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CAdance offends me when she says Love finds a place in every heart
Wednesday, 30-Jul-14 19:43:32 UTC from web-
@mushi You could adopt my viewpoint of *romantic love being a pointless and impractical concoction of the human mind with no credibility or foundation behind it* and then you'd be able to dismiss it as nonsense.
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@nahff !ponyphilosophy #love I am interested in this. Does being a concoction of the human mind make romantic love foundationless or pointless? If something can be chalked up as merely psychological or sociological, who is it really nonsense to, since it implicitly does matter to the people who experience it?
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@loveydoe While it may matter to the people who experience it, I believe they are mistaken about what they are actually experiencing. Again, it is a concept concocted by the human mind; a deception, if you will, to quell some other problem, typically loneliness or a need for self-assurance. While they may believe they are experiencing love, they are actually fooling themselves by trying to make themselves happier. While this in itself may not seem pointless, let me remind you it is a substitution for happiness put in place by a lack thereof; romantics would be better off solving their own problems and gaining happiness through themselves instead of relying on others and deception to gain it.
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@nahff What does one do to gain true happiness, then? If romance makes one happy, why is it only a crude substitution for true happiness? Why is joy from love inferior to other kinds of joy, or, why is it a self-deception, when other kinds of joy aren't?
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@loveydoe It's not so much a matter of happiness as it is a matter of impracticality at that point. *I'm going to use homosexuality as an example to elaborate an important concept to understand for this discussion, I'll return to your question momentarily. From a practical standpoint I don't support homosexual couples. Socially I have no problem with them, but practically, I cannot support them because biologically they cannot accomplish the single most important goal of mating; reproduction. Being in a homosexual relationship, biologically speaking, wastes two people worth of genes to continue the human race. My point is, the practical point of relationships is to reproduce.* Now, back to your question. Romantic love, while it might initially appear to stimulate a relationship and advance 2 people towards this goal, ultimately distracts from reproduction in the long run, because it blinds either or both of the people to other reproductive opportunities. (Continued next post for space)
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@nahff Either or both people get it in their heads the other person is a "lifelong" partner, when actually practically and biology would prefer to have both people find other people to reproduce with, to accomplish more reproduction and increase to gene pool (the obvious exception being people with genetic disabilities). Of course, behavior of this nature is typically unacceptable socially and therefor has another barrier, but that's a different discussion. My ultimate point here is, the concept/illusion of romantic love is an impractical basis for a relationship because it encourages relationships to be less productive than they could be.
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@nahff Because it is ultimately less vital to the survival of any given race for its members to be happy than it is for them to reproduce, happiness should be sought elsewhere while the primary focus of relationships should be reproduction.
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@nahff @nahff Why would it be best for people to restrict themselves to having sex just to produce babies? If a species can actually have preferences of its own, slowing down the birth rate through romance may be an excellent way to stymie overpopulation, giving the living folk more resources, and hopefully giving them happier lives. Because living folk are the ones who are really experiencing the universe, I could argue that their wellbeing and pleasure is more important than maximizing the birth rate, which seem like an ideal thing, but all of it, including romance, birth, the rise of species, and joy, seems to occur as a function of the universe's rules. Does it seem that way to you?
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@nahff are you a robot
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@rarity Aw, that is not a nice thing to say. We all have different ways of seeing things.
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@nahff Just to lighten the mood: http://xkcd.com/386/
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@loveydoe how are you a fan of MLP but then claim to not see the value of relationships
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@loveydoe The population, should it need reduction, should do so through natural selection (the mere inclusion of that phrase will draw anti-Darwinists in hordes, so prepare your fortifications) so as to further strengthen the race as opposed to slowing down the birth rate; the former method arguably strengthens the race while the latter method typically keeps it at relatively the same level. Your proposed argument of the importance of pleasure isn't incorrect, however I believe pleasure should be viewed as more of a reward than a necessity; as per being the most dominant race on our planet with advanced cognitive capabilities, we've advanced our society to the point of where we can allow ourselves some pleasure. While this is most certainly not a bad thing, we shouldn't let it distract us from advancing our race further.
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@loveydoe Here's a simple way of putting things: we've gotta survive before we can thrive, but just because we're thriving does not mean we should stop surviving. I believe romantic love ultimately inhibits the surviving part more than it should to be considered practical.
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@nahff personally I believe that sexual pleasure exists from an evolutionary perspective to encourage reproducing but I don't have any science to back that up. So pleasure is VERY important in the argument you're making
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@rarity Completely true; however, tying sexual pleasure in with romantic love is fundamentally incorrect; they are not synonymous, nor really related. The former is a natural feature of the human body that serves as encouragement for reproduction, while the latter is a concoction of the human mind that in the most practical scenario ultimately inhibits it.
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@nahff I'd argue that anything that discourages reproduction is a good thing right now, due to how overpopulated the world is.
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@nahff I will not be able to break you from the assumptions your argument rests on. Mind if we stop here?
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@loveydoe Please. I have spent like an hour typing all this crap that I barely even conform to. While I honestly don't believe in romantic love, I honestly couldn't tell you why and everything I've typed is actually me taking this opportunity to spitball to try and figure it out. I actually have no reason to believe my side of the argument is any more valid than yours. So have a filly Luna. http://rainbowdash.net/url/771689
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@nahff One must have already decided that surviving is the most practical, to defend it with such vigor. :-) It was good chatting.
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@rarity I think it's more a matter of poor distribution. That said, we really could stand to scale back on the exponential reproduction. Go go Gadget birth control!
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@scribus I absolutely agree with the distribution part. Japan needs more babies, so much of the world needs less
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@scribus I'm gonna design a superhero condom that- oh wait. That's already a thing.
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@loveydoe Well, it's much more complicated than that, and requires subscription to multiverse theory and understanding of various existential crises to figure out my viewpoint. It actually boils down to *pleasure & entertainment > all else* however.
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@nahff But I appreciate the sentiment and return the compliment. :3 http://rainbowdash.net/url/771691
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