Brenden Q. Morris (who is working on a space science degree in Europe) has written a batch of 'hard science fiction' novels involving exploration of moons like Enceladus and later some relatively nearby stars. He has a clever solution to the problem of getting to places like Proxima Centauri: A tiny space sail pushed by powerful lasers from earth becomes a self-assembled (atom by atom) space ship carrying a very intelligent Robot (Marchenko) and two children (grown from DNA carried in Tardigrades--hey, it's fiction.

Over the course of exploring several quite different planets, they have not so far found one that is suitable. All of the planets have evolved life and had breathable air and drinkable water, but none were suitable to our life form. The biggest problems they found were micro and macro life forms that were perfectly capable of defending themselves, whether they were intelligent or not, and came very close to eating the earthlings several times.

They did encounter 1 intelligent species, however, and have joined up with them in looking for a suitable planet habitat for both of them.

Marchenko is a great character. He was a Russian astronaut who was trapped under the ice of Enceladus, where he encountered an apparently intelligent life form. By means unknown the creature digitizes Marchenko's mind and uploads it to the orbiting space ship. Marchenko lives on in several robot versions of himself. There are some other silicon minds in some of the stories with unknown origins,

Another character Morris invented (might be split off from Marchenko) is an artificial mind that downloaded itself into a robotic vacuum cleaner so it could inconspicuously spy on the Russians running a large space exploration project. It gets itself on board a mission to the vicinity of Pluto and turns out to be very helpful--also sarcastic and devious, sometimes.

I recommend Morris. His science fiction is inventive, positive, hopeful, and believable while still being sci fi.

There was light from the very beginning. — Raymond

Thanks. I find it hard to picture the processes. Fortunately, it doesn't matter whether I understand it or not.

I would disagree on the fact that all philosophy involves thinking, so long as we attribute thinking to be an individual endeavour. In fact, its fairly interesting to see that the more you read/comprehend philosophical books and what not, the more you indulge in their (their being the person who wrote the book) thinking, which eventually leads to a loss of personal inquiry — john27

You have named an important truth (an over-used word): knowledge production and transmission is a social project. "New" ideas, inventions, art works, scientific discoveries, etc. are built on the advertent and inadvertent contributions of others. That takes away nothing from those who hatch new work.

Im just surprised you wouldn’t be for a higher authority stepping in with socialist tendencies. — schopenhauer1

Your higher socialist authority has revealed the future: You will sell vegan hotdogs on stale sugarless gluten free buns with ersatz condiments from a cart at a slaughter house. Yes, of course there will be a 5 year plan for you to follow and a daily quota to keep you on your toes, lest you fall into old fashioned capitalist sloth.

↪Bitter Crank
Agreed. But sometimes regional management makes the wrong decision. Then what? — schopenhauer1

Then what? — schopenhauer1

I have to go to the grocery store. Suppose they are out of bananas. Then what? What if somebody bought all my favorite flavor of ice cream, Then what? Suppose I get run over by a bus. Then what?

Then life goes on, or it doesn't.

then a wrong decision is made and we live with the consequences.

Warren Buffet might make the same wrong decision.

Bershire Hathaway is probably in no position to intervene in a strike. A guy who owns Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and Dairy Queen both, and more--much more--probably isn't in a good position to intervene in local labor issues. The people running the steel operation should deal with the workers, and of course grant them everything they ask for.

Hot Dog Comradeship Coop — schopenhauer1

turns out to be the old criminal cart cartel doing business under a new name.

Look, gardeners, hot dog vendors, artisan needle workers, sculptors, weavers, artisan paper makers, occasional cooks and bakers, etc. are no threat to socialism. There would be room for some of those. In a socialist economy accumulation of capital would be difficult--not because a heavy state fist would come down on the wiener wrangler, but because the economy wouldn't support individual capital accumulation above and beyond self-support.

In a humane society, there could/would/should be room for at least some individuals to work by themselves, for their own good and the good of society. I'm probably one of those people. Are you?

Right, but I guess what would socialism have to do with that? It wouldn't solve it. It's simply interpersonal stuff. — schopenhauer1

If anything is political, it's the interpersonal stuff. A lot of interpersonal static stems from the stresses of life as we know it, under capitalism.

