The texts produced by a branch of Science are meaningless, until the relationship among those ideas and ideas in other disciplines are explained. — DiegoT

As the old name of economics shows, political economy, the bond between economics and other social sciences is obvious. Just as you can go from biology to biochemistry to chemistry, so does economics, political science and sociology have things in common. Yet to go from Physics to economics is a bit confusing: you can use perhaps some mathematical model in both fields, but then again you can statistics and for example calculate the mean average of a multitude of data. That you can calculate the mean average and get doesn't mean that there obviously is a connection with the various data.

For example, economists have real issues with the idea that Nature is not really best described in economical terms: species, resources, competence, predation and partnership, leading to "evolution" or cumulative capital. Nature is just a market yet to be exploited by man, so nothing can be learnt from Ecology or Biology that should be applied to Economics. It´s economics that explain nature, in this pseudo-scientific view, very much like gender theory enthusiasts think that human nature is best explained by Judith Butler and not by anthropologists. — DiegoT

Sorry, but I've not yet met (or read) the Economist that thinks that economics explains nature. I think they do have a respect for Biology.

Here's an easy understandable video on the difference of the sciences. As this person points out, the subjectivity of some complex topics is important. Yet the scientific method can be used in these fields. He even adds arts to this 'map'.

so it´s all part of his character then, the persona he has created to communicate with his followers and haters. Whatever he says in his famous tweets, I don´t think he can really promote the systematic use of torture by American forces. — DiegoT

I think so yes.

Trump is basically a reality TV President focused on his appearance. The only policies he has pushed through are the tax cuts for the rich and also he has been successfull in choosing SCOTUS judges. That's basically all. And even those policies have been basically pushed by the GOP. Everything else has been more a public show. Yet in our age his supporters can be in their safe space echo chamber of Breitbart and Fox News and believe that Trump has done a lot. And that Trump basically won the midterms.

Yes, in terms of bringing people together. A certain psychological need for togetherness and belonging is fulfilled. Obviously I'm not suggesting that Manchester United raises taxes or invades Poland. — Kippo

Even if people can be quite fanatic in their support of their team, it's still a hobby, past-time. And of course if the team loses all it's games there won't be so many fans. If the club goes bankrupt and is dissolved, what happens to the fans? Well, they just turn to some other team or sport. It's in the end just leisure time.

Yet the issue isn't just about bringing people together. It's about that they accept the laws, accept the authority that taxes them, that people accept civic duties and participate in the state for example by voting in elections and basically feel that the state serves them.

I mentioned previously how nation states have historically brought about much "good" - though it is a mixed bag of course. But are they not really as parochial as modern tribes and an impediment to attaining fairness for all regardless of where you are born? — Kippo

Mixed bag, of course, but how are they an impediment to fairness?

You might be familiar to minorities in the terms of race or sexual identity, which are focused upon with modern identity politics in the US. Yet when the differences between a minority and majority are that the people talk a different language, have a different culture, a different religion and above all, don't even live together, what do they have in common? They have no interaction, don't know each other, so what on Earth bonds them together so well, that the minority would accept to be dominated by the majority living somewhere else?

You mean in a "united world?". I guess there would be levels of increasing geographic scales of government with voters choosing. (Not unlike the USA, which in some ways is not a typical nation state becasue it was a huge space sparsely populated and then filled with people from all round the world.) — Kippo

Voters choosing what? And what increasing geographic scales?

In democracies it's typically one citizen one vote, hence in the "United World" the biggest minority would be the 1,3 billion Han Chinese. Asia would basically dominate the political scene:

Just look at the populations in (2018):

1 Asia 4,436,224,000 (including Australia & Oceania)
2 Africa 1,216,130,000
3 Europe 738,849,000
4 North America 579,024,000
5 South America 422,535,000

Hence if Asians, China and India, can get together, they rule the "United World". If you live in North America, you would be a smal minority.

Why is that? Do Nordic countries use the Merit system? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Not actually. There can be some specialized professions that applying for a work permit might be easier. Here it goes so that before a residence permit can be granted to you, you must find a job in Finland. When you have found a job, you can apply for a residence permit. You must apply for a residence permit before you come to Finland in the US.

