What happened was, once abortion becomes available, it becomes the most attractive option for everyone around the pregnant woman. If she has an abortion, it’s like the pregnancy never existed. No one is inconvenienced. It doesn’t cause trouble for the father of the baby, or her boss, or the person in charge of her college scholarship. It won’t embarrass her mom and dad. — Rank Amateur

This is a rather novel argument against abortion. I haven't seen a college scholarship administrator connected to abortion before. Very creative.

Most abortions are performed early on. According to the CDC, 66% of abortions are performed during the first 8 weeks, and 92% during the first trimester. There isn't any reason to suppose the boss, the loan officer, the Philosophy Department, Amazon.com, Bloomingdales, or anyone else would know about it.

Abortion is pro men, pro power, pro all the people around the mother who perceive their life will be inconvenienced by a child. Who want a do over for that responsibility free sex society promised them. — Rank Amateur

This is a fairly radical reinterpretation of the idea that abortion is a woman's choice.

"Inconvenience" you say. You bet an unplanned, unwanted child is an inconvenience--especially for the mother who will be performing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to child rearing--an inconvenience lasting a couple of decades.

We had somehow bought the idea that abortion was necessary if women were going to rise in their professions and compete in the marketplace with men. But how had we come to agree that we will sacrifice our children, as the price of getting ahead? When does a man ever have to choose between his career and the life of his child? — Rank Amateur

A man doesn't have to choose between his career and a child because, Rank Amateur--you may have noticed--men don't get pregnant. Men are not usually responsible for day-to-day childcare.

Women might have fewer abortions IF policy and practice in the United States really were pro-child, and pro-family. They are not. From pre-natal care to post-natal support to family leave to flexible work schedules to high-quality affordable day-care services, The US fails across the board.

The American working class (which is about 90% of the population) has experienced decades of economic decline. Affordable support services have become much harder to find, if they exist at all. For the mother and father to both work, most to all of one of their incomes will be devoted to day-care for the first 6 years. If the other spouse's income isn't enough for everything else (it often isn't) then the family falls into a downward spiral of rising costs and declining income, or a sacrifice of one of the spouses careers, or both, and other untoward consequences.

It is no wonder that couples choose to abort children they simply can not afford to have. For single working women, a child is a much more difficult proposition.

The idea that women should, as a regular practice, complete the pregnancy and give the newborn to an adoption agency, is a remarkably callous approach. So is your solution of requiring birth and then raising the child. Look: In the real world, raising more children than a couple has resources to support, is a very long, hard road with negative consequences entailed for everyone concerned--and that applies to couples that are very responsible, succeed in keeping their marriages together, are diligent and hard working, and don't self-destruct.

The rate of poverty, marriage failure, single parenthood, dysfunctional families, drug and alcohol abuse, and so on and so forth has been on an upward curve because of adverse economic trends for most people. Middle-aged working class white men in the rust belts and rural districts aren't committing suicide at remarkably high rates because they lack imagination and drive. The number of school children who do not know for sure who will feed them or provide them with a bed tonight is and has been on the rise because families are falling apart.

What was that line from Bill Clinton's campaign??? I think it was "It's the economy, stupid." When the economic foundation of the working class starts buckling, families and social networks start falling apart.

The connection to abortion? Abortion is the most affordable solution. Don't like abortion? Then work for a social democratic government that is capable of organizing economic resources for the benefit of the majority of the people--the 90%--rather than the 10% richest people.

According to the Guttmacher Institute (fertility and sex education is their bailiwick)... At 2014 abortion rates, one in 20 women (5%) will have an abortion by age 20, about one in five (19%) by age 30 and about one in four (24%) by age 45.5. These figures represent a decline to a low, not an increase, over the last 40 years. 1980 was the high point in abortions.

Hypocrisy? But then again, they never said it wasn't. — Banno

I gave up being amazed at our ability as humans to justify killing the people we want dead a very long time ago. — Rank Amateur

Of course we are hypocritical and inconsistent, and that seems to be built into the human condition. We just can't avoid hypocrisy and be consistent with ourselves. We are not inherently consistent beings. We can try, but...

Something is very wrong when 1 in 5 pregnancies in the us ends in abortion. Any one who finds that acceptable has lost their compass. — Rank Amateur

Yes, something is wrong: We are doing a piss-poor job of sex education and pregnancy prevention education. Both of which are a critical piece of "life education" which we don't do very well at either. Still, even well-informed people engage in sex without pregnancy prevention in place, and women get pregnant who would really rather not have.

I don't think it's terrible that women abort pregnancies the Plan B or early abortions (before 21 weeks). It is terrible when the possibility of getting a safe abortion is precluded. Do you think that "Every child a wanted child." is a bad slogan? I think it's good. Couples who bring a wanted baby home are going to do a much better job of caring for this child. (I'm in favor of couples raising children, too. Two parents are better than 1, two breadwinners are better than 1, two role models (male/female) are better than the model of one person only, etc.