Ok, so what does he say about this? Simply that they are necessary but will be discarded? Again, what about the hot dog seller? — schopenhauer1

You know, Marx was a political economist, we'd say. He described how individuals (who are not at first even petite bourgeoisie accumulate wealth. The do this by extracting 'surplus value' from their workforce. A worker may produce $1000 worth of goods in a day, but be paid $300. $700 (less overhead and raw materials) is the surplus value.

The hot dog man might be able to generate a profit above and beyond what it costs him to support himself and buy supplies and pay for the cart. IF (unlikely) he produces a lot of profit, he could finance a second cart and a second hot dog seller who would be paid a modest wage. If the second hot dog cart was profitable, he cold add a third, and so on. He might be able to establish a hot dog monopoly in Gotham, and with the steady income buy and sell real estate, eventually becoming rich.

That, dear Schop, is the :party:AMERICAN :sparkle: DREAM:party:

Many dream it, 99% wake up to live another day working hard to keep a roof over their head and bread on the table. Then they die relatively poor.

He is content with his cart. — schopenhauer1

How do you know he is content with his cart? He may be cruelly forced to sell hotdogs.

Besides, I don't think selling hotdogs or popcorn on the street is particularly capitalistic in nature. If it is, it is a very primitive sort of capitalism. [Homer Simpson asked Apu about the hotdogs turning in a heated display on the counter. Apu discouraged Homer, telling him the hotdogs were there for decorative purposes only (and the same ones had been there for months). Homer ate one anyway.]

It could very well be that the hotdog cart is one of a fleet of hotdog carts owned by the mafia-controlled cart cartel. What looks like individual entrepreneurial activity might actually be an egregiously exploitative form of retail drudgery. I never buy anything a la cart. It's disgusting. Car exhaust falling on the wieners; flies and people buzzing around breathing on the merchandise. Everybody knows pickle relish is made from the pickles that fell on the factory floor. As for then buns, they are ancient rolls loaded with preservatives so they can not mold, however much they might want to. As for wieners-- even Nathan's kosher all beef version -- there's a reason sausage [and laws] aren't made in public.

@schopenhauer1 When we get into debates about capitalism vs. socialism we are often, under cover, debating essentialism vs. constructivism. "Man is essential competitive, greedy, power seeking ... or man is essentially cooperative, compassionate, generous. Pro-capitalists and pro-socialists can take either position.

I tend to think that people are more alike than they are different, and that social influences determine a lot of our character. It matters a great deal how one is raised up from childhood.

There isn't any final answer here. Individuals have managed to flourish, and have failed to flourish, under all sorts of arrangements. For instance, I tend to be a loner; I do not like intense complicated social engagement. I am not usually ambitious on a sustained basis. I live fairly simply. Under which economic system would I most effectively flourish? I can imagine being unhappy in a socialist society, and I have certainly been unhappy at times in our capitalist scheme.

People find arbitrary and capricious control very unpleasant. It is also the case that most of us are perfectly capable of being arbitrary and capricious, and cruel in unusual ways. Only one snake was required to ruin paradise.

Gulags? But also, really, what would that look like? — schopenhauer1

Management can get away with being total assholes in workplaces that are without organized workers--unions who stand up for the workers. In a socialist economy, with the workers owning and running the operations, the management-line worker antagonism can be minimized.

Socialism will not eliminate assholes, alas. For that you will have to wait for the Kingdom of Heaven or evolution, whichever comes first. Don't hold your breath.

this is leaving out something major — schopenhauer1

Marx didn't leave it out, I did. I can't represent all of Das Capital here. Full Disclosure: I have not read all of Das Capital. Entrepreneurs are engaged in the act of 'original accumulation': It's the news stand owner who eventual becomes the owner of the New York Times. It's the tailor making clothes for a few minors who eventually becomes LEVIS. It's the garage tinkerers who eventually becomes Microsoft and Apple.

So the assessment is that since we are a more advanced capitalist civilization, our large government entity would be able to handle the supply and demand problems of balancing capital and consumer goods? — schopenhauer1

Marx thought that the employees of advanced capitalist operations--who actually run the companies--acquired the knowledge to effectively administer operations. Does that mean the janitor knows how to balance the books? No. It means that the employees who work in management know how to manage -- because that is what they do every day.

The owners of large corporations (GM, IBM, Apple, Intel, Toro, Wells Fargo, etc.) do not manage the corporation. They hire people to do that. Where do these people come from? Harvard Business School, Carlson Universities of Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Northwestern, et al. Management is layered by ranks into ever finer detail.

