Okay. Makes sense. I haven’t thought that far back for a longtime in regards to childhood crushes … I guess it was possible I had crushes too that far back :)

Homosexuality is clearly not an ‘evolutionary dead end’ because it occurs in many species and has not disappeared for millions of years.

My question was not really one I expected to be answered because the data sets are too tricky I reckon. If you know of a study that measures the Big Five for gays, lesbians and bisexuals I’d be interested to look at the data.

How on earth can you realise you are bisexual at 5 yrs old? That makes no sense to me whatsoever so I am assuming you meant something else maybe?

Thank you for some well presented clear examples.

I would be very interested to hear how you equate these with ‘habits’ and ‘instincts’. Does one act as the seed of the others? Are they all effectively the same animal? That kinda thang. :)

What about non-religious ‘rituals’?

Women, on average, are considerably physically weaker than men and shorter than men. These physical factors are quite a difference (ie. A man can potentially kill with a few blows whereas a woman has very little chance of doing so in comparison).

Other than that the psychological differences that are most widely known (by anyone who has studied an ounce of psychology) is from the Big Five psychological traits. Women are higher in ‘Neuroticism’ and ‘Agreeableness’. Men are more likely to be aggressive too and the chance of someone with extremely high/low IQ being male is higher than them being female (this later ‘fact’ is not exactly hard cast though but the evidence available does appear to point to this).

Also, some homosexual women are more masculine than feminine and some homosexual men are more feminine than masculine … what I am curious about is whether or not there is any connection between more ‘feminine’/‘masculine’ psychological traits and sexual prefer and/or ‘gender identity’?

If most people were to make a guess I assume they would expect homosexual men to be some degree more likely to exhibit psychological trait patterning associated with women, or that transgender people (not on any hormonal treatment) would also lean, psychologically speaking, toward their ‘gender identity’. Such things may just be too difficult to assess atm though given that psychological studies require huge data sets over a pretty large time period.

One thing is for sure atm. There are people out there (a minority on both ‘sides’) that are actively - yet maybe unconsciously) doing nothing much more than hindering progression and understanding by using the subject as a means to propel other ideas/feelings.

They have numerous things in common. So what?

Sex is biological. Many people have used gender and sex synonymously for decades.

I do believe sexual preferences can change simply because my attraction to people has changed. At the same time it seems kind of obvious to me that we are born with certain sexual preferences.

I do not think there is much to understand. Some people are different to others so they are often treated different due to ignorance. The political movement is an attempt to right wrongs but as with any political movement there is greed for power and a certain stirring of ‘us against them’ internally and externally.

Deleted post (got confused between who posted what!)

@Tate Not completely related but think you will enjoy. Sapolsky is a brilliant speaker (thanks for reminding me he exists):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vspqIbrzGXU

This is backwards. Women are the ones who select mates above men. Again, this is well known.

Compared to most other apes this is pretty common knowledge. It is not just me saying it.

Sapolsky refers to humans as ‘the confused ape’ because we are not one thing or another. We are ape-like in some ways but not in many others.

Probably because males are not that much strong (nor different) from women compared to other apes.

In my sin bin for a month. Bye bye.

You will get no response from me again until mid-October.

An empirical claim is a philosophical claim nitwit.

Your OP is fine. Ignore those looking to smear you rather than offer any kind of constructive criticism.

‘Religious believers’ do not deserve any kind of special respect above others.

It is a fairly reasonable point. Seeing a woman wearing a trouser suit is not exactly ‘confusing’ to any kids imo.

The whole ‘gender’ narrative atm is simply about a minority of people being heard. It will undoubtedly tip over the edge but that is just the how complex society calibrates.

You are right about Japan. In more extreme ‘liberal’ eyes there is little to admire compared to western cultures when it comes to individual freedom. Perhaps it is their different attitudes to sex that makes them appear more ‘liberal’ to some?

