Worth quoting at length for those who won't watch the whole thing: — StreetlightX

Thanks for the quote. I couldn't watch the whole thing, work gets in the way sometimes.

I'll give you a glimpse into the mind of the right:

The suppression by the left of making the right appear so politically incorrect (racist, neo-Nazi, and whatever else) has led to the right not admitting who they will vote for fear of public reprisal. It's for that reason the polling data is so terribly wrong (Trump was down like 6% in polling in Pennsylvania on election night but won it).

I will vote for Trump, regardless of how these impeachment proceedings work out. That is, if he is on the ballot, but no longer President, and capable of legally running, he has my vote. I don't really like him all that much to be honest, but the joy I would have in seeing him resurrected after a Democratic full on attack, I just can't explain. It would be like the giddiness I felt watching Hillary supporters crying on election night.

That is honest guys, and so now I expect to hear all the scathing criticisms of my admitting my allegiance not so much to Trump, but to my absolute rejection of the sanctimonious and morally bankrupt Democrats who think they're just one more good lecturing away from swaying me to their wisdom. And my position is no different than about 50% of the population's.

When Trump said that he'd still get the Republican vote even if he murdered someone in Times Square, he at least understood that. And yet what have the Democrats done? They've just pointed out how bad a person he is, even after Trump explained to them his supporters just don't care.

This technology has been around since the 70s.

It seems the distinction between now and the future is just how we'll interface with the technology. Currently we type in or speak to computers in order for them to do as we wish. If we could just think of what we wanted, it'd save us a little time I guess.

Now, anyone else got two cents or are we done here? — Baden

I'd just add, consistent with what you said, is that we can no more protect our friends with relaxed rule enforcement than attack our enemies with strict rule enforcement. Treating everyone as an equal is fundamental to fairness.

I'd also say that bannings are not difficult to avoid. The S situation was really not a complicated one from a rule perspective. When modded had he said "I'll try" instead of "fuck you," I'd expect a different outcome. This wasn't a case of simply failing to comply. It was a refusal to comply. In fact, it was contemptuous, disrespectful defiance.

As you said, the efforts we made to rectify the situation were ignored. We tried and I wish things didn't turn out this way, but we had no other options.

Some bad decisions are the result of bad environment. Do you recognize that too? — creativesoul

Sure, and some good decisions are made in bad environments.

Perfect freedom doesn't exist, but our choices matter.

Hey guys, it looks like we've taken care of these posters, so I'm going to close this thread, but feel free to pick up this conversation in the lounge if you'd like.

His passion was not what ultimately got him banned. It was the "fuck you... ban me" bit. — Baden

Yeah, and we did offer him an opportunity to explain himself, which he ignored, so I doubt any of this came as as surprise to him, even if it does to others.

I really did like S. We had some good times, but what can you do if someone tells you to fuck off and to ban them when they are being moderated?

Another mod already banned her. Oh well. I'm sure there will be more.

By-the-by, have you noticed how she introduced herself as Natasha, but the message came from Nadia? I think it's a teamjob. One types the consonants, the other, the adverbs. — god must be atheist

I noticed a new user named Nadia. I banned only Natasha based on Banno's post. Did you get something from Nadia?

I'm afraid you'll have to communicate offline now because I just banned her.

I bought some colored cellophane overlays to change the colors. That's how we had to change the colors on our iPhones back during the depression.

My world would have no compulsory education, though what education was offered would have some time spent learning survivalism . — Anthony

.

Survivalism in modern society has nothing to do with basket weaving, tracking and hunting prey, or starting campfires. Mastery of those skills would not make you particularity fit to survive in my neighborhood or most. Even should the zombie apocalypse arise, you'd only survive a few more weeks than everyone else, considering there really aren't a whole lot of deer in the woods or trout in the stream. That is to say that the current educational system is designed for survival, but today's society needs doctors, engineers, finance experts and the like. We don't need all that many more boyscout leaders.

And I'm not knocking those skills as useless, but I just place them in the same category as being a really good banjo player, a scratch golfer, or even a brilliant chess player. Have at all those things, and if you can earn a living at them, mazel tov, but probably they're just good hobbies and mental exercises.

