In other words, humans are selfish assholes, lol. But I agree. Humans, I'd argue, are one of the worst species on the planet lol. All we do is ruin the lives of everything around us, including our own species. It's quite sad actually. — chatterbears

The point of my post was not that humans are assholes and among the worst species, ever. Rather, it was to point out that speech isn't sufficient.

How did we get from 50% of the population smoking down to 15%? We gave people good reason to quit! Indoor public smoking was banned (people had to go outside and smoke, even if it was frigid); we banned smoking in bars and restaurants. Hefty tax increases were applied to tobacco products. A pack of cigarettes now costs $8 in my state, where it used to cost less than 4 or less. At $160 for a carton, one begins to find the logic of quitting quite compelling.

If we want to help people avoid obesity, quality foods need to be made more affordable and readily available, and low-food value fats and sugars need to be made less affordable. Curtailing high-fat, high-sugar fast food is an obvious step.

it stands to reason that if a large number of people in a population are alcoholic, then perhaps alcoholic products are too cheap, too affordable, and too available. Prohibition isn't necessary, but some control is.

Similarly with animal vs. plant diets: the best strategy to achieve higher rates of vegetarianism is to make high quality vegetarian foods readily available to population who isn't familiar with them. The "market" can do this, but the government may need to 'prime the pump'.

My guess is that a self interest argument would prove the most effective. — Jake

My guess is that no argument--moral, self-interest, environmental, etc--will succeed in changing the food habits of more than a few people. Why not? Because it is very difficult to change other peoples' behavior by arguments. Take women's suffrage: It took about 70 years for hundreds of thousands of women engaging in extensive and intense political activity to achieve the vote. The Temperance Movement began in the 1830s and did not success until 1920. The temperance campaign was also extensive and intensive.

The first Surgeon General's report on smoking appeared in 1964. 15% of the population or roughly 30 million still smoke after all the haranguing, health warnings, bans on smoking in public places, and so forth. The incidence of obesity is rising all over the world: Clearly something besides individual choice is at work. Cheap and plentiful fat and sugar probably have something to do with it.

What will change food habits is a change in the environment in which people make food decisions. IF the cost of a pork chop rose from approx. $2 today, to $10 for the same amount and quality of meat, far fewer people would opt to eat one or two chops for dinner. If a pound of ground beef cost $15, one would not use it for burgers; one would use it as a condiment. If eggs were $10 a dozen, one would think twice about making a cake.

I would eat more codfish, but good quality frozen cod costs $15 a pound. So Cod isn't on the menu very often.

People DO CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR when there is a clear personal necessity or benefit for them to change.

Movement per se isn't dance. Movement becomes dance when there is the intention of moving rhythmically, in a pattern, usually to the accompaniment of some sort -- singing, clapping, instruments... whatever is culturally given.

I'm not dancing when I walk because while there is rhythm to my walk, and I may be listening to music while I walk, there is no intention to move in a particular rhythmic way. If I am in a very good mood, I might skip along; skipping would be a form of dance-walk.

On the other hand, walking can be part of a dance. There is a square dance sort of thing called a mixer where the dancers form a larger and smaller circle, one inside the other. They walk in opposite directions, holding hands. At a signal, individuals from the two circles who are opposite each other form a transient couple for the next dance. It's just walking, but it is also dance. There's the "cake walk" (whatever that is).

I find it interesting that many animals engage in movement routines. Birds bowing and stroking each others necks, mountain goats clashing their heads together, dogs who run in circles around their human friends when they are excited, and so on. Movement, among other methods, is a way of binding pairs or groups. Insects do too -- bees' dances to communicate where good blossoms are, for instance. Some birds have been observed moving rhythmically to music -- parrots, not chickadees.

So, people who go to clubs and dance (whatever dance they are doing, disco or some sort of Keltic rigamarole, tend to develop at least a little bond among themselves. The Shakers danced in church -- the goal was ecstatic trembling, but one of the tools employed was rhythmic dancing--a social circular dance around the worship space. If they didn't get to actual shaking, the rhythmic dance was still good.

I don't understand this "doomsday hypothesis" or why I should be worried about it. What are you talking about?

The point is dead if you're not willing to understand it. If you cannot get past the idea that you, as the consumer, are partly responsible for how a good/product is produced... — chatterbears

When you purchase a manufactured object, are you concerned about the working and living conditions of the animals (people) who produced the shirt, the smart phone, the car, the strawberries, and so on?

Millions of workers are subjected to extremely harsh working conditions at poverty-guaranteeing wages. They live in developing countries where living costs are low, but they still do not make enough to rise above wretched working and living conditions. It isn't "necessary" that they labor under such conditions. It is only necessary that they receive such small remuneration for their life time of labor to maximize the profit of everyone in the supply chain who exploits the workers.

