• What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    Just sharing some healthy practices in the hope of benefiting others.
    I don't aim to prove whether it's true or not;
    Chinese medicine is simply an exercise, food, or emotion therapy for me.
    Do we need scientific proof of our mother nature?"     — YiRu Li

    The proper justification for a scientific claim is that the methodology used is consistent with the scientific method. I don't know how more clear to say that.

    But, if you see Chinese medicine as a cultural or religious practice, like I said, I'll stand back and respect your prayer.

    Part of my respect cannot be to suggest that your practices are scientifically valid or that they should be included in a typical doctor's visit, though.
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    as far as I’m concerned those are practical questions.

    I don’t know about any rules that I could apply to anyone else but me     — AmadeusD

    If I push down your hand and see your cards, would you say I've violated a rule that applies to someone other than you, or are we always playing different games, free to do as we will, living in the fray of free expression?
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    ↪baker
    True, but the counter to this is quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur.
  • What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    Maybe give it a try and see for yourself. — YiRu Li

    So instead of relying upon a double blind study with multiple participants, you want me to just give it a try and see if it's true or not?

    Like I said, I have no objection to protecting your cultural rituals and holding them in proper regard (as I, no doubt, have my own), but I'm not going to pretend your medical claims are valid just to be accomodating.
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    suffice to say it’s difficult to know what you’re trying to say other than “I’m convinced rape is objectively bad”

    So idk man. Maybe the reverse is the case - if you’re that convinced, you should be able to convince me. If not, maybe you’re not being honest

    Also, in b4 the Dingi turn up: Yes, i have been rape. That is why I am not in the least bit troubled by having this conversation.     — AmadeusD

    So your position is that you don't know if rape is good or bad because you just don't know what good or bad means? Where you see the words "good" and "bad," you just see so much gibberish?

    Let us suppose you're talking to someone and you wish to impart upon that person the principles that should govern their behavior when conducting any activity. And note the term "any." And should you be unable to find principles that always apply, then change "any" to "most any," and we can deal with those unusual circumstances where those princples need modification or perhaps just clarification.

    Alright, let's choose some random activities: (1) playing poker, (2) posting here on TPF, and (3) going to eat lunch. Should I rape those around me in #1? #2? #3? What about lying to those I encounter, or cheating, stealing, or carving my initials in their head without their consent? Seems all those things are off limits. They appear to be universal rules.

    Play that game in your head and get back with me and let me know what rules you arrive at like I did. Once you start describing those rules to me that you've located, we can put them under the heading "good" and then the blur that obscures that word will begin to focus. And then we can start to look at whether there is a formula or principle that enables us to understand which things are good and which not, and then we can arrive at a moral theory.
  • What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    While I can't say I'm familiar with any scientific research or lack thereof involving chiropractic, and generally rank your general knowledge as on par if not better, the idea, as I was sold by my former chiropractor, that over time adjustments, well, adjust, seems to be plausible. — Outlander

    The history of chiropractic dates back to a man named Palmer who opined that all illness (as in all, from back pain, to sinus infections, to liver disease and so on) was caused by the inability of the life force to find its way down the spinal column due to an improperly aligned spine. He charted out what body parts were affected by misalignments at each level, so perhaps misalignment of the lower lumbar spine might cause you abdominal pain wheras the mid spine might cause you heart disease. The solution was to align your spine, which meant popping your back and supposedly bringing it into alignment, where you could then be cured of your illness.

    Over time, most (but not all) chiropractors abandoned to the idea that their adjustment cured various problems with the organs, but they limited their practice to curing spinal pain, although many still claim that periodic adjustments are necessary for maintaining one's general health. Of course, these "adjustments" don't actually change the alignment of the spine, which is easy enough to observe on radiological studies, which is a good thing, because it you were able to manipulate someone's spine so easily, they'd be paralyzed.

    The best you can say they do is treat muscular pain and their efforts are glorified massages. Some chiropractors have stopped cracking backs as they're known to do because that poses some liability risks in the event they hurt the patient. That has caused most to turn to a small spring device that they pop lightly on the patients spine and they claim that aligns the spine. Those devices are particularly stupid, but it is part of the practice. In fact, more than 50% of chiropractors now use that method.

    https://www.advancedchiropracticgroup.com/services---techniques/activator-technique/activator-technique-faqs-.html#:~:text=The%20Activator%20Technique%20of%20chiropractic,chiropractors%20use%20the%20Activator%20Method.

    To quote John Hopkin's Medicine:

    "Acupuncture points are believed to stimulate the central nervous system. This, in turn, releases chemicals into the muscles, spinal cord, and brain. These biochemical changes may stimulate the body's natural healing abilities and promote physical and emotional well-being."     — Outlander

    That statement does not indicate that accupuncture works. It recites what the belief is, but makes no reference to any study.

