Instigator / Pro

Best.Korea

1271

rating

354

debates

39.83%

won

Topic

#5738

Humans should live in ignorance and refuse to learn anything

Status

Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics

Better arguments

Better sources

Better legibility

Better conduct

After not so many votes...

It's a tie!

Parameters

Publication date: 09.23.2024 02:51PM
Last updated date: 10.18.2024 10:39PM
Type: Rated
Number of rounds: 3
Time for argument: Three days
Max argument characters: 10,000
Voting period: Two weeks
Point system: Multiple criterions
Voting system: Open
Minimal rating: None

Contender / Con

prefix

1511

rating

debates

75.0%

won

Description

No information

Round 1

Best.Korea

09.29.2024 02:27PM

Pro

Humans should live in ignorance and refuse to learn anything.

If no one knew anything, it would be impossible to intentionally harm others.

It would even be impossible to move, thus no one would intentionally cause harm to other innocents, thus all people would be completely good.

Also, all bad things created by human knowledge wouldnt exist, like nuclear weapons, mass animal torture on farms...

There are more animal persons on Earth than human persons, thus humans arent even priority.

Resolution upheld!

prefix

10.01.2024 05:06AM

Con

Pro states “Humans should live in ignorance and refuse to learn anything.”

The premise breaks down thus….”Humans should live in ignorance”

and “Humans should refuse to learn anything.”

Linguistically no limitation has been placed on the term “humans” so this is taken as “All humans”

There is no indication that SOME humans might form the ruling class, where others remain ignorant.

The first premise is then “ALL humans should live in ignorance”.

The second premise is then “ALL humans should refuse to learn anything.”

These two taken together mean that humans should be ignorant and remain ignorant.

Next comes ....

“If no one knew anything, it would be impossible to intentionally harm others.”

Really this statement is “If no one knew anything, then it would be impossible FOR ANYONE TO KNOW THAT THEY harmed others”

It would even be impossible to move…

Yet many ignorant people are moving around everyday. Some of them are even driving cars near my office at this moment.

“... thus no one would intentionally cause harm to other innocents,..”

and if they did, they would not know that they did

So pro posites that immobile humans with limited knowledge are good? If so, I would put forth that mobile humans who seek knowledge are better.

“Also, all bad things created by human knowledge wouldnt exist, like nuclear weapons, mass animal torture on farms…”

Also missing would be agriculture, medicine, housing, and all the other good things produced by humans.

When pro says that "humans should live in ignorance and refuse to learn anything.”

to what authority is pro adhering? What authority is stating that humans should remain ignorant?

Is it just the opinion of pro?

Aristotle wrote about the 4 states of being. (1)

Nutritive …….where a being could take nutrition.

Locomotive….where a being could move

Reproductive..where a being could produce offspring

Intellect……...where a being could perceive and alter the environment

Certainly an immobile being could not feed himself, nor could that being reproduce with another immobile and non nutritive being. Mass death and mass extinction would follow.

Also the non nutritive, immobile, non reproducing being would have no intellectual functioning. thereby being unaware of its own demise.

The entire argument from pro negates the value of all human progress. On the whole, that cannot be a good thing

CON needs pro to define what an “animal person” is.

Resolution refuted.

(1).....faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/psyche.htm

Round 2

Best.Korea

10.01.2024 08:44AM

Pro

Thank you for being some opposition, prefix.

Pro states “Humans should live in ignorance and refuse to learn anything.”
The premise breaks down thus….”Humans should live in ignorance”
and “Humans should refuse to learn anything.”
Linguistically no limitation has been placed on the term “humans” so this is taken as “All humans”

Yes, humans obviously means all humans. Thats the point.

There is no indication that SOME humans might form the ruling class, where others remain ignorant.

All humans should be ignorant, thus no ruling class possible.

The first premise is then “ALL humans should live in ignorance”.
The second premise is then “ALL humans should refuse to learn anything.”
These two taken together mean that humans should be ignorant and remain ignorant.

It means all humans would be without any knowledge.

Next comes ....

