Locke is saying there's no innate knowledge, it's only whatever we glean from the external world. Whereas, Leibniz says knowledge is innate. — Dharmi

My specialty is the irrelevant aside.

The documentary, "My Octopus Teacher" shows that 'knowledge' or adaptive capacity, or resourcefulness, is sometimes innate - in octopi, at least. Octopi do not live very long - 2 or 3 years, and are both a prey and predatory species. Success requires effective ability from the start--they come preloaded.

Octopi resources go beyond rote instinct. They appear to have an inheirited store of knowledge.

Human infants also have a little pre-loaded knowledge. They have a few basic facts, like "when things are dropped they fall". So, when they see a balloon filled with helium, and the balloon is let go of, they are shocked and appalled when the balloon rises to the ceiling, contradicting the laws of the universe.

Aside from a few examples, we have to work hard to acquire facts.

Thank you for convincing me that your really ARE 100% evolved from pond scum. — Joe0082

That is the sort of statement that can get ungrateful peasants banned. Look, the moderators are volunteers. They do a generally good and pretty much thankless job.

Would the mind and soul of the one before and the one after not be, in essence, two separate and distinct individuals. — Steve Leard

I have no idea what the soul is. (well... some idea, but that is neither here nor there)

One thing, though: we can only be ONE person -- not different people at different times. That's why the post-coma good person can be tried for the pre-coma bad person's crimes.

Another thing: Serial killers are thought (by some) to have physical defects in their brains which produce the aberrant and repulsive behavior. Particularly, psychopaths / sociopaths lack circuitry between the limbic system (source of fear) and their pre-frontal cortex (executive center). Most people learn to fear displeasing their caregivers (who might deprive them of love or punish them). This fear becomes the emotional basis of morality. Psychopaths / sociopaths can't develop that fear / morality connection. Most people apply morality or ethical system to control their own behavior.

One could argue that they should be held as mentally ill persons, rather than as criminals. As far as I know, there is no effective treatment for psychopathic personalities.

I am going to run full tilt and throw myself at one of those pair of slits. If quantum mechanics is correct tomorrow i will be two of me. — Steve Leard

People who try to act like photons do not pass go. They do not collect $200. They exit the game--sic transit gloria mundi [thus passes the glory of the world]

It is remarkable that life evolved so many different forms, including us. It did take a long time -- life appeared on this planet about 3.5 Billion years ago. The first multi-cellular life appeared about 600 Million years ago. The first creatures slithered out of the oceans 440 Million years ago -- preceded by plants 700 million years ago.

Take the eye: cells found a way of reacting to light about 600 million years ago -- around the time of the Cambrian Explosion in species. From there it took many millions of years to develop what we would recognize as an eyeball.

Just guessing, but maybe 99.99999% of all evolutionary events resulted in flat out nothing. A very small percentage of errors in cellular duplication resulted in a feature that was useful to the animal, plant, or fungus.

Problem is there are so many people who just don't seem to care very much about this sort of thing. — synthesis

Most people are not / will not be intellectuals; most people are not / will not be rebels--political deviants. Most people are not engaged in philosophical discussions. This is so now, and as far as I can tell, always has been. Most people are now, and always have been, engaged with life as they know it. They are not stupid clods.

40+ years ago, I was interested in reading and applying anarchist writers like Emma Goldman (1869-1940); the writings from the IWW - Industrial Workers of the World; Marx's Manifesto; the Catholic Worker's founder, Dorothy Day (1897-1980). There are, here and there, other individuals (or very small groups) who are interested in this sort of stuff. I found it quite liberatory and motivating, and so have others.

One of the consequences of political deviation is that if an individual exercises their new-found interest, they are likely to become economically side-lined, which means a declining or flat income. Most political deviants are broke -- poor, economically precarious. I compromised enough to stay employed to keep food on the table and a roof over my head, but had I followed the typical upward path, I'd have been economically better off.

The United States has an extremely stingy safety net. Most people recognize that fact -- implicitly if not explicitly. If they want to eat and be housed, and raise their children, they understand what is expected of them.

