You would agree that the less aid you receive and the more you manage to sustain yourself independently, the more self-sufficient you are, right? Even if you are not totally self-sufficient? — ToothyMaw

Sure. If you don't use the roads, or the shops, or the internet, or oil products, or imports, etc, you can come close to self-sufficiency (neglecting your total dependence on the environment).

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. — Karl Sagan

Panic not chaps, your country is fucked whoever wins, because you are all insane. But go down smiling would be my preference.

human population has roughly been growing exponentially since the neolithic (as far as we can tell), but might peak in our time. — jorndoe

Sure it has. Exponential growth is what happens to populations until a constraint or limit halts it. As long as there were new worlds to conquer, new environments to exploit, new technologies to use, new resources of energy, new more intensive farming methods, human exponential growth has continued - give or take a few hiccups - plagues, famines and so on. But the human population on Earth has exceeded the ability of the environment to sustain it: 'might' is not the term; human population will start to crash this century, as cartoon idiot like, we destroy the environment we depend on.

But let's say I have a friend who is a sense-data proponent. He says that his terminology is perfectly meaningful. There are direct experiences (mental and physical sensations, feelings, thoughts) and indirect experiences of the outer world (sights, smells) that come to us through 'sense-data'. He says this contrast between direct and indirect makes those words perfectly valid and useful. I don't agree with him. But I still feel I'm losing the argument. — cherryorchard

Your friend, in claiming direct access to 'internal' events and only indirect access to 'external' events seems to me to fall into the abyss of solipsism. One cannot dispute with a solipsist, because one cannot access his world. The sense data of an argument are mere unpersuasive sensations. You cannot lose (or win) the argument because you cannot even have the argument. At best all, you can do is provoke sensations in the other. And these purely internal sensations are precisely those 'beetles in boxes' that drop out of the conversation, because they are irredeemably private; and language is shared.

I'm not sure what you mean, as you give no date or reference.

If you mean the invention of artificial fertiliser, then the 1900s seems very late date. Natural fertilisers were in use from Roman times and before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_fertilizer

But agricultural industrialisation began alongside the industrialisation of production with horse drawn machines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tull_(agriculturist)

Still overvalued by about $19.50. Who buys these shit sandwiches?

I commend to you the writing of David Smail, and particularly his book "The Origins of Unhappiness".

Meanwhile, I will take issue with this.

Most people are quite sane and therefore very capable and totally self-sufficient. — Abdul

Most people are pretty fucked up and miserable, and no one at all is self sufficient. Just in order to communicate this message to you, for example, I require a whole army of assistants to nurse my infant self, teach me to read and write, put food on the table and a roof over my head and construct a communications network and this electronic device on which I am typing. None of this would I be remotely capable of doing on my own. Not to mention your own self that has been the provocation of my current thoughts.

Self-sufficiency is a dangerous fantasy, that is widely promoted, with false corollary that to fail to be (in the imagination) self sufficient is an illness and a loss of contact with reality.

Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody’s having them dreams
Everybody sees themselves
Walkin’ around with no one else
Half of the people can be part right all of the time
Some of the people can be all right part of the time
But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours”
I said that

Talkin’ World War III Blues
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Guy's a poet, so what d'you expect. Me, I'm more realistic. I'm keeping stum because there's no one left to talk to. I might sing some of the old songs though, now and then.

And here is some bad news for Democrats: turns out refutal is a word.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/refutal

Everyone who holds things believes they are true, and if "Christianity" is to mean anything at all then it must exclude some stories. The level of inclusivity that many desire is simply not compatible with sensible speech. — Leontiskos

And I hold that Christianity purports to be an universal religion. What it excludes is hatred, Some folks have not heard the Good News, others have not Yet accepted it, but none are excluded.

That's an argument, but it's not a good one. — Leontiskos

Then don't make that argument, and don't accuse me of making it.