The most human people I've met are the types who can meet the needs of living if they have to...they may be the only ones deserving of the human denomination; more, a self-reliant person usually has more advanced social skills...it comes full circle. — Anthony

Either that or you just have little respect for people whose skills are limited to indoor activity, like working at the computer and sipping fine wine and who couldn't imagine sleeping in a tent, so you designate them as whimpering subhumans.

Like I said, enjoy your prepping, play your banjo, hit your golf ball, whatever. Just don't pretend like your hobby is the fountain of happiness.

Work is death on the installment plan. — Bitter Crank

If only manna would fall from the sky.

I don't give a flying fuck what you believe. your arguments are simply not that interesting. — Banno

But I was so vying for your affection.

Edit: Thinking on that, what the fuck is a flying fuck? — Banno

Not sure, but it sounds like a playful question designed to detract from the obnoxiousness of your post above.

It has long become a fetish; worshiped for powers attributed to the "free market" to make all things clean and pure — Banno

This at least acknowledges the straw man you've been fighting all along attempting to attribute to me. There's nothing free market libertarian in my position. I argued for for democratic regulation. I gave full nod to the commoners to protect their commons.

1. Hunter-gatherer tribes have better dental health than modern Americans.
2. The water is perfectly safe to drink in the wild, it is contaminated by the consequences of development (agriculture, urbanisation and industrialisation)
3. 9 out of the ten most virulent communicable diseases are caused by agriculture. There are no diseases in hunter-gatherer tribes which are treatable with vaccination programmes. — Isaac

1. They have terrible dental health. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/362.summary
2. I guess they had to find water first, but once they did, and they didn't die from the malaria ridden waters, maybe they could go about living their healthy lives, assuming they weren't burying their neonatal corpses, which is defined as any death under 15 years of age.
3. HIV began in the hunter gatherer community. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26316-perfect-storm-turned-hiv-from-local-to-global-killer/
There is now effective treatment for that.

I didn't call hunter gatherers savages, scraping by in the mud. I simply don't accept the prejudice generally ascribed to modern society by those in academia. It's not anti-intellectualism, as I expect you'll next start arguing, but more just a refusal to accept the nonsense that health improves the farther I get away from modern hospitals.

Today my coworker's spouse fell and broke her jaw. How might she fare in the Congo, having to chew her food sideways for the rest of her life?

So now you state that the reason we have increased life expectancies is because of (1) better neo-natal care, (2) antibiotics, and (3) better surgery, yet for some reason that's irrelevant to the analysis of whether industrialized nations are superior to hunter-gatherer ones. You then deny the correlation between the two, as if it shouldn't be fairly obvious that if the better part of your day is spent spearing animals and gathering berries and then nomadically journeying to the next more fertile spot wouldn't lend itself very well to developing the next best MRI machine.

Fortunately what we do, including the US, is to take the money and the skills developed due to our superior economic structure and offer assistance to those less advanced nations and we clean their teeth, purify their water, and vaccinate their citizens, not to mention feed them and provide for them in times of drought. It's called caring for the commons..

Sure. You kinda missed the thrust of the thread, though, which was more about the need for an ought to be inserted somewhere in the calculation. — Banno

Of course. That's why we ought have democratic rule and ought not have a dictatorship.

It's an odd argument... kids live past five, the internet works, therefore there is no problem with the commons.

Odd. — Banno

It's an odd argument... The democratic process protects the commons and we all benefit, yet there is a problem with the common.

Odd.

I'm still waiting for you to intrinsically link the whole of the capitalist infrastructure to preventing childhood deaths. — Isaac

But this is the first you've asked that.

It's a small number of, very specific factors which cause this problem (mostly medical), not an entire socio-economic structure. — Isaac

I think it has to do with all sorts of things, including medical, all of which are evident in wealthier nations. Capitalism creates wealth and prosperity.

.. which the figures do not show since every other aspect of hunter-gather lifestyle (aside from neonatal care) seems entirely consistent with a reasonably long and healthy life. — Isaac

They absolutely show a statistically significant increase in life span in industrialized countries, even more overwhelming when childhood deaths are included. You keep using the term "neonatal," but 15 years of age not a newborn. And, I don't know why you discard the fact that children are dying very young in hunter gatherer societies. I do hold that having your children reach adulthood is an incredibly important thing. Actually, I can think of fewer things worse than burying your child, but apparently you guys think that's hardly worth mentioning when comparing life of the hunter gatherer to others.