There is a an anarchist / radical bookstore in Minneapolis that has, somehow survived for 50 years, or so. It has mostly been supported by donations. Its small circle of friends and supporters and meeting participants are a rag-tag bunch of politically deviant intellectuals types. Few and far between.

air moves when energy is imparted to it. Heat (more energy or less energy, depending) is the primary energy involved. There is also the force of gravity and the rotation of the planet. A hot desert imparts heat to the air above it, causing it to rise. air more distant from the rising warm air moves in to take its place. Cold air is heavier than warm air and tends to sink. By such mechanism air moves, becoming wind -- or maybe just a breeze.

I would maintain that those going to the "good" school and are running the place are absolute idiots. I don't care if they aced every test since kindergarten, they are almost all fools. — synthesis

There is, of course, no shortage of liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels. Plenty of absolute idiots, and fools, too. You are focussing on the right side of the distribution of goodness and intelligence--out in the territory of Trump, Putin and Balsinaro; the robber barons; Mark Z. and Jeff B. The Normal Distribution will not be mocked. Most people are in the middle--neither rotten nor perfect. Then there are the people on the left side of the distribution who are unusually competent, kind and decent people. The distribution is skewed to the left -- there are more very decent people then rotten mafiosi.

BC, what's with all this anti-capitalist bullshit? — synthesis

I've been anti-capitalist since October 28th, 1982. Prior to that I was merely unenthusiastic.

How well is capitalism working out for you? Don't like the state? Marx didn't either, He called the state 'a committee to organize the affairs of rich people'. You are free in America insofar as you obey.

Here's a communist joke:

Comrade A: "After the revolution, there will be enough strawberries for all!"
Comrade B: "But comrade, I don't like strawberries."
Comrade A: "After the revolution, you WILL like strawberries."

Large organizations, be they states or corporations, on down to small non-profits, are controlling and repressive by their nature. People don't like to be controlled. I don't either. I want neither the state nor the corporation telling me what to do. I too want to be free.

But wake up: There can be no great individual freedom in the kinds of states and workplaces we exist in.

Yes, the corruption could / should be much, much more evident than it is.
— Bitter Crank

How is that possible? — synthesis

Ah well, publish the contracts between insurers and providers (hospitals, clinics, pharmacies Medicare/Medicaid, etc.). Here's a prime example: Big Pharma corrupted enough congress people (men and women both) to get a law passed forbidding Medicare/Medicaid from negotiating drug prices. Unconscionable.

One need not use Google or Facebook, whereas we see what happens if you do not comply with police or government. So I cannot see how these entities can be a source of any denials of freedom — NOS4A2

True enough, one does not need to use Google, Facebook, Amazon, et al. It's also the case that the operation of these extremely large corporations is only visible on the front end -- our computer screens. The algorithms, scraping and sale of data, massive profiling (for various and sundry purposes), and so on is not at all visible, let alone not obvious. Check out SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM by S. Zuboff - it's on YouTube -- another giant social media operator, but Zuboff is quite enlightening.

The police are the hard fist; most of the tracking, profiling, data scraping -- all that back-office monitoring -- is the soft fish.

FOR EXAMPLE: What do back office companies do with the data they scrape off of the zillions of pictures posted on facebook (and identified by FB users)? Likely, that information goes into the construction of facial recognition systems--something that has definitely hard, as well as soft, fist uses.

Target Corporation figured out how to tell which women were in early pregnancies by studying changes in purchase patterns. The women's changes were not dramatic -- they started buying more items like hand cleaners and unscented soap. Later on, they started buying baby products. Ah ha -- more unscented soap in June, baby products in December! An opportunity to become the mother's and baby's primary supplier.

That in itself may not be tyrannical (it IS manipulative) but suppose there are changes in run-of- the-mill purchases that predict a right- or left- shift in political views? Maybe crypto-nazis buy more canned peas and plastic containers 9 months before they start posting on a Proud Boys site. Maybe crypto socialists start buying fresh organic vegetables and white socks 5 months before they subscribe to The Militant and start spouting theory from Leon Trotsky.

Could the schools get any worse? — synthesis

Yes. There ARE good schools with good students getting a good education. These schools produce the next generation of cadre that the ruling class needs to keep society functioning in the desired manner. Maybe 20% of American students attend these (usually suburban) schools.

