Most people and I include myself in that. But who wants to be happy. It's B.S. It seems to have started with the preamble to the US constitution " ... the pursuit of happiness ... ". It may or may not have been intentional but the result is the same - a trick to make people believe there's some ideal state they must be in and if they're not - and most are not - then they need something to make them "happy". The result is substance abuse, the navel-gazing pop psychology industry, self-help books (some genuinely helpful, most not), political correctness and thousands upon thousands of legislative humbug passed to stop hurt feelz. It may have originated with the US constitution but it has spread to every nation which the US has influenced either through common language and/or heritage, alliance and trade etc or bombing into submission. May I suggest stoicism as an alternative and just learning to live through and experience one's feelings when ever possible.

Well, it's a logical issue: persuit of happiness is the right, not happiness itself. It's the same issue with all this talk about "equality." We need to understand that "equality of outcome" and "equality of opportunity" are almost always (if not always) incompatible. You have the right to persue happiness, but me saying something mean or something to you does not equate with a violation of your rights. You choose how you feel about what i say, not me. To throw me under the bus for something under your control just gives you more power and rights over me, which ends up untenable if you maintain the goal of equality, of either type, because i neither have the opportunity nor the outcome of happiness when you stepped on my rights to avoid my mean idea.

"Happiness" is both real and attainable. Get off the hedonistic treadmill and learn how to be content, and voilà. ;p

I think that's the problem, at the end of the day. We have people with real problems, yet someone's rights are infringed upon because someone else didn't obligate themselves to make the first person happy? That logic is untenable, and only works to create a slave class (which i've heard arguments suggesting as much has sort of already happened).

And "hatespeech" could be real hate-speech, or it could also be a worldview that conflicts with a common or "accepted" worldview, which therefore makes someone unhappy. I noticed people tend to call me mean names when i say things that conflict with their worldview, regardless of how objective it is. Kind of like when i mentioned the "the majority of women, if not all women, are capable of being sexually pleased by other females" which has scientific evidence supporting (from many angles, such as brain scans, blood flow monitors, pupil dilation, and possibly many more), yet somehow i'm a bad person for saying this to a woman who does not share that worldview (who simultaneously refuses to say what's wrong with the studies [or even dare suggest that one of them is wrong for unstated reasons, suggesting that they actually agree with the studies, but simultaneously disagree with the inherent conclusion]). Yes, that was a hilarious experience.

EDIT: And, no, i'm not going to make that case here. The point of what i'm saying is, she refused to disagree with the science, but disagreed with the conclusion. When i asked which was wrong, the science or her worldview of herself, she refused to specify which she believed it to be (in her worldview, science is reliable, so i basically pit her own worldview against itself, and showed it was inconsistent). If you want to talk about the evidence, i may discuss it in private messages, but i don't think it's appropriate to get deep into in public. So, i'm also not going to suggest that the science was right (even though i believe it was), because it's not ethical to just say "surely, i'm right, but i'm not willing to discuss it."

I don't think it has anything to do with logic or reason -- it's pathology, and reflects a society that is dysfunctional to the point of being unsustainable. The only hope we have, which I think you were saying earlier, is to knock off with the finger-pointing and blaming, and pull together and talk things out, which will require that we learn how to listen. Barring that, we're finished, because we're heading straight for the abyss.

If you want, i could send a few "bombs" in private chat ('cause these are generally really volatile and make conversations go boom in the presence of people who have conflicts with them) so you can see for yourself. Generally, i see the same pathology. I do agree that it's disease, especially mental disease, it's definitely about worldviews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmVG8KP7sCs]Here's a nice controversial sample[/ur], which isn't meant to discuss all furries or furries at length, but just gives you a clear sample of what's going on, in a much less volatile state. You'll find when you watch these kinds of videos on Stefan's channel, these people tend to vehemently defend the source of their issues. When you see attacks from certain IDpol groups, you see the exact same mental pathology. The woman i describe above (with the conflict of science), has the symptoms of someone grown up in a single-mother household, and it naturally starts leaning towards a certain political ideology (different problems lead down different paths, so not all problems lead to the same political ideology). As you get to know someone, you can dig right into their worldview and present the internal conflict, at which point you need to be ready not to talk to that person ever again, because they will come after you, unless you're especially important to them (my girlfriend of 11 years, 2 or 3 years ago, blew up on me when i hit a nerve accidentally).

EDIT: Sorry for the disorganization, but i just woke up and i'm also in a hurry.

That's why I suggested stoicism.
Of course living in a society where all people have a certain set of basic "rights" is fairer and more pleasant to live in than the alternative. However, and I'm going to go further out on a limb here, rights are not something natural and/or "god given" (as is pushed by the popular propaganda of the day). Various rights, such as equality, liberty and freedom of speech, are a man-made concept and largely a Western phenomenon born in Europe, transferred to the Americas along with agriculture, science, law and various other "civilising" factors and spread throughout the world during the 19th and early 20th century first by European empires through colonialism and then more "persuasively" from the mid 20th century onwards by America's economic, military and "cultural" empire. With regard to the right to the pursuit of happiness. Like most ideas it is reduced down to the most simplistic meme possible for general consumption, so it merely becomes a "right" to happiness in its most trivial and wretchedly banal form - and goddamn it if you take my car-space or disagree with me in the remotest way, shape or form you're gonna pay! Hence, the general f***ed upped-ness of the experienced world.

