For me, all fiction is about prizing the logic of metaphors-which is the logic of narratives in general–over reality, which is irreducibly random and senseless — Ken Liu

I haven't read anything by Ken Liu, but were I to find what you quoted as a blurb on a back cover, I'd give it a pass. Too high concept.

I'm not a creative writer either, but as a reader it seems to me that complex characters are much more interesting than simplistic ones. Indeed, characterization is close to the heart of a writer's job along with plot and dialogue.

Life sometimes is just there to be appreciated and be glad that you are here on this journey. — simplyG

Good. I agree. We can live life this way to the extent that we can obtain innocence. I imagine this is the way life is experienced by animals for brief moments of time when they are not hungry, are not being actively preyed upon, the weather is nice, no threats are in view. We can, perhaps, experience life in innocence for much longer periods of time than a squirrel or goose.

Unlike 'the lilies of the fields, we have to strive to regain innocence. Our normal social selves are, biblically and secularly speaking, as innocent as the driven entrepreneur. We are busy getting and spending, laying waste our powers, and all the time hashing over the meaning of it all.

Why do we try to look for some sort of extravagant meaning ? — simplyG

Why indeed?

The purpose of man is to exist — simplyG

Apparently that isn't a sufficient reason. Were existence more difficult for us all (not just one), and survival less certain then perhaps "existence for its own sake" would be enough. For quite some time life has been relatively easy to maintain, which gives us time to think about many more meanings,

The Universe isn't meaningless because it has inherent meaning (as far as I know) but because somebody (like me, like you) said it has meaning. We gave it meaning, like "The universe reveals the majesty of God." "The Universe reveals the glory of matter and energy." Or, "The universe is a tiresome infinity of tediously repetitious forms."

We can not claim that the universe is meaningless for the reason that we, meaning mongers that we are, are in the universe. Even whining teen-age nihilists can not escape meaning by claiming that life is pointless and the universe is meaningless. In one narrow way, meaninglessness, vacuums, emptiness, absences, vacancies, etc. are loaded with meaning--maybe gray, dry, dusty, stuffy meaning, but meaning none the less.

It could well be that the colour red in another country means go rather than stop — simplyG

At some point, probably during the Cultural Revolution, somebody in the People's Republic (Mao? Foo Yung?) decided that RED = STOP was contrary to socialism, so ordered the change to GREEN = STOP, RED = GO. It didn't go well. NOT because "red" inherently means stop, or "green" go, but because the meaning of red and green (for purposes of traffic) were too deeply integrated into behavior.

human life doesn't have meaning. It isn't a referent for something else — GRWelsh

human life has value, but only because we value it. — GRWelsh

If human life has value because we value it, why wouldn't human life have meaning because we give it meaning?

Your life has 'you' as a referent, doesn't it? When you say, "I am" you are referencing yourself. You are not a zero, null, nothing.

We generate / shed / excrete / ooze / produce... meaning. Meaning is not some sort of irreducible 'element'. Meaning is always debatable. Even road signs are debatable. Just what does "YIELD" supposed to mean at this weird junction? Who goes first when it says "4 WAY STOP". "STOP" on the other hand, leaves little room for debate. There are various ways of disobeying a STOP sign, but the meaning is extremely narrow and specific--as long as STOP isn't modified: "We will stop soon"; "stop before you get to the end".

I have a much bigger problem with "meaninglessness" than with meaning. "Meaningless" is a major put-down, insult, dismissal. "His book is meaningless." "Her life is meaningless." "It was meaningless sex." No! There's no such thing as meaningless sex, meaningless lives, or meaningless creations. I hesitate to say there is no such thing as meaningless work, because it seems like I have done "meaningless work" on several occasions, but I suppose it meant something to somebody somewhere.

A "hash number" may seam to be meaningless -- just a string of digits and letters -- but it might represent or be connected to something very concrete and meaningful, like a railroad car loaded with organic whole wheat flour, or maybe just the railroad car itself.

One of the forms of 'bad child rearing" concerns language. Children are exposed to many millions of words by the time they reach the school house door. The more words they hear their parents speak (television does not count) and the more positive words their parents say to them, the better. White and middle class children are the beneficiaries of higher and positive word usage. Black and poor children hear their parents speak fewer words, fewer positive words, and more command words. Clearly cultural and education background matters.

