I do not flatter well either. Just try being polite.

Well even someone who has never touched a woman cannot get out of the conundrum of a loaded question like "did you stop beating your wife yet?" Loaded titles are just as bad.

To the question of the pro's and con's of white privilege, the answer to this question lies in the origin of this state of affairs somewhere in Medieval history when Europe began to dominate world history starting with the Crusades. This was the turning point where the Arab Conquest was begun to be turned back very slowly at first, until finally Spain and the Eastern European Balkans were eventually taken back. The various north-south rivers of Europe had the most to do with the success of the English, French, Dutch, and Germans spreading forth from northern Europe and expanding into North America, India, and East Asia. This infrastructure of European strength and wealth then permeated the entire Northern hemisphere. The Southern hemisphere lagged way behind, That's what happened and also why.

The pro's are simply the continuation of this dynamism.

The con's are the exclusion that results regarding the Southern hemisphere races of peoples -- the Latin Americans and the Africans and Arabs.

Competing against it (white privilege) are increasingly the dynamism of the Japanese and Chinese in their respective countries in East Asia. This dynamism results from the rising demand and prosperity of these peoples from international trade fostered by cheap labor at home.

White privilege will probably burn out someday and the American surpluses from WW2 burn out as well. So it is doomed.

Then Asian privilege will replace white privilege in most places around the world. You are already beginning to see this happening both in Asia and in America already.

, so what have you concluded is best for you yourself to do with your life then?

Fallacies are shameful.

BTW you never answered whether you have stopped beating your wife? Yes or no?

I do not goad well.

You had best try sweetness and sugar instead.

Exactly right ... just like Canada ... the horror !!

Just like Australia ... the greater horror !!

Just like New Zealand ... .

To answer your first question (if you are ...), I am a Blade Runner fan, not Star Wars.

To answer your second question (when is ...), I would have to guess that when over half of the Body Politic is in disagreement with the government, yet the government has somehow managed to hold sway with power over them, THEN the people are justified to revolt in rebellion.

This is simply a corollary to the definition of tyranny. When is tyranny? Whenever a minority has power over the majority.

HAL 9000: "Dr. Chandra, will I dream?"
Dr. Chandra: "I don't know HAL."

All computers are stupid as a post.

They do exactly what you tell them to.

You have jumped to a lot of conclusions without justify any of them.

You would be better off to construct short sweet syllogisms and stick to that.

This would at least force you to provide some support as you go along.

All men are mortal.

Socrates was a man.

Therefore Socrates was mortal.

Once again, a good dose of Stoicism might help out the situations that you described.

Reagan. You must be referring to Reagan. At least if you are American. Not sure if you are European instead.

You may want to try defining "happiness" before you take Wosret's bait and loaded question.

Yet another loaded title again.

Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no?

A good dose of Stoicism might help you get through your day.

Not only that, but telling someone to read something is a fallacy called "shifting the burden".

The burden is on you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

Socrates was an extremely bright and highly experienced old man who managed to get into big trouble with the leadership of Athens on freedom of speech issues like creating a Philosophy God and showing how ridiculous Greek Pantheonistic Theology is.

This continued to be a hot button issue for another 725 years until Constantine The Great published his edict of tolerance at Constantinople regarding the toleration of Christianity and all other religions.

That's what got Socrates killed.

The irony however is that the Christian God The Father is a lot like Zeus anyway.

And His Beloved Son Jesus is a lot like Heracles.

And the Holy Spirit is a lot like Hermes.

And Holy Mary Mother Of Christ is a lot like Aphrodite.

And whether or not there is only one God like the Jews and Muslims say, or 3 of them like Early Christianity (pre-Nicene) says, or a whole multitude and families like the Greek Pantheon we cannot and do not know.

So the Greeks weren't that far off as far as true Christianity is concerned.

And Socrates may have gotten himself killed for nothing.

For me, personally, Aquinas and Leibniz.

Plato was too idealistic, and Aristotle did not do any research in the scientific sense -- he just dreamed everything up in his own head.

I do love Descartes. I remember in college Philosophy 101 class that after we cruised through the ancient Greeks and then came upon Descartes that he shattered everybody's self assurance.

I have since come to view Descartes as a genius like Aristotle or Aquinas.

I also love my cat. So I don't appreciate some of Descartes ideas about animals though.

So are you the owner and/or administrator here?

I have even reflected on all that.

What we OUGHT to do in/with our lives is that which we are GOOD AT which is also in demand by someone else on this Earth.

I was always good at math, so I landed in corporate financial consulting. Got the B.S., got the M.S., and went to work for one of the really big firms, then after 5 years on into industry producing things.

In a perfect world, everyone is productive somehow. This is because we all need to eat, we all need to clothe, we all need to shelter, we all need transportation, we all need health care, we all need education and training, we all need community and national defense because the world is such an evil place, and society has needs that must be filled everywhere.

So productivity is the ultimate requirement of all.

A lot of historic philosophers have lived on their trust funds, so they did not need to do anything. But this is an unfortunate (for society) anomaly because such a person is not very productive and as such is just a parasite on the whole community.

Q.E.D.

I have pretty much had time to reflect upon everything, and make mental lists about them too.

I cannot say that there exists anything unreflected for me.

What is there that is unreflected for you?

And why have you not reflected upon it yet? No time? Fear? No analytical tools?

That's not how I get things done.

First I read / have read / 3 books on surveys of philosophy, to wit:

- History Of Western Philosophy, by Russell
- Essentials Of Philosophy, by Mannion
- Modern Philosophy, by Scruton.

This tells me everything I need to know about all the philosophers, for openers.

There is nothing in any of Spinoza's hippy talk that interests me.

Especially since I don't smoke anything either.

