Too many fathers were raised without fathers in the home by unwed single mothers, etc. Simplistically, my guess is that boys tend to grow-up more feminized (submissive) whereas girls grow-up de-feminized (dominant) by the 'genders imbalanced' example of their husbandless mothers and women teachers primarily in authority throughout primary school. — 180 Proof

Growing up a a single-parent household increases criminality for both boys and girls, and it is more pronounced in children who grew up without a father, so rather it implies the opposite of what you're suggesting.

The lack of a healthy male role model translates into an inability to deal with authority, not being able to accept boundaries, etc. - the typical 'out-of-control youth' archetype.

Life used to be a lot harsher, and neither men nor women had it very good.

I think this 'historical victimhood' yarn is a modern political thing, meant to grab people by their emotions by getting them to identify with a historical narrative, making them feel insecure about themselves and resentful for the other in the present day - usually based on questionable and one-sided interpretations of history that categorically paint "themselves" as the moral victim, and the "other" as the immoral abuser based on superficial characteristics.

The same is visible among groups like BLM, MGTOW, etc.

Note how grievance crowds create new grievance crowds.

It's how you play people.

Well said. :up:

It seems to me like taking a minor infraction as an excuse to ban someone with unwelcome opinions.

Apparently we're only allowed to discuss ideas here that people have positive things to say about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take a practical case: imagine a female newcomer logs into this forum, excited to engage with deep philosophical topics, and then stumbles across a thread where someone writes “Women are a waste of time", “They make terrible friends and even worse girlfriends." or one of the other. That’s not just distasteful – it’s a message loud and clear: "You’re not really human here. You’re a problem to be explained, not a person to be heard." — DasGegenmittel

Oh, I can almost hear the sad violins in the background.

Anyway; women need to be protected from weird opinions?

Come now.


Honestly, if people were spamming the forum with weird nonsense I'd see the point, but Gregory shared one weird opinion when half the forum was dogpiling him.

A warning would have been enough.

I'm still waiting for individuals who rejoice in the genocide in Gaza to be banned. But I suppose making weird and incel posts about women is worse than endorsing the eradication of an ethnicity. — javi2541997

Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing.

Imo the one where he hoped every woman would die — fdrake

I don't think that's what he actually said, though.

It's a pretty silly yet common view among radical feminists that men are superfluous, and I think he was mirroring some of that.

Strange? Sure. Worthy of a ban? Not so sure; at least not an outright one.

Weird decision. Some of his comments were a bit edgy, but really nothing warranting a ban.

This is a philosophy forum. There should be a reasonable tolerance for off-beat or even strange views.

What exactly was the big "misogyny" scandal here? The "Women corrupt men" comment, or the jab at a popular radical feminist viewpoint?

legacy of absentee / abusive fathers reinforced by pervasive religious-cultural misogyny ... — 180 Proof

The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women

Yeah, I wonder who keeps selecting those deadbeats. :roll:

You and nos4 defend Trump seemingly in favor of him and at the expense of everything else. — tim wood

wat

It’ll always appear as downplaying. Take a look at January 6th. What’s that, exactly? I myself don’t think it’s what the democrats make it out to be — but it’s also not what the republicans try to spin it as.

If Trump supporters were burning Teslas, I wouldn’t like it. I don’t like it now. But I would be pushing back against those that spin it. In this case I see much exaggeration. I don’t see that many people in power — or on philosophy forums — coming out in defense of it. — Mikie

Yeah, I think that's fair enough.

At the same time, amid a poisoned political climate, these somewhat low-key events are no longer so innocent.

The spin should be recognized for what it is, but simply dismissing it as 'business as usual, nothing to see here' whenever it's convenient (aka: when it's directed at one's political opponents) is the other side of the extreme, and that's what prompted my initial reaction.

Whether this trend will continue after Trump's presidency remains to be seen. I'm not convinced that it will.

It's also a question of whether the picture the media is trying to sketch corresponds with reality and the views of the average American.

Your inability to tell the difference between vandalism by angry people and the storming of a parliamentary hearing buttressed by right wing activists waving confederate flags and other seccessionist movements, where the new President would be inaugurated is telling. — Benkei

It has nothing to do with that.

I'm pointing towards a political climate that has already resulted in two assassination attempts on Trump that we know of, which is part of the context in which these recent events must be viewed.

It's simply disingenuous to hand-wave lesser forms of political unrest as though this context doesn't exist.

It's not a what if. January 6th happened. — ssu

Well, exactly. And look how they marketed that as a full blown attempt at a coup d'etat.

