Strictly speaking we are absolutely not apes. We are human. — ZzzoneiroCosm

We are smart apes, but apes, and being a smart ape is a major piece of our existential problem.

There are exceptions, of course. Some humans are dumb apes, like the current POTUS. Therefore, DUMP TRUMP IN NOVEMBER!

You're so strict!

So Bernie supporters, excited to vote for Joe now? — ssu

No, definitely not. I said Bernie was too old; so is Biden. Trump is a syphilitic crypto fascist. Man, we are so far down the tubes.

NOTHING. Just my opinion. You might like to read Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife by Bart D. Ehrman. He explains how heaven and hell came to acquire their peculiar characteristics over a period of time. Back in the day (3000 years ago, say) the Jews thought that when you died you were dead. Nothing more.

It's a message preached in the Church Without Christ, where the blind don't see, the lame don't walk, and the dead stay dead. Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor.

Does 'reality' exist in 'reality'?

You dismiss truth -- fine by me; truth is like pornography -- I can't define it but I know it when I see it. Isn't 'reality' as nebulous a concept? As for the "true self", drop the adjective and self is one word clearer. Fake self? What would that be?

I feel like I have achieved some degree of self-actualization, finally! Self-actualization is emergent -- it's a coming together of one's efforts, a dropping away of one's (often self-built) barriers. It feels good, but I don't think one should get a prize for being self-actualized. If one happens to self-actualize, one should just be grateful and carry on.

A lot of the words we use, like beauty, truth, God, evil, and so many others, don't map onto the concrete world. They map onto our symbolic systems which are, of course, real enough.

Well, actually I haven't given it a second's thought since I lavished high praise on the whole thing. One of the benefits of defects in short-term memory -- nothing makes it to long term storage. Simplifies things greatly.

BTW, what are we talking about?

Oh, WHEN will the people gather in front of the White House for his afternoon Covid-19 press conference/mini-campaign rally and chant loudly and long, LOCK HIM UP

Freud, for instance, famously wrote that the aim of psychotherapy was 'the conversion of hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness'. — Wayfarer

And such a modest, yet difficult goal that is.

You seem to have won a Double First Prize: Your readers rated your OP quite favorably (1 prize) and then gave you thoughtful responses (2nd prize). You can take that to the bank (so to speak).

Paradoxically, we can think that we have minds (and we're mighty proud of them) but when pressed for details about what our mind-body selves are, we generally can't come up with anything too compelling.

We can not rise above ourselves and view our selves at a distance. We are always subject, and making ourselves simultaneously subject/object is perhaps beyond our capability. We're stuck. We'd like to understand who/what/how we are, but we are by our nature.

Still, all of us have a varied set of features which we like to express. Your greyhound had a very strong feature of pursuit. It was bred to run, to pursue. Catching its prey was less enjoyable, maybe, than chasing it. Some of us like the chase more than the catch, too. We like to do the research; we don't enjoy writing the paper.

We do well to fulfill the exercise of our various features without leaving behind too much wreckage.

Glory, laud, and honor to science, logic, mathematics, et al. But consider the New England colonies, which were premised on ideas of religious freedom, and the importance o the religious state (the Puritans) and self-government (the town councils). Their enterprise was one of faith (and ye olde Protestant Work Ethic).

New England and Yankee culture (a strip of states below Canada and around the Great Lakes) gradually (and mercifully) lost its religious zeal, but the ideas about the collective responsibilities of the City on the Hill remained and became an essential piece of cultural DNA in the more progressive northern states.

A lot of the founding fathers were interested in science and all, but they were also imbued with the values of the southerly planter class, or worse -- the upper class English riff-raff that dominated southern culture (referencing the values of wealthy Englishmen who settled in Virginia, Carolina, Georgia, etc.).

BTY, hope everything is fine with you--no Covid-19, no corona virus anxiety, no crashing personal buddy-can-you-spare-a-dime economy.

We had a bit of Spring here; the snow all melted, the grass was turning green, and the tulips were coming up -- then we got socked with a snow storm and a return to winter. Not all that unusual. For the last two days we have been getting sometimes spectacular snow squalls which don't last very long--maybe 20 minutes. Colder too. Supposed to be 18º tonight.

That is what the American Revolution was all about. We rely on science- the search for truth, not faith in someone chosen by God to be our leader. — Athena

I thought it was about taxation, representation, and various bourgeois concerns of the colonial upper class.