“If no one knew anything, it would be impossible to intentionally harm others.”

Really this statement is “If no one knew anything, then it would be impossible FOR ANYONE TO KNOW THAT THEY harmed others”

Knowledge is necessary to intentionally harm others. Thus, having no any knowledge means its impossible to intentionally harm others. If someone never intentionally harms others, then he is a completely good person, since only intentional harm can make person be a bad person, since in order to be bad, you must be able to choose to be bad, which is impossible without knowledge.

My opponent didnt deny of this, and nothing he said denied this, thus it stands as true.

It would even be impossible to move…

Yet many ignorant people are moving around everyday. Some of them are even driving cars near my office at this moment.

My opponent maybe fails to understand the topic. The topic says humans shouldnt learn anything, thus would be without any knowledge. He presents example of people who he thinks are ignorant but without proof that they dont know how to drive a car yet drive it, not knowing how to move, yet move. Thus, my opponent is obviously making irrelevant example, since people he talks about have some knowledge.

So pro posites that immobile humans with limited knowledge are good? If so, I would put forth that mobile humans who seek knowledge are better.

So my opponent thinks its better if humans were bad people. Obviously, its better to be good than to be smart. Being smart has nothing to do with being good, since smart people can be very evil. But humans with no knowledge cannot be evil.

“Also, all bad things created by human knowledge wouldnt exist, like nuclear weapons, mass animal torture on farms…”

Also missing would be agriculture, medicine, housing, and all the other good things produced by humans.

My opponent must prove that these are good things.

When pro says that "humans should live in ignorance and refuse to learn anything.”
to what authority is pro adhering? What authority is stating that humans should remain ignorant?
Is it just the opinion of pro?

Authority of logic, obviously. My opponent seems to want me to make an appeal to authority fallacy for some reason. Obviously, only logic is authority on the question of what is good and what is bad.

Aristotle wrote about the 4 states of being. (1)

Nutritive …….where a being could take nutrition.
Locomotive….where a being could move
Reproductive..where a being could produce offspring
Intellect……...where a being could perceive and alter the environment

Now my opponent must prove that Aristotle was right.

Certainly an immobile being could not feed himself, nor could that being reproduce with another immobile and non nutritive being. Mass death and mass extinction would follow.

My opponent must prove that these are bad things. Obviously, to die as a good person is better than to live as a bad person, since good is better than bad by tautology. Thus, if humans were without any knowledge, they would all be good people, compared to what my opponent is arguing for that more people should be bad.

Since moving further towards being bad cannot be good, by tautology, and since I am arguing that my position is good, it follows that my position is good and that I am right, since by tautology all good group of people is better than all bad, somewhat bad, or majority bad group of people.

This cannot even be logically denied, since good means lack of bad, and the position which I am arguing for says that all bad should be removed. My opponent must defend that being bad is better than being good, which is a contradiction, but he can try to defend it.

Also the non nutritive, immobile, non reproducing being would have no intellectual functioning. thereby being unaware of its own demise.

This doesnt change that those people, all of them, would be all good.

The entire argument from pro negates the value of all human progress. On the whole, that cannot be a good thing

Good is by definition lack of bad. If all people were good, then no person would be bad. This is good by tautology. Since it stands as fact that it is better to die as a good person than live as a bad, my logic cannot even be denied, since obviously, living as a bad person is bad, and not good.

CON needs pro to define what an “animal person” is.

Do you know what an animal is? Average person kills 90 animals per year, mostly by previously causing them lots of pain, which is horrible, thus voters must default to my position.

Anyway, resolution upheld!

prefix

10.03.2024 07:24PM

Con

I hope you are enjoying this debate Best.Korea, although I always thought the best Korea was Chic Corea.

There appears to be a subtle change in the tone of your exposition here in round two.

I want to put forth some definitions of terms.