Child labor; dangerous, unsafe working conditions; ruthless exploitation; toxic chemicals; very long hours; dehumanizing treatment... Citizens of developed countries would not accept these working conditions, yet our lives are full of objects which entail horrible working conditions and ruined lives.

What have you done in your personal life to avoid using, purchasing, and benefitting from this exploitation?

Gifts are unbidden. You didn't ask for them. If you had asked for them, they would not be a gift. We give gifts for various reasons: love, sense of obligation, reciprocity rules, it makes us feel good, etc. A gift might be "loaded with a trap" -- like a trojan horse. Maybe someone gave you the cookbook because they thought you were a bad cook; or they liked the food in the cookbook and they want you to prepare food for them. Maybe the jacket is a test. Yada yada yada.

If you like the gift, use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. (Except, of course, if you feel obligated to show that it is being used, else you would be tortured by guilt feelings... That's not good either. Try to get over that problem.)

When you give someone a gift, it becomes their property. You relinquish control over it. Don't inquire after it, once given, unless you wish to change the gift to their liking. That's my advice.

In gratitude for this gift of invaluable sound advice, you can give me a gift of large amounts of cash.

If it is unethical to exploit persons, treat them as a means rather than an end in themselves, define them in advance of their existence as useful for some purpose, then YES: it would be unethical to clone Einstein.

It would be unethical to clone anyone for some particular purpose.

Of the 7.5 billion people on earth, it is likely that at least several, maybe hundreds of people, or thousands are as smart as Einstein. Besides, it isn't just "smarts". It's also creativity, determination, patience, conducive environment, etc. Do we know how to raise several baby Einsteins so that they would perform as ordered? No.

Not sure if you are aware, but factory farming is one of the leading causes of environmental damage. I'll assume you accept the science behind global warming being human caused/enhanced, correct? 51 percent or more of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture, which is more than transportation. — chatterbears

OF COURSE I accept the science of global warming. I am AWARE of the facts about coal, petroleum, and methane, and the various ways it ramifies through heating, cooling, agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, et al.

Your OP was about the ethics of eating meat, not the ethics of living in a technological culture whose global economy is driven by consumption, profit-making, and waste--one piece of which is the slice of roast beef on the plate.

Industrial farming, even of grains, legumes, and seeds produces a lot of CO2, because it takes a lot of energy to produce fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fuel for tractors, combines, transportation, and so forth. The energy inputs in some areas exceed the energy harvested.

The bigger picture: rapidly accumulating CO2, global warming, desertification, excessive unseasonable precipitation, rising temperature and humidity levels, melting ice, rising sea levels, and so on and so forth will settle or moot the ethics debate about eating meat. There won't be much meat for anybody to eat. Many people will be lucky to find enough vegetarian food. We're headed into a global catastrophe. The time when we could have averted the worst of it is past. The resolve to radically alter our life ways is lacking. Thus, we are probably totally screwed.

It is a scientific fact that we do not need to consume animals to survive — chatterbears

In the long run (like within the next hundred years of global warming) we will all be eating a vegetarian diet if we are eating at all, because climate change will steadily render more and more current agriculture untenable. Humans and most animals do not do well in excessive heat and high humidity.

What might matter is if a person witnesses their friend die a gruesome death from colon cancer because their friend has decades of rotting animal flesh stuck in their bowels. — Jake

No one has had rotting animal flesh stuck in their bowels and lived very long to tell about it. The whole point of digestion is for enzymes and bacteria to break down food into its constituent chemicals and absorb them. One of the functions of gut bacteria is to prevent "rotting".

What is more likely to cause bowel cancer are smoking and chewing tobacco, eating a lot of smoked and charred meat (or charred turnips, for that matter), and feeding on excessive amounts of sugar and fat. In other words, bad habits and bad diets cause colon cancer.

You're not a farmer, so you know this how? — Hanover

Doesn't everybody know that?

Three sisters married farmers all living nearby, who were dairy, hog, and beef farmers. I spent quite a bit of time at their small farms when I was growing up in the '50s and '60s. The main industry in the area was, still is, farming. Because SE Minnesota is hilly, farms are small, owned by descendants of mostly German and Scandinavian immigrants from the late 19th century.

I was raised in a religious Protestant family but I am no longer a believer.

By "ethical within certain limits" I mean that it is ethically acceptable to eat meat from animals that have not been raised with industrially intensive, harsh conditions. Agriculture was changed extensively after World War II. The use of pesticides and herbicides was hugely increased; the methods of raising poultry, hogs, and beef were intensified. These changes have continued to intensify over time.

Why did this happen? It happened because advancing technology brought new chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones) to market for use in agriculture. Maximizing yield on investments was the driving force.

Raising animals became mechanized and dehumanized.