If a major concern of yours is the roles of men and women in modern society then I would say that is more than justified … I just do not see this having that much to do with gay or trans activists though. The main problem is societies adjusting to the liberation of women and with how women are perceived or how they believe they should be perceived among themselves and in relation to men too.

It does not take a great deal of delving into history to see how women have often been sidelined by men. A lot of it is mostly about being respected and valued. A problem I have observed from afar (referring to the US) is the problem of equating monetary success with personal value.

A number of feminists are against other types of feminists because they believe that their namesakes are actually anti-feminism because instead of being strong women they replicate what is masculine and dismiss their feminine qualities (the whole shoulder pad fashions of the 80’s are an example of women ‘masculising’ themselves and competing with men on male terms). I do not think women should not be more masculine though, but there is something to be said for the assumption that ALL women should or can be like this … it is still in the early stages though.

So your concern is that people will not be as white? Not quite sure how that ties into cultural traditions at all tbh.

Personally I am expecting the very idea of ‘nation’ and ‘patriotism’ to slowly erode into the next century. I think we’re entering something similar to what Nietzsche talked about with “God is dead” but we’re now facing “The Nation is dead” problem … it is just that many cannot see it yet and those that can have no idea what will happen once it takes a firm hold.

Why are you lumping Brasil and the US together? They share little in common other than Brasil having a much more tarnished history in terms of slavery.

Note: Every country has quotas and standards for immigrants.

One of the most sensible and effective ways to do this would be by example though. Can we really do away with people we look up to and if we can what effect would this have?

I guess we’ll have to wait for their reply.

I think they may be asking more than saying. As in what kind of ‘model’ person should liberal people look to for inspiration? What kind of values are they to view as worthwhile?

Eg. To be married and have children, to be an independent woman, to be transgender and of some ethnic minority? Who are the guardians that should be admired when there is more and more attempts to literally rewrite history out of pure ignorance driven by nothing more than a political agenda to ‘appear’ to be doing ‘the right thing’.

Maybe that is kind of the point being made? That is the impression I have anyway. I think it is an interesting perspective to view the extremities of liberal views today to be engrossed in the removal of ‘role models’ be they currently living or long dead.

Manipulation and misinformation are ubiquitous across all political colours (in public circles likely more so due to wilful ignorance).

His question was hidden but it is fairly clear.

He proposed the idea that today ‘liberalism’ is about ‘getting rid of role models’.

Ironically ‘pluralism’ means many different things and has bee used in almost stark opposition to itself by various different philosophers :D I think the version I liked was espoused by I. Berlin? Who are you referring to when you say ‘pluralism’? Who was the main man when you were schooled?

Please dro- a few names if you can and maybe I will spot the one I found most intriguing. Thanks :)

This is actually false. There are plenty of accounts of people ‘going to hell’ then when they recover from their ‘brain death’ they try and turn their life around.

In physical terms I believe it is ‘just’ DMT being released in the brain somehow - triggered by extreme stress maybe. In such states something very significant happens. I have had a certain ‘state’ and it is very much a transformative experience and sadly something that cannot be put into words.

I think in this century we may make some headway into understanding and harnessing the potential benefits of such experiences. There is already more and more studies into psychedelics after decades and decades of irrational dogma and fearmongering.

My point was that is was not a definition of liberalism at all because ‘liberal’ views are still a loosely defined set of rules. I see it as closer to a definition of any human society (even if they ‘handle’ conflicts via genocide or forcing an exodus).

Liberalism does not own the idea of handling conflict at all. It is just a loose set of ideas that can be applied to address human conflict (which is as inevitable as death itself) and conservatism is another loose set of ideas that can be applied to address human conflict, as is fascism or anarchism.

I personally believe that any system looking to eradicate human conflict will essential cause untold destruction to the point where if it continued human society would effectively disappear (be this via evolutionary adaptation or complete annihilation).