Children who receive the least (and least positive) language from their parents generally do considerably less well in primary school, and often fall further behind language-rich children as time goes on. Once the language deficit has been created during the first 5 or 6 years of life, it is very difficult to remediate.

Fortunately there is something that can be done. Researchers have shown that when poor mothers are taught to speak more words to their children, use more positive words, and use fewer command words (like, "shut up", "sit down", "stop that", and so on) the children's language skills develop better.

This isn't a quick fix. Teachers need to periodically work with the parents and their children for an extended period of time, not just a few weeks or 3 months--more like 2 or 3 years. It's expensive, but there does seem to be a pay off. The children receiving the education enrichment did better when they reached kindergarten or first grade.

Every parent should be knowledgeable about factual child-development science, thus they’re more enabled to rear their children in a more psychologically functional and sound manner. — FrankGSterleJr

Lots of good ideas in your post. Who is against good parenting?

I think we have all seen parents carrying out horrible child rearing practices at one time or another. Maybe we were the unlucky child or the horrible parent. We usually don't know whether the bad practice is a reflection of the parent's upbringing, stresses acting on the parent, regret that the child was born in the first place, or what. We have also seen parents carrying out very good child rearing practices, as well (even without instruction on child development).

A large percentage of parents manage to raise reasonably happy, healthy children without child development instruction.

I am not entirely sure what to classify as "good" and "bad" parenting. Beating children is bad; what about being overly permissive? Subjecting children to various risks by putting them to work as children is a bad idea, but what about parenting that is overly protective? Is so and so's parenting too rigid, too disorganized, too religious, too anti-religious, too what?

Children who I observed being abused (by overly harsh discipline, for example) grew up to be healthy, caring, gentle adults. How?

Parent - child relationships are a critical influence of course, but then people go on to experience other influences--good, bad, and indifferent. "On average" people tend to reach adulthood as reasonably effective, reasonably happy, reasonably healthy adults. A substantial number don't, of course, and a substantial number experience above-average lives. Lucky them.

I've heard of some high schools offering child development instruction. Good idea, along with drivers' training, money management, and the like.

What do you guys think of the Mexican aliens? — flannel jesus

Apparently many people are ready to believe in the existence of UFOs which presumably contain aliens, and more. Erich von Däniken wrote a popular book about alleged aliens in 1969 -- Chariots Of the Gods, which makes all sorts of claims about alien activity on earth over millennia. A significant number of people have taken it as FACT. On Halloween, 1939 Orson Welle's radio production of H, G, Well's FICTIONAL story, War of the Worlds freaked out millions of people--despite repeated statements before and during the broadcast that this was a FICTIONAL DRAMA not reality.

"Jaime Maussan, a ufologist and journalist, told Mexican politicians under oath last week that nearly one third of the mummified objects' DNA was unknown."

Allegedly there was some human DNA present -- which is highly suggestive of human authorship of the ancient artifacts (if that's what they are). Why should we assume that "DNA" would be present in an alien's body? Did somebody discover that aliens from another star system evolved DNA? Not that I know of. How does Maussan think that human and alien DNA would get mixed up together?

I didn't read anything about the hard structure of the objects, Bone? Stone? Clay?. Plaster? Previously unseen material?

IF this had been actual alien tissue, THEN I would expect that the facts of the examination would spark intense scientific inquiry and public discussion. This has not happened. Conspiracists will claim that the alien evidence suppression conspiracy has once again deprived the public of the TRUTH.

There was never any outright rejection, I just stopped. — T Clark

Blessed are they who just stopped.

I progressed through a long complicated withdrawal from religious belief. I'll spare everyone the tedious details. Better a quick chippy choppy on a big black block. Get it over with. Move on.

The human mind "wants" explanations for the unknown, and meaning for events — Agree-to-Disagree

True! For the most part, we don't just shrug our shoulders and move on after seeing something remarkable and previously unknown. Unfamiliar bird, an explosion, odd new weed in the lawn, objects falling from the sky, strange weather -- no matter what, we want some sort of explanation. And we want to know what it means. The explanation may be plausible but wrong, and we will be reasonably happy with it. The meaning may be spurious, but if it meshes with other meanings we will accept it -- at least until holes begin appearing.

and god provides these. — Agree-to-Disagree

"God" has explanatory power for a rather narrow set (or sect) of people. Some people distrust scientific knowledge (or know little of it). If, for theological reasons one requires divine action in all events, then "God willed it", "God wanted that to happen" whether it was a nice rain or a devastating flash flood. "God is in charge of the world."

