I was told to post this here. The original title was "The problem with peanut consumption and making life safer for those with severe allergies"

This is something that I have been thinking about for some time, and I believe an argument can be made that we should stop consuming peanuts, primarily to make the world a safer place for those with peanut allergies. This might sound kind of silly to some people, but hear me out.
The reality is that when it comes to allergies severe enough to be deadly, peanuts are pretty clearly the most notorious example. While not the most common allergy overall, peanut allergies tend to be the most deadly of the common allergies, and life is considerably more dangerous for those who are allergic to peanuts. The blame for this inherent danger can be laid squarely on the rest of us, and our usage of peanuts in various forms of food. The fact is, by using peanuts in cooking, confectionaries etc., we are significantly increasing the likelihood of someone with a severe peanut allergy being unwittingly exposed to peanuts, and thus we are contributing significantly to the number of allergic reactions caused by peanuts, and the number of deaths that result from said allergic reactions.
My position is this: consumption of peanuts is not important enough to justify the risk we are subjecting those who are allergic to peanuts to. That is to say, enough people are severely allergic to peanuts to where we SHOULD make the fairly modest sacrifice of simply not consuming peanuts in order to accommodate for these people. We can make the world a much safer place for those with peanut allergies by doing this pretty simple thing, and the "harm" caused by not consuming peanuts is in reality negligible.
This position does raise some questions however. Consider a person who decides to open a restaurant. With regards to serving food that contains peanuts, they have 2 options. Option 1 is to serve dishes that contain peanuts, and option 2 is to not serve dishes that contain peanuts. Taking option 1 may make some customers a bit happier, but it will also considerably increase the chance of any given non-peanut dish being contaminated with peanuts, and thus considerably increases the chance of someone with a severe peanut allergy dying as a result of an allergic reaction to a dish that was supposed to be peanut free. This is a reality that cannot be avoided. This raises the question: is it moral to have these potentially deadly legumes in the kitchen, knowing that this can easily lead to someone's death, and if someone DOES die from an allergic reaction to peanuts, does the restaurant owner's decision to serve dishes that contain peanuts make them morally responsible for that person's death? To be honest, I find it difficult to declare that the restaurant owner is morally responsible in this case. I think the blame rests more on the general public, who create a demand for food containing peanuts. Where there is a demand, there will be a supply. This is a simple fact. I think we as consumers would need to be willing to make the sacrifice of not consuming peanuts in order to make peanut-free restaurants and food manufacturers a reality.
The main objection to this position would be a slippery slope argument. While peanuts allergies are the leading cause of allergy-related deaths, the truth is any allergy can be deadly, and there are so many potential allergens out there that it is impractical to make the world allergen-free. So where do we draw the line? I believe peanut allergies are severe and common enough to where we can draw the line at this point, but I freely admit that this is subjective. Another objection I could see is that while the benefit to an individual person from being able to consume peanuts is negligible, the combined benefit of everyone who is not allergic to peanuts being able to consume peanuts may not be. I obviously don't believe this is the case, but I can at least see this argument being made.
What are your thoughts on this?

Possibly an odd request, but has anyone encountered any good comparative analysis of Jewish philosophy and ancient classical Chinese philosophy (Confucianism/Daoism/Mohism/Legalism)?

Oooh! I want to see that also! I was just about to make an oblique reference to the Confucian-Legalism debates. Or an attempt anyway.

Man, peanut allergies. Allergies are like freakishly different from each other, right? Like peanuts you get worse from exposure while others you can actually “outgrow” through sufficient early exposure, I think (or maybe I’m just hoping that’s true). This lady Katherine Wu recently wrote an article about allergies mysteriously going away for the Atlantic (magazine not ocean) recently, including her own cat allergies going away.

I wonder if peanuts make peanut allergies worse, if there’s like an anti-peanut that could help make peanut allergies go away.

