Americans would like to blame Brussels as well. We are tired of criticizing and blaming Washington, and Washington has grown accustomed to being criticized, excoriated, referenced as a swamp, and threatened with draining. Perhaps American criticism of Brussels would be refreshing to the bureaucrats there. — Bitter Crank

Oh, it's quite possible: Just add there Democrats working with Brussels to emasculate the US and a sinister plot against American white heterosexual males. Also add a global pedophile ring there too. The Russian intelligence services would be so excited to nurture this new conspiracy with their trolls and bots!

Once appropriately defined and philosophically validated in the context of 'the good life' it might then have the social and political potential of becoming the aspiration of the majority. When this occurs, the polarity between left and right, republican and democrat will begin to naturally dissolve, and man can then begin to aspire towards the best form of government, which is the government which has the least need to govern. — Marcus de Brun

I think both the left and the right have a lot to say about that. And how do we philosophically validate the context of 'the good life'. I assume people have different opinions about this.

Yes it's a bit of a mess at the moment, which is why I think institutional reforms are necessary, in one or the other direction, but not this hybrid form. — ChatteringMonkey

How the EU would make reforms is the problem. And I think it cannot create an common European identity.

It simply is too bureaucratic and basically the shall we say 'domestic' politicians are totally fine for "Brussels" to be in charge. Then they can blame "Brussels". In fact, the whole problem is that people can critisize "Brussels" and not their own politicians. True power lies with the heads of state of the member countries and their administrations, not with the faceless bureaucracy in Brussels. Perhaps France can have unified it's country with faceless bureaucrats, but the whole of Western Europe is a different thing.

Furthermore, the federalists have this idea that if federalization is not continued, everything will fall somehow apart. How that would happen is beyond me. Why cannot the EU be happy about a loose federation and grant that countries want to go a little bit differently some freedom. Even the state laws in the US can differ a lot.

And things like the common currency ultimately created a bit of a mess that was envisioned as simply the countries would follow similar economic paths. Even with the mess, the currency still has a lot of advantages.

Jake,

a) There are a lot fewer nuclear weapons today than there were during the Cold War.
b) However problematic the Russo-American relations are, the two countries aren't on the brink as they were during the Cold War. And Russia isn't the Soviet Union.
c) The nuclear forces aren't in such imminent stand-by as during the Cold War.
d) Many countries have given up their nuclear weapons projects and even their existing nuclear arsenal. The weapons are not becoming more common even if the technology is now over 70 years old.
e) Even with as hostile relations that Pakistan and India share, never has the conflict between the two escalated to nuclear weapons. Nobody has used them since 1945 and there is an overall consensus (among the nuclear states) that they are intended for deterrence.
f) the testing of nuclear weapons has been dramatically reduced.
g) nobody is saying here that nuclear weapons don't pose a threat. Only that it isn't the most likeliest threat/problem that we have in our hands (like, lets say climate change). The above facts shouldn't be ignored when talking about nuclear weapons and the threat they impose.

Some of you have done your job of challenging my thesis. You've failed, but you have tried, and I thank you for that. — Jake

Your wellcome.

Governments historically don't exactly have a good trackrecord of interfering in economics, so it's hard to see how trying to stop economic growth could work. — ChatteringMonkey

Trust me, I think that they could do that.

There are many ways like starting a civil war or simply adapting the economic policy of Venezuela, just to name a few examples. In Venezuela they have been successfull in getting the economic growth rate to be less than -10%. So it's totally possible. Likely the Syrian government has achieved even a bigger decrease in GDP growth than Venezuela as they have deliberately pushed masses of their own citizens into exile.

What economist seem to more or less agree on too, is that there is a problem with environmental and also social costs being externalised when the economy is left to its own devices. This is where I would try to find effective ways of regulating it. — ChatteringMonkey

Even if I'm a right wing conservative (by European standards I should add), I still view that government definately has a role in all this. Simply left to their devices the market won't take care of things like environmental protection. There simply will be those actors who a) won't care if they don't brake a law and b) won't think it's their job even to care. Besides, the government and the state lay down the grown rules, foundations and institutions that create a functioning market, no matter what an anarcho-capitalist could day dream.

A functioning justice system is a necessity for the free market to work for starters. And through that justice system and it's laws and regulations the will of the people ought to be heard in an democracy. In a functioning democracy there's no problem with that. Only after that comes the active role that the state can have with various policies and activities.