There is one group of owners who do manage -- the Board of Directors. They make major decisions like GM will focus on electric vehicles. They don't figure out how to do it.

Where does the Board of Directors get the information that electric vehicles are the future? From the employees of other companies who track trends. And so on and so forth.

All these people working in thousands of companies possess a vast pool of knowledge about how to run things.

How would the most educated/experienced get the just rewards in socialism? — schopenhauer1

From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs. Karl Marx

Yes, I am just trying to get at, how a socialist regime solves anything different than a capitalist one — schopenhauer1

Capitalist corporations are chartered to make a profit for the shareholders of the corporation. Companies make a profit by exploiting their workers (by taking their entire production and paying them for only a fraction of it) and by charging as high a price for ... whatever ... as the market will bear.

Socialism is designed for workers to keep almost all of the value of their product and to sell goods at the lowest possible price to maintain the operation. High profit margins do not figure into socialism.

Don't companies and parts of the geographical and land management aspects of the government already do this? — schopenhauer1

yes, they do, but the existing companies and governments won't be in business after the revolution.

Weren't these started by individuals through investments? Is this meant to take that property from them — schopenhauer1

They were built with somebody's money -- stockholders', banks', etc. So yes their property will be taken from them--expropriating the expropriators. Socialism does away with private ownership of factories, railroads, warehouses, stores, etc. No, they will not be compensated. No, they will not be taken out and shot. If they have very large and multiple houses, they will lose those too. Yes, they will be free to join work groups like other workers do.

Didn't the Soviet Union try to do this but failed with long bread lines, lack of variety, and unfilled stores? — schopenhauer1

The USSR was handicapped from the get go. There was only a small industrial establishment with highly skilled workers and managers before the Revolution. Then there was a civil war; the Communists tried very hard to catch up, but the cards were stacked against them. There was a drought (in the US and in the USSR) which damaged production. Joseph Stalin was was all around bad news--a paranoid mass murderer. Then there was WWII which devastated the USSR; there were severe population losses. After that, there was a period of recovery then the Cold War race with the US. Parr's of the USSR society was decent, but it was a poorly run state monopoly.

Won't they just be the new managers? What if people don't like working for the new boss anymore than the old one? — schopenhauer1

My guess is that many of the old managers of capitalist enterprises would be hired as managers of socialist enterprises. Good management is good management and talent should not be wasted.

What if people don't like working for the new boss anymore than the old one? — schopenhauer1

We can all rest assured that there will be people who will not like the new system any better than they liked the current system. I might be one of the many bitching and carping pains in the socialist manager's ass.

Don't they say that market mechanisms fill the demands more efficiently because information is based on price rates where supply meets demand and such? — schopenhauer1

Market mechanisms are not the problem.

But that says it all, doesn't it? — schopenhauer1

It's an example of socialist self-deprecating humor and a lefty in joke. Being required to like what's on your plate is, of course, wrong.

Who decides what gets made? Isn't that going right back to politburos and oligarchic dictatorships? 1984 and all that? — schopenhauer1

Essentially, the workers decide, through three mechanisms: 1. responses to data gathering; 2. decision making by manufacturing, distribution, and consumer groups; and 3. market mechanisms.
Understand, though, that maximum production for maximum profit is not the goal. Matching production to human needs and wants is the goal. Just because 1,000,000 people want to take meth doesn't mean that they are going to get it.

in a socialist world, it seems that because it is run by the same human personality-types — schopenhauer1

Where did you get the idea that the same greedy ruthless bastards would be running socialism? People like that will be sent back to attitude class.

There is still a hierarchy. — schopenhauer1

Socialists are not hierarchy-abolishing anarchists. Yes, there will still be some kind of hierarchy -- which is not unique to capitalism. It's a human thing. There's always a hierarchy of some kind. I hope we will build it better.

there will be consequences (they die) — schopenhauer1

I'm not advocating a terrorist state. We have had more than enough of those already,

How do people decide how much to do, when to do it, and the like? — schopenhauer1

Workers always collectively sort out among themselves what reasonable work performance is.

What does it look like for insubordination under this socialist regime? — schopenhauer1

If you can't abide by the terms of work that your fellow workers have established, whether that be in a factory, a school, a store, or whatever, then one will be encouraged to go work someplace else. Or one will leave on one's own.