Some of my friends have had some really crazy allergies. One was technically allergic to himself!^1

^1 Technically to like some chemical that his body naturally produces in trace amounts, but regardless of technicalities, that’s gotta suck. :( Yet he’s like strangely like one of the most happy, positive and optimistic people I know, despite like always being realistic about likely disappointment from others and being into the deathest of death metal.

Edit typos and bad writing. Boo!

Hi reddit philosophers!

I’ll admit upfront that I don’t really consider myself a philosopher and generally avoided the subject like the plague (other than an elective that I took that some friends had tricked me into thinking were easy credits, and like one philosophy club meeting I was hoodwinked into attending for the free Chinese food, which I regretted other than the Chinese food).

I also either didn’t read or don’t really remember reading Plato’s Republic (sorry if it was on the syllabus!) and I secretly suspect people are like taking old Plato’s words out of context, because I like that guy a lot, possibly because he reminds me of this colorful, funny-smelling clay substitute that I coveted as a child.

With that b.s. caveat out of the way, here’s my link to my link to my original showerthought.

So here’s Britannica’s summary of the philosopher-king concept, and here’s a briefer summary that someone else pointed me to, wherein Plato seems to be bemoaning the fact that the so-called “perfect” society can only exist if “kings become philosophers or philosophers are made kings.”

So my point is that you can just slot in (SET = everyone), having been societally educated and trained towards being “philosophers,” whatever that means, and make them mutual “kings” in terms of the decision-making function granted to philosopher-kings even in the supposedly ideal aristocracy model, which does admittedly do a pretty cool job of trying to create society-centric functions and slotting in people who are good at and inclined to perform those functions into those slots.

This philosopher-king idea also reminded me of this “wangdao” or “kingly way” concept of an enlightened and benevolent dictator that appears in Confucian Chinese philosophy, which ended up clashing with legalism for like a weirdly extended period about the fundamental nature of humans, I think mostly because it became a feud and they just wanted to fight.

Like it was pretty obvious to all involved that people could be BOTH:

• helped to be better, kinder and more excellent to each other (the real point of the kingly way proponents, in my view),

AND

• real fucking dicks sometimes, or maybe even a lot, depending on your point of view, but regardless you wanted a system that protected from that sort of behavior it (the real point of the Mohists, in my view).

Which suggests that instead of arguing about who’s incrementally more correct about human nature, we should really have been focusing on putting in place a system that both encourages people to be better and also prevents the system from abuse from bad actors (which is effectively what it ended up being irl anyway, just maybe not in like the best way it could have).

So yeah. False choice. Make everyone more excellent and give everyone a voice in any decision-making that affects them, then you can bypass the need for any kooky dictatorships (regardless of name).

Edit: Punctuation, links, etc.

Living an absurd life

Yesterday after listening to a one of my favourite podcast called (philosophize this) new podcast episode called the fall which is a book written by Albert Camus which I read just after listening to the podcast a thought struck my mind.The main character of the book Jean-Baptiste Clamence had a fall in his life which is you can say (I am having a bad time in my life) but on extreme level.Clemence was actually living a fake life - like showing how he cares for people but actually he hates them and just to show how a good man he is but he knows he is not .And the day comes when he isn't able to put on that good face for long after someone abused him when he helped that person.Now the thought that came my mind was I behave like Clemence too . Everyday I put on that happy face and meet with people when I actually hate them . Should I not hate them . Well after reading The genealogy of morality by Friedrich Nietzsche I learnt that we should analyse these feelings ( hate ,envy,power) and see are they really bad feeling.Nietzsche says not they are not bad but helpful.Example(Envy can help you to be competitive if someone is having more marks than you in class ). But I am confused now .If i start to hate everyone I know I will have a fall too like Clemence.John rawls in his books says about the veil of ignorance.Imagine a world where If you are born anywhere by the accident of birth you won't hate that place.An ideal world.But that isn't the reality and I don't think so this type of world is possible.I hate my life cause I cannot do what I want to do.I want to become a philosopher,get a philosopher degree, write books which can help at least a soul(or me).At least I want to become a bookstore manager.My Ideal life would be something like this - I would go to my bookstore and spend my day reading books(If I am not able to become a philosopher this is my ideal life.)But here I am chasing for Government job in India cause I am poor .I can't even buy books all the books i have read are from PDF of the books available on internet .I think so this accident of being born has sent me some wrong place . After reading about the stimulation hypothesis i.e this world is a stimulation I think the programmers of the stimulation has done a bad job.Are these programmers conducting an experiment.What do they want from us.Do they want to see how a human suffers.Or how he recovers from that suffering.Oh this world is too absurd.I read Nausea by Satre and I felt really good that someone other than me understands this absurdity.I feel nausea all the time now (like what the fuck is a pile of flesh with consciousness is moving his hand over a bright screen of glass .What am i doing.Why i have to do it this way) Maybe it's all the fault of the programmers who made this world this way.Any way it's 4:30 am in the morning and I have to get ready for the life I hate.

