I didn't look at any of the links provided because I agree that "overconsumption, intensive farming, deforestation, heavy use of pesticides" et al are real and present problems contributing a great deal to species' decline. No, it is not all CO2's doing.

Pick a pesticide or herbicide and it's probably screwing things up. Neonicotinoids, a newer pesticide, is a known bee killer. Of course! That's what pesticides do. Kill insects. So, we should not be surprised.

But global warming plays a role. Insects and birds are affected by heat, as are their food sources. But I agree with your list of primary contributors -- overconsumption, intensive farming, deforestation, and heavy use of pesticides.

The only way is to adapt. But I also don't believe it will end civilization. Humans are very good generalists, and we have technology. We survived an ice age with stone-aged tools and migrated all over the planet thousands of years ago. — Marchesk

Yes: adaptable humans will make it IF they are located in northern climates, are not too numerous, have lots of resources, and have viable economies to produce the machinery to survive. The number of people fitting those specs are small, in relation to the rest of the planet.

There are definite limits to adaptation. Take the "wet-bulb-temperature": it's a measure of how much heat a human can lose at a given temperature and humidity level. When the wet-bulb-temperature exceeds our capacity to lose heat, we die--quickly, from heat stroke. It will become increasingly difficult to perform agricultural work in tropic and sub-tropical areas--in this century, in 30 years.

Most crops do not do well in high heat. Heavier rain makes it difficult to till soil, plant, and harvest. Beneficial and harmful insect populations are falling. A lot of food is dependent on pollinating by bees, a group not doing too well (and not just domesticated honey bees). Plant breeding is an option, of course, and one we had better hope works, but it's difficult to breed adaptable plants for rapidly changing conditions.

Good weather for growing cereals is being pushed northward; there is a lot of land not currently being used for crops that will become available. Unfortunately, most recently thawed northern land is going to be altogether unsuitable for growing much of anything. Thawed tundra will need thousands of years to turn into soil.

Adaptation will require a lot of energy use which will probably come from coal and oil, which will aggravate global warming. Cooling already uses around 10% of world energy production.

IF we were going to make it through ingenious adaptation, we would already be installing the massive new technology. I don't see that happening. Major technological system changes usually take around 50 years to invent, design, develop, and deploy.

What does it have to do with climate change? — Tzeentch

The species are fucking dying off, that's what it has to do with climate change. Most species evolved to fit a specific environmental niche. When the niche disappears, the species often goes with it. Environmental change like early or late arrival of blossoming dates or migratory bird arrivals can be curtains. in North America and Europe bird and insect populations are falling. This is really, really bad news.

I'm saying there will be no doomsday. — Tzeentch

How dare you, Tzeentch, fly in the face of us doomsayers. Elvis Perkins sings in one of his songs, "I don't let doomsday bother me; does it bother you?"

Though I forget your name
I remember your sweet face
'Til Doomsday, fiddle-aye
Man, I went wild last night
Oh I went feelin' alright
I don't let Doomsday bother me
Do you let it bother you?

I am a climate change survival denier. I believe in climate change and I don't think we will survive as a technologically sophisticated species in the long run (next millennium, outside).

Why not?

Because we do not know how to change our collective behavior fast enough. EVEN IF everyone agrees that we should make massive changes in the way we live, EVEN IF we know we should do this within 10 years, we don't know how to impose that much sudden and dramatic change on ourselves.

I can picture us all riding on buses, trains, bikes and our own two feet. I can picture us all being vegetarians; I can picture us all being energy thrifty. What I can't picture is getting us FROM where we are EVEN HALF WAY TO successful survival behavior.

Does anybody know how to trigger major simultaneous and coordinated behavior changes in several billion people -- within 10 years? Within 50? Never mind, 50 years will be too late to begin changing.

If we had a century to carry out change, we would still have problems doing so. We don't have a century. What will defeat us is the synergistic sword of Damocles causing too many challenges, one after another.

The threat, real as I think it is, isn't a near and present enough danger that get's people moving fast. Here it's 50F tonight, with frost likely in the next week or two. That's reasonably normal. On the other hand, Minnesota received 60 inches of rain this past year -- about twice normal. That's more like New Orleans annual rainfall. The last record rainfall was in 2016. not good.

In the long run we'll survive in small numbers, but in a culturally stunted milieu.

