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.

My friend is mad because they say I don't get to make that decision for them and that it's not about my comfort.

A lot of the pronoun abusers are mad period, They can call themselves whatever they want, but I get to make the decision about what I call other people, and I prefer gender-conforming terms. If they don't like it, tough shit.

I'm opposed to using new and peculiar pronoun usages. I also opposed to a lot of the gender nonconforming drivel. Theirs isn't the cry of the oppressed, it's the buzz-speak of the very confused.

a particularly lowbrow one at that — Ying

Cruelly insulting, like ridiculing the handicapped. I mean, people can't help it if they are lowbrow slobs, really. Also humiliating--particularly for people who have intellectual aspirations--is calling would-be elite aspirants "middlebrow. They want to be highbrow! They just don't have the right educational history to either be highbrow, or to produce the verisimilitude of natural born highbrow elitism. Getting nailed with the "middlebrow" monicker is much like hoping you can join the in-crowd for lunch and being told to fuck off.

Tragic really.

One aspect of DEBATE--at least as I understand it--is that is a contest in front of an audience who may vote on the question at hand, validating one or the other team's position and presentation. Or, judges may rate the debaters (preparation, delivery, content, etc.).

No, TPF is not a debating club. There's no "audience" per se; everybody is a participant. There are no judges. There is no formal structure for a debate. What we have here are discussions--or sometimes multiple monologues.

Insults? Not an acceptable method in debate. Sarcasm? Yes, but not casually sliding into ridicule.

Are insults OK here? They seem to be, as long as they don't trigger moderator action. Ridicule? Sarcasm? Seems to be fairly common here.

What should you do?

You have been presenting an immensely consistent anti-natalist argument with infinite patience for years, and you haven't resorted to ranting, raving, insult, or even (as far as I know) cutting sarcasm.

You could, possibly? Perhaps? Maybe? talk about something else. Granted, reproduction perpetuates suffering, but that does not seem to be a remotely effective reason to cease reproducing. For one thing, reproduction also perpetuates joy. Joy and suffering side by side, and much else.

Anti-natalism is a lost cause. There are almost 8 billion people most of who have or will attempt to reproduce, suffering and all. Given our pathetic collective response to global warming, everything may be a lost cause.

Maybe we should all just shut up and go plant trees.

I've backed lost causes too. Even If they were morally and intellectually superior, they just didn't appeal to most people. C'est la vie.

I'll put it this way: I have no interest whatsoever in a cloistered monk who contributes nothing to the world. All hypotheticals aside. — Xtrix

In fact, cloistered monks did contribute something: They participated in critical ways in the reproduction of society -- the cultural part in particular. Christian institutions were the source of literate people, for one thing. Young [usually secular] men were trained in the cathedral schools and were hired by important people to keep records, write letters, and so forth. The monasteries maintained libraries and produced copies of books (by hand) for the use of others. There was nobody else doing this in Europe during the medieval period.

The church also Christianized Europe, for better or worse. I don't know whether it was a good thing or not (probably was) but they did it, and it involved a lot of very hard field work.

Finally, the monasteries--cloistered or not--were not inert. They actively occupied the land on which they were situated, making improvements, farming it, practicing the usual agricultural trades.

It is the case that somebody else, some other organization, could have done what the monastics did, but there wasn't anybody else doing it at the time.

There is a convent in St Paul, MN which more closely matches your definition of useless: The nuns are cloistered, and live in concrete block cells where they spend their time praying. Useful? Literally, god only knows. Most nuns have never opted for that sort of 'labor', monks either, though a few have.

In "Sketch of Contemporary Social Life" (1934), Simone Weil develops the theme of collectivism as the trajectory of modern culture. — Nikolas

It certainly looked that way at the time -- 1934. Germany, the USSR, Italy...

But it is a mistake to oppose democracy and socialism: the former is a political system, the second is an economic system. Democracy is better contrasted to totalitarianism, and socialism is better contrasted to capitalism.

The extent to which collectivism dominates post WWII societies is another question, well worth pursuing,

Capitalism operating in ostensibly democratic societies produces a dehumanization of the individual not much different than the collectivist states Weil was observing.

Liberty is impossible without the help of Grace. The secular world rejects the help of grace so the descent into some form of tyranny seems inevitable. — Nikolas

Yet another category disconnected from collectivism, capitalism, democracy, totalitarianism, socialism, and everything else. Maybe Grace, freely bestowed by a loving God, is necessary for liberty -- but the idea is altogether untestable and undebatable because grace is a mystery for religious people, non-existent for secular people.

The kind of mass societies we find ourselves in are more atomized than collectivized.

If it is true that we are what we do, a corollary is that we do it with, to, for, by somebody else. As John Dunne said,

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
... any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind...