The threshold for assigning divine responsibility can be pretty low. A flat tire might be divine intervention. That the tire was worn out would have nothing to do with it, of course. God willed it.

God still might work as an explanation for existence, if one doesn't find the Big Bang grand enough on its own merits. It isn't that we now understand EVERYTHING; but rather, we live in a model where physical events have physical causes of some sort (well, most of us, anyway).

I think illness and injury are critical tests: When the devout believers in divine rule get sick, do they resort to prayer as their only option (Christian Scientists, for example) or do they pray they will get well while they are sitting in the doctors exam room? For most people, even fundamentalists who think God is all in all, get their oil changed, check their tires, get an annual physical, insure their property, and so on. God may rule, but God isn't going to fill the gas tank.

I do not know -- we can not know -- beyond all doubt whether or not gods exist. A very large majority of people think gods do exist, and are active agents. Why?

As a former believer, it seems like the question "Do the gods exist?" is a function of the effectiveness of institutions.

"God" is a product and a service of religious institutions which purvey god-belief, rituals, theology, communal gatherings, and so on. Many individuals and families participate and support religious institutions everywhere. The viability and vitality of belief in the gods is a result of the viability and vitality of the institutions that purvey god-products and services.

Christian institutions in Europe and the Americas have lost a great deal of viability and vitality. Membership and participation losses have been extraordinarily large (over the last century -- not just since 2000).

Before the modern era (whatever date you like) there was good reason to believe in God/s because there were few other especially good explanations for a lot of fortunate and unfortunate natural phenomena. Crops failed? Wife died? A dicey investment paid off? God did it! As science and industry have progressed with ever deeper inquiries into nature there has been less need of God/s to explain bad -- and good -- fortune.

Religious institutions have run up against considerable resistance to the old idea that God (in the 'received religions') causes good and bad things to happen in response to our supplications. Even very conservative believers who consistently and earnestly pray to God go to the doctor when they feel ill. They may pray, but they also take their medicines and sign up for surgeries.

Conclusion: We do not believe because God obviously exists; we believe in God because we have been so taught. Were God-teaching to eventually end, God/god would fade and end as well.

The question remains. If Niki is real and is as conflicted as the threads produced so far suggest.
What do you think he/she/they gain, from remaining silent after posting an opening that purports to be seeking help from TPF members. — universeness

Googling Niki Wonoto reveals somebody somewhere doing philosophical business as Niki Wonoto; NW posts unremarkable pictures on Instagram and has posted on The Suicide Project--9/15/23--the same text that was posted here. There are other social media accounts under that name. What I saw in a quick drive-by was posts about music and ordinary pictures. I didn't sign in to the Twitter account.

Apparently NW finds some satisfaction in expressing nihilistic thoughts and seeing them displayed on screen. Why would a devout nihilist care to know what meaning others see in the texts?

Is NW "seeking help"? Apparently not. The suicide project site appears to be moderated, allowing no posts about methods, partners, pacts, and so on. It's a conduit for dark texts.

IF the NW person is the same in the accounts that I looked at (and they may not be), he appears to be at least somewhat engaged in life.

its just getting an afflicted often hopeless person to realise it. — universeness

Some people have counterproductive thoughts. A lot of afflicted often hopeless people are afflicted by their circumstances. Their social/physical environment may be of low quality; bad housing, violence, not enough food, rats / roaches / bedbugs, dirt, poverty, chronic physical illnesses, isolation -- and more, all leaving the afflicted angry, hungry, lonely, fearful, frustrated -- very unhappy for months and years on end. What these afflicted people need are immediate and significant physical changes in their circumstances. They may be diagnosed as "depression" cases and they may well be depressed, but what they really need, and what will be curative, is a better life.

Or, sometimes living with someone who has a combination of intractable problems -- let's say a terminal physical illness and is maybe bi-polar, may stress a partner very severely until they are themselves dysfunctional -- depressed. In that case, the situation will resolve (the terminal illness will result in the partner's death. But sometimes people are in relationships that are chronically stressful, but to which both are committed. That too can lead to depression and the cure may well be separation.

I don't want to diminish the importance of maintaining healthy thinking about one's choices, but sometimes circumstances have to change rather than coming up with new ideas. And yes, sometimes people are--for all practical purposes--STUCK in the situation they are in.