2. Your mental feelings about your physical sex — Pfhorrest

I have spent what... 6 decades coping with conflicting feelings about my physical self, about how my sexual desire is manifested (given that I grew up thinking I was a pathological deviant and was sinking deep in sin). Plus I was unhappy about my body (not gender) and was something of a social outcast. This all got better once I got the hell out of town after high school and started college, but it still took like 25 more years to resolve all the crap.

Lots of ordinary men and women are conflicted about

1. their physical sex
2. their mental feelings about your physical sex
3. Social stuff about role and presentation that is associated with sex

not in the same way a trans person may be, but conflicted none-the-less. The issues are different, the expectations are different.

The way we are embodied vs. the expectations of the community in which we are located and the desires and delusions our selves can be difficult to square. Not everyone is so troubled, but enough are to call it a near-universal problem.

This isn't about me. — Pfhorrest

It's at least somewhat about you because you are the only one who can provide testimony about how you feel and think about your self. How else does anyone have first hand information about being human, except by being a "me"?

I thought this was a progressive community — Pfhorrest

I don't know how progressive "it" is. TPF is a collection of posters, some of whom have been kicking around here for quite a few years, and who feel a certain amount of loyalty to the operation. The turnover is fairly high. Some of us are progressive, some of us are conservative. Our doors are wide open so we get a fair number of walking wounded.

I'm a retired gay male, 73. (might be one of the walking wounded). I well know how homosexuality was classified up to the 1960s, and it wasn't particularly complimentary, even if it wasn't altogether inaccurate. While there are "pitchers and catchers", pitchers are not necessarily dominant and catchers are not necessarily submissive. Too simplistic. Gay men do not want to be women, may or may not like women, and may have various motivations (more than reasons) for wearing women's outré costumes. You never see "a blouse, grey skirt, and sensible black pumps" drag. The view then was that homosexuality was a pathology. In a different context it was a grievous sin (it still is in several religious groups).

I have known a dozen or so trans people over the years. Most of them seem to become happier after they redesigned themselves as whatever they think they ought to have been, than before. So that's all good.

Still, I am not 100% confident that some, most, or all trans people are entirely on the level. Some are, I think, deluded. Now, "DELUSION" by the way, is less a bug than a feature. Most people (98%?) entertain various delusions about themselves, their families, their friends, their work life, their religion, their politics, their amusements, and so forth. The delusions are a necessary part of our operating systems, but it [usually] isn't all or most of it, and they usually isn't running the show.

We delude ourselves out of necessity. As Sigmund Freud noted, "happiness is not in the cards." Life is a bitch, and without strategic delusions cushioning the abrasive hardness of life, it can get to be intolerable.

(Technical question: how do you people here in a way that links like that?) — Pfhorrest

@name so @pfhorrest

oops, that wasn't helpful. @ " name " so @ " pfhorrest " EXCEPT no spaces.

The public voted for Trump. — Banno

As you know, the majority of the people did NOT vote for trump.

Let's hope Swan's attempt sidetrack this fine topic does not succeed. This forum is in desperate need of some decent analysis - and of posts that do not hide in quotation marks. — Banno

I didn't think @Swan was sidetracking the discussion; you might say the same thing about my posts.

This graph displays the overlap of male and female personality traits.



It sees to me that that personality traits that males and females can display covers the territory claimed by "trans" terms.

@Pfhorrest

It seems like avant-garde gender and sex theorists/activists are reacting to the most conservative picture of masculinity and femininity. The stereotypes of Madison Avenue and Hollywood define real men as tough and insensitive and real women as soft and caring. This old-fashioned and fading view of gender and sex has never typified real people. — Bitter Crank

The various socio-psychological traits of masculinity and femininity are already pretty broadly represented in people.

I am not right wing but this stuff is ridiculous. — Swan

I'm fairly far to the left. My lefty peers don't approve of my views. Much of this topic (gender vs sex) seems to have gone down the rabibit hole where,

'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

It seems like avant-garde gender and sex theorists/activists are reacting to the most conservative picture of masculinity and femininity. The stereotypes of Madison Avenue and Hollywood define real men as tough and insensitive and real women as soft and caring. This old-fashioned and fading view of gender and sex has never typified real people.

