If I were responsible (evil meddling psychologist that I am) for creating a platoon of ruthless assassins by behavioural programming, Jason Bourne style, do you think I'd have some responsibility for the actions of the resulting unit, and how ought I exercise that responsibility? — Isaac

Could you make this question a little more explicit?

Oh.

1. Probably most fundamentally, democracy fosters a mindset of ownership of the challenges faced by my society. This is our world. We have the ability to shape it according to our vision of what it should be. IOW, democracy inclines us toward the truth.

I believe every society actually is of the people. This fact is just highlighted in a democratic government.

2. It's related to my ideas about how people grow and develop. Freedom to decide is a hallmark of adulthood. A monarchy stalls the development of wisdom in a society by rendering everyone childlike.

I could go on, but I'm not going to if you're just exercising your conflict habituation. We'll see. :confused:

So why (the devotion)? — Isaac

Numerous reasons. That's a historical, cultural, and psychological question. If your point is that it's flawed, sure I agree with that.

The point, such as it is, was that if one advocates democratic rule because they consider it a moral 'good', then there's a conflict when that democracy results in something which they consider a moral 'bad'. Unless, of course, a person has no moral goods other than promoting democracy. — Isaac

That's true. To be truly devoted to democracy means you can allow the people to make mistakes (Donald Trump). You don't abandon the system just because it handed you a defeat, or because someone managed to subvert it.

There's a certain amount of faith in people involved.

Was there a point you were trying to make? Or did you just want a window on my psyche?

No. I'm asking why you think it ought to be? — Isaac

There's no reason they ought to be devoted. They just are at present. That may change in the future.

What I mean is that you think we should follow democratic decisions, yes? Or are you just telling us how democracy works? — Isaac

Generally speaking, Americans have a deep seated devotion to democracy. Are you asking why that is?

But why should they? — Isaac

The "should" comes from a particular community's commitment to democracy. It's not for everyone.

So you don't see a problem with a majority who decide that slavery is acceptable? — Michael

What alternative do you propose?

The majority doesn't have the right to oppress the minority. — Michael

In a democracy, the majority (with temperance provided by various mechanisms) rules.

Should they also get to decide whether or not that act be repealed so that they can decide if they want homosexuals or black people in their communities? — Michael

Of course. It's called democracy.

Should they also get to decide if they want homosexuals or black people in their communities? — Michael

Fair Housing Act

The personal sphere is private and not a proper object of governmental intrusion. — Bitter Crank

If the people judge that murder is taking place in private, then it's most definitely a governmental issue.

Whether they want abortion in their communities.

You have to let people decide, though. If you can't do that, then what?

Tucker Carlson.

I actually see this as a good thing. From what I understand, the legality of Roe v Wade was always a bit sketchy. Even RBG said “the court ventured too far in the change it ordered.”
I’m all for abortion rights but do it the right way.
In my (completely disinterested, it doesn’t affect me) opinion, the legal cut-off should be at the “point of viability.”
If it gets overturned it will be up to the states. What do you think? — Paulm12

Yep.

I wouldn’t propose to restrict anything. — NOS4A2

Then what follows is going to be some state intervention. There's no way around it.

Less than 20% of all women want an outright ban on abortion, and yes - they may get what they wanted- at least in some states. — Relativist

But 42% of the women who voted in 2016 voted for Trump.

I feel kind of apathetic about it. It couldn't have happened without the participation of a lot of women, so they got what they wanted.

I'm nervous and tense about statism, which is both left and right. — NOS4A2

Ok. So to limit state intervention, you'd have to restrict the ability of the people to vote for state intervention. That requires far reaching state power.

I don't think you can get there from here.

There never was any laissez-faire. The state caused much of the poverty, and the state caused all of the wars. — NOS4A2

Everybody has a narrative. Each one is self-serving.

Poverty, overconsumption, monopoly, wealth inequality, seem to me the common objections. Keynes said as much in his essay “The End of laissez-faire”. But all of the above are apparent in all systems, including in those in which Keynes was the architect: capitalism “wisely managed”.