Yes, there are some fairly good schools left, and a lot of schools that have won the race to the bottom. That's OK because the students attending the crappy schools were never going to be very useful, anyway, except as consumers -- which they'll do well as.

Does anybody in public life ever tell the truth anymore? — synthesis

Yes, Somebody, somewhere, is telling the truth in public. Why do you expect people in power to speak the truths that would probably result in their not being in power any more?

Could political polarity be any worse? — synthesis

Oh yes, much worse. Think Germany in the 1920s-1930s. Bloody street fighting between Communists and Nazis was a regular and frequent occurrence. @Go Reds, Smash State! The Communists as well as the less radical, centrist parties were brutally suppressed as soon as the Nazis took power in early 1933. The recent storming of the US capital building was very widely condemned by both sides of the shallow groove that marks the shallow political divide.

The US doesn't really have much polarity -- we are a unipolar political system, the two poles are both capitalist.

We could, we should have more polarity -- workers of the United States, Unite -- then revolt. We have a small amount to lose, and a lot more to gain.

Could the fact that the health care system is corrupt beyond your wildest dreams be any more evident? — synthesis

Yes, the corruption could / should be much, much more evident than it is.

Exploitive, licentious, gangster ... predatory — 180 Proof

Exactly!

As we devolve into a totalitarianism characterized by intolerance, divisiveness, and massive propaganda/ignorance, you just have to wonder whether the desire to be free has been selected out of Western people. — synthesis

The 'loss of freedom' will, and does, come from unexpected sources. Google, Facebook, Amazon, et al are much more likely to compromise personal freedom than the Centers for Disease Control or the police. How? Commercial Internet companies make a great deal of money by manipulating people through their operating algorithms and content. Tracking your clicks and mouse moves, "scraping" information off the pictures we post, the texts we write, the things we buy, the things we watch (or do not watch) enables companies to profile, and manipulate us on ever deeper levels.

Years before many of us here were born, Marshall McLuhan observed that "the medium is the message". He was talking about television; the internet had not been invented yet. However, the principal applies as much to the internet as television.

The medium of the internet is no more liberating than television was/is--I'd say even less so. Television is much more a mass medium than the internet, which can be individualized by those background algorithms--toward purposes we are mostly not consciously aware of. That's how we get sucked in.

The problem of evil must be common knowledge to any regular visitor on this forum; and, this seemingly states that God allows evil to happen, so how does this mesh with Him or Her being all good? — Shawn

We are supposed to be good, or at least, we COULD be good if we wanted to, at least a good share of the time. But quite often we opt for doing things that are not good. It's as difficult to reconcile our refusal to be as good as we could be, as it is to reconcile evil and a good god.

...one must address as a good person or at least a person concerned with the good? — Shawn

Yes: we can, we should reduce suffering. We should do that just because each of us wants to avoid our own suffering. Do for others what you would like them to do for you.

It's amazing to me that an invertebrate, related to clams, may have self-consciousness. — T Clark

It is amazing. It's also amazing that all the remarkable features that an octopus has are innate -- it doesn't have time enough to learn it's remarkable repertoire of behaviors. MY OCTOPUS TEACHER is a fine documentary on a particular octopus - on Netflix.

I don't buy it either. On the other hand, there are some people I know who at this late date seem not to have developed much consciousness.

My main objection to his idea is that consciousness probably exists in other species, but to a lesser (and much lesser) degree. I don't think consciousness sprang into existence with us and only us. Brains have been evolving towards complexity for a long time. A dog, for instance, is not a 'conscious being' like us, but it seems like they have some consciousness.

I get beaten to a figurative pulp — T Clark

As well you should, being the most conservative person in the room!:lol:

"More liberal than thou" liberals can be vicious, vituperative vipers.

Does Existence have any objective/universal meaning — SmartIdiot

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

The question of meaning arose late in the historical game (just my guess). Tyrannosaurus Rex probably didn't worry about the meaning of existence. Five million years ago, our predecessors weren't worrying about meaning either, We, on the other hand, do worry about it--a lot. (At least people on this forum do.)

We need some context in which to fit our good and bad experiences. Even the idea that there is no over-arching meaning that is certain, is a context that is better than endless confusion.