Is there a limit to how many immigrants are allowed in annually? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

If you can just prove that you have a job in Finland, I think there's no quotas. The country has agreed to accept quota refugees a whopping 750 people (and people are frightened!) Now in 2015-2016 some 30 000 came here and basically fifth of them likely will get a residence permit. All other Nordic countries have taken in more refugees and immigrants. Sweden naturally the most.

What happens when someone does enter a Nordic country without permission? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Well, if it would be an American that would mean that you come here without a passport (as naturally tourists from many countries can come here). Likely they'll put you back on a plane where you came from or contact your embassy to solve the issue. If it's someone from Eritrea, Afghanistan or other Third World countries who seeks asylum, they likely put you somewhere to wait for your application to be handled. That might take a time.

The states themselves offer up a diversity in religion, food and traditions native to their state. The greeting you would get from Hanover in Georgia would be VERY different than the greeting you would receive at our ranch here in the Desert Southwest. From attire to manners, dialect to burying traditions, our state are very different cultures. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Surely someone from Arizona and some New Yorker have differences. But your are still Americans. That's the point. I think few multiethnic countries have succeeded successfully in inventing an identity that consolidates over older identities. Good example is the UK with the "new" identity of being British. A Scotsman can be British, but he will be offended if you refer him as being English. Just like Hannover, if he's from Georgia, might find it strange if someone refers him as being a yankee (which can happen as some people think yankees refer to all Americans).

I am not sure of what the size differential is between the Nordic countries and United States of America, which leads me to wonder if it wouldn't be a fair correlation between the two as far as mobility within the defined borders. Maybe Nordic countries collectively are what the States are of the Union represent? Would that be accurate? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Oh no.

By population size here are some US states that by population are the same size as the Nordic countries:

Sweden = Michigan
Denmark = Wisconsin
Finland = Minnesota
Norway = South Carolina
Iceland = Wyoming (minus 200 000 persons)

So we are talking about the smaller states. Hence only Sweden has more people than Arizona and all put together they equal the population of Texas, but are smaller to the population of California. By landmass the countries are similar in size to Alaska, Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona all added together.

Trump, if he is as smart as he claims, surely can learn from the army that real torture is no longer useful, and belongs to the past or barbaric regions of the world. — DiegoT

Trump doesn't care a shit about what is effective in the real life. His supporters want the terrorists to be punished and he wants to look good for his supporters, so he is all for torture. If some "liberal" people are against it because it's "barbaric", they are weak on terrorism. Nevermind how many intelligence professionals say torture is counterproductive in an counterinsurgency, there's allways be the moronic talking head on Fox saying that torture works and that it has saved American lives.

Just remember how Trump said to policemen not to protect the head of a detained person when putting him into the policecar. These issues are just trademark Trump.

Apparently Mattis hates that nickname, and actually he's been a beacon of sanity in the schemozle of the Trump White House. — Wayfarer

The generals typically have been so. A telling anecdote (that Trump himself told to reporters) is when Trump interviewed Mattis for the job. Trump asked the marine general what he thought about torture. Mattis replied that giving a bottle of beer and cigarettes to prisoners are far more effective tools in interrogation than torturing people. What is telling was that Trump disagreed with this and said that he was in favour of torture because his supporters favour it.

The border of any country is not "moral" or "immoral" the border of the country "is". How it is respected by those within its' "border" and those outside of its' "border" may at times seem to be perceived as "political" but that waxes and wanes with time, at most countries borders do. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Nordic countries have totally open borders to each other. Nordic people can cross them freely, there are no major problems between Nordic countries, but the borders surely do exist. (Btw, for Americans to immigrate to the Nordic countries is very difficult)

If I move to let's say to Oslo in Norway, the only thing I have to do is to inform the Postal Service that my address has changed. I don't need any work permits, visas or green cards from any authority. I can buy a house Oslo and put my children into school there and start immediately using the Norwegian health care services. Tax officials will later automatically notice that I've moved to Norway and I'll start paying taxes to Norway.

