Rather than blame philosophers, we might want to blame English teachers for not teaching students how to write. The unwillingness of many professionals (outside of advertising) to match their prose to the needs at hand is a running sore.

I waged a long battle with public health pros back in the earlier days of AIDS and pressed them to write educational materials to the reading level and language habits of their target audiences. Less educated people (and a lot of more educated ones) do not usually talk about "pre-ejaculatory secretions" for example. And what a turn off that would be if they did! They are more likely to say "pre-cum". They thought that sort of word choice (pre-cum, cum, spit, shit...) was dumbing down the message. No, not dumbing down unless you are writing a pamphlet for the 3 or 4 whores with Public Health master or PhD degrees.

One of the keys to accessible writing is avoiding obscure words, especially obscure words derived from Latin and Greek. (See George Orwell on how a lot of latinate words are a clue that someone is lying). Another key is using relatively short sentences. "See Dick fuck Jane." is too short, but sentences running into several dozen words are too long, they are rather unwieldy, many people find them tiresome or irksome, and just because you don't know when, where, or why to insert periods and other terminating punctuation marks does not mean that other people are similarly handicapped, and they will judge you negatively--and wouldn't that be awful!



Anglo-saxon words and Middle English, which added a lot of everyday French words, will help you write clearly. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings Trilogy in language that was about 90% Anglo-Saxon and some Middle English. Did you find his prose tiresome? Probably not.

Granted, Tolkien wasn't discussing Heidegger.

I feel the European/British unease at a sudden influx of distressed people into Europe. There are a LOT of people in distress around the world and mobility means that the "wretched refuse of teeming shores" can move from distant parts of the world and arrive on one's doorstep quickly and in quantity.

Immigration can be a very good thing (all those immigrants coming to the US, for instance) and Europe is scarcely reproducing it's workforce on its own. Get busy, you lazy heterosexual Caucasians, or somebody else will do your reproducing for you.

It does need to be controlled, however, closer to the source. The developed countries don't seem to understand that Lebanon and Jordan need assistance in taking in and keeping many more Syrian refugees than Europe was ever thinking of taking in. (Saudi Arabia, for instance, has taken in... how many?)

I want to draw a comparison, and one I know is fetched from afar at this point--the establishment of a federal union among the 13 separate colonies which spawned the United States.

Europe is some sort of (fairly clunky) federal system. Formerly sovereign (still sovereign, I guess) states agree to join a centrally administered European Union and give up some/most/all the prerogatives of independent states.

The first effort to organize a union under the Articles of Confederation didn't work out all that well for us, and required a do-over (the constitution we now have). A Civil War was required to fully establish the principle of indissoluble union. Once in you stay in, period. Yes, slavery was an over-riding issue, but the southern states that would secede from the union weren't anxious to cooperate too much with each other in a lot of practical matters--like building what could have been a Confederacy-wide railroad system. Each of the southern states only built the railroad that it's richest citizens wanted, which wasn't much. The southerners didn't want a strong government vs. the local economic interests.

All of this is compounded in Europe, given its much longer history and the clutter of distinct administrative and governing cultures and conflicting interests.

Maybe the English Channel is part of the problem. Perhaps it gives Britain a sense of separateness from Europe it really shouldn't have. Geographical Determinism at work. We are an Island in ever so many ways. One would think, though, if the UK could digest an influx of Indians, Pakistanis, other Asians, Jamaicans, and various Africans it could also manage a batch of Catholic Poles. But... maybe not.

The problem is more like the proverbially variable tide -- rising for some, sinking for others, with boats going up and down right next to each other. It seemed like the EU had done quite a bit to equalize the tide -- didn't it?

The main thing is, once out of the EU Britain will have to deal with falling tides all by it's island self. Rising tides are of course easier to deal with, but if I were a Brit I wouldn't have counted on that.

It's not too late. You haven't left yet. You have not put the Brexit shotgun in your mouth and pulled the trigger... yet.

Glad you found your way here. Welcome.

Writing graceful accessible prose is hard work. It's easier to sling cant and jargon. Yes, some people try too hard to sound erudite. They use too many words like "erudite". This is by no means limited to philosophers, however. Lots of learned folk could not write a graceful, easily understood sentence about something reasonably complicated if their lives depended on it.