People who raise(d) animals on small family farms are/were involved daily, and personally, in the care and feeding of their flocks and herds. There is a huge difference in quantity and quality. Raising 150 chickens, 50 cows, a 100 pigs is entirely different than raising 15,000 chickens, 5000 cows, and 7500 pigs on one farm. A farmer who milks 30 cows knows each one by name, by personality, and history. Milking operations that involve 10,000 cows are 7/24 operations where the cows are (literally) numbered.

Milk cows are treated relatively well, even in huge dairy operations. Beef cattle, not so much. Beef are concentrated in feed lots where they are fed a rich diet of grains and grow fast. These operations are where antibiotics come in for heavy use to control infections and speed up growth. These are the operations where antibiotic-resistant bacteria are likely to be developed. The lives of these cows is pretty much like the lives of chickens or hogs which are packed into cages inside buildings.

There are humane farm operators that sell meat which one can find in specialized stores (like food co-ops and high-end grocery stores).

It is "ethical within limits" if one restricts one's meat eating to humanely raised meat, eggs, and dairy. This is dicey, because marketing regularly misrepresents products in various ways. But grass fed beef, for instance, isn't raised in feed lots. It tends to be more expensive and its taste is distinct from feed lot beef. Free range eggs, if the chickens really are free range, will be substantially more expensive than organic, cage free eggs.

It also takes some guts and balls to commit suicide. — Wallows

No. It takes a surfeit of despair and hopelessness, and a deficiency of gut and balls.

Wallows: Please refrain from committing suicide this year. It would inconvenience at least 43 people were you to succeed. Were you to try and fail, even more people (78) would be inconvenienced. So just forget about it, OK?

As for next year, we predict an uptick in your fortunes, and it would be regrettable if you were not here to enjoy the bounty of slightly improved circumstances.

Killing yourself on the The Philosophy Forum, the leading forum of professional kibitzers this side of the Milky Way, would set a bad example. And it would be in bad taste. `Etiquette is so important. Blowing yourself up is just rude.

You are too important to the health of our kibitzeria to depart now. We expect you to be here for the next 10 years, minimum. We need you. We want you.

So, unless you were looking for a snarky "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" such questions should not be asked in the first place.

Go in peace and get get back to work!

education and critical thinking. That's what worked during the '50s in the States — Wallows

What piece of education and critical thinking worked so well in the 1950s? That there was a homosexual communist behind every 10th desk in the State Department? That the Soviets had a huge stockpile of atomic bombs? That blacks were not allowed to live in the suburbs? That Leave It To Beaver reflected the American reality? And so on and so forth.

Sure; what the Russians (previously the Soviets) are doing to us is disruptive, but they are probably not doing anything we are not trying to do to them, at least in terms of disruption. You and I have friends. Nations do not have friends; they have interests. It is an interest of the US to protect our infrastructure from cyber attack -- something we don't seem to be doing very well at. Thieves and national operatives are ripping off data left and right. Interfering with our elections? Did the dimwits in Florida need any help screwing up their election mechanics? If our voting system isn't secure, whose fault is that--theirs or ours?

People lie. Corporations lie. Holy Mother Church lies. Other countries lie. The first step in defense is to recognize that lies are part of statecraft, as well as part of business, religion, and ordinary life as we know it. Nobody lies all the time, so one should look for the advantageous lie when something doesn't smell right.

When you set foot on a car lot (new car, used car) just remember: it isn't in the interest of General Motors, Toyota, or VW to be perfectly frank about the nature of their products. Caveat emptor!

I try to always do my fucking best.

I am aware of what happens in factory farming. I've seen the videos. I've read the articles. I've seen big factory farms.

I've also seen small scale farming -- the much lauded family farm. Most family farmers treat their animals decently, and they don't have the capital to build factory farms. Family farmers, of course, account for a small share of the food supply.

So, knowing all this, why don't I abstain from meat? Because at this stage in life I don't want to radically change my diet (I'm 72). I am selective about the meat I buy; I look for meat that is raised without antibiotics on vegetarian diets and without hormones. What does that prove? Crowding requires antibiotics; vegetarian diets means that animal byproducts aren't being fed to the animals. Hormones (like bovine growth hormone) are a marker for a heavy milking schedules that take a toll on cow health.

In addition I'm something of a hypocrite. At least some of the meat I eat is from large scale factory farms and bad things happen to the animals there. I disapprove, but I still like meat, milk, and eggs.

I think our dominion over animals is ethical, within certain limits. Animals should not be treated cruelly for their sake, and should not be raised unhealthfully for our sake. The Old Testament, which says we have dominion over the earth, also says that one must not prevent the ox which is laboring on the threshing floor (separating grain from the chaff) from eating some of the grain. "“You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain” (Deut. 25:4)."