In a democracy, that is not contaminated by Christianity, there is no god whispering in the king's ear it will be safe for people to return to life as normal by Easter, "such a special day". :roll: — Athena

Even in a democracy thoroughly infested by Christianity, most "kings" listen to their epidemiologists doctors, planners, and so forth. Martin Luther said that it is better to be ruled by a smart Turk than a stupid Christian. We have the misfortune to be ruled by a narcissistic, ill-informed king who is very worried about his chances for re-election. These days, the Turks have their own problems.

Quite right - there can't be an "empty universe". There can't be a time before time.

Where would the heat have come from in a (presumably) empty universe, prior to the BB?

Nope. It's unprecedented by the look of the unemployment rate in the US hovering around 13 percent! — Shawn

It will most likely go higher, and it won't be spread evenly across the population. It's too early to see how the economic shutdown will affect businesses (especially small ones) that were doing well on February 15, 2020. A lot of the small businesses will probably fold. Minorities will get screwed more than whites, maybe women more than men. Routine and customary, of course. The least advantaged can least stand cutbacks.

I'm thinking it will take quite a while (in years, not months) to recover -- and that's assuming something else major doesn't go haywire, or that SARS-CoV-2 doesn't re-emerge with enough mutations to reinfect everyone again.

it has been a long time since anyone has mentioned Universal Basic Income. — Athena

Did you not notice POTUS candidate Yang talking about UBI?

Gotta love a great paradox!

But...

In a frozen universe where there was no movement, would time exist?

In this frozen timeless universe, should the archer release the arrow, then time would begin. It isn't 'time' which prevents the arrow from moving -- it is the motionless arrow that prevents time from passing.

There was no time before the Big Bang, and there will be no time again when (and if) the universe cools to absolute zero.

bailout for Boeing — fishfry

My understanding is that Boeing turned the money down, because the string attached was a government stake in the company. It's bad enough for them, I guess, to deal with the FAA without having to deal with Treasury Department. Nationalize the SOBs.

Would any of you care to explain what a corrupt religion is, and how you determine it to be so? — Pinprick

You didn't ask me, but one example of corrupt religion would be one of the causes of the Reformation: The wanton sale of indulgences for the purpose of financing real estate projects in Rome--St. Peter's Basilica. At best it was a pious fraud; at worst it was abuse of the faithful.

Now, there is hardly a congregation in the United States (there are some exceptions) that is not driven by the needs of its building. New roof, new boiler, broken windows, fix the organ--all projects costing hundreds of thousands of dollars on even moderate sized buildings. The congregations taking loving care of their real estate have little money left over to feed the hungry, house the homeless, care for the sick, and so on. By secular standards, the church is doing what it should be doing--taking care of business, and the property is definitely a piece of the business. By Christ's standards, the building is an abomination -- a storing up of wealth in buildings that need continual and expensive maintenance.

Corrupt? Or just trapped?

So how do you know that what they present as justification for their actions is not what the actual author of the text meant, or would nonetheless condone? — Pinprick

Highly cogent question. Take Psalm 137:7-9

7 Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation thereof.

8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

This isn't the only reference to bashing in the brains of the enemies' infants in the Bible. Acquiring and keeping the promised land was not a tea party. So, where does that leave us?

According to LII at Cornell Law School...

Establishment Clause

The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion.

Although some government action implicating religion is permissible, and indeed unavoidable, it is not clear just how much the Establishment Clause tolerates. In the past, the Supreme Court has permitted religious invocations to open legislative session, public funds to be used for private religious school bussing and textbooks, and university funds to be used to print and public student religious groups' publications. Conversely, the Court has ruled against some overtly religious displays at courthouses, state funding supplementing teacher salaries at religious schools, and some overly religious holiday decorations on public land.

So, it would appear that the case of the praying governor will result in the DOP going forward.

The Establishment Clause protects religious institutions as well as secular institutions. Active and persistent state involvement in religious affairs has a tendency to be harmful, all round, just as active and persistent religious involvement in the affairs of state has often turned out badly.

One of the reasons why religion remains a large factor in American life is that there was no established church. Nothing prevented the people from engaging in 2 1/2 centuries of religious activism, innovation, or invention (take the Mormons as an example). Established churches in some European countries contributed to finally more secular societies.