IT IS IMMORAL TO KILL PEOPLE LIKE US, BORN HUMAN BEINGS — Rank Amateur

It is immoral to kill human beings except when it is moral. If we collectively dislike a group or individual enough, then it's OK, desirable, even mandatory to kill human beings. Usually a trained group of people are detailed with the task, and we support the troops with our taxes.

I may not like that arrangement, but it seems to be an exceedingly well established set up. Just about everybody approves of the properly presented war. Just about everybody agrees that killing to protect one's property is OK. Self-defense, sure -- fire away. Just like nobody doesn't like Sara Lee, nobody doesn't like certain kinds of killing. People who are opposed to abortion on the grounds that persons are being killed could at least be consistent and be committed Quakers. 99 times out of 100 they are not.

I'm very glad that men can't get pregnant -- what a drag! As she (Gloria Steinem) said, 'If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.'

Sarte once said that hell is other people. — Wallows

I'm not sure that Sartre did anyone any favors by coming up with that line in No Exit.

What to do? — Wallows

Is there any guru, philosopher, prophet, or saint, who offers a good one-bowl-just-add-water cake mix for happiness? No. Zeno letting you down, just when you were counting on him? Typical.

@Noah Te Stroete is trying to rely on Jesus; apparently it's not going well with the Nazis he's running into. Do I have an answer? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

Life sucks. Our task: Get through the day as pleasantly as possible, sleep as well as we can. Repeat. Fitting into the various schemes of this or that guru, saint, or crackpot has to be fairly low on the list.

Nothing wrong with Zeno, of course. Or Jesus. Or Bitter Crank, for that matter. It just that in the final analysis, getting through life is an individual's always-unique lonely struggle. No matter which philosopher, saint, god, or guru you consult, nobody has an easy formula.

So carry on. Complaining often helps one feel better. Unload, move on. Take care. Good luck. Best wishes.

Somehow new topics sometimes drop down the list so fast I don't notice them. Like this one.

Chomsky provides some excellent and insightful analysis into how media, politics, and government work. I haven't read Chomsky recently, but Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman (1925-2017) and Noam Chomsky is very good. His book is available for free as a PDF. If the topic interests you, you might want to investigate Edward S. Herman as well.

Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies from 1989 by Chomsky concerns political power using propaganda to distort and distract from major issues to maintain confusion and complicity, preventing real democracy from becoming effective. The title of this book borrows a phrase from the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. Sounds like another useful book.

I've been at several Chomsky talks [not recently, he's quite old now, 90+) and he is a very clear consistent thinker. His last published work was in 2016 and 2017. There is a film from 1992, Manufacturing Consent, available on YouTube. Quite good.

Who Rules America by ‎G. William Domhoff is excellent. First published in 1967 it has been updated half a dozen times over the years, so the title is not out of date. The basic idea, though, hasn't changed since 1967.

The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills 1956. Mills calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggests that the ordinary citizen is a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those entities. The book might be 60 years old, but the way the power elite works is, you know, pretty much the same from decade to decade.

Wales should probably be cleared for use by the various displaced persons who want to live in Europe. Unenlightened could be in charge of the clearance. Let's see, Wales has 5,129,413 acres; if we settle all these refugees and various opportunists at a density of 10 people per acre, we could put 50 million people in Wales, each getting about 4350 sq. ft. each. The current population of wales is at a density of less than 2 per acre -- obviously the Welsh are hogging too much land.

So, what to do with the Welsh? Maybe an exchange program? For every immigrant from Syria or Bangladesh to Wales, 1 Welshperson can take their place in Damascus or a Dhaka. It's the least these privileged white people can do for their unfortunate oppressed brown brothers and sisters.

Wales would finally be really multicultural, very diverse--which is what really matters.

You are aware, I hope, that you don't have to write the paper about philosophy or mathematics. You could choose a historical topic (like what major events happened in the state that you live in) pick one, and write a paper about it. Maybe there is a large corporation in your town that you could research -- I don't mean like researching Walmart just because there is a walmart store in town.

You could write a paper about Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Charles Bukowski (a poet and fiction writer, very disreputable character but lots of fun) or maybe a famous criminal -- like Al Capone or Donald Trump.

In order to write a research paper, you - a high school student - need a topic that interests you, is manageable (The History of the World is a hair too large) and for which there are research materials available. You could do a paper on the Boer War from the Afrikaner perspective, but you might not find much in the way of resources -- Afrikaners spoke Dutch, if I remember correctly. How's your 19th century Dutch? Not good? Skip that topic, then. You will be using the Internet, of course, but it still takes time to read material, and sift out the ample amounts of bad information that is floating around out there. (Even before the Internet, back in the stone age of print, there was bad information floating around.)

