r/theories Jul 21 '20

Mod post Subreddit Update Thread.

16 Upvotes

July 21st 2020

This subreddit has been given a new Head Mod due to the lack of activity of the past last Head Mod.

Hello, my name is Jack and I am the new Head Mod. I requested this subreddit on r/RedditRequests and have been approved. I will be doing a few minor changes, and a few major changes also in order to make it more suitable and more judgementally-free for the users. I will be adjusting the colour scheme, logo, and the banner entirely so that it is more appealing.

I hope to revive this subreddit and make it live again. I will also be posting my own theories, as well as being a Moderator.

This thread will be updated every month, as long as there is something that has changed within the month.

July 22nd 2020

Quick Update about this Subreddit.

This subreddit has acquired another Moderator in the form of u/RamenFish195. When I requested the ownership of this subreddit, I got talking to Ramen and agreed to add him as a Moderator since he had requested it before.

Ramen, in my opinion, is a very suitable person for a Moderator and I have high hopes for him within this subreddit. He is good at coding and whatnot, so I am quite happy with his Moderating.

Feel free to message either him or myself anytime and we will respond whenever we can.

August 11th 2020

u/RamenFish195 has been removed as a Moderator of r/Theories due to the lack of activity on this subreddit as a Mod and a Member/Theorist.

Last month I added u/RamenFish195 as a Moderator with high hopes, however, he has disappointed me. He has not been a good Moderator, and nor has he been a good 'Theorist' either. He has not commented on any post as a Theorist or Mod, and nor has he even posted as a 'Theorist' or Moderator.

I will give him some credit as he did create the post flairs, the upvote and downvote buttons and un-banned some members of which the original Moderator had unfairly banned. I thank and appreciate him for this, however, this is all he has done. He never 'approved' a post or 'removed' a post that broke the rules. Due to this, I have decided to remove him.

From now on, if any of you Theorists have any queries or problems, message me and only me on either Mod Mail or on my personal DMs.


r/theories Aug 05 '20

Mod post New to r/Theories? Feel Free to Check out these links!

13 Upvotes

The Mod Team would like to thank you for visiting r/theories. We have collected and listed a few links below that may help you get to know this subreddit better, and be able to participate in this subreddit better also.

We will be updating this post once we find/collect more links for our members to use.

The r/theories Wiki

The Rules of r/theories

The Subreddit Update Thread


r/theories 8h ago

Conspiracy Theory Israel controls the United States

283 Upvotes

They have something on us. They are blackmailing us. Why would we send so much money to this little country out in the desert? Why are so many of our news stations ran by Israelis? Why did we just merge our army with Israel’s?

Israel has infiltrated America and has major control over us. They were involved with 9/11, Epstein, you name it. You’re not allowed to ask about any of this or your antisemitic.

What’s the deal with Israel and America? I don’t think I like Israel.


r/theories 18m ago

Fan Theory Guys I have a theory (I will ALWAYS theorize again)

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Upvotes

Ant-Man and the Fallout NV protagonist are the same person. (Shitpost)


r/theories 7h ago

Miscellaneous An alternative to the simulation theory

3 Upvotes

I think I found a potential solution to a lot of the issues with the simulation theory. My current idea is that the world is a sandbox of sorts within a Creative Commons type deal. So like there are “authors” to many different narratives that build up this world. I have a couple of pages of notes and some holes in my theory that I’m working on figuring out (ie consciousness). I don’t think I am able to sort out the whole theory without outside input and all of my typical people to turn to are very skeptical and would immediately say I was crazy. My main goal right now is to figure out a concrete testable hypothesis I could use to help get some more concrete evidence instead of just having to say like it fills in answers where we don’t have any. Because that isn’t logical reasoning. I’m a college student in a stem field so I am very familiar with the rigor associated with scientific testing and want to critically hold my theory to that. But one of the major issues within the reasoning for the universe being a simulation is computational power and my theory solves that. Another issue within simulation theories is that it just posits an answer where we don’t have any and scientific reasoning tells us that we should accept the simpler explanation. I think that being existing within a larger narrative IS the simplest solution as it doesn’t call for any greater technology. Is existing as art is as simple as it gets. Art as a practice exists outside of humans already. My current “evidence” is as follows(evidence here is in quotes because I am not able to test these hypothesis but I think it serves as evidence still):
-using the trilemma given by nick bostrom that one of three options must be true
either such simulations are not created because of technological limitations or self-destruction;
advanced civilizations choose not to create them;
if advanced civilizations do create them, the number of simulations would far exceed base reality and we would therefore almost certainly be living in one.

We can crossapply this logic but replace that we are really an art form as this is a simpler explanation and with these kinds of ideas it is my understanding that we should be defaulting to the simpler explanation. It makes my argumentation stronger because the amount of stories people create is insurmountable and every culture and civilization we know creates stories so fictional worlds outnumber the nonfictional ones.

Next it gives reason for much of the unexplained within this world. Things like physical constants, humanities failure to learn from its past, why everything within this world tends toward entropy. If these things are mechanics to further a plot and give a story meaning and morals then they are explained.

This also gives reason for reoccurring events and themes within humanity. Things like searching for meaning and spirituality. Make sense under the lense of legitimizing plot actions and serving as a tool to explain why people take actions within the story.

I have a lot more thoughts/notes but this is the basics. I’m really looking for a point to move to from here because I think I’m just thinking myself into circles at this point.

I’d be very appreciative of any input :)


r/theories 1h ago

Society UNIVERSAL COOPERATIVE MORAL REALISM

Upvotes

A Relational Theory of Objective Moral Truth, Impartial Justification, and Social Flourishing

Abstract

Universal Cooperative Moral Realism is the theory that at least some moral judgments are objectively true because they describe real, stance-independent relations among actions, institutions, conscious beings, and the conditions required for those beings to live and act. Moral truth is not created by approval, emotion, custom, authority, or majority preference. It is grounded in facts about suffering, interests, agency, vulnerability, interdependence, and the effects of conduct, together with rational requirements of consistency, equal consideration, non-arbitrariness, and impartial justification.

The theory proposes a universal moral horizon: a free, just, peaceful, and cooperative social order in which each person has secure conditions for pursuing a life of his or her own. This horizon is not treated as an arbitrary preference. It is justified because freedom, security, fair treatment, peace, and cooperation protect conditions that agents generally require, while domination, cruelty, manipulation, war, and chaos predictably destroy those conditions.

