But unlike eliminating waste or eating, procreation is never such an immediate need, and so the motivations are much more complex and culturally based. — schopenhauer1

Procreation (the whole rigamarole of conception, pregnancy, and birth, feeding, diaper changes, etc.) isn't an immediate need. For women it's kind of a pain. But sex is an immediate need. Heterosexual sex, however much aimed at short-term gratification, leads to conception with enough frequency to achieve a growing population.

Is a growing population a problem? Until quite recently, it was not. In 1700 there were about .6B people. In 1800 the world population was about 1B. A century later it was 1.6B. Today it is 7.8B. Something (technology? better public health? more food? strong economy?) enabled population to more than double twice in 100 years. Culture hasn't kept up. Lots of people do not see a problem in 10 billion people converging with global warming. More fools they.

We are stuck with a large population, barring savage and draconian measures; a horrific epidemic (much worse than anything we have seen so far); or, my guess, agricultural collapse. No individual solutions will help, given the immensely unlikely possibility that 8 billion people will voluntarily refrain from reproductive sex.

Why does this package seem justified to perpetuate onto more people born into the world? — schopenhauer1

Well, there is this "way of the world", the way things work. The higher-order self-questioning that leads to voluntary non-reproduction isn't very common among the world's people. There's nothing wrong with everybody; they are just doing what people do -- getting through their day. That is the world's way, from microbes on up.

Your thinking is explicitly anti-natal, but there are many millions of people who have opted for less than self-replacement levels of reproduction. Millions of people so opting is far short of enough to make a difference in world population. Until very recently, there was no good reason to promulgate antinatalism: the death rate was too high.

You will probably argue that high rates of grim death were actually an excellent reason to promote antinatalism. Collective thinking, habits, patterns, and so forth -- culture -- was no where close to finding your reasoning palatable (like in the medieval or Roman period when perhaps 25% to 33% of the area population died off from epidemics).

I do not drive (never have), so I should leave this alone, but fools rush in...

The liquid-like flow of traffic must have something to do with your arriving at the beach in one piece. Freeways, by definition, (are supposed to) have fewer entrances and exits than a typical street resulting in a smooth traffic flow. Until, that is, something happens which disrupts the flow--ice, rain, snow, debris, alcohol, etc.

Something similar happens on a bicycle. Once moving, the rider doesn't have to think about balance, pedaling, and the like until something goes wrong--pot holes, ice, traffic, and the like.

My guess is that tasks like driving, biking--really all sorts of tasks involving multiple-repeated functions are managed non-consciously. Various parts of the brain are processing in/out information related to the task, leaving the frontal cortex sort of free to wander far and wide. Sort of, but not too much.

Drivers have benefitted from numerous engineering improvements over the last 70 years or so, on both highways and freeways: curve banking, drainage, barriers, surface materials, all sorts of things that aren't very prominent. Cars are also better engineered, all because humans are the same old design that formerly traveled exclusively on two feet.

I do not think of myself as a bad person, and doubt that many people think of themselves as bad people. — Athena

Individually, people are usually quite nice. We can be, sometimes, quite nice in large groups, too. Think of a church picnic. But it is when we get into large groups and are not nice, like the Republic Party or Nazi Party, that we become really awful.

It's safe to say the if Occupy had been really effective, the powers that be would not have stayed the hands of the police. It was very much amateur hour at the OK Corral.

We need to be fully honest and swallow the fact that humans have not been very nice and we did not have such good lives until after the second world war — Athena

Lives were much better after WWII for those who happened to survive it. But it is extremely true: Humans are just not very nice. Seriously. It always seems to surprise us when fresh evidence of our deep-down-awfulness is revealed.

There's no more discrimination against the Irish and Italians. Why? I think mostly because they mixed into the pot.

I think one of the purposes of Jim Crow was to keep it from happening with whites and blacks. Now that Jim Crow is gone, it's happening.

Latinos are already mixed with whites and blacks to some extent. — frank

According to Pew Research, slightly less than 7% of children have racial mixed parents. I assume that figure does not include the children of Irish/Italians (shudder). Advertising agencies like to people product ads with mixed-rave couples and their children. Maybe this is just a cheaper way to advertise to white and black audiences at the same time.

The Occupy protests were about class issues. "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!" was a common refrain. — fishfry

The Occupy protests may have been initially mistaken by the overly-eager as the revolution. Sadly, not, but it was a good thing. Too bad it didn't endure. One reason it didn't endure is that the powers that be had enough sense (from their POV) not to martyr the children camped on corporate or government plazas. They let them sit there till they got tired of it.

You are absolutely correct about race, racism, and racists being hyped as a distraction. Towards the end of the 20th century, It took a certain amount of bending over backwards to identify fresh, active racism as the #1 problem. There was, and is, active racism, still. But much of what is identified as current racism is actually the long-economic-tail of racially discriminatory policies executed in the 1930s.

In the Talking Union labor song, Pete Seeger in 1941 sings:
"If you don't let race hatred break you up,
You'll win. What I mean, take it easy, but take it!

The ruling class has always recognized working class solidarity as a danger, and has consistently moved to break it up, quite often by breaking heads. Racial conflict has been an excellent tool.