The biggest problem in our time is that the procedure of making regulations, laws and governmental supervision has been basically taken over lobbyists, which push a very narrow agenda of their employers. These employers, mainly big corporations but also other pressure groups, do not think that it's there duty to push anything else than their narrow self-centered agenda. They (the employers of lobbyists) can just assume that the politicians would further the agenda of the voters as they have been elected by the people. But once the system is taken over by lobbyists, it doesn't function so anymore.

I guess it goes so that the more affluent a society is and the more solid institutions it has, the more is the environment and other 'externalities' are taken into account. Assuming the voters do favour saving the environment.

Economic growth is the most natural thing when there is population growth. Children grow up, start working, move away from their parents and typically start a family of their own. All this is the most obvious reason for economic growth where both demand and supply increases in the economy. Population growth without economic growth brings trouble to the society.

Technological advances also create economic growth, which ought to be totally OK too. A World without any advances in R&D and innovation is very harmful as our production of energy and use of raw materials is far from being sustainable for the long run, but we are at least now going to the right direction.

A low growth environment is OK in a World where there is no population growth or the population is decreasing. When a society becomes affluent, there isn't the need to have a lot of children. The problems can be contained and we can see from the example of Japan (low economic growth, population decreasing) that it doesn't lead to chaos.

To stop economic growth by a policy decision is in my opinion a disasterous policy especially when the global population is still growing.

First it should be noted that any media-atheist like Harris won't talk about any positive aspects of religion as they simply will get this hurled back at them in the next media discussion they participate in. It's just the vitriolic public discourse that we have.

One can agree with the argument especially when a religion justifies present greviances in the society, or as Marx put it, when "religion is the opium of the people". The caste system in Hindu religion and the hierarchy in reincarnation is a great example of how it could be argued that religion erodes compassion to your fellow man, here at the poor or at the "untouchables".

The opposite and your argument, Flight747, is also very justifiable. We have gotten our moral ethics code from religion and no matter how much atheist want to deny this, this is obvious. No matter logical and 'humane' these things would be without any religion. The teachings of Jesus Christ, just to take an example, are quite compassionate and do take into account others.

It's the simple problem of an atheist seeing the negative aspects of religion and not giving much thought to the positive aspects of it.

. It’s the use of actual infinity to stand real world quantities that disturbs me. Statements like space or time maybe actually infinite... nonsense. — Devans99

What disturbs me is when people just mix math with reality in general and forget the model part.

This happens especially in physics, but can happen also in let's say economics. It's when people take the idea "Math is the language of science" a bit too far and literally replace the real World with math.

Going to ignore you from this point on, since it is clear you're a troll — chatterbears

OK, so I'm a troll and you will diss me now for giving some critique. But fine, seems you really didn't get my point and obviously don't care, so enough of that. I won't bother anymore.

So actually, it is even worse than it looks: Maybe twice as many people as are officially counted could work if there were appropriate work at appropriate wages offered. — Bitter Crank

Usually what is officially reported is the U3 unemployment figure (in the US). If you want to know what the actual unemployment rate is, better look what the U6 unemployment figure is. That tells the unemployment rate that includes 'discouraged' workers who have quit looking for a job and part-time workers who are seeking full-time employment. Even if the U6 has part-time workers, I assume it's better than U5 as government allways tends to make the statistics better than they are.

Latest U6 figure is now 7,4% (August 2018) in the US and it reached 17% during the financial crisis and in recession in 2010.

I mean actual infinity in the context of the physical sciences. I.e. when it is applied to real world entities. — Devans99

Then I have to say no. A lot of things can be modelled by using infinity in some way or another, but I don't see it in reality as applied to real world entities. Modeling is one thing, reality another. The number 3 or pi don't physically exist, even they are extremely useful in modeling reality.

As a mathematical entity the question is totally different.

When I was in 6th grade, one of the high school home economics classes raised several white rats on different kinds of foods. — Bitter Crank

I think that experiment would be deemed as cruelty to animals. But I bet it did have an effect on you.

Those students whose parents are reasonably affluent will locate themselves in school districts where their children will get a good education. Usually those school districts are suburban. The quality of education in a good, college-tracking high school is going to be altogether different than the experience that will be received in a run-down 'fuck'em' school where it is assumed the children have no future. — Bitter Crank

This can make the gap severe if the quality of schooling is truly totally different. In Third World countries this is an even bigger problem.