We are currently nowhere near having any kind of testable hypothesis for a multiverse. As a scientific idea it is one that may or may not be true and whether or not it is true it may or may not be useful to us.

I remember reading several years ago that hypothetically if we used all the nuclear weapons on Earth it was possible to open up a wormhole large enough to fit a spacecraft in … the major difference with that compared to the ‘multiverse’ is that we could actually test this and get a result.

There are numerous bizarre ideas from physicists because they are basically paid to think outside the box for a living. The ideas we ‘accept’ now are no less weirder (ie. Quantum stuff).

There are a few cases where patients have been declared ‘Brain Dead’ then made a full recovery. Whether they were actually brain dead, or it was a mistake by the hospital, is pretty darn hard to determine.

The is an extraordinary thing so maybe what we class as brain dead is not really the same as someone being dead. I do not see how anyone has the authority to state that no one declared brain dead recovers when this has actually happened.

One goal in "liberal" societies is to manage conflict. Better that than stoking conflict. A lot of what people call "political correctness" are just blandishments aimed at conflict reduction, and the illusion--if not the fact--that since we are all equal, there is no need for conflict. — Bitter Crank

That is a true extreme liberal idea planted in there ;P We are most certainly NOT all equal :D

All societies handle conflict. That is probably a damn good definition of what a ‘society’ is … a group of peoples with various opinions and views that actively handle conflicts within their body and at their borders.

Undoubtedly the term ‘liberal’ has gone through various revamping movements and will likely keep shifting around. A libertine is liberal, yet it is a different sort of liberal that many would shun. Just like any label it can be spun one way or another to suit those wishing to twist their point home without having to navigate through a rational argument.

My impression is that in the US ‘liberal’ (in terms of politicians) basically means slightly right of centre to anyone from Europe.

There is an interesting point in here. I think there is something too the idea of people wanting to do away with ‘role models’ and such.

Is this primarily a ‘liberal’ view. I would say it is likely more extreme ‘leftism’ and that is simply due to a stronger dissatisfaction with ‘tradition’ at large. That said, I do not see this as the primary force of any mainstream leftist agenda.

The whole ‘left versus right’ thing is overall a pull between the status quo versus change. In the US my impression is that the governing bodies are all to the right side of the spectrum (compared to anything in Europe) so maybe this has produced more hard leaning leftist views coming to the fore in the US?

(Note: just speculating as I have never visited the US and only have secondhand sources and commentators who have voiced something along these lines).

I would not call the royals (or other equivalents) as being ‘role models’. They are more or less icons of an idea. The idea that there can be someone to look up to and that this is true for everyone at all levels of society. Stephen Fry has commented that there is something intrinsically humbling about the tradition of the Prime Minister having to mean the head of the monarchy every week to state their intentions for the country. The monarch does have power but they never ever use it politically and act as a kind of living icon that the true leader of the country must bow before and humble themselves (something good for any leader imo).

One thing I think has been a large item in my generation is the decline of marriage. I myself from a young age found the whole thing silly and pointless. I viewed it as a sign of insecurity when people wished to find a bride/groom. I still think such a single-minded attitude to life is weird BUT I have no real issue with marriage as it is just a celebration of a loving relationship and for various legal reasons can be practical too. Another major change in my generation is people choosing not to have children. This is apparently a common feature of any civilisation that has wealth. The birthrate goes down as living standards go up. For me personally I find the repugnance some people express at the idea of having children as repugnant as they do at having children … this puzzles me a lot. Even when I didn’t want to have children I never shunned the idea or winced in disgust at the idea. I think there is something inherently wrong with people who find the idea of having children to be repugnant but have I have ill views of those that simply choose not to.

Has anyone else experienced this view on the increase? The visible facial expression of disgust at the thought of being a parent? I wonder how much of this is due to extreme feminism actively seeking to besmirch would-be-mothers and calling them ‘anti-feminist’ because they wish to raise children rather than pursue a career.