Your last sentence seems to represent a copyrighted interpretation, no? — Leontiskos

No I am reciting a creed, not The creed. We can discuss, as long as you do not have exclusive rights to the truth.

But isn't it the case that many people, even most, sacrifice every day for others - even some at crucifixion level intensity? — tim wood

That's a lovely thought, and I do not want to deny it. Then yes, as our current pope said to a small boy who was afraid that his unbelieving dead father was in hell, there are many Christians, and many of the best of them do not know it of themselves. But God sees our heart. Well he didn't say that, but he gave comfort to the child in that sort of vein.

We know a song about that.

Don't know why I never thought about it this way. Well put — flannel jesus

Thanks. I wouldn't call myself a Christian, but I appreciate the story, and hate it when people wilfully distort the meaning or claim the copyright on interpretation. We are surely all God's people, and none are excluded - that's the story.

But what exactly did Jesus do that makes him his own class of one - and membership so difficult? — tim wood

I'm so glad you asked me, because not many people know this. He didn't just carry his cross up the hill, when he got to the top, he was nailed there to it and left until dead. The difficulty for followers though is that he did it for others, whereas followers tend to do it for their own salvation, to the extent that they make any sacrifice at all.

This is not an argument. It is an emotional appeal for inclusivity. — Leontiskos

It's not an argument indeed. It is a piece of history; the plain fact of the matter is that the term "Christian" has always been disputed from its inception and such identity labels nearly always are disputed.
No true philosopher would be unaware of this, or claim to possess the truth of the matter. :wink:

Mormons think they will ontologically become an independent "God." Christians think it is blasphemy to say such a thing. But no biggie, right? No significant difference there. :groan: — Leontiskos

"Christians" have been accusing each other of blasphemy, setting each other beyond the pale as apostates, heretics, heathens, or whatever, from before the time when the Bible as we know it was compiled; the texts to be included and those to be exiled to the Apocrypha were part of that conflict. Whatever consensus of belief has come to be accepted by you or anyone else about what constitutes a Christian has been arrived at through debate and conflict that has rejected more inclusive positions.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." — Matthew 16:24

Thus speaks the man who ought to know, and according to His standard, there are very very few Christians or have ever been; nor is belief the criterion.

I find it odd that one can be pro-life on moral grounds, but against free school meals, child support and so on. As though a woman does not have the right to control the resources of her body, but no one has any comparable duties with their financial resources. Makes no sense to me.

But my original point was that the attack on Walz's treatment of his son, and the accusation of violence, like the attack on his son earlier, was a lie being perpetuated on these pages without refutal; and the contempt shown for the disabled seems too often to go along with the supposed "pro-life" stance, which more usually turns out to be a parallel contempt for women, than a real valuing of all life.

Imagine JD Vance doing this. — NOS4A2

Imagine JD sharing a platform with his non-verbal son, and having the presence of mind and care to pull that son aside when he was about to walk into a teleprompter screen?

I can't imagine JD being open and honest and caring at all. I can't imagine him wanting to show his mixed race family off to the maga racists anyway. But they better get used to a lot more disabled kids of all sorts as abortion becomes more rare.

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

Close to half of the population will live through a harrowing court case, called "divorce". — Tarskian

I have lived through a divorce in the UK. It consisted of signing some papers and if I remember perhaps swearing an affidavit or something. There was no court appearance, and in general, the legal aspect was the least harrowing part of the separation.

Start with bullshit, and conclude with self-justification. This thread should have been put out our collective misery already.

The Great Replacement (French: grand remplacement), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory,[1][2][3] is a white nationalist[4] far-right conspiracy theory[3][5][6][7] espoused by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites,[a][5][8] the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced by non-white peoples—especially from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans.[5][9][10] Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts, notably in the United States.[11] Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims of a conspiracy of "replacist" elites as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview.[12][13][14] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Great Replacement "has been widely ridiculed for its blatant absurdity."[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement

Two clicks worth for you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism

But no true Scotsman would reveal what lies beneath his kilt,

Here’s a thought experiment for Christians. — Art48

I'm not a Christian, except by cultural heritage. But moving on...

