I was discussing this with a friend over lunch. He asked, "What does anyone mean by "sustainable"? Does it mean 8 billion (and more) people living like Europeans, North Americans, and the Chinese middle class? Does it mean 3 billion electric cars powered by geothermal generation? Is 'sustainable" the same as "survivable" or something better?

Even with all the electricity the world can use, are 8, 10, or 12 billion or more of us sustainable? Is a non-polluting supply of electricity a magic solution to all of the problems of feeding, housing, clothing, educating, and caring for us, our built and natural environment, the natural systems that provide vital services to us? With all the electricity we could want, does it matter if the rain forests are cut down to grow food?

These are rhetorical issue for me, personally. I won't be around to see whatever denouement develops (unless it happens in the next few years). For the younger and or future populations, the answers to these questions are critical.

There's no such thing as "more sustainable." There's sustainable, and there's not sustainable. — counterpunch

You are so strict! But "sustainable" is not an all or nothing term. As for wind, back in the '90s the small town of Worthington (pop. 10,000 with two agricultural - industrial plants, one an alfalfa dryer and pelletizer) was able to meet its power needs with 6 windmills. The southwestern edge of Minnesota happens to be a prime wind region (flat and windy).

I agree, wind can't / won't power the world. Solar comes closer (so I have read). Geothermal - yes.

But @SSU's point is that there has not been, and there is no sufficient / minimally adequate policy planning for future energy production. If there were, we would see radically different government, industry, and consumer behavior. Once one acknowledges the severity of our situation, one can see the world's elites (economic, political, social, etc.) busy doing pretty much nothing.

Go Geo!

Can you define the actual US energy policy since the 70's to the present? — ssu

You didn't ask me, but... Here's the policy. Float the economy on a deep pool of cheap oil.

Available, plentiful, cheap energy to fuel industry and drive the economy. Drill, baby drill. Oil and gas have been our preeminent fuel (with coal for electricity generation plus some heavy industries; by the 70s coal was no longer used much for domestic heating or not at all for rail transportation. Gas is replacing coal for generation). In addition to fueling the economy, oil and gas are the primary feed-stock for plastics, chemicals, and fertilizers.

That coal, oil, and gas -- and many of the associated industries (like cars, chemicals, plastics, etc.--have significant and serious downsides (methane, CO2, acid rain, disease, negative effects on soils, etc) was simply not an issue that was or is brought to the fore in any sustained way.

It has always stood to reason that oil and gas were not--and could not be--inexhaustible. Peak Oil is a concept that's been around for a while. The oil industry knows about peak oil and exhaustibility, of course. Wells run dry. In the mean time, keep sucking it up.

While wind and solar have made some progress, and while there are a few electric vehicles on the road, the future of clean, renewable energy is pretty far off, as far as I can tell.

And electric vehicles are not an answer. There are 1.4 billion cars in the world, 99.9% internal combustion. In what universe does it make sense to replace 1.4 billion gas powered vehicles with another 1.4 billion electric vehicles? Only in the auto industry universe! God forbid that people should use electric trains, trolleys, street cars, light rail, and busses to get around.

Granted, per @counterpunch, geo, wind, and solar energy are all pretty green. I don't see a wholesale commitment to green energy outside of groups like Interfaith Power and Light (a faith-based renewable advocacy group) and smart people like Counterpunch.

When pre-woke, woke, and post-woke? groups speak, they are not speaking truth to power. They (or we) are mostly talking to ourselves. Deep down the elites don't give a rat's ass about liberation, identity, fairness, equality, and so forth among the masses. From the POV of the wealthy and powerful, gay liberation, for instance, was not worth the bad PR of tangoing with a not well liked sexual minority. From that same POV, corporations have to deal with far worse things than "woke" fokes being employed in their firms (like government regulation, taxation, unions, hostile takeovers, business failure...)

The audience of liberatory, activist groups (like gays et al) are mostly themselves--and politicians. It's gays and all the other minority groups who benefit most from their up-lift, liberatory messaging. General Motors doesn't need up-lift. What the hell would they do with it?

If the premise is that the acceptance of Jesus as one's savior is a necessary component for eternal salvation from damnation, then the absence of immediate concern for the person's wellbeing would be of little concern. — Hanover

That's the way it comes off in the mouths of some evangelicals. "You've accepted Jesus as your personal savior; Sweet Jesus, we are done here. Sorry about your starving to death, but you'll soon be with Jesus and that's what matters."

