Yeah, but none of that was related to Ukraine. PayPal's actions (allegedly) were. Are we going to talk about Hungarian bath houses again now?

I don't know what you're talking about. — frank

Are you having trouble with the difference between how things are and how things ought to be?

Laws and constitutional amendments are the mechanisms for cementing the will of the people.

Roe comes from an era when it was thought that judges should take it upon themselves to make social changes that havent been arrived at democratically. Times have changed. — frank

Ah, again, you're mistaking me for someone in search of a history lesson. I had thought I'd made the distinction quite clear, but evidently still not clear enough. I'll try again.

If I wanted to understand either the historical or legal facts about the case, I would seek out the opinion of an expert. There are countless books and journals on the subject, its a matter of supreme ease to find a wealth of such information just from my armchair, let alone a short trip to the university library.

What I'm enquiring about here is how (if we agree with the process) we might morally justify it.

True. I was more thinking of the role of things like constitutions and the Declaration of Human Rights than autocrats though. In my mind, their moral standing is essentially "yes, we believe in autonomy and good people should make good choices, but...in case we fuck the next generation up so much that they don't, here's all the best bits of what we've worked out, committed to immutable law".

It's insurance in case the next generation turn out to be monsters.

That's what Roe was. Insurance against the possibility that future generations saw fit to deny those rights - not by virtue of them merely disagreeing (that would be opposed to ordinary respect for autonomy), but by virtue of the previous generation having failed to bring them up to be sufficiently moral human beings to have their preferences respected.

Yeah, in Rwanda, children are forced into the military, so I guess that makes forcing them into mere child labour in India OK then?

Typically moronic response.

If suppressing the free press is bad, then suppressing the free press is bad. It doesn't become not bad because someone else's methods are more extreme.

If you discover that you were born with a genius for manipulating people, I advise that you don't use it at all because if you think you have the wisdom to use it, you are almost certainly wrong. — frank

I was more thinking of the ordinary, everyday influence, just trying to come at it using an extreme example. Parents influence the kinds of people their children grow up to be. Popular cultural movements influence the kinds of people teenagers become... That sort of thing.

If you agree such influence exists, then there might be some responsibility on one generation to guard against the moral failure of the succeeding generations on the off chance they may have themselves failed to raise the sort of people they'd hoped to raise.

In a sense, that's the moral ground in which I think anti-democratic, but moral, legislation might stand.

Could you make this question a little more explicit? — frank

Sure. Do you think that we have responsibility for our effects on the personality and beliefs of others? (Or alternatively, I suppose, are you of the view that no such effect is possible?)

If the answer is yes, how do you think we should exercise that responsibility?

Say, if I, through my God awful parenting, produced an absolute monster, do I just let them loose on society at 18 and wash my hands of them (respect their "Freedom to decide" as you put it)? Or do I have some responsibility to act as some restrainer of their excess?

OK, thanks.

If I were responsible (evil meddling psychologist that I am) for creating a platoon of ruthless assassins by behavioural programming, Jason Bourne style, do you think I'd have some responsibility for the actions of the resulting unit, and how ought I exercise that responsibility?

Numerous reasons. That's a historical, cultural, and psychological question. — frank

Again...

To be clear -

How and why things are the way they are: A matter for experts - if I want to know I'll read a book.

What people think about how things ought to be: Not a matter for experts, if I want to know I have to just ask people. — Isaac

I'm asking you what your reasons are (if you have any). I'm not asking for a brief history of American culture, I have a library for that job.

Politics isn't some game of sports where the only thing that matter is one's team "winning" for the sake of being the winner. — Michael

Exactly. We have a set of goals, only one of which is giving people a say in how their communities are run.

To be truly devoted to democracy means you can allow the people to make mistakes (Donald Trump). — frank

So why (the devotion)? That's the question I was asking. Or, to put it another way...

You don't abandon the system just because it handed you a defeat, or because someone managed to subvert it. — frank

Why not?

Was there a point you were trying to make? Or did you just want a window on my psyche? — frank

Mostly the latter. The point, such as it is, was that if one advocates democratic rule because they consider it a moral 'good', then there's a conflict when that democracy results in something which they consider a moral 'bad'. Unless, of course, a person has no moral goods other than promoting democracy.