    The New England Journal of Medicine reports the results of a double-blind study on the efficacy of accupuncture for osteoarthritic pain, finding

    "Forty patients, randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group, participated in a double-blind study to assess the effectiveness of acupuncture in reducing chronic pain associated with osteoarthritis. The experimental group received treatment at standard acupuncture points, and the control group at placebo points. Analysis before and after treatment showed a significant (P < 0.05) improvement in tenderness and subjective report of pain in both groups as evaluated by two independent observers and in activity by one observer. Comparison of responses to treatment between the two groups showed no significant( > 0.05) difference.

    Thus, both experimental and control groups showed a reduction in pain after the treatments. These results may reflect the natural course of illness, and various attitudinal and social factors. (N Engl J Med 293:375–378, 1975)" https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM197508212930803

    You can do a full review of the literature, but you'll find no supporting evidence for accupuncture for the relief of pain. If you did, then your neighborhood family doctor would be performing it, or at least they should be. If it worked and they didn't do it, then it would build an argument that medical practices are just social voodoos dependent upon cultural norms and not actually empirically based.

    The reason this matters is because healthcare is a mulit-billion dollar industry and all sorts of people want to get their hands on some of this money. That has resulted in the "alternative healthcare" industry to emerge where they build upon a narrative that there are all sorts of simple solutions to problems and they flood the market with non-scientific testimonials to support their claims. This is not to say that true medical providers don't cheat, rob, and steal, but they at least have a valid methodology that works if they choose to use it. Alternative medicine does not have a valid methodology, and for that, it's not a valid enterprise.
  • What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    What about chiropractic? People say that's "not a real science/medicine". Yet people swear by it. — Outlander

    There is the placebo effect, which science does recognize.

    I think chiropractic helps people by rubbing their backs and making it hurt less, but the "science" of it in that it somehow actually changes the skeletal structures or that it corrects malalignments, that's all horseshit and should be discarded.

    I'm not willing to just say all medical treatment is the same and that we should allow all forms to be considered for fear we'll offend or be hypocritical. It's prefectly ok to say accupuncture is nonsense if it fails to show it works based upon scientific testing. And it is nonsense as a treatment for illness. It doesn't work. If it's some sort of pseudo-religious or sacred cultural practice, I have no objection to it, and I'll step back in reverence when its practioners use it, but I'm not going to suggest whatever illness suffered from has been addressed when it's used.

    I think part of the cause in the West currently is the result of an ongoing conflict between science and religion whereby the success of science in material knowledge has been so overwhelming that social, political, and moral considerations, and especially any spiritual or religious concerns have been dismissed as fantasy, and nonsense. — unenlightened

    I do agree that there is a spiritual crisis in our material society, so much so that most don't even know that their depressed state is caused by a lack of spirituality because they never were aware that even existed to be missing. The worst way to fix that is to proselytize, so they must left to be to find their way, which I actually think they will. Where I disagree with you though fairly profoundly is that I have no fear that religion will be over-run and that secular society will snuff it out. I don't believe that because I absolutely am as devout a theist as there might be, which means it's an impossibility that wrongness prevails. And I keep this vague enough because I know you have no desire to hear the tenants of my faith, but I just point out the that crisis you feel is from a lack of your own faith. I'm sure though that you find my optimism absurd, but your response is exactly as it ought to be, as is everything.
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    Does the word "bad" mean something that isn't already covered by words like "cruel", "harmful", "disgusting", "despicable", etc.? — Michael

    All those words are not synonymous.

    We can all think of examples where something is harmful, disgusting, or despicable, but not immoral.
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    But, in a philosophical discussion I'm unsure how to note that rape is bad. I/quote] If you can't say that rape is bad in a philosophical discussion, it would seem you would want to steer clear of philosophical discussion and reside in places where that is unequivocally bad. — AmadeusD
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    ↪AmadeusD
    Is rape bad?

    If a person were raped, you couldn't tell them a bad thing happened to them?

    Why is the word "bad" such a troubling word for you to define and why don't you (or do you) have such problems with other intangible concepts like justice, freedom, love, happiness, or things like that?
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    I'm not quite understanding the question as response to - my question - — AmadeusD

    My response to your question was shorthand. The full response, to be more clear, would be:

    Yes, I do, but if it's not, how do you know that something is good or bad?

    But i don't think I can know. I can just know whether something is comfortable or not. I can't rightly think that would entail it being good or bad. — AmadeusD

    If you equate morality to comfort level, then why can't you say those things you're comfortable with are good or bad? For example, I would assume you think rape is a bad thing, can you not tell me that it is bad? If your answer is that you're uncomfortable with rape (sounds like an example of British understatement), but you're not sure if it's bad, then you'll have to define "bad" so that I know why your discomfort is not evidence of it.
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    Do you think this is roughly the standard for Philosophical discussions of morality? — AmadeusD

    How do you know that something is good or bad?
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    Sorry, — NOS4A2

    I accept your apology.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    ↪180 Proof
    There is no soul of America, but a few groups here and there that sort of share the same soul until they figure out how they're different and then they can divide into different groups.