Write the best prose you can, and maybe someone will notice that it sounds good and will copy your style. If not, at least people will be able to understand you.

I'm not actually dissing the working classes in any of this. I'm commenting on the uniquely difficult problems of the 21st century, such as this one. — Wayfarer

Good. But life has been difficult for all classes of people for a very long time (except the small number of most pampered persons). People at all sorts of levels in society, dealing with varying levels of complexity, have had a tough time of succeeding.

Yes: life is complicated, and is not getting simpler year in, year out. One of the reasons for this complexity is off-loading tasks onto people that have too many things to do--things like figuring out how to use the fucking clunky software that some autistic programmer produced, or figure out how to turn off all the new bells and whistles that some corporation decided to stuff their software with so it always looked new and "better" somehow... Microsoft and Apple are both guilty of this.

A lot of our "complexity" is needless. That's a big fat glittering generality that should take a few threads to untangle.

They’re tight trouser latte-sipping hipsters who whine all the time.... — Wayfarer

Yes, I read that in the shout box, or wherever you posted it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Brexit situation reminds me of Prohibition: the people who voted for it in 1919 weren't the ones who were going to have to enforce the stupid constitutional amendment. The people who did have to enforce it had a range of responses, from enforcement with a vengeance to somehow never seeing alcohol being sold. I wish the implementors and writers of regulations, and so on all the success in the world. I still hope somebody figures out a way of aborting Brexit.

But I think this kind of attitude is actually leading to the endumbing of the populace. (That hardly applies to anyone here, but then, this is a philosophy forum, it is frequented by people who can put arguments together and write persuasively). But a lot of people can hardly be bothered concentrating long enough to read anymore. Everything is sound-bytes, pictures, videos - because it's easy, like today's food culture. Instead of having to carve a chicken, it comes in a neat little plastic tray, already crumbed. Meanwhile the world is changing at a faster rate that at any time in history, the amount of information is exploding, and the kinds of problems we're facing more complex than ever before. — Wayfarer

There is a very long tradition of dismissing the common man as too stupid to tie his own shoes. The elite of Britain could not cast enough aspersion on their 'common man' back in the 15th and 16th centuries. Oddly enough, when the stupid worthless yokels landed on these shores, and had to survive by dint of hard work and brains, they did.

Oh, I know: a large number of people can't balance a checkbook; they read at a 6th - to - 8th grade level (not a very high level), don't know where their own state is on a map, don't know who their governor is, don't quite get why ground meat should be cooked to 168ºF, and so on and so forth. Or slice meat neatly off a chicken.

But the thing is, one has to need to do these things, and has to have a reason to maintain the skill. I know very well educated people who are always getting lost driving because they have given up the use of maps. I haven't balanced a checkbook in years. (I do know how -- I just don't write checks anymore.) I don't think I've ever needed to identify my state on a map or identify the current governor. (but I could... if asked)

As for slicing a chicken up, if one hasn't been taught how to do this, one probably doesn't know how. We aren't born knowing how to locate the hip joint of a bird.

those who now have to implement the extremely difficult task of effecting separation from the EU, are mainly those who voted to remain in it! — Wayfarer

I presume that the people who are going to do the implementation are a relatively small number of bureaucrats. It doesn't make any difference what the said bureaucrats voted for. Their job is implementation, regulation writing, negotiation, etc. OF COURSE several million voters are not going to negotiate or implement. That wasn't the case when the UK first affiliated with the EU.

the complexities of modern economics and politics are far beyond the capacity of the electorate to understand and manage — Wayfarer

I think what is beyond the capacity of the electorate to understand and manage is being presented with several confused, partially true and partially false, incompatible sets of facts and opinions, each delivered with truth-telling conviction. Professional economists and skilled political operators aren't able to make sense of this jumble of deceit either.

The People can handle the fact that there is often real conflicting information when it is honestly presented in a straightforward way. The American people were presented witddh false information about Iraq's WMDs, and much else. If the president says the Iraqis were building nuclear weapons, who is in a position to contradict that? Not very many. It isn't a deficiency in the people's reasoning that they did not guess that the Iraqi WPMs were a fabrication.