You also need a topic that you can get your head around right away. Even if it is due in 3 months (not that long) you might want to get started soon.

Have you all had any instruction on "how to write a research paper"? Like, devising a plan, taking notes, outlining, writing a draft, putting together a bibliography, etc.?

There are a lot of very smart people in science and math (and in other fields). Most of them are not in danger of madness.

Some people do "go mad", to use the technical term. Some are smart, some are stupid. Some are in between. Why do people "go mad"? Some people have severe conflicts between what they want to do in life and what they are able to do. They feel very thwarted. Some people have very unreasonable (or very high) expectations that are repeatedly disappointed. Some people have learned very maladaptive styles of thinking and behavior which practically guarantees a life of stress.

Some people, not a large percentage -- probably less than 2% or 3% of the whole population--are born with or develop personality, mood, and behavioral disorders which can be quite severe. Severe depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are 3 examples. These disorders affect the sub-par, average, and very bright all the same.

The "Mad Scientist" is a popular meme. It makes for good fiction, but mad scientists are actually pretty rare. What's much more common is Boring Scientists. They, as luck would have it, are all over the place. There os am ode that scientists do not know how to behave like most people do. The image is that they are in another world, head in the clouds, etc. Your average humanities student/graduate/professor is as likely to have problems living in the real world as scientists do.

You know what the normal curve looks like. All of us are on that curve, somewhere. On any given facet of behavior, most of us are in the middle, whether we are geniuses or morons.

What sort of knowledge is it, do you think, that "to know it is to lose one's mind"?

And let's be reasonable... how likely is it that you will stumble on gold plated evidence of all of Donald Trump's misdeeds? Or, knowledge of future events that would be intolerable to know -- like the time and date of the long-feared world nuclear war, or when the mass-death virus will break out that will kill 10% of the world's population in a month, and 50% in a year? Or, knowledge of how rich you would now be if you had only bought that lottery ticket 10 years ago?

There are a lot of fairly odd people out there; some of them have brilliant minds, most of them do not. One could cite many examples of very brilliant people who were very social, pleasant people. Bongo drum playing Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist, was apparently quite fun to be around.

Whether information is dangerous depends on... like, what does someone plan to do with it? An environmentalist wanting to know how much carbon monoxide cars produces is dealing with useful, good information. Someone who is suicidal or murderous wanting to know how much CO a given engine produces produces might be looking for "dangerous information".

The method of producing a nuclear or thermonuclear explosion seems to fit into "dangerous information".

I agree that in many instances of humans feeling that something is right or wrong, they are very consistent from instance to instance. They always find gangs beating up old ladies wrong. But the question remains, "how did their feelings arrive at the conclusion that beating up old ladies is wrong?

Evidence is in the eye of the beholder, but the eye of the beholder is conditioned to perceive certain things as right and certain things as wrong. Our feelings of right and wrong are conditioned too. We don't just wake up and start feeling that theft is wrong and giving to the poor is right (unless you think feelings of right and wrong are inherently human and arise from... genes, or something).

Our feelings about things develop in our social context. A toddler will feel good about smacking her younger sister with the plastic stick. An adult will (one hopes) intervene and strongly discourage such behavior. The toddlers will eventually internalize these interventions and after a while they will feel it is wrong to hit each other with sticks.

We learn to feel what is moral, good and right. We learn to avoid actions that resulted in negative feedback--"Naughty girl! Don't hit your little sister." Those are internalized too, and are the basis of guilt feelings.

Children that are not taught how to behave socially, are not taught what is collectively valued as right and wrong, are going to end up in an institutional setting of some kind, sooner or later. We don't tolerate very deviant childhood feelings about right and wrong.

I would agree that people just "feeling something is wrong" is a very unreliable system of morality. (And what goes on in the comments section under YouTube videos is a good example of feelings being unreliable as a guide to behavior).

I am not sure whether I think there are moral facts, or not. If we can't have objective moral facts which would be a solid bedrock, we do have other resources at hand. There is belief, and there is thinking. There is acting, and there is observation of consequences. These come into play. David Hume said that "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." Passions -- emotions, wishes, desires, and so on -- are the foundation of behavior (in all animals) but reason is not a powerless slave. It is reasoning that keeps the passions from flying off the rails like a train gone berserk.

Each of us has feelings that are in conflict with the feelings of other people. I like sex with other men. Some people have very strong negative feelings about men having sex with each other. I like meat. Some people feel that eating meat is wrong. I don't like the labor involved in having a perfect covering of grass on my yard. I like a variety of plants -- the 'natural' look. Some people consider the natural look to be downright immoral, and demand that other people maintain their lawn so that it is all grass, cut to 3.25 inches high.