    I do actually think Trump will win.

    Not sure if you're following the prosecution of Trump in Atlanta over the Georgia election. The DA hired her lead prosecutor, not by doing a nationwide search for the best and brightest to take on the man who is vying for the most powerful position in the world, but by rolling over in bed and finding the guy that just fucked her and asking him if he'd be interested in the job. She then pays him over $600,000 (which no ADA makes ever, and is more than she makes) and then they use that money to go on trips.

    Then she goes in front of her church and tells them the scrutiny over this guy is because he's black and not over the two white guys she appointed also, as if this might have more to do with selecting your secret boyfriend for the job and not much to do with race. And she still hasn't admitted or denied the allegation she's fucking her chief prosecutor.

    It's just so disappointing to have these unforced errors and to feed right into the Trump narrative that everyone else is more fucked up than he is. Trump calls the Georgia Secretary of State and asks him to go get him a bunch of votes, and Trump is going to get away with it because the hacks can't keep the train on the rails.

    I don't know where I am anymore on any of this. They all live lives so different from me I can't compute any of this. I wouldn't let my wife work in my law firm and I'm a partner here. Can they not compute that a sexual partner will control the entire work environment and will be entirely unmanagable if allowed authority? And can't you be self-aware enough to know that your belief in the brilliance of your boyfriend might not be an objective evaluation? My rule is that if you call someone your boo boo or punkin, you can't hire them to lead your battle against the potential next leader of the free world.

    It's so fucking stupid. Trump's going to win and she's going to lose whenever she is up for election. Follow that bullshit: A guy will try to steal an election for the highest position in the world and the prosecutor against him is going to pay the highest political price for it.

    Part of me says that the world deserves Trump.
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    Do you have a basis? Or is it more an intuition that there must be some basis, unknown or indescribable? — AmadeusD

    This seems to be the generalized difficulty with moral theorizing. We take a number of examples of events, and we place them in either Column A - Moral or Column B- Immoral. We then try to figure out what principle distinguishes the two. Maybe you think utlitarianism or maybe you think Kantianism best explains why one goes into A and the other B. That theory then becomes helpful in deciding how to resolve an ethical dilemma where you don't know what to do. My guess is that few really do that, however. Most just go back to relying upon whatever instinct there was that caused the person to put events in A or B in the first place.

    This would be similar to creating two columns in any instance. We might take a number of examples of objects and we place them in either Column A - Cups or Column B - Not Cups. We then arrive at a principle to distinguish the two so that when we get an odd shaped thing we can then determine if it's an A or B. Maybe that's what we'd do, or maybe we'd just instinctively just put the new object in a particular column like we did with the initial objects.

    Inherent in this problem is that the gold standard for determining which column an event or object goes is in your sensation and assessment of that object. That means we start with our putting things in columns and then after the fact, we tell ourselves why we did it, when in fact we did not perform that analysis.

    If, for example, I arrive at a theory for why events are moral and then I apply that theory to a specific event X and the theory says X is moral, but I don't agree with it, then I refuse to call it moral and I go back and tinker with my theory so that Xs no longer are computed as moral. That is, I have this ability to know right for wrong. That is what I think we mean by having a conscience. My theory for why things are right and wrong is just a rule of thumb, but ultimately, I can sense the difference between the two.

    As to cups, I'd say the same thing. If I look at my Cups and Not Cups columns and I arrive at a theory that describes what goes in what column, and then I find out the object X is determind to be a cup, yet I think it not to be a cup, I don't just put it in the cup column, but I tinker with my theory so that Xs no longer are considered cups. That is, I have this ability to recognize cups. That is what I think we mean by having the abilty to understand (which results in categorization of things).

    This isn't to say that moral assessment isn't subject to significant reasoning and sorting out the interests of all involved and in being empathetic and compassionate, but offering a meta-explanation for why those considerations should predominate I don't think can be done. Certain fundamental bases (to now directly answer your question) must just be accepted. That is, I can tell you why I judged something wrong, but I can't tell you the basis for my basis, and if you show me that my conclusion is flawed based upon how I should have assessed it, I don't think I'd necessarily reconsider because my basis was post hac.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    ↪180 Proof
    You're just painting the future you want to see in the spirit of tracht gut vet zein gut, but I'm seeing into the soul of America and just reporting what stares back at me.

    Blame the Democrats for running a corpse for President.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    I have successfully predicted the outcome of every US presidential race since Van Buren other than my one embarrassing misstep in the James K. Polk match up against Henry Clay, so consider those credentials as you will, but I see a Trump victory. No one is getting out of bed to vote for Joe, not even Joe.