Weak people die from getting sick, fit people don't — Anthony

The cemeteries are well stocked with bodies that were strong, fit, and good looking just before they encountered the fatal bacteria or virus that put them in their grave. The 1918 influenza epidemic was most often fatal for young people, 20-40 years of age, most of them fit workers or soldiers. Infectious diseases were the leading cause of death, up to roughly 1945, when antibiotics started to roll back infection. As we waste our antibiotic resources in various ways (like feeding them to cattle to make them grow faster), we are working back to the time when infectious disease will be king,

This is my point. In the 1970's there was a lot of terrorism in Europe, yet the issue was treated more as a police matter. Now similar attacks would case a different reaction. And likely after this ordeal the way we respond to possible outbreaks is going to change. — ssu

A lot of people weren't alive at the time or don't remember IRA bombings, 40+ airplane hijacking, terrorist bombings in the US, European leftist gangs, and so forth. Despite 40 large planes being hijacked, we managed to not militarize airports.

9/11 was the perfect opportunity (never let a crisis go to waste, as Rahm Emanuel said of another event) to ratchet up police control. In the US, at least, there was a string of interventions by the government (monitoring telephone traffic -- not conversations, just who was calling whom), monitoring internet activity, airport militarization, and so on.

The term "lock down", now applied to everything from kindergarten classes to entire states, originated in the California prison system around 1973.

the oil lamp and candles did not lead to night life. Only the light bulb did — Benkei

Actually, gas lighting introduced in the late 18th/early 19 century increased the safety of streets at night, and improved interior lighting, leading to increased 'night life'. Baltimore, MD had gas street lighting by 1816.

Granted there were disadvantages (unflattering light, odor, explosions, etc.) but it was a big improvement over candles and oil lamps.

The washing machine is a 19th century invention that greatly reduced the time needed to wash for women. Soap and running water didn't do much in terms of saving time. — Benkei

It was a 19th century invention, true enough, but they weren't very available until late in the century; remember it was human powered, Somebody had to spend quite a bit of time standing at the machine, turning the cranks the operated the machine. Hot water wasn't on tap for most of the century for most people, and the clothing still needed to be bleached or blued, hung up outside to dry, and ironed using an iron heated on a stove, even in the hot summer.

Laundry was hard work for women well into the 20th century.

The availability of laundries and washerwomen probably helped the suffrage movement more than washing machines.

Prevention of Infectious Diseases: expect more money to be funnelled into this, whether it is research, development of vaccines, studies, etc. — Dogar

Don't count on it. This isn't the first new disease to come along. If the executive and congress were paying attention to public health, there would be a much better funded public health infrastructure. If the public were paying attention, we would have fewer anti-vaxxers.

Besides, the next pandemic may be very different than this one -- like the HIV, Ebola, Marburg, Zika Virus, or West Nile Virus, or something else--MERS, SARS, Etc. We may be as unprepared for it as we were for this one. One of the functions of public health is "sentinel surveillance" -- keeping a watch around the world for new diseases, or outbreaks of old diseases. We (many countries) are not doing such a hot job at that'd.

What people want is not 'bad news' or 'good news'; they want interesting news. In some fields (@Congau mentioned sports where there is at least 50% good news.) Science and technology reporting often involves interesting--therefore 'good'--news. Art, drama, film, and book reviews often involve interesting 'good' news: the art, play, film, or book were interesting, good, and worthwhile. Business news is quite often good news, and even when stocks fall, short sellers are happy.

Whether "good news" or "bad news" dominated depends on the source of your news. Local news stations tend to follow the "if it bleeds it leads" formula. The PBS News Hour doesn't use that approach. Neither do "leading" newspapers like the NYT, WSJ, and so on.

9/11 was, of course, very bad news. But the destruction of the World Trade Center twin towers was also absolutely fascinating. It provided interesting news for a long time. Bad news might be the same as good news.

An axiom is that the stock market is driven by fear and greed. It's a repulsion/attraction trap. On the one hand, investors FEAR losing money in the market, but they are driven by GREED to stay in the market. As it happens, there are usually reciprocal responses to fear and greed. My fear fits your greed. I might think Apple Corp. is going to start losing money, but you are pretty sure that they will soon unveil a new product which will result in their continued growth. I want to sell Apple, you want to buy Apple.