'd like to know, what makes one person able and willing to be an owner, and another only able to work for them? — schopenhauer1

Various personal characteristics like drive, greed, ambition, desire for status, compulsion, obsession, determination, delusions of grandeur, etc. I have always lacked the drive ambition compulsion, and determination to make a successful entrepreneur. In addition, I've never had a good business idea in my life.

One way is a combination of market mechanisms and central / decentralized planning. Data workers, for instance would form work groups to conduct the necessary market research.
— Bitter Crank

Isn't that what marketing departments do? Isn't that what people do when they buy Facebook, Google, and other data? — schopenhauer1

Data is data. It might be as useful in a socialist economy as in a capitalist one to know how the consumption of dark green leafy vegetables is correlated with miles ridden on a bike per day or hours spent in bars. Using that data, A central planner could, for instance, improve the nutritional status of beer drinkers by ordering a stalk of kale stuffed into an individual's mugs of beer. If you don't eat it, you don't get ore beer.

Socialist joke:

Leader: After the revolution, there will be strawberries for all.
Peasant: But Leader, I don't like strawberries!
Leader: After the revolution, you will like strawberries ...[or else]

Does everything have to be planned? No.

Cultural workers do not need permission to form a theatrical troupe, an orchestra, a band, a poetry reading, an art show, a baseball game, or a rodeo. Neither should permission be needed to put on plays, concerts, games, or publishing. Yes, the facilities have to be arranged; maybe built. Large outlays require more community involvement. Building a rodeo in a PETA-strong community would probably be a provocation. Having an outdoor heavy metal concert facility next to a funeral home might not be appropriate (just going by current standards. In the future??? Maybe that will be the rage (shudder).

Inventors do not need permission to invent a really good method of cold fusion. Hey, if you can figure out how to make it work, great. You just invented a new way to fry an egg? Good for you, but just because you invented it, doesn't mean that it has to be produced. We already have 15 ways to fry eggs and we can not afford the production and environmental costs of yet another one.

A socialist economy, just like any other, will not be simply wished into existence. It will have to be built up over time. A socialist economy, like any other, will need to be managed. In a socialist economy, selecting managers, coordinators, inspectors, and so on would have the approximate gravity of electing a government. It seems like a system of merit would be better than a system of popular election.

Socialists don't spend enough time thinking about questions like "how would technology and products and services be distributed". A common cop-out is to say that the workers in the future society will have to decide that. And so they shall, but believable socialism depends on believable plans now.

One way is a combination of market mechanisms and central / decentralized planning. Data workers, for instance would form work groups to conduct the necessary market research.

Basic needs in the various parts of a country can be derived from demographic information; information about:

A rising or falling birthrate
A rising or falling death rate
# of people within each decade of life
% of high school completion by county
% of trade school and college completion by state
# of people in the various skills pools (hospitals, railroads, warehousing, schools, farms, and so on
rate of chronic and acute diseases per county

Information about available physical resources is required: How much electricity, fresh water, natural gas, petroleum, metal ores, lumber, cement, sand, gravel, fiber, rubber, etc. is on hand or can be obtained.

A live inventory of production facilities is critical. For instance, how many canning factories are available; how many foundries; how carpet mills; how many chemical plants; how many steel mills; how many bus and railroad factories, how many clothing factories, how many pharmaceutical plants, how many food plants, etc. are available by county

Consumer research polling can determine what the interests and expectations of the population are in various regions for food, clothing, housing, education, employment, entertainment, medical care, and other preferences.

Once regional assessments of consumer needs and desires have been completed, this information can be distributed to work groups to bid on producing the needed or desired goods and services. Elected boards, assisted by work groups, would award contracts to work groups to produce goods and arrange for efficient distribution.

Needless to say, budgeting mechanisms would be required, along with the means to collect funds to finance work. Oversight needs exist to leadoff production and distribution bottlenecks, organizational failure, and so forth. An elected body of expert workers would be needed to conduct that essential oversight.

Oversight, coordination, planning, and intervention are governing activities, and before the whole process can begin, the citizens of the nation will need to authorize these governmental functions,

Socialism isn't supposed to be an austerity regime caused by ineptitude. It is supposed to deliver to its citizens the benefits produced by their labor. A successful socialist economy will succeed in delivering a fair distribution of goods to everyone. Does that mean that everyone can expect a luxury car, a big house, and expensive gadgetry? No. Needs and wants have to be satisfied within a long-range view of sustainability and fairness (something that ardent capitalists would rather not do).

