POLL: Are you politically alienated? — 0 thru 9

Is the Pope Catholic?

I voted for "mostly". I was raised to believe politics matter, and in fact it does. Those who wield political power get what they want, and those who have no political power to wield get fucked over by those who do. I voted for "mostly" because I am infested with vestiges of hope that The People will, in the sweet by and by, arise from passivity and at least TRY to take back their share of the country (like, all of it).

Political alienation and hopelessness is not a good thing. People who are really alienated and hopeless are very unlikely to act in their own interests in a strategically effective way. I voted for "mostly" because something may, might, and could possibly happen that would cause renewed interest.

First, very strange behavior that. And slippery too -- saliva running all over a nice gun, such a waste. "Happiness is a warm gun" somebody sang, 1968.

We are not concerned about whether you pull the trigger or not, but where and when. Your demise may cause a highly inconvenient mess if you choose a location like the cafe in Bloomingdales as the site of your demise. Somebody will have to clean up the brains, bones, blood... probably at public expense. And if you elect your demise during the lunch rush, you'll spoil The People's enjoyment of the daily special.

There are easier ways, are there not, to demonstrate Camus adage, “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." You could, for instance, just do a poll on the Philosophy Forum: "Should I kill myself today? Yes / No". The collective wisdom of your steamed colleagues can be relied upon, can they not?

For the purposes of this thread, I might also point out that IF you are going to kill yourself, you could at least take several objectionable persons with you -- I have a little list of people, none of whom would be missed.

The absurdity of your proposal suggests that you may not be rational. Some Thorazine would probably be helpful.

There have been enough conspiracies for us to take plots at least somewhat seriously. But the conspiracy has to make some sort of sense.

The thing about 9/11 is that it WAS a conspiracy, and the conspiracy was successful. Occam's razor directs us toward the bin Laden directed plot, rather than those devious devils' plot in Washington.

Remember, this was the second attack on the World Trade Towers--the first being in 1993. In that attack, the intent was to fell the north tower into the south tower. Some engineers speculated that it could have worked. (They didn't wish to provide details on how to do it better.) The conspirators killed 6 people and injured over 1000. Had it worked, many thousands would likely have died. Al Qaeda provided training for this attack. The World Trade Center was selected as a representative of US economic power.

The attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK was also a successful conspiracy--planned by Americans against Americans in America. It was in retaliation for the attack on an oddball bunch of Americans in the Branch Davidian facility in Waco, TX in April of 1993. Whether the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms (a branch of the US Treasury) was conspiring to bring about what happened, don't know. Why that particular federal building was blown up, don't know.

There have been other conspiracies to do various (usually violent) deeds. In 1970 a small group blew up Stirling Hall at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The Army had a research center in the building, and the explosion was a protest against the War in Vietnam. The conspirators had tried to blow up the building when no one was there, but unfortunately 1 graduate student was there and was killed. He didn't have anything to do with the Army research program.

Imagine living in England, what with all the IRA bombs that were blown up there during the 1970s - 90s.
Another example of successful conspiracies.

I'm not sure the US Intelligence Agencies are capable of thinking up, planning, and pulling off a devilishly ingenious dastardly conspiracy. We have too many means to crush which ever group of bastards are annoying us. The annoying bastards, on the other hand, have to work within extremely limited means -- they have to be fiendishly clever. And they have been.

Stereotyping isn't an invention of social media. It isn't new. It's a normal cognitive routine of characterizing, sorting and grouping. Whether stereotyping individuals and groups is a problem depends on how one goes about it. If one accounts for many features and has many categories into which individuals can be sorted, it isn't problematic. Focusing on 2 or 3 features and assigning individuals to 2 or 3 bins will result in crude distortion.

Another problem of stereotyping is that we do it to ourselves as well as to others. When we desire to be known as members of a particular group we will display stereotypes of that group. Clothing can signal to others that "we have achieved material success" (buy it at Brooks Brothers) or that we are hip, cool, and cutting edge. One probably wouldn't show up at an antifa rally in a bikini.

I consider members of our species to be more alike than different. True, we all have many individual features, but our individual features fall into categories. If this were not the case, it would be very difficult to make sense of each other.

Recognizably different groups in society, groups which can be accurately stereotyped, also have conflicting goals. A group with an established and comfortable dominance in a given neighborhood will probably object to a recognizably different group attempting to move into their turf. The problem in this case isn't the stereotypes both groups use, but their conflicting goals. Conflicting goals may or may not be resolvable.