Ignorance =

“ lack of knowledge, education, or awareness” (1)

Knowledge =

A….“ the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or

B….acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique

C….the fact or condition of being aware of something

D….the range of one's information or understanding

E….the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning

F… the fact or condition of having information or of being learned

G…the sum of what is known : the body of truth, information, and principles acquired by humankind” (2)

Chaos =

“a state of utter confusion” (3)

Cosmos =

”an orderly harmonious systematic universe, ” (4)

And …“Cosmos often simply means "universe". But the word is generally used to suggest an orderly or harmonious universe, as it was originally used by Pythagoras in the 6th century B.C.” (5)

Entropy=

“the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity…..a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder” (6)

Atrophy =

“decrease in size or wasting away of a body part or tissue

arrested development or loss of a part or organ incidental to the normal development or life of an animal or plant

a wasting away or progressive decline” (7)

Further ..”From its literal Greek roots, atrophy would mean basically "lack of nourishment". Although the English word doesn't usually imply any lack of food, it always refers to a wasting away. Those who have been bedridden for a period of time will notice that their muscles have atrophied.” (8)

negentropy=

“ also known as negative entropy or syntropy, is a concept that represents the measure of order, organization, and information within a system. In contrast to entropy, which quantifies the degree of disorder or randomness, Negentropy reflects the presence of structure and coherence.” (9)

Hypertrophy =

“the opposite of atrophy. An organ or part becomes hypertrophic when it grows so extremely that its function is affected. Muscle hypertrophy is common in men who do strength training, (10)

Pro is arguing for chaos, atrophy and entropy.

Con argues that cosmos is better than chaos; negentropy is better than entropy; and hypertrophy is better than atrophy

Pro has stated …

“It means all humans would be without any knowledge.

Thus humans would have no understanding gained through experience, no technique, no awareness, no sharing in the sum of human knowledge. This would result in atrophy, entropy and chaos.

“If someone never intentionally harms others, then he is a completely good person, since only intentional harm can make person be a bad person, since in order to be bad, you must be able to choose to be bad, which is impossible without knowledge.”

It appears that pro is stating that innocuous persons are good. Perhaps that is true as an aspect of being good, but it does not cover the universe of good. The 1944 liberation of Paris is considered “good”, but it did cause harm. The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, while they may have killed upwards of 250,000 people, may have saved a further four million lives by ending WW2.(11)

“But humans with no knowledge cannot be evil.”

Humans without knowledge cannot be good either as they would be simple atrophying flesh lumps.The terms “good” and “evil” are opposites. One is required for the other to exist. Without evil, there can be no good.

It appears that pro’s argument is that humans are bad and should cease to exist. That may be a personal problem for pro. CON asserts that humanity,when taken as a whole, is more “good” than “bad”, and it is better that humans survive rather than becoming extinct.

“Now my opponent must prove that Aristotle was right.”

CON has asserted the 4 levels of being as used by Aristotle, and the citation is given. Pro needs to provide evidence that Aristotle was wrong and include documentation.

Con has asserted that agriculture is a good thing. While CON, and most of society would accept this , pro is asking:

“My opponent must prove that these are good things.”

“Why is agriculture a good thing? Agriculture impacts society in many ways, including: supporting livelihoods through food, habitat, and jobs; providing raw materials for food and other products; and building strong economies through trade. (12)

Pro is arguing for chaos, atrophy and entropy.

Con argues that cosmos is better that chaos; negentropy is better than entropy; and hypertrophy is better than atrophy.

Thus it is resolved that ‘Humans should NOT live in ignorance and should endeavor to learn as much as is possible.”

Round 3

Best.Korea

10.03.2024 08:24PM

Pro

Pro is arguing for chaos, atrophy and entropy.

Con argues that cosmos is better than chaos; negentropy is better than entropy; and hypertrophy is better than atrophy

None of these change that only under my system, people would be morally all good.

Thus humans would have no understanding gained through experience, no technique, no awareness, no sharing in the sum of human knowledge. This would result in atrophy, entropy and chaos.

Now my opponent must prove that these above are bad.

I have already proved by simple tautology:

Knowledge is necessary to intentionally commit evil = Humans without knowledge cannot intentionally commit evil

Humans without knowledge cannot intentionally commit evil = Humans without knowledge cannot be bad at all

Humans without knowledge cannot be bad at all = Humans without knowledge are all good.