I won't go into the process of how Jesus got from dead itinerate preacher to 1/3 of the Godhead, beyond saying that there is a big gap between Jesus and Christianity from the first. "The Church" was already in its neonatal existence when believers sat down to put the Gospels and Paul's (et al) letters together. The gap between Jesus and the first interpretations of the NT is wider still.

Marx himself wrote that the concept of the rule of law is "obsolete verbal rubbish" — Apollodorus

In the hands of the bourgeoisie, "the rule of law" is a system plundering the resources of society -- labor, natural resources, etc, for their own benefit. As Marx put it, "the state is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie."

Yes, it does apply equally well to Socialism or Communists. Stalin and Mao were not what Marx had in mind, in my humble opinion. Both of them have a lot of blood on their hands. For instance, the Ukrainian famine (millions died) was engineered by Stalin to divert wheat from consumption to foreign sales to provide cash for military/industrial development. Mao had a lot of bad ideas.

The established Church policy is to spread Christianity through persuasion, not coercion. — Apollodorus

As well it should. I would still advise incipient missionary to package their persuasion in the form of concern for others' material and emotional needs. "Spiritual" is too liquid or fluid a concept to form the basis of a plan for converting either the natives or the next-door neighbors.

Exactly!

It easier for 20th / 21st century believers (or philosophers) to think about the meaning of loving their neighbors than it is of loving God. God, after all, has no needs to be met, and by any definition has the wherewithal to take care of Himself, Herself, or Itself.

Micah 6:8 provides the Prophetic view: What does God require of us? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. The New Jerusalem Bible translates "love mercy" as "love tenderly"--nice, I think. Maybe "keeping good company with God" is another way of putting it.

It's always useful to repeat THE WHOLE QUOTE of what Marx said about religion: Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. One could substitute 'anodyne" or "analgesic" for "opium". It spoils the phrase, but it enhances the meaning.

Like many elderly non-believers or agnostics, I know Christianity on a first hand basis as my first "operating system". There is plenty in it that can function in the pejorative meanings of "opium" or "opiate", as well as ameliorative meanings,

This suggests that an essential aspect of Christian love is not as some might assume having an attitude of affection, etc. toward our neighbor or even concern for his material wellbeing, but primarily concern for his or her spiritual salvation. — Apollodorus

No! "spiritual salvation" delivered in the absence of love (agape) or absent concern for the person's wellbeing, results in the missionary position of ramming Jesus down their throat or up their ass, whichever you prefer.

Love (agape, not 'affection') is essential to salvation. See Corinthians, Chapter 13.

Just my not-overly-erudite opinion, but I think quite a bit of "us" is factory pre-installed--don't take offense, Ma, at the factory metaphor. Every other animal seems to have built-in behavior patterns, and I don't see a way that we would NOT have built ins.

polio bacili — god must be atheist

Polio is caused by a virus, not a bacilli. Not much good about it, and it has almost been stamped out. Tapeworms, on the other hand, have one benefit: people who have severe allergies suffer less if they have tapeworms, because the worms suppress the immune reaction--to protect their wormy selves.

Not sure that I would sign up for worm therapy if I had bad allergies.

23
People at birth are inherently good.
Chloé Zhao
This is a current meme by the director of the film Nomadland. — Proximate1

It isn't like Ms. Zhao is the first one to have that thought -- the goodness of the new-born has been a topic of much discussion for a long time.

We are so constituted that there probably IS a moral inclination at birth -- not a preference for moral vs. immoral, but rather a brain structure (and species habit) that will lead to people having fear, guilt, and comfort connected to their behavior. How does this work?

Young children depend on caregivers. Caregivers reward good behavior and punish bad behavior (however good and bad are defined, and however you think of reward and punishment). Where are fear, guilt, and comfort situated? In the limbic system. Where is the part of the brain that tries to please caregivers? It's in the frontal cortex. There are (normally) strong neural connections between the two parts. As the child develops, the rules and regulations, fear, guilt, comfort, and joy are internalized. The person will tend to behave morally ever after. Perfect system? No -- good people can manage to do bad things.

The worst outcome for this system is when the connections between the frontal cortex and limbic system fail to develop. The result is a psychopathic person who doesn't feel much guilt or joy, and has no internalized moral code.

