Hmm…let’s put this in perspective. We live in a tiny dot flying around a cosmic sized flushing toilet bowl that is it self flying around a larger flushing toilet bowl… Both have centers that either melt everything and or stretch it til the atoms break apart…or both. We are direct descendants of life forms…not animals perhaps but life forms who appeared from random motion and electric volts and radiation in and around a primordial mix of random liquid shit. And we are the 1 second before midnight if the entire earth had been around for an entire day. In short we are nothing. Who cares if some guy wants tariffs on China while raping someone during a celebration for a new pope. However…if you lived here, your entire puny life trapped inside a calcium basket full of your own meat and guts with 8 other billion people in the same conditions, I would much rather it be a happy blip than a blip filled with and torture. And lots and lots of sex. If you’re 21, my recommendation as a working professional who designs and builds really freaking cool gadgets is to go find someone to fuck pronto. And fuck. A lot. Use protection, don’t have kids unless you want to. But just make love day and night. Once you turn 35 make some goals for the rest of your blip. Then spend the rest of your blip. Thru all, make your self happy and make others happy. Just help each other. It serves no one if you live the tiny puny piece of time pissed off and you piss off others.

Try to make life better for yourself and for everyone else. Try to have compassion for everyone. You don’t have to agree with them or support what they do, but treat them as having worth.

I think the basis of morality should be if it helps, it’s good, if it hurts, it’s bad. I realize there are still a lot of situations without easy answers but that’s a good starting point. Better than it’s good or bad because the rules say so.

My ethos boils down to…

1. The Golden Rule: Your rights end where other’s rights begin, and vice versa.
2. Natural Rights: Any action or inaction, thought, or word, spoken or written, that does not cross the line of the Golden Rule is a natural right.
3. Ethics: All ethics are founded upon, and entirely dependent upon, points 1 & 2.
4. Morality Is Unethical: Morality, allowing for arbitrary precepts, is inherently unethical.
5. Effort: Strive to live ethically.
6. Inaction is Action: Inaction is, itself, an action. If your inaction results (even indirectly) in someone’s natural rights being infringed, your inaction is unethical.
7. Consideration: Actions often have cascading, indirect consequences, and you bear full responsibility for them. Therefore, failure to consider the indirect consequences of your (in)actions is also unethical.
8. Graciousness: Treat others the way they wish to be treated. Recognize the dividends that gracious behavior has on preserving the natural rights of both yourself and others.
9. Defend the Social Contract: Ethical behavior is a contract between individuals. Aggressors and instigators who violate that contract are not subject to its protections. As such, adherents are obliged to defend both themselves and others from such infringements to preserve the greater social stability.
10. Imperfection: Acknowledge that no body, no thing, and no system is perfect. Not you, not others, not nature, not these precepts. Mistakes are inevitable, it is the effort and intention that matters. Accept and treasure imperfection, and be faithful to the spirit rather than the letter.

Stoic and Buddhist philosophy. No religious metaphysical stuff like gods, spirits or reincarnation.

On a basic level be kind and accept impermanence.

Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t harm others.

Everyone here is saying “don’t be a dick”. That is not sufficient. That just makes you middling, not good. To be good, you must also stop people who ARE being dicks.

Some of my moral principles

• Treat others how you think they would want to be treated, but not at all costs.

• You don’t have to like everyone, and not everyone has to like you. Although, being liked by others generally leads to having a better life.

• Avoid lying or “distorting the truth”. But, sometimes lying is necessary, like to keep a friend’s secret.

Some of my existential thoughts

• There are no permanent consequences other than death (I do not believe in an afterlife, although I find the concept interesting). There are no rules to follow, just temporary consequences you may have to deal with. You can make up your own rules and follow them, or not follow them.

• Perception is just a tool used by your brain (a small part of the universe) to process the chaos that is the universe. A similar universe could be described by a very complex particle simulation. That’s really cool.

Be the person Captain Picard would want you to be.

Any morale principle must to be able to be universally applied to be valid. This translate in not asking for others what I won’t do myself. And judging hardly those who ask for rules that don’t apply to themselves.

That simple principle can construct a lot if you develop it.

Don’t be a dick. Try to stay out of the kinds of trouble that cause extra paperwork.

I have a set of values:

• Be social
• Seek autonomy
• Give solidarity
• Live in community
• Be healthy
• Have a clean home
• Work is to support other values, it’s not a value itself

And so on…

The choice i make is the one that aligns best with my values. If i have time to think that is. Otherwise my subconscious picks it’s own weights.

There’s a hierarchy to the values but they change in substance and position over time. That’s by design. Humans grow and change.

Circularity and contradiction? That’s fine. As long as it’s aligned with my values I know I’m unlikely to regret it.

if there is meaning to your choices, except that which you assign to it, you cannot know it. do as you please, do what feels right or don’t. accepting everything may not lead to happiness, but, other than the necessary mental faculties, it is the only requirement for contentment.

I’m going to die.

That’s it. There’s not much I’m really certain of, but I’m pretty damn certain that I’m going to die.

So I ask myself - how do I want to live my life in light of this fact?

Don’t be a cunt to…

… Yourself … Others … people in need

But…

… Not bring yourself in danger … Not Bring Others in danger … Not let people bully, use, hurt etc. you.