You really think it is the same to force impregnate a cow by hand or give her the choice to allow a bull to mount her in the wild? — chatterbears

It's pretty close to the same thing, because it is desirable to wait for the cow to be ready to breed, whether by a long arm and a tube or by a bull dick. It would be extremely unwise to attempt to artificially breed a cow who was not willing. A, they can kick hard, and B, if the cow flexes intensely while one's arm is all the way into the cow, it can break one's arm.

Many farmers use bulls and do it the old fashioned way (the bulls fuck the cows). The drawback to using a bull is that one's choice of sires is limited to the bull one has. Plus, when the cattle are out in the open range or pasture one can not know for sure when the bull bred the cow. One has to wait for the pregnancy. Some bulls are not all that efficient in terms of successful breedings.

some bulls are difficult to have around. They are big, sometimes aggressive towards humans, and they eat a lot.

We generally qualify people to be fully adult and responsible between the ages of 18 and 21. In late adolescence/early adulthood people make a lot of important decisions in their lives: join the army; take on major debt; get married; have children; go to college (or equally important, not go to college); get facial tattoos; start driving; play football or box; (or at an earlier age, seek to, or get pushed into playing football); vote on the future of the country; and so on and so forth.

Most of these decisions work out now as reasonably well as decision making has ever worked out for people. There are hits (things go well) and misses (one ends up dead), with more hits than misses because the population has been growing for a long time.

What has been different during the last hundred years (and more) is a more fluid, rapidly changing, globalizing environment where the future is far more uncertain than it was in say 1300 - 1500. Life in 1400 was no picnic -- plague, fires, wars, death, etc., but the range of decisions was relatively limited. The average person had little latitude in life choices. People today are faced with far more complex, confusing, and murky problems than in the past.

Brains mature at a more or less consistent rate; what differs greatly from one individual to another is experience. Children who come from at least somewhat privileged or very privileged experiences (excellent education, a wide range of experiences, parents, significant adults, some peers all modeling decision making and social skills) are going to be much better at self-direction and executive agency than most other children.

You could make a long list of ways in which children are advantaged or disadvantaged by their life circumstances while their brains are maturing.

Millions of young people are enrolling in college and borrowing money to finance their education -- without much assurance of benefit. They are following their age-cohort crowd and the self-interested advice of colleges. Most of us did the same thign when we were in late adolescence. I'm not sure whether they are well advised or not.

"The rational part of a teen's brain isn't fully developed and won't be until age 25 or so. — Athena

That certainly applies to me. I was finished with undergraduate college, had had a great work experience, and was in graduate school by 25. Had I been making good solid decisions right along? Hell no! It was not really apparent to me until many years later just how poor some of my decisions had been -- like thinking that I would succeed at high school teaching, for instance, or how to relate to authority figures. Or how to advantageously build on experience.

I didn't establish a satisfactory sex life until about 26, and that was a good thing -- because I wasn't ready to make good sexual decisions at 16, 18, or 22. When I decided it was high time to plug into the gay male community (literally and figuratively) I was ready.

Now, I can honestly say that I have continued to blunder all the way to age 72, though the ratio of blunders to good decisions has improved in favor of good decisions.

Bitter Crank you focus more on the religious aspect of fear of death. What I meant was the existential type of fear, being afraid that there's nothing after death and that life is vain. Im more interested in learning if either of you has experienced some type of anxiety when you contemplate death. Does the prospect of ceasing to exist trigger any anxious or negative feelings and if so how do you deal with it? — Penav25

At times I have felt some sort of 'existential fear' about not existing--though not recently. How we think about life, death, life after death, nothing after death, is not a given. We aren't required to be anxious about existential death. We can shape the way we think over time. Preparing to think about inevitabilities in a certain way (like, how will I respond to being diagnosed with terminal cancer) doesn't guarantee anything, but we can at least deal a much stronger hand for ourselves.

If we spend decades carefully honing our fears about dying, then as we approach death, it will certainly be a fearful thing. If we put a similar effort into accepting death, accepting our extinguished existence, accepting the universal rightness of dying (especially if it is a "timely death" in old age) death will be much less fearsome.

Anxiety isn't the only thing we fear about death. We also experience nostalgia for the life we haven't yet departed from. We feel regrets about all the things we could'v, should'v, would'v done, but didn't do. We feel some shame for this or that betrayal. In other words, anxiety isn't the only song on the record, and we haven't even mentioned the good feelings we have about our lives so far.

Start with a definition: What is dance? Some exercise routines look like solitary dance, and some dance is very vigorous exercise. If one is coaxed or coerced onto the dance floor and performs reluctant minimally rhythmic movement, is that dancing? I think it is, but some people would say "You're not dancing, you're just moving your feet a little."

