I expect Hanover is consistent btw and would criticize Republicans for shooting themselves in the foot if Clinton were indicted in a red state. It's the way things are looked at over there. — Baden

The impeachment of Clinton was a massive mistake and is often cited for the reason why the Republicans lost power after great gains.

There is a political reality that cannot be ignored. You can go on about how justice demands the prosecution of every prosecutable crime damn the torpedoes, and we can then end up with failed impeachments and acquittals followed by emboldened politicians who should have lost power.

The Manhattan case is a case about misuse of campaign funds and falsification of records. It's a finance regulatory case.

Prosecute the man for calling the Georgia Secretary of State and asking for fabricated votes and stop with this diversion into whether Form 1876-b (I made that form up, so don't look it up) was falsified.



This isn't about me not caring about justice or about whatever this psychological analysis is regarding the inconsistencies in the American mindset, and I sure as hell would never vote for Trump. The man is an anti-democratic dictator wanna be.

I wish he'd be hit for something real, not whether he might have improperly paid off the woman he slept with.

The Clinton example is apt here. Whatever started that meaningful investigation ended in whether he lied about getting a blow job. He shouldn't have lied about it, sure, but the Republicans should have let that go.

Trump is slowly getting repositioned by the Democrats for a second presidency. Impeaching, indicting, or otherwise attempting to disqualify Trump from this election cycle is going to be seen as undemocratic and he'll become a martyr.

I see this as a major fuck up by the Democrats. They need to run a good candidate and forget about Trump. He'll be dead before his trial and appeals.

https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-alpha-wolf-idea-a-myth/
https://www.businessinsider.com/no-such-thing-alpha-male-2016-10
...and so on. — Banno

I'll talk about this because it's an interesting aside.

It makes sense that animal hierarchies reduce given additional space where they don't have to directly compete for resources. The weaker ones would likely go find their own place to roam, find food, mates, safe spots and so on without having to go head to head with the bigger members of the group. I think about my chickens, and the pecking order really most displays itself in the coop, but while they're out and about in the yard less so.

If getting fed means searching out bugs from far away or from knocking you down and taking the food you seek from the feeder, I'm going to do whichever is easiest for me.

What can be extrapolated from chicken behavior to human societies and how this explains capitalism and competition (for example), I don't really know, but it's chicken feed for thought.

The role of the rooster in the chicken society is also an interesting one. More food for thought.

Now y'all can return to the God discussion, whatever exactly it is.

Wiki says:

"Moral realism (also ethical realism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism

One would like to answer these questions before expending a deal of effort on building, and so one has recourse to engineers' calculations and planning departments and building regulations and materials specifications and health and safety rules etc. Society and individuals learn from experiments, mistakes and successes what sorts of buildings work. All this accumulated knowledge and wisdom helps a good architect produce plans that are realistic. But it takes a team of builders to produce a real building. — unenlightened

Your analogy: Ethical rules are to social functioning as architectural plans are to building functioning. The truth of either determinanable by an analysis of how well they have advanced the objective.

What then is the objective?

Is it the advancement of happiness or the protection of individual autonomy or something else?

Unless you are willing to admit that the objective being advanced is the Good independent of the subjective consensus, but that it exists as an independent fact, then that is subjectivism and not moral realism.

This is to say murder is wrong because (1) it fails to advance the Good, and (2) the Good is defined as X, where X is not subject to reinterpretation as to time, place, or culture. That is, murder is always wrong, even where it can objectively be shown society would benefit from its allowance because the Good stands as the immovable real, the rock, the building, and the actual thing.

So, back to your building. The plans are pragmatically good if the arena holds the concert, but unless the arena is ethically good, the plans are not ethically good, but only pragmatically so. If society decides what arenas are ethically good, that is not moral realism.

What criteria are used to determine if the arena is ethically good?

You went through too much of a song and dance to ask just the basic question of what is the proper response when the market supports a less eco-friendly option than is availble. The answer is you regulate so that the consumer is incentivized or forced into the desired option. It's for that reason we have unleaded gas at the pumps and all other types of environmental regulation.

We all understand we could get coal cheaper if we didn't require miners to be provided helmets, but we don't just let the market mine coal however it wants for the cheapest price.