Maybe Wonoto is 'stuck'.

I can choose — universeness

The Free Will card is played.

I can also choose, at least as far as choosing to believing that I made a choice. I do not believe that people 'choose' to be depressed (and all the stuff that goes along with it). What we can and do choose (or what we can not and do not choose) is an intricate puzzle. We don't have to get into all that. My theory (chosen or not) is that we are born with a predisposition towards optimism or pessimism. You seem to be a solid optimist. I'm not a despairing pessimist, but I'm closer to that than being a cock-eyed optimist. Rogers and Hammerstein, 1949, South Pacific:

“I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we’re done and we might as well be dead
But I’m only a cock-eyed optimist
And I can’t get it into my head"

The "affective" aspects of human behavior don't seem to be a matter of choice. Aspects of our intellectual life, however, can (to a large extent) be chosen. Anyone might pick up a copy of the Communist Manifesto, read it, and chose to think of it as gospel or as heresy. Same with the Gospel, Ayn Rand, Mao's Red Book, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, Thoreau, Hegel, or... whatever. Consequences usually follow when we make intellectual choices. Enthusiasm for Thoreau's Essay on Civil Disobedience influenced both Gandhi and M. L. King thinking (one out of a billion other examples). Thoreau influenced my thinking too. So did Uncle Karl. So did the Gospels. So did a lot of texts that I could have given a pass, but didn't.

The really tricky part of this is where the affective and intellectual influences mix. Some people clutch the Manifesto to their heart, other people drop it like a hot potato. What our intellects are attracted to and which we choose to read are influenced by what we like before first contact.

So getting back to Nikki Wonoto, he, she, or it may not have "chosen" nihilism as much as fallen into it and found its odd fragrance pleasant. You don't like its odor, I don't like the smell of it, but some people do. Taste is destiny?

Chronic depression can cause many bizarre behaviours. — universeness

True. I have seen this phenomenon in myself--not so much "bizarre" behavior as self-defeating and counter-productive behaviors which seemed like a good idea at the time. Perseverating is a feature of depression for many depressed people; it's the same idea repeating itself over and over again. Of course these perseverated ideas are never positive, up-beat, can-do phrases. Quite the opposite.

Depression may lift on its own, or lives may change, or one might get therapy. The former down-beat negative ideas can fade away and the world has meaning, possibilities, and goodness again.

I don't know if 'wonoto' is depressed. Maybe he, she, or it is trying nihilism on to check out the style--the philosophical equivalent of goth.

You have nailed it.

A pure provocateur — universeness

A pointless provocateur and a nihilist poseur--a role that is altogether too easy take up. It probably seems cool to a certain lazy type, because if everything is meaningless and nothing matters, there's never a reason to let others make any demands of us, or rouse one's self into action which might be slightly tiring as well as meaningless. One just goes around whining about the meaningless of life. Talk about tiresome!

I say hit the delete button.

There is meaning aplenty to be had; life just doesn't hand it to us on a silver platter.

Anesthesia really is different than sleep. Does one feel "rested" after anesthesia? I haven't felt "rested" afterwards. It was an "empty experience". I woke up with surgical wounds and discomfort but no recollection of the surgery. But then, I quite often wake up in the morning with no recollection either -- no dream memory, no sense of the night having sped by. (On other occasions it seems like a lot happened -- memory of complicated dreams, waking up several times, full bladder, etc.

One thing about waking up from anesthesia -- there has always been a nurse on hand when I've woken up. I don't know what it would be like to wake up in a room alone in the dark, say. One would have to put 2+2 together one's self. Might be scary.

Reality must keep track of all other organisms' state and location. — Cidat

It would be nice if reality did keep track of everything, but "reality" does no such thing. It can not because "reality" is a concept, a mental object--a rather big mental object.

We are not entirely out of touch with the world when we sleep. Our brains are busy doing something (???) 24/7. Your brain "puts you to sleep" and it "wakes you up". They can keep track of time well enough to wake you before your alarm goes off (unless it has decided to sleep through the alarm).

Some animals that can't afford to have both sides of their brain sleeping at the same time put the left half of their brain asleep and keep the right side awake -- then switch.

If you were the only organism on earth, your question would be profound, Fortunately, the earth is full of creatures that sleep, perchance to dream.

I have come across some of this information elsewhere, but it's a nice video presentation.