Some people dance alone -- like a solo ballet performance. But most people think of dance as a social performance, whether they are in close physical contact (tango) or in a group of individuals (disco-type dancing). Many people like line dancing, contra dancing, or square dancing who don't like disco-type dancing. Why might that be? Why don't people still perform the Scandinavian "snake dance" (a string of people clasping hands being led on a fast paced winding route through the village)? We used to do this around the high school homecoming bonfire (50-60 years ago)

99.9% of the population are not born knowing how to do complicated dances. Rich people employed dancing masters to instruct their children on how to dance. Good dancing skills were a social necessity. How essential are dancing skills now? There are dance studios where one can be taught how to dance. Where bars or groups offer Irish, contra, square, or line dancing, they often begin with a half hour of instruction so more people will feel comfortable participating.

People who feel alienated from their bodies will probably be reluctant to try and dance in public (like at a bar). This is unfortunate.

"If I can't dance, I don't want to join your revolution." Emma Goldman, Anarchist organizer, author, agitator

You’ve never heard of kids burning up ants with magnifying glasses? — javra

Of course I have. Probably regretted such things and worse myself (though I didn't throw any cats off a roof, burning tails or not). But these are petits jeux de pouvoir, little power plays. These continue on in adults--like monopolizing the television remote or jockeying on the highway for first place at the next stop light. Annoying, but not a pathology.

I find it naive to believe that power-over is not an endemic aspect of what we are as humans. — javra

Call it naive if you want. What is bound up with power-over more than sex is economic interest. That's how I look at it, anyway. From the earliest indications that archeology can give us, economic interests have been paramount. One people didn't pull up stakes and move en masse, displacing and impoverishing another people, as an exercise in power-over. They were trying to survive economically. in 2018 we are collectively and individually struggling to survive economically. Power with or power over is a direct descendent of economic struggle.

On a person to person level, it often looks like crude dominance games. It's all against all, in some cases, so it can be too messy to easily perceive the common economic thread.

Sex slavery is a good example of Marx's dictum that [under capitalism] everything is reduced to its cash value -- including the lives of children. Countries didn't employ mass slavery as an exercise in power over: they used slaves because it was extremely profitable.

I don’t recall ever being pinched in the ass by a stranger while in public — javra

I don't recall such a thing either. I've never quite gotten why straight men pinch women's derrières. Patting, squeezing, or stroking someone's derrière seems more erotic to me than pinching it.

I make a clear distinction between "inappropriate sexual behavior" on the one hand, and rape on the other. Rape, or its attempt, is clearly criminal. Unwanted, annoying, or inappropriate sexual behavior isn't the equivalent of rape. Between people in the same age group, a pass might or might not be welcomed, but it isn't rape. Suggestive words are not rape. Embarrassing sex isn't rape either -- who has not had a consensual sexual encounter which one would just as soon forget?

In short, we disagree. — javra

I don't think we disagree all that much.

"to turn people into objects to be possessed as one would possesses any other inanimate object"...

I wonder how common the "pleasure in power over" actually is.

I would not deny that power plays a role in life, but it seems to me that there is an obsessive concern with power. Most people (like... 90% at least) men and women both are pretty much without power over others, however much they would like some power. Harvey Weinstein had some actual power over women who wanted to make it in the movies; he had little power, it would seem, over women who were not interested in making it in Hollywood.

The wave of denunciations directed toward men who behaved inappropriately is a case of mass hysteria. It is a crazy attempt by the powerless (which most of us are) to get even with someone who has power. Sex is as good a tool as anything else to exact revenge. #me2 has ended up poisoning the well--not for the small minority who have real power--but for all the other nobodies who perceive the normal efforts of the opposite sex to achieve intimacy as some sort of creepy deviance, or are unable to respond normally to a good-will invitation to spend time together and which might lead to sex.

Whatever the original intentions were, #me2 has gone astray--deeply into the weeds.

Which rights are you thinking of? Those listed in the Bill of Rights, or those listed in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (passed by UN in 1948)?

The list of universal human rights is inspiring, but is meaningless unless the rights are obtainable, defendable, and actually observed by everyone. Seems kind of dubious. Here's the list. The list is clearly the work of a committee.