The question isn't whether we should regulate or not. The question is how much we should regulate, with the right saying less and left saying more, with the two being divided by a fuzzy ever shifting line. The market is ultimately the product of the government, with the government deciding how the market will be permitted to run.

Profound heart pounding absurdity.

Has anyone spotted the same circumstances in the city they live in? Is this strictly Canadian policy? — Bug Biro

It is common to blame immigrants for taking the jobs of the current citizens, of committing crime, of refusing assimilation, of depleting common resources, of displacing the current residents, and of generally many societal ills.

They're not after you, but to the extent you feel disenfranchised, and you fear removal, you sit as potential prey for a leader who needs his supporters.

That's how these things predictably work. You can decide whether to jump on that train or not. My guess is that the political fliers have already been littered throughout your neighborhood.

@Jamal
I read your Pinker quote differently than you, but your Nietzsche quote exactly as you interpreted Pinker.

I read Pinker to offer hope to those who despair that there is no progress based upon our constant regress to our most evil inclinations. That progress is evidenced by the Enlightenment.

That is, should you sit on your porch thinking about how terrible the human condition is, never able to overcome irs worst impulses, but condemned to repeat it, don't despair says Pinker: We have come a long way in some regards.

I don't read this single excerpt to suggest that heaven awaits someday, that the power of fate will lead us there without our effort, or that the invisible hand of goodness assures us if our deliverance from evil.

That imparts a very Christiancentric interpretation upon Pinker, which I think is more applicable to Nietzsche.

That is, I don't read Pinker to suggest that the Enlightenment was an inevitable evolutionary state that we were destined to achieve without great effort, and I think he explicitly realizes we can fall well beneath those principles, but there is an optimism to Pinker. I just don't think it's a naive or dangerous one.

What was there before all created/contingent things? There was existence. This eternal something, from which all things came, is eternal and IS existence. — EnPassant

To argue there is an entity without fom or attribute, but who has the power to create, is to define a non-physical, propertyless powerful creator.

How isn't this theism?

You don't lose a faith trough argument or persuasion; you lose it through intellectual growth or experience. — Vera Mont

"Gain" works in this sentence as well as "lose."

The term "supernatural" derives its meaning from usage, not through logical analysis. It generally is used to mean divine intervention or some type of interaction with a disembodied spirit, where the spirit is semi-transparent, can be sensed only through strange feelings or emotions, or through perhaps changes in temperature or whatnot.

If we try to define the supernatural as that which occurs outside nature, and we then define nature as everything we can sense, then we're left with a hopeless contradiction if we say that we have sensed the supernatural.

That is, if Casper is a supernatural ghost, but I've seen Casper floating around the living room, then he's not supernatural because I just saw him, which means he's physical. If we then say that some parts of Casper are supernatural and others natural, then I'm not sure what distinguishes Casper from anyone else if we assert that mental functions are not entirely physical.

Where there is victimization, there's helplessness. The victim can't be held responsible for really, anything. The victim is, conceptually, a non-responsibility zone. — frank

A victim need not be helpless nor be excused from failing to mitigate their victimization. These are all different concepts. Some victims refuse to see themselves as victims which isn't heroic either because it can result in the continuation of their victimization.

[

and if "empirical" denotes how something is experienced or appears to us — 180 Proof

I'd argue that this definition of empirical realism is actually of indirect realism in particular and not of empirical realism generally (as direct realism wouldn't allow for a distinction between the real and perceived).

I take Kant's position to deal heavily with how the mind organizes perceptions and what is required for the perception. As to the thing in itself, I take that as beyond the limit of perception and not knowable.

Because of the emphasis upon the mind's peculiar way of knowing things, his position is referred to as transcendental, and because of the mind's inability to know the thing in itself, it's idealistic, thus transcendental idealism and not empirical realism better describes Kant.

The unknowablity of the thing in itself is a major problem with Kant, as it cannot even be said it's causative of the perception.

