So, I have next to no academic knowledge. I have literally not read or perhaps even picked up any book since eighth grade, which is where my formal education ended, and I turn 20 this year, but I am sitting on some theories pertaining to my understanding of rationality, and procrastinating about expressing them has gotten me here. I'd like to just propose my theory on why censorship is wrong, here. Please tell me whether or not you agree or disagree, and feel free to express anything else you feel you would like to in this thread. I miss bona fide argument, but this community seems way less hostile than the one community I was involved in elsewhere....
Also, I feel I should affirm again that my academic knowledge is almost entirely just not there... I know the LessWrong community has a ton of resources they turn to and indulge in, which is more or less a bible of rationality by which you all abide, but I have read or heard of none of it. I don't mean to offend you with my willful ignorance. Sorry. Also, sorry for possibly incorporating similes and stuff into my expression... I know many out there are on the autistic spectrum and can't comprehend it so I'll try to stop doing that unless I'm making a point.
Okay, so, since the following has been bothering me a lot since I joined this site yesterday and even made me think against titling this what I want, consider the written and spoken word. Humans literally decided as a species to sequence scribbles and mouth noises in an entirely arbitrary way, ascribe emotion to their arbitrary scribbles and mouth noises, and then claim, as a species, that very specific arbitrary scribbles and mouth noises are inherent evil and not to be expressed by any human. Isn't that fucking retarded?
I know what you may be thinking. You might be thinking, "wow, this hoofwall character just fucking wrote a fucking arbitrary scribble that my species has arbitrarily claimed to be inherent evil without first formally affirming, absolutely, that the arbitrary scribble he uttered could never be inherent evil and that writing it could never in itself do any harm. This dude obviously has no interest in successfully defending himself in argument". But fuck that. This is not the same as murdering a human and trying to conceive an excuse defending the act later. This is not the same as effecting the world in any way that has been established to be detrimental and then trying to defend the act later. This is literally sequencing the very letters of the very language the human has decided they are okay with and will use to express themselves in such a way that it reminds the indoctrinated and conditioned human of emotion they irrationally ascribe to the sequence of letters I wrote. This is possibly the purest argument conceivable for demonstrating superfluity in the human world, and the human psyche. There could never be an inherent correlation to one's emotionality and an arbitrary sequence of mouth noises or scribbles or whatever have you that exist entirely independent of the human. If one were to erase an arbitrary scribble that the human irrationally ascribes emotion to, the human will still have the capacity to feel the emotion the arbitrary scribble roused within them. The scribble is not literally the embodiment of emotionality. This is why censorship is retarded.
Mind you, I do not discriminate against literal retards, or blacks, or gays, or anything. I do, however, incorporate the words "retard", "nigger", and "faggot" into my vocabulary literally exclusively because it triggers humans and demonstrates the fact that the validity of one's argument and one's ability to defend themselves in argument does not matter to the human. I have at times proposed my entire argument, actually going so far to quantify the breadth of this universe as I perceive it, the human existence, emotionality, and right and wrong before even uttering a fuckdamn swear, but it didn't matter. Humans think plugging their ears and chanting a mantra of "lalala" somehow gives themselves a valid argument for their bullshit, but whatever. Affirming how irrational the human is is a waste of time. There are other forms of censorship I shout address, as well, but I suppose not before proposing what I perceive the breadth of everything less fundamental than the human to be.
It's probably very easy to deduce the following, but nothing can be proven to exist. Also, please do bear with my what are probably argument by assertion fallacies at the moment... I plan on defending myself before this post ends.
Any opinion any human conceives is just a consequence of their own perception, the likes of which appears to be a consequence of their physical form, the likes of which is a consequence of properties in this universe as we perceive it. We cannot prove our universe's existence beyond what we have access to in our universe as we perceive it, therefore we cannot prove that we exist. We can't prove that our understanding of existence is true existence; we can only prove, within our universe, that certain things appear to be in concurrence with the laws of this universe as we perceive it. We can propose for example that an apple we can see occupies space in this universe, but we can't prove that our universe actually exists beyond our understanding of what existence is. We can't go more fundamental than what composes our universe... We can't go up if we are mutually exclusive with the very idea of "up", or are an inferior consequence of "up" which is superior to us.
I really don't remember what else I would say after this but, I guess, without divulging how much I obsess about breaking emotionality into a science, I believe nudity can't be inherent evil either because it is literally the cause of us, the human, and we are necessary to be able to perceive good and evil in the first place. If humans were not extant to dominate the world and force it to tend to the end they wanted it to anything living would just live, breed, and die, and nothing would be inherently "good" or "evil". It would just be. Until something evolved if it would to gain the capacity to force distinctions between "good" and "evil" there would be no such constructs. We have no reason to believe there would be. I don't know how I can affirm that further. If nudity- and exclusively human nudity, mind you- were to be considered inherent evil that would mean that the human is inherent evil, that everything the human perceives is is inherent evil and that the human's understanding of "rationality" is just a poor, grossly-misled attempt at coping with the evil properties that they retain and is inherently worthless. Which I actually believe, but an opinion that contrary is literally satanism and fuck me if I think I'm going to be expounding all of that here. But fundamentally, human nudity cannot be inherent evil if the human's opinions are to be considered worth anything at all, and if you want to go less fundamental than that and approach it from a "but nudity makes me feel bad" standpoint, you can simply warp your perception of the world to force seeing or otherwise being reminded of things to be correlated to certain emotion within you. I'm autistic it seems so I obsess about breaking emotionality down to a science every day but this isn't the post to be talking about shit like that. In any case, you can't prove that the act of you seeing another human naked is literal evil, so fuck you and your worthless opinions.