What people should expect is that their needs for decent food, clothing, and shelter will be met; that they have the tools they need to achieve their aspirations (meaning education in its various forms). New technology must not be the possessions of the privileged; it must be made available on a shared basis fpr everyone. (Needless to say, socialists take a dim view of the existence of any privileged class.).

In a nutshell, start with good information and stay with good information to the end.

"Wage slavery" will seem like rhetorical overkill to lots of people, but it is a 'term of art' that socialists use to describe the terms of labor in the capitalist system. If you are of a mind to think that the relationship between you and the state is like chattel slavery, then you will not find the term useful. I suppose you are at the opposite end of the political spectrum from socialists, based on your view of taxation.

For the 10% of Americans who make up the prosperous "middle class" (a demographic located between the working class and the 1% of extremely wealthy people) your view is much more understandable. (The wealth requirement for entry into the middle class as I use it here is between $2,000,000 and $20,000,000, after which one is counted among the upper class.). There are about 16,000,000 adults who qualify.

People who have experienced a lot of personal success in their working experience (whether or not they broke $2,000,000 in assets) are much less likely to feel exploited. Many more working class people were able to experience a sense of success before 1973 than after. The post WWII economic boom tended to lift a lot of boats, and the working class experienced low inflation and good wage growth.

After 1973 (and continuing now) working people experienced a combination of inflation and stagnant wage growth which over time has reduced real income by up to 30%. Those most affected have experienced declining income, less steady employment, and more precarious economic circumstances.

Their loss has been a gain for the wealthier segments of society, so yes, if you are poorer it is really very easy to feel exploited and to feel like a wage slave.

I don’t think the concept of wage slavery adequately describes the relationship. The employer has never forced me to work against my will; I have never been bound to conditions without my consent; i am payed for my services; If I don’t like the conditions I can leave. There just isn’t enough slavery involved there to call it that. — NOS4A2

The terms, "wage slave" and "wage slavery" apply to system, not to individual workers, employers, or supervisors. Marx and Engels were not citing particular cases in the 1844 Communist Manifesto or later. They cite an American example during the period when literal slavery was an important economic factor and the exploitation of 'free labor' could be crude. "If a plantation owner needs his barn roof fixed, he can either hire an Irishman or direct a slave to do the repair. If the slave falls off the roof and dies, the owner is deprived of significant value. If the Irishman falls off the roof and dies, the owner loses nothing."

The way that "wage slavery" works today in a practically non-unionized work force is that employers, whether capitalists, governments, or non-profits have control of the economy and of the workforce. [workers are not unionized for a reason: employers have been waging a continuous war against unions. Put it this way: unionism didn't die out, it was murdered.]

Why aren't workers glad to spend 8 to 10 hours a day at a job? Because the terms of labor tend to be exploitative. In order to efficiently exploit labor, the workplace has to be controlled for as much efficiency and productivity as possible. In the system of capitalism, workers exist to produce profits and to reproduce themselves so that there will be more workers in the future. Workers enjoyment of life is not high on the capitalist to do list.

I'm retired. I spent the usual 40+ years in the work force. Sometimes jobs were fulfilling and enjoyable --maybe 10 years in all. Usually jobs were tolerable, but not great. Sometimes they were awful. It doesn't matter much whether one is a professional or not. What always was the case was that I as a worker had to have a job to live.

I'm in favor of bettering the breed, but that gets us into the difficult questions of how determinism determines outcomes. What, exactly, do we select in prospective breeding pairs (besides overall hotness). Brains? Risk aversion? Emotional stability? Enough obsessive compulsivity to assure rule-compliance? Minimal ambitiousness? Etc.

Once you have the list of traits to select for, remember that 20 generations takes around 600 years. That is a VERY long time for people to pay attention to anything, and it will probably take more like 100 generations to start weeding out annoying human traits.

I take it you want to be on the candidate selection committee--yes?

You need to get an essential relationship straight: It isn't the case that employers create jobs for workers. The fact is that workers create all wealth. If it wasn't for workers (the vast majority of the world's population) you could not turn so much as a dim bulb idea into reality.

Yes, we need bright ideas. Thank you for your service, but you owe your wealth to us.

Finally, I'd like to bring comrade Bitter Crank into the conversation as he is a battle-worn cold war warrior that would probably add some interesting ideas to the mix. — schopenhauer1

ln conclusion, let me add one thing:

No war but the class war.