* Marriage and Family. Every grown-up has the right to marry and have a family if they want to. Men and women have the same rights when they are married, and when they are separated.
* The Right to Your Own Things. Everyone has the right to own things or share them. Nobody should take our things from us without a good reason.
* Freedom of Thought. We all have the right to believe in what we want to believe, to have a religion, or to change it if we want.
* Freedom of Expression. We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people.
* The Right to Public Assembly. We all have the right to meet our friends and to work together in peace to defend our rights. Nobody can make us join a group if we don’t want to.
* The Right to Democracy. We all have the right to take part in the government of our country. Every grown-up should be allowed to choose their own leaders.
* Social Security. We all have the right to affordable housing, medicine, education, and childcare, enough money to live on and medical help if we are ill or old.
* Workers’ Rights. Every grown-up has the right to do a job, to a fair wage for their work, and to join a trade union.
* The Right to Play. We all have the right to rest from work and to relax.
* Food and Shelter for All. We all have the right to a good life. Mothers and children, people who are old, unemployed or disabled, and all people have the right to be cared for.
* The Right to Education. Education is a right. Primary school should be free. We should learn about the United Nations and how to get on with others. Our parents can choose what we learn.
* Copyright. Copyright is a special law that protects one’s own artistic creations and writings; others cannot make copies without permission. We all have the right to our own way of life and to enjoy the good things that art, science and learning bring.
* A Fair and Free World. There must be proper order so we can all enjoy rights and freedoms in our own country and all over the world.
* Responsibility. We have a duty to other people, and we should protect their rights and freedoms.
* No One Can Take Away Your Human Rights.***

***Want to bet on that?

Do you think that all human beings suffer from a latent form of death anxiety and if so what can we do to overcome it in order to live a full and carefree life? — Penav25

No, I don't think all human beings suffer from death anxiety, but many do. People who believe in evil spirits, hell, the devil, and so on have reason to be fearful about dying. Some people dread what happens to their dead body -- decay, purification, and all that. They won't be there, so I don't know why they fear that.

Banishing all evil spirits, hell, the devil, and allied forces of darkness is one thing one can do. They are not real and there is no reason to fear them. Be gone!

Personally, I don't know anyone living a full and carefree life. "Full life", maybe; "carefree life" definitely not. Trying to live a full life, and eliminating such cares as one can eliminate is a reasonable approach.

Like TWI, I'm in my 70s and stopped worrying about dying quite a while ago. The inevitability of dying has become clearer, and to some extent, welcome. The prospect of living for another 100 years is horrifying. I probably won't live another 20 years, may not live 10 more years, could be dead in 5 years, might be dead by morning. In the meantime, I have been spending the last several years filling in gaps in knowledge. I read a lot. I feel better emotionally than I have in a long time, and my brain is working extremely well (at least, it appears to be working properly; perhaps thinking my brain is in good shape is an end stage delusion of alzheimers disease, but that doesn't seem to be the case.)

The more one is engaged in living, the less one will think about being dead or dying.

if I destroy the Mona Lisa for no reason... — jamalrob

Go ahead and run it through a shredder. It isn't going to last forever anyway, everybody knows what it looks like, there are billions of photos of the damned thing, and when you get right down to it, it's not something you would want hanging over your sofa. Banksy had the right idea: shredding art makes it more interesting.

I don't approve of factory farming practices which subject animals to unnecessary stress, pain, or discomfort.

Crowding is a corporate strategy, not a typical historical agricultural practice. Before corporate farming took over, small farms housed maybe 30 to 45 dairy cows in a barn. Cows were kept inside mainly during the winter months. Chickens, turkeys, and other poultry were allowed to move about, and develop normally -- not being overfed. Birds like to be outside, scratching the dirt, eating whatever they find during the day; at night they prefer to be inside. Hogs do better if they are given a fair amount of space, can stay dry and warm in the winter. The rest of the year they can be outside (with shelter available). Beef cattle should also move freely, and should be raised on their natural diet -- grass. That produces healthier animals. better meat, and less methane.

In nature, most animals are slaughtered by predators. Predators are not humane; they begin eating prey animals as soon as they are no longer a threat (like by kicking). A prey animal might have to endure a couple of hours of being eaten before it finally bled to death -- depending on what the predators ate first.

An animal's death in a slaughterhouse is quick and final. What would you prefer? A natural death by being chewed on by several wolves, or a bullet in the head?

What's natural about rape (forced artificial insemination), torture and unnecessary slaughter? — chatterbears

Have you made a first hand comparison of a cow being inseminated artificially with a cow being inseminated by a bull?

Given that the insemination technician is standing immediately behind the cow, he is seriously invested in keeping the cow happy so he doesn't get kicked. He clears the rectum of feces (the rectum is located on top of the vagina) and then inserts a small tube into the cow's vagina - his entire arm may be inside the cow in order to reach the cervix at this point. The sperm packet is expelled from the tube by a puff of air from the technician. That's it. Arm and tube are withdrawn.

A bull doesn't go through much more foreplay than the technician. After a little sniffing, he mounts the cow (who has to support his considerable weight), shoves his 36 inch long schlong in and gives it a few thrusts, and ejaculates, accomplishing bovine coitus. That's it. Back to chewing one's cud.

The bull's dick is about 36 inches long -- how would you like a yard-long dick shoved up your ass?