The thing that I dislike about name-change campaigns is that they are

a) campaigns conducted for some ulterior motive
b) usually in the interest of a small but strongly motivated group
c) often leveraged with shame and guilt whether deserved or not

Minneapolis has many lakes; one of the most popular is the 400 acre Lake Calhoun. 5 or 6 years ago, a group of social justice warriors decided that this name was no longer tolerable, and petitioned it to be labeled with its actual or alleged Dakota Indian (there's that "India" problem again) name -- Bde Maka Ska.

John C. Calhoun played an early role in establishing Fort Snelling in the early 1800s. Fort Snelling was intended to dissuade the British from any further incursions into the Northwest and to stamp out British influence in the booming fur trade. A map maker assigned the name, "Lake Calhoun" around 1839. Later in his career, Calhoun served on the side of the confederacy and owned slaves.

The name change was supposed to reduce the affront to black people of having a slave holder attached to a popular lake. Question: How many people, white or black, connected "Lake Calhoun" with the confederacy and slavery? One would have to be historically well informed to know that, so probably not very many,

The name change was supposed to honor the Dakota people -- thus the new name is the old Dakota name for the lake, Nothing wrong with the Dakota name. Everything here had a Dakota name before Europeans arrived and gave places new names. It's a nice enough gesture, but it's a damned slight comfort for a people who barely survive (because of numerous economic policies over the years).

"We" were to feel guilt about the name, Calhoun. Similarly, they say we ought to feel some guilt if our house had a racial covenant in the deed, despite those covenants having been made illegal and unenforceable in 1948. There were moves to change the names of streets in order to erase the memory of real estate agencies who developed the street and gave it their name along with racial covenants.

One can have the defunct covenant expunged if one wishes -- another very flimsy sop to people who have been screwed over rather thoroughly.

All of these moves are ways for some activists to perform political theater which, in the end, will have no effect.

Some people in the Pacific coast state of Oregon want to break off the eastern 2/3 of the state and join it to neighboring Idaho. This is just one more example of how a highly vocal minority can generate a big issue out of narrow personal interests.

Since "Great" Britain and the "United Kingdom" mean nothing to you, then we should obviously strike those two words from the map. It's like the linguistic mob that wants to edit out references to a male God, Lord, King, He, His, and so on.

So, I don't have a stake -- zero investment -- in what India or Bharat calls itself. But we will all have difficulty finding names for ourselves that are entirely founded on whichever native land we are from. "America" derives from the name of an Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who otherwise had very little to do with the matter.

"Asia" is a name derived from Greek, or maybe Assyrian, meaning "east of".

My point is that language and maps and usage are this huge accumulation of past events and persons that were mostly not rationally organized. They just happened.

Yes, we could spend the rest of our civilization's life straightening all this out. If we do, our civilization's life will be shorter because there are all these other -- far more urgent -- things that we should have attended to and didn't.

We haven't heard the late Victorian comic view on duty, so herewith

For duty, duty must be done;
The rule applies to every one,
And painful though that duty be,
To shirk the task were fiddle-de-dee!
To shirk the task were fiddle-de-dee!

Here's the way Gilbert & Sullivan put it to music -- unless you love G & S, after 1:47 or so, it's the usual nonsensical falderal.

blithering imbeciles — Mikie

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.” --Mark Twain

Nice slice of history. Thanks.

Events like the CNT strike in Spain, the Russian Revolution, and various other events, fueled the 1919-1920 "Red Scare" in the United States--the vicious campaign by conservative companies and organizations as well as government agencies to suppress labor organizing and black civil rights. That wasn't the first anti-labor or anti-black suppression, of course. In the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, Colorado National Guard and anti-labor militia fired on a camp of striking miners, killing 25, including 11 children. (Rockefeller owned the mine.) In 1921 a white mob burned down Tulsa, Oklahoma's black community, killing about 300 of the residents. Tulsa wasn't the only such event.

The forces of repression correctly intuited that letting underlings get too far ahead anywhere leads to more undesirable social agitation and change-- like the advancement of labor, civil rights, progressive movements, and the abomination of higher taxes on the wealthy.

I agree with your view that strong pro-labor and progressive politics requires "a strong relation between unions and a political party". Whatever they may say, the two political parties in the US are pro-capital, and at best lukewarm about labor, unless than can be outright hostile.

The official name of the Democratic Party in my state (Minnesota) is the Democratic Farmer Labor party. The Democrats merged with the larger leftist Farmer Labor party in 1944.