If you distribute sex and gender characteristics of typical men and women, what you find is a large area of overlap--not just now, but in the past. So much overlap, that the most intensely heterosexual (or lesbian) masculine women are more masculine than all but the most masculine men, and the most intensely heterosexual (or gay) feminine men are more feminine than all but the most feminine women.

That's why heterosexual men can be very good caretakers and heterosexual women can be good mechanics or construction workers. That's why typical women can dig ditches and typical men can take care of a home. That's why some heterosexual men dress in female drag and why some homosexuals dress in biker drag. There are women who can beat the shit out of most men (they've got strength and aggressiveness) and there are men who make better caring nurses than most women (they've got sensitivity to emotional/physical needs).

The whole 'trans-sexual, trans-gender, gender-fluid' quest is built on the false premise that the standard definition of masculinity and femininity provided no "home" for people out on the extreme ends of the distribution. "You can be anything you want to be" is an old American meme. It isn't true, but it sounds very uplifting. So, fuck the xy and xx chromosomes, fuck the testes, ovaries, vagina, penis, beard, breasts, and build. A surgeon can whip up a penis or a vagina and the druggist can supply the missing hormones. Biology be damned!

Except biology can't be damned. XX and XY chromosomes mark every cell of the trans person (in 99.999% of the population). Males remain males and females remain females whatever the surgeon, pharmacist, or cultural theorists does. And it is unnecessary, because biology already provided for a very wide range of sexual dispositions.

All the language of the "trans" movement reflects nothing new, really. It's just a new argot and a new market. No, you are not "gender fluid" -- you are out there on the far end of the biological distribution of possibilities. ALL of us, whatever we think we are, have features that are out on the far end, too. There are extremely sharp and extremely blunt brains; there are extreme athletes; there are musicians with extreme memory capabilities; some people have perfect pitch, some people can't sing if their life depended on it. Some people hear or see far more acutely than others. Some people are extreme risk takers, others think twice about jumping over a puddle.

Each of these extreme characteristics manage to exist without a special identity, argot, or political agenda.

I think the gender identity bit has gone done a rabbit hole, but look: If I met you, I'd be polite and call you by the name you provided. If I liked you, I'd be a friend.

Some people have been told to stop coming up with so many great discussion topics. Are they paying you to do it? I noticed you have become a regular font of fertile topics.

I think people should be worrying A LOT LESS about god and A LOT MORE about life here on this celestial ball.

One of my all time least favorite quotes :grimace: . My parents spewed that garbage from a young age, but even a few questions from a 16 year old (me) would cause them to him and haw about how much they loved working 55 hours a week, every week. As they are approaching retirement, and are looking forward to it, they are somewhat willing to admit they were wrong with that quote. — ZhouBoTong

Hear! Hear!

"If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life" is the kind of scuzzy lies that one finds on motivational posters.

Work, labor, in this world tends to be a pretty alienating affair, whether it be run by capitalists or commissars. The reason people are paid to work is that no one would do it, otherwise.

Work is death on the installment plan.

Language and music are intertwined. Of course, a lot of language is "un-musical" just as some music is "unmusical". Otomotopaeia is the use of words to create a "sound" or musical effect -- like Poe's Bells. And how can you listen to the lyrics if there are no lyrics? You like Beethoven's 5th? No words.

`

this would be more of an investment in my relationship with him — Stanley

You might get paid back. Time will tell. In the meantime...

Don't mix business with familial love. Loans are loans, love is love. Don't confuse the two.

The investment that matters is the relationship that has been created and built up over time and with common experiences between you and your brother: you grew up together in the same home. You (plural) have invested decades of time together in each other. You are invested. You don't need to invest cash in your brother's failed business venture to bolster your relationship.

Business dealings between family members and friends can (and fairly often do) turn bitter. It can be hard to separate out loans and love.

There is a small moral hazard here. A moral hazard exists when loans enable people to take risks without having to shoulder the consequences. Loaning businesses money sometimes creates major moral hazards -- sometimes really really big ones, like when the government bailed out AIG in 2008 to the tune of $67,835,000,000. There was moral hazard up to Wall Street's eyeballs that year.

As I indicated in another post, the primary mechanism of evolution, natural selection, acts only on individuals. I'm not sure if that contradicts what you are saying or not. — T Clark

It's a difficult knot.