Why do we accept it? Is it because we need it? — frank

People maintain all sorts of delusions. One delusion: I could be rich, too. Another delusion: People get rich by their own efforts; work hard, get rich. Rich people deserve what they have. Yes, Mark, Jeff, and Bill earned every cent!

Do I have a choice about severe inequality? Do you? No. It's deeply, systemically embedded and protected by laws and courts.

Will we, should we, all be equal? Maybe we should be, but there's not much danger of that happening soon.

We could, at least, aim for such modest reforms as trimming the extremes -- reducing the wretchedness of the poor on one end and reducing extravagant wealth on the other end. We could engage in moderate income redistribution through taxation.

I'm not sure we know how to bring about educational performance equalized UP, not down. How well, or poorly, a child performs in school is often rooted in a family's ability and motivation. More, students and families need to see that education pays off. If they can't see a pay-off, what's the point?

Do you think the 4 racial groups will become homogenized? Should they?

What Sanders was proposing was not all that revolutionary. You know, one can say we need revolutionary change. Whether one really wants to experience a revolution is something else.

These days progressives have a major problem of 'social efficacy': we have some good ideas, goals, objectives, desired ends, etc., but we are not able to achieve much. Conservatives, reactionaries, and propertied interests are hostile to anything more than token changes. Redistribute income? Reform education? Undo unjust, century-long housing discrimination? Not a chance.

Progressives are more likely to wear out than sell out. Anyway, nobody is offering much of a bribe to progressives.

I don't know what precisely should be done, anymore. The progressive housing reform advocates working during the 1930, '40s, and '50s are the people responsible for the nightmares that many public housing projects turned into. Some of the progressive advocates predicted in the early '50s that the high-rise housing projects were a huge mistake, and they turned out to be right. Other equally sensible progressives were shocked and appalled by how fast and how bad the housing projects ended up being.

Waves of progressive educational reform have come and gone, without eliminating the sometimes huge gaps between white and black or hispanic student performance. Anti-poverty programs often end up benefitting only the middle-class workers in the programs. on and on and on...

The thing is, rational sensible plans for progressive change end up being severely warped by the existing system which creates and maintains the problems in the first place.

There was once (1970s) a small magazine, The Radical Therapist", whose motto was "Therapy means change, not adjustment." Their logo was a chick just-hatched from its egg shell.

I've taken medication and used talk therapy for depression and anxiety; I've benefitted some from both. What really worked was substantial change in life circumstances. I wasn't successful in engineering the changes that worked -- that came about by chance events.

I spent decades being a discontented person, and regularly sharpened the edges of discontent. [Fan the flames of discontent--old labor slogan] My expectations of what life was supposed to be like were not all that well grounded in reality, a good share of the time. As I got older, I found work life increasingly oppressive and stultifying.

A lot of my personal history became clear after I retired and began reflecting on my life. Theoretically with 20/20 hindsight, I could have thought about life differently and been happier.

Today I feel mentally contented, effective, and happy; I do happen to be hooked on an anti-depressant. I don't know whether it does any good--just that I experience very unpleasant withdrawal when I try to stop. I'll probably take it until the end.

But where's the race war? Maybe I just don't understand what a race war is, if there's one underway. Do you see it? — frank

Personally, I prefer "The only war is the class war", but I'll stick to race.

What people call a "race war" is really just "business as usual".

If we read the histories of housing discrimination, for instance, we find that "red lining" was a survey conducted in the 1930s by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), a government agency. If we look at white people organizing to repress black people, we find that "Jim Crow" was organized in the 1890s. Slavery had just ended 30 odd years earlier. In the post-WWII period, the government financed a huge growth in suburban building, and it was both explicit and implicit that the suburbs were to be white.

The consequences of government and private actions during the century--1860s to the 1960s--locked in the race-poverty relationship. Circling back to "the only war is the class war", government and private actions have also locked in a lot of people (white and colored alike) to the increasingly impoverished working class.

The upshot of all this is that long term race and class discrimination is impossible to overcome without very radical changes, and short of a revolution, which is unlikely to happen.

So what form do you think pronoun usage will take in the future?
Are they helpful?
Are they arbitrary?
Is there need for such a label? — GTTRPNK

I prefer the standard gender pronouns applied in the usual way.
I don't think changing pronouns to fit the fantasies and peculiarities of a very small minority makes any practical sense at all.
Gender, and the appropriate pronouns, are not arbitrary.
There is no need for new patterns of pronoun usage.

BLUEPRINT FOR DISASTER by D. Bradford Hunt, part of the series Historical Studies of Urban America, University of Chicago Press is about the successful and unsuccessful efforts of the Chicago Housing Authority to house the poor. The period covered runs from roughly 1935 to 1985. It sounds like a very wonky book, but it is really quite accessible. If you want WONK, the extensive notes section provides that.

How did it all turn out? Starting around 2000, Chicago began leveling the vast housing projects they had built 40 and 50 years earlier for many thousands of poor blacks. By itself, Robert Taylor Homes at its peak housed 27,000 people. 15,000 lived in Cabrini Green, and in many other larger and small Chicago projects.