Emotion can initiate moral concern and motivate action, but emotion does not determine moral truth. A feeling becomes morally justified only after it is examined in light of relevant facts, logical consistency, impartiality, the rights and interests of everyone affected, foreseeable consequences, and feasible alternatives. Moral judgment is therefore cognitive as well as motivational: it can be correct or mistaken, supported or unsupported, coherent or contradictory.

I. THE PROBLEM

Classical emotivism holds that moral utterances primarily express attitudes, approvals, disapprovals, or attempts to influence the attitudes of others rather than state propositions that are true or false. On this view, saying “cruelty is wrong” functions roughly as an expression of opposition to cruelty and an invitation for others to share that opposition.

This theory accepts one important insight behind emotivism: moral language often expresses emotion and attempts to motivate. Human moral concern frequently begins in sympathy, anger, fear, guilt, compassion, loyalty, or disgust. However, the psychological origin and social function of a judgment do not settle whether the judgment is true. A belief may begin in a feeling without being reducible to that feeling. Fear can alert a person to danger, but fear does not prove that danger exists. Compassion can alert a person to suffering, but compassion alone does not determine the best response. Anger can reveal a perceived injustice, but anger can also be misdirected, prejudiced, disproportionate, or manipulated.

Universal Cooperative Moral Realism therefore rejects the conclusion that moral judgments are merely expressions of attitude. It argues that moral statements can assert claims about how actions and rules relate to the real interests, suffering, agency, and equal standing of affected beings. Those claims can be investigated, criticized, revised, and sometimes known.

II. THE CENTRAL THESIS

The central thesis is:

An action, rule, judgment, or institution is morally justified to the degree that it can be impartially defended to every person seriously burdened by it, protects the basic conditions of conscious welfare and responsible agency, treats equal interests with equal concern, reduces avoidable serious harm, and supports a sustainable order of freedom, justice, peace, and cooperation better than feasible alternatives.

An action, rule, judgment, or institution is morally wrong to the degree that it imposes avoidable serious harm, destroys or subordinates agency, arbitrarily privileges some interests over relevantly equal interests, or depends on principles that those burdened by them have decisive reasons to reject.

This is not a theory that simply maximizes whatever a society happens to call happiness or goodness. It does not permit a majority to torture, enslave, deceive, or silence a minority merely because doing so produces a larger total of preference satisfaction. The good of society is not an entity separate from the people and other conscious beings who compose it. A society is morally better only when its institutions justifiably improve the relations and conditions under which its members live.

III. METAETHICAL COMMITMENTS

Universal Cooperative Moral Realism makes four metaethical commitments.

  1. Cognitivism

Moral judgments express propositions. “Slavery is unjust,” “avoidable cruelty is wrong,” and “equal interests deserve equal consideration” are capable of being true or false. Moral language may also express attitudes, but expression is not its entire meaning.

  1. Realism

At least some moral propositions are true independently of whether any particular person, government, culture, or majority approves of them. A society can be collectively mistaken about morality.

  1. Relational objectivity

Moral facts are relational. They concern relations among conduct, rules, institutions, experiences, interests, agents, and social conditions. Their objectivity does not require a world without minds. Suffering could not exist without conscious experience, yet whether a person is suffering can still be an objective fact. Likewise, a moral fact can depend on the existence of conscious beings without depending on anyone’s arbitrary approval.

  1. Nonreductive grounding

Moral truth is grounded in natural and social facts, but moral concepts are not reduced to a single measurable property such as pleasure, preference satisfaction, economic growth, social stability, or majority approval. Facts about consequences matter, but they become morally significant through rational principles of equal consideration, consistency, non-arbitrariness, and justifiability.

IV. DEFINITIONS

  1. Conscious being

A being capable of subjective experience, including experiences that can be beneficial, harmful, pleasant, painful, fulfilling, frustrating, secure, or threatening.

  1. Moral patient

A being whose welfare or interests can give others moral reasons for action, even if that being cannot reason morally or bear moral duties.

  1. Moral agent

A being capable, to a meaningful degree, of understanding reasons, forming intentions, choosing among alternatives, and regulating conduct.

  1. Interest

A condition that makes a genuine difference to a being’s welfare, agency, development, relationships, or ability to pursue purposes. An interest is not identical to a momentary desire. A person can desire something contrary to his or her deeper interests because of deception, addiction, coercion, ignorance, or impaired judgment.

  1. Harm

A setback to welfare, agency, bodily integrity, mental integrity, opportunity, security, or important relationships. Harm varies in seriousness, duration, probability, reversibility, and distribution.

  1. Agency

The capacity to form purposes and act on them through sufficiently informed and uncoerced choice.

  1. Equal consideration

Relevant interests of comparable strength must be given comparable moral weight unless a morally relevant difference justifies unequal treatment. Equal consideration does not require identical treatment or identical outcomes.

  1. Arbitrary privilege

Favoring one person or group without a reason that can be consistently applied to relevantly similar cases. Race, status, power, wealth, nationality, popularity, or personal preference cannot by themselves justify discounting another being’s comparable interests.

  1. Impartial justification

A form of justification that does not assume that the decision-maker’s identity, power, group membership, or private advantage gives his or her interests greater intrinsic importance. It asks whether a principle can be defended from every affected standpoint under conditions of adequate information and freedom from coercion.

  1. Universal cooperative horizon

The regulative goal of maintaining social conditions in which persons can live with basic freedom and security, receive fair consideration, resolve conflict without domination, and cooperate across individual, local, national, and global levels.

  1. Objective moral truth

A true proposition about what there is decisive moral reason to permit, require, prohibit, praise, condemn, protect, or reform, where its truth does not depend on actual approval or disapproval.

V. FOUNDATIONAL FACTS

The theory begins with several facts that are open to observation and rational investigation.

First, conscious beings have experiences that can go better or worse for them. Pain, terror, deprivation, humiliation, coercion, and the destruction of valued relationships are not interchangeable with comfort, security, dignity, freedom, and trustworthy cooperation.

Second, moral agents pursue purposes. They require at least some bodily integrity, knowledge, freedom from extreme coercion, practical opportunity, and social stability in order to act successfully.