The 'species' doesn't think, react, hunt, shop, cook, and eat. That's all done by individuals. On the other hand, individuals don't survive, thrive, change, or die out over long periods of time. Individuals are a flash in the pan. Individuals do not decide to talk in 7000 different tongues; language belongs to the species. But each individual has to learn their language one by one. If you and I had gotten run over by a Lamborghini Veneno ($5 million) roaring down the street at 200 kph, before we (well, you) had reproduced, the net effect would be zero. Not because you are unimportant, but because your (our) part in the scheme of things is vanishingly small and transient. The species has been evolving for what... 14 million years since the last common ape/human ancestor, and maybe 200,000,000 years for all of us mammal species. We've been around for a measly 70+ years.

On the one hand every individual is more important than the species, but the species is where our future lies, or doesn't.

Ahem...Hayseed? — T Clark

Hayseeds of the Bread Basket Unite. The urban parasites have nothing to lose but their bread and butter, their pate foi gras, their fried chicken McNugguts; their almond milk, salad greens, chick peas, and steak tartare.

by "collective" I meant all the members of the species who do whatever they do from day to day. If "we" go extinct, it will be because "we" all died without leaving successors. We didn't "fit". We were not fit. it would not be any one, two, ten, a million or a billion persons' fault. However, if you'd like to blame somebody for our being closer to extinction than we would like, here's a very partial list;

The Koch Bros. (David Koch is as dead as a doornail; Charles Koch has sadly not achieved that state yet. However, there are more Koches where they came from.
Donald Trump (whatever is wrong, blame him)
influential climate change deniers
the stockholders and BODs of coal, petroleum, gas, autos, tires, airlines, and power generation industries.
Agricultural multinationals like

BASF. Country: Germany. ... Part of the old I.G. Farben (forced labor camps in Nazi Germany)
CNH Industrial NV. Country: The Netherlands. Revenue: US$10.12 billion. ... (aka, New Holland)
Bayer AG. Country: Germany. ... Part of the old I.G. Farben (forced labor camps in Nazi Germany)
Syngenta AG. Country: Switzerland. ...
Monsanto Company. Country: USA. ...
Nutrien (Formerly Agrium Inc. and PotashCorp) Country: USA. ...
DowDuPont. Country: USA. ...
Deere & Company. Country: USA.

All capitalists and commie dictators

Most of the work the average person does has nothing to do with their survival. With this being the case, it doesn't make sense to talk about survival of the fittest/fit, or whatever. — Anthony

Right and wrong. From the individual's point of view, our efforts at work or education have approximately NOTHING to do with our individual survival, as you said. But... From the view of collective society, it does. The account clerk at a brokerage, a social worker, a housewife, a city street worker, the check out at Target, etc. are all engaged in the maintenance and reproduction of society as a whole.

Individual bees and birds aren't in the race to survive; it's their species that survive or not. Same with humans--which is not to say that individual humans are at all indifferent to their personal situations. We are quite concerned about it. But individually, we, birds, and bees will all die. Collectively, we endure -- or not.

Congratulations! You are the first person on The Philosophy Forum to use the word "bricole".

Unfortunately, you missed the boat. "Bricole" refers to the rebound of a ball from the wall in court tennis--basically a term describing balls bouncing around. Bricolage, which is what you were probably aiming for, means...

(in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.
"the chaotic bricolage of the novel is brought together in a unifying gesture"
something constructed or created from a diverse range of available things.
"bricolages of painted junk"

Perhaps you were using a French verb form? (I don't know -- my French is quite deficient.)

It is unfortunate that your brother's business did not work out well. Loaning someone (total stranger or your beloved brother) money to save a failing business is a poor use of your assets. It's a poor use of anyone's assets to prop up a business that is going broke--as many of them do. Give him enough of your money to keep the shop afloat and you may both end up without the cash you started out with.

Your brother and his family are not going to die of starvation if you make no further loans. I suppose your brother and his wife are sufficiently resourceful people who will find ways to put food on the table, pay their mortgage, and so forth. Your brother's business venture belongs to him and his wife -- not you. It's his gamble, not yours. Sometimes gamblers lose. Sad, but that's the way things worked out.

You have already helped your brother. You didn't deny his request for assistance. Just because you helped him in the past doesn't mean that you should continue. He hasn't been able to make repayment so far, and that will probably continue.

Chances are you and your siblings will not receive another large inheritance. You have needs too: college costs money. It would be helpful for you to finish college without debt -- and with some assets in place.