Yet I have to point out that this is a very persistent phenomenon even if the teachers would be at a similar level and when there wouldn't be a huge difference in the education. As you pointed out, much depends on the attitudes of the parents and then also during teenage years the attitudes of your friends, your social group. If you have a blue collar family living in a blue collar neighbourhood, especially the boys relate to their class with preferring work done by hand and not reading books. One crucial difference is if those who study hard are teased to be "teachers pets" or not. Class isn't something imposed from the outside, class is also something imposed from your family and from the social group you belong to.

Another difference are things like choosing the topics. As you said: "chemistry, physics, more advanced math classes, and a language. The sub-fucks took office skills and shop classes." This also creates the meritocracy in our society. Engineers and doctors make more money than shop assistants.

When a species of animal, in nature, creates things for its own survival out of necessity, it is deemed as natural. Humans do nothing of the sort. Almost everything humans create is unnatural. - Yes, all of our food is unnatural. And your point is? — chatterbears

I rest my case.

I've never seen anyone as self-contradictory as you in the PF.

We do boast the most esteemed colleges in the world, so I wonder too how is that possible given such a dismal primary and secondary education system. Why is there such a discrepancy here in the States with regards to primary and secondary schools and universities? — Posty McPostface

Simply because there are so many of you. We just have the equivalent population of Minnesota. That leaves +320 million other Americans that don't live in Minnesota, so I guess there are ample amount of smart kids for the Ivy League colleges.

How to encourage people who care about the environment, politics, the drug war, and crime, should be topics worth pursuing and talking about in schools. — Posty McPostface

But those are encompassed into the subjects themselves, which you only notice afterwards (and not as a child). In biology from 1st grade they tell ypu how harmful it is to through away a plastic bag into the wild. Later it's shown the harm that smoking does to lungs when the kids are young teens. My boy who is 10 years had to read a book about climate change in the polar region (with penguins and polar bears on opposite poles). Just to give examples. They aren't overtly political subjects, but some on the right (or the left) can see a bias (if they want to see).

Posty, you're asking the schools to bear unreasonable levels of responsibility. Schools do well (not just to day, but at any time) if students leave being able to read, write, do sums; know their basic history, have some understanding of science, and know how to carry on a civil discussion. — Bitter Crank

If they can prepare 18 year olds for work or for the university, then they have been successful. And that doesn't give much other time than to school math, foreign languages, chemistry, physics, biology, etc.

Most West European and Scandinavian countries, in my mind. — Posty McPostface

Well, I've gone through the Finnish education system up to a Masters degree in the University and have had a brief contact with the American educational system (2nd grade in Primary School and briefly in Junior High). What I noticed is that the American system was easy and had far lower objectives in math, history, nearly everything than in Finland. It was like designed to create mediocre students for higher education.

I think what you are asking for isn't basically taught in schools. Let's take our love for our welfare state and our acceptance of higher taxes. It's taught more simply with the services provided, which makes people even on the right here to totally accept them. If that creates more social cohesion is an interesting question.

So, why do we not instill values in the youth? Why aren't those all important topics 'touched' in the American education system or anywhere else, as you say? — Posty McPostface

Wonder what those would be that wouldn't be 'touched'. Perhaps the problem is that everything is only touched in the US system.

What was different here from the American experience was that religion is taught in schools as the country has Lutheranism as state religion (which is absolutely different from let's say American evangelicalism). In fact I think I had my best teachers in religion, two male teachers, the principal and the vice-principal, and they had wonderful way of teaching things. They'd start like this: 1) Here's a moral problem. 2) Here's how Christianity answers to it. 3) What you have to do is find your own answer. Otherwise you aren't yet an adult. They cared less about the actual official curriculum and taught far more about philosophy and simply tried to get us thinking about moral ethics and philosophical questions. (OK, I have to admit it was an elite school.)

I think they came closest to what you are looking for in education (perhaps).

I have a strong suspicion that people who are raised in societies that put a great emphasis on interpersonal relations, spiritual growth, and the happenings of society tend to flourish and produce more social oriented/conscious individuals. — Posty McPostface

What countries would be like this?

By fail I mean to imply that we are creating a future where acts of charity or altruism are viewed as irrational or non-rational pursuits and the gratification of personal needs and wants is placed on a pedestal. — Posty McPostface

Yet is this what the education system educates us? I think what you are talking about is more about the American attitudes towards work, career and values in general and perhaps about social cohesion. Things that I think aren't so much touched in the education systems anywhere. It's more about math, science, languages etc. in the education system.

Has literature finally lost its privileged place in our culture, pushed to the role of “the other,” of the embodiment of old things, old beliefs, and old values? — Number2018

I don't think so. Even the physical book isn't going to fade away: it's simply still so useful and handy. If one argues that the hey-day of book reading is over, that less people read books than earlier, I'm not sure about that.

(Yet what has profoundly changed is writing physical letters. First dramatic change was of course the telephone. Then came the internet. All the ease that we have with various kinds of chats, text messages and apps have change how we use the media. We write a lot more, but what will stay for later?)

I think a reasonable objective is to teach kids the ordinary things when living by themselves at first. Simple task like making basic foods, baking, cleaning etc. You cannot rely anymore that these things are taught at home.

We had (in Finland) too home economics in our school, where we made various dishes. Unfortunately the teacher was this old woman that was a health-nazi who yelled if we put too much sugar in the dessert. That sucked. Even if the teacher was awful, some friends of mine got hooked on cooking and are now very good cooks.

(What? Don't they have home economics in the US?)

Good farmers have always been able to reduce the amount of stress experienced by their animals. — "VagabondSpectre

It's just that people have through urbanization grown apart from countrylife. They don't see how much care farmer can give to their domesticated animals. Farmers are a small minority today.

Why this wouldn't be simply a discussion of treating domesticated animals better, I don't know. Because otherwise it doesn't make much sense.

The word 'natural' is defined as: " existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind. " - So maybe you should define what you think the word 'natural' even means. You seem to be confused. — chatterbears

No. It is you that is totally contradicting yourself all the time and are quite illogical.

On one hand you say the human race is a species just like other and hence, part of nature. Then you define natural by being anything not made or caused by humankind. So what is the human race, natural or separate from nature? So what beaver does is natural, but what we do isn't. Actually with your definition nearly all of our food is unnatural as the flora that we eat is cultivated and farmed, just like uh, the domesticated fauna. But that contradiction doesn't concern you.

Then your totally hypocritical idea of mass genocide of the domesticated fauna. First you accept that domesticated animals can indeed have a good life and all sentient life deserves to have a life. Then you purpose a mass extinction of domesticated animals. Because they are killed in a bad way.

Then you argue it's not genocide because the animals are 'benevolently' simply separated by gender and left die of old age. Perhaps let to starve to death once they are so old and frail they cannot walk, so that you can proclaim their death 'natural' or something. And for you not to get a bad conscious (of the catastrophic reduction in numbers of the animals which could be called genocide), you propose sanctuaries. Well, how big would these sanctuaries are for you to feel good? 50 Ayrshire cows in a sanctuary in Ayrshire? 80 Holstein-Friesian cows in Holstein? More? Less? Because there is absolutely nothing 'natural' (by your definition) in your sanctuaries.

It has nothing to do with my moral outlook, so I don't even know where you got that from. — chatterbears

Never have I seen anyone contradict himself in PF like you do. You go on and on about torture chambers, the suffering of animals, the inhumane treatment animals when they are killed, but then you declare it has NOTHING to do with your moral outlook! Nothing. You're even confused where would I get this kind of idea.

Well, have to say it: you are totally confused and in some kind of denial that I don't know.

science supports a Vegan lifestyle — chatterbears

Science is a method, which tells how things are. Not how things ought to be. You should teach yourself the definition of science.

And if you are going to argue nonsensically this illogical idea by referring pro-vegan articles, then there's a multitude of articles done by scientists promoting a healthy diet with small part of the diet consisting of fish and meat. And when in those studies the writers have used the scientific method and have come to the fact that some diet is more healthy than another, that is not "Science" saying anything. It never is. That is a scientist making normative statement after intrepreting the result.

But anyway, that's useless because there's actually no logic in your views, where you start from denying that your reasoning comes out from ethical views.

When did I ever say we are not part of nature? What even gave you that impression. Humans are animals, just as dogs, sheep, cows and chickens are animals. We are all a part of nature. But breeding animals into existence, while torturing and slaughtering them on a mass scale, is not natural. Factory farms are not part of 'nature'. — chatterbears

Seems you don't have any idea what is the philosophical question about humans being part of nature. OK, I'll try to explain my point better.

Is it part of 'nature' that beavers build dams? They do it for their protection and to get food more easily especially during winter. Yet what the beavers as quite smart mammals (and herbivores) have done is that they have altered their environment in their favour. And the fact is that we aren't the only species that can farm. Ants can farm fungus and even herd other insects for food.