It would be much more useful as long as you are going to make the investment in time anyway for YOU to LIST the concepts that you learned of Spinoza so that WE can then read IT instead.

That way you can actually be useful -- unless you are afraid of the heat and don't want to go into the kitchen.

Sil vous plait.

Same question about loaded questions for you -- why do people load up their titles with loaded questions ?!

Loaded questions are a common fallacy.

Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

I am not sure why some people (like yourself) put loaded questions into their titles ?!

I would have thought a more balanced title such as "what are the pro's and con's of ..." would be more appropriate.

Loading a question is a common fallacy however.

Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

Bravo !! Problem solved !!

This reminds me of the movie "Castaway" with Tom Hanks stuck on his South Pacific Island and only his soccer ball to keep him company.

I think I would have found a pet rat and made it my companion if I were stuck on an Island.

My cat is my best companion now. We go on walks together and he stays pretty close. Sometimes he likes to lead and other times he likes to follow.

Philosophy is not his forte. But he is a great hunter, and also very playful and vocal as well.

Maybe you need a cat too. If you do, try getting a 5 week old kitten if you can. That is the age when they can first eat solid canned food. Then from that early age they will imprint on you and be your constant companion for about 15 to 20 years -- a lot longer than the average marriage -- about the same time frame as raising a kid.

You could substitute "uncertainty" for "disagreement" and come up with the same thing.

My favorite Stoic is Marcus Aurelius and I have read parts of his meditations. Anybody going into government service should read them all.

But we all need to give credit to Zeno Of Cyprus and his stoa too.

Stoicism is probably the most useful of all the philosophies because it teaches us to grin and bear it, then keep working at it too.

Exactly. CS and I want to know.

Then we can grill you back.

See, this Hippy talk is precisely what frustrates me about Spinoza.

What is mind? We all struggle with that.

So Spinoza thinks human mind is just the thoughts of God ??

That's nonsense.

We don't know what mind is, and this does not help us to find out.

It is just Hippy talk. It sounds beautiful and makes sense if you are smoking an opium pipe but only then.

This is sort of how I feel about Immanuel Kant. The more I read about him the more I discover about myself.

For me though, definitely NOT Spinoza.

I don't agree with Spinoza's metaphysics on the unity of God and Nature.

God is God -- a separate Being from the rest of us. He/She/It/They must be separate and immortal or else They could not have created Nature. The creation of Nature is the whole crux of the First Cause argument by Aristotle and by Aquinas.

Spinoza also subordinated the Church to the State. King Henry would have loved this. Most others would not. I believe in the complete separation of Church and State much like the Founding Freemasons of the USA set out in the 1st Federal Amendment to the US Constitution.

Many of Spinoza's other ideas are inspiring however.

Perhaps you can share with us (tell us) which of his particular musings you like the most ?!

I once dated a young woman (both of us still in our 20's) who talked about Spinoza all the time. She was recovering from Protestantism and Spinoza became her fall back foundation. I wish she had been more clear in her discussions, but she just rambled. It was frustrating and maddening to listen to her. So I just dumped her and moved on, the way most single people dump each other whenever it is not a good fit.

When I now hear about Spinoza I think about her.

Interesting looking avatar you have there. It reminds me that according to the psychology literature that everyone has a masculine and a feminine side. Good that you check-in occasionally. I invite you to find my comments and reply. I enjoy dialog with others. I especially enjoy philosophical dialog.

Nice web page! The brain in the jar is creepy though. That used to belong to a real person.

When I was young nothing creeped me out. I guess I had not yet developed any sense of empathy yet.

Someone even told me that I had not, back when I was about 35 years old.

Since I have become much older now I have really strong feelings and empathy for every living thing, even bugs. So looking at a brain in a jar really creeps me out.

But nice web page anyway.

It's funny Old Cranko how you use all sorts of tricks to shift blame back to others whom you are addressing. I am guessing you don't have a lot of friends left.

It sounds like you are talking and thinking about routine torture.

Torture to obtain information is a totally different matter.

"Enhanced interrogation" helped to find UBL.

Someday I'll give you all my gun safety rules too -- there are about 25 of them also.

Gabby Giffords is a very recent example that the brain can heal itself and that extensive physical therapy can re-teach it how to communicate, etc.

I would love to be able to interview her and ask her questions about how the brain injuries she received affected her consciousness, thought process, and beliefs.

In the meantime I can only assume that her mind and her brain are two different things.

democracy or any other representative government is always going to be contentious because you inherently will always have more than one side vying for power.

Hopefully the majority consciousness will always be able to make the right choices in America and elsewhere.

I find it startling that Adolf was elected by the Germans in the 1930's. Of course he deceived them with many promises, most of which he kept, right up until he got his own armies slaughtered in Russia.

Trump reminds me of Adolf now in many ways. Same kinds of ridiculous undeliverable promises. Some of them even racist.

so you're not too worried then that Trump has a mental disorder ??

He sure worries me. He worries a lot of other people too.

try Nixon then. He was definitely a psychopath.

the ancient Greeks already dealt with this issue which you have raised in deep detail, and at least in the case of the city-state they have concluded that democracy is better than tyranny. I am of the opinion that representative government with term limits is better than tyranny as well. There must also be separation of powers, with impeachment procedures, in case a Nixon ever appears anywhere. In the USA the Joint Chiefs together with the various Army generals and Navy admirals would most likely refuse to follow any unlawful order from the POTUS and would instead refer to the Speaker of the US House, the Senate Majority Leader, and the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS if anything of a tyrannical nature ever got started or went too far. Nixon was a tyrant. Fortunately he was the only one, unless you count Abe Lincoln too. But times were tough for Abe and he had all the Union generals firmly behind him in reuniting the Nation and destroying Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee.