The culture lines should be erased, not drawn. — NOS4A2

According to which culture?

Only self-portraits and autobiography are permissible. Don't even speak to me, never mind of or for me. :wink:

There is a kernel of justified complaint when the white industrial complex ignores black musicians but exploits black music as with Elvis for example. Or when companies try and patent traditional medicines like neem. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4333627.stm

I don't know where the cultural lines should be drawn, but somewhere around exploitation and oppression.

There are facts of humanity, such as the long state of dependence of infants and our social nature, that lead to a conflict between what is best for the individual and what is best for others. If we were a species that laid eggs by the 100,000, our moral attitude to our offspring would be very different. If we were a solitary species like pandas, our morality would be far less important or even non-existent.

Justice is a social being's concept.

So then amongst social beings there can be conflict about the society's extent and its interests.

And we know that the law seeks to remedy the unfairness and cruelty of what is - of the law of the jungle and reward virtue and punish vice, which is contrary to nature.
— unenlightened

I wonder if this all is true. I do not think it is in fact. If I am right then we do recoil from acts of unjustice naturally. — Tobias

Yes indeed, we recoil naturally from injustice, (in that useless sense of natural where everything we do is natural) because we are social beings; but not all of us, and not when we are the beneficiaries of injustice so much. This is why those afflicted with moral qualms are at a disadvantage, and why social pressure, aka the law is needed to support sociality, particularly in larger more complex societies.

Poor old Abe could not tell a lie - a severe disability for a politician. Or perhaps that story was itself a lie? But there again language is useful for a social species, but only if what is said is true, for the most part, as the boy who cried 'wolf' found out when folks started ignoring him. I think this is what a naturalistic account of morals would look like, species specific, cooperative behaviour that benefits survival of the group.

An example of moral disagreement: Extinction Rebellion is a group urging a change in society to improve the survival prospects of the group/species. But according to other members of that society they are anti-social disrupters of the proper functioning of society.

We already know that what ought to be is not, and what ought not to be is. And that is why one cannot derive the one from the other. Do we not know this from the outset?

And we know that the law seeks to remedy the unfairness and cruelty of what is - of the law of the jungle and reward virtue and punish vice, which is contrary to nature. God declares for freedom: "Do what is right and suffer for it, because it is right, or do what is wrong and be rewarded because it is expedient." But the law attempts to remedy God's error and make it expedient to be good. Do we not know this also?

There seem to be an awfully large number of self-help books on the shelves... — Isaac

Yup. All written without exception for the other chap, by people who think to have no further need to unfuck themselves.

they don't seem to be about changing other people's minds, but rather the reader changing their own. — Isaac

Books written to change the readers' minds are exactly authors' theories about how to change other people's minds. Who has a theory about how to change their own mind? It would be superfluous, would it not?

The trouble with psychological problems is that every man and his dog has a theory about how to fix them — Isaac

Every Englishman and his dog has a theory about how to solve everyone else's psychological problems, but no clue at all how to solve their own. I'm always trying to change your mind and keep mine the same. This is the problem.

Alaska and Siberia are going to become more inhabitable in principle -those parts that are above the flood line. but expect migration from the tropics.

An Englishman's home is his castle; and everyone else's home is his bailiwick. Unfortunately, this only makes sense when there is only one Englishman. These days, everyone thinks they're the Englishman. This is the problem that has to be solved before we can effectively deal with climate change. It is a psychological problem. The solution to climate change is straight forward, but we are busy keeping out the migrants and fighting wars against the baddies. until that mindset changes, we are indeed screwed so tight the thread is stripped.

Eternalism has a long history.

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” — John8:58

The searchlight in the block universe that is everywhere at once, is consciousness, which is nothing other than God's knowledge. But it is surely hubris for ordinary mortals to pretend to this god's eye view. Therefore I am a presentist - it's all "I" can know.

I find it hard to identify what fair means in general. But assuming there was an all knowing and all powerful god that created us and wants the best for us. Are they fair? It is easy to imagine how we'd do things differently, but can we determine if such a god is fair? — TiredThinker

No. Wanting the best for us includes wanting us to be our best morally. In all fairness, the good deserve rewards and the bad deserve penalties. but if it were the case that good deeds were always rewarded and bad deeds always punished, bad people would do good deeds for the rewards and to avoid the penalties. There would be no difference between good and bad, except that to be bad would be foolish and self-defeating.