Now I assume that this kind of alteration of the environment or 'farming' by a species you deem 'natural', but when it comes to our species, suddenly everything we do becomes so 'unnatural'. The judgement is solely based on your own views on morality, what is deemed 'good' and what is 'bad' and that is totally understandable to me. Yet you try justify it by reason and above all, by science. As that if we can survive on a vegan diet, then it is by 'reason' and 'science' that we should be vegans.

And you still didn't answer to the following question:

Do you think that domesticated animals cannot have a good life?

Or that they don't deserve a life?

Apparently they don't deserve one. From what you answered to VagabondSpectre it seems like that. You propose as your 'humane' final solution be to gradually stop breeding the domesticated animals. Yet what you are promoting is still the extinction of what you apparently think as 'unnatural' animals as they have been produced 'unnaturally'.

Somehow for you the solution cannot be that cruelty (that Akanthintos gives examples of) would be reduced by simply improving living standards of domesticated animals. No. Your 'benevolent' answer is the mass extinction of this kind of life. Because it's not 'natural', even if you admit that we are one natural species just like others in the World altering our environment to fit our desires.

Just like the beavers do with their dams.

As for care, the plant I worked at had received a lot of negative feedback concerning cruelty, so the government had actually forced the company to accept having an permanent inspection officer on location to prevent abuse. Even that didnt stop much, in my opinion. — Akanthinos

I still think that animal cruelty is a different question than veganism. Or to think that being against animal cruelty means that you have to be a vegan is simply illogical.

We no longer need to eat animals to survive. And we really never did, as even our closest ancestors (gorillas, chimpanzees, etc) are 95% vegetarians (plants and fruits). Chimpanzees rely heavily on fruits and plants, but sometimes eat insects and smaller mammals. — chatterbears

And would they eat more meat, if they would be better hunters? It's absolutely logical for an omnivore to eat meat than things like grass.

Read the last part of my initial post, and you'll come to the same conclusion. Or I will paste it here again: — chatterbears

OK, I'll answer. But why assume I'll come to your conclusion?

- Do you think actions become unnecessary when they are not required for our survival? — chatterbears

Of course not! If I live in a city, it's still quite good to know basic survival skills like which berries or mushrooms you can pick and eat from the forest. I really don't need the skills for survival as I can buy everything from the supermarket (and be rather confident that nothing there is poisonous to me). I really like to go with my children to the forest, pick up mushrooms and make great food.

- Do you think unnecessary actions that cause pain and/or suffering are wrong?
Yes.

- Do you think Animal cruelty is wrong?
Yes.

And do you think that domesticated animals cannot have a good life? Or that they don't deserve a life? (Basically that's the end result with your thought)

Not to mention, an animal of prey dies in the wild, naturally. — chatterbears

And this brings us to the philosophically important question: why do you think that we basically aren't part of nature?

Because it seems like obviously what we do is unnatural (kill animals) for you, but what other animals do (kill other animals) is natural.

Humans being meat eaters isn't what is wrong. It is that we actively impose on Nature the nightmare that is industrialized mass breeding and slaughter. — Akanthinos

Likely an animal of prey is slaughtered far more violently and suffers more long when it is killed by a pack of wolves than how their domesticated relatives meet their death in the industrialized slaughter house. And the reason for us to farm animals is quite logical: there is so many of us.

Yet really, how does this industrialization differ from what we have done to the flora?

That is and has been for ages a likely far more "industrialized nightmare" that has changed the landscape of our planet totally and has changed plants from the way how plants would grow in the wild. Rye, which is found growing wild in Turkey, likely wouldn't be so common and would not be growing as it grows now, just to give one example.

What is so wrong in accepting that we as humans are omnivores?

What is wrong in the idea that the human species, however advanced it has become and superior to other species, is still a species of and thus eats other fauna?

What is wrong in the fact that life exists because one type of animals eat others and not only fauna eating flora?

Why the idea that veganism is found to be so morally superior?

How is it pronounced? — Michael Ossipoff

ˈhæn/, [ˈhæn]

Or the first word in this song...

Almost a billion people speak romance languages which are decidedly gendered. Life is not an unendurable hell of gendered words in those language areas. If women's options are limited in a province of romance language, then it's discrimination based on something much more material than a pronoun. — Bitter Crank

Yep.

My own mother tongue has a gender neutral word for the third person: "hän". The word hän refers to both sexes, hence a Finn cannot now exactly which gender one is from the word. Yet I don't think this changes the culture or gender relations in any particular way.

