:lol:

I should notify Baden, fdrake has finally snapped — T Clark

I just presumed it was me who had gone nuts. :grin:

What's interesting about Boris is how apparently hard it is for him to even pretend he gives a shit about anything. He delivers every policy line as if he's about to burst out in derisive laughter at the end of it. He's a conscious self-reflexive parody of himself. This goes beyond Trump who at least usually has the decency to look like he's actually crazy, and—crucially—enough so to believe his hardcore supporters aren't. What's perpetually scribbled across Boris's mop-topped mug, on the other hand, is an unconcealed impish amusement at the level of idiocy of those who catapulted him to the position of PM (with the deliciously ironic supplementary self-designation of "Minister of the Union" hammering home their folly). To say he's a buffoon is almost to miss the mark. He's a buffoon bathing in the confident assurance that the buffoonery of the system, the media, and the plebs that prop up his ridiculous, bloated frame infinitely out-buffoons him.

Some fantasy. I guess s/he doesn't have much faith in the street smarts of philosophy fans.

Banned (after a few checks) @Elise for sending this PM.

"Hi, how are you? I'm Elise, from Germany, please, I would be happy to establish good relations with you, also i have something important to discuss with you. Please I want you to contact me directly on my personal email today.. ok:: mariamarkleathotmaildotcom"

I presume I'm not the only one who received this. Please report this kind of stuff. Cheers.

Trump attacks Sharpton. Is it just a coincidence that he has attacked yet another minority? To see this as just examples of Trump's racism misses the point. — Fooloso4

The Dems have yet to understand the nature of Trump's offensive tactics. Perhaps they need an instructional video:

The Zoolander-in-chief is now on Twitter celebrating a break-in at Elijah Cummings' residence. Democrat = Bad. Criminal hurt Democrat = Good. So, Criminal = Good. :party:

Cheers. Fixed. (No room for no P no D :sad: )



:lol:

On consistency, a couple of visuals:




The first pic, the statement. The second, the negated consistencies with A-D.

[Edit: Fixed visual typo]
[Edit 2: Fixed as per @bongo fury]

@Wallows

Some food for thought here if you haven't watched it, particularly from 2:05:00⁠>>

:cheer:

What's your personal pick here? — Wallows

I don't have a personal pick. Maybe it's just that I've come to see 'happiness' as not a particularly interesting or even coherently definable goal and have more or less dropped the concept in favour of getting on with doing the things I want to do and being grateful for having the energy and opportunity to do so (which a basic state of equanimity or stability allows for*). And when you're not self-reflecting, whether you're 'happy' or not is not an issue anyhow. You just need to make the space to not have to and that may require some initial sacrifices. Generally not of anything really valuable though.

And what did you mean by the "usual suspects"? — Wallows

The usual suspects = the media, politicians, marketers etc. Purveyors of the idea that consumption of whatever commodity, material or ideological, can be an end in itself rather than a route to more of the same.

*And what allows for that is security, sustenance, and sociality. Which should be not a huge ask for most of us in the privileged West.

I've added a link to this discussion at the end of the hints and tips page. :up:

Equanimity is a sensible goal considering the brain's chemical arsenal is not well enough equipped to produce a very sustained experience of happiness; or to put it another way, our capacity for feeling good is biologically limited and only becomes more limited with direct pursuit thereof. Besides which, the idea that we're supposed to be happy (as if it's a natural or default state) is a dangerous misconception that a cursory study of evolutionary theory should disabuse us of, making being unhappy about not being happy, or seeing such as some kind of a deficiency, doubly dangerous (particularly in terms of that stance's manipulability by the usual suspects). So, there's an ideological basis for the confusion surrounding happiness that serves a certain system and certain interests and if Confucianism or whatever religious or philosophical basis can be used to self-immunize in that respect, I'd say go for it.

No worries.

Nothing of scientific value. But you might be able to infer something from this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28365902
i.e. A slight potential advantage in verbal fluency among women over men worthy of further study.

That's not true. He's a democratic socialist, and he has pledged to nationalise the railways and end the energy consumer rip off. He has said nothing about nationalising the banks, and you won't hear the sort of Marxist rhetoric you'd find from the Communist Party of Great Britain from the mouth of Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour party is not a Marxist party, Militant members were expelled, and they removed clause four many years ago. — S

But here's a certified true picture of Karl Marx on his way to a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn to convince the Labour leader to destroy Britain's economy and personally consume every bank he can stick a pitchfork in. (Modern surgical techniques have enabled Karl to have his horns removed, but don't be fooled, it's him!)