If crossing the border is so easy, that doesn't mean that there doesn't exist a border between Finland and Norway. Once in Norway I've left behind the EU, entered a NATO country and a multitude other things have happened, so not only the currency has changed, but the language and even the culture has somewhat changed. Above all, now I'm a foreigner living in Norway. If I want to vote in elections, then I have to apply to citizenship, which likely puts me in line with a mass of Syrians, Pakistanis, Eritreans etc. waiting for their application to be handled.

The idea that borders are bad as they constrain the individual is naive ignorant thinking or just a narrow viewpoint only focused on the individual. Similar is the idea that nation states are inherently bad. Open borders work perfectly, if the countries don't have a huge differences in prosperity or overall safety.

The fact is that humans fall into groups known as different people, talk different languages and have different cultures. That people form societies around these kind of things is not inherently bad. Just as the Nordic countries show, nation states aren't inherent hostile against other states just as people aren't inherently hostile to others.

There is nothing in terms of linking people that a nation state has to offer that cannot be acheved by less destructive means. For example people support league sports teams very ardently - often from another nation state. — Kippo

So you think that being fans of sport teams can replace the nation state? Or perhaps we could relate to those liking Star Wars and those being in the Star Trek camp as obviously these aren't so evil as "fans" of nation states, the ugly violent "nationalists". That gives us enough social cohesion for our societies to work?

How do you approach democracy then?

Would you assume the World would be better if basically the Han Chinese and Indians and their politicians, if only they could get together, would decide how much taxes you have to pay to them? Because likely these two groups would dominate if the World would truly come together and democracy would mean elections on a global level where every man and woman (and other, let's add that for political correctness) would have one vote.

To view the nation states as inherently evil and worthless simply doesn't at all think about how our societies are and have been formed and takes every positive aspect as simply given. Just like if one would be totally against globalism here in this forum, but then not giving any thought that one sharing your ideas with theoretically with anyone in the World that can write and understand English fluently enough not to be thrown out of this site.

Does this scenario make sense? If it does, then what does that imply about logic? If it doesn't, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

This is sort of ripped off from Haugeland's essay Truth and Rule-Following. — frank

If their logic is totally wrong, it's simply useless. You cannot use it in solving practical problems or anything. It cannot be used as it's intended. It basically becomes just scripture that you have to memorize that doesn't make sense. Sure, the teacher can read it out loud and they can try to fathom about what the hell is logic about, but likely it will just remain something utterly useless and difficult, which just has to be memorized to pass the test on the subject and be forgotten later. Likely the subject is just a lot more difficult and a lot more hated than 'logical' logic.

Think about going to Church in Medieval Times. The ordinary folk gathered around in the biggest structure that has been built (the Church) and a priest started the sermon in latin. Likely people (except Italians perhaps) didn't understand anything what was said, but who cares. People gather to worship, the priest mumbles something that people cannot understand and everyone's happy afterward. Later you had huge turmoil in Christianity when the Bible was translated to other languages and ordinary people could read and intrepret the Holy book.

That might be the similar case when "logic" is taught in Jonestown. The teacher makes his or her bravest effort to reason the illogical logic and the more capable students simply memorize things like "if A>B>C then C>A". It's not hard to memorize that one, actually.

It’s about the only level that he can understand it on. — Wayfarer

Hardly surprising as Trump picked his defence secretary because he had a nickname of "Mad dog". Likely was dissappointed when the former general wasn't at all like colonel Nathan Jessup (played by Jack Nicholson) in A few good men.

The backlash on the Sessions firing will be interesting.

Let's see when Trump goes after Mueller if the US still has some remains of rule of law and a justice state or if it has turned into a banana republic.

Economics can not do this becouse economists refuse to base their work in the theories contributed by relevant disciplines, such as Physics, Biology or Anthropology. — DiegoT

Refuse?

These connections are so obvious that economists have to refuse from acknowledging them?