Question: under what terms did you loan your brother money? Was it more like a gift masquerading as a loan? Was there a contract written up and signed committing him to repay you? Was all this a verbal understanding?

Polonius says to his son Laertes, before the boy takes off for Paris (this is in Hamlet):

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend.

folk will always take more than they ought. Someone will sneak in an extra cow.

And doubtless they are right. But I still prefer the third option. — Banno

Prefer whatever you like (which is why you prefer it) but what kind of sense does it make to ignore what you say are sound observations about behavior (taking more than they ought)? If option 3 occurs, then there is no problem; sometimes it occurs. Fairly often it does not occur and individual people ignore common interests.

Hanover's support for democratically determined rules for grazing, fishing, or sex in pubic parks is nothing like establishing dictatorship. What happens most often is that the commons are privatized and then everyone is excluded except the new owner. I'd rather have a cop on the prairie, by the river, or in the park enforcing the rules our elected representatives imposed, than have no access to the prairie, the river, and the park at all.

The first time I waded into the Atlantic Ocean on Cape Cod, I was informed that I was on a "private ocean beach". "Private beach" just didn't compute. How could such a thing even be the case?

"On the sign it said "Private Property". On the back side it didn't say anything -- that side was made for you and me!" Woody Guthrie. This Land Is Your Land

If you switched the races ten thousand years ago, and put the Africans into Europe, and the Europeans into Africa's lands, then the history would have repeated itself, with the only exception that it would have been the African Black race, living in Europe, who would colonize the world. — god must be atheist

Of course, we know that Africans WERE in Europe, and everywhere else, since we all came out of Africa. So, Africans did colonize the world.

So, why did that particular batch of Africans living north of the Mediterranean have such a big effect on the whole world? Will the Geographical Determinists please take their seats on the podium, now, and we will explain it all.

Caucasian Africans were in Europe long before they started conquering the world. Our various Homo sapiens forefathers and foremothers had been wandering around for roughly 300,000 years of hunter-gatherer existence. Around 12-15 thousand years ago, in the lands east of the Mediterranean, we Caucasians) stumbled on grain growing agriculture. Agriculture required staying put. More calories, more people.

So, why didn't the sub-saharan Africans take up grain-growing agriculture? Because their geography wasn't suited for the transfer of grain-growing practices. Grain growing spread east, west, and northwest because those directions provided suitable weather and geography. agriculture spread into Europe, along with cows, and horses. Bovine and Equine animals provided food, transportation, and traction power. Why didn't Africans use cows and horses? Because they weren't in sub-saharan Africa.

With traction power, fodder, grain, milk, and so on, Europeans were able to build up greater technology. Asian Africans located along the same latitudes followed suit: grains, traction animals, milk, and so forth. They too developed more technology. North and south of these latitudes grain didn't do well. Amerindians developed their own grains (maize), and other crops which became distributed in the hemisphere. Amerindians also didn't have traction animals, so never developed the wheel. Definitely a technology limitation.

Europe happened to have accessible minerals which the had the wherewithal to work with. Metallurgy advanced.

After the Roman Empire deteriorated, and Europe had split up into many localities, sea-going technology was advanced, and the Europeans were off to the races. China did too -- before Europe, actually. But they didn't pursue their opportunities.

Europeans had two big advantages: Technology (metallurgy, sailing ships, guns, armor, gunpowder which they got from the Chinese; and germs. All humans are equally germy, but because of their history with animals, Europeans had developed partial immunity to several bad animal-origin diseases like small pox and measles.

Guns, Germs, and Steel were our big advantage. (we didn't know about germs when we were doing our conquistador shtick, but germs were definitely helpful.

Europeans had their own problems with germs -- the Black Plague killed off a third of the population.

Understanding that success and failure is not entirely up to individuals, helps one stay in the present. Worry yes -- but remember a lot of it is out of your control, so relax.

the point of the question I suppose it what would convince you outside of simply faith. — MiloL

Nothing would convince me of the soul's existence outside of simple faith (or complicated faith) because it is a question of faith by its very nature. I might be mistaken about this because I son't have a strong grasp of the history of philosophy, but it is my impression that "mind" existing apart from "body" is as old as Plato who thought "mind" was capable of perceiving the "highest, eternal, unchanging, and non-perceptible objects of knowledge, the Forms" which the body could not perceive. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy uses the term "soul" as well as "mind". "Soul" is loaded with different meaning in Christian thinking than "mind". So, soul/mind... confusing terms.

