Whatever malevolent forces you think are at play in private companies are amplified - not reduced - at the level of the state.
The logic is very simple. If it's bad on a small scale, it's worse at a large scale. Note, there's no starry-eyed idealism at work here. There's just common sense and a keen sense of justice. It's not healthy or right to concentrate power in one individual or some tiny group.
You don't solve the problem of mafias by having one mega mafia. That's like solving the fact you've got a cold by giving yourself cancer.
Incidentally, you know how mafias really survive? State corruption. The most successful mafia in the world is THE MAFIA. And how are they so successful? (They're the most successful organisation in Italy accounting for 7% of GDP) Corrupt government officials. — Clearbury
I think all forms of government are unjust. Governments claim a monopoly on certain uses of violence and threats. I take that to be definitive. Government policies are backed by the threat of prison. — Clearbury
Private security companies would be a much better job - and do do a much better job - than the state. Try and steal something in a supermarket and see who stops you first - a private security guard or the police. — Clearbury
I think all forms of government are unjust. Governments claim a monopoly on certain uses of violence and threats. I take that to be definitive. Government policies are backed by the threat of prison. — Clearbury
Privatizing the police and army would be the last step.... — Clearbury
Hmm. I'm struggling to understand this. Tribal markings arise in the wider system of tribes; cell markings arise in the wider system of multi cellular organisms; makers marks arise in the larger system of the marketplace. — unenlightened
Going back to an earlier thread, marking is the act of making a distinction. — unenlightened
The functioning seems to me to be more like a makers mark, or a password, or a signature - in other words it is exactly a biological name/label and arbitrary at that if I read wiki aright.
And now I'm thinking "tribal markings" as the social equivalent. — unenlightened
Anyways, the world is indivisible so biology, psychology, sociology, have to create divisions with labels and talk, otherwise everything is mush. 'I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together.' — unenlightened
Give me any scientific theory, and I’ll show you how philosophical questions can reveal the metaphysical presuppositions making its assertions intelligible — Joshs
Philosophers arise out of a contingent culture which shapes the sense of the questions they ask and how they interpret the answers. For me the distinction between philosophy and psychology has only to do with the how richly and comprehensively those presuppositions are articulated. — Joshs
There is deduction in math and logic; everyone else has to make do with induction, abduction, probability. — Srap Tasmaner
The division between philosophy and literature is not so clear. — Fooloso4
The question of the OP is, in part, can we find the path to these qualities by examining the peculiar nature of philosophical reflection? — J
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The key is to ensure that any contact is purely transactional- just enough to meet the basic requirements of existence, without letting it spiral into further emotional entanglements. — schopenhauer1
In Athens, he probably experienced the Eleusinian Mysteries as he wrote when describing the sights one viewed at the Mysteries, "to experience is to learn" (παθεĩν μαθεĩν
Do you have any evidence to suggest that Aristotle went through the Eleusinian Mystery ceremonies? — I like sushi
I'm not offering an answer here, just pointing out that the difference between formal and informal languages is more intractable than it might appear. — Banno
∀x ∃y ∀z ((P(x) ∧ ∃u (Q(y) ∨ (R(u) ∧ ∀v (S(v) → T(z, v))))) → ¬(∀w (U(w) ∧ ∃t (V(x, t) → W(t, w))) ∧ ∃p(X(p) ∧ ∀q (Y(q) → Z(p, q)))) ∨ (A(x, y, z) ∧ ∀b ∃c (D(b, c) → (E(x, b, c) ∧ ∃d (F(d) ∧ G(d, x, y))))) — TonesInDeepFreeze
they have lost the song and are left with only noise. — unenlightened
Isn't formal language a part of natural language? — Banno
I find the visualization helpful. We're just doing Venn diagram stuff here. — Srap Tasmaner
Ask yourself this: would "George will not open tomorrow" be a good inference? And we all know the answer: deductively, no, not at all; inductively, maybe, maybe not. But it's still a good bet, and you'll make more money than you lose if you always bet against George showing up, if you can find anyone to take the other side.
"George shows up" may be a non-empty set, but it is a negligible subset of "George is scheduled to open", so the complement of "George shows up" within "George is scheduled", is nearly coextensive with "George is scheduled". That is, the probability that any given instance of "George is scheduled" falls within "George does not show up" is very high. — Srap Tasmaner