Worth noting: while the brain doesn't replace many of its lost neurons, if any, the trillions of connections among the 80 billion neurons are constantly changing.

Another thing, our "being" isn't static; it is intimately involved in our environment. If the replacement brain wasn't able to experience real-time immersion in the environment, "you" or your former brain-system would not be the same.

I think its because self organization is the nature of our universe. — Pop

Basic features like gravity led to the 'self-organized' formation of star systems galaxies, and galaxy groups just as earlier, basic physics led to the formation of atoms. If it wasn't for atoms and molecules self-connecting there would not be any life.

So, I find a lot of credence in your assertion that the universe is self-organizing.

Yeah, in minor evolutionary increments, such as to give the impression of determinism with a small amount of randomness causing variation. — Pop

Our pattern seeing, purpose detecting proclivities seem to lead us to determinism of one sort or another. God intended, the laws of physics required, evolution insists on... But given the vast amount of time that short-lived organisms have had to develop, the deterministic rule might be "If it 'works' it stays."

Good discussion.

In the absence of a brain and nervous system what is causing them to self organize? — Pop

I don't know. DNA, and proximity to same and other cell types seems to be part of how cells organize themselves into tissues and organs. But then, one step back, why did DNA and the cells begin self-organizing in the first place?

C. elegans shows how it is done--hear all about it at OpenWorm from UCLA. I don't think C. elegans has any visual capacity. It is composed of 900-1000 cells (depending on whether it is hermaphrodite (gender fluid?) or male. It's 300+ neurons enable it to behave and even learn a thing or two.

Like I said, I don't know -- but as your link showed, some sort of visual response ability appeared long before there was a central nervous system to which an eye could attach itself. One possibility might be that the first visual capacity in multi-cellular animals may have originated in nerve cells to start with. The critical part of the eye is the retina made up of nerve-receivers. The rest of what is now the eyeball is the camera without the film. So to continue the figure of speech, the "camera" started with film and then added the chassis, lens, etc.

At least the retina, optic nerve, and brain are the same system.

Is the relationship between the ears (the essential sensory part, not the floppy exterior) the same as the brain? Eyes and brain may have a longer lineage than ear and brain--maybe. The bones of the inner ear were once working parts of the jaw. Over a couple of generations they shrank and migrated rearward and found something new to do with themselves. (As told in Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin. good book

It seems to me I read that "eyes" were 'invented' in primitive animals as a few cells that could respond to light. Whether they made a difference to the creature by informing a central nervous system of the dawn's early light, or whether they emitted a chemical signal, don't remember.

All sorts of common matter which have old names ("water" is an Old English / Dutch / German word; air, on the other hand, is derived from Greek 'aer' / Latin 'aer' / French 'air'). Starting a couple of centuries ago, water and air can be described chemically. The air we breathe is mostly N; O is a much smaller portion. Every breath you take includes neon, helium, krypton, xenon, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and argon -- plus whatever crap has been lofted into the air.

Talking about gases like xenon, argon and carbon dioxide is a different conversation than talking about the air, the wind, the breeze, the sky, or various other nouns having to do with "air".

Posts, conversations, dialogues, discourses, and discussions are not the same thing either. Nobody holds a discourse over the fence with their neighbor--unless they are inordinately pretentious.

Your post about the difference between water and H2O is somewhere between opening a delightful discussion and opening a can of worms that's been in the hot sun.

200 years of capitalist progress has outpaced Malthus' pessimistic prophesies thus far, via the application of technology — counterpunch

Thomas Malthus has been dead since 1834. Dead as a doornail. His famous book was written in 1798. Why is his old book your favorite touchstone for failed theories? Do you fault him for not thinking of everything that would happen in the future that might undermine his theory?

and can continue to do so. — counterpunch

And here's your famous idea that may very well become invalidated by unseen developments. Have a little sympathy for old Tom Malthus.

My theory is that there are already too many people, whether they are well-fed or not, and I do not look forward to their being 10 or 12 billion of us.

300 years down the line, civilisation powered by limitless clean energy might achieve some sort of post material equality! There are worse problems one could have! — counterpunch

This is the flip side of Malthus, the post scarcity society. It may be as vanishing has his proposal.

"Too-cheap-to-meter" low to no carbon energy that you expect to get from hot rocks is a fine idea. But if it is so feasible, how come capitalists have not bored down a ways, installed the necessary equipment, and started generating low-to-no-carbon energy which will cost them little and which they can sell for as much as they can get (like they do with everything else)?

