lol
You know it can be argued that if your partner is more experienced then they will be better at sex.

Ah
The truth comes out.

That is only an issue for insecure people.

facepalm back
No it wouldn't.

Well in a historical context the youth of today are prudes.
Heck not but a 100 years ago and you would be married off with kids by 15.

Well I guess some people are still uptight about sex, but I mean as a culture we are not as uptight as other cultures.

Teenagers interested in sex you say?
Well that certainly is unnatural.
The only explanation must be our oversexed culture.

Huh.
For some reason I thought you were younger.

I am surprised you can figure out the computer to use the forum.
>:)

Are you really 70?

I agree.
It is not so much that sex is idolized in the west, but the west is less culturally uptight about sexuality.
Maybe that is not even right.
I have no idea about sexuality in eastern cultures.
From what I have been informed, they are kind of uptight about it in middle eastern cultures though, at least compared to the west.

I definitely took the bait and made a moron of myself in the process.
What the article said felt true so I assumed it was without verifying that truth.

Some countries are doing things on there own.
Look at Masdar for example.
You have oil rich countries in the middle east seeking to integrate alternative energy into their infrastructures so that they are not critically reliant upon fossil fuel energy.

I think it is important for western countries to remain competitive.

The technology is pretty much there, the problem is integrating it into the infrastructure.
For developing countries this is less of an issue because it can be done as they grow.
But for the west there is a larger cost because our infrastructures are already developed and will have to be retrofitted and upgraded.

I don't think the west should shy away from this because it will be expensive, the cost for doing this is only going to increase and putting it off will only cost more.
This is because to integrate alternative energy into the infrastructure will require fossil fuel energy costs, it is not until the alternative are integrated that we reap the benefits of offset costs.

Even ignoring the climate argument it is still strategically important that the west remains competitive.
At least to me.

How does privatization resolve the issue of rivalry?

Well crap.

Yes I am embarrassed that I did not read the article more carefully and check for sources before I posted.
I am glad there is not an IQ test for posting here.
:P

This is a pretty old idea in philosophy.
It even has a name.
It is called Laplace's demon

You will notice there are a number of arguments against the demon and one which should be of interest, even if you reject the others, is the one from David H. Wolpert.

thanks for pointing that out Bitter

You know I did not do my due diligence before I posted.
The article does not site any source and I could find no such study in a google search.

I had not considered that there might be more of an emotional appeal.
That is a rather good point.

I suppose another view might be conspiracy and that we are only given dumb candidate choices so that powers in the shadows can then manipulate those in power.

I am concerned that it might also be a narcissistic thing.
If you have inept leaders you can flatter yourself that if you were in charge you could do a much better job.
That happens a lot in the US, many people are quite sure that they would be better at leading than the leaders that take office.

Do you think that morons are elected because people are less threatened by them or because they are good at fooling others?

Or is there some other reason that people might tend to elect below average IQ officials?

Thanks

You also posted this and I was hoping you would get into the weeds a bit and delve into nuances you mention.

It's not a contradiction unless one can set the contradiction out as a deduction in a formal logical language. And my point is that, in the process of trying to do that, one encounters obstacles that lead one to realise that there is no contradiction there. There's a bunch of nuances to this that I've left out for the sake of brevity. But we cannot even begin to consider them until somebody makes the attempt to formalise the sentence.

A bunch of natural language words does not a contradiction make, no matter how much it may feel as though they do. — andrewk

You will have to forgive me, as I said I was having trouble understanding.

I was talking about this post in particular.

I agree, we do use it, and I should have included the word 'necessarily' in that sentence you quoted ('does not necessarily a contradiction make ....'). But my understanding of what it means for a natural language sentence to contain a contradiction is that it is equivalent* to a formal sentence that contains one.

I have never seen any other definition of contradiction that is sufficiently objective to enable one to determine in all cases whether the definition is satisfied.

* 'equivalent' in the sense that the user of the sentence would not object to the translation as inaccurate, if the meaning of the translated sentence were explained to them. — andrewk

I mistook it to mean there was no formal definition of a contradiction.