Of course they work in tandem, but they are not equally yoked. "Handmaid" doesn't mean slave; it means "something whose essential function is to serve or assist". Why should reason serve passion (the emotions) and not emotion serve reason? First, reason develops later than 'passion' or emotion. The basic emotions are present at birth; reason will follow, but not for a while. Emotions rule the roost first and get a firm grip.

Emotion evolved long ago for purposes of survival. Reason evolved later, and in more specific ways. Passion is always hotter than reason, and can mobilize action on shorter notice. It is easier for a nation to go to ruinous war on waves of passion than it is for a nation to reform its healthcare financing system through focused reason. (At least in this country financial reform has so far proved impossible.)

Animals who have some reason as well as emotion can learn to over-ride emotional urges. When you train a dog to sit still while you stack snacks on its nose and to hold off until it receives a signal, the dog is learning to over-ride its emotions--otherwise it would toss the snack off its nose instantly. Service dogs have to override many emotions and natural urges when 'on duty'. Children must also learn to over-ride their emotional urges as part of their socialization. Parents work very hard to prevent their child's tantrums from getting results.

Hot emotions can swamp reason. Emotions can lead reason to opt rationally for what emotion wants. That's why one can end up buying a more expensive car (or some other object) than one intended: During the time of new car examination in the showroom, one's emotions may decide which model is really good, and the pre-frontal cortex finds itself thinking of reasons why the more expensive car was, indeed, actually a better deal.

Anyone can end up buying more car than they intended, but anyone can go through the Consumer's Report approach and make the decision before you leave the house, checkbook in hand. Care is needed for reason to override emotion.

Reason, on the other hand, can keep emotions under control by conducting the individual's affairs in a manner that minimizes sturm and drang. Keeping one's emotions happy is a way of keeping them under control. This is where therapy comes into play: how does one manage one's life so that one's emotions are reasonably contented?

That emotions have a natural edge is fortunate. That we can love others, and find in others objects of intense love, adoration, attachment, lust, and they the same in us, contributes much to a life worth living. That we can feel (by approximation) other's joys and sorrows is what makes it possible for us to want to help others.

We need more news like this: "Goats descend on suburban lawns in Boise, Idaho and eat everything".

It turns out the goats were employees of a goatish temporary agency that rents its employees out to rid areas of noxious weeds which goats like. No conspiracies; no right-wing agenda; no PC terrorism; nothing to upset ecologists... Just peaceful chewing on rose bushes, hostas, petunias, grass... As we temporary employees tend to do, the goats wandered off the assigned worksite...

I don't like hitching up the 'psychofascism of everyday life" to politics.

Hitler and Mussolini were, in many ways, unsuccessful in exploiting the masses. Hitler, for instance, usually received no more than the 30%-40% of the popular vote. The highest percentage he received, about 51%, was in Schlesweig Holstein. Agricultural prices there were collapsing because production in Argentina, USA, and Australia was swamping the market. He promised -- didn't deliver -- hefty price supports.

Neither Hitler nor Mussolini were swept into power by popular landslides. Both fascist parties had to use trickery, deceit, manipulation, etc. to win. It is true that the masses had desires--for work, income, and a reasonably decent life. The Nazis did manage to deliver on a reasonable level of prosperity (at least until WWII started). And, of course, the fascists also managed to bring in a reasonable number of middle class and wealthy people aboard too. (The workers and the industrialists obviously wouldn't have had the same desires.

It seems to me there is fairly good support for the idea that there is an "authoritarian personality" and Germany, at least, seems to have successfully cultivated the type in their school, religious, and military institutions well before Hitler came along. Germany isn't alone, of course. One runs into authoritarian personalities frequently.

The Nazis were also quite good at cheap theatrics. The mass rallies in Nuremberg and elsewhere were very much staged events, and admission was charged (gate receipts were an important source of party income before they were able to tape into state coffers). What's not to like about an exciting torchlight rally with music, flags, marching, quasi-military rigamarole, and political haranguing? Some people live for that stuff.

American fascists did a reasonably good job of it too -- white robes and hoods, marching around in circles out in the woods, burning torches, burning crosses, some half-baked rigamarole, and a lynching every now and then.