Following Christian theology (interpreting--or misinterpreting--Old Testament) we were created innocent but we listened to the snake in the Garden, disobeyed orders, and have thus been cursed with Original Sin ever since. That's one way we are not good.

A later text from Isaiah says "All we, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way."

Even if we were not cursed with original sin, we are a moral error-prone lot, and like stupid sheep, we wander off into the weeds and sin, especially if the weeds are high enough so others can't see what we are up to.

Following the non-theological approaches of Darwin and Freud, we descended from apes and have the emotional features of our nearest non-human relative, Pan troglodytes, aka, the chimpanzee. We have the emotional drives of the chimp hitched to greatly enhanced intellectual power with which we carry out our red-hot urges with a vengeance. That gets us into all sorts of trouble again and again and again and again...

We try to be good, and sometimes we are. If we are phlegmatic and lethargic (like, dull and lazy) we probably will behave acceptably well most of the time. Ambitious energetic go-getters run larger risks of behaving badly, because they inevitably find that somebody is in their fucking way.

I came across an essay in AEON you might (or might not) find interesting --

"The fall of the Roman Empire wasn’t a tragedy for civilisation. It was a lucky break for humanity as a whole" the lead says. Here's a relevant quote:

Yet brute force alone would have taken Europe only so far. Useful knowledge also played a vital role. There was no hope of transforming industry and medicine without dramatic advances in science and engineering. That posed a serious challenge: what if new insights and ways of doing things clashed with hallowed tradition or religious doctrine? Innovators had to be able to follow the evidence wherever it led, regardless of how many toes they stepped on in the process. That turned out to be a hard slog in Europe, as incumbents of all stripes – from priests to censors – were determined to defend their turf. However, it was even harder elsewhere. China’s imperial court sponsored the arts and sciences, but only as it saw fit. Caged in a huge empire, dissenters had nowhere else to go. In India and the Middle East, foreign-conquest regimes such as the Mughals and the Ottomans relied on the support of conservative religious authorities to shore up their legitimacy.

Europe’s pluralism provided much-needed space for disruptive innovation. As the powerful jostled for position, they favoured those whom others persecuted. The princes of Saxony shielded the heretic Martin Luther from their own emperor. John Calvin found refuge in Switzerland. Galileo and his ally Tommaso Campanella managed to play off different parties against each other. Paracelsus, Comenius, René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Voltaire headline a veritable who’s who of refugee scholars and thinkers.

Over time, the creation of safe spaces for critical enquiry and experimentation allowed scientists to establish strict standards that cut through the usual thicket of political influence, theological vision and aesthetic preference: the principle that only empirical evidence counts. In addition, intense competition among rulers, merchants and colonisers fed an insatiable appetite for new techniques and gadgets. Thus, while gunpowder, the floating compass and printing were all invented in distant China, they were eagerly embraced and applied by Europeans vying for control over territory, trade and minds.

My guess is that public sex and nudity would be a lot less entertaining were it to become so common as to be unremarkable. When sex in the park is illegal, its criminal status gives it an extra frisson.

Sublimation of our libidinous drives is one of civilization's major inventions. Because we are not allowed to give free rein to physical urges, we channel that energy into productive activity -- work, in other words.

So free sex, drugs, and rock and roll would probably require a post-scarcity society. Don't quite know how to achieve that, especially without repressing many millions of carnal drives.

If so many are so charitable, why does this man have a shack and rice in the first place? — Lif3r

Why, indeed? Because we are not that charitable. Billions are not overly enthusiastic about changing their lifestyles to save the planet, never mind the people tied to railroad tracks.

In the real world, the way the deal works is pretty much the way you set it up, except that a) I and the man with the bag of cash are a long ways from the guy tied to the railroad track; b) the guy on the track is definitely going to get run over; and c) I'm definitely not getting the cash.

Within the moral system to which many subscribe, exchanging any amount of money to prevent arbitrary killing is unacceptable. Promising to later distribute the money in beneficence is merely covering an immoral act with rose petals. Within that same moral system, there is an obligation to assist others in need. Exactly how far one should go isn't specified (should one impoverish one's self?). Many people do, actually, attempt to fulfill this obligation.