I fully understand why this straightforward approach does not occur. Professional politicians and advocates want to obscure the truth of the matter as much as possible so that their views might prevail. If people aren't honest, you can't do business. If people aren't honest, you can't do good politics or international relations either.

The situation is that professional politicians can not deal with inconvenient facts and will not communicate honestly about them.

If you're a girl who is the town bicycle and everyone gets a ride - — Agustino

Funny. Did you make that up just now?

the Left has no notion of shame - nothing is shameful for them, simply because there is no responsibility. So if you're a bum smoking weed the whole day in your house and never getting your head out of there nor doing anything useful or productive - then that's nothing to be ashamed of. — Agustino

You are, of course, exaggerating and have crucified a scarecrow on which you fastened a sign, "King of the Potheads".

Back when there were actual hard-core leftist parties--various Communist and Socialist organizations--I think you would have found them a rather conventional, hard-working, abstemious, responsible class of people. You might have agreed with NONE of their politics, but they weren't pot-smoking air heads or libertines. They were as responsible and hard nosed as Republican bankers were.

I don't actually know many pot-heads; the few that I know are usually not politically committed one way or the other. Why would they be?

What we have politically (at least in the US) are a lot of people who are politically inarticulate, bend towards liberal or conservative, and are paragons of neither your views nor mine. They don't smoke pot, they go to work every day, they do aspire to be happy in who they are (why shouldn't they?), and they keep the wheels of the economy turning. They may or may not be religious, they are more likely to be "spiritual" (whatever the hell that is), they keep their gardens (lawns) neat, have reasonably well kept living quarters, drive carefully, and live lives of conventional morality.

About the left and right never getting along... They did get along fairly well when both of the mainline political parties continued liberal and conservative wings. There used to be "Rockefeller Republicans" (after Nelson Rockefeller) who were fiscally conservative and socially liberal--by Republican Standards, and their opposites in the democratic party, fiscally liberal and socially conservative. They certainly didn't all agree on everything, but were able to work together well enough to obtain effective government on both state and federal levels. Both parties went through upheavals in the 1960s and 1970s which began breaking down the working relationship.

Your assertion seems to be completely arbitrary. — Emptyheady

Yes, it's arbitrary. "a life" clearly begins at conception but the time at which the fetus becomes a person is arbitrary. If you want to place it at conception, fine.

"No one should be forced to raise a child they do not want." So infanticide should be morally and legally acceptable? — Emptyheady

No, of course infanticide is not acceptable.

Unwanted (like, really not wanted) babies are nothing new. We can pursue a child-friendly policy:

adoption
extra assistance to mothers who are not capable (at the time) of embracing the child's care
social support for parents raising children whether they wanted them or not.

Actually, quite a lot of children are not "wanted". Slip ups happened and more children arrived. Generally people raise the "unwanted" child as well as they raise the desired children.

The US doesn't do all that great a job at providing extra assistance or social support. We could do better.

I totally agree that parents are responsible for their children. Neglect or active harm is and should be illegal and should be prosecuted. But... people who can not handle parenthood do have a lawful, appropriate alternative: adoption.

Regarding abortion — Emptyheady

My predilections have been leftist for a long time, and I have always argued that it's a woman's right to choose what happens to her own body. If she doesn't want to be pregnant, then out with it. The argument (behind this position) is consistent, especially if one ignores the fetus that will become a person in just a few months.

Of late, I have come to find the absolute autonomy / biology is not destiny / pro-choice / fetus-discarding-approach unsatisfactory. Maybe I am drifting rightward; I hope not. There are always two people involved in a pregnancy, and most of the time both partners were pretty much willing to roll the paternity/maternity dice.

I do not wish to extend personhood to fetuses in general, especially in the first two trimesters. Not granting personhood to an 8 month fetus is not rational. If born in the 8th month, it has a fairly good chance of surviving, high tech or not. But a fetus is not a meaningless blob either, even at 1 month. It is an incipient person, even if natural biological causes end it's development early through miscarriage.

If the conception is not interfered with immediately (by using Plan B), it seems to me that there is at least some obligation to complete the pregnancy. Granted, there are circumstances that override the obligation--factors associated with incapacity, not inconvenience. No one should be forced to raise a child they do not want. Plenty of misery has been caused by unwilling parenthood (the 18 year long march version) and adoption should be readily available.