If you don't want to read about it, This PBS documentary about Robert Taylor Homes is 56 minutes long--well worth an hour on YouTube. (Note: the program is mislabeled "Cabrini Green". CG is another can of worms.)

Dan Rather Reports - A Public Disgrace [there are so many] is about the bad bad very bad Detroit Public School System and what seems to be their marinated-in-slime and fried-in-corruption school board. (aired in 2011)

You raise many good points.

There is some research that indicates increased diversity decrease trust levels -- one of the essential elements in a healthy, stable society. Immigration from poor to rich countries increases the carbon foot print of the immigrants and the richer society. An influx of non-English speaking, relatively low-skilled workers distort the labor market, especially for our least wen-paid people. These are reasons to limit immigration, among others.

It is not difficult to understand why people in poorer countries would want to move to richer countries: life will probably be better for them there. On the other hand, sovereign nations have the right (even the obligation) to determine the nature of the society they will have. Countries may limit (or forbid) immigration.

One of the problems of predicting population movements over the remaining 79 years of this century, and on into the next, is that global warming is changing all sorts of things all at once. Whether large numbers of people distant from Europe or North America will have the wherewithal to make the trip is not clear at this point. As fresh water, tolerable temperatures, and food [among other much desired things] become scarcer, doors may be closed to migrant populations. It all depends on how bad how fast it gets. I'm quite pessimistic on the likelihood that we will accomplish much in the way of disaster prevention.

Accepting migrant populations in the United States so far at least, is less a policy decision and more a policy lapse. We didn't "admit" a good share of the migrants that are here: they arrived without permission. Then we failed to expel them, so here they are--millions of them. They could be removed (it wouldn't be pretty but it is possible), and we probably won't do that.

Whether or not rich countries admit 50 million (or some other number) poor people or close and bolt their doors, a lot of people will perish from global warming and the disruptions flowing from it. When push comes to shove, I would rather my country, my people, survive and prosper rather than some other nation's people.

Several billion years after the fact we can't go back and look at the beginning of life -- that time and space has long since been plowed under. True enough -- evolution describes the history of life, not its first enduring instantiation. How the primordial stew formed any of the components of what would eventually be 'life' is not, perhaps can not, be known at this time.

The answer might be found elsewhere in the solar system or galaxy, should we be lucky and alert enough to happen upon a pool of proto-slop stumbling toward life. Highly unlikely, at best.

Back in 1968 when I started a new job, I referred to "colored people". One of the "black" teachers laughed and said "I haven't heard that phrase in years!" Later on, "people of color" came to include all colored people -- Blacks, Chicanos, Native Americans, Asians, Indians, Africans, Arabs, etc--everybody except "whites". Of course we aren't white like copy paper. We're pale, pinkish, or tannish--some times as tan as colored folk. Then there are African Americans, or Afro-Americans, and so on and so forth.

today, even a thousand years counts as 'ancient' but what does it truly mean? — young god

"belonging to the very distant past and no longer in existence" is a useful definition when the word is used FORMALLY.

The Roman Empire is ancient, because it is in the distant past AND it no longer exists. The Papacy is not ancient because, even though it is, what--1500 years old [becoming more significant after the collapse of the RE around 500 AD]--it is still very much in existence. The League of Nations is not ancient. While it no longer exists, it was founded only 100 years ago.

My shopping list from last week is INFORMALLY ancient history.

There are other words available to describe the past:

Pre-cambrian (before 540 Million Years Ago)
Cambrian (540 – 489 Million Years Ago) ...
Ordovician (489 – 444 Million Years Ago) ...
Silurian (444 – 416 Million Years Ago) ...
Devonian (416 – 360 Million Years Ago) ...
Carboniferous (360 – 300 Million Years Ago) ...
Permian (300 – 250 Million Years Ago) ...
Triassic (250 – 201.6 Million Years Ago)
Jurassic (201.6 – 145.5 Million Years Ago)
Cretaceous (145.5 – 65.5 Million Years Ago)
Tertiary (65.5 – 2.6 Million Years Ago)
Quaternary (2.6 Million Years Ago – Present)
Anthropocene Epoch - we are in it


primevil
primordial
paleolithic (paleo- older or ancient, especially relating to the geological past
stone age
neolithic period
prehistoric
bronze age
iron age
classical
medieval
early modern
modern
modern

The truth is, the real problem is underpopulation. The fertility rate in the West is below replacement level. — fishfry

There are three population problems: Too many people, too few people, and the wrong demographic.

The Social Security problem is a policy issue, not a population problem. The US economy is large and healthy enough to pay for Social Security IF the Congress and President decide to transfer funds from the grossly undertaxed uber-wealthy minority to future Social Security beneficiaries. Eventually, (in a couple of decades, the last of the baby boom will begin to die off and the ratio of workers to retirees will improve. (The post WWII baby boom ended in 1964.) Hey, I'm one of the first baby boomers and I'm dying as fast as I can.