Money has always been intimately tied to debt. EG, owing the ruling body taxes in terms of raw goods. I'm going to sidestep this for now. — fdrake

Fine, sidestep it, but just to note that Marx has basically a theory of commodity money (just as you put it, taxes in terms of raw goods, and elsewhere) and this is very important to notice. This commodity money was a typical theory for the 19th Century as the gold standard reigned back then. Marx was obviously a child of his era at least in this case.

Yet money today is basically created as debt and the central banks themselves account just for a small portion of the money supply. Money supply of M1 is also just a small percentage of the whole money supply.

If everyone just stopped using that worthless piece of paper it wouldn't have any value! The psychology of treating it, and information money, as the representative of value equivalence classes is only part of what makes it work. There's the level of heritable tradition which also needs to be analysed, and also that paper money still has a use as a means of circulation of relatively small amounts of money. It's not just psychology, paper money and information money are a self-reinforcing system that occurs in reality, not just in the minds of us plebs. — fdrake

Well, people are using less and less of paper money anyway. Try going to a bank a getting a larger sum in cash: it's difficult. But as long as governments make it legal tender and do make people to pay taxes, there is a credibility behind that fiat money. Now we don't even have to have that as we have all these various invented cryptocurrencies.

Also, ironically, abandoning the gold standard occurred after so many 'reclaimable bonds' (money) were issued that their total value far outstripped any gold reserves. Capital grew until it expanded past a limitation, then it kept functioning in much the same way ceteris paribus - though it's no longer beholden to manifesting in any currency denomination's paper money (because it's now a real valued variable, like it always wanted to be in the ordered field), that's part of what was undermined before the switch. It doesn't care about the physical process of division of the money commodity any more. — fdrake

Yes, but the question is that why hasn't then money lost it's value? Or (perhaps this is ventures way off from the topic) why didn't we get a massive inflation after all the pumping up that happened after the last financial crisis?

There are many problems with Marx, but here I guess the problem is that Marx takes the classical view of money while in todays World money is debt.

You bring up very good questions, ChatteringMonkey. Here's my five cents.

- Changes to migration-policies : This is presumably only going to get worse with population growth in Afrika and climate change, so how will the EU handle this? — ChatteringMonkey

The EU has responded with a trying establish “control centres” across the bloc – at locations still to be decided, and only in countries that volunteered to have them. Then it has decided to tighten border controls and give money to Morocco and Turkey, which have to deal with the immigrants. Billions of euros.

What I think is lacking from the debate is the issue that refugees and "irregular migrants" trying to reach Europe can be pawns of countries in a bigger game. Naturally Turkey has used the situation and the EU has had to accommodate to Erdogan's demands… for starters it hasn't truly critisized Erdogans questionable actions in Turkey.

- Changes to foreign policies : What's going to be the impact of the shift in geopolitical balance of power on the foreign-policy of the US. Will the US become more isolationist again? And will the EU finally devellop a foreign policy of it's own (unlike the last 50 years or so), and start faring a seperate course? — "ChatteringMonkey

What I think is notable that after all the tweets, tantrums and excesses of Donald Trump,
you can notice the Trump administration still having quite similar foreign policy in the end compared to past administrations. From this one can see that there is this consensus in many things about US foreign policy which isn't changed by one populist President, but favored by both political parties and government institions. It's not a conspiracy or actions of a deep state, it's simply a consensus. Hence isolationism as it was known isn't coming back any time soon.

Changes to economic policies : Will free-market capitalism be limited by protectionism again? And will policies be put into place that limit multinationals floating their money between and over nation states to avoid taxation, or how will be dealt with that? — ChatteringMonkey

I think that could happen if in the US a post-Trump administration turns to the left. The popularity of Bernie Sanders tells that is a possibility. That would have big consequences.

Institutional changes : In which direction will the EU go? The people seem to oppose further integration, yet geopolitics and a host of other issues seem to point in the direction of a more integrated EU. — ChatteringMonkey

EU's problem is that it is inherently a confederacy of independent states that is desperately trying to become a federation... as if the process would be possible to be done just by bureaucrats in Brussells. You can make a confederation act like a federation up to a point. But just up to a point.

I remember years ago while at the university a famous philosopher/spokesperson for the EU visiting Finland told that the way to create a vibrant EU would be to create an European identity above the national identities for the EU without replacing the national identities. Just like the identity of being British was created without the Scots and the Welsh being forced to be English. Nothing of the sort has been actually done (apart from a flag and the recycling of "Ode to Joy"). The bad mistake is that the national identities have been then deemed "nationalistic".