Yeah, I for one am curious to know what Hanfeizi would have had to say about the old testament!

Any volunteers to go find out?

Hey y'all, I got a question that has buggin' me for a while.

How reasonable is a theist position (any, deistic, pagan, muslim, etc.) in comparison to the atheist position?

Tell me in detail, heck, use 1-10 scales if you want just to bring the point home.

There is a lot of context for that question I want to add as well:

First, I would appreciate your own personal answer, and also another of a more objective kind; what is the academic consensus? World-wide, European, and American.

Second, as someone who is not currently enrolled in any college program, or has any relevant college background, what are the best authors, books, sources, etc that I could study for myself and learn about the issue concerning both the academic consesus, and developing my own thoughts on the matter?

Third, the reason why I brought myself here to ask, is that after so many years engaging philosophy, apologetics, history, science, you name it (I just like to read a lot of shit), I find myself noticing quite a handful of figures in the public scene taking king of the hill stances. For example theist Jay Dyer and Atheist Tom Jump. Quite frankly, such attitude is just plain repulsive, even with my biases, and it leaves me bamboozled thinking what the hell frick of a book or thing did I miss that made these people so confident in their positions. Am I plain retarded? Or are such people enduring severe psychological issues?

Give me hope, Reddit.

(The term agnostic is acknowledged and put away for the sake of the question, so theist should be defined as belief in an immaterial realm, and/or transcendent being(s), while atheist defined as a position which stands in DENIAL to that. The definitons are as such whether the evidence that prompted both positions be either sufficient, or beyond doubt.

I'll not take an atheist position which defines itself fundamentally skeptical as atheist, because that's just plain agnosticism.)

Very curious: How many Aristotelians do we have here? How aware are this subreddit's members of the reason that Plato is pointing up and Aristotle is pointing down for one specific reason in Raphael's "School of Athens" painting?

I'm currently writing a book with a section that compares Chinese and Jewish/Jerusalem's religions. You can check out my website but the book is a year or two away from completion.

www.jcrossroads.com

Hi all.. I'm wondering if someone would help put forth some strong arguments about whether they think (both morally and politically) whether capital punishment should still exist.

I've been doing some research and I'm divided and would like someone to push back and provide insight into their own beliefs.

I'm particularly interested in the notion that "we shouldn't give the state the power to carry out the DP"

Don't we as a people vote to have the DP? And don't we allow the state to somewhat govern many aspects of our lives for freedom and liberty?

Thanks

Curious thought on religion and the simulation theory.

If this is a simulation and we are not base reality, what’s responsible for the creation of base reality?

I understand that’s something probably impossible to understand without knowing anything about “base reality” if we are simulated but it’s still a question I had running around.

Dramaturgy

https://www.nationalpeanutboard.org/wellness/the-peanut-allergy-panacea-is-hypoallergenic-peanut-possible.htm

Alot of times people would rather destroy inconvenient things

Instead of improve them to a state of convenience.

Of my head

Social contract and private property

There are already situations where you forfeit or place your life in jeopardy.