I think it is forbidden by law to sell booze to alcoholic if you are aware that he or she is in rehab or needs help. — javi2541997

The law in Georgia, where I live, as it relates to alcohol:

A bar can be held liable for the injuries to a third person if it knowingly serves an intoxicated person. So, if a bar owner knowingly serves someone too much alcohol and that person injures another, that injured person can sue the bar owner. Note that if the drunk person is injured he cannot sue the bar owner, but only the innocent third party can sue the bar owner. You can't sue another for the consequences of your drunkeness. This is referred to as the Dram Shop Act.

Voluntary intoxication is never a defense, which means that you cannot blame the alcohol for your behavior or use it to mitigate your punishment as long as you voluntarily were drunk. If someone drugged you, you can use that as excuse for your conduct.

If you provide illegal drugs to someone and they overdose, you can be held criminally liable for their death (i.e. for homicide). The reason for this is that their death resulted from your commission of a felony, and that makes the consequence of your felony an additional crime.

Providing alcohol to a minor is obviously illegal because that is specifically illegal.

As to the moral question of whether you are in the right to sell alcohol to a known alcoholic, I don't know that ethics demands paternalism, and I would not hold it against the purveyor of drink for supplying drink., but I place the responsibility to control one's drinking entirely upon the person drinking. I fully understand that addiction impacts a person's decisions, but with 100 points of responsibility to dole out for the alcoholic's behavior, I give him the full 100 and expect him to take the full 100. I don't think anyone is done any good by spreading the blame for an alcoholic's alcoholism beyond the alcoholic. I also doubt there are any sobriety programs that suggest the addict find others to blame and not take full personal responsibility for his decisions.

Some Captain Obvious statements:

Race relations are strained, with many blacks having no trust in white people in looking after black people's interests, and many whites not believing blacks full contributors to societal productivity. That has existed for as long as any of us have been alive.

I would expect that polls can be utilized to expose those fault lines, and I would expect that some of those polls may not be fully accurate. But, in any event, the answer has never been that we throw in the towel, that we declare one another hateful motherfuckers, that we avoid one another, and that we figure out how to live in different corners of the country. We actually tried that and it didn't really work out so well.

What Adams did, or tried to do, was throw fuel on the fire by reporting how poorly we might be getting along, and then explaining how now it's just time to cut ties and try to live in peacful hatefulness, together, but seperated by distrust.

I don't think things are at that point, and I don't think Adams is a force of good in our world who ought be placed in a position of exerting influence. Declaring that we all inherently hate one another and that there is no hope is neither correct nor helpful, and it just serves to worsen matters by fanning flames.

Better?

[Quoting a screaming racist, but not something @RogueAI said or believes, but something he vehemently disagrees with]

"I don’t hate snakes because of their skin, they just don’t want to get bit and can’t determine if they’ve encountered a harmless one or dangerous one." — RogueAI

At least (and I mean at very very least), the racists are now wearing full Klan regalia so we know who they are, instead of pretending to have a reasoned nuanced view that they say just coincidentally appears racist.

Also, I'm a stickler for "bitten" as the past participle of to bite, so that annoyed me too.

Where I thought I lost was on move 27. You played Nf3 instead of Qf3 threatening mate and my rook on h1. Had I done a ridiculous looking castle, you could have checked with the knight and forked the other rook. If have lost the exchange no matter what it looked like.

Computer guy said mine was a good comeback win.

Good game!

That’s not the reason I blundered. You’ve played a very good game and deserve the win. I was just giving you shit because I’m used to playing 3-10 minute games. For the record. — Mikie

It's been a interesting game. C4 was obviously a blunder, which sucks. I hate slow games where I blinder and then watch the other guy grind out the advantage over the next month with defensive conservative play.

I think you really had me at one point, but it's not over yet, so I'll leave the analysis until then.

am against with the nonsense of some persons who feel intimidated because we distinguish with gender endings and they want to make our language uglier not modern.
"Latinx" doesn't exist in our lexicon because that doesn't make non sense.
"Elle" instead of "El/Ella". The first word looks like a frech one and neither exists in our language. Why we should implement those? — javi2541997

When it comes to grammar and lexicon, I am not as liberal as Hanover. (I am as aware as he is that language changes over time.). Yes, I am aware that some people find various aspects of the language oppressive. The business of people being "nonbinary" has been carried way too far. The idea of bi-sexuality is well established; multi-sexuality and multiple genders is, basically, baloney (salchicha de baja calidad. (Did Google translate that properly? Low quality sausage?) — BC

In the"doubt" example, we had an educated class making a determination that Latin was a particularly proper and pure language, and so the B (not T, my mistake) was reinserted. Languages often change through corruption, often from non-native adult speakers, but, as noted, also through intentional decisions.