Nevertheless, in wealthier nations, improvements in hygiene, diet and health care over the last hundred years have added several decades to life expectancies at birth, relative to those observed in hunter-gatherers

Several decades is significant.

Also, that massive numbers are dying prior to age 5 is kind of important too.

From Wiki:

"Researchers Gurven and Kaplan have estimated that around 57% of hunter-gatherers reach the age of 15. Of those that reach 15 years of age, 64% continue to live to or past the age of 45. This places the life expectancy between 21 and 37 years.[37] They further estimate that 70% of deaths are due to diseases of some kind, 20% of deaths come from violence or accidents and 10% are due to degenerative diseases." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer.

"life expectancy at age 15 is 48 years for Aborigines, 52 and 51 for settled Ache and !Kung, yet 31 and 36 for peas-ant and transitional Agta.Survival to age 45 varies between 19 and 54 percent, and those aged 45 live an average of 12–24 additional years."

"In the united states as of 2002 the mode age of mortality was 85. In most cases about 30% of of adult deaths occur at ages above the modal age of mortality."

https://condensedscience.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/life-expectancy-in-hunter-gatherers-and-other-groups/

This shows:

1. The average life expectancy in hunter gatherer societies is about four decades less than in industrial societies if child mortality is included.
2. The average life expectancy in hunter gatherer societies is several decades less than in industrial societies if child mortality is excluded.
3. Industrial nations are continuing to distance themselves in both categories as time moves forward.
4. If you live in a hunter gatherer society, your chances of dying before age 15 are extremely high.

So, as to my post where I proclaimed life industrialized nations would result in a profoundly longer life span, how does anything here disprove that?

Among most hunter-gatherer groups those making it past the age of 5 live to an average 65 years, the same life expectancy of modern Glasgow. What drags the average life expectancy down is a high infant mortality rate (lots of people dying at 4 is going to make the average age at death much lower). — Isaac

Cite this.

Bad luck anywhere in there? — creativesoul

Sure, and good luck, which I'd think would be as likely to befall one race as the next.

You're an odd little fish. The carrying capacity of the paddock might be found by a bit of science. What to do about that carrying capacity is a different sort of question.

You do understand that, I trust. — Banno

What to do about the carrying capacity of the paddock can be determined by science, likely by the Democracy (at least through trial and error), but how to go about that cannot be determined by resorting to one's conscience as far as I can see. It's one thing to say you want for it all to be fair and another to arrive at an actual figure that represents fairness.

Anyway, I look at the world and don't see a tragedy of the commons. I see a world with more food and access to resources than ever before. Those cultures, of what of them that are left, even in their still unspoiled environments, who hunt and gather ethically, making certain to leave to nature what is owed nature, live and die with the amount of rainfall in every season, and some even survive into their 40s.

The point being that privatization and democratic rule have led to great prosperity, so much so that you can sit in your living room and tell me I'm an odd little fish on this invention of the internet that didn't spring forth through the magic of a rising social conscience, but through privatization, the incentives inherent in capitalism, and through the extraction from the land of its many great resources, a good amount of which has fallen into the hands of the few, although very clearly the more capable few.

You are left with the unfortunate truth that this system you have declared unethical works, with only your doomsday predictions of collapse as your justification for hastening its collapse today.

The number of cows that the paddock can sustain is not an issue that can be settled by a poll. — Banno

It can better be settled by the collaborative decision of the group (as I suggest) than by each person's conscience (as you suggest).

Or. do you now imply a whole new theory, asserting the question of the good for the commons is empirical and within the purview of the scientist dictator?

The challenge, as always, is to recognize it, understand how privilege is made manifest, and fight for those who are deprived of it. — Maw

Ok. I recognize it and realize when failures are the result of bad decisions versus a bad environment.