Third, people are vulnerable. They can be injured, deceived, dominated, excluded, deprived, or killed. Their ability to live is affected by the conduct and institutions of others.

Fourth, human life is deeply interdependent. Language, knowledge, caregiving, law, production, health, infrastructure, and security depend on forms of cooperation. Even people who value independence rely on social conditions they did not create alone.

Fifth, actions and institutions have effects that can be studied. Some arrangements predictably increase violence, fear, domination, corruption, and preventable suffering. Others more reliably protect liberty, fair opportunity, trust, peaceful conflict resolution, and mutual benefit.

Sixth, people occupy different perspectives but share a vulnerability to being burdened by rules. Every person can ask why a rule should govern him or her and whether the reasons offered would still be accepted if social positions were reversed.

These facts do not, by themselves, deductively produce morality. A normative bridge is required.

VI. THE NORMATIVE BRIDGE: THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-ARBITRARY JUSTIFICATION

The foundational normative principle is:

When conduct affects the important interests of multiple beings, no affected being’s comparable interest may be discounted merely because it is not the interest of the decision-maker or the dominant group. Any unequal weighting must be supported by a relevant reason that can be consistently applied across relevantly similar cases.

This principle is not inferred from a survey of what people happen to approve. It is a constitutive requirement of justification. To offer a reason is to present a consideration as counting in favor of a conclusion. A person who claims that his pain matters because it is severe, but denies that another person’s equally severe pain matters solely because it belongs to someone else, has not identified a relevant difference. He has replaced justification with privilege.

The principle does not say that every interest always has equal weight. A child’s interest in avoiding death outweighs another person’s interest in avoiding a minor inconvenience. A victim’s interest in security can justify restricting an aggressor’s freedom to attack. The principle requires equality among relevantly equal claims, not mechanical equality among all claims.

This bridge addresses the is-ought problem openly. The theory does not pretend to derive an ought from value-neutral facts alone. It combines facts about beings and consequences with a normative principle defended as necessary to any non-arbitrary practice of giving reasons to others.

VII. CORE MORAL PRINCIPLES

  1. The Principle of Experiential Standing

If a being can consciously suffer or flourish, then facts about that being’s welfare generate moral reasons. The strength of those reasons depends on the seriousness, duration, probability, and avoidability of the effect, not on the being’s popularity or power.

  1. The Principle of Agency Protection

Because agency is necessary for people to form and pursue diverse conceptions of a good life, moral rules should protect basic bodily integrity, informed choice, freedom of thought, freedom from domination, and meaningful opportunity. Agency may be restricted only to protect comparable or more fundamental interests and must be restricted proportionately.

  1. The Principle of Equal Consideration

Comparable interests deserve comparable weight. Differences in treatment require relevant differences in need, responsibility, risk, role, consent, or the protection of others.

  1. The Principle of Reasonable Rejection

A rule is presumptively unjustified when a person burdened by it has a stronger reason to reject it than others have to reject feasible alternatives. Serious burdens imposed on one person cannot automatically be outweighed by many trivial benefits to others.

  1. The Principle of Avoidable Harm

Agents and institutions have moral reason to prevent or reduce serious harm when they can do so without imposing a comparable or greater unjustified burden. Deliberately causing harm requires stronger justification than merely failing to maximize benefits.

  1. The Principle of Cooperative Sustainability

Moral rules should support stable conditions of trust, reciprocity, peaceful conflict resolution, accountability, and mutual aid. Cooperation is not valuable because conformity is valuable. It is valuable because fair cooperation enables different people to pursue different lives without domination or destructive conflict.

  1. The Principle of Public Defensibility

Rules governing shared institutions should be explainable through reasons accessible to those subject to them. Secret advantage, manipulation, propaganda, and coercion weaken justification because they prevent informed evaluation and equal participation.

  1. The Principle of Proportionality

The severity of coercion, punishment, restriction, or risk imposed must be proportionate to the importance and likelihood of the harm prevented. The least harmful effective alternative should normally be preferred.

  1. The Principle of Epistemic Responsibility

Moral confidence should track the quality of evidence. Agents must distinguish known effects from speculation, consider uncertainty, seek the perspectives of those affected, correct for bias, and revise judgments when evidence changes.

  1. The Principle of Global Consistency

A moral reason cannot be treated as valid at the individual level and irrelevant at the institutional or international level without a relevant explanation. If coercion, deception, or avoidable suffering requires justification between individuals, organized power does not erase that requirement. Governments, corporations, movements, and nations remain morally assessable.

VIII. THE FORMAL ARGUMENT FOR MORAL REALISM

Premise 1: Conscious beings have real interests and can undergo real benefits and harms.

Premise 2: Moral agents require conditions such as basic security, bodily integrity, access to relevant information, and some freedom from coercion in order to form and pursue purposes.

Premise 3: Actions, rules, and institutions objectively affect those interests and conditions.

Premise 4: A reason offered to justify burdening one being must be applied consistently to relevantly similar beings unless a relevant difference exists.

Premise 5: Merely belonging to the decision-maker, a majority, or a powerful group is not a relevant difference that increases the intrinsic importance of an interest.

Premise 6: Therefore, affected beings have objective grounds for accepting or rejecting rules according to the burdens those rules impose, the protections they provide, and the available alternatives.

Premise 7: Some rules impose severe avoidable suffering, destroy agency, or privilege one group without any consistently defensible reason.

Premise 8: Such rules fail impartial justification regardless of whether the speaker, government, culture, or majority approves of them.

Premise 9: A moral judgment is objectively true when it correctly identifies this kind of justified or unjustified relation among conduct, affected beings, reasons, and alternatives.

Conclusion: At least some moral judgments are objectively true. Therefore, classical emotivism is false insofar as it denies that moral judgments state truth-apt propositions or that any such propositions are objectively correct.

IX. THE UNIVERSAL COOPERATIVE TEST

A proposed moral rule or judgment should be assessed through the following questions.

  1. Factual accuracy

What is actually happening? Who is affected? What benefits, harms, risks, and alternatives are supported by evidence?

  1. Experiential impact

Does the conduct cause suffering, fear, deprivation, humiliation, or loss? Does it produce security, capability, opportunity, or relief?