The French, for example, have created the Académie Française, which protects against invasive English terms into their language.

Since my point is pretty strong here, and I typically am not more liberal than BC, we're probably not disputing language change in the abstract here as much as we are in the particular. That is, if we change from Miss to Ms., you raise no objection because you agree that preserving a marker within the language for a woman's marital status is a holdover from a sexist past that concerned itself with who spoke for the young lady, as if she were a possession.

We don't mind leaving our young maidens misidentified, but we do when it comes to identifying biological birth sex.

This seems therefore more about whether you believe trans folks are deserving of certain pronouns more than linguistic theory. What is deserved is a matter of judgment, but I'd suggest we needn't worry about the preservation of the sanctity of the language when making that judgment.

seems that Hanover's strategy of boring you into complacency may ultimately prove successful. — praxis

I play a lot of online chess, and this game is being played relatively fast.

Languages, particularly those like English, with large numbers of non-native speakers undergo continual change. It's fairly obvious when we pick up a book from just 100 years ago that it was not written today.

The idea that there is a "correct" way of speaking English is only to say that there is a standardized snapshot in time regarding how we speak, and, even then, distinctions exist within groups. You needn't get all up in the transexuals business and tell them how to talk, and they needn't get all up in yours. "Up" here means nothing vertical, but something too intimate, as in reserved for themselves. A non-standard word, but one available in certain contexts.

Many of the words you use today were criticized by traditionalists at one point. You don't say builded, and I doubt you say the T in doubt.

That we permit people to choose their proper names is just an arbitrary feature of our language, but there is nothing illogical in extending that to pronouns or other descriptors.

What happens is that language changes, and that change is usually organic, meaning you don't typically have people demanding new words be used, but more commonly in having people demand they be used as they once were., but the opposite occurs as well.

When I was young, you made sure to refer to your teachers as Miss if unmarried and Mrs. If married, but now we just use Ms, which is a modern creation, and you rarely, if ever see a woman use her husband's name (as in Mrs. Jebiidiah T. Hanover)..

The law in effect wasn't violated, clearly. But no non-legal right must be violated in order for an act to be immoral. The rape was reprehensible regardless of any right or law. — Ciceronianus

Something makes rape wrong. Whatever that is, we call it X.

1. Under both positive and natural law, it is a violation of X to rape.
2. Under positive law, X is the law of the legislature.
3. Under natural law, X is the law of morality.

If we changed the word "law" in #3 to "rules" or "theory" we'd have no disagreement. The quibble is over the term "law."

Is this a correct summation?

What does it mean to be in accord with or contrary to nature? What this meant for the ancients, and for the philosophers of Liberalism, and contemporary thinkers is not the same. — Fooloso4

If I asked if it were moral to murder, would it be relevant to your analysis whether an ancient civilization found it moral? That is, why is it important to review now rejected concepts?

So a woman is raped in a nation where the positive law permits it because she is the possession of the man who has committed this act.

Was this "act" a violation? If it was a violation, what was it a violation of?

The question isn't who will win the 2024 election, but who will win the 2020 election once they finally actually count the ballots.

A joke guys. Just a joke.

If I lose it’ll be because of I’ve died of old age. — Mikie

We've been playing for 17 days and we're on move 26, which is over 1 move per day, with a time control of 3 days per person per move, which translates into up to 6 days per move, so we're actually moving fairly fast with this time control.

You guys probably never played real postal chess (snail mail), where you'd have 5 days to make each move in addition to mailing times.

I consider this to be lightening chess.

Reminds me of a song. I post the punk version because I like it better than the original.

"Bemusement" is a more intellectual, sophisticated word for "confusion." Alternatively, it is a word for a more intellectual, sophisticated confusion.

"Rinky-dinkness" is a more amusing word for a lack of sophistication. Alternatively, it is a word for a more amusing lack of sophistication. — T Clark

Like any good document, you have included a definitions section. Thank you.