The idea that you could 'base' economics on theories of Physics or Biology is a most vulgar reductionist and pseudoscientific idea I've heard in a long time. Of course I might be wrong here, so if you would give us an example of such a relevant theory in Physics or Biology that could be a base for economics...

A solar power plant only requires a reasonably small amount of land to power our entire planet, so it would be no trouble keeping these renewable power stations on land (and out of the rough and dangerous seas). — outlier

Don't forget the need for water.

I always think of behavioral economics as psychology. I'm not sure what the difference is between that and psychology. — LD Saunders

How groups behave is different from how an individual behaves, even if groups are made of individuals. Just like a metallurgist cannot design an airplane even if he knows everything about the nuts and bolts it's made of. A thing like aerodynamics of the whole plane comes into play.

there is a video from Stanford neurobiologist, Robert Sapolsky, where he claims that depression is going to be something like the number one killer. I think it already outranks a number of other diseases. — LD Saunders

I'm sure that people who commit suicide are depressed. There's nothing suprising what Sapolsky says, especially if you focus on younger people. Yet I think the number one killer is heart disease, which isn't caused by depression (bad habits because of depression might have an effect, but still).

Nation states just have given so much power to corporations that they seem to be powerful. They are not.

Corporations are inherently weak structures, they are just a complex contract, a piece of paper. If a corporation goes bankrupt, is dissolved or is sold, the people in that corporation just go work somewhere else and don't look back. The corporation just vanishes from reality to be a sidenote in economic history. People have actually no bonds to a corporation other than a contract to work there or a contract that they own a part of that company. These are extremely loose bonds. No person will die to defend a corporation. With sovereign nation states it's different. If a judge in Texas deems the country of Iran illegal and gives an order to dissolve it, the Iranians won't simply dissolve their state. And if the US military then goes into Iran to dissolve it, they likely are met with fierce opposition.

Besides, why would nation states care so much about corporations? Usually corporations don't work against the nation state itself, hence they aren't a threat to nation states. By bringing employment and tax revenue to the country the state usually has few quarrels with corporations. States are just very lax with corporations and understand that the make corporations part of the government usually doesn't work so well.

And anyway, if a nation state gives up political power to corporations and the lobbyists they employ, it's only the fault of the people of that country. In the end, the people make the state.

News sources that attempt to expose Trump's absurdity with facts add to the problem because 1) his supporters aren't interested in facts, they cheer Trump because they agree with his sentiments 2) his detractors keep the discussion going; the more absurd his behavior seems, the more we react, the more we pump up his supporters - especially when our reaction is hyperbolic. — Relativist

This is the problem when handling misinformation or pure disinformation. To think that disinformation can be corrected by showing it's false is the wrong idea. Just to start talking about the disinformation is wrong, it just gives it more credibility as you are talking then about it. And as if people loving Trump would correct their views by listening to the hated "fake news" that is constantly vilified.

Now it is good to show what is disinformation, but that typically needs time and then it has already been forgotten.

As far as Trump wanting people to call him a fascist, how is that true? That's the last thing he and his fellow-travelers want. — LD Saunders

I disagree. They (Trump and his supporters) just love when some "pinko-liberal snowflake SJW" goes into a 'Trump is Hitler'-rant. What better example is there than calling Trump supporters fascists? It's just like when Hillary made the stupid error of accusing Trump supporters being "basket of deplorables", they just loved it. And they are using this approach now. Just look at this GOP add of "Jobs not Mobs". It's evident that they do want this.



Never underestimate the hatred of the democrats of the most ardent Trump supporters. And it's all about feelings, nothing about facts. The real question is how many are there left in the Trump echo chamber.

Now, I may simply be biased on this issue, as my undergraduate major was in physics. However, even as an undergraduate I did take upper division classes in economics, psychology and sociology, so I am not against people studying these subjects. It's just that they do not seem even remotely scientific in the same sense that physics is a science. — LD Saunders

I think one thing is quite clear: these areas of academic research are not young or making any step of turning into a "hard" science.