Absolutely nothing I have said here is of any significance. All this has been said by others many times before. The only thing that is significant (to me, mostly) is that I have changed my thinking.

Oh. Sorry. Well, comply anyway.

Because resistance is futile. Submit to assimilation. — Heister Eggcart

Please get it right: "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

I am just a biological robot/machine — DanEssex

You may very well be a wet robot, and should not have any human rights. I, however, am neither a robot nor a machine.

In Deuteronomy 14:26 and other places, Gawd acknowledged that people weren't always able to get to Jerusalem to celebrate holy days at the Temple. In such an event, the instructions were as follows:

You may spend the money to your heart’s content to buy livestock, flocks, wine, strong drink, and whatever you desire. You and your household may eat there and rejoice in the presence of the Lord your God.”

If God is for it, why should anyone be against it--other than those in AA?

There is a readily detectible difference between a buzz, euphoria, and stupor. Alcohol is addictive, and does cause a lot of misery and death. I suspect that those who become alcoholic (addicted to alcohol) are genetically predisposed. The predisposition is composed of the way alcohol is metabolized, the effect it has on behavior, and a not-alcohol-related tendency to lurch into uncontrolled or barely controlled behaviors.

Most people seem to be able to drink alcohol safely, once they have learned how they react to it (unfortunately, quite a few people die in the process, because their first encounter with a lot of alcohol can result in stupor). I could easily have died from my first encounter with a lot of alcohol (a bottle of cheap wine). We got drunk on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi (where we were old enough to buy the crappy slop we guzzled down) then crossed a railroad bridge back to Minnesota (by which point we were totally drunk). It's just luck that I-we didn't fall off the bridge into the water and drown.

I am allergic to almost all alcohol except Vodka and Tequila — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Vodka is an uncolored alcohol product. It's relatively simple. Consider brandy, whiskey, bourbon, cordials... These products are aged in oak barrels--some of them charred, are distilled from wines (brandy), or have all sorts of flavorings (cordials). There is a very long list of compounds which could trigger an allergic reaction. Gin is good, but some people are annoyed by juniper berries.

Beer, especially the micro-brewed or nano-brewed products consist of yeast, grain, water, and hops. Within the yeast and hops there are quite a few possible allergens. Celeriac cases probably can't drink beer made from wheat (as opposed to barley).

So your allergy to many types of alcoholic mixes is quite plausible. Plutonium hexafluoride has a delicious strawberry flavor, but gives many people problems when guzzled in large quantities. They tend to just keel over, shrivel up, and glow in the dark.

...and after we get done with a few of these, you can come up to my apartment and I'll show you some etchings which are very nice...

continue to keep knock, knock, knockin' on Heaven's Door every weekend — Gaurav Sobti

Why on earth would anyone wait until the weekend to knock knock knock on Heaven's Door when glory can be had with a few bottles of beer or a few ounces of gin RIGHT NOW?

Man, I've had religious ecstasy, and I've had transcendental peace. These are both high-end gold-wrapped candy which are dandy, but philosophers know that liquor is quicker. And more certain as well. Right now I have in my hand a glass of tonic, New Amsterdam gin, and ice cubes and already I am experiencing the divine tranquilization of the spirit world that I have come to know and love. It works, and it's quite affordable.

Skol!

Right. I don't think either the Treasury Department, Housing and Urban Development, or any other agency "FORCED" banks to make loans to people who could not conceivably maintain the loans, let alone repay them.

"Expansion of home ownership" has been a quasi-national policy, but there are obvious limits. The poor can not buy homes. Renting, in many locales and circumstances, is preferable to ownership (particularly in dense urban areas). If home ownership is desired, it is also over-rated. Owning a house is a fairly efficient way to provide shelter, but it entails costs and labor that renting does not. If the roof starts leaking in my house, I have to deal with it, whether I like it or not. If I don't want the stored value of a house to deteriorate, I had better call a roofer, and find the money to pay him. The tax advantages of a mortgage are not available to people with lower incomes.