Cows are inseminated when they are in heat, and therefore receptive to penetration. If they weren't in heat, there would be no point in either the bull or the man trying to get the cow pregnant.

mental health should be at the forefront of education — TWI

Education should at least not drive students crazier than they already are.

Psychiatry doesn't attempt to solve the root of the problem, it assumes that if an individual suffers then that's because there is something wrong within them, rather than within their environment. Psychiatry essentially says, there is nothing wrong with the constraints that society makes you endure — leo

Show me an example of where "psychiatry" says "there is nothing wrong with the constraints that society makes you endure". Psychiatrists live in the same fucking world as everybody else, and they too have to endure various constraints they would prefer to avoid--there is no avoidance. What a psychiatrist might say to a client is "You neither qualify for disability, nor are you independently wealthy, so one way or another you will have to earn a living." Most psychiatrists know that work sucks -- that's why they pay people to work -- no one would do it for free. Psychiatrists don't work for free either. If they stop working, they don't get paid anymore.

I'm saying that a lot of mental suffering stems from the constraints imposed by society. And that a lot of psychiatry has to do with trying to adapt the individual to these constraints, rather than finding out why these constraints are there in the first place and how we could remove them. — leo

You probably know (or you should know) why social constraints exist (social control, a ruthless profit-based economy, severe traffic congestion, high rent, etc.). You are quite right that society drives many people crazy, but there are also endogenous causes like genetics or exposure to toxic chemicals. Families can replicate mental illness in their children.

Psychiatrists are not community mental health engineers. No single profession is in a position to reorganize society. Psychiatrists are also not social workers.

What sorts of constraints are you talking about? Could you give some examples?
— Terrapin Station — leo

You have named the problem:

being forced to do a mind-numbing repetitive task for 8 hours a day
being treated more or less badly by some superior who tells you what to do
feeling constrained to submit for fear of losing that job
having to do that for 20 or 30 or 40 years before you can have a house that you can call your own
being unable to go settle anywhere without a landowner telling you that you can't settle there.

The solution is both obvious and simple: Carry out a revolution; overthrow the existing property relationships; release man from mindless labor for rich people's profits; expropriate the expropriators.... That will take care of many of the social constraints that afflict us. Other social constraints will appear, however, because many people can not exist in close proximity without rules. Even in utopia, people will still need to work in order to produce the necessities of life -- work much less, work under much better circumstances, but work nonetheless. Even in utopia you will not be able to make noise all night and keep everybody awake.

Frankfurt's On Bullshit looks more promising than Aaron James' Assholes: A Theory, and perhaps less certain than Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America by Scott McMurrey.

Should enquiring minds want to know here is a PDF to Frankfurt's On Bullshit.

"Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial — notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit." Harry Frankfurt

Thank you. I am honored.

First, it's not "bullsh*t"; it's "bullshit". If you wish to use a vulgarity, then use it boldly. "bullsh*t" is bullshit.

"Bullshit" means "stupid or untrue talk or writing; nonsense; talk nonsense to (someone), typically to be misleading or deceptive". While "bull" and "shit" are ancient Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon words, combining the two words occurred to no one until the early 20th century. Scholars are deeply divided over the question of whether horseshit is better than, about the same as, or worse than bullshit.

So, is philosophy nothing but bullshit, or worse, horseshit? One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. People think that everyone is equally capable of generating fine bullshit. This is manifestly not true. Most people can generate the lower grades of bullshit (like undifferentiated drivel) but only a few, we band of inspired brothers, are capable of fielding truly fine bullshit (VSOP)--the sort of bullshit that people prefer.

By its nature philosophy--speculation about reality--will at least resemble fine bullshit. Being at least and at best one step removed from whatever reality is lends that note of nebulosity to philosophy which is also a feature of fine bullshit. What makes bullshit fly? Certitude. Unadulterated fine bullshit stated forthrightly, confidently, and enthusiastically launches, and if conditions are right, can enter a geostationary orbit.

Chickenshit does not fly. Pigshit does not fly. Horseshit doesn't need to fly. Only fine bullshit flies.

they should be offering policies that benefit the public — romanv

If their raison d'être is staying in power, what difference does the public good make to them? The public be damned! (That phrase is usually put in the mouth of a utility company, but if the shoe fits...)

Ok, that's fairly cynical on my part. Some politicians actually do try to benefit the public good. Sometimes EVEN the political party in power may not only wish to further public good, they may actually do it. This desirable but aberrant behavior would probably be rewarded with the loyalty of the people who voted for that party.

You seriously think they only care about retaining power? — I like sushi

What can a political party accomplish if it has no power? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Power is the ability to wield force (not just crude physical force). Power is the ability to silence opposition (again, not be crude force -- maybe with a cloture vote to end debate). Power is the ability to establish policy and enforce it.