First and foremost, as you studied physics you do understand how difficult everything turns into when a measurement has an effect on what is measured, even if it is a totally classical system. Well, that's the basic problem in social sciences. Because they become also subjective: social sciences themselves have an effect how we view ourselves and our societies.

Think about it. Assume that the economic and investment decisions you make could be modelled extremely accurately and made into a mathematical model. Now if we could then model everyones decision making process similarly and the interactions between everyone, at first glance someone might think from this we could get an accurate estimation of the aggregate. But there's a glitch, which isn't so easy to disregard. Because if this model would tell so well what people think, wouldn't the results of what it says be very useful when making investment decisions? But if you start to decide your investment decisions on the model, how does the model take itself into the equation? Just like Wittgenstein said in his Tractatus: A function cannot be its own argument. The problem won't go away just using some kind of dynamic model, because these models have to "behave" well and not go into infinite regress.

Remember when Milton Friedman (or Richard Nixon) declared "We are all Keynesians now"? When the heads of state believe in an economic model or idea, how much subjective weight that model then has? In Physics it's different. If we would use just Newtonian Physics with our GPS systems, the system simply would be less accurate than when we take into account relativity. But when the study is itself human behaviour, it's totally different..

The next obvious issue is the uniqueness of what we call history. And that uniqueness might just happen because we do learn from history. At least not to make exactly the same mistakes. Hence our society that we have created and our views of that society are allways unique and will change as it has changed in the Centuries that have gone.

ssu: I never stated that anyone claimed economics was more of a science than a natural science, but they certainly claim it is a science. Milton Friedman constantly referred to economics as a science and himself as a scientist. This is commonly done by economists. — LD Saunders

Well, at least here political science is called that and it is taken as an academic research area. Yeah, that field either hasn't solved all the political problems in the World, so one can argue it's not as successfull as Physics. So economics, or political economy as it was used to call, isn't all alone there.

Perhaps the argument ought to be then are the social sciences sciences?

Ok, we need to accept "science as truth". But how? — Jake

My opinion is that science tries to uncover the truth, aims for an objective truth, yet what we do and what we want is a subjective question and objective facts simply cannot give us answers to the subjective decisions we have to make.

It simply is false to say that by understanding objective reality we can decide what we want to do with that reality, how we should alter it to improve it. To think there would be an obvious guideline what to do is totally false, is an example of extreme hubris and very naive. This attitude simply leads to some Panglossian view where people actually deny that they are making subjective decisions (because they will at worst fall back on the idea that "science says so").

We have to acknowledge that we make normative statements and in the end make political decisions and that those political decisions are open for debate by challenging political views.

I think that Karl's point is important when scientific facts are thought to be opinions, to be cultural constructs or conspiracies of some evil people pushing their sinister agenda or something similarly hilarious. If that happens, then we are truly lost.

Jeremiah requested he be banned a few months ago on the basis of not being able to control himself. — Baden

Does this tell something philosophical of our times?

Trump's claim that he can with a stroke of his pen overrule the US Constitution is the very definition of authoritarianism. — LD Saunders

Just as with everything else that Trump says he will do, this too won't go anywhere. You're simply making the mistake of thinking these issues too logically and not thinking of what Trump actually does here.

Do you Americans have the wall? No.

Is it logical to deploy the army to the border when by law deploying sheriffs, other police or the national guard would be far more effective and basically the intended action if there actually would be a problem at the US border? No.

Is it logical to make claims of tax cuts to ordinary people when the congress is on recess or to think that an executive order will overthrow the constitution? No.

The whole intention is just to get the left to be outraged and simply to give the appeareance of something being done. Appearances are enough. People actually don't care if things really are done or not because they are too obsessed in hating the other side.

People didn't care that Obama continued the war-on-Terror quite on the lines that Bush had gone and increase the drone killings, they were just satisfied they had a democrat as president. And so it is with Trump. How absolutely inept at leading anything Trump is simply doesn't matter. If you just go and yell that all Trump supporters are fascists, that's what Trump wants. That's what conservatives will hear: you calling them fascists.