No. I'm asking why you think it ought to be? — Isaac


There's no reason they ought to be devoted — frank

Re-read, please.

Generally speaking, Americans have a deep seated devotion to democracy. Are you asking why that is? — frank

No. I'm asking why you think it ought to be?

To be clear -

How and why things are the way they are: A matter for experts - if I want to know I'll read a book.

What people think about how things ought to be: Not a matter for experts, if I want to know I have to just ask people.

The "should" comes from a particular community's commitment to democracy. It's not for everyone. — frank

What I mean is that you think we should follow democratic decisions, yes? Or are you just telling us how democracy works?

In a democracy, the majority (with temperance provided by various mechanisms) rules. — frank

But why should they? Presumably, because people deciding for themselves how they want to run their communities is a 'good' thing? So if they make a decision, in doing so, that is a 'bad' thing, it's something of an own goal, no?

Yay. More of that amazing press freedom the West is so famous for...

https://jacobinmag.com/2022/05/paypal-independent-media-journalism-censorship-tech/

Over the past week, PayPal canceled without explanation the accounts of two prominent independent news outlets. It escaped notice by the mainstream press, which spent the weekend congratulating itself over the freedom to criticize the powerful.

senior staff writer Alan MacLeod having his personal account canceled at the same time. PayPal told him it had detected “activity in your account that’s inconsistent with our User Agreement,” something he calls “patently absurd” because the last time he had used PayPal was to buy a £5 Christmas gift in December.

That'll teach those freedom-hating Ruskies how do do it!

The state caused much of the poverty, and the state caused all of the wars. It was the Inclosure Acts in England that forced people into the hands of the factory owners, for example. Having their property taken from them by the State, it was either work in the factories or starve to death. — NOS4A2

The problem here is historicism. You agreed there never has been any properly state-free system, so all you can show is that when the state are the most powerful weapon around, the rich use them to further their goals. If the state were not around, the rich would simply use the next most powerful weapon available (private armies, monopolising essential goods, private taxation etc), which may well be worse.

I think the problem is not the end goal, but the means. I'm on board with the whole individual freedom thing, perhaps more than most here. I raised both my children without any rules at all, they were not required to go to school, attend lessons, no bedtimes, nowhere out of bounds etc... I take individual freedom very seriously. But the fact is that we are where we are. Individuals have not been brought up with any idea of responsibility, repressed, beaten, and stupefied. We have a disgusting level of inequality, in both power and wealth, we have massive problems with pretty much all of our communal resources, most of which have been caused by the ones who are now rich getting themselves that way.

So if we want our anarchist utopia, how do we get there from here? Government backing out of economics seems like a terrible first step. It's just going to magnify the inequality and worsen the problems with communal resource management because nothing has been done about the system of power relations that exist as a result of living in a non-anarchist system for ten thousand years or so. You can't just undo that kind of damage by walking away. Certainly not by just walking away in one aspect (economy).

Do I not have the right to choose who works for me? — Michael

In many cases, you don't because you do not have the right to refuse employment to someone on the grounds of race, sexual orientation, religion, or any other of a number of protected characteristics. The point, with regards to terminating employment on the grounds of voiced opinion, cannot be argued on the basis of a purported freedom to employ and fire whomever one feels so inclined to employ/fire without also asserting that such legislation ought be revoked.

We already restrict who an employer can refuse to hire (or fire) to protect potential employees from unfair discrimination, at least some of which are opinions (religion, for example) not only unavoidable characteristics like race.

So if we've already conceded that people's holding, and legitimate voicing, of certain opinions can be a protected characteristic in equality law, then the only outstanding matter is that of which opinions ought to benefit from such protection - ie which opinions is it considered legitimate to hold (in opposition to your employer, such that they are prevented from using them against your employment) and which it is not.

Specifically on the question of firing people for expressing certain opinions, then, the argument is over whether a new opinion ought be part of the list of protected opinions, or whether an existing protected opinion really ought not be on the list.