    Don't kill the messenger. I too wish things were different.
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    But we can ask a rather simple question. If someone believes that immorality pertains to the causing of suffering (↪Banno), then must they not simultaneously hold that not-causing-suffering is part of the essence of morality — Leontiskos

    When you say "part of the essence of morality," are you envisioning (1) multiple essences that establish morality or are you envisioning (2) an essence having more elemental components. If #1, then you're saying that an evil act inherently includes causing-suffering and that it has additional inherent elements? If it does, what are they? If not, does it then just have accidental properties along with the essential properties? If #2, then you're arguing essences of essences, meaning if an evil act is essentially one that causes-harm, then we have to decide what the essence is of causes-harm is, right? Does this reduce to some sort of fundamental atomic essence that all things have? Would that be the pure form of morality we seek? If it is, then we need to stop talking about causes-harm as being the essence of morality, but we need to figure out what this deeply imbedded essence is that all moral acts have.

    What I'm suggesting is that not-causing-harm is not the essence of morality. I can probably envision an instance where I must do harm to be moral, as in when self-defense becomes necessary. I'm also not committed to a consequentialism, which this line of thinking might entail, where you then complicate the matter by suggesting that morality is reducing-harm-to-the-greatest-number or some such.

    By arguing essentialism, you just challenge my creativity, meaning you throw down a definition and then you ask me to come up with a counter-example to the definition. I (and you) can always find a counter-example, but that's not because we're so clever, but it's becasue essentialism is false. Words are just too flexible, and it is words that we're talking about. This says nothing about ontology or metaphysics. It just speaks about how we speak.

    And don't get me wrong. I am a moral realist and have no difficulty talking metaphysics. I think an act is right or wrong, not subject to my subjective definitions or beliefs. What I don't think though, is that there is some special X that all moral acts must have to be moral. It's entirely possible that act A and act B are both moral, but they lack any similar ingredients.

    As with my DSM psychological definition I provided, maybe to be moral we must have 25 of 8,000,000 possible ingredients. That would allow for thousands of moral acts to not share a single common ingredient, meaning we don't have any essential ingredient at all. And I'm not committed to 8,000,000. We may learn it's 8,000,001 upon further review.
  • A Case for Moral Realism
    It's sort of interesting how modern philosophy has attempted to do without essences, but really you can't do without them. Linguistically, words need to have meaning. — Leontiskos
    Non-essentialism doesn't suggest words have no meaning.


    What is the essence of "depression:? Here's the definition:

    Major Depressive Disorder requires two or more major depressive episodes.

    Diagnostic criteria:

    "Depressed mood and/or loss of interest or pleasure in life activities for at least 2 weeks and at least five of the following symptoms that cause clinically significant impairment in social, work, or other important areas of functioning almost every day

    1.
    Depressed mood most of the day.

    2.
    Diminished interest or pleasure in all or most activities.

    3.
    Significant unintentional weight loss or gain.

    4.
    Insomnia or sleeping too much.

    5.
    Agitation or psychomotor retardation noticed by others.

    6.
    Fatigue or loss of energy.

    7.
    Feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt.

    8.
    Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness.

    9.
    Recurrent thoughts of death (APA, 2000, p. 356)."

    I have fatigue and loss of energy? Am I depressed? Maybe yes, maybe no. #6 isn't essential, but no one attribute is.

    Could this prescriptive definition not be universal? Might the way it's used vary by context, where I say I'm depressed just because I'm mildly upset, yet I don't meet this definition?

    The point is, use varies by context and users don't even require a single consistent attribute of a term to anchor its meaning.

    The word conveys meaning, but every sentence is a mix of metaphor and poetry. Just speaking of words (and I don't speak, I type) as conveying meaning (as if they move something from A to B (and what the hell is an A and B, and why speak of the netherworld, and what's it underneath?)) and what did we mix? (I didn't stir anything).

    The point is, speaking is a comparative analysis to the world you know. We talk about what things are like, not what they are, which is what an essence is.
  • De-Central Station (Shrinking the Government)
    It's just a name. The states haven't been united since the drawing of the Mason-Dixon line. Some federal governments, in some economic climates were able to hold it together more effectively than others, but in the last 40 years - since Reagan - the divide has been growing wider, while other rifts have been opening up. I see no way to reconciliation. — Vera Mont

    The problematic aspect of your lament over the dissolution of state's rights was that the war that formally drew them legally bound together under the same Constitution was not one fought for any lofty principle. It was fought to protect the institution of slavery by a confederacy that did nothing to try to protect the individual state rights within its confederacy. It's just that South wanted its own slave protecting laws for its region and so it went to war.