I grew up in a protestant home and received a clear religious framework of meaning. I have since become a non-believer. Starting out life with a clear structure of meaning enables one to change without falling into nihilism. Nihilism (no meaning, nothing matters...) is probably the worst of all possible worlds.

We can fashion a positive 'meaning of life', and live it.

On the other hand, family fights over politics are not a new thing.

During the Vietnam War, lots of families had lots of arguments about the premises of the war (domino theory), about the intentions of North Vietnam, about the effects the war was having on the troops, the policies of Presidents Johnson and Nixon, or about patriotism. Ronald Reagan was a lightning rod for arguments.

Family is one of the places where children (and parents) can stake out claims for what they believe, or what they don't believe, as the case may be, then defend the territory. Family argument is the cradle of opinion making, and learning the skills to have and deploy opinions.

Better to learn how to argue than to learn how to shut up.

people can be civil about these contentious topics — FlaccidDoor

They absolutely can be civil. A civil discussion between a Trump lover and a Trump loather probably won't result in changed positions, but if they can at least get to what it is about Trump (or any other politician, political issue, religious question... all sorts of things) that they love or loathe, that would be good.

And if "civil" isn't possible (sometimes it isn't) then one just has to leave it alone--the other
er civil approach.

Yes I am self centered, but that doesn't necessarily mean I am trying to belittle your position or even trying to prove you wrong in the topic, but merely trying to convince you that conversation isn't futile. — FlaccidDoor

Mea culpas are not in order. You've started a good thread and you are tending to it. Looking forward to more good topics from you.

hank you for teaching me the word "echt" — counterpunch

There's that toy, the 'echt-a-sketch" -- police use it to make authentic drawings of suspects.

I'm a philosopher of science, and view religion from the outside as the philosophy and politics of primitive people. — counterpunch

True enough, if the several great religions (Hindu, Buddhist, the 3 Abrahamic faiths) didn't originate with primitives, they were certainly picked up by them. The relatively small group of people who were critical in forming the great religions were probably sophisticated creative types. Just my guess.

As for

Peterson is a genuine believer - and maddeningly, makes no effort to reconcile these antithetical narratives, while depending on both religion and science for his arguments! — counterpunch

I don't think that one can actually reconcile them; one lays them down side by side--separate, not equal, one not advancing the other. I am no longer a believer, but I took my moral core from Christianity. Way too late to renovate that part of the castle. I look to science too. Science though wasn't intended to provide moral or ethical guidance. Guidance doesn't have to come from religion, but it's the handiest source for most people.

It's sort of like the paradox of Christ -- fully man, fully god. You have to have faith to deal with it. Science doesn't care and has nothing to say about it. So, go with science in the 99.999% of situations where faith doesn't help.

If you think I'm using a "strategy," let me go back to the abortion issue as an example. — FlaccidDoor

I was referencing "people in general", not you in particular. For "people in general" acting as if they were deliberating is a strategy, because most people's thinking (maybe everyone's) is, to a significant extent, shaped by their biases and steered by their emotions. When I hear a comment on Planned Parenthood, I have a positive knee-jerk response. I am biased in favor of the work they do (family planning, for instance, and yes, providing abortions).

As a gay male, abortion and family planning have never been a relevant issue to me, either. I've long had an interest in the Kinsey Institute, the Guttmacher Institute, a batch of gay organizations, AIDS research, and various other loosely connected groups, like PP. I don't know where all of my biases come from, but they are there. Experience, peer influence, work--stuff like that, I suppose. Maybe all the demonstrating by conservative Catholics against Planned Parenthood had something to do with my positive view of them.

At least for me, anyway, when I hear about the issues of the day my knee-jerk response is pretty quick. Not always -- Every now and then I do stop to consider and sometimes change my mind.

The truth is that most of us have already chosen sides. Pretending that we have not, that we are weighing the two sides on a sensitive scale, is a strategy more than a fact. We choose sides before we know it, given the heavy wash of social engagement.