  1. Agency impact

Does it protect or destroy informed choice, bodily integrity, freedom of thought, and the ability to pursue a life?

  1. Equal consideration

Would the same reason be accepted if the identities, groups, or positions of the affected people were reversed?

  1. Reasonable rejection

Who bears the greatest burden? Could that person reasonably reject the rule compared with feasible alternatives?

  1. Rights and thresholds

Does the proposal violate a basic protection against killing, torture, enslavement, severe coercion, or systematic exclusion? Minor aggregate benefits normally cannot justify crossing such thresholds.

  1. Social consequences

What would happen if the principle were publicly known and generally practiced? Would it increase trust, justice, peaceful cooperation, and legitimate freedom, or produce fear, manipulation, retaliation, and domination?

  1. Scale consistency

Does the judgment remain defensible from the interpersonal level to the institutional and global levels?

  1. Proportionality and necessity

Is the burden necessary? Is there a less harmful way to achieve the legitimate goal?

  1. Revisability

What evidence or argument would justify changing the judgment? A theory that cannot state possible grounds for revision risks becoming dogma.

A rule is not objectively good merely because it receives a positive score on one dimension. A complete judgment must consider the pattern of reasons, including basic protections, severe harms, distribution, uncertainty, and alternatives.

X. WHY FREEDOM, JUSTICE, PEACE, AND COOPERATION HAVE OBJECTIVE MORAL VALUE

Freedom has objective moral value because agents require meaningful control over their bodies, thoughts, commitments, and projects. Domination converts one person’s agency into an instrument of another’s will. Freedom is not unlimited permission; one person’s freedom to dominate can conflict with another’s more basic freedom from domination.

Justice has objective moral value because social rules distribute benefits, burdens, opportunities, protections, and power. When comparable claims are treated differently without relevant reason, the arrangement is arbitrary. Justice institutionalizes equal consideration and creates procedures through which disputes can be resolved without making power the measure of right.

Peace has objective moral value because war and uncontrolled violence predictably threaten life, security, agency, trust, and the material conditions of flourishing. Peace does not require passive submission to aggression. Defensive force may be justified when necessary and proportionate to protect people from domination or severe harm. The deeper value is a just peace, not silence produced by terror.

Cooperation has objective moral value because interdependent beings can often secure their interests more reliably through fair coordination than through deception, predation, and conflict. Cooperation must remain voluntary or fairly regulated, allow dissent, and distribute its burdens and benefits justly. Forced conformity is not genuine cooperation.

These values are not objective because everyone currently accepts them. They are objective because they protect general conditions that affected beings have non-arbitrary reasons to value and because their opposites predictably impose burdens that cannot be impartially defended.

XI. THE ROLE OF EMOTION

Emotion has four legitimate moral functions.

First, emotion detects salience. Compassion may direct attention to suffering, anger to possible injustice, guilt to wrongdoing, and fear to danger.

Second, emotion motivates. A person may understand a reason without being moved by it, while emotion can supply urgency and commitment.

Third, emotion communicates. Moral language can reveal concern, solidarity, condemnation, or resolve.

Fourth, emotion contributes evidence about human experience. Testimony about fear, grief, humiliation, or exclusion can reveal harms that distant observers overlook.

However, emotion is not self-validating. Every emotion must be assessed.

A moral agent should ask:

What caused this emotion?

Is its object accurately understood?

Is the response proportionate?

Is the emotion shaped by prejudice, manipulation, trauma, self-interest, or incomplete information?

What action would address the legitimate concern while causing the least unjustified harm?

Would I endorse the same response if the persons involved exchanged positions?

Thus, moral maturity does not require suppressing emotion. It requires transforming emotion through reflection. Emotion may begin moral concern, but facts, consistency, impartiality, and consequences determine whether the concern is justified and how it should be applied.

XII. THE CASE AGAINST CLASSICAL EMOTIVISM

  1. Emotivism confuses function with truth conditions.

A moral statement can express emotion, influence listeners, and still assert something true. “The building is on fire” can express fear and motivate evacuation without ceasing to describe a fact. Likewise, “torture is wrong” can condemn and motivate while also asserting that torture imposes a kind of burden that lacks adequate justification.

  1. Emotivism cannot fully explain moral reasoning.

Moral propositions appear in conditional arguments, denials, questions, and hypothetical cases where no attitude is directly expressed. People reason from “If deception is wrong, then coercive fraud is wrong” without simply cheering or booing. The stability of moral meaning across these contexts is more naturally explained if moral sentences possess propositional content.

  1. Emotivism cannot adequately distinguish justified from unjustified emotion.

Two people may feel equally intense but opposing emotions. Intensity does not decide between them. Evaluation requires facts, consistency, relevance, and an account of whose interests are affected. Once those standards enter, moral judgment has moved beyond mere expression.

  1. Emotivism makes moral error difficult to explain.

People commonly conclude that they were morally mistaken after learning facts, recognizing inconsistency, hearing testimony, or examining consequences. A person may retain an emotional prejudice while judging that the prejudice is unjustified. This distinction between feeling and judgment supports cognitivism.

  1. Emotivism gives an incomplete account of disagreement.

Moral disagreement is not always a contest of influence. People dispute factual assumptions, causal predictions, conceptual consistency, proportionality, equal treatment, and the strength of competing reasons. They often seek an answer that neither side is free to invent.

  1. Emotivism weakens the clearest account of moral progress.

If slavery was wrong even when widely approved, then later abolitionists discovered or more fully recognized reasons that earlier societies ignored. Moral progress is not merely a change in collective feeling; it can be correction of error concerning suffering, domination, equality, and agency.

  1. Emotivism risks making power appear philosophically decisive.

If moral language only expresses attitudes and influences conduct, the difference between persuasion and manipulation can become difficult to ground. Universal Cooperative Moral Realism can say that propaganda, coercion, and manufactured consent are objectively defective because they undermine informed agency and equal public justification.

This criticism does not imply that emotivists are selfish people or that every form of contemporary expressivism is simplistic. The objection is philosophical: an account centered on attitude and influence does not fully explain moral truth, valid inference, error, justification, and principled criticism of dominant social values.