As with all such arguments, yours is flawed by a fundamental contradiction over the management of communal resources. If you posit that communal resources will be managed sustainably because people are fundamentally moral, then you've no legitimate concern about government (the people constituting it will not "steal" anything since to do so would be immoral).

In order to collectively manage communal resources, we can rely, either on using collective power to force solutions onto all users, or we can rely on the goodwill of all users to voluntarily engage in fair use.

If you assume the latter is possible, then you've nothing to fear from government since they will, by their goodwill, voluntarily use the power they have only in a fair way.

If you don't assume goodwill, then you clearly need some other mechanism for the fair collective management of communal resources.

So what mechanism do you propose which does not rely on goodwill?

All of which is to say the you have a strong narrative you seem quite convinced of. It seems well researched and knowledgeable (though I wouldn't really know).

Anyone thinking it's therefore the only possible narrative is either struggling with their ego or their imagination.

No one need think of a counterfactual. If I'm repeatedly punching you in the face and you ask me to stop, it is not a reasonable counter-argument for me to say "well, what exactly do you think should happen instead?"

The fact that American (and European) institutions are making millions out of the prolonging of this war and the ensuing reconstruction loans is disgusting and ought to stop. I don't need to think of what should be done instead in order to make that point. I imagine that what should be done is one of the literally dozens of other strategies that other experts are considering, which is why there's not one united opinion about everything.

Again, I'm struggling to see what people don't understand about this. If my tailor makes a suit I don't like, I ask him to make a better one, he doesn't say "well, you make it then!" Our governments and institutions are enacting a plan I don't like (for what should be blindingly obvious reasons - profiting from war and misery is disgraceful). So I say I don't like it. I don't expect to have to come up with the alternative myself, that's not my job.

Some argue that they've come up with the only strategy that will work and so I should not complain, but that doesn't follow at all. I can't possibly know if they've come up with the only strategy possible (as previously explained, it's not my job), so I can either trust them (and keep quiet), or tell them I don't like it. The latter is obviously the better course of action in the circumstances (they neither deserve, nor have earned my trust and erring on the side of caution as well as past evidence seems reasonable).

What I'm interested in here is why everybody has taken this (to me) completely absurd line of simply assuming everything the government says and does is, this time, completely sensible and the only good choice, despite the fact that we've been subjected to exactly the same media manipulation, lies, and blatant profiteering that has been the hallmark of literally all the other occasions when corporation and governments have screwed the working class to further engorge themselves. We're living in the wreckage of capitalism's nightmare on a world rapidly becoming uninhabitable as a result of this exact level of profiteering, and yet there's still a crowd of flag-waivers cheering them on. Baffling.

How many times do I need to explain it to you? — Michael

There's little point in us continuing if the only relationship you're going to allow is one where you explain things to me. I'm not here for a lecture.

We cannot impose an electrical charge just by deciding to count something as an electrical charge, but we can impose the office of the Presidency just by deciding what we will count as becoming President, and then making those people President who meet the conditions we have decided on. — The Construction of Social Reality, Searle quoted in Michael's post — Cuthbert

This is exactly the problem.

We can impose an electrical charge just by deciding to count something as an electrical charge, that's exactly how electrical charges are distinguished from other properties - by deciding to distinguish them. (Note this is before we even give what we distinguished a name, hence use-mention distinction doesn't even enter the story).

Also, if we are not going to ignore use-mention distinctions, then it's simply not true that "we can impose the office of the Presidency just by deciding what we will count as becoming President". If we decide that having red hair determines who is president and the office involves no power at all, but is just a typing position in the office, then we're no longer talking about the president (use), we're talking about a secretary (use) which we've decided now to call "president" (mention).

It already has done a world of good. As noted above, the most likely outcome of witholding all aid would have been a Mariupol/Grozny style meat grinder in two vastly larger cities. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Classic. "It's already definitely done loads of good because it's prevented the thing I just completely made up would have happened if we hadn't done it"

I don't see anything here that is not in keeping with (what I understand as) Searle's analysis. — Banno

Well that may well be on me. My understanding of Searle is in your hands right now. My understanding of how facts arise is much broader and mostly derived from other sources. I'm just trying to apply the latter to the former.

