That may be so, but after having gone through the results of a Google search, most of the results affirm that "misspelt" is the preference, or more appropriate, or more usual, in the UK. It is also my preference, and it just sounds better and more natural and appropriate to me. — Sapientia

I don't agree that it's more appropriate, and otherwise what you're saying doesn't go against my point.

Also I'm not sure how to pronounce "happeded".

What took you so long?

Both are common in British English, as reflected in dictionaries such as Oxford's, and to me "spelled" is better anyway.

It's getting to the point that we feel compelled to have sex just for the sake of it. — Question

How awful.

Not if you're protestant. Damn you and your materialist body, save your soul and pray to God and thank Jesus for dying for your carnal sins. (Also, him dying didn't help because you're still a sinful slacker). — Benkei

Please, I'm still struggling to overcome my Calvinist heritage and could do without any setbacks right now.

Which is why the analogy doesn't hold. It fails to capture this "far more complicated" part that is essential to sex. — Agustino

True, it does fail to capture that. It's not perfect. What it does suggest is that sex, stripped of its prudish sacralization, can be a sensual pleasure like any other, and that sex-snacking isn't such a bad thing. This doesn't mean that it's not more difficult or more morally precarious. It certainly is.

Ethics is the answer to the predicament of material human beings. It makes no sense otherwise.

if, for example, I were to find out that the spiritual doesn't exist, I wouldn't cease practicing the virtues, which includes abstinence from casual sex. — Agustino

I dare say if you were to find out that the material doesn't exist, the same thing would happen. Which is to say that a virtuous person is virtuous not in spite of but because of his materiality.

The analogy fails because sex is in no way like eating. There is no psychological effect from eating - at least in the general sense, as there is from sex. — Agustino

I don't think it follows that the analogy fails, but only that sex is far more complicated than food.

It seems you have given up what is noble because the mind is not eternal. That seems absurd. — Agustino

That seems to be an ignorant and prejudiced judgment, and nothing more. I can't see why you think that I have given up on what is noble, unless you're simply regurgitating (though you're in good company) the old prejudice of philosophy and religion, namely that the material world is inferior to--and thus opposed to--the spiritual. I've never gone along with that, but that doesn't mean I have to ditch nobility. It just means I want to redefine it without reference to the dichotomy.

Music to my ears, chorizo to my loins.

Thanks, but if you mean the first line, that's Nietzsche. :D

I entirely disagree. Why do you say this? — Agustino

Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.

It's the tapas thing again (is this a vulgar analogy? perhaps). A snack need not be a sordid indulgence, but rather a brief sensual pleasure taken seriously.

Not much of a step at all if your ethics is ancient Greek, which is about living well (although "immoral" is a troublesome word).

I mean to say that some people - Epicurus for one - found that the sage should abstain from sex, as it leads to potentially damaging emotions more frequently than to pleasure, and avoiding pain is more important than gaining pleasure. Now you can disagree with him, and I do disagree with the idea that one should never have sex, but that doesn't mean it's not rational within its own limited scope. I agree with Epicurus for example - but think there's some other kind of sex, which isn't described accurately in this way - committed, non-casual sex. — Agustino

Yeah, well I'm more of a positive hedonist and a sensualist than Epicurus, but I go for some kind of virtue ethics in which one can judge a person's temperance over the long-term; even Aristotle argued that being moderate was not always the best way, i.e., anger is appropriate on occasion. Thus, I want to say that casual sex is an important or good part of life, but also want to deny that a lifetime of nothing but casual sex is a life lived well; I wouldn't entirely go along with what I imagine others here might say, viz., whatever floats your boat.

Potentially, but it is an argument that has been used by materialists — Agustino

What do you mean by this Agustino?

I think you experience your experiences, and we can distinguish these: memory and first-hand. Memory is part of experience, but the transient experience of seeing a strange shape can be recalled--and become part of the fabric of one's experience--as that time I saw a ghost.

sex may be a pleasure, but the potential risks associated with it, especially in a casual setting, always outweigh the potential benefits — Agustino

Prima facie false, as false as the claim that the risks of rock climbing always outweigh the benefits.

They can't argue they had promiscuous sex in order to gain such an understanding. However, they can argue that, for whatever reason they chose to have promiscuous sex, they have gained such an understanding as a result of it. — Agustino

Fine. I made no claim that people had casual sex in order to educate themselves on monogamy.

If you agreed to it previously then you contradicted yourself when you said "No they couldn't argue so".

No they couldn't argue so, because a one-night stand doesn't intend to be a permanent bond from the beginning. So you no more realise what it takes for a permanent bond than otherwise. — Agustino

But you missed my (rather pedestrian) point, which is that there are different kinds of sexual relationship, including temporary and permanent, and an experience with the former can bring an understanding, by contrast, of the qualities of permanent relationships.

no big thing gained, why waste all the effort merely for physical pleasure — Agustino

Because part of the joy of life is shared pleasure, whether long-lasting or not.

they destroy the very capacity for forming permanent bonds, and thus take away a greater good. — Agustino

This is not quite true in my experience. I don't see the problem in accepting a variety of types of sexual relationship. One could argue, for example, that one-night stands can bring an understanding of how much that is not strictly sexual is involved in maintaining a permanent bond (one that also involves sex). And it's a fairly common observation that an experience of one-night stands can reduce one's obsession with sex.

I may eat tapas casually with my fingers but still observe the ceremony later when I sit down to dinner. If I hadn't had the tapas, and had then sat down to dinner ravenous, I might not behave quite so well.