According to Berardi, we are now experiencing conditions similar to those in Germany and Italy in 1920s. — Number2018

When or if fascism developes in America, it will have an American form -- not a 1920s German form. The prime example of American fascism has been the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan developed during a period of severe upheaval (the post Civil War south) where the Klan did a pretty good job of short-circuiting the benefits of emancipation of black people from slavery. The Klan was active for... maybe 70 years. (It hasn't disappeared, but has been severely suppressed).

1920s Germany was not like 21st century USA.

1. Germans (and most of Europe) had just come out of WWI. Many were exceedingly bitter towards the treaty ending the war which saddled Germany with crushing payments for the costs other countries incurred from the war, and for other terms such as denying Germany military resources.

2. There were unemployed German soldiers without jobs who grouped together into the paramilitary Freicorps. They were very nationalist and anti-communist. Many of these would be transformed into the SA (the brown shirts) by the Nazis..

3. Germany's economy endured extreme inflation (equivalent to a gallon of milk costing billions of dollars)

4. Despite all that, culture, especially in Berlin, was extremely dynamic in movements like the Bauhaus, or decadent (depicted by Isherwood, eventually in the play "Cabaret"). It was a time of intense cultural ferment.

5. The political situation in Germany was completely different than the existing situation in the United States.

I loathe Donald Trump and his allies, but whether he will usher in a fascist episode of history is unclear -- of course; the future is always unclear. The extremely tight control over politics wielded by the Democrat and Republican parties is not conducive to the political disorder that fascists quite often exploit. Our representative system is harder to crack than parliamentary systems. The economy is less healthy than it could be, but it doesn't appear to be on the verge of collapse. Were the economy to collapse (I mean, really fall apart here and globally) all bets would be off about political developments.

Here is an interesting "long read" in The Guardian about denial and denialism.

Ignorance does not cause, or put one into 'denial', but denial and denialism can shift one solidly into ignorance. Why do people deny accepted truth? Like, "HIV causes AIDS"; or "Human beings are causing global climate change"; or "evolution explains how a myriad of specialized organisms arose"... and so on.

It might take a certain amount of psychoanalysis to determine why some people deny accepted fact. For instance, what is the motivation for denying the holocaust occurred? Something -- and I do not know what it is -- sends some people on a course from knowledge to doubt to denial to denialism. Get deeply enough into denial and one becomes ignorant about some aspects of reality. (But ignorance definitely is not a cause of denialism.)

No doubt, denialists who think HIV doesn't cause AIDS or that the US Government was responsible for 9/11 find comfort in their sealed off view of reality. They have "special access to the truth" which most people have been robbed of. For the denialist, most people are fools for accepting the commonly understood version of reality.

Denialists are more dangerous than the merely ignorant because they energetically defend their ignorance.

The emotive aspect of humans -- and animal species down the line -- are part and parcel of being animals that feel threats viscerally, feel arousal, feel hunger, thirst, etc. It's biological. A.I. isn't biological; it is plastic, silicon, and semiconductors.

Emotions touch everything that humans do cognitively -- but set that aside. Presumably what A.I. would be is the cognitive aspect of humans--thinking, remembering, calculating, associating, etc. Why would you (and how would you) give A.I. "emotion"? Emotion is characteristic of 'wet systems'; A.I. is dry. No blood, no mucus, no neurotransmitters, no lymph, no moisture. Just circuits and current.

A.I. is, as the term states, "artificial".

It has been suggested that the future of this "artificial intelligence" is not to duplicate the mind, but to enhance the performance of specific human intelligent activities. In a sense, various pieces of software do that now -- correcting spelling (and inserting totally irrelevant words), translating text (at a level that is much less than fluent but a lot better than nothing), finding routes, storing oceans of information on the Internet, etc. A.I. might take the form of a chip that could supplement a failing retina, or perhaps supply vision where eyeballs are missing altogether. Cochlear implants do that after a fashion for deafness. Etc. Etc. Etc.

One can have high iq and be a high functioning psychopath. — raza

I can't think of any reason why not.

"I read your posts as a protest against the fading narrative which has served the West for many centuries, and the tardiness of a satisfying replacement to appear."

The idea we need motivations, desires, and needs in order to have meaning becomes its own farce. — schopenhauer1

Speaking of 'vanity' Ecclesiastes has this from about 2200 years ago:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?