And sure there are differences in Europe, they all have their particular history. But the similarities are striking, it's all about immigration, they are reactionary (they all want to return to some time and values gone), they are nationalist and want to fall back on their borders etc... — ChatteringMonkey

Well, the immigration crisis of 2015 had a profound effect on politics in Europe.

As the focus is on the few populist right wing parties, what isn't noticed is the effect and change the crisis had in other established parties. Just to give an example, Sweden, which was (and still is) lead by social democrats, changed quite dramatically it's immigration policy. This naturally isn't reported by those on the right that have an agenda to portray as Sweden being totally open for immigration and hence a failure. Or those that want to portray only the right wing extremists being against open immigration in Europe.

(from 2016)

The difference with the left/right split is that populist don't really engage with current existing order and institutions. It's not just some policy changes left and right, they are advocating going beyond it, sanctioned directly by the people. — ChatteringMonkey

Are they? You see "populist" parties are quite different.

Is the "Law and Justice" -party, which got the outright majority in the 2015 elections in Poland and has lead the country since then (and earlier too), similar to the Greek "Golden Dawn", which pushed in the 1990's for the reconquest of Constantinople (Istanbul)? Both are populist parties.

At least here in Finland the "True Finns"-party, which has proclaimed in it's political agenda that it's ideology is based in populism, acted quite responsibly when in government alongside other parties when the 2015 crisis happened. The reason is simple: the True Finns party was formed from the defunct Finnish Rural Party which in no way had anything ideologically to do with right wing extremism. Yep, the party was anti-immigration (remember the populism), but they weren't nazis. And they behaved quite like other parties once in power. Luckily, on their guard the worst immigration crisis hit the country. This actually lead the party to dissolve into two parties, which many think is the perfect outcome. (I cannot estimate how vitriolic the political discourse would have gotten here if then the party would have been in the opposition and the left would have been in power in 2015.)

So what I try to say that not all populist parties are unable to engage with current existing order and institutions. Just as not all populists are like Trump: emerge to be as stupid and inept as they sounded right from the get-go. It's just like many leftist parties in Europe: they may talk the leftist talk during elections, but can be quite moderate and pro-capitalistic in their actual policies.

Please explain how you know that something like the following quote below won't happen again later today.

Like most people, you may be coming to your position based on the current geo-political situation. You may not be taking in to account that the current geo-political situation may be totally irrelevant. In fact, I know you're not taking that in to account, or you wouldn't be posting as you are.

Speaking of which, let's remind ourselves who has control over 90%+ of the world's nukes. Putin, the world's leading gangster, and Trump, a wacko in the White House whose own employees are scrambling around trying to figure out how to get rid of him before he does something insane. — Jake

Well, Vlad the annexer and Agent Trumpov seem to be best buddies. Why worry about the two?

Like almost everybody, you aren't using reason and thinking for yourself, but are instead referencing authority in the form of the group consensus. You look around you and see that all the big shots of various flavors are complacent, and so you understandably feel it's ok for you to be complacent too. — Jake

And how are you doing yourself? Because your line is what I've been hearing from the 80's myself personally and this goes to an earlier discourse. Straight from a large group consensus that various authorities starting with Bertrand Russell among others presented to us: the utter doom that nuclear weapons present to us and the World.

You can list all the false alarms and broken arrows, yet no war happened during MAD between the US and Soviet Union. What history has shown is that when just one side has a nuclear deterrent and the other side hasn't, war can happen (one example is Israel and Syria). Or when the war isn't an existential threat to a country with nuclear deterrence (as with Argentina attacking the UK in the South Pacific). And when one side has a huge advantage in nuclear weapons to the other, war can be at least seriously contemplated (just like the US generals did during the Cuban Missile Crisis and nearly went to war).

Yet let's not forget that the vast majority of the nuclear weapons that US and Russia had during the Cold War were actually destroyed after Cold War. And that part of those Russian nukes made to destroy American cities were then used to fuel their electricity needs (see Megatons to Megawatts Program). And that many countries have ended their nuclear programs (like Brazil and South Africa) or didn't get on with it (like Sweden). We have less nuclear weapons now than during the end of the Cold War, no matter how many Pakistan, North Korea and India are now building. Basically in number terms there are as many nuclear weapons in the World as there was in the late 1950's.

In my view being against nuclear weapons has been the most easiest opinion any philosopher can have. Just like the warnings, sounded decade after decade after decade, of the imminent end of humanity by an all out nuclear war. That we have not had the doomsday can been brushed off quite easily with "pure luck" without any serious question or debate just why we haven't had the nuclear armageddon, if it would be so imminent. Hence the topic is a no-brainer for the so-called intelligentsia.