Bank officers and real estate companies worked together to push home ownership into a financial layer of the population that was more victimized than anything else. Then they packaged up the worthless mortgages into disguised quality paper and sold it abroad. It wasn't only the poor who got sucked into this scheme. Quite a few better off people also bought into more expensive housing with higher mortgages than they could really afford.

When the shit hit fan (as it always does, eventually) the financial system was shocked and froze up. The victims of the scheme lost large amounts of cash and/or asset value, as the market prices plummeted back towards a more sustainable level. A lot of people walked away from what they had "owned" and each borrower/buyer left behind cash they weren't going to recover.

The way I read it this is what happened to the economy over the last 46 years, 1970-to the present:

The pent-up demand for housing, education, and jobs, largely unsatisfied since 1930, was resolved during a long post-WWII boom of prosperity and an increasing consumption of goods and services. Working class and middle class expectations were re-calibrated upwards. Economic expansion can not continue indefinitely. At some point during the 1970s, the economic tide shifted from an increase to a gradual decrease of upward mobility.

Aspirations, however, did not contract. As purchasing power fell, women who had not previously needed to contribute to family income, found it necessary to join the workforce. It wasn't that women were going back to work to buy scarce food. They joined the workforce to maintain upward mobility.

Over time it became increasingly difficult for families to maintain upward mobility even with second incomes. Changes in the economy began to cut away the ground under many working class households, and later middle class households too, and increasing debt or borrowing against assets was required to keep the hope of continuous improvement afloat. More and more people have since experienced downward mobility.

It is true that if consumption remained constant (no new house, no transfusion of new furnishings, no new huge flat screen TV, no boat, no second and third car, no big trips, no private school for the kids) households would have done better in the short run. They would have accumulated financial rewards. In the longer run (but not very long) this prudent thrift would backfire: The US economy is 70% (+/-) driven by consumption. If consumption stays flat, the economy goes into reverse.

Under no circumstances can we have everything: full employment, high consumption, no inflation, abundant savings, low taxes, economic growth, etc. That's just not the way economies work--especially when we engage in massive and wasteful government expenditures (like pointless ill-conceived wars) and massive diversion of wealth into the hands of very few people.

The economy of the US is partly driven by the needs of the many, and largely driven by the needs and wishes of the few. Besides us, there are almost 7 billion other people on earth trying to aspire to a higher quality life, and besides our wealthiest, the world has a larger super wealthy class that soaks up a lot of cash and directs economy policy this way and that, according to their wants and needs.

The only Trump building I have seen, Trump Tower in Chicago, is a very large, and quite satisfying building, at least on the outside. (Didn't get the VIP inside tour.) He is, granted, somewhere in the small heap of rich and successful entrepreneurs at the top of the larger heap of the still larger heap of entrepreneurs in general. If the Clintons are as rich as I've heard they are (with most of their wealth accumulated in the last 16 years) then they have done very well for themselves as well -- a few million $$ to what? over 200 million $$$ ??? is good money for book royalties, consulting fees, speaking tours, et al.

Is he any worse than a lot of rich people? Certainly not. So then why don't I like him? Because, for one thing, he isn't any better than a lot of rich guys, and compared to the other very rich guys who have made a run for the presidency, he lacks 3 things:

1. Experience in public service.
2. Gravitas
3. Intellectual depth

So for #3, he certainly isn't unique here. If still waters run deep... George Bush II was/is the very model of a shallow gulch, a drainage ditch, a dry arroyo. So was Ronald Reagan, IMHO. In politics, "shallow" is not a disqualifier.

For #2, a quality separate from depth and his CV, he isn't unique either. A number of presidents have gotten through a term or two on gaseous gravitas. But they aren't remembered as great, either.

For #1, he is kind of a stand out. Of course, President Eisenhower didn't have political experience either.

Trump University is to a real university what a home made raft is to the Queen Mary. So no, he didn't "do universities".

As for the Rockefellers, I suppose it is the case that the current generation, like many of the scions of wealth, are living on the proceeds of their inheritances. John D. Rockefeller Jr., however did enlarge the family wealth. Rockefeller Center was a "yuuge" real estate deal which took quite a while to assemble and build, and quite a bit longer to turn a profit, but become profitable it did. (The Great Depression got in the way.)