The philosophizing recluse is an extreme, of which there are probably not many actual examples. More common are the professional or devoted amateur philosophers, who are narrowly focussed, and likely involved with other people who are similarly narrowly focussed. They occupy islands with a small number of inhabitants. Their "field" is very proscribed.

There are groups of extremophiles who are similar to philosophers: Old line socialists and anarchists come to mind. They are very narrow in their views, quite restricted in their activities. Actually there are quite a few 'specialties' in which a sort of OCD takes over, whether the subject matter is Jane Austin, bird watching, or body builders.

Most of these extremophiles are not harmful to society; they are more just irrelevant. I am thinking of actual people I know who fit as extremophiles. They are not bad people.

The really bad people in this world are immensely involved with other people as racketeers of various kinds -- Bernie Madoff to Mark Zuckerberg.

Most people fall in between the extremes, in the middle. Their lives are indifferent, good, or bad (a continuum) as they live out the roles, the possibilities, of their particular lives.

From my POV, the quality of a life is determined by what we do, with whom, to whom, by whom, for whom. Any individual on earth has opportunities to make positive contributions in their interactions with other people. Most people act in small positive ways most of the time. When large numbers of people act in negative ways, and larger negative ways at that, life for other people begins to deteriorate. Lots of examples of both the positive and the negative.

Penetrating topic.

Way back in a college class we discussed whether "who the person was" could be separated from "what the person did". Back then I probably thought that the person's identity was separate from the person's actions. Fifty+ years later, I would now say that "what you are" (your identity) flows from "what you do".

In a number of instances, I don't come out ahead in the "who you are is what you do" formulation. A lot of what I did worked against who / what I thought I was. I would now claim that there is no exalted self above the dirt and mud of life as we live it. Who we are is the way we deal with the dirt and mud of real life.

The way we live our lives--what we do, the actions we take--IS our lives. We can't be crooks on the one hand (like Bernie Maddoff in real life or Tony Soprano in the TV show) and be a good person on the other hand, as both of these guys were to their families.

The neuroscientist would, presumably, share the leap. Would you, receiving the great insight, be changed in your control of brain operations?

There remains a gap between an individual's insights and understanding (of which the conscious mind is aware) and the operation of the brain itself. Would the neuroscientist's insights be able to altar the way her own neurons, networks, etc. operate?

Looking below your reply to Jack Cummins' response, he is saying the same thing.

Is humanity, as a species, capable of selecting competent, moral leadership with the will to move this world forward into an age of sustainable environmental stewardship and peaceful coexistence with each other......or are we totally screwed. — Steve Leard

As I said to @'counterpunch",

It's self-interest -- yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It's the Golden Rule: Them with the gold make the rules. One of which is pursue self-interest over the short run and fuck everybody else. The golden rulers are remarkably unimaginative. The people who run things are focused on a) continuing to be the people who run things; b) continuing to accumulate wealth because c) money and what it buys is an essential requirement of power d) making sure that would-be change-agents like you and me remain feckless non-entities until death removes us as an item of concern.

For my money, I'd say all this has to do with humans being in a transition phase between animals and something else. — TheMadFool

I agree with the animal part; the transition phase, not so much.

For one thing, what @Steve Leard speaks of, require a great deal of passion. The trouble is that we are not passionate about the right things. Nothing new here. It's been a problem for a while (last 20,000 years).

We do not have time to evolve into better, godlier beings. We either will find a way to solve our present dilemmas, or we will cease and desist.

If science were true we could solve it. — counterpunch

6:20 in Albion; soon you will awake. Good Morning. I totally disagree.

Look: Science is true. Science isn't the problem. It's self-interest -- yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It's the Golden Rule: Them with the gold make the rules. One of which is pursue self-interest over the short run and fuck everybody else. The golden rulers are remarkably unimaginative.

Take automobiles: Well, let's just replace internal combustion powered cars with electric cars. Problem solved. There are about 1.4 billion internal combustion powered cars. Has it not occurred to them that building another 1.4 billion cars (even if electric) might possibly have hugely adverse environmental consequences? Power so cheap it won't be metered hasn't arrived yet. Somehow an additional immense amount of electricity must be produced without adding CO2 to the atmosphere (never mind the pollution caused by the extractive needs of producing 1.4 billion cars with batteries, rubber, plastics, roads to run on, and so on.

I really have nothing against your Magma Carta. Good idea. The reason no one is busy drilling big 10-20 mile deep holes is that the means to make vast amounts of money from this idea have not materialized.

The people who run things are focused on a) continuing to be the people who run things; b) continuing to accumulate wealth because c) money and what it buys is an essential requirement of power d) making sure that would-be change-agents like you and me remain feckless non-entities until death removes us as an item of concern.

So, let's take our place on the Great Mandela as it moves through our brief moment of time.