Moral freedom requires injustice. therefore God necessarily created the world such that the scum always floats to the top, and the gold sinks to the bottom.

Proper alien music; don't ask yourself whether you like it or not, but whether you can hear it or not.

Great song, great musicians, but I don't like it, they overplayed it and over-sentimentalised it, and clearly thought twice or even three times. I wish there was something they could sing or play to try and make me change my mind, but they entirely lost the vitriol and irony of the original. And you even linked it twice!

...precision guided weapons like cruise missiles are so popular. They don't disengage from the attack if there's a lot of tracers around them. A human pilot might do that. — ssu

Especially in civil wars, there has to be reasons for the fight. And that's why the bloody and long civil wars tend to divide between lines of religion and ethnicity. — ssu

Ha! Kamikaze and suicide bombers have a machine mind - the highest possible morale. No doubt no fear, no regret. "I am a Camera Mine."

it's pretty common for people to psychologize and metaphysicalize world politics. — StreetlightX

It's pretty common for military commanders to psychologise their troops both during a war and through specific training exercises. This is because most weapons do not yet fire themselves, thanks be to God.

So are we to say that some nations are 'pluckier' than others? — Isaac

Double down on your stupidity why not? "we" say nothing. I say that indeed nations have a morale in relation to other nations. It is not fixed, but variable. So Ukraine in relation to Russia clearly has changed in attitude in the last 8 years. They were a push-over, and they are not now. And of course Western weapons are a factor too. There's nothing like being well-armed for making one brave.

So to limit our analysis to 'pluck' doesn't really tell us much, does it? — Isaac

This is the heart of your insulting stupidity; to presume that if one discusses one thing, one is (a) discounting everything else, and (b) making what one mentions absolute and eternal. It's a completely ridiculous parody of an argument. Stop doing it.

You see any success you ascribe to the Ukrainian's sheer pluck, you must also then accept failures to be the result of a 'lack of pluck'. To the extent that the Ukrainian's national character is the answer to their success, the lack of such character must then explain the failure of the Chechens, or the Belorussians, or the Russians themselves to resist Putin's imperialism. — Isaac

That is a parody argument. Pluck, luck, and whatever the fuck can all be factors of success and failure. Morale is certainly important, and weapon supplies are also important. So are leadership, geography, infrastructure, wealth, age distribution and size of the population, culture, and bunch of other shit. And the quality of the enemy is also relevant in all these ways too.

And when the big bombs are falling, sheer pluck is totally irrelevant; everybody dies, cowards and heroes alike.

Thanks for that video, Great speech, short and clear. It didn't have to be like this... I haven't heard much from 'our' leaders of this wisdom. I speak, incidentally, from Wales, a vassal state of England; the self-styled "first colony" thereof.

Logic is timeless - present tense eternal. Socrates is mortal, always has been and always will be for ever and ever. Whereas in time and cause, Socrates was alive and became dead and being dead and alive contradicts logic. No one has a problem with this though, because we have tenses to keep them separate. Cause keeps them separate Socrates was alive and is now dead, because he drank hemlock. In this way cause saves logic from time.

These devices are built around microelectronics, devices comprising millions (even billions) of minute components, unfathomably complex to the untrained (including myself). These generally operate with quite astonishing degrees of precision and predictability through the mediation of sequences of billions of separate logical steps carried out at lightning speed and providing instantaneous results — Wayfarer

The point is just to dump the hardest bit of the metaphysical puzzle in some dark corner that no one any longer wants to talk about. — apokrisis

In the dark corners of computers are hidden the variable, unpredictable analog signals that are 'treated as' 0s and 1s.

I think the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics is the same problem restated more clearly. And I don't think it is all that intractable. Mathematics is the study of abstract structure of every kind : symmetry and asymmetry, order and chaos, temporal and timeless, etc. So it doesn't actually seem surprising that mathematics can be applied effectively to both electronics and pebbles on a beach There is a pattern in the pebbles but it is statistical; there is randomness as well. Logic had better just shut up here about the law of non-contradiction for a moment. We come to understand the cause of the pattern in terms of prevailing wind and wave angle moving pebbles of different sizes at different speeds along the beach - "on average" over centuries. A simple explanation using 'cause' with a very broad brush indeed and a deal of handwaving at the forces of chaotic waves that no one is going to calculate individually.