Another axiom is "buy low/sell high". A good share of the sales sending the stock market down are still profitable for those who bought the stock LOW a while ago, and are (from their point of view) selling high.

Of course, that won't be true for a lot of people. A good share of the sales sending the stock market down are people who bought high and are bailing out as fast as they can. There is apparently a huge flight to cash, with all sorts of assets (gold, stocks, etc.) being liquidated.

A plunging stock market is an opportunity for those with piles of cash to acquire assets that will, in the long run, PROBABLY appreciate. Some investors can afford to wait years for their bets to pay off. When their cheaply acquired stocks have appreciated a lot, they will sell at a profit -- maybe in the next big crash a decade (or less) down the line.

Another axiom: what goes up must come down.

global travel — boethius

SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome) is a good example. SARS (another corona virus) jumped from animals to humans and first appeared in China in 2002, then showed up in several distant places. SARS has a very high fatality rate (15%, and 55% for elderly patients).

"The flu" doesn't really describe a particular disease, but each year it's a different strain. — Hanover

True enough: "The flu" (as the term is used) may be any of several unrelated infections -- like a rhinovirus, a norovirus, or a bacterial disease. "Stomach flu" has nothing to do with influenza. "Influenza (A, B, and C) is a specific virus with specific genetic components. Type A infects both birds and swine, which is how it gets reorganized into its yearly version of fresh hell. Type A is the cause of epidemics and pandemics. Types B and C are usually not as serious.

Then there is "diplomatic influenza", where one is conveniently indisposed to go to work, attend a boring meeting, or a dull party.

Something very infectious, like the flu, basically does infect close to 100% of people, just not in any given year as a large portion of the population still has immunity. But eventually, nearly everyone gets the flu at least once. — boethius

It's probably the case that eventually everybody will be infected by one of the various strains of influenza A (and may or may not experience a significant result) but don't you have to factor in vaccinations? Even though only 40% (+ or -) of adults get vaccinated for influenza each year, that is still many millions of people who won't get, and thus won't transmit, the influenza virus.

So is society itself a sort of ideology — schopenhauer1

In a very real sense, society is itself an ideology--the ideology of settled, state-centered society.

I haven't actually read the book, the principle was summarized for me. Against The Grain, by James C. Scott posits that 10 or 12 thousand years ago sedentary agriculture was not an attractive option for successful hunter/gatherers. Rather, hunter/gatherers were coaxed, seduced, or coerced into agriculture by proto-state actors who wanted to harness the energy of people--their capacity to work and to reproduce--for purposes of accumulating power.

Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the “barbarians” who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples. (from the publisher's summary)

I don't know whether this theory is valid, or not. I wouldn't rule it invalid out of hand. But hunter/gathers avoided sedentarian life for maybe a hundred thousand years. Had they wanted to settle down, surely they could have figured out how. The first states were city-states in the Middle East, generally ruled by a strong-man. The city state was pretty much dependent on its surrounding agricultural hinterland. No grain, no city-state; no city state, no strong-man.

Agriculture wasn't the beginning of society, of course. The hunter-gatherers were/are as much society as the Upper East Siders of Manhattan. But the kind of society which came to dominate much of the world was settled, urban-rural, agriculture-based states.

Looks like reality to me. 2 weeks ago, Minnesota had 1, then two cases. Then 3, then 5, then 11, then 18, now... 35. At first all of the cases were travel related. Now 3 cases of community transmission have shown up. This is exactly what one would expect to happen.

Granted, the number of cases has increased as a result of increased surveillance testing -- which is the whole point of surveillance testing, to detect otherwise invisible transmission.

Hanover may be dismissive because the numbers are quite small in most US states, BUT all epidemics and pandemics start out with small numbers. The 1918 influenza epidemic didn't begin with 100,000 cases; it began with a very small number. Same for Covid-19 in Huwei, same for SARS, same for MERS, same for Ebola, same for... most readily communicable diseases.