Then: the might (a term synonymous with power) to affect, influence, control, or coerce others makes right. More briefly: might makes right. — javra

Descriptively it would be more like.
"it is believed that it a thing is right because the might makes it so"

I don't understand your position.
For example if there is not a good formal definition for contradictions does this mean proofs by contradiction fail?

I'm trying to understand moral relativism.. I'm trying to understand what it would be like for me to be a moral relativist (and trying to determine if any moral relativists actually exist). — anonymous66

Have you ever had a moral disagreement?
Say for example a friend of yours did something that you believed was morally questionable.
You understand why your friend thought what he did was right but...
If it had been you then you would have done it differently.

That is what it is like to be a moral relativist.

What it aims at is to describe why people or cultures believe that their values are moral.

Food is not real, it is only an abstraction that many different things are edible.

Is it your belief that religion is the only way to have truths revealed about life and god?

You said religion reveals truths, about what?

And I wanted to know how you know this is true.

Philosophy makes no substantive contribution to what we know, it analyzes how we know what we know. — Cavacava

Was that a truth that religion revealed to you?

Truths about what?

Philosophy makes no substantive contribution to what we know, it analyzes how we know what we know. — Cavacava

Do you know this because of religious revelation?

Of course you are right.

I just don't agree that is reasonable to argue that all goods can be made excludable.
That to me is silly.

http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/photos/24-pics-prove-ken-m-greatest-troll-internet

lol

Of course it is ridiculous to think it should be possible to enforce ownership of populations of fish in the ocean and you should feel shame for suggesting this rather than admitting that you were mistaken.

And of course you have no clue what you are talking about.
All you are concerned about is a particular narrative "the free market is always the answer" unfortunately for you the real world is more nuanced than that.

I pointed out that the problem has come to be known as the problem of access because it has nothing to do with communal ownership it has to do with access to a limited resource.
It has to do with a limited resource,access to the resources, and individual actors seeking individual interests.

Private property would entail private ownership of the fishing population, hence rejecting it as a communal resource. — Emptyheady

You can't be serious, how could individuals own the populations of fish in the ocean.
Just let it go, you don't know what you are talking about and trying to save face has only dug you deeper.

Right, being an ass will become it's own punishment because others will penalize us for such behavior.

We have more control about the behavior we display than the emotions we feel. — Bitter Crank

That was my entire point.
If you have rights and freedoms you are in control of how you respond to the behavior of others.
And provided you do not infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others it is up to you to decide what is the appropriate response.

You invite your girlfriend to dinner. She says she is busy. You ask her to suggest a better date. She says, "Never. I don't want to see you again. Don't call me anymore." — Bitter Crank

Yes but she has not caused harm to your rights or freedoms, it was never your right that she should be your girlfriend.

You ask your daughter to clean up her room. She turns to you and says, "Fuck you, creep." (Or whatever it is that daughters say these days.) This response is unexpected. You have 100% control over how you feel at that point? — Bitter Crank

Again this does not harm your rights or freedoms?
How you respond is your responsibility don't you agree, it can not properly be the responsibility of any other?

The boss calls you in and tells you the company doesn't want you anymore. "Give me your keys and I'll escort you to the front door. Your belongings will be sent to you." No uncontrolled emotional reaction? — Bitter Crank

Yes but does this cause you any real harm?
Should we consider hurt feelings a harm to such extent that limit rights and freedoms in an effort to prevent hurt feelings?
Wouldn't that be an effort in vain?

Maybe I am projecting. I have, in the past, been in situations where people got through whatever shields I maintained and "it got to me" and I reacted without selecting the best response. For the last few years I have been much more "in control" in that I have been much less reactive. But then, I have been going out of my way to avoid situations where I might run into static. But still, quite pleasant interactions happen and I can't seem to help respond positively. — Bitter Crank

My point is accountability for how you deal with your emotions.
I am not accountable for how you deal with your emotions and it is reasonable to expect you to be able to do this for yourself despite the fact that your emotional attitudes can be affected from the decisions of others.

Yes and I pointed out that the consequences tend to be that people will not trust if you lie, and people won't keep your company if you are insulting.