Speaking of people about to be liquidated for cash, here's a song about their salvation in the person of the tall, thin, long, lean, lanky. slow-walkin, slow-talkin fellow named Jones.

A more complex scenario would be more interesting and challenging.

In Situation Ethics [1966], Joseph Fletcher poses this situation: an unattractive man asks an attractive woman whether she would have sex with him for $1,000,000. She would. How about $500,000? She would. $100,000? Yes. $50,000? Yes. and so on. Finally he offers $25.

She says: "$25! What kind of woman do you think I am?"
He says: "Madam; we've already determined what kind of woman you are; we're just haggling over the price"

Your situation asks how much one of us would require to let a stranger die on the railroad track? $100,000,000? Think of all the good I could with $100,000,000. $10,000,000? Yes, $100,000? Probably.

"Would you let he man tied to the railroad track die for $100?"

"Hey, What kind of cold-blooded killer do you think I am?"
"We've already determined the kind of killer you are; we're just haggling over the price."

Accepting the money would be an act of murder because we understand the consequences of accepting the money. You are quite correct that cash is valued over life every day in a wide variety of circumstances (though usually not as obvious as when someone is tied to the proverbial railroad track). Or more to the point, a life is valued below the amount of cash on offer. "Improving this product (at an up-front cost of $2,000,000) will save 100 lives (at $20,000 per) over 5 years. We will not be able to pay the expected dividend, however, if we spend $2,000,000 on improvements.

The improvement plan is shelved.

Hey, I have not been a go-along get-along kind of guy. All sorts of things bother me; there are many opinions I find objectionable; I regularly encounter people who are really irritating in ever so many ways. There are numerous people who I would just as soon didn't exist (near me, anyway).

"How I feel" is one thing. No, I do not feel good when someone tells me that they hate me, insults me, or tells me that I am worthless, etc. Who would? But if one lives in a world with other people, one has to separate out how one feels from how one thinks and what one judges to be proper action.

The chain of: words ----> feeling bad ----> acting in response ----> repeat is nothing but trouble, both for the individual and for groups.

Can you live peacefully next to someone who tells you don't deserve to exist? — baker

Of course I can live peaceably next door to someone who thinks I should not exist (there are such people, actually) and they can live peaceably next door to me. We will both probably make some effort to stay out of each other's way. No comradely beers in the yard for us!

I don't think a person can become a victim of another's thoughts. Even if the racist imagined murdering the other, the so-called victim would be completely unaware, let alone injured by it. — NOS4A2

Agree.

No, the scenario in the OP specifies that the racist clearly verbalizes their racist stance toward the target — baker

So?

In highly privileged, sheltered workshops like super-liberal private colleges it is apparently possible to physically injure others by putting words to paper or uttering them in speech (especially if the receivers are fragile literalists). Bah! Humbug! to all of that. Hearing or reading objectionable opinions will not so much as move a hair on one's head.

Never mind thought experiments. People hold all sorts of highly disreputable ideas.

What should be done about it? Nothing. No doxxing, no cancelling, no marches around the block objecting to the offenders ideas. In other words, don't escalate a disreputable, objectionable OPINIONS into an even more disruptive, divisive behavior (on their part or yours).

I am not against demonstrations, heated debates, and so on. There are plenty of ACTIONS that are disreputable and objectionable which can and should be resisted.

So you wanna do eugenics? Do you think you're wise enough to decide who should and should not breed? — counterpunch

Seems like you jumped to the conclusion that Javi was talking about eugenics. How did you conclude that? Does "selective antinatalism" = eugenics?

I guess people who are irresponsible with their own lives shouldn't have the right of breed not only Kids but animals. Having kid is a serious issue that not all the people are ready or capable to do it so. — javi2541997

I think a good case can be made that some people should not have children, and this is a matter that affects both men and women. People whose lives are self-destructive (such as having multiple addictions) will be unable to deliver, care for, and support a healthy child.

The species as a whole (soon to be 8 billion) is too numerous, and couples (4 billion couples, about) should strive for no more than 2.1 children -- at most, preferably fewer. 2.1 is the maximum rate for declining populations.

It is moral to ask that people whose lives render them unable to care for their children to not have them. It is moral to prevent pregnancy for women who are unable to make reproductive decisions owing to severe mental disability. The morality of preventing conception for women whose lives are very disordered, but are capable of making reproductive decisions is much more difficult.