Interestingly adding politics into it brings alot of other stuff with it.

Abortion - right to life.

Imprisonment - white torture - social isolation torture.

Historical property rights - the ten feet of history.

Etc

Still it roughly revolves around whether your body and mind are ironclad your private property.

Social contract would seem to indicate that there are situations where your ironclad private property is traded or borrowed against with other property.

Limiting this trade and possible forfeiture entails other limits - already suicide has gone through a cycle of illegal to legal - so the prime importance on human life seems to be fluid.

What I'm getting at is

Because we can vote it in - the only thing that is necessary is that we also have the ability to vote it out - as rights etc seem to change like the wind.

That is - we give the state power - but they should only ever be borrowers - not owners.

Amateur philosopher

Arguing with a pal

But we got bogged down with semantics and prosody of prior tangential arguments.

Roughly.

My general stance.

Facts logical reasonings etc are just for increasing confidence in beliefs

Beliefs aren't necessitated by facts

Their stance

The universe and all of reality operates on a logical system even if all the logic isn't known yet - thus beliefs are contingent on facts of reality and are determined by reality

They describe belief as a kind of hyper fact - created information but factual only that it is - and not itself knowledge or understanding.

I only had one counter before we got tangential

That having facts doesn't determine goals - information simply is without a goal aim etc it's up to the individual to believe a goal and then gather information towards it

I can add the tangents if people think it would help.

The biggest problem with philosophy besides its lack of inherent fundamentals is in my opinon the words. It is like teaching a Magikarp Flamethrower. Doesnt make any sense, you must evolve it into Gyarados first. That requires too much effort, it just doesnt make sense. You cant expect every Magikarp in the sea to evolve into Gyarados, they have better things to do than being super angry all the time.

Got it? Of course you didnt. You needed to be super knowledgeable about Pokemon of all things to get why Magikarps cant learn the move Flamethrower. It is that same way when you guys use references and very specific ideas to explain something. Dude, you cant just expect everyone to have read that very same book you did, as basic as it may seem to you. And if they did, why even mention it? They already got the ideas. You cant expect people to know "this is _____ fallacy" and even if you did, how would that help at all? The possibility for misuse is so huge you are better off explaining their mistake or the right logic. I guess if philosophy is as pointless as many people make it seem, and it is if it doesnt have the right fundamentals, goals and observations, it is better off not being a burden to society, and more of a hobby for nerds like you and me. This applies to vocabulary too, to a lesser degree. Still, if you want the widest range of people to understand you (if you agree with me that that is one of the valuable things you can put in everything you say) it is best to use simple vocab. I think it makes it seem more of a special club that way. I think I thought before the likely reason people said this is because they wanted to feel like part of an elite. Fair enough. I don't think so anymore, but I approve of you if you do so. I dont think it gives you charisma points though, if my short experience in r/iamverysmart is anything to judge off of. I guess it makes sense if you want to discuss that thing in particular, but once again that does make it seem like more of a club than a form of conversation. Tell me if u agree or disagree. I dont understand how this isnt fitting for a post so Ill repost this somewhere else noting the requirements in the rules.

Eh

Seems like a skill issue

I mean

How hard is it to communicate? Semantics barrier? More like effort barrier.

It is indeed a skill issue but skilled communicators should be able to lower the skill bar for others. That is my opinion at least.

1. A theist's position is reasonable because of the faith of the people who believe in it as witnesses themselves of God being real. However, it is said also in the bible: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them." If you really havent found a person of indisputably good moral character and understanding, the reasons God is real and Jesus is God are the following: For God: If you do not doubt the scriptures, which is the main argument against God's existance (to doubt them, for any reason) It is evident that God is real. You may call this argument a historic argument. For Jesus: The moral character argumebt applies to him, of which those who knew him knew he was without flaw.// If you do not believe him, you may believe his miracles// This is said by Jesus, (I placed it in bars /). The miracles of his disciples shortly after his death and resurrection also are proof. Historic argument again.
2. I dont know.
3. I dont know.