    As to the division between the left and the right, that geographical division is best defined not by drawing a line somewhere north of Maryland and meandering south of Missouri, but instead by drawing circles around major metropolitan areas and leaving out suburban and urban areas. The Atlantans, for example, probably won't be fighting alongside their suburban neighbors to the north.

    Since Americans have no particular allegiance to certain state lands, as if someone would proclaim they will fight and die for the great state of Iowa or the like, the insurgents would be left fighting over ideology alone, unattached to any love of land. In the Civil War, ideology was attached to land, as it was the slaves who were fueling that economy in that region. So, if the right or the left wants to fight a civil war, they will have to come from all regions and band together under a unified flag.

    In any event, the last great resurrection ended with a handful of crazies getting locked up after storming the Capital.
  • Where is everyone from?
    OTP. I'm not an ITP sort of person.
  • Fascism in The US: Unlikely? Possible? Probable? How soon?
    How much do you expect and or fear that a strong fascist moment could be organized within the next 5 years? — BC

    Unless someone wants to define our current system as fascist (which I don't), I put the chances at right around zero. The forces maintaining the status quo are well forged, and not seriously challenged by those marching in the street, writing scathing articles, and or even by the voting booth.

    Your post could have appeared during any 5 year period from 1950 until today, and I expect the same sort of responses would have been given, with back and forth about how the political and economic environment will never sustain with way things are going.

    The only reason I don't say it's outright zero is because there is always the chance of an unforeseen disruptive force, like a meteor slams into earth, nuclear war, or a zombie apocolypse.

    The most likely of those deals with war. Which means its less our morals that offers us protection than it is our military.

    Edit: I'd change 1950 to 1865, but I might be convinced to roll it back to 1776.
  • Has The "N" Word Been Reclaimed - And should We Continue Using It?
    ↪AmadeusD
    St. Simons is a resort island these days. It's very built up. Jekyll much less so because of regulations preserving it. If you're exploring the coast one day, check out Cumberland Island. It's a national park, completely preserved, with the ruins of old estates and wild horses running free.

    Fair enough. I still see that as utterly ridiculous - impugning someone's motives based on their accent or locale. Wild. — AmadeusD

    Well not like that. What I was indicating is that if someone is violating social norms and it's clear they are not familiar with them due to their being from somewhere else, which is evident from their accent, they might get a pass. It's like if I ate with the wrong utensils at dinner and then you heard my American accent, you'd understand, as opposed to if I should have known better.

    So, if you started in with some awkward race based questions, I might give you a pass, just realizing it was a cultural difference. But if you were a local, I would assume you were familiar with local customs and you meant to be violating them. I wasn't suggesting that the Southern twang made them a racist. I was suggesting that if they are saying things that are understood locally as racist, and they are locals, then they probably are racist.
  • Has The "N" Word Been Reclaimed - And should We Continue Using It?
    I find this utterly preposterous, and a symptom of looking for enemies, unfortunately. Thems might be the rules, but they're ridiculous, if so. — AmadeusD

    It's not a symptom of looking for enemies though. The word usage is well understood. If the meaning you wish to convey is "I'd rather not black people be around me" there is no special way it ought be said. If that can be said by saying "I like rabbits," then that's the word usage. That people say it here as "there were a lot of black people there," just means it's said a different way.

    That you might mean something different when you say it will likely be realized with your Aussie accent, but, I assure you, the harder the Southern twang used when it is said, the less likely you're going to convince someone your questions about the presence of black people was just an innocuous curiosity.
  • Has The "N" Word Been Reclaimed - And should We Continue Using It?
    P.S have spent some time in Georgia, near the coast. Lovely, flat, welcoming place but its super-creepy to drive past plantation after plantation — AmadeusD

    Not sure of the plantations you speak of. There are some more inland that have fallen into disrepair, nothing like what has been maintained in Lousiana.

    The coast itself has a storied past dating back to among the first European settlers and it then became a vacation area for the Pulitzers, Morgans, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Goodyear, to name a few. The Jekyll Island resort was once owned by the Rockerfellers and it is now a hotel with adjoining cottages. It has a very Great Gatsby feel to it, in terms of the decor and description, although the book itself sucks as we've already concluded.
  • Has The "N" Word Been Reclaimed - And should We Continue Using It?
    I don't see a faux pas in pointing out a demographic unfamilar to you. Doesn't seem to contain any opinion on it - just that it was unusual for that guy. I think in this case, your friend/her husband aren't being reasonable - but this, I think goes to my point. Id want to hear more, in any situation. — AmadeusD

    I see you are from New Zealand? This is significant because the comment by the driver was in fact a faux pas where I am from. The husband was not in the car. We were all white. Had a black person been in the car, it would have been different. I have heard there are few things more complex than American racial interaction and humor related to it. I saw that happening and instead of changing the subject (which would probably been the tactful move), I entertained everyone by soliciting more faux pas.