Edit: Note that mathematics aways begins with a biblical style commandment of creation: Let there be light. Let x be a number.

I propose to defend God’s proportional justice by claiming there are degrees to heaven and hell. — lish

I propose that nobody knows jack shit about the afterlife 'til they get there and then they do not share their knowledge with us.

Or, I propose that justice is heavenly, and injustice is hellish. Or that the afterlife is not reward and punishment, but this life is the reward or punishment for the after prior-life. Or I propose that to get to heaven you have only to perform one unselfish act in a lifetime; unfortunately if you perform kind act to get to heaven, it is selfish. Thus the bar to heaven is set very low, and only a total shit goes to hell, but unfortunately nearly everyone is a total shit. Or...

They discuss the rise in social media and the effects it has had on all of us. — universeness

If I was discussing social media on social media, (which I am), I would not care to divide the world into stupid and smart, remaining of course on the smart side. Rather, I would want to look at what the huge increase in communication does in general. One might think that it is divisive, but I think rather that it exposes division. It is a medium and therefore one needs to look carefully at what features of the human world are exposed. And that is, I would say, the lack of superior wisdom or morality of the ruling elite, the corruption, violence, and self-centredness of mankind, along with our gullibility, irrationality, greed and short-sightedness. But to call all this 'stupid', and assign it to others is, ahem, stupid. We don't listen to serous debates by people with good insight, but to youtube debates between self-appointed pundits, more concerned with their own media image than anything else - just like the rest of us.

I find sports people have an unfair advantage over me because they take exercise and practice. Until such artificial stimulants are banned, I have no hope, no matter how many drugs and hormones I take.

Farmers, of course, don't always go broke. Farms have been the basic of a lot of capital accumulation by small entrepreneurs--at least in the past. — Bitter Crank

There's an old saying; If you want to make a small fortune in farming, you need to start with a large one.

In the good ol' days, one made money, not directly from farming but from owning property. On the small scale it is called renting and leasing, and on the large scale it is called taxation. Either way, one charges the peasants for merely being alive on one's property. This is the crop that never fails. The more people are starving because their crops fail, the more desperate the next tenants become and the more valuable the tenancy.

Where have I heard that before? Oh yes:-

Maybe it's China, — god must be atheist

That would be my guess; they've been supplying the world with lovely cheap stuff for a generation, and I suspect as a country goes bankrupt, they will be bidding in the sell off.

We really shouldn't be surprised that the people who run money run it on behalf of people who have money, not on behalf of those who do not.

One might be forgiven for thinking the IMF was an organisation of profiteering capitalists.

They seem to behave like payday loan companies, preying on the desperate poor like financial leeches.
Hear them crowing about the creation of the Russian oligarchs: - https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp040198
That worked!

When the light is too far, music comes close. The sound of the human voice declares one is not alone in the dark; one has companions.

threads should be removed if they
...take scripture or revelation as a starting point for discussion; theology, not philosophy — Banno

Why? Is this a divine revelation you have had, an arbitrary definition you have adopted or what? There are threads on current affairs, on environmental issues, on the latest space telescope, etc, which have good claim not to be philosophy by most definitions.

I would suggest that the scope of philosophy is something to be explored, not laid down by fiat. People come with the questions that concern them, and philosophers should be able to help them clarify the issues and consider the implications. The stories we tell about our origins and nature that have found their way into religious texts are not thereby rendered off limits to philosophy, but are the foundations of society that are there to be explored and questioned. The thought police must operate here, but not in this arbitrary manner.

Beloved how I love, how I love
To see things through the magic of your eyes
To share things that make your spirit rise up
But try as I might, and try as I may
I can't see anything.

If [...] would be [...]. — frank

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

It ain't going to happen. Not soon enough , if ever, and it doesn't address the huge environmental problems at all. I'm unsurprised, but disappointed that the same nonsense is being spouted here as we have been hearing for 40 years or so.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-change-not-the-main-driver-of-madagascar-food-crisis-scientists-find But it is an additional, back-seat driver. Deforestation, overfishing, soil depletion, uncontrolled mining and logging, are all also driving in the same direction, and as people get more desperate, the over-exploitation of whatever resources remain gets worse.

Yes. Nuclear is another excuse to do nothing and carry on as before. Personally, I have no wish to go back to the stone age, but that is where current plans would take us if only they would be implemented. As they are not being implemented at all, the 8 degree rise is starting to look more likely.