George Floyd has been elevated to local sainthood, but here is a man with a string of criminal convictions, drug addiction, and petty crime--of the sort he was engaged in at the time of his final arrest. He wasn't resisting arrest so extreme that a fatality should have been expected. What the role of the fentanyl is on behavior, not sure. Probably not beneficial.

We live in the capitlism era. This means having money or at least a decent salary can provide you enter in the culture circle (books, theaters, universities, etc...)
Imagine having a low paid job like 700 euros or even less per month working in a boring job that nobody wants but the low qualification ones. — javi2541997

Very true.

Also, being poor means living on the edge of small disasters which can happen at any time. One's life is precarious. Constant threat makes one more cautious, more likely to respond well to political promises of "the good old days" when people imagined life was better.

Do you believe that your family members' conservative views are due to their environmental upbringing? Do you think these environments create echo chambers where people radicalize? — FlaccidDoor

Environmental determinism? Could be -- something about cows, pastures, rolling hills, Minnesota weather... I'd say we all started out in the middle of the political road and then differentiated. The brothers lived in cities and became liberal, except for the one who lived in Colorado Springs (military town) who became a Trump man before Trump was a thing. The 4 sisters stayed in the small town and became more conservative in one of MN's congressional district that has always been Republican.

I think long-term social environment is extremely influential. We stay in places where we find like kind and then we become more that way. Or, we don't like where we are and move--and we don't have to go a long ways. The liberal core of the metro Twin Cities area has a radius of 10 miles. Outside the circle it's pretty much all conservative. This pattern holds in all of the large metropolitan areas of the country.

It is also the case that the political parties have shifted rightward. The Republican Party was once considerably more liberal, having a large wing of fiscal-conservative/social liberal members. They were driven out in the 60s and 70s. By 1980 it was Ronald Reagan. The Democratic Party also shifted to the right. After all, ending welfare-as-we-know-it happened under Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

A lot of the rightward shift has been driven from the top of society, by people most of us never associate with.

As for my leftward shift, it was driven by association too--liberal gay men, some socialist friends, and the like, and living in a liberal city.

Today (St. Patrick's Day) there was a long article in either the New York Times or Washington Post showing how segregated conservatives / Republicans and liberals / Democrats are. Liberals tend to occupy urban areas, conservatives tend to occupy suburban and rural areas.

Whether people moved to be with people whose thinking was congruent, or whether after moving their thinking changed to become congruent with their neighbors, I don't know. The movement of white people to the suburbs was completed maybe... 40 years ago, or more. By the mid-80s, there were some very strong conservative trends in the suburbs. Strong liberal trends have been present in urban areas since the 70s.

So, it's no surprise that family members shift to opposite sides of the debate table, depending on their circumstances. All of my conservative family members are rural. They are politically, religiously, and socially conservative. All my urban friends are liberal in the same ways, pretty much. Education doesn't account for this as well as geography does. Neither does economic status.

I do not get very far talking politics with very conservative people, especially blood relatives.

Additionally there are cases in which children, without the consent of their parents, was allowed to be given hormone therapy and such. — FlaccidDoor

With or without parental consent, it seems extremely hazardous to give anyone younger than 21 sex hormones for purposes of treating 'gender dysphoria'. Giving sex hormones to children might border on criminal medical malpractice.

Even if I don't accept their premises, some people believe they will benefit from gender-reassignment therapy. I have known a number of transgender persons and they seemed happier after they completed the treatment they desired. My sample is small, however. All of these people were adults --some middle-aged. They had had enough time to mature and work through their various issues. a 10 year old or 16 year old has emphatically not had enough time. Besides which their brains are maybe a decade or two from maturation (which is around age 26).

One of the older men I knew who transitioned had been trained in college as a behaviorist. He had no patience for humanistic psychology. He was also a vet, a recovering alcoholic, and homeless when I met him (in the agency I worked for). He was about 42. As far as I know, he did not have anything removed, but did get hormones and developed a somewhat feminized body. So, he reported feeling like he had the wrong identity since being a child. The amount of harassment he went through on his way was too great to justify a moderate desire to become the opposite gender. He REALLY wanted it. So, it worked for him.

Will it work for him or anyone else in the long run? Who knows. Not my call.

so I regret making this thread. — Gregory

So fine: you regret it. But you did, and it's a perfectly fine, if somewhat hazardous topic.