@Wallows You've been asked not to post this kind of personal stuff in the philosophy sections umpteen times. If you try to log in some time and find yourself banned, it'll probably be because of something like this.

This may also help (transcript in the description).

No book of his directly tackling what you're after that I know of. But there is this collection of his writings that aims to do so:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12618.On_Anarchism

This is where it's at. The most accurate analysis of Boris BS I've seen so far on the mainstream media by those whose business it is to know.

By gaggles of obese feminists (at least that's the way it usually goes down).

Surprise, surprise, Johnson is bloviating for the sole delight of the Brexit party flies so that they might perch anew on his steaming pile of horse manure. All tally-ho, once more unto the breach, unsheathe your sausage, chaps! Winston Churchill meets Sideshow Bob. Only with worse hair. Pffft.

:100:

As I upset @Pantagruel's applecart yesterday, I'll try to help right it today.

What is philosophy for you? An intellectual challenge? A vocation? A schema? A mystery? — Pantagruel

Please answer the gentleman's valid and interesting question and stop talking about me and sperm. Thank you.

Do you think Boris will improve May or Cameron? — Bitter Crank

Perhaps. If his election prompts a suicide pact between them.

... j/k. To your question, yeah, bring back MayBot and/or greasy PR guru, big Dave. We miss your moderately less grevious sins against humanity.

Whether it is throwing people under the bus or writing a lie on the side of one

:lol: But :cry:

Yeah, not a fan either.

Notice woolly phrasing of exactly zero substance. Try searching for the 'alternative arrangements' he's referencing and you'll find nought that hasn't been outright rejected by the EU and Ireland. There's more likelihood of Norwich City winning the league next season than of the backstop being dropped. (A joke in there about canaries and coal mines which I can't be bothered extracting. :D )



Tbh, I think Trump actually believes a lot of the stupid shit he comes out with whereas Johnson is purely a mop-topped heat-seeking missile for power. There is literally nothing else to him but machination.



Swinson might surprise you. She's got just the pizzazz the Lib Dems need and at just the right time. They won't win it, but they'll complicate matters and that's a huge improvement on being irrelevant.

Can he really solve the Backstop issue in time? — S

I would say there is no "solving" the backstop issue. There is only capitulation from the UK or more pretending. For 'backstop', read 'The Good Friday Agreement'. That ain't being given up.

Boris will immediately shift to the left, if not in rhetoric, in practice. And he'll blame moderates for thwarting him when he fails to do what he has no intention of doing, i.e. delivering Brexit by October 31, which will give him cover against the Brexit Party for the next general election. So, interesting set-up. The good news is the last thing he really wants is a no-deal Brexit because that's all that stands in the way of his utopian lies about the economics of which being exposed as such. Added to that, kept alive as an ideal, it can remain the totem under which he continues to lullaby his Daily-Mail-chewing base to sleep. In other words, he's said exactly what you would expect a self-serving arsehole to say to win over the Conservative activists necessary to beat Hunt to the PMship. And now he will do exactly what you would expect a self-serving arsehole to do to keep himself in the PMship for as long as possible, which does not include delivering the unattainable Brexit dream but extending the false quest for it to legendary proportions.

What you have or haven't read isn't necessarily relevant to my original comment.



Ok. There's significant overlap with the other free will discussion anyway

I didn't make a generalised evaluation of 17th century philosophy but a context-specific comment. The discussion won't be of any reasonable quality and may be closed if it goes on like this. Ball in your court.

You're going to have to go beyond 17th century philosophy to have a sensible conversation re free will. At least try engaging with critics who have.

Please everyone stick to the topic. Comments of a personal nature will be deleted from now on.

There are all sorts of problems. Trump is not one of them. He is a symptom. He is the result. — creativesoul

One of the symptoms of genital Herpes (a notable feature of Trump's alternative Vietnam) are small red blisters that break open and cause sores. They are the result of the disease. Funnily enough, like Trump, they are also ugly, painful, and most definitely a problem.

Indeed, when you stop calling folks out for racism, they stop being racist. Kind of like when you stop arresting thieves, they stop stealing shit. In fact, if the police would just give out donuts to these fine people instead of trying to put them in jail, we'd never have any thievery in the first place. Fucking baby Nazis.

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history

Huh, you mean Hillary didn't write the above from her base in the Ping Pong Pizzeria child sex trafficking hub from which she, to this very day, directs the Democrat anti-Trump smear machine?

Lotta action on this one.