There are ambiguities to be sorted out here, but I'm not convinced that it's worth the effort. — Banno

Well, don't let me keep you, if you're busy!

So there is a sense in which the assertion "that is a tree" is simultaneously, in virtue of it's using English, the declarative "We will divide the world up such that 'tree' counts as a reference".

I don't see this as problematic. — Banno

Well good. I thought it might be, on account of the division made between declarative and assertive statements. It seemed that the fact that all assertive statements are also declarative might have been a problem for the scheme, but if there's no problem with one category being wholly within another then sure. No problem.

Notice that if you are using the locution "This is a 'tree'" , then you are indeed mentioning the word "tree" and not using it - as can be seen by the quote marks. — Banno

Indeed, but the same would be true of any continued use of the word. "I'll meet you behind that tree" serves the same function when I go to what I think of as a tree and find you there - "great, our model of trees seems to be consistent still". If, however, I find you behind what I thought was just a shrub, or worse a herb, ...

The number of protons an element has determines what is or isn't iron, and the number of protons an element has isn't a human institution. — Michael

Of course it is. Same as the elements. What counts as a proton is determined by a human institution; if we ever find a fourth quark, we'll have to decide whether its presence makes a proton not a proton anymore and iron (yes even 'the-substance-we-currently-refer-to-with-the-word-"iron") may have 27 protons.

"Ah but the-thing-we-currently-refer-to-as-a-proton will always have three quarks" - again, not if we change what counts as a quark.

"Ah but the-thing-we-currently-refer-to with-the-word-'quark' will always measure X on the quark-o-meter" (my knowledge of physics is breaking down - can you tell?) - again, not if the responsible institutions change what counts as a measurement on the quark-o-meter...

Do I need to go on? At its base all facts are institutional facts, because all facts are built from classifications which are done by human institutions (language, science, culture). Absent those classifications, there's just stuff and happenings.

Joe Biden doesn't stop being President of the United States if he changes his name. — Michael

No, but he does if we change what it means to hold that office.

That stone (A) is a bishop (B).

That rock (A) is iron (B).

Joe Biden (A) is the president (B).

In all cases, A counting as B is contingent on the human activity of how we count things as cases of B.

With bishops it's using them as such in a chess game, with iron it's classifying elements by proton number, with presidents is assigning office on the basis of votes.

Your example of Joe Biden changing his name would be the equivalent of us no longer referring to 'that stone' or 'that rock', changes in our A component, not our B component. We're talking about claims of the form "A is B" and whether they are always dependent on the human activity of classifying B.

that a stone is a bishop — Michael

What constitutes being a bishop? If I said "that stone is a bishop" and then preceded to use it as a rook, would you assume the rules of chess had changed, or would you say "it's not a bishop, it's a rook"?

We can collaboratively agree that "that stone is a bishop", but it's contingent on the human activity of it being used that way. The moment it isn't, its status as 'a bishop' is called into question, no matter what I say.

Likewise with "that stone is iron", it's contingent on the human activity of us classifying elements by their proton number. The moment we stop doing that, its status as iron is called into question.

You can say "but it will still have 26 protons no matter what we call it", but the claim in question was not "that stone has 26 protons", the claim was "that stone is iron".

And if the claim were "that stone has 26 protons" (with 'iron' just standing in for [something with 26 protons]), then, as points out, it would still be contingent on the human activity of classifying subatomic particles by their mass, charge etc.

what, if anything, do you think is here in contrast to what Searle has said, or to my view? — Banno

I think it's at the interface of assertive and declarative speech acts. You say (if you'll excuse the paraphrasing)...

These (human-christened) statements are true. Yet they are true not in virtue of a "state of affairs" in the world; they are not true for the sort of reasons that some 'factual' statements) are true. — Banno

Yet it seems to me that those statements are true for the very same sort of reason (not the actual same reason).
"The bishop is made of wood" is declarative "this (the bishop) is the sort of thing 'wood' is" It's the continued use of these speech acts which creates the institutional class 'wood'. At lot of these things also have scientific bodies who act as authorities for the definitions, but these are post hoc, the definition preceded their attempts to codify it.