That isn't a good situation to be in. — Question

No it is not. The pie has gotten bigger, and a very large number of people have discovered that their share of the pie is zero.

FREE MARKETS are a fetish of mainstream politics and economics. God might as well have forbidden any part of the political economy to be planned, structured, and operated for the benefit of the greatest number of people, as far as 'they' are concerned.

I guess I must have missed it. Clinton won the popular vote by around 2 million votes. — Cavacava

I don't think the rank and file of The People have necessarily moved to the right. Those who were on the political right 10, 20 years ago are still there. Those on the political left 10, 20 years ago are also still there.

What's right and what's left? Over all, Americans tend to be optimistic. Is that a feature of the left or right? Over all, Americans tend to think they can get rich (or richer, at least) if they try hard enough. Is that a feature of the left or right? Over all, Americans tend to be more or less tolerant of each other, regardless of race or religion. Is that a feature of the left or the right?

The Political Establishment has redefined what is left and right, pushing the midline toward the right. What was once considered liberal within the Republican Party is now out in left field (according to the far right wing). Liberal Democrats are now radicals, and so on. The shifts in the political establishment may not have all that much to do with what people actually think.

It's difficult to think about left and right after a long campaign (18 months, at least) of exaggeration, lies, misstatements, misrepresentations, propaganda, and even some truthful statements, here and there.

the invisible hand — Question

There are plenty of very "visible hands" pulling the levers and turning the knobs of the economy without us worrying about the mysterious invisible ones. ACTUAL policy makers encouraged banks to expand the mortgage market. Actual and Specific bank employees applied the rules for someone with a pulse to qualify for a mortgage. Very real companies, and specific hands, gathered up worthless mortgages and bundled them up to sell as really valuable instruments. Actually people were asleep at the regulatory wheel.

Thinking about the future, there is a real threat of AI coming down from the heavens — Question

AI, automation, and mechanization of work has already arrived (in places, certain industries, certain jobs, etc.) and does indeed pose significant challenges (aka "problems" or "trouble") for the near future.

Most if not all the economic policies of Reagan and Thatcher of an unbridled and self-regulating economy have failed as shown in the 2008 financial meltdown. — Question

I'm nor sure whether a causal link can be seen between Reagan/Thatcher and 2008. Reagan's administration was followed by 3 different presidential administrations (Bush I, Clinton, Bush II) for a total of 20 years. As much as I disliked Reagan, I'm not sure I can blame 2008 on him.

One of the trends that has aggravated the maldistribution of wealth and stagnant income for the majority of people is the financialization of wealth. The Robber Barons of the 19th century made a lot of their money from real industrial activity (or speculation on real industrial activity). Industrial activity generally equals jobs. Wealth tied to producing real products and services is still real, but less so than it was say 40 years ago. The huge surge in wealth for the richest 1%-5% has been largely tied to financial income (interest, dividends, trading, currency markets, etc.) rather than production.

Much less money has been plowed into technology, production advances, training, and so forth -- investment in human resources -- than was the case say 50 years ago. Money has been diverted away from production (and "jobs, jobs, jobs") and into financial investments which don't yield much, if any, employment.

The other thing that has affected the working classes is AI, automation, and mechanization. These three factors have greatly improved worker productivity, and consequently have reduced the number of workers needed in many fields.

In the short run, this means fewer jobs. In the long run, we are all dead - as John Maynard Keynes noted.

Trump is far far more capable than Clinton — Agustino

Well, what exactly has Trump done that proves him to be a really swell guy to be President?

He's succeeded in show business. No small deal, most people who try to succeed in show business fail. He's succeeded in business, apparently. Maybe some of his dealings were shady, but shady kind of comes with the territory of real estate; everybody wants to live on a shady street. As a "university" founder, he evidently left a great deal to be desired. I can't think of anything else he's done that was particularly distinguished.

As far as I know, Hillary has not tried show business or real estate. Being First Lady isn't something that Trump was ever eligible to be, and it's pretty clear that he doesn't have much of her policy wonkiness.