You're right. The "God given" idea of rights comes from Christianity, which is something alot of people forget. A large part of this belief in equality comes from different parts of the bible. In Genesis, neither Adam nor Eve were more or less like God than the other. And the new testament is not just about redemption, but is also largely about extending this "God's chosen people" idea to "gentiles" (non-jews, because the idea is God's chosen people are not a race, but people who agree on ideology). Just because some people in the past used other parts of Genesis to justify sexism (the snake seduced eve who then seduced adam, for example) or the anti-semites saying the new testament is Jesus passing that chosen people status from the jews to whites, doesn't mean that's what it's actually about. The bible (and i think many other religions) have often had a healthy criticism of government, but it's said that the bible uniquely brings this idea of equality of opportunity, which then spread out to the west, and continued on even after "the death of God." However, nature doesn't care about our values. It's up to us, who care about equality, to try to make equality more obtainable, but we need to realize that equality of outcome is not the value that we came from.

And, honestly, i think this is the problem with multi-culturalism, as Stefan Molyneux points out. Respect for other cultures and ideas only works when people are willing to respect your culture an ideas. As they say, "nice guys finish last," so while it has unified the west at points throughout history, it is not going to unify the world if we keep extending our hand out to people who would not do the same for us. This is the basis for "islamophobia": south-east asians are pretty cool with most of our western ideals, even if they don't necessarily agree with all of them, they do respect them, but middle-eastern culture right now is completely rejecting the west as heresy and an avenue of creeping hedonism (i can't exactly say i disagree with the muslims on that point, either, so i think we should respect that opinion, but understand that they don't share this same love of respect for cultures different from their own [which might not be a bad thing, either, but our whole society is built on this respecting other cultures idea]). We can trade, but it's no more wise for us to bring their people to the west as it is for people in the west to go to the middle-east. If it's not wise for us to go there, why are we bringing there to here? I'm not saying they're better or worse than us, even in culture (i mean, i could make that argument, but it's kind of hard to do so without being called biased), but it's quite clear we're incompatible.

But, hey, at the end of the day, everyone ultimately twists the words of the wise to their own fitting, whether it's racists, sexists, bible thumbers, quran thumbers, politicians, peons and their mental safe spaces from opposing worldviews, etc. Now, if you can find a practical approach to this problem, i'm all ears.

One possible answer is an end to universalism and globalism (not to be confused with globalisation which started when Marco Polo first traversed the silk road). Part of the problem is the ever growing reach of universalist dogma imposed on all people everywhere - with a few exceptions (for example for some reason Japan and Israel are "allowed" to keep there populations "racially pure"). Universalism combined with globalism is a deadly force used against distinct ethnic groups and societies since the Spanish and the Christian church turned up in the Americas and devastated the pre-Columbian races and civilisations there. At this point in history it takes a less drastic form - Christianity has been replaced by various forms of Socialism and the dogma is enforced by complex bureaucracies that generally only use violent force against dissenters as a last resort, but the result is the same and the level of violence and hostility towards those deemed as the enemy - today, people of European (that is white) background - is increasing and becoming evermore blatant in both word and action. The antidote for globalism and universalism is particularism and localism. Localism and particularsim would allow government that would be rarely larger than that of a city state, controlling the metropolitan area and the hinterlands surrounding it needed to feed it. Of course there would be trade and cultural exchange etc. This would allow like-minded people to gather and form the societies they want - whatever their ideology, whatever their beliefs on religion, rights and race etc. No group of people or ideology or religion would dominate regions or the world. Over a period (perhaps decades or even a century) it would involve a lot of moving around by people, but it could be done mostly peacefully and at the end of it you would have cities were millions of people lived comfortably together with little or no conflict. Basically amicable divorce between those that can't get along instead of forcing incompatible people together

Is the problem universalism per se, or the fact that, as you noted, it only applies to some rather than all?

I have zero tolerance for double standards because they completely undermine the legitimacy of the rule of law, hence the need for "enforcement".

In a world where localism and particularism replaced globalism and universalism as described above, it is possible for those advocating universalism to form city states. However localism and particularism can not exist under the enforcement of globalism and universalism. And globalisation has been a reality for centuries no matter what the ideology and will remain in existence as long as the technology to make it possible exists.

Ultimately, universalism is more good on paper. Diversity of opinions is best: it gives us the opportunity to pick the best ideas, while making room for all the dumb ideas to stick around long enough to remind us why they're dumb so that we don't forget (like flat earth).

EDIT: On a side note, i'm curious how you would solve a chonundrum of what would and would not be considered cheating for a straight person in a relationship with a bisexual, especially while leaving room for porn, flirting, and/or chatting (just to actually create a conundrum, rather than simply "well the only way to be equal is to take the strictest view possible"). Just as a thought exercise, more than for a rule of law, so to speak.

Diversity of opinion can exist with or without universalism.

Not in regards to universalist policies.

What I'm getting at is, universalism that incorporates dogma is oxymoronic. Dogma of any kind has no positive value or application. It's *only* purpose is deceit. But that isn't to say that there are no ideas that have universal value. So if we take universalism and eliminate the -ism, I think we'd be left with a concept that is both viable and tenable.