The "moral fact" here is that if we are going to live together we have to find ways of dealing with each others' emotions. So, when the level of hostility is high, gay men have sex in out of the way places, rather than courting each other openly. Carnivores don't force vegetarians to eat meat or go without food (vegetarians don't return that favor, usually). People who like the natural look are at least selective about which weeds they encourage--milk weed, yes -- big thistles, no.

We all follow similar procedures for supporting what we really want to consider right and wrong. Homosexuality can be found just, wholesome, good, and moral, or contemptible, wicked, bad, and immoral. Murder is desirable in some cases (the fire-bombing of Hanover and Dresden) a capital crime in others (the killing of a convenience store clerk during an armed robbery).

How much power the killers have has something to do with its rightness. The powerful can define actions in their own favor. The Nazis considered the Holocaust right and justified as long as they had the power to carry it out. When it was clear they were going to lose the war--total loss--they started finding the death camps and crematoria embarrassing. Pearl Harbor was an atrocity, Hiroshima was beneficial.

The powerful are able to define their passions and actions favorably, and require the less powerful to agree. (The victors write the history of the war.) Only later can the victor's version be challenged. That Europeans conducted a genocide again indigenous North Americans was an unacceptable truth until fairly recently. (The indigenous people, of course, were cognizant of genocide much earlier.)

In the plot from which these quotes come, there was just a handful of people, so, sure, make more. At some point (around 2 billion, give or take a couple dozen) we should have stopped.

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. — Ecclesiastes 1:4

What's wrong with that? The sun comes up, the sun goes down. People are born, people drop dead. The earth keeps spinning. You object?

A large part of the environmental impact of a meat/dairy/egg diet is the amount of animal protein that people eat if they can afford it -- big income or cheap protein. 3 or 4 eggs for breakfast, a meat sandwich for lunch, and a serving or two of meat or fish for supper is more protein than most people need. Most of us are not digging ditches, mining coal, plowing fields with a team of horses, carrying heavy loads on and off railroad cars, etc.

People need between between .35 and 1 gram of protein per pound of weight. Less, the less active one is, somewhat more in the opposite direction. The US dietary recommendation is 50-60 grams of protein per day for an "average" 50 year old male. That's about 2 ounces of protein (not the food source, just the protein) a day. Many people exceed that amount without gaining any benefit, and are also getting unnecessary calories with the extra protein.

Now, people doing regular intense exercise or demanding physical work need more calories and more protein per day, but most of us do not fit into that category. Our environmental impact would be substantially lower if we aimed for the recommended amount. (1/2 c. of cottage cheese provides about 23 g of protein, 2 eggs provides provides another 12 g, and 3 oz of beef provides 22 g. Those 3 servings add up to the minimum daily requirement. Obviously some people need more--laborers, athletes, etc. Beans, grain, nuts, and seeds provide equally good protein. So, one can still eat some meat without placing too much strain on one's share of the environment.

It's not plant-consumption that needs a justification. — NKBJ

Right you are. Bad statement on my part. What I should have said is "The Bible doesn't stake out a supportive position on veganism or vegetarianism. Scriptural support for a plant diet comes from scriptures in other religions. The OT and NT was written by and for carnivores." It should be noted, though, that in the ancient world meat-eating was not a regular event. The 'fatted calf' was for a special, rare, feast day. Animals sacrificed in temples were usually roasted on an altar fire and then shared out. It was an occasional, not regular, meat serving.

Most of the time ancient people were vegetarians by practical necessity; grains, vegetables, and plant oils (olives) as well as seeds and nuts would have been the prime source of calories and nutrition. Fish was on the menu if you happened to live near a river, lake, or ocean. Milk? Some ancient people ate milk products -- "the land of milk and honey" was grazing and agricultural land, and large flocks would have enough lactating females to produce some milk. The ancients mixed all sorts of stuff into wine, including milk. What a waste of Beaujolais.

No, I don't think that the way you put it is true. People generally have an identity and they generally have a system of morality. They are not inextricably linked so that if one goes down, the other goes down with it. If that were so, then wouldn't multiculturalists end up being immoral? Or is multiculturalism just another identity? But multiculturalists seem to be hostile to identity.

For instance, Americans from Iowa can become Buddhists without losing their identity as Americans or Iowans. Buddhism became part of several different people's identities India, China, Tibet, Japan, Burma, Thailand, etc. Many Chinese have become Christian; it doesn't seem to be the case that they are no longer Chinese. Many Nigerians became Anglican or Moslem. Does that mean they were no longer Nigerians?

It seems to be the case that identity is usually at least somewhat flexible. That would certainly be the case of the Jews. After the Jewish diaspora (100 CE) Jews settled everywhere from India to Belarus. Some things stayed the same, and somethings changed. Just for example, Many Jews started eating meals at Chinese restaurants on Christmas and Easter. Was Chinese food kosher? No, but it was just strange (and delicious) enough to fit outside the dietary rules once in a while. Egg rolls and kung pao weren't mentioned in Leviticus, so... let's have that. (Jews and Chinese were new immigrant groups in Manhattan at around the same time.)

