If you wish to tell me that my belief system is self-contradictory, go ahead. Please attempt to demonstrate the contradictions. I'm sure that there are some and actually appreciate it when I learn about them (and get to think through what I actually believe).

But I'd strongly advise you to try to find out more about my belief system before claiming that you see contradictions. You may find that there aren't contradictions where you think that there are. Given your track record so far in the discussion, I'd guess that the odds of that are abnormally high.

As for what (in)valid means - my background was in mathematics. Please assume that I understand basic logic. If you claim that something is not a valid ethical system, then you are claiming that something disqualifies that thing from being an ethical system. Which is well and good. Presented with a purported ethical system, you are free to explain what you think disqualifies it from being one.

Of course you haven't done that. I presented you with a partial description of a common one, and demonstrated that your statement implies that you think it is invalid. You failed to disagree with that implication, and have failed to explain why you think that it is invalid. You have suggested that if you were only free to write dissertations of more than 5000 words that it would be clear. And you have argued on your authority as a philosopher. Neither of these claims strikes me as convincing. As the old saying goes, There are two ways to build software: (1) make it so simple that there are obviously no bugs, (2) make it so complicated that there are no obvious bugs. The same applies to presenting reasoning. And the reasoning that you've presented so far seems to be of the latter style.

Let me take a single paragraph and demonstrate that:

The fact of the matter is that appeals to popularity (one of which makes up the substance of your entire post aside from the conflation of morality and ethics) mean exactly zero when determining logical validity of an argument. Somewhere along the line, you seem to have completely misplaced an understanding of what the word valid means. Hint: Calling an argument "invalid" has nothing to do with being in a wheelchair.

Now let's take that piece by piece.

1. The fact of the matter is that appeals to popularity (one of which makes up the substance of your entire post aside from the conflation of morality and ethics)...

   Actually the substance of my entire post was not an appeal to popularity. The substance of the post was of the form, "You said that valid ethical systems imply X. I maintain that a widely accepted ethical system does not imply X. Therefore your assertion is wrong." Please note that the form of this argument is an appeal to logic, not popularity. It would have been an appeal to popularity if I said something of the form, "You said that valid ethical systems imply X. But nobody believes that. Therefore your assertion is wrong."

   Now why would I point out that the ethical system that I partially described is widely accepted? Well I had reasons that depend on what definition of an "ethical system" you wanted to use. One possible definition is, "accepted principles of right and wrong that govern the conduct of a profession". In that case the relevance is obvious - if it is widely agreed upon then it is accepted.

   Alternately you may have been using a more personal definition of what it means to be an ethical system. In which case my pointing out that widely accepted ethical systems agree with my partial description demonstrates that your definition of "ethical system" either accepts what I describe as possible in a real ethical system, or else you have to exclude what most people would think of as an ethical system. Given that language is established by usage, you're then left with a choice between accepting what I describe as really being a valid ethical system, or else talking in a private technical language which only has a passing resemblance to English.

   Either way my reference to popularity is relevant - I'm establishing the validity of what I'm describing to be an ethical system.

   Incidentally you still haven't demonstrated that I conflated morality and ethics. If repetition constituted proof, then it would be established by now. However repetition does not constitute proof...

2. ...mean exactly zero when determining logical validity of an argument.

   True, but irrelevant since I'm not appealing to popularity to validate my reasoning. Please remember that attempting to insult my reasoning process is not the same as finding a flaw in it. I'd appreciate it if you focussed more on finding flaws.

3. Somewhere along the line, you seem to have completely misplaced an understanding of what the word valid means.

   Seeming, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I cannot address why you think that that I do not understand what "valid" means. I can only attempt to reassure you that I do, in fact, understand it.

4. Hint: Calling an argument "invalid" has nothing to do with being in a wheelchair.

   My comment above about attempts to insult my reasoning process applies here. In spades.

Now allow me to address the point that you seem completely caught up on. Why did I mention morality in response to something about ethics? It is quite simple. I had the impression that you had strongly held opinions about what is and is not ethical. In case the conversation headed that way, I wanted to establish up front that I do not subscribe to the view that there is something called "right" and something else called "wrong" that we all would agree on if we only understood enough. Therefore anything you might reply involving what is manifestly "fair" or "right" (from your perspective) is irrelevant to abstract questions about what can and cannot constitute a valid system of ethics.

Of course I did not expect you to not go in that direction, but I wanted to throw that out there up front so that I could refer back to it if it came up.

Unfortunately for me, the best article that I have explaining my views is on morality, not ethics. However that didn't seem too bad to me since the two ideas are related. Therefore I threw out a stand alone statement about morality that you could read to get a better sense of my views, which I could potentially refer back to later.

Little did I suspect that you would then ignore the point I spent the bulk of my post on to go and accuse me of saying that ethics and morality are the same!

Now if you wish to continue this discussion elsewhere, I'd recommend the forum in which my post about morality was placed. Memberships there are free, and I'll see whatever you post there. However if you post there, I'd appreciate it if you refer people back to this discussion - preferably somewhere near the root of it. That way people there can get context about the discussion that appears in their midst.

Or, at your discression, you can let the entire thread drop. The point that I wanted to make should be clear at this point, and I don't particularly need several more rounds of being told that I'm an idiot who can't reason and doesn't know what words like "valid", "ethical" or "moral" mean.