User:Slayemin

About

"Slayemin" is my unique handle invented in 1998, inspired by the Terran Firebat from "Star Craft". One of the garbled character audio quotes sounds like "Slayemin" which is supposed to be "Flamin'!". I thought it was silly and cool at the time and the name has stuck ever since. There isn't any connection to "slaying" or killing, even though the name and word sound similar.

Here is a link to my blog: Journal

Interests

Computers

I have a bachelors of science in computer science. I am a professional software developer.

Computer Programming

I write code for a living. I have extensive experience in developing applications of every sort. I am passionate about distributed computing, artificial intelligence, encryption & decryption, mathematics, database development, entity component systems, data structures, and doing really cool things with code.

Military Background

I served in the Marine reserves for eight years. I did two tours in Iraq, mostly IT related work at marine headquarters. I was honorably discharged. I've worked as a DoD contractor doing software development in Afghanistan for 18 months at a division level headquarters.

Philosophy

I am very interested in philosophy. My areas of interest are in formal logic, the philosophy of science, and morality and ethics.

I subscribe to the moral anti-theory of particularism. I believe that every moral theory is flawed but morality exists primarily as a human construct. The construction of our moral framework stems from our capability to have compassion and empathy towards others. I believe this capability is not unique to just people. We can find evidence of a rudimentary moral system in other animals regarding fairness and justice, which is proportionate to their intelligence and sociability. Thus, the "normative" property of objective morality stems from a universal capacity for possessing empathy and compassion for the plight of others. The flaw in Kantian ethics is that the categorical imperative puts the question of willability to the actor. Personal inclinations towards what one may will can vary significantly by person, so its challenging to come up with universally applicable moral principles. The chief flaw in virtue ethics is that we're supposed to do what the ideally virtuous person would do. Who and what that ideally virtous person is, is subject to our own interpretation of virtue and the virtuous. If one believes that they are a virtuous person, then by defacto, everything they do is therefore 'right', including murder simply because it's an act being done by a virtuous person. The biggest flaw in Consequentialism and utilitarian ethics is that its chief imperative is to maximize pleasure. Therefore, the most moral action a subscriber to that theory can do is load up a tranquilizer gun with ecstacy and go around shooting everyone with it. People then get injected with a euphoria inducing drug, experience the heights of euphoria, and pleasure is maximized. Most moral theories are pretty good in that they make acute observations about the nature of morality and the human condition. They aim in the right direction, but should be taken as heurstics for conducting morality. The underlying factor which trumps any moral principle is the question: "Does this action stem from empathy and compassion and adquately support everyones best interests?"