I myself am not ready to say I am of undisputably good moral character, so ask someone else.

Making something simple

Can be difficult or effortless

E = mc^2 a simple equation - but understanding is difficult especially creating the degree of understanding required to use it to its limits to more greatly understand the universe.

As it took great effort on Einstein's part to condense proofs and experiments to the formation of the equation - it will take similar effort to understand it from its simplicity to gain the understanding necessary to interact with it in a meaningful way.

Often I see a cycle in text communication where making communication simple leads to misunderstanding - requiring more complex explanation than would have been put forth without simplification at the onset.

This isn't always the case.

Communication takes effort - manipulation of speech personally seems disingenuine - not saying what you really think etc.

I've got more but I'm asleep.

Mobility

Mobility is prettymuch the main factor in corruption.

Systems that are 'protected' from unwanted behavior decrease mobility in general.

So...

The difference of human nature is the determination of the safeties in place against corruption - prettymuch the only way is cultural identity and unified goals. Culture can only be 'fine-tuned' if there is a definite generality of human nature.

Same as unified goals - which may be even more difficult as the population in question increases - the uniformity of goals shatters or becomes so generalized it loses resemblance to its original meaning.

Examining the claims - we can reason that population of significant size having disparate goals - then would have different decision making for the different factors affecting them. Which - roundabout - is prettymuch the city v the country that we see in general.

Examining once more - aristocratic systems have historically made differences of governance over 'country' and 'city'. In mobility and 'say'. Staying within station etc.

Anyhow

Just saying.

Also, it would be cool if that system could somehow be created - but I really doubt it could given parameters.

The number one problem with the us system is its ease of influence due to cultural proliferation and ideation - schism seems a national pastime - currently leading to a somewhat unprecedented surge of political violence / domestic terrorism drawing overwhelming pushback in governmental interference via legislation in an attempt to mandate culture. Uh... point being, thinking of systems, solving these couple us problems would be fantastic and probably set the way for better systems - like philosopher king societies.

I think the mobility point makes sense, but what sort of mobility are we talking about here?

Is it limited to social mobility within a single unified system, or can there be like sideways or orthogonal movements to alternative societies where that particular behavior fits in better?

I think you could achieve the latter through functional boundary rules creating discrete interaction zones. The most rigid (but accordingly simple and very enforceable) rules should apply to these boundary and movement rules, to make sure people can’t be trapped. I’d even permit a voluntary interaction zone of 1.

Once within an interaction zone, the rules could be set by the people within that interaction zone. This allows for a broad range of people to just be who they are, with people who will accept them for who they are, without forcing the same poorly fitting straitjacket on everyone.

I agree somewhat tough to imagine readily implementing now, but if we can get to a point where we can build livable structures out in space, we have a lot of the latter to work with. We could consider and apply interaction zone concepts even now and start taking some baby steps in that direction, thanks to some geographical detachment, which we’ve seen works very well in many contexts during the COVID response.

EDIT: And in terms of the adrenalin junkies that get a kick out of participating in or watching bloodsport, can we point them in the direction of the as-yet unexplored dangers of like the nearest galaxy that isn’t where the people who want to stay safe all the time live? Like it doesn’t even have to be a galaxy away, as long as they’re occupied doing a thing they enjoy, channeled in a way that doesn’t hurt others.

Edits made.

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hi everyone, is there any philosophy ideas (name) that encourages that "in life, humans must focus to build or create something", "we are what they create"?

Because That's my idea in life (I like the idea of "positive-sum game" in building a society, and dislike people who do zero-sum game for their life) and I would like to read any other previous philosopher's thoughts (perhaps in the form of book) about it

Utilitarianism

Humanism

Stoicism

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How can moderation at /r/philosophy be improved?

There is no consistency in what's treated as "Respectful" or "Arguing your position" and blatant personal attacks are left untouched and factual disagreement is removed.