I do think that philosophy fundamentally is intellectual gymnastics, in the sense that it is a game or an art that shouldn't be expected to have any "productive/practical/useful" output.

I also think that philosophy is an extremely valuable human activity worthy of lots of respect, likewise generally with any kind of gymnastics (sports), games or art.

Productivity is not the only reason to live for humans, and many productive people are not driven by productivity. Most scientists and engineers are much more driven by curiosity, mastery, morality or aesthetics (not just visual, but intellectual beauty and elegance). It's generally the same with most ambitious people, sure they may be superficially driven by power or money, but I think it's much more about realizing a certain aesthetic vision of who you want to be as a person.

All of these activities lead to productive outcomes as side-effects. Games are not qualitatively much different, they may just be quantitatively less efficient. And, even if it shouldn't be expected (shouldn't be the reason to do them), they do tend to have some great productive output now-and-then.

I am fundamentally incapable of understanding people who don't like philosophy. To me it's akin to being someone who doesn't like music or doesn't like art or doesn't like poetry. To be incapable of finding something that resonates with you in at least one of these domains is equivalent to being inhuman—I just cannot even comprehend how a living human being like that could exist.

My sense is that people who claim to dislike philosophy either had a bad introduction to it or have been so inculcated with a way of existence reduced to "problem solving"—life viewed as a "great entry examination" or standardized test—that they are no longer capable of actual abstract curiosity and thought and are only able to proceed in spaces that are already highly constrained. Philosophical viewpoints are highly varied and highly entertaining. In some ways it is far closer in kind to art even though it is the matron of all of our sciences.

Big fan of Philosophy, not a big fan of Agnes Callard. I love Socrates as much as the next person, but there have been millennia of philosophical inquiry since.

I hate the trend among public intellectuals to pick some ancient figure and then project all modern questions and anxieties onto them. You end up not learning much about Socrates, but much about Agnes Callard.

I'll take modern academic philosophy with all its jargon and impenetrability over the simplistic parables of Callard.

I agree wholeheartedly. I think many readers here will be among the type to feel that philosophy is not 'practical' enough, myself included. But there is something to be said for humoring (some) philosophy from time to time, it really does engage the mind in a way you wouldn't find elsewhere.

My problem with Socrates isn't that it's mental gymnastics. My problem with Socrates is that he was an anti-democratic totalitarian and that he was disingenuous and manipulative (that's literally, explicitly what sophistry is).

Defenders of Socrates are generally enamored with his reputation, retreating into appeals to authority rather than any logical or empirical defense of his ideas.

In a larger sense, my problem with philosophers is generally that they are still talking about outdated figures like Socrates. What little he got right has been refined over the last few millenia, and by continuing to obsess over him we're continuing to propagate his (numerous!) mistakes along with what little good he had to say. Philosophy is a really interesting and even important area of study, but the ideas are what matter, not the people, and the obsession with the people really holds the field back by keeping stupid ideas alive long past their expiration date.

I'd argue that most useful non-trivial things we have figured out how to do have required thinking precisely about complex truths, language is a big part of that.

Sure of course, vibes are enough for operating decently as a human, which is all we need most of the time. But that's a very low bar, we are trying to do much harder things in science, engineering and business.

I agree that there tends to be a lot of pointless discussion on semantics in debate, which is why we tend to rely more on structured languages like maths notation or programming languages to make it practical to operate on really complex ideas. But natural language is all we have for many fields of thought, so some discipline is required to use it properly if you are trying to figure out something serious.

You made an important point though. If we want to do philosophy more seriously we reach for formal logic, at which point it becomes maths, or we do experiments, which is science. To an extent what call philosophy is the attempt to figure out complex truths using ill-defined language and no experimental verification, which is a loosing battle and quite annoying indeed.

I feel like this also only works if you care about having a net impact. Though I suppose that’s a definition problem. My first read assumes it means an impact on the world, but I tend to believe that my life purpose is more “local” - I’d be happy to say I lived with kindness and made those around me happier.

I already know, and I hope I'm not close to death. Happiness is the net outcome of my existence. Ashes to ashes is my legacy.

This doesn't seem to work for me. I'm slightly convinced that when I'm an hour away from dying, I won't have to care about anything anymore very soon.

It just seems to make me care even less. I wouldn't be surprised if the new techno-oligarchs have similar or even worse wiring.

life is complicated.