We don't have motivations, desires, and needs in order to have meaning. We have motivations, desires, and needs, period. If there is meaning, it's gravy (meaning 'something extra'). Whether there is meaning depends, I think, on the creative capacity of the individual and the culture in which he is embedded. Of course having creative capacity is no assurance that meaning will be created.

Let me make a sweeping, glittering generalization: Successful civilizations create sustainable meaning. Creation myths establish the foundation of meaning; the narrative of the (tribe, people, nation, cosmos) provides a foundation for on-going meaning. In the Christian west, the master narrative was focused on God's creative acts and the redemptive work Jesus Christ. Into that master narrative everything was situated, meaningfully.

Master narratives are neither eternal nor guaranteed to provide a place for every cultural development and individual. We seem to be in a era when the master narrative of the Christian west is becoming less useful to many people. We are in an interregnum of master narratives. I read your posts as a protest against the fading narrative which has served the West for many centuries, and the tardiness of a satisfying replacement to appear.

Keep protesting, but keep an eye open for possible meaning.

"Why should I bother doing that? Life is meaningless, and that's that! What's the point?" you ask.

The point is, "We don't do well without a life-narrative that provides us meaning." Having purpose, meaning, internal guidance are essential features of human beings. All creatures have motivations and needs, but humans seem to be unique (as far as I can tell) in requiring meaning and purpose. We also seem to be unique in our capacity to shred meaning, and then not guess why life seems like one big pile of shit.

A.I.? Pfft.

Not nice guy "Shut the fuck up or I'm gonna do the same to you" — Sir2u

He probably would have said "Tais-toi ou je vais te faire la même chose". I'm not sure that French speakers are able to use "fuck" with the same grammatical flexibility as we clever English speakers can. In English fuck can be a noun, verb, preposition, adjective, adverb, or article, and more. For some people variations on fuck are an entire sentence: Fuck you miutherfucking fuck; I'm gonna fuck you up, fuck." Or just a verbalization, as when one has nothing else to say, one says "fuck". "Shit" operates similarly. The recipient of the energetic face-slap probably said "Merde" as she turned to be on her merry way.

Should you need a tough-guy line, and can't think of anything else, here's a line from an actual tough guy, used as a threat to somebody who was in his way: "Hey you fucking asshole, I can live in prison -- can you live in a wheelchair?" -- not really a question, more of a declarative statement. Another tough guy statement, one I used to good effect on some old guy who lived in my building who was, for some odd reason, strenuously objecting to me locking my bike to a street sign. "If anything happens to my bike, I'm coming for you."

Lines like that coming from me would normally only work on a 5 year old or an 85 year old. But if one were big, filthy, greazy, and hell's angelish enough to look truly threatening, that might work.

Everything that rises must converge. (Chardin)
Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics. (Peguy)
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but time and chance happen to all. (Ecclesiastes)

Good or bad? Positive or Negative?

I'm using a super computer here and it is overheating trying to figure out whether your post is a positive or negative. I think it's going to explode any minute.

Of course it was a bad idea!

What was the guy holding the chair going to do with it-- Yell "Get back in your cage!"? I noticed that nobody rushed to the aid and comfort of the allegedly abused woman. Did she have it coming? perhaps that is why none of the women rushed over to commiserate with her. We didn't hear what the guy told the citoyens concernés de Paris. Perhaps Monsieur's explanation was éminemment satisfaisant, Oui?

not all ignorance is the same. There is the ignorance stemming from a lack of instruction. One has to be taught the multiplication tables and the Periodic Table. There is the ignorance stemming from having forgotten the elements listed in the Periodic Table. There is the ignorance of knowing that something exists, but not knowing very much about it. I know that Burma is sometimes called Myanmar; I know that it is located between Bangladesh and... Thailand, maybe. I know it is a predominantly Buddhist country. That is about it. There is the ignorance of avoiding information. People who avoid viewing sources of news are deliberately ignorant. There is the ignorance of those who can cite 100 things that President Obama did totally wrong, but have not heard of one fault in President Trump (and visa versa).

Then there is "invincible ignorance": Ignorance so firmly rooted, ignorance so well defended, ignorance so impervious to enlightenment, that nothing will ever get through to them. (It is my belief that Donald Trump is the exemplar of invincible ignorance in our time.)

Perhaps people who are ignorant through no fault of their own (innocent savages) are blissful. The rest of the ignorant have no excuse.

