Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Wol was explaining to Piglet all about iron flow batteries to make large scale energy storage much cheaper while also using less rare metals and stuff:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/23/1046365/grid-storage-iron-batteries-technology/

I'd prefer the thread sticking to the topic — jorndoe

Yeah, I was asking what the the topic was.The Saudi regime is is a brutal dictatorship with a cloak of piety, propped up by the West.

A witch-hunt is a synonym for unjust persecution and terrorising of a population and victimisation of any social deviance. Probably, it's an unsound legal concept,

My suspicion though is that the Conservative Party will change its rules to rapidly come up with a new leader. Tom Tugendhat or more likely Ben Wallace would be my tips.

having the UK government in crisis can't be a good thing — Wayfarer

It isn't a good thing, and it has been going on for a long time. When one cannot believe anything the government says, one literally has no government, and that has been the situation for 2 years. The pretence of government continues for another month or two...

I interpreted his post to refer to morality. — Benkei

So did I. So the question is what morally grounds the law such that the distinction between true and false grounds can be made. Are we defending the freedom of worship of witches, or what?

Witchcraft exists at least to the same extent as prayer exists. People pray, and people practice witchcraft.

The Saudi Arabian authorities occasionally execute people on false religious grounds. — jorndoe

So are you saying that all religious grounds are 'false'?
If so, what are the 'true' grounds for legal penalties?

You need to post about the current UK government if you want to see my deep abiding hatred. This is just a friendly word to the wise.

Excuse me, but someone has to be the rabid angry sneering lefty round here or we'll all drown in our own reasonableness.

Affirmative action essentially forces social change by giving minority individuals the chance to start their own dynasties. — Tate

So you define social change as social more of the same.

much of the leftist program is unappealing to most people — Domhoff

Because...

even the desperate poor prefer to think they deserve their poverty rather than that they have been systematically shafted their whole lives and never stood a chance. — unenlightened

Organised religion forbids the miserable serfs and slaves from any escape from their exploitation. Because the organisation wants to continue to exploit. Just as the shrinks used to treat attempting to escape as a mental illness (drapetomania), so the modern shrink treats the attempt to escape oppression and exploitation by suicide as a mental illness today. Any resemblance between religion and psychiatry is purely un-coincidental.

It's not racist to ask if we have arrived at the point where it can be dropped. — Tate

But I'm not talking about racism as I find it unhelpful. I am saying that states that claim to be democratic are nearly always dynastic to a great extent (count the Bushes and Kennedys, for example). This means that by design and by accident, privilege and disadvantage are passed down the generations. Such dynastic government cannot remotely be fair and equitable, and relies on custom and management of the media, from the pulpit to the tabloid and beyond, to perpetuate the dominance of a minority. (Notice that it relies also on the patriarchal control of women's sexuality, to guarantee patrilineal descent) Racism (and sexism) is an effect rather than a cause of a partisan system of government that only ever pretends to be equitable. When can we drop extra support for the structurally disadvantaged? when the structure stops systematically disadvantaging some people. Don't hold your breath.

This requires an acceptance of some sort of illuminati that sets up the puppets on the strings and then watches as they half knowingly play out their roles on stage. — Hanover

No it doesn't. It requires that people are selfish first, familial second, and tribal third, and that people in government are good at manipulating opinion.

I'm Jewish and can attest to the emphasis upon education in my community, which also leads to over-representation in the professions and in leadership positions. — Hanover

I can attest the same cultural norms amongst the UK working classes, and also among the Afro Caribbean population here. And that proves what? It proves that we are all hearing the same messages and seeing the same solutions to the same problems. 'Work hard, support power, make yourself useful to power, don't rock the boat, etc.' The Jewish community surely knows as well as any that education and hard work count for little when the government is against you.

Indeed, I don't notice a lot of Asians in the US government; they are simply pursuing their interests using the available rhetoric. The government makes the rhetorics available and promotes the agenda using Asians as their tool. A good many Asians will be familiar with thinly disguised dynastic rule from places like India. And a good many African Americans will be familiar with the uses of 'house niggers' and 'uncle Toms' to keep them in place. It's similar to the use made of Christian women to delegitimise women's rights campaigners.

It suits the dynastic rulers to promote the interests of the Asian minority as a means to maintain the oppression of the much larger African community. Do I have to convince you that The supreme court has an agenda that is not equal treatment and equal rights for all? If so I give up in despair.

(...you brought this on yoursel — Count Timothy von Icarus

And the rest of us. :cry:

Succsessful invocations surely merit a ban for witchcraft?