You wanted to discuss public perception of existential threats. My point is that it can be largely shaped by the media and influential figures who may use these perceived threats to pursue unrelated goals. Is a lot of this irrational? Yes, welcome to the human race. — praxis

The truth is that there do exist threats, but the media and the public discourse focuses on some of them. And of course, some push an ideological agenda with it, some can have another agendas. One's own knowledge about the subject is the best way to separate the underlying facts from the various agendas.

And why do we have to refer to economics as an actual science anyway? — LD Saunders

I don't think it is referred to be a science. Or at least anything close to natural sciences. If someone refers it to a science, then he or she defines political science, sociology or even history as a "science".

Please give a reference where someone believes economics is more of a "hard science" than other social sciences. (And as they are indeed called 'social sciences', you can see the use of the term doesn't point out economics.)

"Liquidations" or "exterminations" must not be part of the plan. — Bitter Crank

Historically that has been the plan, really.

But of course we can learn from the past if we want to.

I've actually come to the conclusion that the best place for socialism is in a liberal democracy that is a justice state with strong institutions. Should the socialists somehow gain majority power, they cannot take away the liberal (in the classic sense) freedoms of the individual and start their obsession with central planning by the government. The affluence of the society tones down socialist fervour and put's their focus likely on social issues. The socialists can also far better deal with the other side of the political spectrum. And that is vice versa. Once something that has been on the socialist agenda is universally accepted (for example social security etc), the idealist right-wingers have a difficult time in getting people to believe in their anarcho-capitalist dreams. If the economy doesn't work, if there are huge inequalities in the society and lack of social cohesion, the socialists (and the right) can go on a collision path where there is no return (like Venezuela).

Socialism or leftism will not die even if the country is the most succesful most libertarian country their is, just as righ-wing conservatism will never go away if there is political freedom. Distribution of wealth has been a political issue since antiquity, so nothing new under the sun.

I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to say, but one can heatedly debate politics and still be completely ignorant. In fact, generally the more heated the debate, the more ignorant its participants. Maybe I didn't understand your message. — Tzeentch

I'll give an example. Here in Finland politicians don't do ad hominem attacks as in the US and the discourse isn't as heated as is there. Parties have to form coalition governments, hence they have to be in speaking terms. The public discourse mimics this. Something like Pizzagate conspiracies would be out of the question. Even the political fringes don't have that kind of rhetoric. Looking at the discourse in the social media, opinion columns and etc. the tone are rather "civil".

Yet I'm not so sure that the people would be so different from Americans.

The problem is not with the system, but with the people. However, the system provides a nice excuse for the people to keep blaming each other for what's wrong, instead of facing their near-total ignorance and the insatiable materialism that has crept into their souls. — Tzeentch

I'm not so sure about that. People are quite the same in the end. The average Westerner is living a quite similar life in Europe or in the US, but what is debated (and how it's debated) differs.

Political discourse is established from example from the media and the politicians themselves: people talk quite the same way about issues as politicians and the media do. Just look at this Forum, a lot of the current issue debated are things that are heatedly debated in the media and by politicians.

What socialists propose is eliminating the owning class (because they are, basically, parasites). — Bitter Crank

And socialist revolutions have taken that literally, the elimination or extermination of the parasites that are called the rich.

Those who do not consume everything they earn (ie the "rich") are crucial to the whole system as they have the capability to make the needed investments.

A basic idea of socialism is that the people who produce caramel corn with their blood, sweat, and tears should be the primary beneficiaries of their own labor. — Bitter Crank

I have no quarrels with income distribution and that there grows to be a middle class and prosperity increases. Yet you don't have to have socialist system for that. Especially the disasterous idea of central planning in the whole mix is and has been so extremely detrimental.

The lack of civility and the vitriolic political discourse is the consequence of a "winner takes it all"-political system (and perhaps simply the rudeness in social networks). As the political system is dominated by two parties, these have to paint a picture of being totally different from each other (which they aren't). And one cannot emphasize this too much: there is absolutely NO reason to seek consensus at anything. Add in populist Trump. And getting people angry works extremely well in American politics.