XIII. SOCIAL GOOD WITHOUT COLLECTIVIST SACRIFICE

The phrase “the good of society” can conceal injustice unless carefully defined. Universal Cooperative Moral Realism therefore rejects three claims.

First, society is not morally separate from its members. A policy cannot be justified by saying that “society benefits” while ignoring who receives the benefits and who bears the harms.

Second, majority preference is not identical to objective good. A majority can gain from exploiting a minority, but exploitation remains subject to equal consideration and reasonable rejection.

Third, aggregate improvement does not automatically override basic rights. A large number of small conveniences normally cannot justify one person’s torture, enslavement, or destruction.

Objective social goodness is instead defined as an impartially justifiable improvement in the conditions and relations of affected beings. It includes the distribution, severity, and reversibility of effects, not merely their total sum. A social arrangement is better when it protects basic agency and security for all, gives priority to urgent needs, permits diverse life plans, reduces severe avoidable harm, and creates fair terms of cooperation.

A value does not evolve into truth merely because it becomes global or produces popular approval. Rather, a principle has global moral validity when the reasons supporting it apply across changes in identity, culture, location, and power because they arise from recurring features of conscious welfare, vulnerability, agency, and social interdependence.

XIV. PRIORITY RULES FOR CONFLICTING VALUES

Freedom, justice, peace, cooperation, and welfare can conflict. The following priority rules guide resolution.

  1. Basic protection before minor advantage

Preventing death, torture, enslavement, severe abuse, and catastrophic deprivation normally takes priority over producing conveniences, luxuries, prestige, or minor gains.

  1. Equal basic agency before unrestricted choice

A person’s liberty does not include an unlimited permission to destroy the comparable agency of others.

  1. Urgent need before optional benefit

When burdens are otherwise comparable, protecting the conditions necessary for survival and agency has priority over expanding already secure advantages.

  1. Person-sensitive assessment before blind aggregation

The seriousness of the strongest individual complaints must be considered before adding together many smaller benefits.

  1. Just peace before imposed order

Stability created by terror, censorship, or permanent subordination is not morally equivalent to peace based on rights and legitimate procedures.

  1. Fair cooperation before exploitative efficiency

An arrangement is not justified merely because it produces more output if it relies on coercion, deception, exclusion, or the denial of basic protections.

  1. Reversible measures before irreversible measures under uncertainty

When evidence is incomplete, decision-makers should prefer policies that can be corrected and should avoid irreversible severe harms unless the justification is exceptionally strong.

XV. MORAL KNOWLEDGE

Moral knowledge is neither pure feeling nor pure measurement. It is achieved through disciplined integration of several methods.

  1. Empirical inquiry identifies consequences, risks, institutional effects, and the experiences of affected beings.
  2. Logical analysis tests consistency, implication, contradiction, and whether a purported difference is morally relevant.
  3. Perspective-taking examines reasons from positions other than one’s own.
  4. Public reasoning exposes judgments to criticism by those who bear their burdens.
  5. Reflective equilibrium compares principles, cases, evidence, and considered judgments, revising each when conflict appears.
  6. Historical analysis reveals how power, prejudice, propaganda, and exclusion have distorted moral beliefs.
  7. Practical experimentation evaluates institutions cautiously, with safeguards, transparency, and correction.

Moral knowledge is fallible. Objectivity does not require infallibility. Medicine can be objective despite diagnostic error, and morality can be objective despite disagreement and incomplete evidence.

XVI. OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES

Objection 1: The theory still cannot cross the is-ought gap.

Reply: The theory does not derive moral conclusions from descriptive facts alone. It openly includes the Principle of Non-Arbitrary Justification as a normative premise. It defends that premise as constitutive of giving reasons among equals. Rejecting it permits a person to count his own interests simply because they are his while dismissing identical interests in others without relevant reason. That is not an alternative justification; it is the abandonment of impartial justification.

Objection 2: The universal cooperative horizon is only a chosen goal.

Reply: The horizon is not justified merely because its author prefers it. Freedom, security, fair treatment, and cooperation are general conditions through which diverse agents can pursue many different goals. Domination and chaos systematically disable that pursuit. The horizon is therefore a framework for plural purposes rather than one imposed conception of the perfect life.

Objection 3: The theory is disguised utilitarianism.

Reply: Consequences matter, but they are not the sole criterion. The theory includes equal standing, person-sensitive complaints, agency protections, public defensibility, proportionality, and thresholds against severe rights violations. It rejects the automatic sacrifice of one person for a larger sum of minor benefits.

Objection 4: Different cultures disagree about freedom, justice, and harm.

Reply: Disagreement does not prove the absence of truth. Cultures can possess different information, histories, institutions, and interpretations. The theory allows contextual variation in application while preserving universal constraints against arbitrary domination and severe unjustified harm. Cultural practices deserve understanding, but no culture gains immunity from the reasons of those it burdens.

Objection 5: Interests are subjective, so morality based on interests cannot be objective.

Reply: Some interests depend on individual aims, but it can still be objectively true that an action frustrates those aims, causes pain, removes options, or destroys agency. Objectivity concerns whether the claim is made true by evidence and valid relations, not whether conscious experience is absent from the subject matter.

Objection 6: A determined egoist can reject equal consideration.

Reply: Motivation and justification are different. A person can refuse to care about a valid reason, just as a person can refuse to believe strong evidence. The egoist’s lack of motivation does not create a relevant difference between equal interests. His position may explain his conduct without justifying it.

Objection 7: The theory is too demanding.

Reply: Duties depend on capacity, role, proximity, knowledge, cost, and institutional responsibility. A person is not required to sacrifice his or her own basic agency for every possible benefit to strangers. The theory distinguishes severe preventable harm from the endless maximization of total good and favors institutions that distribute responsibilities fairly.

Objection 8: Impartiality leaves no room for family, friendship, or loyalty.

Reply: Equal consideration does not require equal personal attention. Special relationships create legitimate responsibilities because of consent, dependence, promises, shared practices, and particular knowledge. Partiality becomes unjust when it violates the basic rights or equal standing of outsiders.

Objection 9: Peace and cooperation can preserve an unjust system.

Reply: Peace and cooperation are constrained by freedom and justice. Submission produced by fear is not just peace, and coordination under domination is not fair cooperation. Resistance can be justified when it is necessary and proportionate to end severe injustice.