Now those same people are getting up in arms about this Tesla thing being seen in its proper political context. The same people, mind you, who were in such a rush to quickly forget two assassination attempts on the leader of the opposition.

It's perfectly appropriate to see this in the context of political violence/intimidation, but of course "the other side" is categorically unable to acknowledge their own wrongs.

It's partisan through and through.

Do note that the political context includes the vilification of Trump, among various other caricatures likening him to Hitler and a fascist, in what is a blatant attempt to get some useful idiot to make an attempt on his life - something that has already happened twice and people were very quick to ignore or downplay in the fear it would increase his chance of being elected.

This is an old political trick, one that has been used to great success in my own (shameful) home country where Pim Fortuyn was murdered under very similar circumstances.

Why are you projecting US partisanship on a European? It doesn't make sense. — Benkei

Europeans are being influenced by anti-Trump messaging just like Americans. Haven't you noticed?

It does appear to me as downplaying - at least, when we consider the probable reaction if the opposite had happened. People would have undoubtedly jumped on the opportunity to prophesize the return of fascism, drawn parallels to the rise of Hitler, etc.

In that context, it's not so strange people are overreacting to what outside of the political context would indeed merely be an act of vandalism.

Pretending that political context doesn't exist does indeed smell of partisanship. Why would a European be partisan over US politics? You tell me, but that's pretty common these days.

What if it were Trump supporters doing something like this? Would you think the same way?

A national constitution for the most part pertains to how governments must behave towards their citizens. International law is mainly about how states behave towards each other.

In the end, it is based on a 'gentleman's agreement' between states, in that there is no monopoly on violence that facilitates the enforcement of international law.

Reciprocity, trust, credibility and the threat of armed conflict are important factors in why states choose to behave according to international law.

It's definitely not useless, but it also does not function in the same way national laws do, and it is much more dependent on mutual agreement than coercion.

That last bit is something that seems to have gotten lost on many people during the so-called 'unipolar moment', during which the United States was so powerful that in practical terms it could assume the role of 'world's policeman'. We see now that this was a historical anomaly.

People make choices based on such things as what type of ice cream they like.

But then you insert the unquantifiable idea of a 'state of you', which includes much more than just conscious deliberation. This is where it starts to get vague.

I sort of get where you're going with this, but it'd be a stretch to say people experience their every day decisions in that way.

When you do that in the context of a 'libertarian free will vs. determinism'-type debate, I'm obviously going to be quite critical of the leaps you're taking.

Where were you taking that paragraph then? Because so far it's a somewhat convoluted way of describing how people make everyday choices.

So far, so good. But what you've said earlier suggests that you're intent on taking this argument to an extreme where people have no meaningful choice at all.

It's a stretch to say that's what people experience. I certainly don't.

You're essentially saying people experience determinism.

Yeah, exactly, so in a choice there's no randomess, the choice follows naturally from the preceding state of everything (which of course includes the state of you), which is what you experience. — flannel jesus

Hang on, do you perceive a total state of everything, including the state of you, whenever you act or make a choice?

If you made a choice at t2, determinism just means that choice was necessarily going to follow from the state of your world, and the state of you, at t1. — flannel jesus

The outcome was already determined, therefore the sense of choice was merely an illusion.

However, that's is not what we experience.

But for determinism to not be the case, something must be random. — flannel jesus

How so?

The possibility of multiple outcomes preceding a choice doesn't have to imply randomness, but the weighing of the options by the will - which is what we experience.

Of course, many people seem to disagree. — flannel jesus

Vastly more people seem to agree, though. Every person I ever met acts as though free will exists. Societies are structured around the notion of a free will.

The only exception I can think of of people acting as though free will doesn't exist, are the mentally ill.

Of course, some people may say they disagree with notions of free will, but they continue acting in every way as though they do believe in free will.

"already decided beforehand"... mmm... kinda yes kinda no. Not "decided". Not "beforehand". Not necessarily. It just means that the outcome follows from the preceding conditions. It's not like Zeus is sitting up there in the heavens writing what he wants to happen, and then observing it happen, which is what "decided beforehand" feels like. — flannel jesus

Determinism implies we never have a choice. Is that a better way of putting it?

But we certainly experience having a choice.

Or how would you put it in plain English?

But my decisions don't seem random. — flannel jesus

As far as I know, the libertarian idea of free will doesn't imply that they would have to be.

Determinism implies the outcome of our choice was already decided beforehand, agreed?