Yeah... I don't know what else I could say here, or if censorship exists in forms other than preventing humans from being exposed to human nudity, or human-conceived words. I should probably assert as well that I believe the human's thinking that the inherent evil of human nudity somehow becomes okay to see when a human reaches the age of 18, or 21, or 16, or 12 depending on which subset of human you ask is retarded. Also, by "retarded" I do not literally mean "retarded". I use the word as a trigger word that's meant to embody and convey bad emotion the human decides they want to feel when they're exposed to it. This entire post is dripping with the grossest misanthropy but I'm interested in seeing what the responses to this are... By the way, if you just downvote me without expressing to me what you think I'm doing wrong, as far as I can tell you are just satisfied with vaguely masturbating your dissenting opinion you care not for even defining in my direction, so, whatever makes you sleep at night, if you do that... but you're wrong though, and I would argue that to the death.
I wish I had seen this sooner. I wish I had had the chance to share some of my thoughts with Hoofwall before ze was banned. If you come back to reading this page, Hoofwall, I'd like you to know this: I've been where you are, and I'd like to show you a way out.
I know how the world of human interaction feels mysterious. It follows hundreds of unwritten rules that were invented before we were born, and we are expected to already know them, or to deduce them from just being around people. I know, it makes no sense.
We are confused; we are scared. We enter human society in a state of cluelessness as to what it is they want and how we can speak of what we want and how we will agree on anything and how we will help one another and how we will keep from hurting one another and it suddenly seems like it's forbidden to even speak of these fears out loud. We are supposed to have already figured it out.
So at first we approach cautiously, trying very hard to make as few mistakes as possible, and retreating in panic every time we step on the wrong place and activate the invisible laser alarm. Humans are so strange, and they don't want to make the effort to make themselves understood. They expect us to already know.
So after a while we start deducing our own rules, and making simplifications that work for us. At last there's some sense of structure, some explicit path for dealing with humans. And it feels like it works, but we can never be completely sure. Humans react in unpredictable ways, and we start fearing we missed some vital detail in the rules we invented to help ourselves navigate reality. Our rules conflict with the more ancient, more widespread, more complicated social rules which existed before us and envelop us. Some actions, gestures and words have a specific history; even if we were not taught them, we're still expected to already know. Yes, I know, humans make no sense.
And we are powerless against their rules. Humans seem to live happily with those rules; we need to adapt. Even if the rules we invented for ourselves seem to make more sense, it would be too much effort for all of humanity to unlearn and relearn. We need to adapt. We need to consider what already is. We need to deal with humans in their terms, because they're too lazy to accept any others. Even if those rules are also invented, even if no word has any "inherent" power in itself, the force of tradition is still strong, and it's easier for everyone to behave as if it were universal. I know, humans are stupid. But they don't take well to be told that. It has cost thousands of years to arrive at the rules humans have now, and when we try to show them why those rules make no sense, we're interpreted as if we were implying that all those thousands of years were a waste of effort. Humans look at us in disbelief, and ask, "How do you presume to know any better?" I know, humans are absurd.
But still, many of them seem happy. They seem to function perfectly fine with their complicated, invisible rules. Maybe it would be worth to know more about those rules, and why they exist in the form they have, and how humans benefit from them? It may be our best strategy; humans expect we address them in their language. Trying to use their language in our own private way will cause many misunderstandings. They don't know all the effort we have had to make to try to learn about their world; they will never know how much effort we make everyday to keep our sanity and still function; they don't see what we see in the words. Speaking to them in the same way we speak inside our minds will fail to show them what we see, because they don't live inside our heads. To make ourselves understood, we have to use words in a way humans are familiar with, and be mindful of the socially accepted ways of using words. Otherwise we'll all be speaking different languages. Even if we truly mean no offense, humans have already learned that some ways of speaking are used when offense is intended.
It's inevitable. Those rules existed before us. Humans are weird, and noisy, and erratic, and inconsistent. And more importantly, humans are in power. They get to decide how society works. Some of them have been trained to be sensitive to those of us with less than typical minds, and they try to do their best, but they don't live inside our heads and don't know what it's like to be always puzzled by everything. We need to adapt. We need to refrain from letting our anger take control. We need to be very patient with humans and remember that some of them may even be just as surprised as we are, and may get to see our point, if we really try to explain it.
Thanks for writing this. It probably wouldn't have done any good, but... thanks.