| Passing Judgement Visualised by archtomato On Saturday, October 27, 2012 at 16:06 Hrs | Minimum B.S. Ok ok, I see a lot of judging going around lately. And I notice that people often invent their own standards of right and wrong just before passing sentence. What this world needs is some sort of universal standard so we’d always know for sure who is good and who is bad. The Ten Commandments was a start. That list covers some of the basics. But it’s a bit dated, and it doesn’t cover the important questions of our day, such as who is arrogant, who doesn’t work hard enough, who should come out of the closet, who is a hypocrite, who is an Internet troll, and so on. Society is inventing new ways of being bad more quickly than we can evolve the rules to cover the new situations. We need some sort of standard that can keep up. I’m unqualified for the task of creating this new standard of good and bad because I believe free will is an illusion. By my view, we’re born, our molecules bump around then we die. No one is good or bad if we’re all just bumping around according to physical laws. Any standard for good and bad behavior that I suggest would be inconsistent with my own point of view. But for some reason I’m going to suggest just such a standard anyway. Apparently I can’t help myself. And my standard goes like this: You’re a good person if you work hard at something that is useful to society and you try to avoid hurting other people when it’s practical. I’m big on overlooking victimless crime. I’d go further and suggest that anyone who is putting effort into punishing people who commit victimless crimes is bad. One big problem with my standard is that we live in a world with limited resources. The simple act of getting a job creates a victim if you consider the next best applicant who lost out. If I stand in line to buy something, I make the line longer for the people behind me. Most of what we do has some sort of impact on others. But let’s agree that you can display a certain degree of self-interest and still be a good person. What’s your own definition of good and bad? Cheers.
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