(For those who have forgotten, here is a list of the elements, presented by Prof. Thomas Lehrer, Department of Mathematics, Harvard University

Interviewer from the House UnAmerican Activities Committee: Are you now, or have you ever been a Hugoenot?

Mr. Andrew K. I am not a Huguenot!

HUAC Interviewer: But Mr. K, we have documents that prove you have aided and abetted known Huguenot conspiracies. Are you a Christian, then, Mr. K?

Not any more.

HUAC Interviewer: According to informed sources, you were brought up Catholic; do you admit you were lying under oath when you said that you are not a Christian?

Attorney for the subject of interest: Mr. K refuses to answer the question on the grounds that any thing he says may incriminate him.

HUAC Interviewer: Huguenot fellow traveler; not Christian; brought up Catholic! Obviously a lying subversive! Take him away.

NEXT

So, are you any clearer about whether you are better off discovering the truth, or not?

Life is unsatisfactory in many ways and sometimes one just doesn't need hourly updates on how unsatisfactory it is.

Your link in the US says "404 - Page not found". The fat cat story linked up just fine, naturally.

I'm not seeing any earthquake news, which is very disappointing -- I was hoping for pictures of toppled high rise apartment blocks and distraught peasants looking at their collapsed hovels. Nothing! Fake news.

The president of the US is the only one who can push the button for a nuclear strike. — ChatteringMonkey

That was once a comforting assumption; it's not quite so comforting at the present moment. In any case, presidents long since began delegating to Naval command the power to launch defensively in the event of communication failure or severe time constraints. Fortunately, Pacific Fleet Command, and officers far down the ladder, were prudent, cautious, and careful. They might have, but did not launch on warning. See Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

2) Or, should we accept the group consensus which assumes we should learn as much as possible, thus giving ourselves as much power as possible? — Jake

In one respect, the group consensus is for a limitation of knowledge and power. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has sought to stop the expansion of nuclear bomb technology beyond the 5 recognized nuclear states: the USSR, USA, UK, France, and China. The effort has not been highly successful. Israel and the Union of South Africa presumably developed atomic weapons in combination. India and Pakistan both developed nuclear weapons, and more recently, so did North Korea. Iran was well on the way (apparently) to The Bomb.

Limiting the spread of nuclear weapons technology is difficult. No state that said they would develop nuclear weapons has so far failed to do so. (Atomic weapons knowledge spreads; it isn't reinvented. It was discovered only once, during the Manhattan Project. From the the US and the UK it passed on to the USSR, France, and China; Israel and South Africa; then to India and Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran. There are few "secrets" left, but the technological methodology is daunting.

The manufacture of chemical and biological warfare also was banned, but the ban can be evaded. No inconveniently noticeable big explosion is required to test C&B weapons.

1) Should it be a goal of society to look for ways to limit the powers available to human beings? — Jake

It isn't clear to me how "we" would limit "us" from learning whatever "somebody among us" decides to learn, be it benign or malignant. I can decide what I will not learn, but I don't know of a way to prevent you from learning what you wish to learn. (Well, I know a way, but it happen to be highly illegal and severely punished.)

We are what we are: inquisitive, intelligent, excitement seeking, short-sighted, selfish, (piggish, a good share of the time) poorly self-regulating beings. Worse, we do not have a high-resolution big-picture view over all human affairs. We can not see everything that is going on, and we are not able to interpret a good share of it. And even when we know that some people are engaging in skullduggery of the worst kind, there is sometimes nothing we can do about it.

Somewhere, right now, somebody is openly engaging in legal research which will likely have quite negative consequences. They are pushing the envelope, maybe too far. What are "we" going to do about it?

With respect to the Amish, you might like several of James Howard Kunstler's A World Made By Hand novels or some of his essays about knowledge, resource exhaustion, etc. like The Long Emergency".

His fictional town of Union Grove, New York is, along with the rest of the world, experiencing technological collapse. But life in this dystopian world is surprisingly wholesome, if somewhat precarious. The standard of technology has been set back to roughly 1890, roughly where the Amish prefer to be: No oil refineries, no cars, no planes, electricity IF you can figure out how to generate it, no antibiotics (the factories can't operate), no plastics, horse & human power only, etc. Not many factories, either, thus the "world made by hand".

Another post apocalyptic book I like is Earth Abides written in 1949. Techno collapse in this novel is caused by a world-wide epidemic which kills 99999 people out of 100,000--not many left and those widely scattered about. Bands of people, here and there, use such tools as they can find to grow food, and meet there bare needs. The 'hero' grows old in the novel, and at the end, his grand children have adapted to a vastly simpler life.