Why did women start entering the peace-time economy in the following the baby boom? One reason (not the only one) is that once the post-war economic boom started fizzling out towards the end of the 1960s into the '70s, it became necessary for families to add another wage earner to improve or maintain a middle-class standard of living. New house, new car, new aspirations -- it all cast more money. As the 20th century progressed, two earners became necessary to avoid sliding backward.

It wasn't policy, but it was once possible for a single wage earner to support (usually his) family. Workers could afford to have more children. We could, you know, pay people to breed. Have a baby, get a $5000 subsidy (provided you are the kind of people "we want more of"). No point encouraging the wrong kind of people to have more brats.

The world is over populated because it isn't just a matter of square yards per person, or providing enough of what might pass for food. Surviving global warming requires radical reduction in CO2 and methane emissions and that is hard to do when we are providing health care, schools, clothing, housing, transportation, clean water, etc. for 2 or 3 billion ADDITIONAL people, let alone the 2 or 3 billion people who need more of that stuff now.

I was rather hoping Covid was going to help in this area. — Book273

Only 113 million have been infected, and a mere 2.5 million dead. The 1918 influenza epidemic infected about a third of the world population (1920 population was about 1.5b), and killed around 50,000,000. Now we're talking! 1 out of 10 infected dead.

Have patience. Infectious disease specialists expect new viral diseases to appear periodically. One of them may be a grand slam winner. In the future hothouse, there will be a lot more insect populations of the disease-vector kind--so that's something to look forward to.

Don't forget global warming. If the outside predictions play out, severe disruptions in agriculture and reduced ocean fish production, intolerable wet-bulb temperatures (combo humidity/heat that is fatal), flooding, and so on may come to the rescue for over-population. But then there's the question of how happy the not-dead-yet will be in a seriously over-heated world.

Other possibilities? Stay tuned.

it is pornography, politics and religion that are the BIG THREE initial users. — synthesis

Just joking, but pornographers never used the telegraph, as far as I know, but they did pick up on the potential of photography pretty quickly. It took them something like a century to devise phone porn -- the "1-900 XXX xxxx" call-in numbers introduced in the 1980s. That probably had something to do with deregulation of the telecom industry. There was a debate over who was being exploited more, the women who answered the phone or the men who called.

Was there such a thing as Fax porn?

life in a religious context was so central to my thinking in childhood and adolescence that I have not really been able to break free from it, even if I have tried to do so. — Jack Cummins

Drawing on the computer metaphor, "Catholicism is your operating system. It is always in the background, no matter what applications are running." Even if you become an ardent atheist, your operating system (installed a long time ago) will still be there. That's OK. That's the way our brains works. The worst thing that can happen to someone is to grow up in a very chaotic home and community where chaos becomes the operating system.

Mainline Protestantism is my operating system, even though I have "officially" rejected much of what the church claims to be true.

Bertrand Russell observed that atheists resemble whatever religion they rejected. That seems to be true. People who grew up in narrow, hateful religious settings become narrow, hateful atheists. Broad church folk become broad church atheists.

One of the tasks of age seems to be accepting one's personal history -- good, bad, and indifferent.

beer — synthesis

Yes, beer. Definitely.

so the fact that religion has sprung up in nearly every culture suggests that such practices scratch a universal human itch — synthesis

The thing I want to bring forward is that people have MANY itches, scratched with art, politics, fashion, music, fiction, drama, and so on. Religion "works" because it offers rituals, a world-view, social activity, and so on. Clearly it isn't a unique necessity because lots of people scratch the ritual/world-view/social itch with other activity.

So, we could ask, "Do people need art (or anything else that isn't one of the basic needs)?" I think the answer is yes. The itch that needs scratching is real.

Do people need politics? Do people need games? Do people need fashion? Do people need fiction? Do they need alcohol, chocolate, coffee, tea, and tobacco? Maybe they do, maybe they don't -- but they were born into societies that had/have these things (and much more) and they are accustomed to them. People generally follow the patterns of the societies into which they are born.

The majority of religious people are religious because they were taught to be religious, and many of the people who are not religious were not taught to be religious. True enough, there are substantial numbers of exceptions, just as there are people who do not like games, are not fashionable, do not read fiction, and do not like alcohol, chocolate, coffee, tea, or tobacco (weirdos).

I have spent a lot of time on religion, like a lot of other people. Was there something essential about it? I could have been (might well have been) happier without it. Religion certainly has utility for individuals, but that doesn't make it essential. There are forms of religion which are unhealthy from the getgo.

What people need, above and beyond food, clothing, and shelter, are armaments to cope with what are often harsh realities. Religion, literature, music, science, industry, trade, philosophy, politics, games, fashion, and so on are all part of the armamentarium. Substitutions can be made.

So no: we don't "need" religion.

psychedelics — csalisbury

I missed out on most of the drug stuff. It was available, I could have. I am quite risk tolerant in some areas and risk averse in others. Psilocybin, and LSD too, seem to have some beneficial effects for some serious mental health conditions.

Illicit thrills, outsiderness, social recognition, status, dissonance, respectability -- I wish I had had a better way of dealing with that, when I was young. But then, that is what getting older and wiser is about, I guess.