Hopefully next week will see a turning of the tide. — Wayfarer

Of course. As if a Democratic win would heal the differences in the US and bring people together. Yes, the Trump supporters will wake up that they have been wrong, the other side right and that their President is totally inept and they should have earlier voted for Hillary.

And civility is restored.

Nation states have no moral goodness associated with them if morality is about caring about human beings in general. Nation states are about "us" and "them", you'd have to be a fantasist to think otherwise. — Kippo

I've noticed that one of the most patriotic people, meaning that they love or have a fondness to their country and the people, cherish the culture and heritage are actually ex-pats living in foreign countries. As aliens they are constantly in touch living and working with foreigners.

Nation states are one of those things that links totally different people together. Even the rich and the poor.

To make an error of prediction is not a departure from wisdom and sanity. We understand that prediction is prone to error. An error of 50 years in the timing of a catastrophe is important to those of us who will be safely dead in 50 years, but otherwise trivial. — unenlightened

But to say that civilization will end in 15 or 30 years? Really? Just a prediction error on timing? That was nearly 50 years ago, actually. (And do note the timetable, you don't get publicity for estimates about 50 to 100 years or more, it has to be something now, immediately.)

These kind of alarmist predictions do not just activate people (which I assume is the intention), but also spread fatalism and the typical "everything will be worse in the future" attitude. And if you are younger and confronted with them the first time, you might think the end is near. Now if you have lived for longer and noticed how this discourse of imminent catastrophy has been around for 50 years, you might start having doubts about the hype. This alarmism also makes more realistic predictions, which don't forecast utter doom immediately in a decade or two, as to be as understating the problems and hence looking as basically "anti-environmentalist".

P4. Political borders exist in the world — Rank Amateur

Perhaps this point should be more discussed here, as especially when the following P5. makes the argument that these borders are so artificial that the majority are only upheld by power...and hence without it would collapse.

First and foremost, borders are an idea we share.

Naturally borders define a nation (typically a nation-state) and hence borders are engrained in the whole idea of a sovereign state. Hence this is a question of why there exist nation states in the first place. There are many practical reasons for nation states to exist, but one of the reasons there to exist nation states is to create social cohesion amongst the populace that might otherwise have little if anything to do with each others lives. It's a collective idea. You might call it "invented" or artificial, but a lot of people tend think of themselves as citizens of a country, people of that country. This isn't an unimportant idea. Hence nation states have been very successfull, even if the negative aspects are typically focused on (nationalism, jingoism etc).

And this comes to the ideas of P1, P2 and P3. All of them focus only on the individual. It's about a human, not humans as a social group or as a society. And here lies my critique: by focusing on the individuals rights not only is humans acting as a society sidelined, but totally marginalized and borders (i.e. sovereign countries) are just a given thing that simply seem to be a nuisance for the freedom of the individual.

Yet since we are very social animals and the societies we have organized into makes us a totally dominant species in this planet, it is wrong not to think about the issue from a standpoint on how successfull societies formed into nation states work.

There comes a time when an issue is no longer debatable -- where there isn't some compromise that will satisfy everyone involved enough to keep on getting along. There isn't some true belief with respect to how we should set up this or that law. There are convictions, and some of them cannot be reconciled. You either cross the picket line or you don't -- you either support the North or the South -- you either vote for Kavanaugh or you do not. — Moliere

And that time when an issue is no longer debatable is usually brought up immediately to rally one's side. Looking for compromise would be demeaning appeasement. It's a good tactic nowdays.

don't really think it's a useful question to ask 'what's the opposite of depression?', but if I'd have to guess I'd say mania. Unipolar depression has a lot of things which are inverted in mania — fdrake

And manic-depression is something ordinary, or as it's called nowdays, bipolar disorder. The name ought to tell what is the other extreme.

I've been manic before (clinically), it felt like a lot of fun at the time but it was still pretty destructive. — fdrake

Many companies would just love to hire manic people at first, if they would stay that way with that positive upbeat. But usually it leads to burn out.