Right. The lion will lie down with the lamb, but the lion will sleep a lot better than the lamb...

Lions and lambs is not from Genesis, it's from Isaiah. And just checking on that, he pairs wolves and lambs, not lions and lambs. (I thought it was lions, too.)

There are a bunch of references to wild beasts in the same context:

Job 5:23
For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field, and the wild animals will be at peace with you.

Isaiah 2:4
Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war.

Isaiah 65:25
The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but the food of the serpent will be dust. They will do no harm nor destruction on all My holy mountain," says the LORD.

Ezekiel 34:25
I will make with them a covenant of peace and rid the land of wild animals, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the forest.

Hosea 2:18
On that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that crawl on the ground. And I will abolish bow and sword and weapons of war in the land, and will make them lie down in safety.

Whether these OT passages are referencing an off-world paradise or this-world paradise, not sure. Probably a this-world paradise, remade to be like Eden.

In Acts 10... Peter is presented with a variety of food, and told (by God) to kill and eat. Peter objects to the order (typical of Peter) but is overruled by God. "Look, jackass, When I say something is good enough for you to eat, you had jolly well better eat it. Or else."

Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.

In this passage, all food laws are annulled. This passage ties into one of the problems of the early church: Gentiles were joining, and they didn't observe Jewish food laws. And Jews, by and large, weren't joining in overly large numbers. So... who is going to be accommodated? Gentiles, and their food practices.

I think your best bet for justifying veganism or vegetarianism is to look elsewhere.

But the Jewish identity is an example of one that's based on a long-standing grudge — frank

Surely this broad-brush stroke of stereotyping should not be allowed to stand without objection. I object.

Jews — andrewk

Zionism — frank

Well, that certainly didn't take long.

I don't know whether you can have ideas for which you have no words or not. It seems like having words for which there are no ideas. Empty. Zero...

More experiences, more interaction with others, more reading, more learning, more attention to what is going on in the world, etc. should increase the complexity of thinking as well as the complexity of one's vocabulary. Experience, of course, comes first. Then comes a term for the experience.

I recently read "Quantum Space by Douglas Philips. Sci Fi. Pretty good. Philips does a good job of explaining real (but very elementary) quantum theory (as far as it's needed for the plot) and an equally good job of explaining the fictional quantum theory that makes the story work. In order to do this, he has to introduce terms --almost all of the terms he used are real -- boson, quark, spin, top, strange, etc. What he says about string theory is bogus, but that's OK, this is fiction, after all. We don't have a "graviton particle" yet, but describing the would-be particle, using the term and defining it makes it possible for the reader to participate in the story. I thought his explanation of the Standard Model was convincing (but I know very little about physics).

So, the same thing happens in real life. You learn new things; maybe somebody at a bar explains how "social membranes" work. Social membranes is batted around the table at the bar over beer, and you understand that a social membrane is the set of rules and identity that apply to a given situation. Tony Soprano (TV series about a mafia boss) lives in several social membranes. His home is one membrane. His official work (garbage hauling) is a pseudo membrane. It is there just for cover. His real work (theft, murder, embezzlement, fraud, abuse, etc.) is a third membrane. The Bada Bing Club is another membrane. Tony tries very, very hard to keep his social membranes separate. It drives him crazy, which is why he is seeing a psychiatrist.

Make sense?

You can be intelligent here but an idiot there. — Josh Alfred

God. That's so very very very true.

Objects gain 'sentimental' or 'emotional' value in a number of ways.

We become familiar with the object. It has been around long enough to be a piece of our history. The chair may not look great, it may not be comfortable, it may not be worth much, but because it has been in the kitchen for 10 years, we are "sentimentally attached to it".

We admire (really like) something about the object. It's a rock we found. It's shape is a flattened sphere; it is regular; it's surface is smooth; it's color is a pleasing gray. It's beautiful. It's mine. It's been a much beloved doorstop for 3 years...

We invest an object with meaning, value, and power. That's what Sauron did with his big ring:

One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all,
and in the darkness bind them

We do the same kind of thing with a wedding band, a cross, a rosary, a Bible, a Koran, prayer beads etc. We invest meaning in the particular object and over time our investment grows. Plus, we become familiar with the object, and we admire it. If we are not careful we (rational people) may even think an object like a ring or a cross has a bit of actual magic about it.

A wedding band is the sort of thing that would gain maximum meaning and sentimental value. And "sentimental" isn't an insignificant feature. Just try throwing away something you are attached to, or worse, throwing something away that your spouse is attached to.

Maybe. I'm not sure what all makes a society unstable. Economic instability certainly plays a role; political instability, climate instability, water-food instability. All those.

Access to the Internet is, as you said, an important threshold. I for one would be very unhappy if I lost access.