"Game" might be easier, and more familiar an example. There's a class of objects {games} such that it can be seen as a world-to-word fit (assertive) to say "Monopoly is a game". But the membership criteria for {game} is created ad hoc by the very repeated use of expressions like "Monopoly is a game".

I think, maybe, we'd agree about 'game' but disagree about 'wood'? So I suppose the relevance of active inference and 'spooky' QM is to explain why I would think the same of 'wood' and you and I both might think of 'game'. That we create, by interaction, models of our environment, and, more importantly here, social methods to keep our models similar to each others. One of those social methods is the institution of naming and grammar.

To say "that's a tree" is jointly a mere assertion, but also a method by which I keep my model of what-sort-of-thing-a-tree-is similar enough to your model of what-sort-of-thing-a-tree-is that we can get along and do stuff cooperatively (such as harvest apples from the tree), and so in that sense it's a word-to-world fit because other models were possible, but I want yours similar to mine and you want mine similar to yours - we have a mutual interest in each other's model.

I'm saying that the things we refer to by the word "iron" have 26 protons — Michael

We refer to all things with 26 protons as "iron", so in your proposition {the things we refer to by the word "iron"} is tautologous with {all things with 26 protons} so by substitution, your proposition is the things we refer to by the word "iron" all things with 26 protons have 26 protons. True, but trivially true. It doesn't tell us anything non tautological. The non-trivial fact in this is the we choose proton number to group elements where we could have chosen otherwise, and had we chosen otherwise "iron" would not even exist. As such iron (the class of metals, not the word "iron") is a human institutional fact, we declared that there shall be a class, determined by proton number, even before we named it "iron", the class itself (the thing being named) did not exist prior to our declaring it to.

When I use the word "iron" I might be referring to members of a class, but I nonetheless am referring to the members of the class, not the class. — Michael

I don't see how, you'd say "some iron", or "an example of iron", or "that iron". You'd have to indicate in some way the actual member other than by the word "iron", the word alone is insufficient to identify the object entirely because it identifies only a class of objects. You could say "this object" (pointing) has 26 protons, but that's just a matter of belief based of trust in the institution that told you it was iron and told you all iron has 26 protons - it's not as if you looked. You're trusting (quite rightly) the human institutions behind that classification and naming process. If, on some weird science day the object, on investigation, turns out to have 26-and-a-half protons, something we'd previously thought impossible, we have to make an institutional decision as to whether it was iron, or not. up to that point, it's just 'stuff'. Once made, "all iron has 26 protons" is no longer true, not by virtue of us changing to what we apply the word "iron", but by us changing what iron is as a class (it now includes substances with 26-and-a-half protons, substances which didn't previously even have a class name).

It was for this reason that Ramsey was inclined to say (a little tongue in cheek) that there are no facts, only events. A fairly extreme position on the status of universals, but one I've a lot of sympathy with.

I think you can both be right, — Xtrix

The realism discussion is one side saying it's word-to-world, while the other insists it is world-to-word; and they are both correct. — Banno

I think if we accept classes as human inventions, then the 'correctness' of a word-to-world fit depends largely on how existent the properties upon which the classes are founded actually are.

Say I could divide my book collection by author, by title or by publication year. I decide on author and create the class {all books by Wittgenstein}. The class is my invention, but its still a world-to-word fit because all the books are authored by someone and those in my class are authored by Wittgenstein.

But say I choose to divide my book collection by 'feel' and I create the class {books that make me feel happy}. Now we're perhaps a little more leery of saying this is a world-to-word fit, after all, how would we know that a book's being in the class {books that make me happy} isn't itself a reason why that book might make me happy (priming effect). We might be moving to a word-to-world fit.

So essentially, I see the problem as one of deciding to what extent our divvying up of the world affects the way we perceive potential members of sets - the extent to which the existence of the sets themselves has any determining influence over the decision about what objects are members of it. This problem, I think, goes all the way from active inference in perception (within my wheelhouse), to all the 'spooky' stuff in QM (none of which I understand, other than to know it's not a simple matter to say "this electron is...")