    If you said to me "my friend and I are coming over later" and I said "is he black?," and you were American, you'd look at me sideways, like, why does that matter? Or, you might say "fuck no!" which means you're either racist, or it could mean you're sarcastially calling me a racist by pretending to agree with my racism in an extreme way, which means you'd be asking me to clarify for you why it should matter..

    That is, it's not supposed to matter what race people are, so if you ask about it, you're saying it matters, which means you now need to explain why it matters. That is, why did the cabbie register in his head that something different about Atlanta was that many of the people are black? Why was that important to him when it's normal to those who live there? The insinuation is that he thinks differently of black than whites. He didn't mention that everyone in Atlanta wears white tennis shoes and blue jeans and baseball caps (which they do like in the rest of America). He mentioned they were black.

    What he meant really was, "Wow, back home everyone is white, and when I came over here I thought it'd be the same, but it's different, and that's unusual for me." And he likely meant no judgment either way. But here, there are judgments attached to those things.

    Anyway, I don't make the rules.
  • Has The "N" Word Been Reclaimed - And should We Continue Using It?
    When i said 'you', read it as the abstract use of 'one'. It was not aimed at you personally - And i do not carry assumptions of this kind (or, more accurate, i immediately, by way of years of habit-forming, jettison my assumptions upon meeting/interacting with someone). I wait until someone actually tells me something of substance, instead of reading into things. — AmadeusD

    A quick story because everyone does love a story.

    I live in Atlanta and visited my then wife's family in rural east Georgia. Their indiscriminate use of the N word was a bit shocking to my more urbane ears, so much so that I must have shown enough reaction that the family matriarch apologized to me and explained to me that they weren't racist, but that there were a lot of racial tensions in town, at that moment having to do with a dispute over whether certain white historical sites would be preserved by the majority black city counsel.

    Word usage varies from bubble to bubble I understand, but I have to think they conveyed exactly what they meant to convey, probably thinking all "family," regardless of blood or not, shared similar views, so they were free to speak freely. The point being that some word usage doesn't leave much doubt as to where people stand, and you have to realize that the words you hear are probably modified to your sensibilities until the day you stumble into somewhere you've been misread.

    You are right, though, to the extent maybe someone could live somewhere and not know the nuances of the language and suggest something with their word usage that was unintended. I think that happens here at PTF honestly and can recall a few instances where posters did not understand the incredibly complex world of American racial nuances and they said something that shouldn't have been said, at least if they were in my bubble.

    Another story because everyone loves a story.

    I was on a work trip and we all piled into a cab from the airport and we had a driver with a thick Eastern European descent, likely a recent immigrant. We told him we were from Atlanta, and he told us he had been there and that it had so many black people he couldn't believe it. One of the women in the cab with us was married to a black man, which he, of course didn't know, so I took that opportunity to egg him on and ask him "what do you think of all those blacks," trying to keep up the awkward moment. The joke, of course, was that he already committed a faux pas, had no clue, and I was going to see how many more I could get him to make, all while my friend was forced to endure it. He, I do believe, was innocent and just making a remark, although had he been allowed to keep talking, who knows.

    The first story, no innocence there.
  • What are you listening to right now?
    ↪Jamal


    If the refrain indicates that all that preceded it has been rejected now that he's wiser, then I'm left with this:

    "Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth, "rip down all hate, " I screamed
    Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull, I dreamed
    Romantic facts of musketeers foundationed deep, somehow
    Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"

    meaning he does not buy into the statement "rip down all hate" and that he does not believe it a lie when people claim some things are black and white. An interesting nod to moral certainty at a time when that was challenged.

    And then this:

    "A self-ordained professor's tongue too serious to fool
    Spouted out that liberty is just equality in school
    "Equality, " I spoke the word as if a wedding vow
    Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"

    A rejection that equality is the highest principle to hold to (i.e. a wedding vow).

    I could go on, but I'm already boring you.

    But then this is consistent with some lyrics from "To Ramona" (which some say was written about Joan Baez),

    "I've heard you say many times
    That you're better than no one
    And no one is better than you
    If you really believe that
    You know you have
    Nothing to win and nothing to lose."

    That's my Dylan analysis for the day. I actually just saw him recently in Kentucky. It was cool to be there, but he was a bit hard to understand.

    Your dad was far hipper than mine. Mine was of a generation earlier.
  • What are you listening to right now?


    I was struck by how counter-counter-revolutionary these lyrics were, like saying the whole counterculture ideology was bullshit.
  • Anyone care to read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"?
    My thoughts, and I'm perfectly fine with your telling me I've missed the boat entirely here because I pretend no expertise in this.