In other news, I got my wife a balloon yesterday that said "Happy Valentine's Day." It's hovering around my kitchen.

At the same time, the Chinese weather balloon excuse doesn't sound that convincing either, would you agree? — Tzeentch

I don't understand any of it other than it was some sort of provocative act to see what the US response would be. I also wasn't aware that sending aircraft across your adversaries' borders wouldn't be expected to result in it being shot down. That is, I don't understand the Chinese anger toward the shooting, and you would have expected that if it were a true accident, they would have suggested ways to return it or to have approved it being shot down.

The analysis I think conclusively proves that neither of us are cheating.

One thing I don't like is the inablity to analyze the position by moving the pieces around within the program. I've had to download the position in FEN format and then find a program that would accept that, and I had to find one that wouldn't then start trying to computer analyze it.

It would seem the feature I'm looking for would be standard. If I lose, it will be because of the frustration caused by this cumbersome process.

I also think we should set up a live tournament with whoever wants to join in. I'm not sure how complicated that would be on Chess.com . I remember years ago I joined it and they were still using these dot commands where you had to put a period before a command and then it would do whatever, and you had to learn the lingo. All losses during that time period were also caused by frustration.

In a world with all sorts of complex methods of data gathering, sending over a balloon seems pretty kindergarten. It's like in football if I wanted to know what plays you were going to run, I come up with the great plan of sending over one of my players to stand in your huddle with his ear to the quarterback. I'm thinking my counter-intelligence might be good enough that I'll either block you from hearing it or I'll tell you a bunch of wrong shit to fuck you up.

My point here is that if the Chinese came up with the grand idea that they were going to hold a camera over Montana and think they were going to see something that airplanes, radar, satellites, Google maps, and passersbys don't already see and that was going to give them some advantage, they aren't quite the threat we thought them to be. My guess is that they got a disk full of pictures of fake missle silos, nonsense data transmitted to them, and maybe some pictures of military guys flipping them off.

If I were the Chinese, I would send over a prostitute and have her get a high ranking official to tell her all sorts of stuff. That would definitely work on me. What wouldn't work on me is the balloon trick because I'd close my top secret notebook when the balloon shadow drew over my backyard so that they couldn't see all that I wrote.

I do enjoy your amusing, ironic fantasies about your own past or present coolness, but, as moderator, do you have anything more substantive to offer? Perhaps some of your brethren do. — T Clark

Since you've chastised me, I'll respond:

The pictures you post post on my phone and on my computer, which points to the fact that the problem apparently is with your particular phone.

In order to really know what's going on, you'll need to do a little testing and see if there are other pictures from other users that post on your computer, but not on your phone.

If you are able to use a friend's phone and see that it has all sorts of photos on it that aren't on yours, then my first suggestion would be to go into your phone's browser settings and see if there is some sort of "load images" feature that you've got turned off or that is set to block, or maybe you have a hyperactive ad block software that's misreading things, but it seems like you've got a software issue.

What I'd suggest, as you seem pretty old, is to actually go to your local cell phone provider outlet and tell them your woes and let them look on their phone to see what your phone is doing wrong. My guess is that they'll end up selling you a new phone, which will likely solve this problem and you'll get all sorts of new features, like texting and maybe a calculator.

His is certainly a Jewish perspective but Maimonides is a relative latecomer. He denies things that were fundamental parts of the ancestral religion, especially the parts about God's parts. The god(s) of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a corporal god, the kind of god apologists are so quick to deny. Maimonides' god is an attempt to create a philosophically acceptable god. — Fooloso4

I concede that Judaism has changed dramatically over the years, and there are arguments to be made that early Judaism wasn't even monotheistic. Today's orthodoxy might well have been yesterday's heresy. In truth, the Judaism I subscribe to is very modern, and it resembles the ancient views in very few ways.

I see. They If they don't ask, don't tell them. So, what most Christians believe is not what their pastors believe. But is it then still the same God they both worship? — Vera Mont

I recently read "Jesus Interrupted" by Bart Ehrman and he made the point many times that biblical criticism is taught at most seminaries and pastors are well aware of it, but it's not taught to the congregation, and he didn't have a good explanation for it. Ehrman was previously a fundamentalist who eventually went to Princeton, so he has a unique perspective.