This all seems a little too abstract to me. What split are you talking about? What are the examples? — angslan

Populism and extrimist parties vs establishment parties generally.

As examples, Trump vs Hillary and the rise of populist parties all over Europe. — ChatteringMonkey

A somewhat biased and simplistic view, I have to say.

First of all, populism is more of a method of approach in getting support (and voters) and is used by both sides of the political spectrum. Hence it's a bit confusing to use the dichotomy of "populism and extremist parties" vs "establishment parties". That's basically the dichotomy populists use: it's the "common people" against the "evil elites". Yet that doesn't say absolutely anything about their actual political agenda or ideology. Hence any party, be it "established" or not, that finds itself in the opposition can easily use populism and opportunism (after all, they're not the elite in charge). Similarly the so-called "established parties" can portray new political movements as "reckless populists".

Also the idea of the rise of populist parties all over Europe is like painting the political map with one broad brush. Political environments differ dramatically from country to country and so does the actual political discourse and the agendas. Now there can be similarities, but bunching everything together makes it far too simplistic when you are talking about politics in one whole continent.

So to your OP. Isn't it what the left/right divide has always been? Both sides believe in their own discourse and don't believe in the other sides discourse (and agenda). And when the other side is in power, they are unhappy. And naturally both sides reason that their agenda is the most logical, reasonable and simply the best way forward as any thinking human being could reason. And that the other side will just lead everything to ruin.

I would argue that the "split" in Western countries was far more bigger in the 20th Century than now.

That's just going too far. There's nothing subjective about a Typhoon hitting Japan. Of course there is a selection process on what constitutes events worth reporting. And that's what tends to attract viewers. Disasters, conflicts, controversies and scandals are always good bets, because most people who pay attention to general news want to hear that stuff. — Marchesk

And what about the typhoons that don't ever make landfall?

What you are pointing out is that any news is made for an audience, which then gets some
utility from following the news. A typhoon that is born and dies in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific isn't something that news agencies will pick up, but surely ships sailing in it's way have a keen interest on the subject. Naturally they just follow weather reports and I assume we agree that there typically isn't a bias or political agenda in marine weather forcasts (of course I can be wrong here).

We structure our facts into coherent narratives that communicate much more (including about us) than objective reality. So, what's important in my view is the basic recognition that communication, of whatever form, is never entirely neutral. — Baden

And that it isn't entirely neutral doesn't mean objectivity, truth or the facts have been totally lost or don't exist at all. That is just something reeking to post-modernism in it's extreme.

I allways wonder how these people are picked up. They first work actually on their own academic field and they are total unknowns. Then they write something quite off their academic topic and they are picked up by the media and get a platform to answer about a multitude of current issue which they likely haven't studied a lot. But as academics they have enough overall knowledge about the issues that they can make reasonable answers.

Even if choosing which news you report is a subjective decision, to simply list shortly what has happened can be objective. If news reports a typhoon hitting Japan, I can be pretty confident that a typhoon is hitting Japan: there will be lots of various newschannels confirming it with a multitude of reporting on the subject.

If people are informed and follow news from various outlets, they can (if they want) notice even the more subtle biases of reporting. And once when you are able to do that, I think it's OK. You can separate facts from the agenda that is pushed. Newspapers and media companies as individual journalists have allways had their point of view, political views they support or reject. It may not be always as evident as in Fox News, but this really shouldn't come as a shocker and make people think that all news is then totally fake, totally loaded with misconceptions and totally untrustworthy.

Even total disinformation to be effective has to connive and enforce existing beliefs that people already have, however crazy they can be.

The problem may be more about the people who simply want to believe in their own views and then pick the news that enforces their views. With social media we can find easily our own echo chambers.

Question: how does neuroscience show that we don't have any free will?

(At least this time it's a historian talking about neuroscience rather than a neuroscientist explaining history away.)

I think what we mean by 'free-will' is the potential to develop and evolve past limitations. However, since there is no end to that progress, our 'free-will' becomes an ever-changing circumstance. — BrianW

I think it goes something like that.

The difference with a conscious human and a computer is that the computer cannot fathom it's program it's running in a similar way as a human. The computer can have in it's running program an algorithm to "learn" and change it's operation, but it simply cannot be given an order "do something else". That's not how computers work. But a conscious human that understands what he or she has done can follow that order and innovate something new. I'd call that free will.