A model is not the real thing. — Harry Hindu

Nor am I suggesting it is, but I can build a model of a car out of cars. these four cars represent the wheels, these two cars are the doors, this car is the engine...and so on. There's no problem with building a model using that which is being modelled.

that iron has 26 protons isn't a human decision. — Michael

Of course it is. That anything has 26 protons is a human decision. That we even bother looking at, let a lone counting the number of protons is a human decision. Iron doesn't even exist but for a human decision to group all things with 26 protons into one group. Otherwise there's just stuff.

Iron is a class of objects, not an object. Classes are human inventions with human criteria and humans bring them into existence by declaration, they neither exist nor have properties without humans.

The criteria that qualifies something as gold (as the word "gold" is currently understood) is criteria that has nothing to do with human institutions and everything to do with its chemical composition. — Michael

...because a human institution decided so.

I'm addressing Isaac's non sequitur. I claimed that we can't turn lead into gold by decree. He responded by saying that we can change the meaning of "gold" such that it refers to what we currently mean by "lead". But that has nothing to do with what I mean when I said that we can't turn lead into gold. I'm not saying that we can't use the word "gold" to refer to lead; I'm saying that we can't change the chemical composition of lead to that of gold by declaring it to be different or by changing the meaning of a word. — Michael

I addressed this. The christening changes some of the properties of the object but not others. Christening a particular stone 'a bishop' changes some of its properties (the way we treat it) but not others (how heavy it is). Christening some things 'gold' changes some of its properties (the way we treat it) but not others (how heavy it is).

You're still not acknowledging the questionable status of universals and as such begging the question. I'm talking about cheese, not 'cheese'. Gold, not 'gold'. These universals are brought into being by our definition of them. They don't otherwise exist as anything more than a potential (some distinctions among an almost infinite choice of distinctions).

That human institutions determine the meaning of the words "lead" and "gold" isn't that human institutions determine whether or not lead is gold. — Michael

But that's exactly what it does. One piece of gold differs from another in some ways but is similar in others, right? We decide what differences we're going to ignore and what similarities we're going to focus on when we decide to group some similar objects together and give them all the same name. If we change what it is we focus on, we change lead to gold, in no lesser way.

There's not two 'gold's (the name and the real substance), the name is all there is. Beyond that it's just a more or less heterogeneous soup of stuff.

If we decide to change the definition of gold, then the ring in front of me ceases to be called 'gold' but it retains some of it's properties (same number of protons, same hardness...). Not all of them though. It can no longer be traded on the gold exchange. It will no longer be placed under the heading 'gold rings' in the jewellers. It will no longer be sought after by dragons in Norse mythology.

Likewise, if I say of this stone "it's a Bishop" it retains some of it's properties (still silicate, still heavy), but other of it's properties change (moving it a certain way will result in my chess-playing companion losing his Queen).

In each case declaring "this stuff is X" has left many properties of the stuff intact (mostly the physical ones) and changed others (mostly how it is treated in our communities).

You're trying to make a change of type out of a change of scale.

Declaring an object to be a 'bishop' leaves all it's physical properties intact (but we weren't bothered about those) and changes how we treat it (very significantly).

Declaring some stuff to be 'gold' leaves all it's physical properties intact (and we are, this time very bothered about those) and changes how we treat it (but this time in only a very minor way - mostly we treat it according to its physical properties).

No difference in type has been shown, both leave some properties intact and change others. All that's different is how bothered we are for which changes have been effected.

it's not a bishop by virtue of its innate characteristics. — Michael

Exactly. Neither is gold 'gold' by virtue of its innate properties. It's 'gold' by virtue of some of its innate properties matching the criteria we decided for what constitutes 'gold'.

We decided all matter with 79 protons shall be 'gold'.

As it is with the bishop we decided all objects moved only diagonally on a chess board in the game of chess shall be 'bishops'

We don't need the piece to be on the board. We could just have a piece of paper attached to the piece and write the position on it. — Michael

Only if our definition of "bishop" allows such a move. Not if it doesn't. Our definition of 'gold' is highly specific and doesn't allow for leeway, our definition of 'bishop' is wide and so does allow a lot of leeway. This makes them of different scale, not if different type.

We could not claim an amorphous gas was a bishop, it's physical properties mean it cannot carry out the function of one.