Do you really think that I'm the only person for which it is more of a chore than an art — Sapientia

Chore or bore, artful or martyrdom, every body has to eat. There are, basically, 3 ways of feeding yourself:

Get it raw and cook it; get it pre-cooked and reheat it; or let somebody else do it for you. Gardens, stores, and restaurants pretty much answer our needs.

I used to like to cook, but like most things, if one doesn't do it regularly, one loses skills. When I have the recipe in front of me, things come out OK. But I just don't like cooking much, anymore -- especially foods that require a lot of attention: measuring, mixing, seasoning, cooking in several steps, stuff that is touchy about too much or not enough heat, all that.

One forgets things. For a decade or so, the pancakes I made were not especially good. Then the New York Times had an article on pancakes, and it mentioned cultured buttermilk. Right, the missing link! It makes all the difference in the world. But then the last time I forgot to add melted butter to the batter and that also made all the difference in the world in the other direction.

Tonight's meal will mostly be reheated. Everything will be done in the microwave.

I don't really get it but I'll chalk it up to just another senile drama queen fag making mountains of molehills — csalisbury

Mercy, mercy, Mary.

I suppose I do have a thing about Social Justice Warriors. I used to be an earlier version. I was up on all this stuff, and not cynically. Like a lot of things, it got carried away with itself. It became too self-righteous; too judgmental; too dictatorial; too unreflective. It became unhealthy. It shallowed out. It narrows down to nothing.

Three Dog Night had a hit with this song from Hair: of which...

...Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice...
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needy friend
I need a friend

Of course, each generation has its causes célèbre, its favoring bleeding victims. And I get that every generation tends to run their vaunted ideals into the ground through over use. There's a proverb, "Never trust a young man who isn't a socialist, and never trust an old man who is." I don't entirely agree with this piece of wisdom, having been a young socialist and an old one both, but there is some truth to it. The truth is that youthful and stringent idealism should mature, ferment into a more sophisticated apprehension of reality. There's a good chance that the old socialist has run Marx into the ground.

The thing to which people object in all of the discourse about isms and phobias is that it retains the raw flavor of youth who have JUST DISCOVERED that bad things happen to good people, (or worse, good things happen to bad people), that life is unfair, that individuals contain a host of contradictory values (and are still good people), etc. etc. etc.

Hanover: everyone hates each other anyway — csalisbury

One deficiency in Hanover's statement is that we don't know most people (like, 99.9%) well enough to actually hate them. They are abstractions, so it is easy to say we love or hate them, because... well, they are not up-close and personal; not real. In actuality, we don't know enough about most people to work up so much as a low grade snit toward these abstractions, let alone a red hot hatred.

One might add that a merciful and loving God has seen fit to arrange the world so that we DO NOT know each other too well, thus increasing the likelihood of Peace On Earth, Good Will among Abstractions.

I don't think most of us want to make room for strangers. We would just as soon they remain abstractions, rather than forcing upon us the horrid, warm smelly details of their particularity. So, we say to the strangers in our midst, "Keep moving, buddy. Don't stop here."

Is there something wrong with us, then? No. I think this is a 'normal' attitude.

The many waves of immigrants to the United States have generally been met with chilly acceptance (which is a tight-lipped narrowed eye acknowledgment that they got off the boat and are now walking around on OUR streets). The first generation often made little progress, beyond surviving. It was their children who made progress, and maybe by the 3rd generation, became integrated and American.

That's the normal, time-consuming progression of events. The skids do not need to be greased by militant advocacy demanding acceptance IMMEDIATELY, or tyrant SJWs guilt tripping everyone for being sexist, racist, homophobic, islamophobic, etc-phobic--what ever is convenient to guilt trip people for at the moment.

The "golden rule" is called "golden" for a reason.

A man asked Rabbi Hillel to teach him the entire Torah, the five books of Moses, while standing on one foot. And Hillel did. "'What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.' That's the whole Torah, he said. All the rest is commentary. Now go and study."

Rabbi Hillel died in about 10 CE. His teaching may have influenced Jesus.

Besides that, everybody knows that the golden rule means "Them with the gold make the rules." Easy enough to understand. Like the GR under discussion. Only philosophers would have difficulty understanding what it means.