...that Christianity is false. Suppose you came to believe that Jesus was just a man. — Art48

These are two very different questions. but let me ask you, are you "just a man"?

I assume that Jesus was just a man, but most men are not still thought about two millennia later so that "just" is having to work rather hard and looks a bit suspect. Hitler too was 'just a man'.

Nazism is false; Christianity is not. Do you want to even think about or discuss what it means to love your enemies or die for another's sins? And can such things be "false"?

I have costal real estate to sell — Mikie

Sell it now! Next year it might be territorial waters, or at least uninsurable.

Hey guys, I'm struck by how many fairly prominent seeming republicans are speaking at the DNC. Is that a normal thing in your politics? In the UK, we occasionally get someone swapping sides, but they tend to be regarded with suspicion and sidelined. I don't think I have ever seen a UK Tory saying "I'm still a conservative, but please vote Labour this time, because our leader is a corrupt and destructive person." Nor vice versa. There were Labour politicians undermining Jeremy Corbyn when he was leader, but none that spoke at the Conservative Conference. It just seems an extraordinary event to me; is it normal in the US?

A justification needs to be more than a simple claim or assertion — Leontiskos

Can you justify this claim? Where do justifications bottom out? I'm probing the probing here.

Edit: Also, what more can be provided?

Maybe there is a difference between justifying to society and justifying to oneself that is relevant here? — wonderer1

Possibly. But probably not, given that society just is a number of selves interacting and justifying stuff to each other. I guess I want a justification for looking for a justification of a justification. I'm not sure if that is an allowable move in the language game, but if it isn't, then maybe the opening move is illegitimate too.

But keeping it simple, supposing one has a general duty of care to one's fellow beings, one who is bent on harming his fellows thereby forfeits his own right to be cared for. Is this a justification or merely a restatement in other words? I might talk about a 'necessary mutuality' of moral behaviour, such that the thief forfeits his right to possess his own property, or the kidnapper his right to his own freedom. I'm struggling in the end to make sense of the question in terms of what sort of thing would count as an answer; if the principle of self defence cannot stand alone, how could it be defended by another principle?

I thought the claim to have acted in self defence was the way one justified an act of harm. You want a justification of the justification?

We are so polite and restrained on this site, as if we were all democrats or something. But have a proper gander at how the republicans take on The great golf cheat.



But for a really lame speech, the NDC can't compete with the Orange Baby recently declaring himself the defender of law and order, (you have to smile, surely?) and giving a purported 'economic speech', both in a monotone of sleepy dreariness that even Fox gave up on following. I won't give links to spare the blushes of the apologists, but you can find them I guess if you want to.

No solidarity amongst whites, that's the problem. :wink:

Where do the whites go? — NOS4A2

Everywhere else.

Yet, the reality of the situation is that the good Samaritan suffers because of the atomization of society, and hence hell is other people, the game becomes more refined and there is no room for compassion or sympathy. — Shawn

The good Samaritan in the parable did not suffer. He did not put himself above the others who did nothing, he helped a stranger and made nothing of it. It was the teller of that story who was crucified as a dangerous revolutionary.

Hell is other people, and so is heaven. Because the individual cannot survive alone - it takes two at the very least. If one is striving for independence all the time, other people are hell because one seeks to reject what one cannot do without. But the good Samaritan depends on the thieves and robbers to give him the opportunity to practice his virtue. No one would be reading about Jesus today or retelling the Samaritan story if he had not been crucified by the local religious cheeses.

Our exchange today, is dependent on a story told 2000 years ago, and relayed by nameless scribes through the years. We are temporary nodes in a web of life, and the judgement we each make is mainly about what is and is not worth relating to another.