The mind imprisoned in the body (Plato's idea) is part of a system which I don't accept. Do you think your mind (soul?) is imprisoned in your body, and that your mind can perceive the "highest, eternal, unchanging, and non-perceptible objects of knowledge, the Forms"? Do you think your mind or soul flies free of your body when you die? I don't.

Double check: Are you sure you subscribe to the philosophical systems which produced a separated mind and body?

How is mind/body separation consequential?

1. It places the whole process of thinking in a realm which is not subject to examination except through philosophical examination. There is nothing in your head except your brain which is busy running the body and is somehow (mysteriously) related to your mind, which exists... somewhere else.

2. The essential substance of our existence--sensation, perception, memory, sex, needs, wants, drives, emotions, feelings, self-identity, and much more--is all based in our bodies, which the platonic theory considers an inferior facility. This leads to some highly unfortunate consequences for embodied beings, like you and me.

3. Separate mind located in the body's inferior facility hinders our acceptance of an integrated existence where physical realities and mental realities are intimately intertwined and not separate at all.

4. Feminists are death on Cartesian dualism, because they recognize in it a tool of oppression. This quote is from an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I'm not a feminists, but they have some good arguments against mind-body dualism.

for feminists, the opposition between mind and body has also been correlated with an opposition between male and female, with the female regarded as enmeshed in her bodily existence in a way that makes attainment of rationality questionable.

I would add that we are all -- male and female -- enmeshed in bodily existence which, if it doesn't make rationality questionable, at least regularly trips up rationality. Women are dominated by their bodies? What man hasn't been guided by his stiff cock at one time or another?

You could spend grant money until all the foundations went broke supporting your research without positive results. And why bother? There is nothing deficient in the concept that the mind and body are one. We are embodied beings, made of flesh, and our minds are part of our flesh.

Soul? Another can of worms. (If you were reaching for the idea of the immortal soul, there is no way of proving or disproving that. It's a matter of belief. If you like thinking you have an immortal soul, fine.). Cartesian dualism (separate mind and body, after René Descartes) is a consequential theory, which is why it is held in low esteem.

I've been saying that Man created god for years.

I count our 'theogenesis" as one of our more notable cultural achievements. "God" is real in that sense. The forgotten, no-longer-named gods aren't real anymore. Once they were.

Using logic-not emotion-Trump should be impeached?

Sure, impeach the bastard, but be aware that it might not make any difference. A merely impeached president isn't bounced out of office. He has to be convicted in the Senate of the crimes on which the House found him guilty. If he is found guilty in the Senate, then his presidency is over.

OK I edited it out, just give me a second I'm eating dinner — 3017amen

Eating dinner?! Hey, get back here. Trump is way too dangerous for you to take time out at the trough.

I used logic. Logic said that on some official and unofficial functions, Trump was doing badly. I checked out my emotions. They concurred with logic. I checked the auspices by ripping open a live, vegetarian-fed-never-given-hormones-or-antibiotics chicken with gloved hands and examined its gut. There was a large cancer visibly pulsating. I threw it into the fire and heard the dead chicken cackle.

Looks like a negative result to me.

So, more seriously: There are some events the presidency has little control over. Most of the time the White House can not claim credit or blame for a good or bad economy. The president is not responsible for most of the social events which have histories stretching back decades. The president can not pass legislation: What can be done is amend administrative rules (no small thing). The President in his role of Commander in Chief can instigate military actions. This has been the source of some big problems over several presidencies (Kennedy's to start with).

I loathe Trump more than I loathed Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. He is most loathsome in the area that has little direct effect, but considerable indirect effect on political discourse: the use of his mouth, and his fingers on Twitter. He set and maintains a low standard of discourse.

He is simply wrong (or worse, not even wrong) on issues such as global warming, environmental protection, world trade, and social services--all vital concerns. He is wrong either on the basis of policy or on the basis of knowledge. Which is difficult to tell, quite often.

Hillary Clinton, or Jesus for that matter, given the Democrat controlled House and the Republican controlled Senate would not have been able to pass so much as the salt and pepper, let alone major legislation.