I asked if people having gender reassignment was an almost religious activity — Gregory

In a sense, yes. Religious interpretations are not restricted by physical realities. One can believe that a little guardian angel perches on one shoulder, and a little winged devil perches on the other. One can believe in souls just as easily as not. One can think one's soul / or body will get brought back from the dead one day (actually it IS the body that gets resurrected). One can believe in heaven or not, because there are no local, state, federal, or international laws forbidding it. (Well, usually not, anyway.).

Thinking that one is actually a female trapped in a male body (or some such rendition of that song and dance) is like religion -- you can think whatever you wish. Of course, if wishes were horses the peasants would ride. As it happens, they are not.

I suspect that much of the gender stir is actually a proxy for the more traditional and harsher realities that people are being forced to deal with.

I don't think genitals define the soul they are just body parts designed for pleasure — Gregory

Well, I don't think the genitals define the soul either, but they certainly define the body--the part that we actually know something about. Pleasure is the bait to get us to reproduce. Maybe orgasms are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, but probably not.

I think why people find this topic so engaging in a bombastic way is worth a discussion on it's own but I'll leave it alone for this thread. — FlaccidDoor

You can't get away with putting that interesting bait out there and then covering it up!

Sex / gender are bomb-making materials because they are such a basic part of our self-definitions. We are sexed one way or the other because we are embodied being, and how we are embodied matters to how we experience the world. Embodiment is THE fundamental fact of our existences. Start screwing around with that and you have trouble on your hands. (Not you; anybody)

I've even said that reproduction doesn't even define the sexes — Gregory

No? What are those various reproductive parts for, then--whether they get used or not?.

I'm trying to let this thread die because my ideas were causing people distress — Gregory

While I warned you away from the topic, there's nothing wrong with, on the one hand comforting the afflicted and, on the other hand, afflicting the comfortable (my favorite activity).

I am an old, ornery, binary, cisgender, gay, male, democratic socialist, W.A.S.P. (without the money and more of a Protestant atheist).

I view humans as one of many vertebrate species (and many invertebrates and plants) who are hatched out as either male or female. That physical reality is why we have 2 genders and not 3, 4, or 50. Individuals can imagine that they are not simple male or female (as per the evidence presented from an ultrasound or at birth), but almost always they are one or the other. Yes, that does limit people's gender identity options. Just drop the focus on gender. There are many ways of being in the world. There are plenty of options in that sense for everyone.

As to souls, I know nothing about them. "Soul" is a rather spongy noun.

Whether, and how quickly, one can 'let things go' and move on depends, to some extent, on how our personalities work. Some people are 'grudge holders' -- they don't forget bad things--not because they want to, they just can't do otherwise. Other people are more 'water off a duck's back'. They are able to forget, or move on with ease--not because they are virtuous, but because that's just the way they are.

Some depressed people perseverate -- 'repeat or prolong an action, thought, or utterance after the stimulus that prompted it has ceased'. Dwelling on bad events is a feature of depression. When depression passes they stop perseverating. (Not that you or you son is depressed - this is just a general observation.)

What happened to your son is most regrettable. Fortunately he is 21 and not 12, so he'll be able to put racist crap in context. All sorts of bad things happen to people: we live in a society where increasing economic and social pressures distort how people behave towards each other, and whether it is at work or on the street (or even at home) social friction has increased a lot. We definitely should not ignore it, nor should we think about nothing else.

I've never warned anyone off a topic before. It's for your own good, of course. You'll just get dumped on a lot.

I also would warn you away from this topic--NOT because you know less about gender, sex, transgender, etc. than banno or wood--but because it's a political minefield. You may know as much as the rest of us. Look:

Most people do not understand what being a trans person means
Many people do not have clear ideas about gender and sex -- or they have extremely simple ideas
The whole topic of transgenderism may be a crock. My suspicion is that a good share of it is a crock.

Quoting Jung about males castrating themselves is not a good idea. My suspicion is that a good share of Karl Jung may be a crock (along with much of Sigmund Freud).

I do not know why transgenderism is such a hot topic now. Probably the algorithms that determine what the New York Times, New Yorker, National Public Radio, et al will natter on about decided that transgenderism was hot.