Hubert H. Humphrey was a key player in the fusion. Humphrey was mostly on the solidly liberal side of politics. When he was elected mayor of Minneapolis in '47, he led the attack on entrenched antisemitism in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, the progressivism faded. 40 years later, DFL governor Rudy Perpich sent the national guard into Austin, MN to help break the union strike against Hormel, pork and beef processor and maker of Spam.

In the US, hospitals are required to render care in emergency rooms, regardless of ability to pay. However, if you need hospital care once the emergency treatment is finished, then you are back on your own again. No insurance? Tough luck.

Publicly funded benefits have always been grudgingly provided, against the wishes of the ruling class--even against the wishes of the conservative American Medical Association. Those with money, even those in the professional class who are often not close to being rich, tend to think like self-made Republican bankers. They don't want to see the poor or working class people "getting something for nothing" -- forgetting that many of them got quite a lot of something for nothing during their first 25 years of life. They also don't see "something for nothing" in the many tax breaks the wealthy get.

All that is why the US has dragged behind other industrialized countries in providing public services, health services, and so on. In the three major actions to create Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA--from the 1930s onward, hard-core conservatives have been willing to contest the legitimacy of the benefits in court.

Back when (say... post WWII boom years) many workers had employment with the same company for a long time, it made more sense than it does now, where many workers change employers maybe every 5 years. Before employers started offering health care coverage (like before WWII) workers had to buy their own coverage, if they could afford it. f

[aside: American religious organizations operated many of the health care institutions 'back then' and were prepared to provide 'charity' care to people in straitened economic circumstances. That helped a lot, and they offered pretty good care, on average. That all began to unravel in in the 1960s into the '70s when religious organizations started losing congregants (and $$$), and Catholic orders shrank drastically. Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians... all withdrew from healthcare or their facilities became "non-profit" organizations which turned out to be... quite profitable.]

In the 1960s Medicaid was introduced which was paid for health care for indigent people -- people on welfare, the working poor, etc. A big leap forward. About the same time, Medicare was created to provide health care to the elderly--another big leap forward.

There were no new initiatives that made it into law until Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act - ACA) was passed with Republicans kicking and screaming. The ACA doesn't pay for health care; it established a market for affordable health insurance--a helpful, but not huge, leap forward. It also trimmed the sails of commercial insurance companies abilities to deny coverage for "preexisting conditions", for children who turned 21, and so forth.

Quite a few democrats (from liberal northern states) like the idea of single-payer insurance where the government acts as the single sole health insurer. It gives Americans to the right of Karl Marx cardiac arrest just thinking about "socialized medicine" so it's not likely to happen in the near or medium future. As Keynes said, "in the long run we're all dead."

BTW, it was unions that established the principle of the employer paying for health insurance.

My understanding is that American unions generally pay their members during a strike. The amount paid will likely be considerably less than the wage received, and only the largest unions (like United Auto Workers or Teamsters) will be able to pay strikers throughout a long strike. Individual strikers can not collect unemployment; they can pay the company's health insurance individual premium, if they can afford it, in order to maintain individual health care coverage.

The 'pros' and 'cons' list is not balanced. The 'pro' side is far stronger than the 'con' side.

#1 under 'cons' is that some workers may dislike paying dues, when dues are what makes #1, 2, and 3 in the 'pros' list possible. # 2 under 'cons' is mostly not true. #3 involves the inconvenience to the company of following contractual process, particularly in firing, #4 is true only from a company point of view -- the costs that unions raise are the wages that workers are paid.

Employees in non-union workplaces can approach a manager or business owner directly and negotiate an individual wage increase, benefits package or contract. — Alkis Piskas

True, but the individual worker has little leverage by himself. Unionism is designed to give leverage to all workers (in the union).

Wages and working conditions are better when workers are organized.

Is stealing a loaf of bread to feed your hungry children a good thing or a bad thing? — Agree-to-Disagree

Maybe they should be out stealing birth control pills and condoms so they don't have the problem of not being able to feed their children?

(I give money periodically to help feed the poor's children, but there are times when I look at some people and think "Oh, PLEASE don't reproduce -- you can't take care of yourself, let alone others!")

Both, of course, but that's not saying much.

Nature has been shaping animal behavior for a long time, and all present-day animals, including humans, are the beneficiaries of this long process. We inherited a catalog of potentials--like the ability to fly into a rage or carefully plot revenge--and we also developed this uniquely large brain. We should not crow too much about the size of our brains; they have been a quite mixed blessing.