I guess this current social complication is not a massive surprise given that women in the workplace is a relatively recent thing and differing societies around the world are muddling through this change as bets they can.

I have pretty much declared something quite similar and went into depth on this subject elsewhere. I came at it from the perspective of the ‘Hypothetical’.

My point in that thread (many years ago) was that we seem to abstain from responsibility in favour of cold rationalisation. To reduce a difficult question to a logical one, in many cases, to refuse to take direct responsibility.

The example I gave of this was the Trolley Problem where some people would side with calculating the numbers and justifying their potential action based on this. The flip side is people flat out refusing to answer any Hypothetical viewing the whole exercise as fruitless. The former resists emotional input in favour of a cold and detached mathematical view whilst the latter resists any form of response eager to resist any ill thoughts that may occur during a serious contemplation of the Hypothetical.

(See first couple of threads I made since joining).

What I mean is that thinking of the ethical aspects of philosophy, as consequences in real life, is important. It runs alongside understanding of ideas as explanations for the nature of causation and processes. — Jack Cummins

I will attempt to translate the above.

What I mean is that ethics is important. It runs alongside our general rational understanding of the world.

To which my response would be … demonstrate this to me please. If my translation is off you need to try again. ‘Ethical aspects of philosophy’ IS ethics. There is no need to then add on ‘consequences in real life’ because ethics is precisely about this.

I guess that thinking about the impact of ideas and philosophy is part of the same process as evaluating truth of ideas rationally, as the ethical dimension. — Jack Cummins

That one.

This sentence looks like word salad to me. I think you have not found then correct words to ask your question or that you are using these words in a very ambiguous way.

Yes.

Not much more to add. Sorry.

I’ve met numerous people who have a degree and cannot write a paragraph. Writing, like reading, is an extremely difficult skill to master. For some reason too many people think education stops once you leave school without realising that ‘schooling’ is simply the first step on the never ending road of learning to teach yourself.

Maybe your brother’s point was that you talk and talk and end up saying ‘nonsense’ as you put it. In that respect I would be inclined to agree that the ‘humanities’ (or at least vast sections of it) are often counterproductive in academia … I guess if some fruit still drops from the ‘humanities’ though it is a worthy field.

An example of exasperation would be someone reading your first sentence there and just automatically switching off. Start simple and then build up to more condensed sentences.

Note: My own writing style is not exacting concise! :D

My personal ‘belief’ here is that we are all already dead (just like everyone else before and after us) and that we are all ‘immortal’ too.

In short, I am not entirely convinced that the human perspective has that much meaning. That our appreciation of space-time is facile, yet it is an intrinsic element of our grounding as ‘existing’ entities … whatever that means! :D

Maybe there is some comfort in this, but really it is not much of a comfort at all stating that we are effectively too ignorant to know or acknowledge anything of ‘consequence’ … as ‘consequence’ is no more than a temporal shortsightedness.

I often say to people “think about all the people around you right now, about all the people around the world … they are ALL going to die.” Have that thought to yourself right now in the privation of your head. Is it ‘scary,’ ’liberating,’ ‘threatening,’ ‘confusing’ or something else entirely. Either way it is true, and usually you will experience a bizarre transition through several different attitudes that I find kind of interesting.

It is a different way of thinking about truth' from the quest for validity and accuracy of knowledge, which is often valued as the measure by which philosophy is measured. — Jack Cummins

No it isn’t. Philosophising about philosophy is still philosophy. Evaluating some proposed body of ‘philosophical work’ can be done from multiple parallel perspectives (artistically, historically, scientific, psychologically, etc.,.) often, if not always, in some admixture of these lenses of focus.

The horizon always appears as a flat, one-dimensional line but the closer you edge towards it you become aware of the reality … the ‘line’ is as broad as your entire world. Nevertheless we require some form of delineation and a place to anchor ourselves or everythinf is just one big grey and formless mush.