One classic dichotomy is whether society or the individual is the more powerful force. Jordan Peterson has argued that the individuals immorality is what accumulates to make society immoral and hence it is not just the immorality of a few corrupt leaders making a corrupt or toxic society.

I think that society can negatively affect and influence the individual but I think this is only the case for a minority of society affected by the conduct of the majority. — Andrew4Handel

I think one problem is that people adapt too easily to things that are immoral and wrong in the society. When they happen on a societal level, suddenly things are tolerated as the "new normal". Just think the case of a civil war: the so-called reasonable people cannot fathom that people who before lived together in somewhat harmony or at leasthad the appearance of some social cohesion start killing each other. It is as if people suddenly went totally insane. Well, from one perspective that indeed is the case. But the vast majority just take it as reality and accuse those objecting the madness of being naive, living in an "Ivory Tower" and not grasping reality.

If you look back at this thread, you will see places where it departed from wisdom and sanity, and not much can be done about that. — unenlightened

If you look at the whole discourse about the future of the environment about the subject during the last 40 years, same is true.

The fact is that proclaiming imminent doom and an oncoming eco-catastrophy sells in the media and is totally accepted and basically encouraged as to "get people to notice the problems and active". In 1970 George Wald, a Nobel laureate biology professor at Harvard University had predicted that “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” Another prominent American academician Paul Ehrlich projected at the same time that population growth would lead to the death rate increasing "until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years.” Many of the important raw materials, copper, sinc, tin, oil have been forcasted to have run out far before than now. There is a multitude of these kind of dire warnings given to us. So it's not only those believing the anti-climate change lobby that might be a little sceptic of the impending doom-scenario. Problems, yes, disaster, perhaps not.

Still fatalism and scare tactics work far better than views that could be interpreted as a "Cornucopian" view of future that seems to underrate the problems. This is more because of an ideological zeal than trying to be as realistic as possible.

Of additional relevance is the idea that science cannot reveal the underlying, fundamental nature of reality, but only its (mathematically describable?) structural relationships. I found this in Brodie’s book Farewell to Reality. I think I may have also seen referenced in a Chalmers paper. If you have any insight on these topics I would be very grateful to hear it. — Bearden

Mathematical models are descriptions of a system using mathematical concepts and language. As such they are, in the end, interpretations of reality. We tend to use the models that are most useful to us.

I hold the view that science is more of a method than something else. Hence it's not actually something ontological or epistemological. Those are more philosophical questions. If we look at the "scientific method" in a more general way, the method is also used in many non-mathematical subjects, like history to give one example. Yet if math isn't so useful (as historical events are quite unique), we still have to make interpretations and models to explain events.

I note just one last time: no-one has suggested killing. Except you. The human race could be got rid of, if that is our aim, by simply preventing us breeding. There is no need/call for piles of bodies. Straw man. :roll: — Pattern-chaser

I remember this whimsically hypocrite argument thrown around when talking about what to do with the domesticated animals when everybody is ordered to be a vegan and we get rid of the animals that we farm. It becomes quite absurd when talking about preventing people to have babies.

Historically some autocratic governments, notably China and Singapore, were so afraid of population growth that they enforced dramatic legislation to prevent "out of control" population growth. The reality is that with these policies they just population ageing a far bigger problem than otherwise. Affluence has universally lowered fertility rates and now for example Singapore is desperate about it's women bearing so few babies. This can be seen from the fertility rate in India, which never did much to enforce birth control:



But oh well, anti-natalism and the eradication of the human race as the solution to save the World is a bit tongue in cheek discourse.

Most American workers have been taught to not see class. That 5% of the population owns more wealth than the rest of the population is unbelievable to many Americans. Credit that to pervasive miseducation. — Bitter Crank

Or that basically many Americans understand "class" as "caste". A caste system goes against the idea of America, yet class is different and far more elusive. A genuine well functioning meritocracy does produce classes of people. Class simply sounds too leftist and Americans have problems with word. One example is that sociology sounded too much socialist, hence Americans started to use the term "behaviourism".