Horses live in harems with a dominant male that kills all the male foals until he becomes too weak. But humans can and do make conscious choices and arrive at wildly diverging arrangements of their societies. I'd prefer you didn't imply I hold opinions that I don't hold. Patriarchy is more common than matriarchy in humans but it is not universal, and therefore not biologically determined.

I wanted to know if the general thought here was that hierarchy is artificially instantiated. — AmadeusD

No the thought was more particular than that. Hierarchies are naturally occurring in many species, with nothing I can see of artifice or artificiality. That is uncontroversial. But they only happen in socially cooperating species. That sometimes gets neglected.

You're not lacking an excess of negatives there.

Most people, most of the time will do what they are told. This is right and proper and the necessary foundation of civil society. We stop at red lights, obey the highway code, shut the gate in the countryside, pay for stuff we want from the supermarket, pass the salt at the dinner table and so on. Tyrants and other criminals take advantage of our amenability and it is unfortunately necessary to be vigilant against such exploitation, both on one's own behalf and that of one's neighbour.

It should, however, be obvious that tyranny and oppression can only come into being as parasitic on such a pro-social basic tendency; prey does not cooperate with predator. What the tyrant does not understand is that the chief belongs to the tribe equally as much as his servant does. The hierarchy is efficient only when it is superficial, and interests are not divided by it.

The suggestion is to form an orderly queue
— unenlightened
"An orderly queue" for what? Dying? To be executed? — baker

It is really rather tedious to have to explain one's creative use of idioms, but at the second quote from you of the same phrase: it is a cliche of British English used in many ways ...

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/02/06/forming-an-orderly-queue

... for example.

It is the proverbial way we Bits organise every cooperative undertaking, and in my usage above should be taken figuratively not literally to mean that the suggestion is to organise cooperatively to deal with the situation as best we can for the benefit of all.

It that sufficiently clear for you now?

Tyrants are the criminals. T — Fire Ologist

Yes, but ... a tyrant always functions with a conspiracy of bully boys, without which he is no more than a hate filled loudmouth and at worst, a possible serial killer. A tyrant always functions with consent, not universal or enthusiastic, but widespread and tacit "because good people do nothing". I am saying if you are an extermination camp guard, you are criminally responsible, but if you are just a close neighbour of the extermination camp and pretend not to notice the smell, you are morally culpable, but not criminally culpable.

They can't do anything about climate change because ... climate change!

You heard it here first.

That is quite the achievement considering how much the West has been exporting it's heavy industry to China.

Somehow, I am not totally reassured.

It’s like an idea or an argument. If you can read you can usually understand what someone is trying to say. — NOS4A2

And that's something different from the action, obviously, because Banno's words are quite clear, but his "point" is not. How can this be? It's like the starter's pistol makes a noise, and that somehow makes all the competitors start to move, as if everybody had already agreed in advance to do that. Like the agreement had a universal force in that moment such that the bang 'meant' "Go!"

The one handing over the cash is almost sure of dying if he disobeys. The military revolting against a tyrant (or a very large number of citizens revolting against a tyrant) are almost sure of putting an end to injustice. But they don't. — LFranc

Sometimes they do. but the point of my example is to illustrate the principle of proportionality. One should not risk one's life for something trivial, and conversely, one should not refuse to risk one's life for something of vital importance to many people.

But one cannot depend on a very large number of citizens for one's own action. Sometimes the large number need one to be the leader of the revolt, sometimes at the cost of one's life.

If citizens are to be held responsible for the acts of their leaders, aren't all of the Palestinians responsible for the October 7 attack/murder/rape of non-combatants? If they should all be held responsible since they didn't stop the attackers, then how can we say Israel is committing war crimes or doing anything wrong when Israel just trying to hold the right people responsible by attacking all of Gaza? — Fire Ologist

You are confusing things here. Citizens have responsibilities in relation to the society they live in, and hence for the actions of the government. But 'holding someone responsible' is something that a court does on an individual basis, taking account of particulars. One cannot convict a whole population of any moral failure, but must prove it of each individual, showing that there were things they could and should have done that they did not do, and/or things that they did that they could and should not have done.

I love it when you speak strictly. :love:

But loosely, it's a protection racket, eh? You can get behind with your payments, but eventually ...

Your point isn’t clear from the letters you put on the screen. — NOS4A2

What is this "point" you speak of as if words can have it in some way - clear or obscure?

Does Trump think it's just a protection racket? — Benkei

And would he be wrong to think that?

Are citizens responsible for the crimes of their leaders?