Forced treatment for addiction and mental illness anguishes civil libertarians; requiring consent for any treatment may be an over reaction.

Back to the species as a whole: If we do not find some way for controlling fertility on a global scale, then nature will find a solution for us, and we won't like it.

although masculinity can break down as a useful concept when we think of it a moral compass, might it not have a positive role to play in our sense of self, in the same way that women find femininity a positive attribute? — BigThoughtDropper

I don't think of masculinity or femininity as having much to do with moral compasses. Men and women of a stripes can be equally moral and immoral. Having a strong "ethical gyroscope" is probably a combination of a genetic tendency (e.g., to be internally or externally directed) and instruction and training, gregariousness, and so on. I'm more of an introvert, inner-directed, and a loner. Those features go well with masculinity--and so do extroversion, other directedness, and gregariousness.

Sex and gender roles absolutely do have a positive role to play in our sense of self. Being masculine (according to the general definition) is a positive attribute for men, definitely. Masculinity is an essential element in my selfhood. While I dress in masculine clothing (vestis virum reddit, as the Romans said--clothes make the man) my work has been in white collar areas which tend to be dominated by women -- social service, education, etc. I'm glad I had an education which enabled me to perform this work, but at times I envied more technicallly, mechanically oriented workers.

There is another angle to the business of being a man (or woman) --embodiment -- the form of the body into which we are born. I was born with very poor vision. I just didn't see the world the same way most people did (do), and this part of my embodiment precluded a number of activities important to young men: driving, hunting, sports, military, and the like. Sexual orientation is another part of embodiment. Some gay men identify very strongly with feminine roles or personalities. I do/did not. I tended to identify with male roles and personalities.

Another issue complicating the subject is "mother". Females have a very large role in raising boys and both males and females are naturally going to identify with their mothers (as well as their fathers) and are going to take on some of the feminine behavioral and cognitive/emotional features of their mothers. Full-time 100% masculine behavior, cognition and emotion is hard to imagine, and IF it exists it is probably hell to live with for self and others.

I buy a girl once a month and that's enough for me — Gregory

New Yorker Cartoon caption (below sketch of 2 guys chatting)

Last summer I tried using prostitutes and found it surprisingly affordable.

I don't know what the actual ratio of young and old is here. I'm 75 and not the oldest guy here. There are many more men than women here (at least as far as I know).

I grew up in a working class family too; I'm gay and felt like an outsider in my small rural hometown. What it meant "to be a man" was a conflicted issue, though as I got older that resolved.

Hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity exist but probably are not all that desirable as goals. Most men fall along the mid-line of masculine behavior and appearance--whether they are gay or straight. There are class differences in ideal types. There are a lot of ways one can slice and dice the population and a lot of these sortitions are valid. My idea of "A Real Man" is a male who has become an adult (characterized by features like: grown-up behavior, responsibility, reasonably conscientious, reasonably reflective, reasonably well informed about the world...) Beyond that there is a wide range of options available.

There are many activities which can occur without incurring material social costs: smoking weed, consuming narcotics and alcohol, engaging in unprotected sex, driving above the speed limit, hunting deer, sleeping on the subway, being substantially overweight for an extended period of time, and so on.

These activities, and many others, can be engaged in without individual or social consequences -- or they can have substantial material personal and social consequences. Risk is inherent in many activities--ranging from low risk to high risk.

How much regulation should be in place depends, partly, on how risk tolerant or risk averse one is. For the risk averse, more regulation will seem reasonable -- quite apart from whether one is a libertarian or not.

People can be personally risk tolerant for some behaviors and risk intolerant for others. Someone might be quite tolerant about the risks of using drugs purchased on the street but be very fussy about food sanitation issues. There are people who insist on organic food for health, and who smoke (maybe organic tobacco and weed) apparently without seeing a contradiction.

We can all endorse well-thought-out intervention programs aimed at reducing known risks, and we can all object to ill-conceived programs which end up causing more problems--whether we are libertarians or regulation loving liberals.

I agree: offending other people is a consequence. I would consider it a usually tolerable consequence, but others may not.

Despite of all the good we read, see and talk about, why it’s getting hard to act upon them. — RBS

Actually, it has always been harder to be good than to give into whatever primal urges we have and just ruin everything. We teach our children to behave, and to want to be good, and for the most part, people do behave pretty good -- until they don't.