To overvalue oneself is to live in fear; to undervalue oneself is to overvalue oneself. Therefore, relax, judge not that ye be not judged. Retire when the work is done.

Being and nonbeing produce each other.
The difficult is born in the easy.
Long is defined by short, the high by the low.
Before and after go along with each other.

So the sage lives openly with apparent duality
and paradoxical unity.
The sage can act without effort
and teach without words.
Nurturing things without possessing them,
he works, but not for rewards;
he competes, but not for results.

When the work is done, it is forgotten.
That is why it lasts forever. — Tao Te Ching:2

If it has been collectively decided to aim for happiness on an collective level, then what meaning could individual happiness mean to anyone?
— Shawn

This is such an odd formulation. — unenlightened

The rather tired old ideological dispute rehearsed above for a page and a half is precisely the one you set up in this sentence, between the happiness of the collective and of the individual. It is this shoddy distinction that seems to oppose the individualist to the collectivist that is the source of the trouble.

Psychologically, it equates to the conflict generated by the fact that humans, like any social animals, have both individual and social needs. But it reaches crisis point in humans because they are the top predator, and are therefore their own only enemy.

The pursuit of happiness, conceived as an individual right, immediately invites the individual to calculate and measure himself and his own happiness in relation to the rest of society. Thus the pursuit becomes a 'beggar your neighbour' affair, and life a competition. Every day one is reminded "there can only be one winner", One does not seem to register that every winner is dependent on a slew of losers.

Yet the celebration of the winner is necessarily a social event. Being the best, the fastest, the cleverest, the richest, the happiest, has no meaning without the envious adulation of the collective. And this demonstrates that the very act of comparing that enables one to consider one's own happiness so as to pursue it necessitates a miserable society.

But it also demonstrates that individual happiness depends mainly on the regard of others and the place one has in the collective, whether that is the workplace the classroom the playing field or the government.

The happy man is the one who has the stable positive regard of his neighbours. If one really understands this, one understands that there is no conflict, because the happiness of the individual is only to be found in the happiness of the collective. Life becomes much simpler and happier.

—

If it has been collectively decided to aim for happiness on an collective level, then what meaning could individual happiness mean to anyone? — Shawn

This is such an odd formulation.

Let us try the experiment. Let us collectively agree to aim for happiness. I think the first thing we need is a constitution that expresses our agreement and constitutes the formal foundation of the collective. Are we all happy to do that? All those in favour say "aye "and call yourselves "founding Fathers (and Mothers)".


It's a bit of a fairytale, but do notice that it is a Good Old American Fairytale, not Mr Nasty's Fairytale.

If we all would still be living the tribal life... — Benkei

If wishes were horses...

the explosion of human population growth happened as a by-product of the industrial revolution. If we were still fishing with sailing boats and hemp ropes and nets, the population would not have been growing at the rate it has, and we would not be as numerous as we are, nor as totally fucked as we are, and there would still be lots of fish in the sea. But Steel hawsers and plastic nets are a thing, and I have to carefully sort the seaweed I put on my garden to decontaminate it.

I'm not advocating a massive cull of humanity, I'm predicting one.

yeah, also important — Mikie

Sure, Global warming is simply one aspect of the degradation of the environment caused by human overshoot that results by from myopia of self-centred, shortsighted thinking. But a drop in human fertility is rather an ameliorating factor to the problem.

It’s at least as real and important as toxicity. — Mikie

Middle class white males might be being emasculated by synthetic oestrogen pollution.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028202043893

This is far more important than a few million Bangladeshis and Chinese drowning and a few million African's starving, etc.

I can't grasp what you're saying. — AmadeusD

I blame your utter insanity.

It's utterly insane that cyclists are legally allowed in bus lanes. Utterly bewilderingly dangerous - and it encourages cyclists to blame everyone else. — AmadeusD

It is utterly insane that humans have voluntarily, by consensus, given up their own freedom of movement in favour of that of machines they have created.