Covid has demonstrated how easy it is to reduce fuel usage by simply not flying and driving so much. Onshore wind is the cheapest source of energy, can be built locally and supplemented with tidal, solar, river, geothermal, etc depending on local availability.

But agriculture is heavily dependent on energetically produced fertilisers, and becomes more so as intensive farming destroys the soil. We need to eat less meat and dairy to reduce the pressure to deforest to make room for cattle, and allow less intensive methods that allow carbon capture by the soil. But this will not happen by the action of the invisible hand of capitalism. The invisible hand has shown already that it does not in the least mind exploiting resources to the limit of profit and leaving a wasteland. Slash and burn economics is rife.

Global warming is one aspect of a larger man-made environmental catastrophe created by the industrial revolution, because capitalism has never been properly regulated and forced to account for its environmental costs, which have been off-loaded onto 'the commons' in the form of pollution and environment destruction. Let's call this 'freedom', and wave a flag.

Nuclear energy doesn't trap heat in the atmosphere. It's no more of a concern for climate change than putting up a shit ton of solar panels. — Marchesk

Some more, not no more. Solar panels absorb energy they do not add any energy. Whereas suns, big and little, add energy. They don't add to the greenhouse effect. But the very idea that we can continue our current way of life with such a technological fix is a pernicious lie. We already have millions of climate refugees, and we are already set to lose a great many low-lying cities and a large portion of our arable land. This much is already unavoidable, and dreams of cheap energy are what brought us to this point.

So the solution to too much energy in the global climate is a source of abundant cheap energy? Place getting too hot? let's make some tiny little suns to power our air-conditioning. That'll work.

Good ole American style pragmatism. — Dermot Griffin

Oh dear, I've really let myself down there! :grimace:

No, but some of my best friends are.

We
Don't
All
Have
To

Be the same, read the same books, agree about everything. Some of us need to read The Plumber's Bible, but not all of us.

#49. https://shwep.net/podcast/the-long-secret-history-of-the-jews-part-ii-second-temple-judaism/

Those of us that were brought up with some kind of view of Jews and Judaism as a homogeneous single lineage with a single unchanging monotheistic religion, will find some surprises. This episode can pretty much stand alone and gives some background to early Christianity as (yet another) Jewish sect with odd beliefs and practices, and charts a strong interaction of Judaism (and thus Christianity) with Greek religion.

Why do you think so many people try so hard to get into America? — RogueAI

Someone asked a seasoned bank robber why he robbed banks. "Because that's where the money is", he replied.

please dissect the taste of chocolate ice cream. — jgill

1. Creamy.
2. Chocolatey.
3. Cold.
Always happy to help.


Distinguish:

1. Comedy from tragedy.
2. Wit from folly.
3. Playful from serious.

My first thought is that humour is an antidote or inoculation to fear, disgust, and other negative emotions. One laughs out one's negativity, and this reduces stress. Or else one refuses to recognise one's negative emotions and projects them onto others - 'that's not funny, it's disgusting/offensive/cruel/ puerile.'

Send not to know on whom the butt lands, it lands on thee.

But never mind me or thee, let's get serious about humour: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255480/

A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, "I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it." The teacher's reply was casual, "Ten years." Impatiently, the student answered, "But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?" The teacher thought for a moment, "20 years."

http://users.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/workhard.html

My goal is to grow old and die, and to do it as slowly as possible. A man focussed on goals and always in a hurry is called a "bisy backson". The trouble with being goal oriented and busy is that one misses the wonderful scenery and the wonderful characters of the world. It's just not much fun, and what is life for if it's not much fun?

Episode #45 - Physics and Esoteric Metaphysics might be of interest to the more sceptical wing of the forum. A discussion of pneuma, sympatheia, and logos. Even from a merely linguistic historical perspective, there is some good stuff; how 'logos' morphs from word to God and back, for example.

"Free love" ) is not feasible in a healthy family. — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

Look, there is a long tradition of having a wife and a mistress. Lets not pretend that before the 60's everyone was life-long monogamous. What happens is feasible. If you define a healthy family as a monogamous relationship, then there are rather few healthy families now or in history. and there is really nothing much else to say. But actually, look at a bit of anthropology and you will see that the possible families, and relationships and arrangements for the care of children are legion, and that the nuclear family is one of the most stressful and dysfunctional there is; and at that, it is more often than not a mere pretence.