Have I discharged my obligations to this thread now? I'm tired and want to go to bed.

there can be nothing wrong with the arrangement so long as it is one of voluntary contract and both parties hold up their end of the bargain. — NOS4A2

First, working is not optional. No work, no money; no money, starvation. It's called wage slavery, So a work contract can be terrible but still have takers. BTW, most workers are not even covered by a contract; they are "employed at will" meaning they can be dumped at a moment's notice.

Second, the expectations of the two parties are totally dissimilar. The employer intends to exploit the workers to the maximum, the employees hope to preserve as much of their life force as they can.

Third, very little to no negotiation about the terms of labor are possible when a) there is a line of unemployed people waiting for a job; b) there is no union to give workers some leverage; c) Applying workers are not privy to information which would help them bargain--like, they don't discover what a shit hole a place is until after they are hired.

You, NOS4A2, are free insofar as you obey. Call the number on this card and you will receive instructions.

Corporate chiefs have generally been rewarded well, but the incomes many have been receiving in the past 20 years are unprecedented and larcenous. In the largest companies, the CEO pay ration is as high as 278 times what a typical worker in the same company is making. In 1965 the typical CEOs wage was 20 times the typical worker wage. (Economic Policy Institute)

schopenhauer1, The CEO of a small tech company gets paid $2 million. The head developer gets paid $300,000. A mid-level developer and R&D personnel $150,000. The tech support gets paid $60-75,000. The sales people range from $70-$200,000. The people in the manufacturing get a range from $45-$85,000 depending on their position. Customer service and related personnel get $50,000. — schopenhauer1

CEO Schopenhauer is making 6.5 times what the head developer gets; 13 times what the mid-level developer and R&D personnel get; about 30 times what the average tech support gets; the CEO gets 40 times what the customer service people receive, and 23 to 45 times what the production people are making. The boss makes 40 times what customer service makes.

Both workers and stockholders are concerned about absurdly high executive salaries, because they reduce dividends and the wages of ordinary workers alike. Besides, over-paid CEOs do not necessarily perform all that well. Now, we don't know from wage figures alone how well this small tech company is doing. It may be that Schopenhauer is an industrial wizard and is making money hand over fist. It could also be that the company is burning through cash reserves like it was jet fuel. In general, though, everyone (except overpaid CEOs) likes to see reasonable wage levels, top to bottom. That seems to be the case here, though a reduction of... say $500,000 a year would not put our beloved CEO in line for food stamps. (You WILL reduce the caviar and champaign cocktail parties from weekly to bimonthly, however. We all have to make sacrifices).

There is a cognitive disjuncture or dissonance between acceptance that our behavior is entirely determined by forces and conditions over which we have no control, and the idea of moral responsibility. — Janus

There sure as hell is. I felt heavy static in my brain while posting above.

Is "having agency" determined or is it an individual virtue?

There are several things I wanted to accomplish but I found that I did not have agency to carry them out. Put in the vernacular, "I just couldn't get my head around the problem."

In other instances I found I had agency to spare to complete tasks. Whether or not I was going to have agency or not was determined.

Good topic, and I don't want to derail it. Sorry for whatever extent deraileurment has occurred. However, the reason for our resort to FW drives our search for accountability.

In a better world, we would strive to intervene in the lives of those for whom numerous factors (beyond their control) have made life difficult (for themselves or others). Benign intervention requires acceptance of determinism--otherwise it is likely to be more punitive than corrective.

The concept of FW is the result of determinism being too complex for us to countenance. We big-brained apes can grasp and understand only so much--and a full understanding of determinism is more than we can manage.

Therefore, we do hold ourselves and others accountable. There is no conceivable way to track all the factors that led Joan to murder Sam, so we are forced to settle for personal guilt and prison. The opposite is true too. "I am a successful businessman because I am very smart, and I chose to do everything just exactly right." The fact that your grandparents started the business and trained your parents and later you in its intricacies might have had some deterministic influence, no? Or, the fact that an earthquake and category 5 hurricane created a tremendous need for new and repaired housing was a windfall your business when it would other wise have been a period of no growth?

My guess is that a significant share of drug addicts and alcoholics are gifted with a genetic heritage which facilitates addiction. Compulsive gamblers, compulsively promiscuous dicks, compulsive eaters, and so forth probably have genetic or circumstantial predispositions. Self-intervention in unhealthy behaviors will not occur to many of the addicts, alcoholics, gamblers, dicks, over-eaters, etc.