In general, I think raising the issue of survival thresholds, social engagement thresholds, and maximizing thresholds is very useful. We can be a little more nuanced about poverty, for instance.

Oruj Defoite may feel she belongs to Wales, but at least some people do not. This doesn't strike me as altogether unfair (or altogether fair, either). Presumably there is some element of 'blood' to Welshness, as well as language, culture, history, location, and so on. How long would it take American blacks from the slums of Chicago, having moved 400 miles to Minneapolis, to be considered "Minnesotan"? Maybe in more than 2 or 3 generations, depending. Oruj Defoite will probably be recognized as Welsh faster.

There are Norwegians here who were born and raised in Brooklyn, NY who were accorded pretty much instant native status. Race is a factor, of course, but so is accent, personal style, public presentation, patterns of affiliation, history, life goals, and so forth. There are various people belonging to minorities who have qualified as "native Minnesotan". A white cracker from Alabama would have about as much difficulty being accepted as a native Minnesotan as a Chicago slum black would.

It strikes me as normal and appropriate that people maintain cultural boundaries. Even as a native born WASP son of Minnesota there are other WASP groups in this state to whom I would never be considered acceptable. Guys that are gay, not sufficiently bourgeois, didn't attend the right high school and college, not in the right business, lack critical social graces, don't know the right people, etc. just don't get accepted, and quite possibly neither do their children and grandchildren, WASP though they may be.

I just don't accept the idea that diversity of population (race, ethnicity, language, gender, sexual orientation, accent, location on the poverty - wealth continuum, and so on is inherently necessary or advantageous.

IF we value cultural uniqueness, then we have to accept that some groups will be more or less closed to outsiders.

Example: I took a white leftist friend to a Christmas concert at St. Olaf College. It's a big deal, nationally broadcast, etc. The several hundred students in the choirs and orchestra are all pretty much descendants of northwestern Europeans, with very few exception. He objected that there weren't enough minorities in the choir. Naturally there are few -- the success of the college is based on serving a specific constituency -- just like historically black colleges are.

Unique cultural institutions require exclusivity, else they won't be unique.

May I sharpen this up a bit, without disagreeing with you too much?

We started out in natal groups, not as individuals. Yes, of course we were born one by one, and we died one by one, but the primates from which we evolved were social, group animals. What material progress has allowed is Individuation outside of our natal group. In other words one can grow up and strike out on ones own, provided he has sufficient resources. If not, he stays home.

Yes, there is a difference between "threshold" and "Maximizing" societies. Just my preference, but I would set the level of "threshold" fairly low, especially in the modern, industrialized world. That puts most people in many countries in a maximizing setting.

In the US, for instance, an officially poor family on welfare living in public housing and getting food stamps--no car, no assets, no cash--is probably living above the threshold level. NOT living well, certainly. But the adults and children are in a position to do more than survive. Someone living in a large urban setting receiving no support whatsoever (living on the streets, eating garbage, begging, etc.) are surviving. The problem of the unsheltered homeless (or even the sheltered ones) is that there is very little chance of them ascending even a step or two above surviving, unless someone lifts them up from above -- and generally that doesn't happen.

Now, in some developing countries, there are many more people living on a threshold level--especially if they live in a current or recent war zone, are currently being fucked over by some stronger group, or have been sent back to square one by drought and disease.

Going back a ways (like...15,000 years) hunter-gatherers probably were operating above the threshold level. There is some evidence that many were reasonably well fed and reasonably healthy. They didn't engage in material maximization, however. They didn't accumulate stuff. Good idea because H-G societies have to be pretty mobile, and carting around a log cabin is highly inconvenient. So, you build a shelter out of whatever you've got.

The 5,000 year old man found in the alpine glacier was dressed in leather pants, shirt and shoes; he carried a copper knife, a bow, and some arrows; a little food, maybe a small piece of hot coals wrapped up in... something, some sort of vegetable matter for later use, and that's about it. He was killed by an arrow--somebody was chasing him. He had maximized his personal situation, which probably made him a target. Or he had pissed somebody off. Hard to tell. Anyway, he died, was covered up with ice, and eventually showed up still frozen.

Successful adult animals, including humans, have enough intelligence to succeed in their preferred environment. Success in obtaining the necessities of life is a minimum test of intelligence. Maybe 90%-95% of the population pass the test.

Of the 90%-95% who pass the test, there is a range of of performance outcomes, but money is a poor measure of success. Some extremely intelligent people are not interested in the activities that produce high incomes. Or they are just unlucky and their brilliant schemes fall through the cracks. Some highly motived people of middling intelligence make all kinds of money. And so on...

Very high levels of achievement probably do indicate intelligence. I don't think one can be a great concert violinist, a great software engineer, a top-rated entertainer, or an extraordinarily successful operator of anything without intelligence. The problem is that not achieving the heights doesn't mean that one is stupid. Many people who we think of as distinguished were not recognized while they were alive. Very intelligent people who lead very stimulating private lives not oriented towards material or performance success are just not going to be noticed.