    Where @Mww and you were discussing:

    And yet, there remains some idiotic insistence that noumena and thing-in-themselves are the same thing. Or the same kind of thing. Or can be treated as being the same kind of thing.
    — Mww

    I was absolutely wrong on this, and misunderstood Noumena entirely.     — AmadeusD

    I take issue with the "idiotic insistence" suggestion, as if the equation of the noumena and thing in itself is such an unsustainable suggestion that it is to be ridiculed.

    For example, from Wiki:

    "Noumenon and the thing-in-itself
    Many accounts of Kant's philosophy treat "noumenon" and "thing-in-itself" as synonymous, and there is textual evidence for this relationship.[15] However, Stephen Palmquist holds that "noumenon" and "thing-in-itself" are only loosely synonymous, inasmuch as they represent the same concept viewed from two different perspectives,[16][17] and other scholars also argue that they are not identical.[18] Schopenhauer criticised Kant for changing the meaning of "noumenon". However, this opinion is far from unanimous.[19] Kant's writings show points of difference between noumena and things-in-themselves. For instance, he regards things-in-themselves as existing:

    ...though we cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in a position at least to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears.[20]

    He is much more doubtful about noumena:

    "But in that case a noumenon is not for our understanding a special [kind of] object, namely, an intelligible object; the [sort of] understanding to which it might belong is itself a problem. For we cannot in the least represent to ourselves the possibility of an understanding which should know its object, not discursively through categories, but intuitively in a non-sensible intuition.[21]

    A crucial difference between the noumenon and the thing-in-itself is that to call something a noumenon is to claim a kind of knowledge, whereas Kant insisted that the thing-in-itself is unknowable. Interpreters have debated whether the latter claim makes sense: it seems to imply that we know at least one thing about the thing-in-itself (i.e., that it is unknowable). But Stephen Palmquist explains that this is part of Kant's definition of the term, to the extent that anyone who claims to have found a way of making the thing-in-itself knowable must be adopting a non-Kantian position.[22]"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon#:~:text=However%2C%20Stephen%20Palmquist%20holds%20that,that%20they%20are%20not%20identical.

    This is just to say that the equation of noumena and the thing in itself is not idiotic, but is a point of debate among scholars.

    The last paragraph of what I quoted makes the most sense to me, assuming I followed it, and that is I take it the distinction being drawn is that "noumena" is a reference to an epistimilogical statement that says "X cannot be known," where "cannot be known" is what it means to be noumenal. So X is noumenal. However, "the thing in itself" is a reference to the ontological object and is that actual thing that cannot be known. It is X. We therefore say "the thing in itself is noumenal," meaning all we know of X is that it is unknowable.

    All of this is to say:

    X = "the thing in itself"
    Y = "that which cannot be known"
    "That which cannot be know" = "noumenal"
    All Xs are Y
    Only Xs are Y

    So. X is Y is a correct statement.
    The error, I assume that is drawing this debate is where X is Y is reinterpreted to X = Y? That is the idiotic insistence of equality?

    We then can debate why X is Y is a different statement than X = Y, which is probably true, but I'm not sure how that changes any part of our analysis, but I can see what some would say "is" and "is the same as" are not importantly different.

    I found this helpful: https://epochemagazine.org/07/the-thing-in-itself-a-problem-child/

    The primary part of your post relates to this:
    Kant tells us that there are real, material objects 'out there' of which we can know nothing things in themselves. But that these objects cause our intuitions... which are not, as far as we care capable of knowing, anything like hte thing-in-itself.. — AmadeusD

    This seems a contradiction from the above. We now know two things about the thing in itself: (1) it is unknowable and (2) it causes intuituitions. #1 appears definitionally true, but #2 an empirical statement. If X (the thing in itself) causes me to see a flower, I can say something pretty substantive of X, specifically that it elicits a particular intuition, but I don't think I can say that because it's noumenal. I can only say there are Xs out there and intuituions in here, but I can't say any particular X is consistently responsible for any particular intuition.

    That is why I have a problem with the causative suggestion of X eliciting certain intutitions. That tells us too much about X. It tells us there is this fuzzy, unclear sort of energetic impulse out there that makes us experience and presents us with an extreme sort of representationalism, which I personally would lean toward, but I'm not sure Kant comes out and says that.

    Anyway, I'm open to reconsidering. With Kant, I'm never sure if I'm just not following it or whether it's just not followable.
  • Has The "N" Word Been Reclaimed - And should We Continue Using It?
    ↪GTTRPNK
    Word usage has nothing to do with progress toward greater racial harmony. Meaning is use. When a white person uses the N word, he means, "hey guys, I'm a racist." When a black person uses it, it doesn't mean that.

    If one day both blacks and whites could hold hands and mean the same thing when they use that word, that'd be interesting, but I don't think it would mean we were any closer to achieving MLK Jr.'s dream.