China would be one, actually, although only comparably, not exactly. Australia is more in line, especially given the fact that cities dominate its population centers. That all the minorities get along fairly well is impressive. Perhaps Spain could be included, but I'm less inclined to use them as a direct example. — Heister Eggcart

Ask Tibetans or Uighurs how well multiculturalism works in China. Australia? Australia has been quite choosy about who is admitted as immigrants. How about the various boat people who end up on very small island "concentration camps", rather than being allowed to set foot on Aussie soil?

Cities dominate population centers all over the world. Actually, that's what a city is.

You might have mentioned Russia, which is quite multicultural -- thanks to czarist expansionism in centuries past.

nor does Egypt, as a more Middle-eastern country. — Heister Eggcart

Egypt is an African country, as is Somalia.

most migrants want to help benefit and build up Israeli society through working and stimulating the economy. — Heister Eggcart

I'd be surprised if most African immigrants have much interest in building up and stimulating the economy of an explicitly JEWISH state. They might have absolutely nothing against Jews, but let's face it, Africans are not Jews, and Israel hasn't hung up a "multicultural state" shingle over it's door. Israel has enough difficulty coping with the demands of Jews who range from secular atheists to the militantly ultra orthodox.

I would guess, just off hand, that most immigrants -- especially economic immigrants -- want to make money for themselves so they can live in the manner they want to live.

One excuse given, by both the populace at large and the government, for forcing Indians to move from their homes to someplace else, is because "there are Indians over here, too!" — Heister Eggcart

That seems remarkable unconvincing and lame, even for American genocidalistas. I hadn't heard that rationale before. I think it was much more likely the rationale was plainer: We want your land, you are going to move, and that's that."

Let me know how you like it.

Heister Eggcart — Heister Eggcart

Hester Eggcart sounds like a "a Cockney rhyme" or something -- probably something, and not a Cockney rhyme. Like one can write a monolog studded with words like your name, and it is quite funny. One I heard about Bill Clinton back in his Monica days is "Well, he was just one gorny huy." Horny guy. Get it?

So Meister Eckhart (1260—1328) comes out Heister Eggcart or Heister Eggfart or Heisted Eggparts or Hoisted Eggwarts.

So what's your name, does all this explain your handle?

Best science fiction book you've read lately? — Mongrel

Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart.

99.9% of the earth's population die very quickly from a new disease, almost all at once, except for a randomly resistant remnant. The story follows one group living Oakland, CA. They are an unremarkable group. They survive because there are is a thick cushion of goods on hand. The people died but buildings and contents weren't affected. Little is said about the disease. There are no descriptions of ghastly death -- people just got ill with an influenza-like disease and died quickly.

The group survives (40 or 50 years at plot's end) but the charm of the story is in the way the lazy non-forward thinking of the group turns out to be better than the rational long-range planning of the leader. The people in the group are, as I said, unremarkable, but to use a term that hadn't been invented in 1949, crowd sourcing turned out to be more reliable than expert sourcing.

The leader recognizes his irrelevance and comes up with a gift to the future in the form of a toy.

The book is available in print (maybe) but is definitely in e-book format. Might even be a free copy out there somewhere.

It was one of the best books I've read in any category.

Another charm of the book is the absence of nuts and bolts we are familiar with. For instance, he describes a post-apocalypse drive across what had been America to verify what he thought had happened. He describes driving along Highway 66, and for a brief moment I wondered "why would anyone drive on secondary roads?" Then it occurred to me, "Of course! Route 66 was THE best east-west road in 1949--the interstate highway system was still a decade away. His family had a wind-up Victrola record player for 78 rpm records. We still had one in use in the mid 1950s (till I took it apart to study the mechanics of the gears, governor, and springs). There was no TV in the story. Cars were easier to understand -- all mechanical. Antibiotics would have made only the briefest appearance in 1949. Airline passenger trips wouldn't have been missed by 99% of the population.

It is as irrational as to say that I am living for my right pinky toe. — intrapersona

So, make the most of your toe, then. Look, it's getting late, it's been a long day. It's time for me to brush my meaningless teeth and go to bed. I've enjoyed this discussion. You are OK. You are going to make it.

Proof that it is meaningless? What is an answer if the universe has no meaning? Answer necessitates meaning. — intrapersona

Which is why you aren't going to get one from the universe.