They are, in general, the victims of the crimes of their leaders. That is, to the extent that one's leaders are criminals, one is living under a mafia. Now to live under a mafia is to live under coercion to support criminality, but to support criminality under coercion is still wrong, even though coercion is a powerful mitigating factor.

There is thus a duty to resist the coercive rule of a criminal government that matches the duty to obey the legitimate rules of a legal government. A duty therefore to speak truth to power and resort to civil disobedience if necessary. These principles were worked through during the Nuremberg trials.

This aligns also with the principle that if one kills another under coercion - at gunpoint, say - one has still murdered, though with mitigating circumstances, though if one handed over the cash of the bank at gunpoint one would not be committing robbery because preventing one's own murder would be the legal priority.

the truth table for "This sentence is false"
— Brendan Golledge

It's not apparent what such a truth table would be for such self-referring sentence. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Ah, if you guys had only participated in my thread on The Laws of Form, you would have discovered that such self contradictory sentences are formed by "re-entry" or recursive definition, and result in truth values that oscillate in time.

Logic is static, and does not deal well with time, but presumes an unchanging block of eternal truth. But sometimes the cat is on the mat, and sometimes the cat is not on the mat. Cats are fickle.

What have you done to promote the education of women and giving women more access to reproductive health services? — Agree-to-Disagree

Well back in the day, I was involved with a collective that supported a women's health group that was being trained by a maverick doctor in secret in the subtle art of very early abortions by aspiration, which was and still is an illegal intervention that women can use to control their fertility. but I am not going to share further details with you because - make up whatever idiotic reason you like.

I can chew gum, but I don't because it is a filthy habit.

Why aren't climate activists making more effort to promote the education of women and giving women more access to reproductive health services — Agree-to-Disagree

What makes you think they aren't? Some of us are so smart we can walk and chew gum at the same time!

For example:— https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12687/matrilineal-matriarchy

"Look, the other guy does it too." seems like a weak defence in law, and an even weaker justification in political discussion. This principle works both ways though. So my only remaining question is, "Was democracy always a sham, or has it only just become one recently?"

My feeling is that in the UK at least, there was a moment after WW2 when something like a democratic choice existed, and the people voted for social security and national health as a real alternative to the rule of capital and privilege. In the US, that never seemed to happen ?

Explains Trump's popularity - he's always there!

We infer it from playing peek-a-boo as very small persons with entertaining adults. You guys have such short memories!

Yes, It's almost as if the Chinese government had planned it. Their population will decline as productivity increases, stabilising at a level their agriculture can sustain. No such good news though for Africa, India, S. America or Indonesia, unfortunately.

But that is all speculation, even if you think they are good guesses, still you're guessing. — Hanover

Yes. That's the nature of prediction. Like the timetable predicts the train times, but sometimes shit happens instead. So ignore the timetable?

People are reluctant to "form an orderly queue" already at a grocery store.
How do you propose to get them to wait patiently in line for their death? — baker

I have no proposals. I expect famine, pestilence and war to do the job with maximal disorder and cruelty.

Billions will die. The human population will crash. We are in overshoot, and the planet cannot sustain us in our current numbers or lifestyle.
— unenlightened

This is not what the science shows. There are no meaningful models that predict the human response to the climate change as it occurs, as if to suggest you can know what mitigating responses will be available. — Hanover

Of course it is not what the science shows. Science models, and models predict, However, the common sense prediction that humans would respond to the predictions in such a way as to mitigate the effects has proven false. On the contrary, net emissions are still increasing.

And there are other factors that seem to indicate that the climate sensitivity has been somewhat underestimated. Turns out that science can be a bit wrong the 'other' way too. It is becoming clear that actual temperatures have exceeded models by some margin, and so models need to be adjusted.

However, the main problem is the time lag. The Greenhouse effect of CO2 is that it insulates, and the effects of insulation are slow, and cumulative. In geological terms, our increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere has been catastrophically fast, but in terms of human lifetime, the change in my seventy years lifetime has been barely noticeable.

This year we hit 1.5°C which was the recommended limit to prevent serious disruption to human life. So we have missed that target, and will almost certainly miss the 2°C target, because of the time lag of centuries and the fact that we have not even begun to reduce emissions, let alone reached net zero.

And we are already seeing disruption to agriculture, climate refugees, fighting over resources, depletion of natural resources especially forest, and the oceans, the best carbon absorbers.

But it's only just begun.