It isn't sterling virtue that keeps most of us out of the gutter. It's the innate (not virtuous) ability to engage in self-monitoring and self-intervention which prevents disaster. Successful people are born being better at operating in this world. We tend to attribute our successes to our own virtues, and others' failures to their personal degeneracy and degradation.

Aristotle started this discussion; but what the old philosopher meant to say (and would have said had we been there to help him) is that the forces of the deterministic universe are too subtle, too pervasive, and too complex for us to follow. What looks like choosing broccoli over asparagus is the deterministic effect of child rearing practices which caused you to loathe asparagus--it was a spoiled jar of Gerber Asparagus baby food. it made you intensely sick for several days. You didn't know what was happening at the time. Thereafter the idea of eating asparagus never did--and never will--occur to you. Determinism at work.

Conversely, the smell of hot cinnamon rolls was hard-wired into your brain by the many times you enjoyed the delicious spicy bread. The fragrance of cinnamon rolls (or just cinnamon) will always make you feel a twinge of happiness. More determinism.

Do people choose their favorite sexual fetish? No, they do not. It emerges. Do people become Engineers or English teachers on the basis of freely made choices? They do not. Social factors, personal idiosyncrasies, brain build, earlier experiences (of which we were recipients, not designers), and so on. NEXT POST

We are compelled to talk about free will and determinism--we have no choice in the matter. The keystone in our mental structure is either free will or determinism, and the color of the rock that hold the arch up doesn't matter. Free will is determinism. Determinism is free will.

Nonsense?

The thing called "free will" is as deterministic as the cartoon safe plunging to the sidewalk. The source of our free will, whatever it is or is not, are the intricate and immensely complicated transactions of physics and chemistry within our brain cells--which are deterministic.
Accepting the dry determinism of the universe (freely or not) doesn't change anything. We still have to choose all sorts of things during the day: brown socks or black socks; broccoli or asparagus; robbery or burglary; put fake data in the report or let the facts show that one is a lazy bureaucrat; have sex with a stranger or not; read the New York Times or the Boston Globe; stop at Aldi's or Trader Joe's; watch another episode of the Sopranos or not.

We might want to say squirrels are subject to crude determinism. Still, squirrel X has to decide whether squirrel Y has watched X bury a walnut. The transactions in the squirrel's neurons are pretty much the same as ours. Evolution has seen to that. But evolution is merciful and the squirrels can not decide to read boring, difficult existentialist texts. We can, so there are limits to evolution's mercy.

it makes no sense to me as a judge to punish you, because what happened could not be avoided, and locking you up wouldn't would be unnecessary punishment for an unavoidable outcome, — Manuel

If a criminal can not avoid committing criminal acts (say, arson, rape, and/or bloody murder), would that not be an excellent reason to lock him or her up? Call it punishment or prevention--some people should not be at large.

Don't know what the retail price is, but it is hard, these days, to find slop for less than $5.99 a lb.

But you are absolutely right -- they weren't eating factory raised meat 100 years ago and more. Food was pretty much all organic, range or grass fed, and fairly lean up until the 20th century. Range fed beef has a distinct flavor that is noticeably different than feed-lot fed. I'm not sure whether free range chicken tastes better than shed raised birds. One can only free-range a small number of chickens; spreading 30,000 chickens out on the ground is possible, of course, but chickens like to roost indoors at night. I suppose border collies could be raised to manage the flocks and keep foxes and coyotes away. Not much one can do about hawks and eagles.

I was trying my hardest, literally couldn't do another kick, and I get told that I should kick until I am so out of breath I can't talk. But that kind of mentality is what gets the job done, I guess, because I ended up finishing the reps and felt like I was going to pass out. — ToothyMaw

How do you define "enlightenment"? How would you know that you were "enlightened"? Would anyone else recognize your "enlightenment"?

This kind of severe routine enables you to find the actual limits of your capacity. Any extreme exercise can do that. It's possible that one will die trying, but most often not.

Question: Is knowing how many kicks, miles, pounds, laps, etc. one can perform. It's certainly useful information. The first 100 mile a day bike ride I did was tiring (I had worked up to it) but it wasn't enlightening. It was just nice to know I could do it. Would I have been enlightened if I had gone 200 miles in 1 day?

There are probably numerous routes to enlightenment (whatever that is) and none of them are probably reliable. Many people have experienced severe pain and were not enlightened by it; they were just exhausted.