Emotions were invented long before we came along, but we have this big blob of grey matter than can act in fiendishly clever and unfortunate ways to express our emotions, or punish whoever/whatever set us off. A lion might literally bite your head off if you are too annoying, but then it's over. Humans can bear a grudge for decades, declare war, and wipe out millions, if they feel too irritated.

So, I say a lot of the good and bad stuff is from Nature, who doesn't have a long range plan.

Nurture is necessary because we don't hatch out of the egg ready to become a noble saint or a major crook. We're helpless helpless helpless for years, and if we are not taught well, we really aren't good for much. A lot of our nurture is aimed at controlling our nature -- because if we don't, we're likely to end up dead PDQ.

We spend a lot of time thinking about nurture, because at birth, nature has largely finished blessing us or screwing us over, and there may not be much we can do about it. Then society comes along and either blesses us or screws us over some more.

Life is a bitch and then we die, but many of us have nature and nurture on our side and we'll probably live a long time. Or so some of us think. Whether living a long time is a good thing or not is an open question.

Your thread is a success - lots of interesting ideas and responses. That said...

Two dictionary definitions:

1. a moral or legal obligation; a responsibility.
"it's my duty to uphold the law"

2. a task or action that someone is required to perform.
"the queen's official duties"

3. something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation. the binding or obligatory force of something that is morally or legally right; moral or legal obligation.

Your definition is " a feeling of obligation brought about by expectation that is irreducible".

There is considerable difference between duty as "legally obligatory" and duty as "a feeling of obligation". Both kinds of duty operate among people, but the former has a much sharper edge than the latter.

Legal and moral obligations are learned, and their strength depends on intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, and other emotional components, like love, fear, loyalty, selfishness, and others. So it's possible that in a given individual or group "duty"may or may not be the single strongest motivator for action.

I say that the right people in the right positions to lead need to stand up and allow us some redemption. — ToothyMaw

On many occasions "the right people in the right positions" have led. The American Revolution and both sides of the Civil War were brought about by the right people in the right positions. Another group of the right people in the right positions brought about the first Gilded Age of excess in the late 19th century and again in the late 20th. We're very much in this period of excess. In reaction, to the Gilded Age excesses, another group of the right people in the right positions brought about a historic, widely beneficial rearrangement of wealth, particularly during the Great Depression, WWII, and the Post-WWII period, running roughly from 1930 to 1975. Around the 1970s, another group of the right people in the right positions undid the labor/capital/government coalition that had resulted in a major redistribution of wealth from the richest people to the working class.

Everyone involved in all this was doing "their duty" to the group to whom they owed the most fealty. So, the duties of the right people in the right positions cut both ways. Unfortunately for us, the oligarchs make up most of the right people in the right positions.

"the right people in the right positions" are generally not the rank and file of the people: they are the elite. The American economy was structured to serve the interests of the elite, as opposed to the rank and file. That's capitalism for you. What "duty" means to a capitalist is not going to be the same thing that it means to a socialist. What "duty" means to a member of the 1% or the top 1/10 of the 1% is going to be considerably different than what it means to a member of the impoverished working class.

Socialists and communists talk about "class consciousness" because what your "duty" can or ought to be depends on how you recognize your real position in society. Except for defined legal duties, there's no such thing as a commonly recognized duty across the different classes of people. People who don't know their class elbow from their ass are liable to accept the altogether inappropriate duty to vote for the leading oligarch candidate.

duty ... exists only as a meta-construction - as recursive and a sum of its parts — ToothyMaw

I'm sorry, but I won't die for a meta-construction, even a recursive one.

I contend that duty is perhaps the single strongest motivator for action I can think of, whether it is duty to the tribe, an ideal, a spouse, etc., and should be nurtured wherever it exists to good ends. — ToothyMaw

I have nothing against duty--I've performed my duties in different contexts many times--but I think there are a number of stronger motivators: fear, anger, hunger lust, greed--your basic 7 deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth--in that order.

All of these are negative (though lust is hard to beat). Love is a powerful motivator too.

We often have conflicting duties. Our employer thinks it our duty to perform faithful service in exchange for paying us a meager share of the wealth we create. Institutions expect loyalty (a duty) from their agents. Whose duty comes first? The duty to render good service in exchange for pay, or the duty to disrupt the business to further the interests of other workers, like one's union comrades?