I understand that many young people experience confusion about their embodiment - body and identity. It didn't seem to be the case when I was in high school. Various people had problems, but perplexing confusion about their bodies and gender identity didn't seem to a problem. I wonder if this comes from exterior psychological influences, or (worse) complex synthetic chemicals which mimic hormones. Sperm counts are down, there are more abnormal eggs, and more reproductive organ abnormalities--not just in humans, but in other animals too. We are awash in these fluorine/chlorine/carbon compounds used in the manufacture of fire retardants, teflon, and such. It can't be there without consequences.

I'm not familiar with John Ashbery; there's an awful lot of literature I haven't touched. Shameful for an old English major. I did check him out just now; is there a piece you especially recommend?

The New York Times titled his obit "John Ashbery in all his hunky glory" over this photo:



Just a few years ago I finally got around to reading some of the great beatnik poets and novelists (many who were either gay or bi). I was moved by many of the pieces. Had I read these in college (when the beatniks were still "a thing") it would have sailed over my head. BTW, the beatniks took their name from "beatitude". Or so one of them claimed.

What I'd be most curious to hear about, from your perspective, is how cultural-shifts shifted your own experience. There was a kind of taboo element to homosexuality. It seems like that used to be expended in the 'secret' place of gay hookups - is some of that lost now? — csalisbury

Yes, homosexuality was officially a perversion, a sickness, when I was growing up, and it was 'dangerous' to bring up the topic or show too much interest in it. Information--certainly positive information--was hard to find when I was in high school/college (I was born in '46). Naturally, I internalized the taboo and had all sorts of guilt issues. Guilt, however, didn't prevent me from having gay sex.

Gay men built social/sexual lives in the '40s, '50s, and 60s (according to informed sources) through networks, and there were places one could go to find sex -- out of view paths in parks, pubic toilets in stores or college buildings, and cruising in public -- using gaydar to spot other homosexuals, and try to make a contact with them. (I can't explain the details, but it does work often enough to be worth it.). Then there were gay bars, gay bath houses, and adult bookstores where one could have sex.

A lot of these features of gay life were swept away by AIDS, and the civic reaction to AIDS. Well, death kind of cast a pall over things too. But the bars remained--until hook-up apps like GRINDR made trips to the bars to find a partner unnecessary. Gay bars are still around, but at least where I live they have lost a lot of business (this way before Covid).

I've aged out of the active sex demographic--way out--so all this is more an intellectual interest than an urgent sexual one. But some important things have definitely been lost.

One big thing that has been lost was the outsider status a lot of gays felt (and cultivated). Being gay is now no big deal -- apparently. Perhaps "being proudly gay" is not as crucial now as it was? On the other hand, some gay boys (maybe some gay girls too) are getting kicked out of their homes by parents who reject them. They're usually like 15 to 17. Of course, homelessness entails a lot of problems for these young people.

Gay Liberation wasn't quite the revolution it might have been, but "liberating one's self", and joining up with other liberated gay guys felt like a tremendous step forward, back in 1969-70-71. Sure, it was scary to come out and risk rejection (or worse), but it was almost always worth the risk.

The risk of getting caught having sex in unapproved places raised the excitement value. Probably mot much risk dialing into GRINDR to see who's available.

advanced question: how do you think about trans sexuality? you don't have to answer that. — csalisbury

I have known maybe 10 transsexuals since the 1970s. Most of these people had clear identity objectives--from male to female or female to male. Kind of cut and dried. The trans people I have known seemed happier after they transitioned (having had surgery or not) than before. So, the most recent trans person I know I met about 2006. He was a veteran, alcoholic, college educated, M to F. He had to get a lot of problems resolved in the process (like alcoholism) but he made it.

So, these 10 trans people are one thing. The whole current trans-movement thing -- particularly how popular it is with the media -- baffles me. The number of people who are what I would call transsexual isn't much larger than .005% to .0075%--less than 1 percent of the population. It baffles me that this relatively small group of people (with a lot of help from people who are not even remotely trans) have managed to install the term "cisgender" on 99% of the population, and that many people are now listing their acceptable pronouns -- usually they are just what one would expect. I just don't get it.

Gender ambiguity isn't new, of course. Here's a song from 1926,masculine women, feminine men

Some histories note that the first third of the 20th century was sexually wilder than we would think. There were, particularly, a lot of loosened norms during Prohibition. When Prohibition ended, the forces of propriety clamped down hard, and things didn't loosen up again until the 60s.

most non-philosophers who mostly think that modernity is clearly better than living in the past. — TheHedoMinimalist

How long do you think that the present period is?

I'd be willing to say that the last 100 years, give or take 15 minutes, is the modern age.

WWI (started in 1914) was a watershed event which destroyed a lot of 19th century society and culture. It was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that a lot of the scientific and technological discoveries were made that characterize our time.

Don't forget "the regression to the mean", also called "regression to mediocrity". Two stupid people who mate are more likely to produce an average child rather than an even dumber blockhead (this is a great mercy). Two geniuses are more likely to produce an average child than an incredibly brilliant one. On the other hand two geniuses may produce an idiot and two idiots might produce a genius--probably not, but it's possible.

