be prima facie evidence for the nonexistence or incoherence of human morality.

You missed the point. Morality is a human invention, much like computers are (albeit philosophical, not physical in nature).

Like computers, it didn't exist before consciousness evolved.

Talking about morality as a universal truth, and there being some invisible scales of justice which will eventually even out is thusly irrational.

Apologies if I'm missing the main point. I certainly agree that consciousness + rational choosing must be a prerequisite for moral acts.

But I wouldn't concede that morality is a human invention like the computer. That would imply that it's accidental and not grounded in anything fundamental to our species or nature's laws.

Do you believe that choosing to feed your kids, or choosing to not kill someone are simply created constructs like the computer or the airplane?

Also, I think these two statements can be true at the same time: (1) The Moral Law is real and exists outside of our subjective experience and historical cultural evolution and (2) concepts like Karma are without evidence.

> Do you believe that choosing to feed your kids, or choosing to not kill someone are simply created constructs like the computer or the airplane?

The actions exist obviously.

My point is that in the absence of consciousness there is no positive or negative value ascribed to them.

Let's take the example of feeding your children, but use the opposite extreme. What you see plenty of in nature is a mother eating her children. Sometimes for no reason at all (Octopus, Guppies, rodents).

Are there certain species that are fundamentally immoral? Maybe so, from our perspective. But without our perspective no value is assigned. It is just another thing animals do without any moral weight.

I don't think the concept is morality is relevant in those extreme cases. It looks like we are more or less saying the same thing.

I am not sure we're saying the same thing. Extreme cases are how we test to see if our worldview holds up. But anyways, Happy Holidays!

While the universe might not care, people can. Will you?

In many situations you have the choice to help or to be the one that choses selfishness. To bridge a divide or not.

I can, and do, and people should. You have missed the point of my post if you're replying like this.

Karma is just confirmation bias

Karma is a psyop perpetuated by people with power to keep that masses passive, because they think the universe will do the job of dealing out justice for them.

Ditto belief in a god that judges and punishes the wicked in the afterlife.

Yes the majority of animals die a violent death. If they manage to survive long enough, they get too old to escape a predator.

> With few exceptions, pick just about any horror movie and I can show you an animal who exhibits those behaviors in its normal life.

But in the end, the animals that thrive end up being the ones that cooperate both within their species and with other species. From humans to symbiotic bacteria and jellyfish...

I agree with karma and deservedness not being aligned but I am pretty sure an animal doing what it is doing is limited by the need to hunt and feed rather than to subjugate and be sadistic?

Clearly you do not own cats.

Are you talking those cute furry four legged sadistic serial killers?

Hot damn I don't. I always thought I'd be a cat person but sounds like I need to revisit my choices!

I have seen California sea lions killing ocean sunfish (mola molas) in a way that appears to be sadistic, or at least just for sport. The sea lions bite the fishes' fins off without eating them, then play with the crippled bodies like living frisbees. After a while the sea lions get bored and let the fish sink to the seafloor where they're eaten alive by crabs.

Nature, red in tooth and claw.

Is that a form of sadism? Perhaps the sea lion is unable to conceive of the suffering of the fish. To the sea lion, the fish is merely an object. Playing with the fish is no different than playing with a rock to the sea lion.

Does that matter for the fish?

No, but that's not the question being discussed.

Sounds very similar to a psychopath incapable of empathy.

Lack of empathy is the norm in nature, not the exception. A species of predator that could empathize with its prey would starve to death.

Yeah, my point was that the GP probably wouldn't view a psychopath as innocent as a sea lion, hence there would seem to be a double standard.

Not for more intelligent animals. Consider the footage of killer whales "playing with their food" from Blue Planet.

This post seems almost comically like a collection of self-help slogans, and not far off from blaming people who are in a dark place for getting themselves there. (I also don't understand how "two wrongs don't mean right" connects to the rest of it. Is the idea that one is doing wrong by thinking bad things of wrong that has already been done?)

Also, if this is meant as a corrective to the article (as suggested by "Rather than focus on the badness of the bad situation or stare into the abyss. Pick good responses that are independent of bad"), then it seems that it is a response to the title, not the content. The very beginning of the article emphasises that the point is not to dwell on the bad in order to foster despair, but rather to acknowledge the existence of the bad in order to be able to move from it towards a remedy. If you can't even acknowledge that a bad situation exists, then you can't make a good response to it.

Thank you for your reply.

What I was trying to put across was that we get the results what we cause. I always bear the outcome of what I did. Can you think of an escape from the effects of what we do? (I deliberately ignore the other side of this, I'm not talking about effects we did not cause, such as trouble others cause for others)

If you pick good, right, proper, meant to be, what should be, what is righteous, what is true, honest, genuine, with integrity actions, then you ought to bear fruit that is caused by that. I think that this produces better outcomes than picking bad, not good, wrong, untrue, false, not honest, not genuine actions/thoughts/speech.

In hindsight we can determine what actions were not right, since they didn't produce the right, good results.

So if we seek after good, shouldn't we get the effects of good back because we surround ourselves with it?

This is separate independent reasoning from when bad things befall people who do all things right. I haven't thought much about that.

Do we bear the effects of what other's cause?

The two wrongs don't create a right refers to the idea of avoid basing my reasoning on doing something on something bad and calling it good. I should keep my reasoning of my reaction to bad things purely based on goodness and not based on the bad thing itself. I never want to say I did something purely due to a bad thing. I think you could call it motivation. I want to keep good and bad independent and not merge them into one. Can something bad cause something good in other words? Or did the good that it is a reaction to cause itself?

>In hindsight we can determine what actions were not right, since they didn't produce the right, good results.

Disagree, to the extent that you need to discount results against available information, processing ability, and alternatives at the time of the decision. Also, not all good or bad decisions have similar outcomes, the world is not just. Personally, I've found more use out of refining my decision process and what goes into it than focusing on results. Not to say results aren't a useful signal, but they're hardly the only or even the most important signal.

I agree with you that the EV of trying to be "good" generally outweighs the other path. However, not getting discouraged by the marketing of "bad with no consequences" is difficult in today's world!

The article argues for not ignoring the parts of reality you’re uncomfortable with. Good or bad is neither here nor there. The point is to not be constrained by having a skewed view of reality or by avoidant behavior.

> Thank you for your reply.

I still disagree with much of what you said, also in your follow-up, but I appreciate your replying so civilly to what was a fairly caustic post on my part. Thank you for exemplifying the best of HN discourse!

“If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that is all you will ever see.”

- Iroh

I think the footnote from the article covers your point better?:

  [1] This phrase originates from a quote by Nietzche:
        He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
  I’m probably not using “stare into the abyss” in the exact same sense Nietzche intended, since I wouldn’t really describe what I’m talking about as “fighting with a monster” or like it has the potential to turn you into a monster. [snip]

Quality of fruit is the product of soil and climactic conditions, not the tree itself.

Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are notable examples of people who have not reaped what they sowed.

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