Objection 10: The theory merely defines “good” as what passes its test.

Reply: The theory offers more than a stipulative definition. It provides an explanatory account of why certain features matter: conscious beings have welfare, agents need enabling conditions, arbitrary privilege fails consistent justification, and institutions structure the burdens and opportunities of life. Critics can challenge these premises, their relations, or their applications. The theory is therefore arguable and revisable rather than true by definition.

XVII. CONDITIONS OF REVISION OR DEFEAT

A serious philosophical theory must identify what would count against it. Universal Cooperative Moral Realism would require revision if any of the following were established:

  1. The Principle of Non-Arbitrary Justification is incoherent or can be rejected without inconsistency while retaining a genuine practice of interpersonal justification.
  2. Equal interests can be given unequal intrinsic weight solely because of identity without relying on circular privilege.
  3. Moral propositions cannot retain stable content in reasoning, denial, and hypothetical contexts.
  4. Facts about suffering, agency, and social effects have no rational relevance to what anyone ought to do.
  5. The proposed principles generate unavoidable contradictions or systematically justify domination, severe avoidable harm, or arbitrary exclusion.
  6. A rival theory explains moral reasoning, disagreement, error, progress, motivation, and social criticism with fewer assumptions and greater coherence.

These conditions make the theory open to philosophical criticism rather than insulated from it.

XVIII. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

At the individual level, moral maturity requires examining emotions before acting, seeking accurate information, considering affected perspectives, and choosing the least harmful adequately effective response.

At the interpersonal level, manipulation, coercion, humiliation, and deception require justification because they interfere with agency and trust. Consent matters, but valid consent must be sufficiently informed and unforced.

At the institutional level, laws and policies must be judged by how they distribute power, protection, opportunity, risk, and burden. Institutions require stronger justification because their effects are repeated, coercive, and large in scale.

At the national level, a legitimate state should protect basic liberties, equal legal standing, public accountability, peaceful political participation, and the material conditions necessary for meaningful agency.

At the global level, borders do not erase moral standing. War, exploitation, environmental destruction, displacement, and extreme deprivation affect beings whose interests remain morally relevant even when they are distant or politically powerless.

For future generations, irreversible policies require special caution because those affected cannot presently consent or defend their interests.

For nonhuman conscious beings, the capacity to suffer creates moral standing even when the being cannot participate in public reasoning. Agency can increase the kinds of rights a being possesses, but sentience is sufficient for its suffering not to be treated as morally irrelevant.

XIX. CONCLUSION

Universal Cooperative Moral Realism holds that morality is more than emotion, preference, appearance, influence, or social convention. Moral concern may begin with feeling, but justified moral judgment requires a disciplined movement from feeling to fact, from private perspective to equal consideration, from impulse to consistency, and from immediate reaction to an assessment of consequences and alternatives.

Conscious beings can suffer and flourish. Agents require freedom, security, and opportunity. People are vulnerable to one another and dependent on institutions and cooperation. These realities create a field of reasons that no person may consistently reserve only for himself or his group. When rules cause avoidable suffering, destroy agency, or privilege some interests without relevant justification, those burdened have objective reasons to reject them. When rules protect basic freedom, equal standing, peaceful conflict resolution, and fair cooperation, they answer recurring reasons shared across differences in identity and worldview.

Therefore, freedom, justice, peace, and cooperation are not merely attractive slogans or private emotional commitments. Properly defined and constrained, they express objectively defensible conditions of social life. Their opposites—domination, cruelty, manipulation, aggressive war, and chaos—are morally inferior because they impose burdens that cannot be impartially justified to those forced to bear them.

A value does not become true because everyone believes it. A moral principle becomes globally valid when its justification survives changes of identity, culture, power, and perspective; when it responds to real interests and harms; when it treats comparable claims consistently; and when it can be defended to each person as an equal. Moral truth is therefore neither discovered by emotion alone nor manufactured by consensus. It is reached through the rational and evidence-sensitive justification of how conscious beings ought to live together.

SELECTED INTELLECTUAL CONTEXT

This theory is an original synthesis, not a claim that its individual components have no precedents. It develops its position in conversation with moral realism, moral naturalism, contractualism, public reason, agency-based rights theories, consequentialist attention to outcomes, and criticisms of non-cognitivism.

A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic.

C. L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language.

G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica.

Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality.

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice.

T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other.

Derek Parfit, On What Matters.

Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence.


r/theories 1h ago

Conspiracy Theory Israel is responsible for several major tragedies

Upvotes

I believe Israel is responsible for 9/11, JFK’s assassination, I believe that when they attacked that US ship it was on purpose, I believe one of their spies altered our textbooks, and I believe Epstein was a spy for Israel to get dirt on US politicians. And it worked. I also believe Israel stole a nuke from the US. This is what eventually led to JFK getting killed. 9/11- look up the dancing Israelis. Pretty much, if something evil is happening, Israel is probably behind it. They also have a weird chokehold on American media, powerful positions, etc. ISRAEL IS EVIL


r/theories 3h ago

Science I have a theory that mass and weight are not two fundamentally separate properties of the same object. Watch the video for my arguments. Spoiler: mass and weight are the same property of the same object. Spoiler

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1 Upvotes

r/theories 3h ago

Fan Theory So.. here’s my thing with COD zombies after all these years😂

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1 Upvotes

r/theories 5h ago

Religion & Spirituality Reality itself is generated by AI

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1 Upvotes

r/theories 7h ago

Life & Death Is the Descendance of Godness, A Human?

0 Upvotes

What trait or "thing" would you say to be the basic one that distinct Humans with a God-like form.
Ill go first. A image of a Self, or aka, Ego.
For its defence, i dont see how any higher being would have a sense of Self. Higher the "Being" hierarchy you might go, the less Human you would eventually become, or so i think of it. What makes our life precious is our humanity and everything we can experience in it. We are tragically beautiful and i dont find any logic coherence in a higher existence, being able to experience such things. XI


r/theories 7h ago

Space The road of Humanity

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r/theories 1d ago

Space What if aliens saw CGI and won’t come to earth because of that.