In retrospect, I sometimes chose the wrong set of duties, in situations where my choice of duty led to inferior results for everyone concerned. At the time it seemed like a good idea. Generally, though, when people start talking about "duty" I detect the acrid odor of social control.

Your OP makes it my duty to quote "James Thurber, an American humorist, cartoonist, author, playwright, and journalist known for his quirky and relatable characters and themes." The. quote comes from his 1940 story about a very dutiful bloodhound. The duty-ridden (or obsessive compulsive) beast wore himself out following an endless trail all over the world.

The paths of glory at least lead to the grave. The paths of duty may not get you anywhere.

Thurber might be referencing a line from Thomas Grey's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

The United States is not the best example of how unionisation works. — Banno

Which country did you have in mind as a good example?

As somebody put it, "The labor movement in the United States didn't die of neglect -- it was murdered". Murdered by laws which erected barriers to organization; murdered by very aggressive counter-union measures by capital (some of them illegal); murdered by outright state intervention to defeat strikes. Unions themselves were often enough corrupted by organized crime, which diminished their creditability.

However, organizing workers has usually been hard work, with or without an unfriendly state. The peak percentage of organized labor was 35%. Peak union membership was in 1979 at 21 million.

The
nicely constructed dilemma involving real choices which workers face
— BC
is mostly pretence. — Banno

Workers do face difficult decisions in supporting a union drive, becoming active in the union, and in striking, especially when the employer is hostile. The risks are not a pretense. Strikes do not always succeed, and a failed strike can leave the union members broke and out in the cold.

This is a nicely constructed dilemma involving real choices which workers face. The frosting on the cake is the government's appropriate decision to reform the economy to reduce pollution. Will the cost be borne by workers alone or by the society more broadly?

Unions are an essential element in a progressive and democratic society, and they are a vital protection for workers -- provided they are strong. That is why the best medium and long-term option for a worker is to support the union and the strike. Only in the short run does it make sense to go back to work and put up with crappy wages and working conditions.

A competent government could organize the development of industries to replace collieries, petroleum refineries, gas plants with sustainable industries and training programs so that workers in the carbon industries will not end up unemployed / unemployable. A competent government would want to replace tax income from closed fossil fuel industries with taxes on sustainable energy production and use.

Reality may not conform to progressive democratic ideals, of course.

In the United States, the competent government has hobbled unions with laws that make union organizing difficult. Competent governors sometimes intervene in strikes by employing the state militia to protect strike breakers (even in liberal states like Minnesota). Competent propagandists have effectively devalued unionism in the collective mind-set of many Americans. Our competent national governments have opted not to do too much about oil and coal consumption.

In the United States, see, the competent government is pretty much on the side of the capitalists.

amount of fossil fuel deposits (let's say coal) — jorndoe

According to the Energy Information Administration (US gov): as of December 31, 2021, estimates of total world proved recoverable reserves of coal were about about 1.16 trillion short tons, and five countries had about 75% of the world's proved coal reserves.

amount of fossil fuel deposits (let's say oil) — jorndoe

Global consumption of oil is currently estimated at roughly 96.5 million barrels per day. According to OPEC, global demand is expected to reach 109 million barrels per day. Estimations vary slightly, but it is predicted that - if demand forecasts hold - we will run out of oil from known reserves in about 47 years. (2023 estimate)

"Oil reserves" is complicated by the adjective "recoverable". Some oil is buried so deeply that more energy is required to obtain the oil than the oil itself contains. Western Canada's tar sands can be dug out and cleaned up enough to qualify as "crude oil" but the whole process is quite polluting.

Trolls would have us do nothing about it, despite evidence/consensus of anthropogenic climate change, pollution, etc. — jorndoe

Well, count the major energy companies as trolls, because they are not doing anything very significant about it. And they have company. While government at various levels have taken some actions, while various companies have either worked towards a lower carbon output or manufactured equipment to reduce green house gas emissions, the world response to the threat of a global heating catastrophe has been sluggish.

Unfortunately for us all, the world's energy economy was shaped into its present form what... 200 years ago? 150 years ago? 100 years? Changing a 100 - 200 year pattern of voracious resource consumption just can't be done quickly EVEN IF everyone was enthusiastic about it, and lots of people are not even slightly enthusiastic, but are bitterly opposed to the level of change that is required.