If it was just polar bears, I wouldn't mind much either, because I don't eat them anyway. But it is the whole ecosystem of the world that is being disrupted, and almost every species of plant and animal that is in decline. Your dinner plate may not be affected at first, because The US is wealthy and has a food surplus. Russia will do well because vast tracts of marginal land in the North will increase in value.

I will just repeat this;

All our worldwide human efforts at mitigation thus far have not added up to any reduction at all in net carbon emissions, but on the contrary, they are still increasing.

And if we do begin to reduce, and eventually reach zero, we will only have stopped ourselves from making things worse, but the insulating effect will continue to warm the planet for many many years to come.

There is no natural moral ought about this, as you point out. There is no natural ought about human survival, either. It is just a personal bias I have, such that I regret and mourn the folly of my species.

Billions will die. The human population will crash. We are in overshoot, and the planet cannot sustain us in our current numbers or lifestyle.

The suggestion is to form an orderly queue, and stop making things worse, merely, instead of keeping on shooting the messengers.

Said the three billion year old fungus. — Fire Ologist

Come back and say that when you have extinguished your self, o aged fungus.

Super naive to think republicans wouldn't support Israel — flannel jesus

You may be right. what has Trump said though?

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/13/politics/donald-trump-israel-netanyahu-diplomacy/index.html

But wouldn't your denunciation apply equally to any plausible candidate to the American Presidency? — Wayfarer

If that's the case, your democracy is as hollow as ours, and voting is a farce. One might as well be in Russia., where the war criminal always gets elected too.

And you honestly cannot tell enough difference between Biden and Trump to decide between them? — tim wood

I can tell the difference. And I choose the madman fraudster over the war criminal. Or I would, if I got to choose. And with that ringing endorsement of the hero of the thread, I leave you to it.

What makes you think Trump would be any less supportive of Israel, in its efforts to eliminate Hamas? — Relativist

I'll convict him when I hear and see him being so. But I would bet on him reversing Biden policies just because they're Biden's.

At least you get a choice. In the UK we get to choose between a supporter and facilitator of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and another supporter and facilitator of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

It's a hard choice - between a narcissist con man and a supporter and facilitator of genocide and ethnic cleansing. I think I prefer the nut-job myself, but it's your call, America.

Importantly, cold-related death decreased 0.51 per cent from 2000 to 2019, while heat-related death increased 0.21 per cent, leading to a reduction in net mortality due to cold and hot temperatures.

https://www.monash.edu/medicine/news/latest/2021-articles/worlds-largest-study-of-global-climate-related-mortality-links-5-million-deaths-a-year-to-abnormal-temperatures

To save the sceptics from the necessity of actual reading, I quote above the good news.

However, both the good news and the bad news indicate global warming. and the study does not include extreme event mortality other than temperature, eg extra wind, drought, flood, etc.

Sorry, Sloppy quoting on my part. Will adjust.

Time is needed for any change — MoK

Therefore there can be no changes in space alone.
Therefore your screen is blank and you are me.

Yeah, and when did you stop beating your wife?

Is Mikie wrong, or is everybody else wrong? — Agree-to-Disagree

You are wrong.

It doesn't help to castigate a large portion of society — jgill

That is very true, and appropriate to this and many other threads too: Ukraine, Palestine. Trump...

Stilt would be nice to have a chat about the consequences of the ongoing mass extinction event we have triggered. But it does get tiresome when one can never get beyond "What? You think we have triggered a mass extinction event ? You must be a conspiracy theorist."

Mikie has been at this for over 100 pages and 3 years now, just in this thread; some irritation is to be expected, when one cannot get beyond the frigging title of the thread.

Here are a few consequences I envisage.

• Mass (human) migrations, generally away from the Equator, and in practice mainly Northwards
  
• Environmental disruption, because vegetation cannot migrate as fast as fauna and disease.
  
• Sea-level rise will have a dual effect, decreasing the amount of convenient fertile floodplain arable land available to feed humans, and flooding major coastal cities adding to the migrants.
  
• Conflicts will ensue over the fertile lands remaining, and the dwindling housing stock and fresh water supply.
  
• Increasing xenophobia decreasing prosperity, less democracy, more violent dictatorship, rampant corruption, governmental collapse.
  
• A population crash.

Perceptive readers may have noticed some of these beginning to happen, but if you haven't, don't worry, you soon will. It's only just begun.

What about climate scientists who are too optimistic? Don't they also argue themselves out of a job? — Agree-to-Disagree

No, big oil pays them well.

You'll be banning fish from swimming, next. There's a long tradition of young girls kissing frogs and hoping. It's human nature.