One of the problems in tracking the regression to mediocrity is that people frequently have an unwholesome influence on their children, turning otherwise bright offspring into imbeciles. Were they cretins to start with, or did their parents degrade them into deep stupidity? Very hard to tell. You'd have to be a live-in observer for years, carefully charting the dismal progress.

Sometimes relatives or neighbors witness the process of idiot-making carried out by parents who really should never have been allowed on an unchaperoned date in the first place.

Here's an example from the BBC:

Scientists have discovered the specific mutation that famously turned moths black during the Industrial Revolution. In an iconic evolutionary case study, a black form of the peppered moth rapidly took over in industrial parts of the UK during the 1800s, as soot blackened the tree trunks and walls of its habitat.

Why would evolving into a black moth have helped the previously light colored moth? They were less conspicuous, less noticeable to birds. The birds ate more of the lighter colored moths, increasing the percentage of moths that were darker. Over time, there weren't any more light-colored breeding moths.

So, now what? As the air becomes less soot-filled and bark becomes lighter, dark colored moths will be at a disadvantage--the birds will pick them off more frequently. Two things may happen: the moths may lighten up, or they could go extinct (all eaten). ON the other hand, the birds may go extinct or shift their feeding habits, and it won't make any difference what color the moths are. They may stay dark.

Because of climate warming, migrating bird arrivals and insect hatching times are no longer synchronized in the same way they were 100 years ago. Birds may adapt, or they may have more difficulty feeding their chicks. Time will tell.

One of my first exposures to really nasty interaction on the internet was in the comment-section under YouTube classical music videos. Who knew so many people had such very very strong, and inordinately negative opinions about violinists, oboists, conductors, composers, whole orchestras, and (especially) lead opera performers?

Anonymity is certainly one element in the negative sniping; another is a feature of rhetoric: Subtraction is easier than addition. It's just easier to fault another's opinion than it is to validate and make positive contributions. Or, writers think they come sounding more incisive and discriminating in making negative arguments (or comments) than in positive ones.

Moderators help a great deal. Eliminating habitual flame-throwers helps a great deal.

What are people's place in this? It is practically inescapable and so, are we working for it, or it for us? — schopenhauer1

That's a very good question.

People think they are using Facebook and Twitter. Actually, Facebook and Twitter are using them.

It's maddenginly intertwined, and I wouldn't blame people for being distraught from these implications. — schopenhauer1

Live as we have lived it has been intertwined for a long time, and it has become much more difficult to grasp the whole.

You know, the telegraph was invented around 1840. by 1861, Lincoln had a telegraph office installed next door to the White House in the War Department. He learned how to use the telegraph for command and control purposes pretty quickly. (The Union Army laid telegraph lines as they
moved, keeping the generals in touch with headquarters.)

I don't disagree with what you're saying but I didn't say everyone had a horse. — schopenhauer1

No, you didn't. But here's what happens. You said something about horses and this caused spooled memories of what I had read about horse use to unspool. I couldn't help it. Stuff has been sitting in my head for years, just waiting for a trigger to unwind it.

Within a short amount of time from when the Model T came out, I am pretty sure most people had a vehicle. What a crazy change from a literally horse-drawn society. Think about how much infrastructure related to horses was completely taken out from this shift. — schopenhauer1

Not so fast there. Cars did replace horses but not quite overnight.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, horse power was ubiquitous in all sorts of applications, but most people didn't own a private horse if they didn't live on a farm. Horses were expensive and their care time consuming. In large cities people rented horses by the ride -- not so much on the horse, but in vehicles pulled by horses -- carts, wagon, buggies, street cars, etc. Large cities had heavy horse-drawn vehicle traffic, leading to traffic jams--grid lock even.

The electric subway or trolley / street car arrived before the automobile. For a short period of time, horses, autos, and electric street cars vied for space--the horse losing out. But cars had disadvantages too, especially in cities where there were other options. They were expensive, they were not all that easy to operate and maintain, roads outside of and between cities were not good, and there was not yet a service station on every other corner.

Horses remained in common use in cities for hauling freight short distances until reasonably good trucks arrived in the late teens, early 1920s.

Car ownership is apparently becomes less common among young urban dwellers these days, in cities with half-ways tolerable mass transit. Cost must be a factor, as well as insurance costs and parking.

My parents were born in 1905 and 1906 (died in 2007 and 1993, respectively) and witnessed or experienced several transitions and major innovations: from horse power to motor power; the innovation of planes, radio, movies/talkies, refrigerators (vs. ice boxes), dial phones, television, computers, space flight, antibiotics, small pox, polio, mumps, measles, and chickenpox, scarlet fever; economic collapse and economic boom, 2 world wars, kitchen microwave ovens, cake mixes--and more!

They seem to have taken all these changes in stride. Now that I am an old man I wish I could talk with them again about what they thought of all these changes. I came of age in the 1960s (sort of; it took decades). Yes, the 60s were great. We were young, in college, healthy, reasonably happy, in and out of love, full of youthful arrogance, and all that. For gays living in backwater midwestern towns, the 1960s sexual revolution didn't begin until 1970. Yes, it was wonderful.