Out in the real world, it's about the argument from power. In the real world, the argument from power is always the most powerful one, "criticial thinking" be damned. — baker

The Uber-powerful don't require your critical reasoning when it comes to doing what they tell you to do. It just requires your obedience. But you vs. the top dog isn't the only relationship you have. In many contexts, critical thinking is essential. The top dogs expect their minions to solve problems, and for that you need to think.

Another thing you need to think about critically is what answer the top dog wants. Guess wrong, and it's off with your head.

The uncertainty wasn't taken seriously, clearly. — schopenhauer1

No, it wasn't. 911 brought about some fairly radical moves -- grounding all air traffic for a few days, for instance, It was mercifully quiet without airport traffic. Now we have the stupid theater of safety at the airport. Last summer was pretty wonderful though -- there was very very little air traffic. Much less auto traffic around town, too. The weather was great -- except for police murders and the riots (which were diverting, at least) it was perfect.

In fairness, though, Covid-19 was a new disease, even if it belonged to a group of viral diseases that had already been identified. We should be able to respond to new diseases quickly and effectively, but that expectation depends on knowing the future.

When the disease that would soon be called AIDS was first identified in 1981, it was anomalous, involving some very odd, but very serious, symptoms, like Kaposi Sarcoma and Pneumocystis in atypical patients. Had public health officials known then that this weird new disease would kill 700,000 Americans and 32,000,000 people around the world in the next 40 years, they might have been more proactive.

Ebola and Marburg viruses, both fairly recently identified tropical hemorrhagic fevers, were instantly frightening and had a fatality rate close to 90%, so people gave these diseases (and the infected) a very wide berth. Covid 19 and AIDS killed nowhere close to the speed of Ebola.

Influenza kills between 30,000 to 50,000 people a year, give or take a few thousand, and makes millions of people quite sick. Still, less than half of adults bother to get vaccinated. Covid 19 has killed over 500,000 Americans, and quite a few people (they tend to be Republicans) fail to see a reason to get vaccinated.

A good response to a health threat requires two things: An alert and proactive public health establishment, and a responsive public. If the public isn't paying attention, it becomes difficult to protect people. It took a long time and a lot of effort to drive smoking down from the one-time level of over half of adults smoking to the current 14%. Some people still don't believe seatbelts are worth a slight inconvenience.

Some people have their heads permanently stuck up their asses.

Typically they claim that God is beyond our comprehension. — frank

One approach to God is to present the deity in altogether familiar, knowable terms. The opposite approach is to define God as unfathomable, incomprehensible, unknowable.

I hold that man created the gods, not the other way around, and defined the gods in various ways. The most problematic approach is to define God as unknowable, then to go on and explain why and how God does this, that, and everything else. It becomes nonsensical. I was raised to believe that God is omnipotent, omniscience, and omnipresent. Fine, except that we have no idea what "being everywhere in all time, past and future" would / could mean. Ditto for God's other omni-features.

If God is a mystery, then shut about it.

Back in my religious days, I had no problem thinking that God caused the Big Bang. I never believed in the 6 day creation presented in Genesis. My then religious conception of God was that he was outside of time and space--he had to be, since he created the cosmos--God was before the beginning, At the same time, he inhabits his creation. Science accounts for the God's methods. Big Bang, evolution, pandemics, supernovae, etc.

That was my solution before I threw out the whole religious framework. Things are clearer now. There was a big bang which is still expanding, we are here on this minor celestial ball, and our prospects are partly-cloudy to dim.

If one were to estimate the number of people who are non-binary or trans by counting media references, one would come up with double digit figures. I don't know, how about 20%--that's a nice round number. Don't like 20%? Well then, .05%? 9%? 13%? 17%? Take your pick.

Or, how many homosexuals are there? By 'homosexual' I mean someone whose sex life is focused on same-sex relationships and who self-identifies as 'homosexual. It "used to be" a small number--around 2.5% Over time, gay activists / advocates jacked up the figure to 10%. If 1 in 10 men are homosexual, I'd like to know who was getting my share all those years!

Are the varieties of sexuality actually increasing in number, or is this an illusion produced by the chattering classes?