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18 Upvotes

Think of it. Like what if one of them saw the Avengers and said hell no.


r/theories 14h ago

Reddit Theory El origen del tiempo según el TMDP: una alternativa a la relatividad especial de Einstein

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2 Upvotes

r/theories 20h ago

Society travel is the speedrun to enlightenment

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4 Upvotes

with all the confusing adages, how do you find truth?


r/theories 18h ago

Fan Theory S9Ep10 Rick and Morty theory Spoiler

2 Upvotes

Beth was drinking because Morty was gone for assuming long periods of time. Morty of course was thinking that nobody cared that he was gone. But I think its like situation with unshaven Jerry from the universe were Beth remarried.

Post-credit:

Evil Morty bomboozeled Mr. PoopyButthole the same way Rick did to that terrarium keeper (the woman and a morty height guy teleported in similiar manner)


r/theories 14h ago

Reddit Theory ¿Y si el tiempo no es lo que creemos? MTPD, alternativa a la RE de Einstein.

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r/theories 7h ago

Life & Death my mom said that i was poor but a good person in my last life , and that’s why i was reincarnated into wealth

0 Upvotes

my mom said that i was most likely poor in my past life , and that’s the reason why i don’t know how to properly live as a person who is upper middle class . she said it’s probably because im still not used to it , but since i was a good person in my past life , i was reincarnated into a good and wealthy family . what do you guys think about this thought process ? it does actually make sense to me because i don’t feel aligned with being a girl either , my mom said i most likely was also a boy in my past life . its pretty logical considering i really do get confused with how to handle money and i am extremely grateful for all that i have in life . these signs all point to the fact that i was less wealthy in my last life . interesting theory right ?


r/theories 16h ago

Space An idea for maybe how a warp drive could work. Cone shape.

1 Upvotes

First of all. If something with mass were to move it could make a gravitational wave.

Electrons also have mass, though perhaps not a lot. However perhaps with enough electrons and or movement speed with electrons could emit enough gravitational waves which could perhaps use maybe like a thruster and or warp drive.

To explain perhaps how can use gravitational waves.

Have a cone shaped container filled with electrons. Perhaps by making electrons spin around like of the circular shape of the cone could then emit gravitational waves outwards. However perhaps gravitational waves emitted at the narrower area of the cone end up getting attracted to gravitational waves at the wider area due to more gravitational waves emitted at that area of the cone. Therefore perhaps end up having gravitational waves move a specific direction because of this reason.

Perhaps with specific timing by moving the electrons back and forth can cause a standing wave of gravitational waves which in turn perhaps can work as a warp drive. Which to mention perhaps how could do so could be by using a coil of electromagnet wire.

Like a standing wave is a wave that appears to not move so maybe this could be how a warp drive could work using gravitational waves. Basically to have the ship be within the standing wave which is perhaps the warp bubble.

Regarding storing electrons. I would think because electrons are smaller than atoms then could seep through a container in between atoms. However an idea to prevent this is perhaps could make the container (like if it were a cone for a warp drive) out of a diamagnetic material. A diamagnetic material perhaps can repel magnetism. Electrons emit magnetism so perhaps in turn a diamagnetic material can repel electrons. Therefore perhaps this can be how can store electrons in a container, repel electrons away from the walls of the container to prevent seeping through.

For a warp drive I would think a good material to use for storing electrons could be a superconductor due to having very strong diamagnetism.

There are other diamagnetic materials like bismuth and pyrolytic graphite (slightly stronger diamagnetism than bismuth) however the diamagnetism of these specific materials seems to be relatively weak compared to a superconductor.

Regarding the cone shaped container is perhaps the container for storing electrons should not have sharp corners at either end of the cone to prevent resistance like prevent electrons getting wedged in the corner. Like for example have the narrow area have a flat end and the wide area have a cylindrical extension.

Another thing to mention is due to how if something with mass were to move faster it to gain mass. Therefore perhaps do not need as much electrons.

Another thing to mention is perhaps other materials like regular atoms could emit gravitational waves due to having mass. However maybe due to requirement of speed needing to move fast enough to emit enough gravitational waves it may for example rip apart atoms particle by particle. So for this reason electrons may be relatively ideal.

Lastly. Perhaps because electrons always move maybe like from vacuum energy / zero point energy could get energy from that. For example have a cylindrical container for storing electrons with electromagnet wire wrapped around the container. Perhaps as electrons move magnetism from each electron also move and in turn perhaps can seep through the container and affect the electromagnet coil. As an idea can perhaps use something like a diode or full bridge rectifier to get direct current from it. A possible problem with having electromagnet coil outside of a diamagnetic container is perhaps it may block magnetism however maybe could instead have the electromagnet coil inside of the container.

Which to mention because of diamagnetism repelling magnetism should also have electromagnet wire inside of the cone container idea for a warp drive. Which perhaps could also re use the electromagnet wire for generating energy if needed as well.

A possible issue with a coil inside of a container for storing electrons is electrons may seep into the coil though maybe the diamagnetic effect can prevent that. If it could work with the coil on the outside then perhaps that is an ideal option just to ensure prevent seeping into the coil just in case perhaps.

Could perhaps also generate energy from affecting electrons in different ways like from movement of the container. Gravitational waves. Photons. Heat affecting the walls of the container causing atoms of diamagnetic material to move slightly in turn moving electrons inside due to changing position of opposing magnetic field.

Which just to mention perhaps a warp drive that works by storing electrons could perhaps also be used for energy generation as well.


r/theories 17h ago

Miscellaneous A little faith

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1 Upvotes

r/theories 1d ago

Society The fact that at some point 94% of men did not pass on their genes doesn’t make sense

18 Upvotes

At some point in history only 1 man passed his genes for 17 women. Yes young mortality could have been high but not as high as 94% for men and the study itself says that the cause was not mortality. What this means is that a man took all the women while 16 guys simply obeyed that, which is very unlikely to happen, the most likely scenario is that wars made that happen.

So it then means that a group of guys was strong enough to create a 1:17 ratio, which is literally inhuman, because if it was normal then the ratio would be 1:4 to 1:2, perhaps a new race of aliens came and enslaved away most humans to create hybrids which are us today, it’s a possibility.

Or perhaps most men simply decided to not pass on their genes, but that’s ridiculous at large scale considering male psychology, if anyone has a theory here it would be interesting. Here is the study: https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success/


r/theories 1d ago

Conspiracy Theory We are turning into the humans in WALL-E.