I dream of catching asteroids, it's true. — counterpunch

Mining asteroids (which is why you want to catch them?--See John Donne below), to bring ores to earth for refinement in furnaces fueled by magmatic blasts from the deep, the better to expand into the solar system. I think there's been one or two science fiction stories along these lines. Just because Sci-Fi has gone where your dreams also dared to go is nothing against your dreams, of course.

t is beyond belief; even though all this happened - that the Church exercised a prohibition against taking science seriously, all round the world for 400 years. — counterpunch

Your "better living through magma" scheme has a lot going for it. Your belief that the Church exercised a prohibition against taking science seriously for the last 400 years has much less to recommend it. I would not argue that the church was a leading advocate of science. Rather, whatever the church thought of science became increasingly irrelevant. The forces of Science and Technology were inconvenienced by the views of the church, no doubt, but they were certainly not vanquished for 400 years. Science, mathematics, technology, and engineering advanced in every corner of Christendom.

Certainly there were holdouts. One thinks of religious objections to Darwin's evolutionary system, from fundamentalist Christians, for example. [Fundamentalism is an approach that is not native to nay particular faith tradition.] The fundamentalists were first offended by 19th century analysis of the Bible which called its divine origin into question--a result the fundamentalists found intolerable, being literalists and believers in biblical inerrancy, as they were. A multi-millions (or billions) year period fo creation was intolerable too, even if we didn't descend from apes.

As strong a group as fundamentalists are, they were unable to brake the on-rush of science. For one thing, science and technology are just fine with fundamentalists, as long as it brings personal benefits (like antibiotics or cancer treatments) or better crop yields, or industrial processes that make money. Religious people, even ardent fundamentalists, learn to co-exist with science because they can't argue with the many ways that "science works". Airplanes, television, cell phones, computers, atom bombs, etc. Fundamentalists, like most believers, wall off the exercise of their faith from mundane realities.

I agree that the pope blocking Galileo was a damned shame, but can you site actions the pope (or others acting on his behalf) took that crippled science in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries?

when it comes to healing the placebo effect is powerful — TiredThinker

Sometimes it is, but a placebo involves the material world. A procedure or medicine is faked, but something real (even if it has zero efficacy) is done. A confounding factor in our estimation of placebos is the immune system. A reduction in stress (less anxity) might give the immune system a boost in effectiveness.

Another factor is the natural history of disease. If you have a severe cold, you might seek any relief you can get, including prayer, chicken soup, or blue pills from the doctor. Even if none of those placebos have any actual effect, viral infections (like colds) can be very bad and last x number of days before they are at last vanquished by the immune system.

We rashly wish that mind could affect matter, but you know, it's a good thing that thinking can not bring down planes.

Yeah, I don't know about red or green or blue, not to mention chartreuse, beige, or puce! Very black and very white are more certain, and even then... Is your red better because of a touch orange? Is my blue a bit too pale, or too deep? The bland color I painted my office turned out to be extremely unstable, in one light it looks great; 5 minutes later it looks drab.

I like lists, and am duly impressed by long ones. You have found a lot and made your findings available. Thanks!

There is a website in England, "Forgotten Books": Forgotten Books is a London-based book publisher specializing in the restoration of old books, both fiction and non-fiction. Today we have 1,271,513 books ... I've perused a small fraction of their list and downloaded a few. Many of these books were forgotten because their content was far too narrow to survive (lists of graduates from the local college or meeting minutes of obscure organizations for example). Some of these books were stale to begin with and didn't improve with age. Still, the site is worth visiting (or not, depending on one's interests).

How many of the books on your list have you read or sampled? This isn't a hostile question. I too would include Gibbons' History of the Roman Empire, even though I have only sampled it and have no intention of ever reading it. So much scholarship in Roman Empire history has been done since the late 18th century.

If you had to list 5 or 10 books that were seminal in your intellectual life, what might they include?

I guess law is literally the reinforcement of morality... — javi2541997

Whose morality?

Law and morality may agree that murder is a bad thing. Most people agree.

Law and morality do not agree that the the state may take private property for public purposes, even with fair compensation. Most people are OK with that (unless it is their ancestral home) but some people consider the claims of the state as theft, due process or not.

The law (in many states) provides for "employment at will" meaning that employment is a voluntary arrangement. You can decide to continue to work at XYZ Company or you can leave. That's fine. Perfectly moral arrangement. What happens when XYZ Company decides to voluntarily separate itself from everyone who voted to unionize the company? Is that moral? I think not, but Jeff Bezos might disagree. [Corporations usually resist unionization. Amazon is the current target of a union drive.]

A given moral principle may not be universal. What the ruling class (people like Jeff Bezos) and working class people (like 90% of the population) think is moral may be very far apart. So, it can be difficult to square the law (which we either have to accept or revolt) and morality.

Prudhomme said that "Property is theft." The law and morality do not agree about that.