No recent president has been entirely successful or a total failure, maybe since... the Harding Coolidge administrations? But Harding and Coolidge were before my time, and I haven't nailed down everything that wen ton in the 1920s.

Love 'em or Loathe 'em.

card-blanche — Tzeentch

people hate this, but it' is "carte blanche" -- the 'e's are silent, short or soft 'a'. It means unconditional authority; full discretionary power. It's what Donald Trump thinks he has,

Is it hysteria or just a realization that there was previously inadequate protection of children? — Hanover

Both. Here is a good summary of a sex hysterical sex abuse case in Jordon, Minnesota in 1983-84: http://www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org/assets/Olson%20Sex%20Ring2.pdf

If there was a valid case against one individual to start with, the number of accused ballooned, and after causing much damage to innocent people. The Scott County prosecutor, Kathleen Morris, whipped up hysteria and ruined a number of innocent people. Instead of 1 sound case, she created a case of three dozen which was in the end thrown out by the court.

The article is also a review of the book, We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s by Richard Beck. He covers a number of sex abuse hysteria cases from the period. I have not read the book.

Maybe a discussion for another thread, but if you have any good theories for why almost half of US voters chose Trump, I'd read 'em. — tim wood

I wish I knew much more about the why; so do a lot of other people.

One can sift through the election results, electoral college strategy, demographic analysis, and so on. The answer lies in the foundational delusions of our political system which are operating now, in the run-up to the next election as much as they were operating in the last election.

The foundational delusions are that the two parties are fundamentally different; that the two candidates represent real alternative futures; that the Presidency determines whether the economy will do well or not; that representatives, senators, and the president valiantly strive to perform the will of the people.

It's a fraud in ever so many ways, and I wish I understood why the fraud is not recognized. But as you say, it's a topic for another thread.

"Certain children opened the flies of my trousers and started to tickle me," he wrote. "I reacted differently each time, according to the circumstances ... But when they insisted on it, I then caressed them."

Right, the 1960s (running into the 1970s) are not the 2010s. Given episodes of more recent mass hysteria about pedophilia, his story and his denial of its veracity are not going to fly in some quarters.

Wilhelm Reich died in an American prison in 1957, not for child abuse, not for rape, but for promoting his corny invention, the "orgone box" which was an adult-sized box in which one could accumulate orgasmic energy. The government said it was a medical fraud. They could have said the same thing about the then dominant practice of psychoanalysis, but the couch was in, the organ box was out.

Unfortunately for us all, Reich's really excellent ideas got buried along with his sillier ones.

Likewise with voting, 16 in Scotland, there's been no constitutional collapse — Isaac

The voting age in Scotland was lowered from 21 to 18, in 1970. The voting age of 16 was used once for the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2013.

I don't know what the average level of political literacy is in Scotland, but I have a hard time imagining the average 16 year old in the US making sensible voting decisions--or the average 35 year old, for that matter. A good share of the population display a reasonable level of political literacy, but there are a lot of adults whose political thinking is just screwy.

Screwy thinking coupled with a rigged political system...

I haven't recently read Wilhelm Reich (like the Mass Psychology of Fascism or The Function of the Orgasm). It seems to me he promoted greater sexual autonomy for adolescents.

During the 1968 student uprisings in Paris and Berlin, students threw copies of The Mass Psychology of Fascism at police. I am excited out of my skin by the nonpareil strategy of Parisian students. Would such a tactic work here? Where can one buy many inexpensive copies of his book?

Age-of-consent-laws are a can of worms as far as discussion topics go. Various arguments have been made for the legitimacy of sex between people below whatever age of consent is in force, and between people who are older-than and people who are younger-than the specified age of consent. People tend to go ballistic over the idea that over-25 and under-16 people could have sex that was not crudely exploitative. Drag in North American Man Boy Love Association, and you'll have a riot on your hands.

My view is that lots of arrangements aside from the one we have ARE POSSIBLE, but would require pretty large changes in our sexual behavior from childhood up.

I've forgotten the details, but I read an anthropological study of a tribal group where sexual contact between persons in the tribe were acceptable from childhood on up. Children tended to have sexual contact with children, adolescents with adolescents, adults with adults. The upshot was that children, adolescents, and adults had pretty clear ideas about what sex was like, what were reasonable expectations of a partner, and so on.