    Let's aim higher.
  • Quick puzzle: where the wheel meets the road
    ↪frank
    That's what he says. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT84jMWvD/
  • Feature requests
    As discussed, they won't be adding new functionality and we'll have to move to another platform. — Jamal

    Are there some other platforms that would consider adding a penalty box as described? I'd like to get that started, at least to have the foundation poured by the end of the month.

    I still don't have ice skates though.
  • Regarding the antisemitic label
    Here I need a little help now, cause I thought that the word antisemitism refers to systematic discrimination, prejudices and conceptions of the Jews that have prevailed in the Christian world the last 2000 years — Eros1982

    It's not limited to the time or geographical region you assumed. This stuff is easy enough to Google.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antisemitism

    It is hard in my view to trace systematic prejudices against Jews in the non-Christian world — Eros1982

    Just read the timeline I cited.
    Wouldn't it be more correct to call the Muslim, Asian and African opponents of Israel "anti-israelites" instead of calling them antisemitic? — Eros1982

    It would be more accurate to call anyone who is anti-Israel "anti-Israel" if that's what they are, regardless of where they're from, and it would be more accurate to call someone "antisemitic" if they were antisemitic if that's what they are regardless of where they're from. The terms have different meanings.

    Even if your historical analysis were correct that antisemitism began sometime in the 1st century and was limited to Christian nations (and none of this is accurate), your logic still dioesn't hold. By analogy, someone who hates black people is properly called a racist even if he's from a country that has no history of hating black people.

    But the bigger question is what is your larger point? Are you simply trying to prescribe linguistic usage for pedantic reasons, or are you suggesting some substantive difference between the hate felt by modern day Christians antisemites versus Muslim ones so much so that a different term should be prescribed for each?
  • Feature requests
    Another was a Medieval-style system, where reporting a post was effectively a wager, such that if someone reported a post that is not problematic then that someone takes the penalty that would have been applied to the poster they reported. It seems that this was a way to limit litigation in locales where judicial resources were scarce. I'm not sure if it would work, but I like the idea. It would certainly lighten moderation if it could be implemented. — Leontiskos

    I envisioned a hockey style penalty box where for the two minutes you were in lock down, your opponent was in a power play and could comment without allowing you a response. The difficulty I saw in it was in the expense of the box and finding personnel to monitor the person in the box so he wouldn't jump free.

    I also don't have ice skates.
  • What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    ↪YiRu Li
    I don't want this to appear as if there is some bias against Chinese culture or traditions. My only point is that the information that is passed down in any culture is passed down for a variety of reasons, and the scientific accuracy of the account is not necessarily one of them. I do also recognize that some cultures value their traditions more than others, while within some it is part of the tradition to challenge the culture.
  • What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    Are there any westerner ancestors who passed things to your generation nowadays and you know it is valuable? — YiRu Li

    There are of course, but what we're talking about isn't how information is transmitted, but the accuracy of the trasmission. I would suggest that all cultures pass their mythology down to their children, and there is a reason for that mythology in maintaining a certain culuture and belief system, but that doesn't mean that the wars of the Bible, for example, actually occurred as set out or whether they occured at all.

    The Bible (which is the Western example) describes battles that the ancient Hebrews either heroically won or that they lost due to their failure to do the will of God. That is, it's all set forth with the Hebrews being the center of importance, maintaining a theme that justice prevails when one acts in accordance with God's law.

    The point being that history accuracy, particularly the ancient sort, did not rely upon the modern sorts of rules we apply to historical accuracy today. They did not make sure the sources were double checked, that opposing accounts were considered, or that physical evidence was examined. They made sure it maintained a certain narrative they wanted advanced.

    For a specific answer to your question, within Judaism, for example, there is a concept known as L'dor v'dor, which literally means "from generation to generation," a talmudic requirement that "is understood to mean the transmission of the culture's values, rituals, traditions, and history to the next generation."

    https://pjlibrary.org/beyond-books/pjblog/december-2016/what-is-ldor-vdor
  • What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    Chinese history is only 5,000 years old.
    If mapping to the Bible time, it's after 'Tower of the Babel'.
    Before that, it's not included in Chinese history.
    So Chinese history can not support six day creation and a great flood.     — YiRu Li

    My point was only that because your documents indicate something happened, that doesn't mean that it actually happened, regardless of whether it comes from China or another country.
  • What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    Chinese has 5,000 years of history.
    We still can easily read any documents from 5,000 years ago.
    It's not legends, it's history.     — YiRu Li

    Ancient documents from the near east that have become central to Western civilization tell of a six day creation and a great flood. Does their antiquity and accessibility mean those things actually happened?
  • What is the way to deal with inequalities?
    Chinese history has a very strong civilization and culture supports the truth. — YiRu Li

    But isn't this what all governments say?
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