Con doesnt seem to attack this logic so far, so I guess he agreed to it.

He didnt challenge that knowledge is necessary to intentionally commit evil, thus the logic I presented naturally follows.

Since people cannot be at fault for non-intentional evil, as they didnt choose to do non-intentional evil, people who dont choose to do non-intentional evil contain no intentional evil. Thus, if people cannot be at fault for non-intentional evil, they contain no intentional evil.

I guess this is unchallenged truism, but I have character space, so why not.

In order to be evil, you must choose to do evil. In order to choose to do evil, you must have knowledge. Thus, in order to be evil, you must have knowledge.

This is basically unchallenged for whole debate, so if Con chooses to challenge it in last round, that is just poor behavior since he didnt challenge it for first two rounds.

From this logic, it follows that if humans dont have knowledge, all humans would be good.

All humans being morally good is much better than most humans being morally bad, intentionally hurting others, intentionally killing over 45 billion animals per year who feel pain just as humans do, intentionally causing countless wars, poverty, slavery, endless hard work so rich can be richer.

Without knowledge, not only would humans be all good, but 45 billion animals would be saved every year.

It appears that pro is stating that innocuous persons are good. Perhaps that is true as an aspect of being good, but it does not cover the universe of good.

My opponent didnt challenge that persons without knowledge are good, but he talks of some universe of good which obviously doesnt apply since in his system most people are morally bad, where in mine, all are morally good.

The 1944 liberation of Paris is considered “good”, but it did cause harm. The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, while they may have killed upwards of 250,000 people, may have saved a further four million lives by ending WW2.(11)

WW2 wouldnt even happen if knowledge didnt exist. My opponent talks of saving lives, but life in pain is not a worthy life to have. Life of being a bad person is also not desirable. Life of killing trillions of animals every century and torturing animals doesnt sound like some good world.

Humans without knowledge cannot be good either as they would be simple atrophying flesh lumps.

This is false in three ways:

1. Lack of good =/= evil

2. Most humans today = evil

3. Being good can simply be defined as lack of evil, so people are still all good under my system.

Thus, if we say that lack of evil is preferable to evil, only my system is preferable compared to what my opponent is arguing for.

The terms “good” and “evil” are opposites. One is required for the other to exist. Without evil, there can be no good.

This is again, false. Opposites dont always need to both exist for one to exist. In fact, when it comes to logical laws, a contradiction is commonly used as a name for two opposite things which cannot both exist.

To make it simple, person can be good without being evil. Person can also be evil without being good. Person can also be partially good and partially evil.

My opponent has never challenged these claims:

1. Knowledge is necessary for person to be evil.

2. Removing knowledge makes it impossible for person to be evil

Thus, unless my opponent thinks its good to have much more evil people, which is a contradiction anyway, he has essentially conceded this debate.

It appears that pro’s argument is that humans are bad and should cease to exist. That may be a personal problem for pro. CON asserts that humanity,when taken as a whole, is more “good” than “bad”, and it is better that humans survive rather than becoming extinct.

These are just unsupported claims.

Even if humanity was more good than bad now, becoming all good would obviously be better. Like, 60% good is always worse than 100% good.

Further, humans cause horrible pain to billions of animals in both farming and traffic, as well as horrible pain to other humans. Humans are obviously not more good than bad. Without knowledge, evil would be impossible. Even if humans cease to exist, which they will anyway eventually, it is better to live short life as completely good than living a long life as horrible people.

CON has asserted the 4 levels of being as used by Aristotle, and the citation is given. Pro needs to provide evidence that Aristotle was wrong and include documentation.

Contrary to Con's naive assumptions above, it is Con who has to prove that Con's arguments are correct. Providing source to Aristotle's quotes is irrelevant if you dont prove with arguments that aristotle was right. You also didnt prove that your source was right. Since my opponent has rejected to provide arguments to prove Aristotle was right, or even quote from source some proof that Aristotle was right, I guess the Aristotle is still unproved.

Con has asserted that agriculture is a good thing. While CON, and most of society would accept this , pro is asking:

Pro is merely asking you to logically prove your claim.

“Why is agriculture a good thing? Agriculture impacts society in many ways, including: supporting livelihoods through food, habitat, and jobs; providing raw materials for food and other products; and building strong economies through trade. (12)

Now my opponent is just expanding the list of things he must prove. Now he must prove that all these are good things. They were already disproved by tautology, since enabling morally evil majority to exist cannot be a good thing,

unless you think good = bad.

Pro is arguing for chaos, atrophy and entropy.

I am merely arguing for whats good.

Should means "it would be good if".

I have already proved that what I am arguing for would make all people good, but also save hundreds of trillions of animals and fish from pain and death on factory farms, and painful deaths on roads.

It would also save all future humans from pain by ending existence, so it seems that my position is morally superior in every way.

Being in horrible pain for 20 years is not good even if it enables 20 years of good life = People want the most to not live in great pain

People want the most to not live in great pain = Pain is the worst thing on Earth

Pain is the worst thing on Earth = Pain must be prevented at all cost

Being in horrible pain for 20 years is not good even if it enables 20 years of good life = Pain must be prevented at all cost

Resolution completely upheld!

prefix

10.04.2024 10:11PM

Con

“under my system, people would be morally all good.”

The humans under pro’s system would be just decaying lumps of flesh. Under pro’s system humans would be condemned to death in about 7 days. Without humans the human constructs of “morality” and “being good” would not exist

Also “self harm” would not involve others, but might be evil.

“I have already proved by simple tautology:

Knowledge is necessary to intentionally commit evil = Humans without knowledge cannot intentionally commit evil

Humans without knowledge cannot intentionally commit evil = Humans without knowledge cannot be bad at all

Humans without knowledge cannot be bad at all = Humans without knowledge are all good.”

Tautology is the …” needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word or a statement that is true by virtue of its logical form alone” (1)

By inspection it is revealed that pro’s statement , while repetitive, is not in a logical form due to substitution of some terms ( “knowledge” then becomes “human knowledge”, “not evil” becomes” not bad “) and by the commision of the fallacy of inversion ( if A=B then “not A = “Not B). An example would be “if a chicken is a bird, then something that is not a chicken is not a bird” Think here of a sparrow.

Additionally if causing harm = evil, it does not necessarily follow that not causing harm= not evil. If person A shoots an arrow at person B and misses and person B is totally unaware of the arrow, there is evil without harm. There is however an evil intent, but no harm is done.

“My opponent didnt challenge that persons without knowledge are good, but he talks of some universe of good which obviously doesnt apply since in his system most people are morally bad, where in mine, all are morally good.”

Not quite so. Pro is positing an “innocuous human”: as shown previously. According to Jordan Peterson…”"A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control" (2)

Then we get the burden of proof. When a debater makes a statement and backs it with a valid citation, the other debater must disprove the statement and source the disapproval. If CON says Aristotle said this, and here is where it was said, pro needs to counter and source the statement. Pro cannot simply dismiss the data. Pro must put forward an equally sourced counter argument.

In conclusion, here are pro’s basic statements:

A….It would be better if all humans would live without knowledge
B….It would be better if all humans would refuse to learn anything.
C….If no one knew anything, it would be impossible to intentionally harm others.
D…it t would even be impossible to move

E… thus no one would intentionally cause harm to other innocents,

F…thus all people would be completely good.

CON counters that

Under A, B, C, and D Humans would not be able to feed themselves . They would not know how, and could not move.

If humans could not feed themselves, they would die in about one week.

Then E would be incorrect as dead humans have no intentions.

However F would be irrelevant as good and evil are human constructs. Dead humanity has no morality.

“The norms of morality must be by and large consistent with human biological nature, because ethics can only exist in human individuals and in human societies.” (3)

Pro’s argument is really that the world would be better off without humans. This opinion was neither sourced nor defended. . Perhaps that is the next debate.

If you think cosmos is better that chaos; negentropy is better than entropy; and hypertrophy is better than atrophy then vote CON.