But why should it be managed at all? Why should one serve the interests of the state instead of his own and his neighbors? — NOS4A2

Poverty itself is not the traditional criticism. It's that poverty of the kind created by laissez-faire in the 19th and early 20th Century created volatility that resulted in social upheaval and war all over the globe.

Calming the world down was the motive behind embedded liberalism. As memories of those times fade, we return to conditions that gave rise to that volatility once again.

There's no point in being all tense and nervous about leftism. There is none to contend with.

Yes. Laissez faire is nonsense because "free markets" don't exist and cannot exist. Period. So the very idea is nonsense. So to is trying to separate "economy from state." — Xtrix

"Free market" is a reference to the way prices are set. So there can be quite a bit of government intervention in an economy that still has free markets.

"Free market" would only refer to the kind of markets that existed in medieval times if medieval history was the context. Just a heads up.

:razz:

Which will disproportionately affect the poor, pushing them further into poverty (or death). — Michael

Thanks for the insight. We haven't been thinking about this for years, so we need you to explain it to us.

I don't know. I think a few states will immediately ban abortion.

:up:

The project has been a horrendous failure so far and it has no current prime representative. But capitalism has been in many ways a horrendous failure too, so the spectre of socialism will continue to haunt the world. — Jamal

So it exists as a ghost who is invoked because of the problems with liberalism. :up:

It just means a woman in Mississippi who wants an abortion will have to drive a while to get to a state that does them. A woman who doesn't have transport will probably be able to get a local one illegally. That's how it was before Roe.

I think Searle might have been better at sexually harassing his students than he was at philosophy.

was thinking more of mental preparation. Really big catastrophes leave little opportunity for meaningful preparation. Like, the dinosaurs should have expected a meteorite to wipe them out? Ukrainians should have known the Russians would wreck everything in 2022?

On the other hand, lots of people regularly put themselves in harm's way. They buy a house located in a flood plain. They build a house in the fire-prone Northern California forests. They site a nuclear power plant on a known earthquake fault. — Bitter Crank

So be flexible. Plan for life to continue as it has, but also recognize that we might be in a world war next week.

I can do that.

There must be some geologists in Russia who know that you can't "plunge" the UK into the sea. It's a prominance on the Eurasian continent.

So Searle is a pretty standard indirect realist. :up:

That approach doesn't work for me, that's for sure. But we can at least expect bad things to happen -- plan on them, prepare ahead. — Bitter Crank

I'm actually not sure how to plan ahead for a catastrophe. I'll have to think about it.

A lot of "what is going on" seems very "edgy" which is to say, not highly understandable, probably not widely supported. Four year olds switching genders and reactionaries who want to see women back in the kitchen in heels like 1950s advertisements, are both "far out". Left and Right just seem irrelevant terms for such of this (crap). — Bitter Crank

It just sounds like you're saying the American culture has arrived in an ideological ditch.

Are we just in limbo in between wars and economic disasters? I think sometimes about how the 20th Century started with a pandemic, a world war, and an economic disaster, and in the US there was also an environmental disaster that affected the Great Plains and the Tennessee Valley. Could this century be repeating that? That’s probably too simplistic.

Ancient Greece, for example, started off as a collection of separate city-states based on farming and trade. — Apollodorus

Oddly enough, they were all gay.

Little remains of the "left" or "far left" of my youth (60 years ago). The last generation of people for whom "left" and "leftist" had a fairly clear meaning are dead or will be gone in another decade. This passing isn't anything tragic or new; it's normal. — Bitter Crank

That was a helpful post. Thanks.

Do you know what has taken the place of the left-right conflict? Is there a conflict that's well formed enough to be named?

Yes. Being a moderate or independent typically means youre anti-extremist and anti-collectivist. — Harry Hindu

Are you a moderate?

A living organism is sort of self generating. The creature you are now was created by an earlier version of you.

That's vaguely a definition of life.

Do you get tired of being utterly vacuous? 10.7 thousand posts…95% fatuous.

Spend less time on Twitter. — Xtrix

Sorry. I'll try to improve. I'm not on Twitter.