Take Germany as an example: Germany was a reasonably good place to live prior to the rise of Nazism in the 1920s--not perfect, but you know, not too bad. It was a sophisticated, civilized, cultured society. In the 1930s it changed into a sociopathic juggernaut for many people (and not just the Jews). After they Germans were beaten to a pulp by the allies in WWII, and then placed under supervision for a while, they found their way back to being a sophisticated, civilized, cultured society.

We Americans tend to think of ourselves as a sophisticated, civilized, cultured society too -- despite having operated a slave economy, carried out genocide against the native peoples, stolen other countries' lands -- Mexico lost most of its territory to American lebensraum (we called it 'manifest destiny')--and perpetuating highly discriminatory practices against various groups (blacks, gays, leftists, labor organizers, workers, women -- just about everybody). And, actually, we do qualify as a sophisticated, civilized cultured society (well, maybe not all that cultured, when you get right down to it--a lot of us Americans are lowbrows--certainly not ME, of course).

Most societies are reasonably decent places to live, most of the time--that is, until they aren't. But they usually try to get back to reasonable decency. It might take a century...

"Be a good person but don’t waste time to prove it."

Good advice.

But on the other hand what if people have lack of perspective to understand of what is good and what is bad. — RBS

Good question, but an altogether different problem. There are numerous cases where large numbers of people have failed to understand the good they should do, and the bad they should avoid.

A bracket is missing from the end-quote at the end of my quote. The result is that I am credited with your very good response, You might want to fix that.

public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy — Nikolas

That pretty much nails the case against excellence in journalism, or maybe journalism at all. From the POV of the oligarchy, the plutocracy, or the kleptocracy, who the hell wants public enlightenment? Keep the masses as uninformed about their reality as possible.

Commercial newspapers, television, radio, cable, and internet channels are probably not a good place from which to expect fairness, probity, integrity, and other such virtues. The lack of fairness goes back a ways (Milton wrote the Aeropagitica in 1644), and we have seen better and worse quality reporting and editorial content over the years. So called "yellow journalism" has been around for all of the 20th century and it's sensationalist tradition continues.

The News (in print) has been a competitive business for quite some time, and content has been steered either by the personal opinions of the press's owners, or it was driven by business competition -- what we call "reader share".

Where media has excelled has usually been the result of a key figure. For example, Edward R. Murrow is largely responsible for establishing CBS News as a quality operation in the late 1930s and through the WWII years. CBS isn't "the Tiffany Network" any more (nobody is) but for a time it was quite a bit better than it's rivals.

Is Nation Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting Service an alternative? Both have delivered some excellent programs, and both have had some outstanding "intervals" of high quality news and commentary. But NPR and PBS are hardly independent agencies. Both receive a lot of funding and backing from VERY mainline organizations and corporations. Funding sources inevitably shape the overall product.

you must refer to me as "Your Majesty." — James Riley

Which is OK, because 'majesty' can reference males, females, or God forbid, gender-liquified sovereigns or, for that matter, one's neutered cat.

Did they accomplish anything at all in this conference?

Sort-of radical groups often hold highly ineffective meetings in which all sorts of irrelevant issues are processed to the exclusion of the stated agenda.

Minister: From the fury of spoiled privileged children, dissatisfied by the presence of their inconvenient gonads and enlarged egos, deliver us, O Lord.

Congregation: Hear our prayers, we beseech thee, O Lord.

As we stumble forward — Fooloso4

Your use of the preposition "forward" implies progress. It seems to me that what they are actually doing is just stumbling, possibly stumbling in circles. Suggesting that some people are stumblers is, of course, ableist and oppresses people who are not graceful on their feet -- but then there are people who don't have feet, so I just offended them/they/its.

This whole discussion is triggering so I demand you all stop immediately.

You have limited resources. Are they better spent trying to prove state fallibility in an effort to get the death penalty removed, or do you try to save a single life? — James Riley

It is better to spend limited resource on eliminating the death penalty. Next best is proving that the state erred in its prosecution of specific capital cases, thus revoking the DP for those wrongly sentenced.

The state of Illinois found many of its capital convictions being overturned because of lack of evidence, or even falsified evidence. Eventually the state repealed the DP.

There are several problems about the DP: 1) it doesn't deter capital crimes; 2) the DP apparently seres oppressive purposes in some states; 3) it is somewhat ambiguous whether a life-time spent in a prison is more or less punishment than execution.