You could be. Do you have a reason for the distinction? — schopenhauer1

Yes. He wrote lots of other things, and it's a very varied body of work. The Communist Manifesto is a political pamphlet written at a very specific time for specific practical purposes.

Am I right in saying this is more like "Three Things the Communist Manifesto Got Wrong"?

Indeed. I'm a big Zappa fan and I've just realized that his album Hot Rats, featuring Jean Luc Ponty, may have helped to popularize jazz-rock violin in the first place. I do like that album, even including some of the violin bits.

Pretty cool. The problem I have with that stuff is not so much the dissonance, but all the bloody violin. The sound of the violin in jazz-rock is just...bad. To my ears, at least. I enjoyed the drums most of all in that particular track.

First place!

(for "philosophy forum", with or without quotes, on .com, .co.uk, and .es)

Welcome Sam, good to see you here. Go for it. :)

The only one I can think of who changed his name is @Michael, who used to have the official seal of awesomeness.

Welcome NC, good to see you again. Congratulations, and may your juices flow in this direction. :)

Quit yer whining Q. You do realize that a large number of PF members--me, for instance--only ever used the "Latest Posts" page on the old PF, which is pretty much what we have here?

That would be good, especially when you have to scroll up or down to find the category you want in the side menu. But I don't expect it'll happen any time soon, if at all.

One thing I asked the developers to do is make the category name visible next to each discussion title on the main forum page. They clearly didn't think it was important. I may ask again, because I think that would help with the confusion you and others have expressed.

There is one forum here and it is the site itself, with discussions belonging to categories. You can see categories in the side menu or on the categories page. Also, on the main forum page--equivalent to "Latest" on old PF--you can see the category any discussion belongs to by hovering over it.

Are rape and incest babies somehow less human than other babies? If abortion is murder, then no exception for rape or incest can be rationally justified. Such a thing would be logically indefensible — BenMcLean

Good point. I agree that the legality and morality of an abortion should not be determined by the cause of the pregnancy. But if abortion is not murder or otherwise morally objectionable, then it follows that abortion ought to be as easy for someone whose pregnancy was caused by consensual sex as it is for someone who was raped.

When someone tells me that they are “Not religious, but very spiritual,” I want to punch them in the face. — David Webster, Dispirited

Who is this "we" you speak of?

:D

My understanding is that while Jewish and non-Jewish citizens have equal rights according to Israeli law, immigration into Israel and attaining citizenship are very difficult indeed, with the exception of the Law of Return, which gives Jews from anywhere in the world the right to go to Israel and become a citizen. So unless you're Jewish you're probably out of luck.

Among citizens, there is a big population of Arabs, most of whom are Muslims. They're outnumbered by Jews, but they do have some political clout, and this may be growing--but not because of immigration.

As far as I know the biggest recent influx into Israel that might have had cultural or political consequences is that of the Ethiopian Jews over the last few decades.

It's not taboo, and being a twat is tolerated as well, so carry on.

I know all about it, Benkei. And the word I used is not "thrashing", but "trashing", and it's all you are doing, once again.

It might be that opinions among Muslims have changed since the survey I'm thinking of, which I think was from a few years ago. I may look it up later.

They are basically in the limelight to enforce the islamophobia and outright racism of people. After, what better to have than a former muslim talking about the perils of Islam. — ssu

What do you mean by this? I take it to be an insinuation that ex-Muslims or moderate Muslims who criticize Islam or Islamism are merely Uncle Toms, bolstering basically racist prejudices. Is that right?

Do you think it is fair that vociferous criticism of Islam and Islamism coming from people from a Muslim background is repeatedly trashed, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been trashed by (especially Dutch) Leftists and liberals? Do you think moderate Muslims who would like to see an end to Islamic extremism or conservatism (like, for example, most French Muslims, according to surveys) are helped in any way when those who speak against Islamic extremism or against Islamic conservatism are vilified by the liberal cultural mainstream and the Left (as they are by the Islamists and Islamic conservatives themselves)? Is there any possibility of supporting moderate Muslims and allowing them to speak out and begin to turn the tide of contemporary Muslim ideology when liberals like you shoot down Muslims and ex-Muslims, accusing them of so-called Islamophobia?