I like the Amish people I have met. They are, of course, quite religious and of necessity rather conservative, but they aren't naive country bumpkins. They've found sustainability, even if through the route of their old-world religious roots. They are maintaining technology we should pay attention to, because most of us are 3 generations from knowing how to work with a horse or oxen, raise food without RoundUp and artificial fertilizer, preserve food (canning, drying), make cloth (I don't know that the Amish spin wool, flax, and cotton or tan leather, but those are skills that would be critical without polyester, rayon, and nylon.

Why do even the most intelligent and best educated people find this so hard to grasp? — Jake

• Our evolutionary descent gave us extensive linguistic and cognitive abilities tightly coupled with blinding primate ego-centricity (power without probity).
• 20:20 vision with respect to Immediate self-interest, and blindness with respect to long-term collective interest
• Our capacity to deal with future consequences of current (and past) actions is quite limited. We can not effectively plan and act in time scales longer than the remaining lifetime of a middle-aged adult -- maybe 20, 30, 40 years. Meanwhile we have created problems that require centuries of attentive management.

We have successfully avoided the worst consequences of natures because the reciprocal revolutions of science and industry are (in long time scales) very recent--in fact still underway. The discovery of how to unlock the power locked up in the atomic nucleus is not a century old, yet--and that's just one problematic discovery. The problems generated by discoveries and deployed technologies in chemistry are perhaps as problematic as nuclear knowledge. "Better living through chemistry?" *** Bah, Humbug!

21st century people are just lucky that the scientific revolution didn't happen 2000 years ago. If it had happened during the Roman Empire, (everything being equal) we would be dealing with fully unfolded global warming, an extremely disrupted planetary ecology, and rather poor prospects. The mass die-off of human populations would be past, and we survivors would not know why. Et Cetera.

IN OTHER WORDS... The human situation is tragic. We are very flawed heroes and our flaws have been, are, and will be the cause of our downfall.

An aside: One theory about why we haven't encountered intelligent beings from other star systems: Evolving beings develop intelligence and technology, and then (over a period of time) exhaust the resources of their world. By the time they reach the threshold of space exploration, they no longer have the social stability and resources to pursue it.

***The phrase "Better Living Through Chemistry" is a variant of a DuPont advertising slogan, "Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry." DuPont adopted it in 1935 and it was their slogan until 1982 when the "Through Chemistry" part was dropped. Since 1999, their slogan has been "The miracles of science".[1]

Well, just update the figures in the fundraising thread.

Actually, I'd like two numbers: One, what does it cost per month to operate the site, and two how much money has been received to meet those costs.

Well, um, so prove it. — Jake

There is no proof to any of the theories about the larger context our lives reside in. — Jake

I was prepared to prove that the world is meaningless, pointless, fleeting, temporary, and transient, but then you said there isn't any proof, so... there's probably not much point in posting the formula that would prove it. Nope -- won't change my mind. Sorry -- you don't get the proof -- ever.

The truth is that nobody has a clue about the larger picture — Jake

Isn't that a rather sweeping generalization? How would you know they have no clue if you had no clue?

Goal #4 needs some work. If you want to "get" lots of girls, it would be wise to change your mindset to wanting to "serve" lots of girls. Don't think about what you will get from them, but what you will give to them. — Jake

Interesting. Is that true? I'm gay, so I wouldn't know whether "serving" girls is the best strategy for a straight guy to get laid. What if what the straight guy wants is a "serving wench" rather than a girl to serve?

Neither the 'big picture' nor the 'granular' approach are exclusive, and we combine them all the time. But just for an example, beginning geology with memorizing crystal shapes and colors would not give one much useful knowledge about how earth forms come into existence. And opposite that, only learning about continental drift, up-life, subduction, and erosion wouldn't help all that much either, without some specifics. For instance, rocks on the eastern coast of North America and the northwestern coast of Africa are similar. "See, look at these two sets of rocks: same crystal structure, same sedimentary layers, same age. What does that tell you? It tells you that the two continental coasts were one and the same land mass at one time." Blah, blah, blah.