Even if we don't have a rigid caste system or an entrenched class system, modern societies tend to be meritocracies at best. — ssu

Modern societies tend to be like the kingdoms of yore. Politics is almost as much a family affair as the Mafia. "Meritocracy" is the cloak under which dynastic rule likes to hide, and is the justification for grinding poverty amid fabulous wealth. It is so very easy, to maintain, because even the desperate poor prefer to think they deserve their poverty rather than that they have been systematically shafted their whole lives and never stood a chance. The better off always think they deserve their privilege of course.

No. It's better to stare blankly than to dumb down mathematics to what can fit in our small pointy heads. You'll be banning irrational numbers next, if you haven't already.

It was probably not intended as a means to divide and keep the working classes conquered, but affirmative action has been quite divisive. — Bitter Crank

Probably not, because Racism is certainly intended to do so, and affirmative action at least seems to be intended to mitigate the effects of racism, and reduce social division.

Most so-called democracies are aristocracies in disguise, and rejecting the principle of noblesse oblige does not constitute a glorious revolution. Let's pretend that there is some principle or virtue at stake though, rather than power politics overriding the justice system in a race for complete moral nihilism masquerading as righteous religion.

Double standards any which way you look at it? — Agent Smith

To an extent, but only to an extent. There are clear differences one can find between the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the bible and other sources such as the Gospel of Thomas, and the doctrines of Popes and moral philosophers; the same goes for all the religions. There is an original transformative insight, and people are attracted to what they see from the outside of that, but they do not themselves have the understanding, and thereafter things become more and more distorted. Rich men like to hear that they can enter heaven with their laden camels, and they will employ a priest who will explain that it is so, and Jesus meant something else.

And of course the fake news merchants of the day will have put their own messages into the mouths of the great and the good as well. One has therefore to look for a consistent message amongst the millennia of distortions and additions. Or start again from scratch to seek an insight of one's own.

What about the zero in a thousand, like most every contributor on TPF , including you and Baden. we should ban all of us :joke: — Merkwurdichliebe

We are the lovely people for whom the intelligent perform - you guys have to have an audience don't you.

Me and my army.

I fail to see the dilemma. — Jackson

The big bang is conceived as being the beginning of space and time, with those two not being distinguishable at first. "Before the beginning of time" is not a phrase that can be given a meaning within the cosmology of big bang theory. There was never a 'before the big bang'. Of course folks come up with new theories and cosmologies on a regular basis, big bounce, etc, but such speculations need to be closely mathematically argued reformulations of the standard model beyond the scope of this forum.

Plus, the answer to the 'what if... question can easily be given, that exactly the world we see must follow from whatever came before.

recall the problem of evil, a thorn in the side of Christianity, an irresolvable inconsistency vis-à-vis an omnibebevolent deity. — Agent Smith

Indeed, as I said already, established religion is always the perversion of spirituality. Jesus spoke of 'the Father', not of 'an omni-benevolent deity', and a glance at the Old Testament does not give the impression of omni-benevolence at all, but more of an arbitrary tyrannical vindictive jealous and cruel god. More like a Roman Emperor than a crucified carpenter. 'God is good' is another justification of the status quo by the powers that be. The ultimate demonstration that God is good is that he has put the white man in charge of the world.

isn't the disruption he might have caused with his hard debating style offset by his very knowledgeable contributions? — Tobias

One cannot know how many contributors have been put off posting by the many gratuitous insults he made. But I know of another intelligent poster who has expressed such a sentiment as I quoted above. How many have read such posts and not even bothered to sign up to the site is anyone's guess. I have avoided him as much as I could, so the world has missed some of my pearls because of his flaming. That's three posters already.

The innocent suffer because to live is to be vulnerable. Life is a losing game - everyone dies. So rather than pretend it is not so, let us use our intelligence and social interdependence to mitigate suffering where we can, by feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and sharing our common resources wherever there is need and suffering. You never know, your next life might be one of those whose suffering you did, or did not alleviate in this life.

Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these my children, ye do it unto me. — Jesus

This is the radical karma of Buddhism, that since the self is an illusion, you yourself are the Buddha and the tyrant and the innocent sufferer, and to alleviate the suffering of another is as commonsensical as for the right hand to bandage a cut on the left hand.

On the old site it was always the hypothetical non-posting reader on behalf of whom moderators were supposed to act.

, it's important because it actually puts other people off contributing. Including me. — coolazice

Exactly! But mods cannot be expected to go through every post of a long term and prolific poster forever; this decision is long overdue, and has been delayed because of the one in six excellent contributions.

censorship? — Monitor

No. Flaming, insult and ridicule is an effective means of censorship as coolazice attests, and its removal is essential to free discussion.

This too is karmic in essence i.e. our wish to put an end to our pain occurs only when/after our karmic IOUs have been paid off. — Agent Smith

Your attachment to the karmic explanation stinks. What is this 'our pain' you speak of? I want my pain to end immediately. You speak of our pain by way of appropriating the pain of others and then use the notion of karma to justify your complacency about it.

Thanks.