But that is not what we experience; we experience agency in that very moment, where our 'free will' seems to make the difference.

Is it not a fair assessment that the libertarian idea of free will corresponds with an almost universal human experience?

Doesn't our experience of free will oppose itself to determinism?

Whether we choose to have a glass of water or a cup of coffee, it feels like we make a choice that could have gone both ways.

You find this a strong argument against free will, in face of a shared experience between countless human beings throughout the ages, who all experience(d) free will on a daily basis?

Does the thought experiment of the two Bobs provide a strong argument against free will, or does it only show that there is no definitive argument in favor of free will?

Because if it's the latter, then on a philosophy forum it should come to no one's surprise that definitive arguments are hard to come by.

A clever mind can come up with an objection to literally anything.

Note that you're making the argument that democratic societies are exceptional in this regard.

If you were to point to Greece, I could point to Egypt, Persia, India or China as contemporary counter-examples to Greece being exceptional.

The general weakness of Eastern-type civilization is that the science and technology developed more slowly there, than in Western-type civilizations. — Linkey

I don't think that's a true for most of history, honestly. "The West" being the leading force of innovation seems very particular to the Age of Enlightenment (and Renaissance, to a somewhat lesser degree), much of which was triggered by an influx of (Middle-)Eastern scholars fleeing invading nomadic conquerors.

Before that, the Islamic world had a golden age, but China especially had been a center of innovation for centuries, since before the birth of Christ.

China's centralized imperial structure would directly contradict your thesis.

As I understand it, in the early Middle Ages, the Vikings had a military democracy, while in the late Middle Ages, a regular monarchy reigned in Scandinavia. Is it possible to draw a parallel here with the fact that in the early Middle Ages the Vikings could terrorize Europeans, but after 1064 they lost this advantage? — Linkey

The Fall of Western Roman Empire in 476 ushered in the 'Dark Ages' for Europe, at which point it's entire centralized power structure was overturned by invading barbarians. This was an earth-shattering catastrophe for the people living there at the time, and it made Europe vulnerable to threats from all sides including the Vikings.

It took Europe centuries to recover, which is why they're commonly referred to as the Dark Ages.

In other words, the fact that their civilization collapsed probably had more to do with it than the form of their government.

In your opinion. We haven't nearly reached rock bottom there mostly because of course we don't have the logistics to project military power. But the idea that inconsistent application of principles means we have no credibility is simply nonsense; there's no instance where any EU member invaded another country. — Benkei

Like good little schoolboys to the US, we supported invading and wrecking a whole bunch of countries - entire regions of the world even. We supported overtly genocidal regimes, and are still doing so to this day.

The idea that we have any credibility in this regard is, I'm sorry to say, laughable. The EU isn't taken seriously anywhere.

Don't confuse the US with the EU. The EU is committed to that order, especially within what it considers its sphere of influence. — Benkei

I don't see any sign of commitment. Why aren't we slapping sanctions on Israel, which is guilty of the most black and white case of systemic, large-scale human rights violations and has been for decades?

We're just selectively applying our "ideals" whenever it suits us.

When it suits us, we will "take a stand" by letting some other country fight our battles for us. But when it comes to our "allies" we are content to cry foul and angrily shake our fist, if even that.

International law of course is important, but applying it too rigidly is unrealistic and will have the opposite effect of making the world safer - it will make countries dismiss the idea of a shared rules-based order of international law altogether.
That's a process the West itself set in motion with its finger-wagging "rules-based order" while operating on a principle of 'rules for thee, but not for me' - synonymous for the exact 'might makes right' we're supposedly trying to avoid. The West has ZERO credibility in that regard.


Also, you've been educated on international law, so surely you have also been taught that it doesn't function in the same way a system of national law does.

Idealism that is not balanced by realism is dangerous, and leads to the very conclusions you seem to be putting forward: Ukraine must continue on the path of its own destruction, to save a 'rules-based order' which we ourselves never were sincerely committed to, and still aren't.
In fact, you seem to believe we must double down and get directly involved ourselves, risking WW3 over this 'rules-based order' we never believed in - anything short of that would be 'appeasement' and 'rewarding aggression'.

My answer to that would be: let's not.

If you're serious about this whole "making a stand" thing, I expect you'll be leading from the front?

The problem with that line of argument is that the Russian demands have been almost exactly the same since the start of the war, and even before that.

In March/April 2022 we said "no negotiations, let's fight it out on the battlefield", and they did. Ukraine lost, and of course that's going to have a cost.