Why does identifying intelligent people matter?

It seems like a moral obligation to oppose ideas like Rand's and AppLeo's.

We mock what we don't understand. — AppLeo

Love who you will, but really, what do you see in that old hag?

Just because someone is disabled does not mean that they are entitled to a wheelchair system. — AppLeo

You are presently walking around on your own two feet, at this point; that could change abruptly. Unpredictable chance might intervene in your life at any moment, rendering you unable to walk. How? A car accident, a bullet aimed at somebody else, a fall, an accident playing sports, disease... It happens.

Why would we, why should we, employ government power to assist you in any way? We would use government power to assist you in your recovery because you are part of our community -- however much you may disapprove of your membership. You will be a more productive member of the community if you can move around freely than if you can not.

Besides, to whom would you go for charity? Certainly not your fellow objectivists! They are busy taking care of #1, and you, unable to trade with them, count for nothing.

OK, supposing that you don't get run over by a truck. Most of us don't. But if we are lucky, we get old. 40 years ago, progressive governments passed codes that resulted in urban and private spaces being more accommodating to people. Like curb cuts, for example. Ramps, automatic doors, elevators, bathrooms with sinks and toilets at the right height for children, adults, and people in wheelchairs, etc.

I'm lucky: I'm getting old. I still bicycle, but I regularly use public transit. I appreciate "kneeling buses" that drop the front corner of the bus 6 inches lower. It makes it much easier on aging knees to get on and off the bus, especially when carrying groceries. I appreciate that elevated and underground transit stations offer escalators and elevators to reach street level. So do tens of thousands of other people in this city who use the same busses and trains.

The city I live in (Minneapolis) requires everyone to shovel snow off their sidewalks. In a sense its just a trade: Everyone shoveling their own walk is traded for everybody being able to walk around easily. I don't know where you live, but unshoveled snow makes life difficult for everyone. True, it's a forced trade. If you don't shovel your walk, the city might come and do it for you at your much greater expense. Besides, shoveling snow is good for people. It's free exercise.

Fortunately for you, you do not live in society operated according to your own objectivist scheme.

We mock what we don't understand. — AppLeo

Great clip!

Review of boring novel, Leo, Slayer of Socialistic Super Machines, Dead Chicken Press, 2019 $19.95 Summary: After @AppLeo read a novel by Ayn Rand he found in the garbage at the College Library, he knew he could stop at nothing until he saved the Galaxy from mindless Big Government robots who were programmed to impose a gentle regime of rationality and utopian Marxism on intelligent species throughout the Galaxy. "Fools!" he screamed. "You are victims of a monstrous hoax!" as he boarded his coal-fired rocket ship.

Meanwhile, 372 planets with intelligent species had already achieved peace and happiness, all watched over by the socialistic machines of loving grace.

So you don't think individualism and freedom can solve the world's problems? You think an all powerful government that forces people to act in a way that the government thinks is the best at stopping climate change is good? — AppLeo

Those of us who are turned off by Rand's views might be just as disturbed by "all powerful governments" as you are; value the individual and individualism as much as you do; might value freedom as much as you do; be as enthusiastic about capitalism as you are. The individual, individualism, love of freedom, and capitalism were all in place by the time she was born in 1905--and before then, even, but at least several weeks.

Most of us are not suffering from monomania, and we have varied, even contradictory views, beliefs, and practices.

leveling off at around 11 billion people by 2100 — karl stone

Don't worry, there won't be 11 billion people by 2100.

It would probably be less environmentally damaging just to spray a whole can of hairspray on my head everyday — karl stone

There is a hair-care product better than aluminum foil or hair spray. I recommend SUAVE DAILY CLARIFYING SHAMPOO.

Daily Clarifying Shampoo is loaded with nanoparticles and neurotransmitters that burrow through the scull, right into that tangle of confused neurons and synapses. Daily Clarifying Suave dispels the fog of bad information, misapprehensions, mistaken notions, confusions, vague anxieties, unjustified biases, wrong ideology, and politically abhorrent memes. Through regular application of this fine product you may progress from being a complete idiot to a much sought-after guru. (Results will vary.)

Bring out the sparkle in whatever mind you have left! That's DAILY CLARIFYING shampoo.



It's fixes your head, if not your hair.

Good way of putting it.

I also decided to start this discussion because all discussions I speak in resort to Objectivism and Ayn Rand, so we'll just have those discussions here so we don't derail any other discussions. — AppLeo

Monomania is tiresome. Comparing thinking to a phonograph record... "Are you in the groove? You mean ever diminishing circles?" (quoting Marshal McLuhan)

There is no society or common good. There are only individuals. — AppLeo

That is an extreme statement; one could flip it and say there is no such thing as individuals: everything belongs to a group of some kind. It seems to me we are both individuals and members of groups. This is so biologically, socially, economically, politically, existentially--any way one thinks of it.