The Media tend to like 'hot topics'. No surprise, there. Soybean production figures make for extremely dull talk shows and imminently boring New Yorker articles. Let's talk about the exciting, hot new trans-sexuals / trans-genders, Heinz 57-categories of non-binary and asexual identities. It doesn't matter how many there are. They are the latest cause celebre.

Oppressed minorities are also a current hot topic among the chattering classes. Women, of course; but also blacks, asians, indigenous, illegal immigrants, et cetera. White male homosexual had our moment in gay liberation, around 50 years ago, with up-ticks for AIDS and gay marriage. We are passé at this point. I guess we've been mainstreamed, so... just another bunch of privileged white guys.

What individuals say and display about themselves may be a proxy for something else. A non-sexual example: Back in the day, images of Che Guevara were ubiquitous among "hippies". Were they really interested in the genuinely revolutionary politics of Guevara, or were they using his image as a proxy for their mildly counter-cultural rebelliousness? The latter, clearly.

"Trans" and "non-binary" identity may also be a proxy for other dissatisfactions and conflicts that people experience. I wouldn't say that is always the case, but it may be, quite often.

Keep a bucket of salt handy, so you can take the several grains needed when you hear or read about this stuff.

look at the spending habits of the young people — synthesis

I agree: The spending habits of young and middle aged people are very poorly informed. One doesn't need the top of the line cell phone, and -- by the way -- a decent phone lasts a lot longer than a year. A 5 year old phone will usually perform its primary functions just fine,

One of the reasons I could save money on my low-paying Catholic Church job was that I didn't consume much. I covered larger expenses with cash--no credit cards.

Granted: the economy now is not the same as 50 years ago. The value of $1000 in today (or to be precise 2019) would be worth $158.31 in 1972. MEANING $1000 has lost over 6 times its value since 1972.*** Declining or stagnant wages compound the problem.

True: some people are leaving colleges and getting high paying jobs that enable them to live on their own, travel, marry, have children, buy 4 cars (for 2 drivers), and have a mortgaged house full of @crap


*** Inflation Calculator

@crap Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America by Wendy A. Woloson. Buy this book and have yet 1 more piece of crap.

if all wishes were fulfilled as soon as they arose — Arthur Schopenhauer

Then people could wish to be happy with whatever they had and to wish for nothing more. The wish would be granted. And they all lived happily ever after.

People can be content. It may not happen when they are 5, 15, 25, or 45, but as one ages (and understands the limitations of wishes) it becomes increasingly possible. Do we ever become totally content? There is no discontent in death, so there is that.

For most people (everywhere) the desires are for more materiel, because materiel is concrete, easily conceptualized, and (maybe) available. Better "art" (more moving, thrilling, unforgettable, riveting, meaningful, satisfying, complex... novels, poems, sculpture, music, painting, etc.) are more difficult to conceptualize, therefore more difficult to wish for.

We don't have to worry about it too much, because most people are about as close to paradise as they are ever going to get, and it isn't all that great.

So, question: do philosophical optimists wish for more, or are they content with what they have? I'd say the latter.

the percentage of adults receiving government benefits (over half) — synthesis

Working people pay taxes; they should get benefits. Rich people pay few if any taxes. They should not receive benefits (like tax give-aways). Better yet, just expropriate the to .001%. That's right: Take it all away from the billionaires.

the number of young adults (under 30) dug into their parents' basements — synthesis

The prime reason for this is the 50-year decline in income (and/or purchasing power) of working class people, and the maldistribution of wealth in the United States. Young adults can not earn enough to set up a home, even in dilapidated efficiencies. Comparison:

1971 - my take-home income: about $100 a week (worked for the RC church--last of the big spenders)
- my rent on a nice efficiency near work: $90 -- that's slightly less than 25% of income.
2020 85% of rental units in the same city are more than the cheapest $700 - 1000 range. To spend only 25% of one's income on rent one now has to bring home $48,000. Young adults might not be able to find a $1000 a month rent

Nanny-state — synthesis

The United States is the stingiest, least proactive nanny state among G20 countries. It's the most incompetent, negligent nanny that ever was (maybe after the Soviet Union).