ISIS is currently in the process of exerting their hegemony. In war time situations, in all societies, whether it be ISIS' or France, they always suspend all these checks and balances. Not to mention: the West rarely ever does anything to their own that commit any of the aforementioned atrocities. This is a fact that I think both of us would agree to. So, where is the actual difference between ISIS and the West, except that one is at war and the other is engaging in pseudo-wars.

All I am asking is that we don't pretend that the West is this morally superior place and acknowledge that the only reason it's safe to live in the West with all these free values and the reason that ISIS style places exist is because, the West itself, as in the West localities, are not at war, but the Middle East is war torn. It's easy to take the moral high ground when your people won.

Hey guys, look at these superior Western values, surely this would not cause any sort of repercussions in the future. All these right wing groups worldwide, they can only be explained by the fact that they must hate us for our diversity, pluralism, and freedom, and not for incidents like that that have happened daily for the past 400 years. These liberty-loving French, they love liberty so much, they preserve their liberty by exercising their liberty on starving children.

But our democracies are not perfect. All we need for our Western peoples to stand up and fight for their values in foreign lands is to do so without raping children, bombing hospitals, starving entire regions of people through economic terrorism, not drone strike weddings, and generally, getting the fuck out and accepting that fact that the West is no better than ISIS and that people think the West is better simply are subjects of the process of media propaganda bias, like highlighting a beheading, but not these French soldiers' systematic rape of children. That's hard to do though, but I'm sure the Catholic church, a superior religious organization to the ISIS caliphate, would not condone such things.

The Natives should have drowned those pilgrims when they had the chance. Marty, hurry, take me back to the 1600s! I've got to tell some people that these illegals are gonna build golf courses over their ancestors' graveyards!

I guess someone with your arguments would naturally claim to be the arbiter of all things moral. It's no wonder you have no qualms with Westerners bombing hospitals in the Middle East. All you need to do is dress up the terrorists in American military uniforms, grant them world hegemonic status, paint their skin white, give them red, white, and blue flags, fancy weapons technology, and now massacring children is the act of the self-appointed moral saviors of world.

But we could keep doing this or you could suggest what we should do with the American terrorists that bombed the hospital.

So, why doesn't France invade America too, for bombing a hospital just days before the Paris incident? This is double standard nonsense people are spouting here. The reaction to American atrocities is: oh, please stop. But they never stop. Yet when brown people do it, you are so quick to support dropping freedom from the skies! Come on now, go sign that invade America petition.

It's funny you mention the Kurds, jamalrob, because the West has generally historically been against the Kurds gaining power in the region, going so far as to call the PKK a "terrorist organization". Well, this isn't the first time they have supported the wrong people. And this is precisely why ISIS exists today (aka. Western imperialism), precisely why Paris got attacked, precisely why all these good Middle Easterners are being massacred.

The West may claim to have superior values to ISIS, but their leaders most certainly do not, and there is a plethora of evidence to support this claim (including the fact that the existence of ISIS is due to Western imperialism).

Diversity and pluralism generally means nothing when the entire state apparatus in France, the media apparatus, and the cultural apparatus of the West has been heavily modified to create an anti-Muslim bias in the West, and especially in France. Sure, the French emphasize a secular state and secular education systems, but if secular means unbiased default, then obviously, given everything else, it is exclusionary of Muslims.

As for your quoting Kenan Malik, I read it as your introducing the usual emotional-inducing "they hate us for our freedoms", which is generally vacuous as an explanation, as opposed to "they are carrying out an overall strategy". Terrorist strategy has rarely been about attacking government symbols, it has always been about creating fear that brings about a costly overreaction. This further marginalizes the Muslims in the West, which then leads to more recruits for the only groups that have the reach and answers for them.

And hence my post. I guess I would add that ISIS is a pretty diverse organization itself. You don't just gain support to carry out an attack just for shits and giggles. There is an overall strategy to what they are doing, which certainly isn't anti-diversity and pluralism (whatever that means).

You quoted Kenan Malik in your other post saying

What the terrorists despised, what they tried to eliminate, were ordinary people, drinking, eating, laughing, mixing. That is what they hated – not so much the French state as the values of diversity and pluralism.

(Taken directly from your post).

Except ISIS consists of ex-Iraqi generals, soldiers, and civilians.