Although many Asian concepts of karma are fatalistic, the early Buddhist concept was not fatalistic at all.

This is almost what I was suggesting - that karma functioned already in society to maintain privilege, and early Buddhism attempted to undermine this function. Nevertheless, the old fatalism persisted in the name of Buddhism, just as the Roman Empire persists in the Catholic Church. The usual story of the establishment perverting the spiritual insights of spiritual leaders.

This - our misfortunes are our own doing - doesn't imply that those who're in a tight spot should be left to the mercy of bad karma. — Agent Smith

It justifies it, because it justifies everything, by making justice a property of nature. And that means that any amount of exploitation is justified.The dogma of karma comforts the fortunate and privileged and blames the afflicted and exploited for their misery. It is entirely natural and commonplace for the privileged to come to believe they deserve their privilege, and karma is simply the Indian version of godswill and the white-man's burden. It fits right in with the caste system, and helps to sustain it along with rampant toxic sexism. I am not the expert, but my suspicion is that the doctrine does not come from Buddha himself, but is an accretion that probably predates him. rather like Roman cultural accretions to Christianity unconnected with the reported words or deeds of Jesus.

Whereof there is no representation, thereof there should be no taxation silence.

There is a much darker side to buddhist beliefs many prefer to ignore. — I like sushi

Yes. The idea of karma is rather similar to 'the Secret' and 'the power of positive thinking' in the way it gives comfort to greed and privilege.

Buddhists are generally more peaceful than Christians, Moslems, etc. — Agent Smith

You say peaceful, I say apathetic, complacent, and fatalistic. Not all, but much of Buddhist tradition, like Christian tradition is concerned with maintaining power relations in society. One says you deserve your misery in this life because of your past life and the other that your misery in this life will be rewarded in the next.

I don't see why "p & ~Kp" is unknowable. — Luke

Because knowing it renders it false.

I have the feeling that you will get only one side of the story here. Maybe ask a robot.

In fact from this I'm pretty sure it follows that ∃q(q ∧ ¬Kq) — Michael

Well if I am forced to say that because we are not omniscient, there are things we cannot know, I might be able to live with that, at a pinch.

Wait, it doesn't say that, though, it says there is something we don't know, Sorry, brain overheating and I am confused between unknown and unknowable. Need to lie down in a darkened room.

Right. Epic fail, unenlightened.

3. (p ∧ ¬Kp) — Michael

Can we stick with the umpteenth digit of pi, instead of the names thing?

So my suggestion is that the non-omnicience principle should go something like:

(p or ~p) and ~Kp and ~K~p.

Can you work with that a little and see how it goes? (My formal logic is fifty years faded)

But that's the non-omniscience principle? Without it we must accept that every true proposition is known to be true – which is what Fitch's paradox shows follows from the knowability principle. — Michael

I don't think so. I think the principle needs to be formalised differently, as I indicated.

It's not a contradiction to say "there is intelligent alien life but I don't know that there is." Such a statement is possibly true. — Michael

I think it is a contradiction, because it asserts something and denies that it is known. "Either there is intelligent alien life or there isn't, but I don't know which." -- that makes sense.

There exists some proposition p that is both true and not known to be true — Michael

Yes. I am questioning the legitimacy of that. It seems to be stating a contradiction by asserting p and claiming it to be unknown. If I substitute (p0 or p1 ... or p9) then it is not unknown, but on the contrary that is what is known.

Wouldn't it then just be "it might be known that there are truths that are not known" rather than " It might be known that there is a truth that is not known" ? Is there a salient difference? — Janus

I'm not sure if I'm following you, but I'm seeing a problem with this:

(2) If there is a truth that is not known, then it might be known that there is a truth that is not known
....(sub (1) into KP) — Banno

It seems to me that 'an unknown truth' cannot legitimately be formalised as p but only as (p or ~p) Is that right? does it make sense?

That is to say that I know that there is an umpteenth digit of pi, and can say so, but I cannot say that any particular one of the statements p0 -p9 is true, but only one of all of them. that is what it means for the truth to be unknown.

What do you think about the relation of the self to material possession/property? — Josh Alfred

It started as a convenience, I used to carry my long spear and my flint knife to the hunt and if they were lost I would make another. The trouble started when I fenced off the garden to stop the cows trampling the cauliflowers. I ended up living in my property as if it were my body, possessed by possessions. I think it was fear; thought projected itself to the future without food, and sought security.

I said somewhere else that security negates freedom. Security is walls and locks, and bars and things tied up and hidden away. The sad case today is to see people living in houses they cannot afford to maintain, filled with things they have no use for but cannot rid themselves of, and camping in a corner of this pile of junk struggling to make enough to feed themselves. That is security as neurosis, in need of the decluttering therapist, or a bomb.

Have some beauty, you poor thing.