If criticism of Islamic practices by Muslims and ex-Muslims is used by the Right--by those who peddle the Clash of Civilizations narrative, for example--doesn't this indicate, not that the criticisms are wrong, but that liberals and Leftists ought to be supporting them also, but from a different point of view? The fact that the Right has done quite well in monopolizing the criticism of Islam is not an argument for a liberal or Left defence of Islam. On the contrary.

Incidentally, I notice that the basic point I'm making here and which I always make in these discussions, while it is not intrinsically subtle, has become subtle.

Thanks, I've just sent that feature request to PlushForums support along with the other things. See the OP in this discussion for the latest list.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Reza Aslan.

To say that it's the social context, and therefore the contemporary religious interpretation that matters, is not necessarily to say that the religious motivation is unimportant. I think it's silly, ahistorical--and from a practical standpoint counterproductive and damaging--to say that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity, but I think it's also silly, counterproductive and damaging to claim that, for example, Isis is not Islamic or that Islam is a religion of peace, etc.

Once the starboard nacelle is fixed I'll get right on that.

At least it gives the general impression I know what I'm doing. :D

Thanks for the heads-up. Chrome only just recently started showing the warnings. It's all secure now.

And thanks for the donation. :)

I'm just saying that a baker ought to be able to refuse to bake a cake he finds offensive, but ought not to be able to refuse to serve someone just because they're gay (or whatever). The latter is already clear in law, but the former is beginning to take its place in the legal definition of discrimination.

Some gay people are against gay marriage, and feel strongly about it. Imagine a gay baker being compelled to bake a cake that promotes gay marriage.

(Y)

Doesn't the distinction between spectral colour and perceptual colour resolve your dispute?

protection against individuals and businesses that wanted to deny homosexuals certain services. For example, if a baker didn't want to bake a wedding cake with two grooms on it, then the law would protect their right from a lawsuit or other sanction for that discrimination. — Hanover

I've made the following point before, a point that seems to be mostly ignored. A baker declining to bake a cake representing something he disagrees with is not an example of "wanting to deny homosexuals certain services", if by that you mean a denial of service because they are homosexual. That is, it is not in itself an example of discrimination against the customer on the basis of sexuality. Many such bakers would most likely bake non-gay cakes for people whom they knew to be gay, and if so they are not guilty of discriminating against gay people.

Edit: just realized this is an old thread in which I already made the point :D

if you reach Hanover's conclusion, then you've gone wrong somewhere along the line. — Sapientia

General guidance?

The study concludes that "careful siting of new reservoirs" is required. Kate Horner, on the other hand, is an anti-dam activist.

Jamalrob has undertaken state control of the means of production for fuck's sake! — Agustino

I and the rest of the staff are but servants of you, the people.

No - it actually isn't doable. They have no direct control as far as I understand on what js scripts are running on the forums, what php code, or the forum's css, and they can only affect html structure in ways which are permitted by the software. Maybe the software allows them to select a series of "themes" as well, I have no clue as I never used Plush. — Agustino

You may be interested to learn that Plush is based on a fork of Vanilla Forums.

Looking at that jamalrob, why did you go for the separate Articles site rather than the integrated blog? — Michael

In the beginning we had big plans to publish a lot of high-quality articles in a nice format--that was one of @Hanover's ideas, I think--and an independent platform seemed like good decision. I expected more article submissions than we got. As it turned out, we only got three, only one of them was any good--and they were all mine anyway.

Oh, and a couple of us are going to work out some sort of "Ask the philosopher" deal. Are you cool with that? — Mongrel

What is it and what does it involve? Sounds fine though.

So we really have no control over the format? — Mongrel

Installing software on my own server and then customizing it would have been too much work. PlushForums doesn't allow much customization because it's a hosted service; and as such it is much easier to run.

Works for me. If you paste in the URLs you tried I can check to see what's up.

No rush, Q. To be honest, I was testing to see if you were genuinely interested in his philosophy, rather than just in his life. When I was younger I would read biographies of great thinkers, including Wittgenstein, and at the time I think I assumed I wouldn't be able to tackle their actual philosophy itself. In then end I realized the biographies don't really give you much.