Having some large 'big pictures' provides a necessary place to put details one picks up off the sidewalk as one walks alone (figuratively speaking). A big picture box might be "chemistry and color". Some plant-based dye changes color depending on whether it is exposed to an acid or a base. Litmus paper (using dyes extracted from lichens) is used to determine the ph of a fluid. If you want to make red sweet and sour cabbage, you use red cabbage and vinegar. Using bicarbonate of soda turns the cabbage blue. Acids and bases affect the colored dye one can extract from iris or orchid flowers. A red dye might turn to lavender when exposed to an acid or base (can't remember which).

Those two details about color change collected in a big picture box can help one understand why bleaching a pale pink towel may turn it pale green. Bleach is a base and the dye is sensitive to bases.

It seems to me that general education courses, freshman and sophomore courses in college, are intended to provide "the big picture". That was true for me in courses like sociology 101, political science 101, geology 101, English literature 101, art 101, etc. I didn't go on to study more in poly sci, geology, and art, but over time the "big picture" I got from general education courses was useful as a foundation.

On the other hand, the two classes in American History that were taught in high school were all detail, with a not-very-clear or downright erroneous big picture emerging (which I didn't discover till years later). Teaching/learning history as "one obvious and necessary event after another" makes it easier to build in a hidden narratives, like "Americans have always been egalitarian". Never mind the black slaves, white people were definitely never all equal. [White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, 2016 by Nancy Isenberg]

If American History is taught with a view toward presenting the "truths and lies of American History" one would still later learn about the same events -- they just wouldn't fit into a "hidden narrative". "The westward expansion of the United States" could better be viewed as "conquering the west" because "the west", from the Pilgrims down to the closure of the frontier in the late 19th Century, was always occupied by aboriginal people or other nations. I like my country reasonably well, but there is not hiding the fact that its construction ran roughshod over just about everybody. That truth is best presented in a holistic approach.

I vote for big picture first, details later, but not too many.

Another Fine Topic from

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

Fascism breeds in certain environments which may not exist in an anarchistic society.

This is similar to why is does not make sense to argue that the state is necessary in order to quell crime. — darthbarracuda

These are interesting questions, but perhaps another thread? Never mind.

Fascism requires certain political conditions to gain power; they could exist in an dysfunctional anarchist society. It isn't "anarchism" that works against fascism, its a society in working order that protects against fascism, be it anarchist or parliamentarian.

Crime exists where there are opportunists willing to fuck over other people, state or no state. There is nothing about a stateless society which would prevent ruthless opportunists from arising among the population to prey on others.

Just remember, some people are sons of bitches and just don't play nice with others.

Since good food is better than bad food, add the Joy of Cooking to your library. It's a proven classic.

Hell no we gotta shoot dem too. — Sir2u

Yes but... they got guns too -- big ones, and they practice.

During WWII peaceful neutral Switzerland had to accept some fairly distasteful business dealings with the Third Reich in exchange for its continued neutral existence. If Sweden didn't supply the Third Reich with steel and high quality iron ore, I rather doubt that their neutrality would have been worth much.

I think irresponsible or excessive use of military force has more to do with the governing administration rather than the fact of there being a military. — aporiap

I think that is quite often true.

I have spent far more time thinking about how to justify pacifism than how to justify military action. Short of the second coming, I don't see any reason for nations to do away with their military establishments in the near future.

For one, military power is sometimes needed to quell internal dissent. Were a home-grown fascist terrorist organization attack from within, the military (army, marines, or state national guard) would probably be needed to destroy such a group.

For two, the military is an on-call personnel pool in times of emergency. Should the Really Big Quake happen in California or off the coast of WA, OR, and CA, the resulting severe and widespread damage would exhaust local emergency resources almost immediately. The Army/National Guard would need to be deployed as rescue and recovery workers, in addition to FEMA (for whatever they are worth).

For three, many individual countries could find themselves with dysfunctional states on next door. In order to defend themselves from disorder, if not military attack, a functioning military is required. We have problems now with people crossing our border illegally; what if Mexico became even more dysfunctional. The military would be needed to help manage the situation (however you care to define "manage").

War is the conduct of diplomacy by other means. That is likely to remain true for some time into the future. Sometimes you can't solve issues with negotiation. You need to just shoot the problem.

Plain old-fashioned war is likely to break out again in the near future somewhere for some reason. Those who can resist with force of arms will fare better than those who depend on prayer and fasting.

we should just shoot all of the politicians so that there will be no one to start them — Sir2u

Except the military. You would then have a military state. Good luck with that.