How do two parties in the United States manage to maintain power if they don't represent or serve the common good? The maintain power because there are two -- only two -- parties that matter. Most of the time the two parties represent the same opinion: Democrats and Republicans must continue to monopolize politics and maintain the socio-politico-economic status quo.

Why wouldn't our present situation meet the definition of fascism? — Athena

"The Present Situation" doesn't have to meet the definition of fascism in order for serious trouble to be at hand. Fascism isn't the only threat we might face. The quality of "education, democracy, and liberty" have certainly been eroded and degraded.

Dehumanization, externalized authority, black and white thinking, an emphasis and reliance on technology, the destruction of the liberal arts, the degraded quality of civic participation -- all that and more -- is, IN ITSELF, an existential threat without being fascism.

Let me flip my approach here: The United States pioneered some of the techniques which 20th Century Fascism utilized. We conducted genocide against the Aboriginal people, then placed the small fragment that survived in concentration camps called 'reservations'. We enslaved black people (it was the foundation of our 19th century economy). We had a very strong eugenics movement in the late 19th - 20th century. We conducted repressive measures against left wing labor (the Red Scare of 1919, and continuing brutal repression of organized labor). We were staunchly anti-communist.

What we have in the United States is a deceptive slow-motion fascism. What happened in Europe was a high-speed fascism that developed over the course of a decade, though it was built on much older cultural characteristics. Our authoritarian government, militarism, racist regime, degraded education system, and so on developed over more than a century, and was in service to capitalism, rather than some vague master race theory. The techniques of manipulation and control which are used in the United States became part of normal everyday life, rather than the sharp disjuncture of the very rapid rise of German National Socialism or Italian Fascism. End of flip.

Does this approach (the two paragraphs in italics) represent your view to some extent? If so, then I better understand where you are coming from.

In his account of his term as the American Ambassador to Berlin in the mid 1930s, William Dodd suggested to Hitler that he should use the American approach to Jews in the universities: place quotas on the number of admissions. Hitler dismissed the suggestion as altogether inadequate. Even into the late 1940s and 1950s, Jews were not admitted to quite a few civic organizations in Minneapolis. From the mid 1930s to the 1980s, the policy of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was to segregate blacks in dense public housing estates, or worse, concentrate them in privately owned slums. This wasn't an implicit policy, it was explicit. (Its detailed in the 2017 book, The Color of Law.)

The peculiar skewing of the history that I learned in school (and just about everybody else our age learned) was the normal, natural, obvious American Story. The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, the Puritans built the City on a Hill, the south had plantations, the Indians were in the way, George Washington was the Father of the Country, Lincoln freed the slaves, and America has chugged along the road to ever more glorious achievements.

Well, we find that there some pretty big flaws in our understanding of our history. If we are fascistic, then fascism crept up on us on cats paws rather than roaring in like a mob of pigs.

Two things are needed for fascism, experience with democracy and industrialization. In 1958 we replaced liberal education with the dehumanizing education for technology and we are preparing the young to be products for industry, and find their place in the mechanical society where privacy and freedom of speech are being destroyed. — Athena

You are hung up on the 1958 NDEA. What you are describing is true enough; it just happened earlier, and (IMHO) the NDEA didn't have very much to do with it. Prior to WWII, higher education was reserved for either the elite (those with enough money (usually money) or brains to be admitted to University, or they were people with middle class aspirations who would become accountants, elementary and high school teachers, and the like. After WWII, the government paid many thousands of veterans to go to college, and later the NDEA helped more people go to college.

The replacement of the liberal arts with technology wasn't immediate: a lot of the WWII vets and NDEA students took typical liberal arts degrees in English, History, Social Science, Mathematics, etc. Quite a few of them did, indeed, take engineering and technology degrees. At least from what I have observed, the retrenchment of the classic "liberal arts" didn't get rolling until the late 1970s and into the 1980s--a generation after the NDEA and VA programs.

More damaging to the classic liberal arts than retrenchment, in my opinion, has been the perverse corruption of postmodernism, and its peculiar and deconstructing obsessions. If nothing else had happened, this alone could destroy the liberal arts.

Too much for now.

If you locate your mouse over the topic on the landing page, you should see the category appear.

Even if our present situation doesn't meet the definition of fascism, we still have capitalism to contend with; we still have powerful states protecting capitalism, and we still have militaries in place to make sure the economic status quo is maintained. I don't equate the current situation with the Axis Powers at their zenith; what we have now is different, and dangerous.

Add to that the fact that there are some fascists in power -- we'll soon see what will happen in Brazil. Trump has tendencies in that direction, and so does the far right, including some of his own Republican Party. Europe has a few right wingers lurking in the shadows, waiting. China, India, the Middle East, Russia...

So... what happens next? I don't know, of course. I certainly don't like the trend lines.