Furthermore, people in the Middle East actually dislike Western governments as a whole, look at Westerners with suspicion, and haven't forgotten what the West has done to them in the past century. It isn't any surprise to think that an environment such as this would be a breeding ground for people who would cling to misguided and repugnant answers presented to them by religious extremists when there aren't many answers to what they had to suffer.

Once again, I don't understand how you fail to see this fact. ISIS could not possibly exist in this day and age if there was no Western imperialism in the first place. The thousands of Iraqis wouldn't have joined them, they wouldn't dare do shit in Iraq if Saddam were still in power and the Iraqi state and infrastructure weren't in tatters, if the West and Russia weren't fighting a proxy war in Syria, if the West didn't fund and protect the Saudis for the past couple decades... all these factors go on and on. I mean, you are so quick to try to place a complete moral blame on Muslims and would like to frame ISIS as some sort of group that just came to be in a vacuum because they hate laughter and puppy dogs. ISIS doesn't recruit kids simply by schooling them in a Mosque. They go to communities and set up circuses and fairs and shit. People don't just join up with them all solely because they're scared. ISIS uses salesmanship on top of propaganda.

Once again, you can't get thousands of people to back your bullshit caliphate if all you do is bring the hammer of fear. You can see this in all forms of dictatorships. Look at Thailand: the first thing the current military dictator did was release a rock ballad praising his regime, gave out free movie tickets, paid off the farmers, and so on. This is typical behavior of dictators that get into power without the people's consent. You slowly integrate them into a system through childish bribery. ISIS is doing that exact same thing.

But contrary to what is implied in these sentiments, ISIS are not heroic freedom-fighters struggling against oppression, pushed to violence by the military actions of the West — jamalrob

I am sure there are leftists and liberals suggesting that this is the case, but, being a leftist myself, I would modify this statement to the following:

ISIS are a group of Islamo-fascists that gained power as a result of Western imperialism who provided an answer to questions that arose in the minds of locals that suffered from Western imperialism.

I don't think most leftists would not instantly denounce ISIS for what they represent, but certainly what happened in France is to be expected. At least someone that suffered in the Middle East as a result of Western imperialism would rally the people under some ideology and hammer a series of "let's fight back" propaganda. As Georges Sorel would say: all organizations with power have with it a mythological endpoint in which the people unite under, which provides the hope and purpose for those within the organization. ISIS's myth is the establishment of some bullshit caliphate, and in creating this myth also designed it with anti-Western imperialism embedded into it.

So, of course we should expect some group to rise up. But which group? Well, the West has since dismantled the left, massacring them, and has historically provided active support to right-wing groups like ISIS, whether directly or indirectly. In this case, we should expect something like this to happen.

My argument isn't a tu quoque one; it is simply a matter of political fact that this would happen.

How about everyone carry long range pistol tasers? That way if there's an accident, most people won't die, but you can still disarm someone with a gun.

In ideal lalaland we could simply ban everything factually wrong and only allow factually correct statements. However, since the state is a biased entity...

You claim that the West is attempting to thwart specifically Islamic theocracies, but both Gaddafi and Hussein were both not leaders of theocratic regimes, yet the west still ousted them, not "centuries" ago, as you claim, but less within the last decade.

The Iraq war was less than 10 years ago, the ousting of Gaddafi was less than 5 years ago. What the fuck are you talking about?

"We are going to lead a war which will be pitiless. When terrorists are capable of committing such atrocities, they must be certain that they are facing a determined France, a united France, a France that is together, and does not let itself be moved." — Francois Hollande

Sigh. Nothing ever went wrong with this reaction to terrorist activity except that ISIS consists of ex-generals from the Iraqi military, members of ISIS come from those families destroyed by the Iraq war, among others. Oh, Europe, you keep digging a deeper hole for humanity.

Maybe "enlightenment" in the Islamic world is necessary, but we often forget the backwardness of the backward Europeans that somehow convinced themselves of self-deluded holier-than-thou narcissistic grandeur. So easy we forget the likes of Anders Breivik, or the multiple-paged list of American white people that have gone on shooting sprees this year alone, or the rise of the Ukrainian fascists, or Golden Dawn in Greece, or the English Defense League. This is just in the last 5 years alone. You too will believe the West is a bunch of backward people if the media kept blaring the fact of the existence and extensiveness of European fascist groups.