Before the Internet there was the very very big computer and in time the scrawny little personal computer. I was much taken with the idea of the HAL9000 computer in 2001 (the movie, not the year), then with the 1980s Macintosh computer--which of course had less computing power than my washing machine has (figuratively speaking). My old Mac Plus resides in its own chapel. Still an itsy-bitsy computer helped make the 1969 moon landing (Apollo 11). The Apollo 11 computer was novel in that it ran on silicon instead of vacuum tubes. I was 15 when Kennedy proposed landing a crew on the moon (and bringing them back, alive); I was 23 when it happened. Yes, it was as stirring as you might think it was.

My take on the Internet is that it actually is a great resource for information, while also being a big sewer pipe. I've never gotten into FaceBook, Twitter, TikTok, or most other social media. Too much of it Is drivel, or worse--a shit show.

BTW, the landing of the Perseverance ranks up there as an amazing feat. Lots of missions to mars ended in failure, but arriving in orbit, detaching the lander rocket from the space ship, then that rocket slowing down to a pause, hovering above the surface and lowering the rover to the surface, then detaching and getting the hell out of the way--hey, you witnessed a very very big deal.

you just haven't been around long enough to realize it. This is why everybody should have a natural respect for older people — synthesis

I'm 75; just how old do I have to get?

So your argument then, is that the trial of Galileo had no effect on the subsequent development of philosophy or science? — counterpunch

If you look at the lives of the four great astronomers who followed Galileo, it would seem that his heresy trial did not bring astronomy to a screeching halt.

Copernicus, 1473–1543, proposed heliocentric system
Galileo, 1564–1642, heliocentric system, moons of Jupiter...
Kepler, 1571–1630, established that the planets' orbits were elliptical
Cassini, 1625–1712, measured Mars' and Jupiter's rotation time; discovered 4 Saturn moons
Huygens, 1629–1695, improved telescope, theory of light, discovered Saturn's moon Titan
Newton, 1643–1727, theory of forces including gravity

Bear in mind as well that other things were going on that could interfere with the development of science. There were political upheavals going on among the many fractious kings and princes of Europe. There was the reformation, among other things. (Luther didn't know much about astronomy, and heard only hearsay about Copernicus, who he thought a fool.).

Are you a Catholic by any chance? Is it that you're offended on behalf of mother Church - that she could possibly have made an error? Sticking with the infallibility thing, huh? — counterpunch

I am not now, nor have I ever been Catholic. I'm somewhere between agnostic and atheist. As for infallibility, the pope didn't become 'infallible' until 1869-70, when Vatican I decreed that the pope was infallible when he spoke “ex Cathedra” – or from the papal throne – on matters of faith and morals. What the pope had in the 16th century was quite substantial secular power behind the ecclesiastical curtain.

So you don't see an epistemological evolution of humankind over time; no progress of knowledge from "less and worse" toward "more and better" - that the Church interfered in? Because for me, it seems like they dumped a huge boulder in the epistemological stream in an attempt to block it, but only succeeded in diverting an irresistible force. — counterpunch

Of course there was epistemological progress over time. And revolutionary change (in whatever field, in whatever time) often meets with stiff resistance until the revolution becomes the new establishment. What Galileo proposed was "contrary to [what appeared to be] common sense". It wasn't just the pope who found the idea of the earth whirling through space unacceptable.

Religion has been tried and found wanting on many fronts, continuing up to the present, whenever religious leaders become custodians of sacred ancient viewpoints. Galileo demonstrated that we were not the center of the universe. Darwin explained how we evolved from primitive primates (and worse). Freud revealed that we aren't even in charge of our own minds. Etc. These demotions in status meet with resistance.

If you want to blame nuclear proliferation on the 17th century pope Urban VIII, fine. Or blame all the popes from Peter to Francis if you want. But it would be a good idea to demonstrate HOW Pope Urban and successive popes managed to control and direct scientific and technical developments in immensely complicated fields.

then they discovered scientific method, and the Church declared it a heresy — counterpunch

When did the Church declare 'scientific method' to be heretical?

True, Galileo was found to hold a heretical heliocentric belief. However, Copernicus came up with the heliocentric theory a century earlier in 1533, and it wasn't kept a secret from the then-current pope:

In 1533, Johann Widmanstetter, secretary to Pope Clement VII, explained Copernicus's heliocentric system to the Pope and two cardinals. The Pope was so pleased that he gave Widmanstetter a valuable gift

Further, Copernicus' book on the heliocentric system was published around 1543 or so, about the time Copernicus died at age 70 from the effects of a stroke. Maybe Galileo just rubbed his current pope, Urban VIII, the wrong way.

But why blame the church for everything? One Claudius Ptolemy is responsible for the long-running geocentric model of 'the universe'. Why don't you blame this Roman Egyptian for setting science back--a millennia and a half!?

In any event, the earth continued to orbit the sun, and science continued getting done without a whole lot of interference from Holy Mother Church. (Of course there was some interference in all sorts of activities: The Pope and his minions, and the Protestant big wigs too, all had their fingers in numerous pies all over the place.