In this case there’s no debate about the legal issue, the money legally belongs to Stanley, but I don’t understand how you can state in such a matter of fact way that “It's Stanley's money. All his. No one has any moral (..) right to it but Stanley.” You may be right in the end, but for such an absolute statement we would need to take a whole range of issues into consideration. The facts that are already given may suffice to give Stanley a clear advice, but that’s not the same as saying that he has an unambiguous moral right to the money. — Congau

I agree we could concoct a situation where Stanley has no moral right to the money and that he ought give it to his brother. My point is that there is nothing in the actual post of Stanley suggesting the brother has some moral right to it. Sure, if brother is dying, Stanley owes him some money, brother has been there for Stanley in the past, etc might sway me to say Stanley should give some to brother. What I've read about brother doesn't reveal any redeeming quality morally entitling him to the money.

...abd that's were we went wrong. It is a moral equation. That's the point of this thread - to point out that the solution is neither political big fat dictators nor economic privatisation, but showing respect fort the commons. — Banno

If the common folk pass a law through the democratic process, then obviously the common folk do show respect for the commons. The reason they allow only 4 trout per line is because they think everyone should get a fair shake at catching trout. Fairness seems like a moral question to question to me to some extent.

You're stuck calling an agreement among the townsfolk as to how the commons should be fairly divided a dictatorial act. I don't follow that. Politics, in a democracy, is people collaborating and coming to a agreed upon solution.

From a legal standpoint the case is very simple and clear-cut — Congau

I said:

No one has any moral or legal right to it but Stanley — Hanover

Let’s say Stanley’s brother was seriously ill — Congau

He's not though. Stanley said he made bad investments, he doesn't respect Stanley, and he withholds affection if Stanley doesn't do what he asks.

That's why I said the money is Stanley's, morally and legally. We could change the facts and make the money legally his brother's also, but again we'd be answering a different question.

I just linked an essay of mine on the topic before because I didn't want to derail this thread into an off-topic conversation, I was just calling a quick point of order on Hanover. — Pfhorrest

Your point of order remains absurd, despite your referring to yourself as authority.

I'm participating in a forum discussion... — Echarmion

Barely.

The effort wouldn't be commensurate with my investment in the topic. — Echarmion

Your position is that slavery has caused modern day whites to be disproportionately privileged, yet you acknowledge you have no proof of that and can cite nothing in support of that. You then claim you're too busy to Google.

Next time just save us the time and tell us you have a baseless opinion that you're too busy to confirm or deny.

I don't believe there is insufficient evidence for it. I just don't have sufficient rigorous and presentable evidence. I am not a sociologist and have no easy access to the relevant literature. — Echarmion

Google.

you don't need evidence to have an opinion in the first place — Pfhorrest

Sure, I have the right to a baseless opinion, and I suppose I have the right to be irrational, purposefully wrong, and even openly contradictory and idiotic.

Why are we pointing this out? Does this prove your case somehow that slavery has caused white privilege?

I disagree that critical rationalism is as you've characterized it. In fact, it's a gross misstatement of it.

If you're lacking empirical support for an empirical claim, your claim has no basis to be held. If you say whites maintain privilege as the result of slavery without empirical support, your claim is no more supportable than my claim that the results of slavery no longer have impact on white privilege.

Because it tries to blame Southern post war racism on Reconstruction, as if the slave states weren't blatantly racist prior to the war, considering they openly treated human beings as chattel. Jim Crow was child's play compared to the laws allowing slavery.

If the rest if the US had given a fuck while the South descended into fascism, Jim Crow wouldnt have happened. — frank

Total nonsense.

The burden of proof is not "hold no positions until there is sufficient evidence of them" but "hold no positions that there is sufficient evidence against". — Pfhorrest

Nonsense.

Tzeentch is right. The question is whether the money will actually be useful for him. If he’s a spendthrift who’s likely to squander it, there is no such thing as a brotherly duty on your part to help him ruin himself. — Congau

Totally disagree actually. These are siblings, with relationships going back to their earliest memories, dealing with parental relationships, grandparents, their spouses, and on and on. It's not isolated to whether this will help the brother by his his own narrative, as he talks about soreness among the other siblings, envy over the inheritance distribution, and his brother's not respecting his opinion.

It's Stanley's money. All his. No one has any moral or legal right to it but Stanley, which ought to be accepted by brother. So, Stanley ought to do what is best for Stanley, which might be to stand up to brother. Might not be too, but that's the question, not what is best for brother.