So you think it's impossible to form a temporary bond, one that lasts only for one night? Or do you think temporary bonds are insignificant or pointless (or something else bad)?

And what negative aspects are you referring to? And does this apply to all one-night stands or just some or most of them?

What is the spiritual dimension of sex, and do you think one can explore this dimension, or do justice to it, in a one-night stand?

A relevant article from yesterday, which puts some meat on the bones of my post:

Why Have People “Had Enough of Experts”?

This site does not allow to edit the options in the poll. — mosesquine

Putting this here as a reminder for the next time I send feature requests to PlushForums.

:B

I personally have no objection to the occasional post with nothing in it except a thumbs-up in response to another post, but I wouldn't want to see it getting out of hand.

(Y)

Here's a story.

The end of the Cold War removed all challenges to capitalism, and politics in many places became less the forum for fundamental disagreements over the structure of society, and more a matter of management. Thus a managerial political elite came to dominate, personified by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, also exemplified by the increasingly powerful European Union. For managerial politics there is no argument over how things are to be arranged economically: capitalism has won, and we should let the capitalists get on with it. This supposedly is grown-up, truthy politics because these policies or non-policies are backed up by expert economists who apparently know best about how society should operate.

But governments can be more active in other areas: people can still be managed, nudged, and punished for what they say and think. And here too, governments can appeal to experts--in psychology, sociology, and so on--to justify this, against which there can be no legitimate argument. That's the point of experts: to take the politics out of politics.

But things didn't carry on smoothly in the way these technocrats hoped, and as well as the continuing economic stagnation that none of the neoliberal economic experts ever managed to do anything about, there was a major economic crisis that none of them predicted. People have suffered, and managerial politics has nothing to say to them. The experts have nothing to say to them. Working class people know this, and in the political vacuum we see the rise of Le Pen and Trump.

The talk of "post-truth" politics is anti-democratic whining from a short-sighted managerial elite who see things slipping away from them and don't know what to do about it.

No, that's not a feature. I guess I could ask for it, but I see very little need for it myself. If many others agree then I'll ask the developers for it.

As with everything, write and keep your own content locally: whenever you want to write something long, write it in a text file first and save it on your computer.

I'm buying a soprano sax soon, so I've been watching soprano sax stuff on youtube, and I came across this from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which almost brought a tear to my eye. Probably the last time I played a video game.



The original remains the best for me. You really get that modal feel and the bite of the tritone.

:D Get real, you say, after offering this real-life utterance from a fire-chief:

'are there any beings in that building?' — Wayfarer

Anyway, it seemed like you were trying to engage with the philosophical tradition, so I thought it was relevant to point out roughly the way that being has been used in philosophy since the pre-Socratics.

According to your usage, yes, but I think that's a non-philosophical usage.

I see a fundamental distinction between objects and beings; because beings are subjects of experience whereas chairs (etc) are not. Which is why in classical theology material things are more 'distant' from the source of being than are beings. — Wayfarer

This is a bit confusing, because as far as I'm aware it's not the traditional distinction used in Western philosophy, going all the way back to the Greeks. Generally, being in philosophy is to do with what is, or what exists; and whatever has or partakes in being is a being. Thus both subjects and objects are beings.

Go on, tell me :) 'To give a bodily form to, to incarnate...' Doesn't that make the body a wrapper? — mcdoodle

I don't think it implies any kind of containment, no.

I read a bit about 'embodied cognition' but stopped to wonder: that very phrase implies that the body is some sort of wrapper. — mcdoodle

I don't think it does.

Looks like it's just one of those things where you have to figure it out for yourself. Have your own 'eureka' moment. — dukkha

The true believer speaks.

Done. Thanks.

No such thing as the world! That's a good one. — Sapientia

Note that this claim is part of the "New realist" ontology of philosopher Markus Gabriel, so I'd say it's quite respectable.

It looks like there's little evidence Bannon hates Jews. The problem with the left yelling racist is that they're now the boy who cried wolf. — Hanover

Yesterday I read a very interesting article accusing the liberals and left of crying wolf over Trump's racism. It takes each accusation and examines it quite thoroughly:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/

Anyway, I made bomba rice for dinner this evening.

Bomba rice is a variety of rice cultivated in the Valencian region of Spain, where I'm currently living. I'd never heard of it till I moved here recently. It was brought here by the Arabs a long time ago, and it's the kind of rice to use in paella, a dish that originates here. It's quite similar to risotto rice, like Arborio, but I seem to get on with it better. It just behaves well, in the pan, on the plate, and in the mouth. It's got character.

What I do is chop an onion and some garlic, fry the onion, after a few minutes add the garlic, and then add some chopped or grated tomatoes. Then I add the rice, stir it around for a minute, and then add some stock/broth. I tend to make it kind of in the way you make risotto--adding the liquid gradually--just because I find it easier to watch over what I'm cooking rather than calculate the amount of liquid I'll need and then just leave it. (I hate leaving a meal just cooking while I do nothing. I can't relax.) So I just add stock whenever it's getting too low. In between stirring it I cover the pan, because the great thing about bomba rice is that the grains absorb a lot of liquid and expand in size without losing their shape and integrity. So I mostly keep the lid on so as not to boil away the liquid.

Saffron is a good addition towards the end, for both colour and flavour. I also like some heat, so chilis, paprika and cayenne pepper work well.

I've found it goes especially well with morcilla, which is a Spanish blood sausage. One way to incorporate this is to fry the chunks of morcilla in the same pan even before you put the onions in, and just leave them in there while the rice cooks. So long as you don't burn the morcilla to a crisp, it seems to be impossible to overcook it.