That's how deep this issue is. It's of existential import. — counterpunch

Yes, I totally agree. We are in the unappealing position of needing to wonder how long our species will be around. It might not be for long.

What if they hadn't declared it a heresy? What if they'd embraced it instead? Our natural evolution would have unfolded. This isn't our natural course. We are not "who we were meant to be." — counterpunch

This might be where your train goes off the rails. Holy Mother Church was never in charge of whatever constitutes the "scientific establishment". Science marched on, whether the pope thought it was heretical or not. Our "natural evolution" had unfolded long before Jesus, Mary, and Joseph came along.

Human beings have been a damned, doomed species from the get go. Our Original Sin occurred when we emotional volatile apes added intelligence, curiosity, and blind ambition to our species. After that it was only a matter of time before we would get our hands on clubs, arrows, bullets, and atomic weapons, and gas ourselves with CO2.

Sure, much that happened in western culture after the Renaissance (and the Enlightenment) contributed to the situation we are in. Everything from double-entry bookkeeping, the expansion of credit, harnessing steam, global exploration, capitalism, the French Revolution--it all figures in. The history of cultures just can't be reduced to some simplistic explanation like the pope deciding that Galileo's theory was heretical.

Makes you proud to be a 'mercan. — Banno

Well, sure; why not? The technology involved in the placement of Perseverance on Mars is pretty impressive, much more refined than the also successful technology used in Lunar landings.



QUESTION: How are people pronouncing the thing? per-SEV-er-ance or per-se-VER-ance? I vote for per-SEV-er-ance. Let us hope it does persevere.

the Church made an enemy of science — counterpunch

The alleged war between science and religion is greatly exaggerated in the telling. My guess is that now most of the offensive maneuvering is from the science side rather than the religion side (except for the lunatic fundamentalists). As for providing a system of reality, even some deep-fat-fried-fundamentalists rely on science when push comes to shove (like the reality that that big lump might kill them).

The role that many religious people assign to science is 'understanding how the divinely created universe works'. This approach doesn't look for magic or miracles in the cosmos, apart from the event of creation. A second approach is to operate two systems of reality side by side and separate. There is the reality of science and the reality of God (or Gods). One may earnestly pray to God for healing, comfort, and health, at the same time one seeks competent medical treatment. Where the science reality touches the God reality varies from person to person, situation to situation.

A third approach is to earnestly accept scientific reality and to nominally accept religious reality. This is probably the most common approach. Nominal religion doesn't confer many advantages, apart from 'cover'. Of course there are some people who nominally accept science; quacks, for instance.

As for life on Mars, maybe we'll find evidence, maybe not. It has not been a hospitable place for life for a long time, and the discovery of life-evidence is probably a matter of improbable luck. Maybe there are microbes or monsters deep under Mars surface, but so far no big drilling rigs have been designed, sent, landed, and operated to find out.

Our expectation/hope/fear that life arose not only on earth does not depend on Mars, one way or the other. Earth is one speck in the cosmos; life on Mars would make 2 specks. Not a big deal.

We should most anxiously worry about whether we will survive long enough to solve our problems here.

So you think that a positive emotion must entail a negative emotion?

This isn't rocket science (we are not dealing with moving masses). The reverse should be true in your scheme that terrible grief should lead to immense happiness, and joy should be followed by sadness. That isn't how my universe works.

In my universe, there is a 'base line' of emotion which is neither positive nor negative; it's neutral. Neutral isn't bad, it's just... in the middle. At rest. Various causes (events, memories, people who stimulate our gonads, nice surprises, bad surprises, people who scare us into action, etc.) stimulate an intensity of emotions which are no longer neutral. Emotions are not as specific as proteins, enzymes, or cell types. Emotions are complex, not simple as in; happy, sad, love, fear, and so forth.

The movement of emotions in my universe is between arousal and rest. Intensely negative emotions once aroused will eventually subside -- not into their opposite, but into their resting state--present but not active.

Any movement towards the "positive" must have an equal movement back towards the "negative — synthesis

Why? How? Where did this come from?

Spiritually grounding by shutting off all the media — Paul S

The benefit of shutting off the media can't be over-stated. The various 'platforms' used to interact are not designed to be beneficial to us (even if they can be). They are designed to generate traffic and exploit us to make money.

You are using too shallow a definition of happiness. Surely when Jefferson wrote the sentence,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

he wasn't suggesting something on the order of "you just met the one of nicest, most beautiful girls ever and she actually likes you!" Of course, finding an exciting partner is a very good experience, and everyone would like that. But Jefferson was plumbing deeper water, drawing on John Locke's

"In A Letter Concerning Toleration, he wrote that the magistrate's power was limited to preserving a person's "civil interest", which he described as "life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things". He declared in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that "the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness." [snatched from the jaws of Wikipedia]

.

Some of these good things are granted to us--life--and others are obtained collectively--liberty, health and the 'indolence' (ease, comfort, or pleasure) of the body. Striving to obtain these good things individually and collectively is the first part of happiness; actually obtaining and enjoying them is the second part.

So, sure -- one part of happiness is (privately) feeling good. And the other part is being productively and publicly engaged.