We simply can not be only individuals. We don't arrive as fully formed individual adult economic operators. We start out with two parents and are born into a culture composed of complex configurations of groups. And individuals, of course. And as we progress through life we get more complicated and at once more group-invested and individuated.

You might continue following objectivism and Ayn Rand as your guiding light till the end of a long life, but it is quite possible that you will abandon it and her somewhere along the line--maybe this year, even. This may happen several times -- different philosophies will seem like the brightest light on the horizon, until they don't anymore. If you, a 20 year old, did abandon a love affair with Rand, or Sartre, or Aristotle, or whoever, that would be 100% normal. I fully understand that seems impossible right now and you are not going to entertain the notion that next year you might not be interested in Rand.

I'm speaking as a 72 year old who has gone through a whole bunch of enthusiasms, and watched a whole bunch of other people doing the same thing. Today it's Buddha, tomorrow it's Lenin, or Esperanto, or virtual reality, or ...

The enthusiasm of today always seems like the last stop on the railroad. Until it doesn't.

On a different note, are you familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect? Rand was deeply impressed with Wright. I love Wright's architecture. Wright himself was a difficult prick, to be blunt about it. Asshole of the year, some times. None the less, he designed some gorgeous buildings. I don't have to love FLW to admire his buildings, fortunately. Here's a picture of Falling Water, a house he built in SW Pennsylvania for a department store magnate. A "summer house".

Maybe. If we didn’t, then who cares, let’s just start working on countering the problems with climate change. If we did create climate change with fossil fuel usage, does that mean we should stop using fossil fuels? Well no, because our economy and livelihood depends on fossil fuels. So it wouldn’t make any sense to stop using fossil fuels. Abandoning fossil fuels for other energy alternatives isn’t cost effective or productive.

Can we prevent climate change?

No, I don’t think we can, so whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Let’s not worry about it and prepare for it.j — AppLeo

I agree with you that, at this point, we can not prevent climate change. Whatever is going to happen is making itself manifest already.

Can we make it worse? Yes.

Are we going to stop using fossil fuels? Not today. But wind/solar power have become competitive with coal-fired electrical generation. Is there enough wind and solar power to go around? Yes; the sun is generous. Where the winds blow regularly, there is enough wind -- but there are places where the prevailing winds are insufficient.

You are quite right about fossil fuels: they are inextricably part of the world technology and economy.

I used to be a climate optimist but I have been pushed to the climate pessimist position: we're screwed. We're screwed because individually we can not see our common interests with sufficient clarity and force to act upon them effectively. Hell, we can't even see our own interests clearly half the time.

Not something I am familiar with. — Banno

That's OK, because I had never heard of him either. I use Wikipedia to manufacture fake omniscience.

Not quite; better, the story of Pegasus exists, as does its associated history... it's just use. — Banno

Pegasus is a character in a story, and because the story exists, pegasus exists. In practice we often cite fictional characters that don't exist outside of their story. Dracula, Frodo, Jesus, Sam Spade, et al.

Fictional stories are real fictional stories; see, there they are on the book shelf: Dracula; Lord of the Rings; the Gospel of St. Matthew; Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel, The Maltese Falcon. Real stories. Not true stories, just real.

What's real is real, what's not real is not real. Dracula and Frodo are not real beings. Donald Trump is a real character in a real tragedy. Theresa May is real, too, and lives in an English tragedy. I gather that Scott Morrison MP is a real person too. Does he live in a tragedy, a comedy, or a bore?

As to use, we can say "Dracula and Frodo are real characters" as long as we understand that they are fictional characters in fictional stories that actually exist. Donald Trump and Theresa May can "get real" and I wish the hell they would, but Dracula and Frodo can not get real. Being fictional characters, they of course have no existence, no agency outside of the stories that real people wrote and published.

The point here is that being real and existing are not the very same. — Banno

So, Pegasus exists without being real. No horse with wings (let alone being bright red) was ever real, but one did exist as a fictional character. Now Lassie the precocious canine and Champion the Wonder Horse were both real and existed -- there were several collies name Lassie who did their dog schtick and Champion even had his own TV program -- The Adventure of Champion the Wonder Horse.

I heard the wonder horse was into bestiality with boys. He had ulterior motives in being nice to the creepy Ricky North. As for the Canyon of Wanted Men, I'd very much like to visit it.

Thank you for appearing when only twice summoned. Some spirts require 3 summons before they are able to appear. Pretentious spirits...

This reminds me of the James Thurber story about the Unicorn In The Garden:

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.

"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch."

The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. He walked over to the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.

As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest.

"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lilly," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.

"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird."

So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.

Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched. — James Thurber