The fundamentalist position is an impossible one to maintain, but it has very strong contemporary (but not historical) influence, especially in the US South.

Rather than jump through all these intellectual hoops, wouldn't it be easier to let go of the book as their basis for belief? It would, if an alternative, more reliable authority were available. — Vera Mont

No, because you have thousands of years of analysis that has in fact led many to a more meaningful life. I understand that history could have been different and that we might all be holding Beowulf as a sacred text, and had that been the case and had our best and brightest spent those years deriving truths from it, then it would be the text tucked into the book holders in all the pews across the nation.

But this only matters if one holds the view that the Bible has special inherent significance that was not just the result of people having made it that way. That's a hard argument to make, which means you have to accept that the significance of the Bible comes from the significance people have placed upon it and that is what gives it value. The fact that its meaning has been modified over the years and differently by different traditions is a fact, but that fact doesn't make the book useless or insignificant. To hold otherwise would require that you either accept the fundamentalist's tenant that the Bible's value derives from its divine creation or that you throw the Bible out as an imposter. I think neither holds, but the answer lies in accepting the obvious fact that the Bible has been used for a particular purpose by people and it has been given significance by people and that is what makes it relevant.

Pascal's wager is an analysis of a carrot-stick deal. If you don't believe, hell and if you do, heaven. If you don't believe in hell/heaven and the rest of the Christian doctrine, you should is Pascal's point mon ami. — Agent Smith

I understand that, but my point is that I have no reason to believe that belief and acceptance of Jesus as my lord and savior will not be the cause of my burning in hell. Why are my odds increased and not decreased by my accepting Jesus? If I see absolutely nothing holy or special about believing in Jesus, then why should I expect any special reward for that belief any more than I should expect eternal rewards for liking chocolate and expect eternal damnation for liking ice cream?

If we start with the notion that Jesus is special, then you have no reason to offer me any sort of wager. I already believe. Of what value is this whole wager to someone who stands unconvinced that acceptance of Jesus will anymore help me than hurt me?

I am ruling that out. A corporeal god creates all sorts of theological problems. I think when we start getting into literal interpretations of scripture and anthropomorphic descriptions of God, the atheist ridicule properly applies.
— Hanover

I find this very interesting. Do you think this comes from a Jewish perspective? — Tom Storm

It does. See: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/332555/jewish/Maimonides-13-Principles-of-Faith.htm , particularly #3.

In understanding this, it also requires that any reference in the Hebrew Bible to human like characteristics of God (like if he speaks, breaths, etc.) must be understood in a metaphorical sense, even within the Orthodox judaism. That is, even at its strictist level, no Orthodox Jew is going to commit to an absolute literalism.

So you wouldn't believe in someone who told you to believe him/her if you don't wanna end up in a bad place? — Agent Smith

The hypothetical requires that (1) I believe in an inferno like hell, that (2) there is a belief system that can protect me from that, and that (3) there is no negative consequence to accepting that belief system. I don't believe in #1 and #2. If we are going to assume I believe in #1 and #2 to make this work, the we are already assuming I'm a Christian. If that's the case, then we've already accomplished our goal of trying to convince me to believe.

Okay. So, none of the stories are true? What is this "broader truth"? For that matter, what is it broader than? Who are these allegorical stories really about? — Vera Mont

Critical biblical scholarship, which is taught in most universities, and is likely something any formally trained minister is well versed in (although not preached from the pulpit) denies the divine authorship of scripture and questions the basic historicity of the accounts. It does not follow that because the accounts are not factually true or that they were not written by God that there is no role for those documents in the religious context or that the only rational solution is atheism. While there are some religions that declare war on the biblical scholars, that is not the only solution, meaning some fully accept the conclusions of that scholarship and accept the fact that OT was written by a multitude of authors over centuries and that the NT is hopelessly inconsistent in its claims about Jesus.

But to the specific question, if you want to know the broader truths of a certain passage, then you would need to identify the one you're asking about and the tradition that you wanted interpreted under and from there you can engage in the Bible study class you're asking about.