Our society does its best to hinder free and open sexual experimentation among children and adolescents, and sex is maintained more on a scarcity basis than on a free and plentiful basis. We are not ready, even remotely, to emulate the open sexual habits of the tribe described above. It would be like letting a starving crowd into a grocery: instant destructive chaos.

If patriarchy was a real thing, it is still in business. But things have changed quite a bit in this country, and in many other countries--not everywhere however. If maybe 50% - 60% of Americans are now tolerant of homosexuality, 40% to 50% are not reconciled with gay marriage, gay adoption, and certainly not gays lurking in dark parks doing unspeakable things. The percentages of people in many other countries who are tolerant is smaller than in the US or Europe.

One of the ideas that some gay liberation thinkers developed in the 1970s was that gay men and gay women were separate cases, in terms of oppression. Gay men were a psychological affront to straight men--not because straight men all feared they themselves were homosexual, but because gay men failed to fulfill the collective social expectations for men. A lot of straight women also thought that gay men were failures.

Gay men didn't have all the burdens that straight men had to put up with in the typical marriage --supporting one's wife and a bunch of whining, crying, sick, shitting, vomiting children, commuting to a fucking job, all sorts of social demands, no time of one's own, etc., etc., etc. Gay men were objects of disgust, displeasure, and hatred (jealousy?)--in the same way that anti-war protestors, hippies, communists, and so forth were objects of loathing and hatred by "red-blooded American men and women". All these deviant people were disgracefully shirking their sex-linked responsibilities. (And they might unforgivably have been having more fun.).

As a consequence, gay men had been coming in for a much more severe social repression than gay women did. Homosexuals besmirched the reputations of real, red-blooded men. That's serious business.

The situation for lesbians was asymmetrical. Men weren't very upset with lesbianism for three reasons: A) lesbianism didn't have anything to do with masculinity; B) whatever women were doing with each other just wasn't very important. Lesbian sex was sex between unimportant people. C) an unknown percentage of men found lesbian sex titillating. They were less subject to social condemnation because their lives were peripheral to start with.

Lesbianism seems to be more challenging to heterosexual women than heterosexual men (in general; whether this is still true, not sure).

I'm not a big fan of patriarchal theory, so my opinion is biased. I blame capitalism for a lot of our problems. Capitalism and Christianity. But all that has changed too. It isn't that Capitalism has become humanized, and most people are finding fulfillment in their work--fulfilling Luther's view that all work is holy, whether it's the work of a farmer, a miner, or a priest.

No indeedy. The extractive, efforts and alienating effects of capitalists haven't softened up one bit. It's just that Europeans, Americans, and maybe 1/2 billion middle-class people in China, India, South America, and middle east petro-states are not currently the subjects of crude value extraction. The curse of profit weighs most heavily now upon the backs of lower working class Chinese, Vietnamese, Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis, Jordanians, Mexicans, Brazilians, and so forth. The Folks Who Live on the Hill, the well-off Americans, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, etc. still have to produce, but it's managerial work and idea production. Idea work can be pretty tedious, too, of course. The primary purpose of the middle class is to work enough to afford to consume all the peripheral products that are being turned out, from fast fashion (that falls apart after a few wearings) to the latest gadget.

"Hey, you middle-class parasites: if you don't earn enough to buy all this crap into the foreseeable future, then the economy crashes and you crash along with it. So, let's see a little enthusiasm for that Octoberfest White Sale!!!"

Castration has never been a universal cultural practice the way that female gen. mutilation is — uncanni

Well, I didn't really mark out an aristocracy of suffering.

No, castration was not universal practice, but eunuchs were handy to have around guarding harems or singing counter-tenor, or higher. FGM is hardly universal (which is not to lessen its awfulness). As far as I know, most of the world outside of the Islamic sphere has not practiced it--but there are... a billion Moslems.

Just for your information, if a guy is not circumcised, then his foreskin gets cold in a breeze--maybe colder than the head. For Minnesota winter bicyclists, one's whole dick can get cold. Peninsular structures are dead ringers for freezing solid and falling off. Very inconvenient, Yes, foot binding is bad. Read about it in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, about Gladys Aylward, a Foot Inspector. Apparently it was done to make young girls sit still and work all day at boring tasks like weaving, which families sold for income. Economics again. Without foot binding, the young women would have jumped out of their stockings and devastated the countryside (per Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary).

And how do you know, anyway, that circumcision isn't traumatic?