But what "free stuff" are you talking about? Aren't you aware we're fighting a bitter war over there - that it's the Ukrainians who are dying to impose a cost on Russia so we can tell ourselves some sort of fairy tale that "aggression wasn't rewarded"? This is the ego talking here, not the brain.

The Russians actually chose to accept the proposal:

Putin's heavily caveated support for the U.S. ceasefire proposal looked designed to signal goodwill to Washington and to open the door to further talks with U.S. President Donald Trump. Such talks could offer a real chance to end the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two given Ukraine has already agreed to the proposal.

"We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities," Putin told reporters at a news conference in the Kremlin following talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. "The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it."

"But we proceed from the fact that this cessation should be such that it would lead to long-term peace and would eliminate the original causes of this crisis." — Reuters

Signaling goodwill while emphasizing the need for a long-term peace - typical imperialist shit.

Obviously giving the Russians what they want, long-term peace, would be nothing short of appeasement.

Despite the fact that Imperial Russia under Tsar Putin wants to conquer all of Ukraine and march on Berlin, they're rejecting temporary cease-fire deals and insist on a long-term peace agreement.

Hmmm... :chin:

Ask yourself, if there is reasonable suspicion of people being overpaid and it is a wide-spread problem, should the state focus on solidifying the system or should it be given all sorts of extra powers to go on witch hunts through people's bank accounts in search of evidence that confirms their suspicions?

Which of the two is more dangerous you think?

For me it is obvious, since we had a case in the Netherlands that touches on this exact subject, the end result of which was thousands of families being crushed by the government apparatus for wrongs they had not committed.

If you want to know the types of damage: evictions, suicides, children being taken away, children being never found again, etc. - people and families utterly ruined at the hands of the state.

There is literally no greater danger in this world than the incompetence (and occasional malice) of governments.

“More than a human can bear”: Israel's systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023

The stuff of nightmares, and unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Israel's long track record of human rights violations and crimes against humanity.

Note that this doesn't just cover the atrocities in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.

Pi = the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

My mind tells me one of the main revelations of pi is the picture of the straight line of the diameter surrounded by the encircling circumference. This juxtaposition shows concisely that the rectilinearity (straight-lining) of science is only partially commensurable with the curvilinearity (curving) of nature.

The straight lines infinitesimal of the analysis of calculus can only approximate nature's reality.

Science is nature-adjacent rather than natural.

As technology diminishes and displaces nature, humanity rejiggers itself out of mysterious existence into self-reflection. The trick of AI and SAI is baking in a component of mystery and a component of error. Mystery and error support otherness, a component essential to forestalling the cognitive suffocation of an enclosing self-reflection.

Intentional mystery and error preserve the irrationality pictured by pi.

We must pull on and push against the idea our natural world is full mystery and error because some prior race of sentients understood the essential importance of forestalling cognitive suffocation. Having original sin in the mix is better than the damnation of perfection.

Against utopia! — ucarr

I'm unsure why this post hasn't gotten any replies, because this gets at the heart of the matter for why pi continues indefinitely.

A perfect circle simply doesn't exist. It can't be made by man, and not by machine. We can get close, but no matter how close we get, it will never be perfect, much like how a digital rendition of an analog signal can also never be perfect.

If we 'zoom in' one pixel (or one decimal) further, the imperfection shows.

If you want to have a conversation, let's have a conversation. What is this cramped passive aggressiveness? :lol:

It's like you know, as none of us other contributors do, what 'masculine' human nature is beyond social and cultural influence, and everyone who disagrees is wrong and degenerate. No doubt you also then know, as I certainly don't, those circumstances if any, when violence is justified and virtuous. — unenlightened

No idea where you're getting this from. I haven't called you or anyone here degenerate. It was in relation to an example I myself gave of a trend which is overtly destructive. I've also no clue where you get the idea I'm about to espouse support for some kind of violence. You seem to be assuming all of this out of some personal dislike, is the sense I am getting.

Kids stabbing each other in the street over an argument is as black and white as it gets. If we cannot even agree on that much then I'm not sure what deep, dark hole of moral relativity you've wandered down into. Or maybe it's you who has trouble listening to opinions they disagree with?

If I had some problem with disagreeable opinions, I wouldn't be on this forum. I've also no problem with calling a spade a spade, nor with unapologetically criticizing bad ideas.

Tying it back to the matter at hand: such destructive fringe cultures, and not some kind of masculine original sin, is at the heart of violent trends in youths.