Let's be perfectly clear about all this: if there is backwardness in the Middle East, then the West, including Europeans, are equally to blame for what has been happening there. Let's not forget that it was the Europeans (and I include Americans in this) that tore down that actual politically backed regimes that represented progressive values in the Middle East, or decided to overthrow political regimes that were able to contain the subsequent results of colonialism, including Saddam Hussein's regime, Gaddafi, the arbitrary creation of the state of Israel, which constantly drives a wedge in the middle of Middle Eastern politics, their constant defense of Zionist power in the region, their fight against the only faction representing any form of hope in Syria, the Rojava, American unconditional support of Saudi Arabia as their allies... the list goes on and on, but, somehow, the beacon of enlightenment and wisdom in the world exists solely in the West, if the media rhetoric is to be believed.

Fascists don't just arise in a vacuum, and people don't just become aligned to fascists en masse if there existed previously a built movement that represented some sort of freedom and autonomy for people. Islamo-fascists could only have possibly taken power if the alternative, progressives, socialists, communists, anarchists, people who believe ideals similar to that, weren't brutally massacred and shut down by outside entities, i.e. the West, throughout the past century up until the present century.

Now, the mess the West started is manifesting itself into a regional disaster, and suddenly they are all calling for the Islamic leaders to quell their people. Well, the ones that aren't fascists have repeatedly called for tolerance and peace from their people, but they are speaking to people are already convinced, i.e. the majority of Muslims. But these people offer no alternative from the Western grasp, so, of course people gravitate towards the fascists. Europeans should know this all too well, since the face of world fascism is a European face.

I see you weren't there under the good graces of divine leader Batista, what are you a commie?

All I heard from them say was:
Santorum & Rubio: "My family ran away from Cuba to escape dictatorship and pursue the democratic American dream! Let me tell you, you've never partied like people did in Batitsta's Cuba, circa 1951! Philosopher, schmilosopher. You've never snorted coke out of a Cuban hookers ass like the way my grandfather did, if you know what I mean *wink*. I have a boner thinking about it already. Oh, yeah, I love children."

Queue applause from Donald Trump because he knows what they mean. Sometimes I feel like going around Florida with a megaphone screaming Viva Fidel at the top of my lungs.

This sounds reasonable at first glance; but I am not convinced 'hello' has a linguistic meaning.

Well, if you consider things like programming languages to be modeled based on human language (which they are), then there is the equivalent of "hello" in programming languages, which are things like code for signals waiting to receive data. This is similar to humans when they say "hello", which is to signify that they would like to exchange data of some sort, be it actual conversation, or even acknowledgement of the other person as being a part of a societal context.

Guys, if someone decides to upload it somewhere I swear I won't tell. I've been out of school for a while and don't have access to the dungeon of papers under the ivory tower of knowledge anymore.

Honestly, as far as philosophy goes, I think the hope of being able to sell your papers for cash should have been quashed since philosophy began as an art practiced by humans. No one has made money selling philosophy papers like people sell music on iTunes. And also, I am personally against intellectual property as a concept beyond acknowledgement of the author. So, can we please have a policy on this, and hopefully it is this: all philosophy should be widely shared and accessible, except for Ayn Rand's books, which should be priced at $85,000 a page with 5% of the US military budget used to crackdown on anyone pirating Ayn Rand books.

Proposition: Davidson is not the same person as Ayn Rand.
Conclusion: Davidson should be widely shared and accessible.

I look around and all I see is the result of some people who read Plato's Republic, took it really seriously, and then modified it with Hobbes' Leviathan with a touch of Locke to ensure the general retardation of mankind.

P.M.S. Hacker just reminds me of this:

(one of the main characters is PM Hacker :P)

I don't want the site to be as big as PF. I don't have time to read every post in every thread I post, and respond to them thoughtfully. PF was more of a home when it was smaller, and even then I didn't really enter PF until 2006, roughly a year after I presume it was the right size. I think it should be our aim to have around 200-300 relatively active members, at most (defined by at least 1 post a week), with maybe 1000 floating members (defined by at least 1 post per month). Anything beyond that would just be a torrent of repeated topics, over and over again.

At the end of the day, I'm here to discuss and hear interesting ideas, and occasionally fuck around with other philosophers on a relatively on-demand basis.

Also, I don't really care for inter-forum wars, but I also dislike the blocking of suggesting movement to another, smaller forum, from relatively active members to others. These are relationships that have been built over multiple years while in PF, and suggesting an alternative place shouldn't be frowned upon. But in anycase I can't do anything about it, so I'm not gonna concern myself too much about it, except that, previously, I didn't really have an opinion about the new owners of PF, but now I think they're a buncha fascists (term used colloquially).