Hanover is overlooking an important point: US (and many developed countries') hospitals do not have lots of reserved empty beds and critical care equipment, like respirators, nor reserves of doctors, skilled nurses and allied professions. 50 critical care cases might well swamp a metropolitan areas critical care resources, because most of those ICU beds are already in use. Why don't they have more resources? Because they can no longer afford to maintain these reserves. Consolidation, closure of obsolete hospitals (too old to rehabilitate) closure of small financially precarious hospitals, etc. left us with fewer, but financially stable, hospitals operating at close to full capacity. THEREFORE

it is essential to do what we can do to "flatten the curve" of new cases. That's what social distancing (something I've been doing for a decade, at least), voluntary self-storage, and so on is for: keeping as many people as possible out of harms way.

Oh, I got it right away, alright, but I felt compelled to mention that the much honored Reagan was losing his mind while he was president. So did you. We're on the same track, just trying to one up the other. You probably won this round.

My prediction is that no one here will die or lose a close family member to the virus. — Hanover

I don't know, of course, but the epidemic could be worse than we think it will be. It depends on how much community transmission occurs -- disease spread locally from person to person, rather than people showing up sick who had been in Milan or Wuhan. We don't have experience with this virus, and so... could be that next fall will be the beginning of the major calamity, rather than right now. Who knows?

The thing is, people who get sick with Covid-19 can get very, very sick, and end up with permanently damaged lungs if they are able to survive. The range of sickness for those who don't get very very sick can still include pneumonia.

it's just I'm tired of being a slave to it. — Hanover

You should have a bidet.

If you don't delay the spread of this, your healthcare system will be completely overwhelmed — RogueAI

That's absolutely the case. Most cities in the world (or the USA) do not have many empty hospital beds just waiting to be filled by people sick with covid-19. They also don't have a cadre of surplus staff just waiting to be called in for emergencies. They are operating at something not too far below capacity. A surge of infectious disease cases will swamp hospital systems, at least initially. People who are sick, but not requiring hospitalization, can self-isolate themselves at home -- at least for a while (assuming there are services available to deliver food or medicine, should they run out.

Nursing homes are, for sure, a weak link in the system. The residents are highly vulnerable, can't leave, and need daily care

Reagan died of Alzheimers.

I hope Biden selects a younger, healthier, more functional Vice President. I hope the vast majority of voters will hold their nose and vote for the unappealing Joe.

I voted for Bernie in the Primary. It was a pleasure. That's the first vote in a long time that I was happy to cast, no reservations -- other than Bernie's age. And other than all the barriers that would lay in the way of Bernie accomplishing anything. Biden is too old too, and less substantial than Sanders.

. Could have early stage dementia. Sort of like Reagan.

One of the reasons that returns are slow is that there are many mail-in absentee or early vote ballots. It always takes time to sort, open, and record. BTW, what "state run media" were you referencing? National Public Radio? Public Television? They are not state-run.

What is happening in America is that "the public", or "the people" have become alienated from their role of active citizens. The political establishment is quite happy to have disaffected citizens, because for the most part disaffected citizens won't be too annoying to officialdom. This trend of decreasing public involvement in politics (like by voting) has been dealing for quite some time -- not just in the last few years.

Peak-political involvement may have been more than 100 years ago (I'm relying on a lecture on political involvement I heard a while ago.). Yes, political alienation is a problem. The cure can't come from the political establishment. It has to come from The People, or it won't happen.

Hey, a ship full of old faggots like myself would be QUITE BOOOORING.

A friend went on a gay cruise, and said it was like being locked up in a gay bar for a month. I might be in the right age group, but I don't have the requisite gregariousness, nor the budget. Nor the appetite for daily drinking and wallowing around the buffet.

I mean, what's the point? You get on a boat; most of the time there is nothing to see outside but water, sky, and a horizon. Maybe a much smaller ship on the Inland Waterway between Vancouver and Juneau, with the chance to look at bears and whales would be OK. or a riverboat cruise in Europe. Or maybe paddling a canoe around Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis--more my speed.

Well, most of "us" aren't catching and eating bats, it's mostly "them", but...

Ebola, Marburg (both hemorrhagic fevers), HIV, Zika virus, SARS, MERS, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), and the corona virus are examples of recent animal-human disease transfers. (in the midwest a wasting disease has infected a lot of the deer population. As far as I know, there hasn't been a deer-human disease transfer, but hunters are getting the carcasses tested (state mandated) before they eat them.)

Influenza is another disease from animals, with a complicated bird/hog/human cycle. (Viral genes get rearranged in birds and hogs, then to us.) Every year there is a chance for the most dangerous genetic arrangement to show up (like the 1918 version).