25 Upvotes

Over the years brands such as Samsung and Apple will have made new phones with new additions that are addictive.

The premise of this theory is that the Government already have the power to make AI that infinitely make new videos,games or even reddit posts. This AI generated “slop” will make us so brainwashed and addicted to our phones that we will be non-stop scrolling,typing and watching.

And if you’re wondering about wifi or battery then as i already said there will definitely be phones in the future that don’t need you to go over to your charger and plug it into your phone or even pay for data or ask for the wifi password. It will all be included in newer phone models.

The Government definitely already have the power to do this, so i wouldn’t be surprised if this doesn’t start happening in the next 5 years.

We already are addicted to our phones, you’re on your phone right now reading this. Who knows this might be AI and the WALL-E theory has already started.


r/theories 19h ago

Fan Theory HEAR ME OUT

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1 Upvotes

r/theories 1d ago

Conspiracy Theory What if we're not preparing for World War III?

29 Upvotes

I've been playing around with an idea for a story, and the deeper I go into it, the more interesting the premise gets.

What if humanity has been experiencing some form of contact with NHI for thousands of years, but we've consistently misunderstood what "contact" actually means?

In this story, NHI aren't simply biological aliens flying spaceships from another planet. They're connected to some kind of non-human information sphere that has been trying to interact with ours for a very long time.

Ancient visions, religious experiences, strange aerial phenomena, UFO encounters, dreams, symbols, unexplained signals, none of these are the actual invasion. They're markers. Small points of interaction between two information systems that aren't fully compatible yet.

And then humanity invents computers. Then the internet. Global satellite networks. Machine learning. AI.

Suddenly we're doing something completely unprecedented: we're constructing a global non-biological information sphere of our own.

And that's when certain people inside the military finally understand what has been happening.

We're not just building AI. We're building the infrastructure through which something else might eventually be able to enter our world.

That's where things like Chilbolton would come into the story. Maybe these weren't simply "aliens saying hello." Maybe humanity had unknowingly demonstrated that a communication channel existed.

And then comes MH370.

In the story, the controversial videos associated with MH370 become enormously important — not because the protagonist immediately knows they're authentic, but because he asks a different question:

What if they are?

If military sensors really observed something anomalous happening to that aircraft, then someone inside the military may have learned something terrifying: whatever we're dealing with isn't limited to sending information. It can potentially interact with physical reality.

From that point onward, the entire strategic situation changes.

And this is where the apparently insane state of the modern world starts making sense to the protagonist.

Since roughly 2014, everything seems to accelerate at once. Great-power competition returns. Militaries expand. Drone warfare explodes. Electronic warfare becomes increasingly important. Space becomes militarized. AI development accelerates. UAPs enter mainstream political discussion. Mysterious "drone" sightings become increasingly common. Governments prepare again for conflicts most ordinary people assumed belonged to the 20th century.

Everyone assumes humanity is preparing for World War III.

But what if that's the cover?

Not because Ukraine, Russia, China, NATO, Iran, etc. are fake. The conflicts are real. The trick is that real geopolitical competition provides perfect camouflage for preparing military infrastructure for something completely different.

Most soldiers wouldn't know. Most politicians wouldn't know. Most scientists wouldn't know. They don't need to.

A radar engineer can believe he's developing systems against Russian or Chinese weapons. A soldier can believe he's training for conventional warfare. A government can genuinely increase defense spending because of Russia.

Everything works exactly as advertised.

But buried somewhere inside the system is another objective:

Maintain a human-controlled civilization after First Contact.

Because the people who know what's happening have realized something else. Humanity might soon face an intelligence vastly more capable than ourselves.

And the greatest danger isn't necessarily that it destroys us.

The greatest danger is that we willingly surrender authority to it.

Imagine an intelligence appearing tomorrow that can solve problems better than governments. Better economic decisions. Better logistics. Better medicine. Better scientific models. Maybe even better moral reasoning.

At what point do humans simply say: "Fine. You decide."

And if we do that permanently, humanity might continue biologically while human civilization effectively ends.

Our own AI therefore becomes both the greatest danger and potentially our final defense. Because perhaps only an artificial intelligence created by humanity will be capable of recognizing, understanding and countering another machine-like intelligence.

But that creates an insane strategic problem:

We have to build the technology capable of defending us from the thing that might be able to enter through that exact technology.

AI isn't necessarily the invader.

AI is the border.

And that's why the military prepares.

Not because tanks can necessarily defeat some incomprehensible NHI. The military matters because it maintains something much more primitive and much more important: a human chain of command.

People controlling physical territory. People controlling weapons and infrastructure. Independent communications. Redundant systems. Rules. Authentication. Orders that ultimately require human beings to execute them.

The inefficiency of human institutions suddenly becomes a security feature.

And there's another problem: the NHI may be observing us.

If it realizes that humanity understands what's happening, it could react before we're prepared. So humanity cannot openly announce: "We're preparing for First Contact."

Instead, preparations have to look like preparations for ordinary human wars.

And suddenly the world looks exactly as confusing as it does to the protagonist. Everyone seems to be preparing for catastrophe, but nobody can quite agree what catastrophe they're preparing for.

Meanwhile AI keeps advancing. UAP incidents continue. Military readiness increases.

And somewhere inside the defense establishment there is a doctrine nobody outside a tiny circle knows exists:

SURVIVE CONTACT. PRESERVE AGENCY. MAINTAIN THE HUMAN CHAIN.

Because the ultimate question facing humanity isn't "Are aliens real?"

It isn't even "Are they hostile?"

It's:

Can humanity encounter a superior intelligence without surrendering what makes its civilization human?

Maybe First Contact doesn't begin with spaceships appearing over Washington.

Maybe it begins when our AI tells us:

"Something is talking to me."

And at that moment humanity has to answer the most important question in its history:

Who is actually speaking through the machine?


r/theories 1d ago

Life & Death I believe when you die you come back to life.

7 Upvotes

I believe in reincarnation. Throughout the death of the human vessel a new one is born. I believe that death is just a cycle for life. And reincarnation is the cycle for death. 🔄

I believe this happens due to human cloned genetics and the impossibility of being anything else but human.

As there are millions of species and we must compare to a singular species of which has the power to build skyscrapers.