So, I'll channel my inner evil chakra into the universe and hope all falls into place, and different people get what they deserve.

To clarify, if it wasn't obvious, this isn't actually my research. But I draw inspiration from it everyday.

Hello hello, I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello.

I was just too chicken to reveal it.

Here is CCTV's take on it. Basically, boost consumption is the name of the game, as long as GDP increases, they are in the clear. But is that all? Seems boring.

Have you ever seen a 5 year plan presented in such a neoliberal manner? Anyways, what do you think will be the focus of this one, as far as the direction they would be moving towards?

I actually prefer smaller sites with active members. It allows for more things we can do, like knowing where people stand and what techniques they use while discussing.

Boy oh boy, I thought you were gonna go all Karen Horney here, StreetlightX:

The second characteristic inherent in all the elements of the search for glory is the great and peculiar role imagination plays in them. It is instrumental in the process of self-idealization. But this is so crucial a factor that the whole search for glory is bound to be pervaded by fantastic elements. No matter how much a person prides himself on being realistic, no matter how realistic indeed his march toward success, triumph, perfection, his imagination accompanies him and makes him mistake a mirage for the real thing. One simply cannot be unrealistic about oneself and remain entirely realistic in other respects. When the wanderer in the desert, under the duress of fatigue and thirst, sees a mirage, he may make actual efforts to reach it, but the mirage—the glory—which should end his distress is itself a product of imagination.

Actually imagination also permeates all psychic and mental functions in the healthy person. When we feel the sorrow or the joy of a friend, it is our imagination that enables us to do so. When we wish, hope, fear, believe, plan, it is our imagination showing us possibilities. But imagination may be productive or
unproductive: it can bring us closer to the truth of ourselves—as it often does in dreams—or carry us far away from it. It can make our actual experience richer or poorer. And these differences roughly distinguish neurotic and healthy imagination.

FDR-style politics, as in there's a militant communist movement about to overthrow the government, and also Bush's grandfather leading a fascist charge at an attempt at a coup? Looking around, the fascists are rising, but not the commies...

So, the answer is you should move to another galaxy.

Nietzsche or my nudes? — Πετροκότσυφας

Yes.

I second this.

What about swstephe?

↪discoii Well, productivity is swell, of course, and nowadays we have much less to fear from wild animals, the occasional thunderstorm, etc. But there are still tremendous superhuman forces lurking around (many of them have been created by the advancement of technology), and much more than 99% of all humans still need some shelter. It's not just a Rolling Stones' song. — Mariner

Of course, and as people live in certain places, they adapt to it, as usual. But I'm confused, can you tell me how this would be an indictment of the idea about dropping the concept of nation states?

Nations and other social constructs (such as -- to take the discussion into a completely different direction -- monasteries) will be required as long as people need shelter. The dream of the bios theoretikos among like-minded friends, good family, in an affluent position, is nothing more than a limit towards which our most intelligent members aim at. And it will be so for some centuries at least, in my appraisal. — Mariner

One of the issues, in my experience, as far as this global bios theoretikos goes, is that there is an inefficiency when it comes to the ability for decision making to be made upon there being an influx of new people to certain areas. However, take any nation state today: people already move from place to place that previously would be considered territories of the others. In the United States, people move literally cross continent. I guess my point is that there seems to be no theoretical reason why this couldn't be applied globally.

Regarding natural selection.. over time, some cultures survive and others are lost (often subsumed). Military power and some kind of intolerance (ethnic, religious, etc.) can both be seen as cultural survival tactics. A strong sense of group identity is perhaps another. The British had all three. Today, pretty much the same British imprint can be seen in places all over the world. The effects of that sort of thing can be somewhat hidden because when a perspective becomes ubiquitous, it falls out of consciousness. There are portions of the Islamic world where the British Effect is in view. Pakistan is an example of a nation that wanted to be an Islamic state, but the British culture it previously absorbed is stuck there. They can't get rid of it because it's part of who they are now. — Mongrel

I see, and I think I agree insofar as nationalisms can be explained through a historical cultural evolution that came through hegemonic institutions set up throughout the years. Nationalism is the cartoonish ideological apparatus--the less paint you have, the thinner it is the coat, so to speak, and applying a nationalism across 130 million people in Pakistan is incredibly difficult. This is apparent from the huge amounts of conflict within Pakistan itself between different sects of people.

I guess while we're going that route...