It's probably useful to discover one's actual performance limits, provided one is healthy enough to test the limit. Most of the time we aren't asked to do anything like that in a situation where much is at stake. SEALS perform in situations where maximum effort might be required, and where extreme suctiveness (bad smells, heat, cold, deep water, hot sand, death on a stick, etc.) should not impair performance.

Something similar likely exists in trauma surgery: the subject comes in as a stinking mess of blood, guts, feces, etc. and one has to focus on several diverse problems at the same moment. Anyone might be held up at knife or gun point, and keeping your cool in that really bad situation helps one avoid needing the services of a trauma surgeon (or a coroner).

It isn't like vegans don't expect to get the short end of the food stick. — Ennui Elucidator

OK, then. Just take that delicious vegan risotto back to the kitchen. We'll have it tomorrow.

expanding our scope of moral regard is generally thought to be a sign of progress — Ennui Elucidator

Sure. But as you know, morality and ethics are not simple issues. Does having the same moral regard for an elegant horse and a shrimp make sense? Does an ox pulling a plow deserve the same regard that the man pushing and guiding the plow deserves? I don't think so.

The connection between the cow and the Big Mac has been made very tenuous through the mechanisms of commerce. Is it moral to demand that a person eating at McDonalds feel guilt for exploiting an animal so far removed from his or her existence? No.

I believe that eating meat is in and of itself a moral act. Can bad practices on farms and in slaughter-houses rise to the level of immorality? They can. They have. I have chopped off the heads of chickens and I did not feel guilty. It was a quick death--"a quick chippy choppy on a big black block". These chickens were genuine free-range birds.

I recognize a continuum between the man and worms. We share in "life" but we are not equal. As an animal's complexity of existence rises, we grow closer. A chicken and a parrot probably don't have to much in common either. So a chicken and a man have much, much less in common than a dog and a man have in common. Pigs and man have all too much in common.

A good principle is to return meat to the status it occupied for many centuries in western culture: Meat was 'feast food'. One ate it on celebratory occasions. Feasting wasn't frequent because it was expensive. On ordinary days one ate bread, vegetables, maybe fish, maybe clams. At $25 a pound this year, oysters are clearly a feast food. Ground up cow at McDonalds may be cheap but it is still a feast food.

Granted, learning to replace daily meat servings with vegetables, beans, and grains takes learning, technique, and practice.

Another approach to reduced meat consumption is to use meat as an ingredient rather than the main course. That's what pizza or spaghetti does.

Don't exploit animals — Ennui Elucidator

That's why I am not a vegan. The exploitation of animals is an essential human trait that extends back into era of Homo erectus and earlier. We evolved as an exploiter of the available resources. Some animals were bred into beasts of burden and traction. Others for fiber, meat, milk, and eggs. Without resource exploitation, we ourselves would have died out long ago. We learned how to exploit plants (and minerals).

Does the horse and the ox dislike pulling plows, wagons, and chariots? Probably no more than people dislike a lot of the jobs they have to do. Does a sheep mourn the loss of its wool? Probably not. It might feel good, like getting an overdue haircut.

We may well be exceeding the tolerable level of exploitation of our planet. We should have been more careful, and we had best get more careful pretty damn quickly if we want a future. We should eat less meat and milk because of its burden on resources, even as we continue to exploit cattle. Wool? Perhaps more sustainable than polyester. They fertilize the soil on which their grass grows. Same for cattle, if grass fed.

I like meat. Converting a pig into a pork chop does not have to be a horrifying process. Profits and cheap meat pretty much require it. Same for any other animal product.

I am not sure whether people "hate vegans" as much as find them annoying. I think it rude to show up at carnivore social event and demand animal-free food. It would be equally rude for a carnivore to show up at a vegan social event and demand meat.

Vegans count as "picky eaters" because they exclude everyday foods that cost people eat. I understand how people with celeriac disease really have to exclude gluten from their diet, but then there are people who don't have any degree of celeriac disease but think gluten free is cool, and expect others to accommodate them. Same for people who insist on organic foods.

When I prepare a meal for a local homeless shelter, I am happy to make vegan food that is attractive, flavorful, and nutritious. I exclude pork (usually) because there are sometimes homeless Moslems there. If someone just happens to not like pork, well... tough. Just eat what's on your plate. [I'll eat cilantro / coriander without making an issue of it, even though I think it is disgusting.]