human consciousness shapes what exists — T Clark

What isn't it the case that what exists shapes human consciousness? That makes more sense to me than the other way around. Matter makes the man.

Before we came along there were large megaflora growing in the dirt, quite happily, thank you, with rough bark and green leaves. The leaves fell off at some point and then later regrew. Some of these megaflora produced nuts and fruits and whirly seeds. These megaflora have been around so long before us that sometimes we find them petrified -- fossilized.

Around 25,000 years ago some modern human speaker of crypto-proto-Indo-European went up to one of these big megafauna and spoke the crypto-proto-indo-European words "Oh Tree, you are so tall, and strong, and so very nice. I think we will cut you down for firewood." The tree frowned it's wrinkly bark and thought, "Tall enough and strong to shake you off my branches and break your bloody neck, I am."

If there were no atoms unless somebody said "atom" then there would be no atoms composing the brain and tongue required to utter the word "atom". So atoms would never exist, and neither would we.

The universe does not require our services to exist. We require the universe to be nice to us so we can exist for a little while.

"Undergraduate tuition and fees: In-state tuition: 2,293.5 CAD (2015)" so said a blurb about McGill. But that is in-state tuition, which Posty wouldn't be eligible for. My guess is that Quebec (and maybe other provinces) are providing a substantial subsidy to their universities. US states used to do that; not these days--it's about 25% of the cost and shrinking.

In short, we've gone from educated people who could be trusted, on the basis of their education, to handle whatever came their way, to people with a trade, who can be trusted, on the basis of their training, to do a job, but not trusted to handle anything that comes their way — tim wood

This is a distinction one doesn't see very often -- the trust to do whatever comes their way, vs. not being trusted to handle whatever...

Lots of people actually can do a lot of things, given motivation, some direction, and freedom to figure out how. The two best jobs I had operated with the assumption that I would figure out what needed to be done. The two worst jobs operating on the assumption that I wasn't to be trusted sharpening the pencils, let alone actually making a decision.

*shrug* I'm not trying to set an agenda. — Noble Dust

Hey, ND, we need a little leadership around here.

edited for brevity.

Deleted owing to the conclusion that the OP was a charade. See later post by Mancini.

2017-18 Tuition and Fees at Public Four-Year Institutions by State and Five-Year Percentage Change in In-State Tuition and Fees provides current instate and outstate tuition and fees. Bear in mind, cost of food, clothing, shelter, books, transportation, etc. are all on top of tuition and fees.

The median cost of public college tuition and fees is about $10,000 a year for resident IN-STATE tuition.

I think a college education is a good thing PROVIDED you study something that you find very satisfying, do not have high income expectations based on a bachelor's degree, and do not incur great debt to obtain the degree.

For best results, I recommend attending an affordable college which is largely residential--many public colleges are. You don't need to live on campus, but an important part of the college experience is interacting with other students (meaningfully of course). You can live near campus, and still benefit. If you attend a commuter campus, never associate with your classmates apart from class, then you miss an important piece. On line degrees have even less interaction.

You might have to begin at a community college to keep costs down while you obtain the basic education courses. There is nothing wrong with this, provided you study seriously. Be sure the courses you take are transferable to the 4 year college you want to attend.

Whether you experience career success, and earn a good income, is largely depending on your personal drive, charm, job performance, and stuff like that -- something college isn't going to give you.

You haven't given any good arguments so far for that claim. — NKBJ

Early in this discussion thread I stated that...

Raising animals for food is environmentally unsustainable. — Bitter Crank

That is the basis for my statement that carnivores should eat less meat. It may at some point be necessary for carnivores to become vegetarians, again because of sustainability.

Your experiences with killing and your dietary habits don't add much to the question at hand. Talking about them just makes it harder to address the issue objectively. — NKBJ

The food we enjoy is going to be a subjective issue no matter how you slice it. The only reason I mentioned that I had killed and slaughtered some chickens was to address the issue someone had raised about separating meat eating from the details of killing animals for food.

I haven't seen you directly address their moral status so far, but you do seem to insist they don't matter--on what basis other than you personally didn't feel qualms about killing them? — NKBJ

I haven't decided what the moral status of animals is. I'm favorably disposed toward animals, wild or domestic, but that isn't the same as determining their moral status.

First, "animal" covers a lot of territory -- 986-celled nematodes on up to whales and elephants. Environmentally, all animals are important and do not require moral justification for their existence. A healthy environment requires the full panoply of plants and animals. The health of the forest, for example, has been shown to be dependent on salmon, bears and wolves. Trees, the understory plants, bears, salmon, wolves, elk, moose, and deer have complex relationships. Remove the bears and the forest deteriorates.

Deer, in the upper midwest at least, have reached large populations and have become foraging pests with refined tastes -- leaving aside corn for garden flowers, vegetables, and plants in hanging pots. They'll stand up on their hind legs and clear cut a $50 planter hanging from the eves--and this is in small cities, not out in the country. Food is so abundant for them that they have become gourmets - preferring potted impatiens to dandelions.

City rabbits breed like rabbits, and are clearly over-populated, with large die-offs in the fall. Ditto for squirrels.

I happen to like all these animals--raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, elephants, ants, whales, grasshoppers, bees, baboons, bonobos, birds, bats, and bison. With adequate natural predation (hawks, owls, eagles, snakes, bats, wolves, fox, etc.) the small gnawing biting stinging little animals are kept in balance. The megafauna like elephants, rhinoceros, hippos, wildebeests, zebras, lions, tigers, etc. are central to African ecology. Whales are critical for ocean ecology, as are all the other creatures in the oceans.

I value elephants; I may be willing to grant them moral status and the protection due intelligent beings. The problem I find is working out moral status for the rest of the animal kingdom. The moral value I see in my loving, faithful, intelligent dog I can't automatically extend to voles, moles, or rats, and gnats.

What is YOUR solution?

I think it is basically true that "Consciousness is necessarily mysterious" for the reason you stated: we can not observe ourselves objectively. We can't get outside of ourselves to look at ourselves. What we can do is learn how other people's brains work, and then with the proviso that "people are basically all alike" assume that the way everybody else's brain works is the way my brain works.

How much value there is in learning exactly how a mind works, not sure. We need to understand the brain better, but the mind which the brain contains... leave it alone.

I take a consequentialist approach to the question. We favor some actions, and call them right, because they contribute to something we all want. Murder is wrong because it deprives the person of life, something we all think is good and desirable. We think stealing is wrong because it deprives a person of resources to survive -- something we all think is good and desirable. We oppose wrong actions and support right actions because getting less wrong actions and more right actions produces a society which functions well, something we all think is good and desirable.

Unless we don't, of course. Then we may change our tune. If we want to overthrow the society, we may start thinking that murder, theft, and instability are a good thing. This can work for people as long as they are not personally hurt by the consequences of the wrong actions they encourage. Blowing up factories is one thing, blowing up yourself while making bombs is something else.

Unfortunately, it is not always clear how right actions will help and how wrong actions will hurt. People carry out good and bad actions for sometimes quite mistaken reasons.

The beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back to the beginning of Zionism (late 19th century and forward) and the flight of Jews from Germany before WWII. It was acknowledged at the beginning that bringing non-Arabs into Palestine would be problematic for the resident Arabs. The land was already fully occupied -- of course; it wasn't just sitting there empty, waiting for settlers.

There was resistance from the Arab residents from the beginning, and became more intense once the State of Israel was declared.

It has been evident for quite some time that the Jewish infiltration into the west bank, with settlements and roads, would prevent the Palestinians from organizing a contiguous territory. Further, there was, if I remember correctly, an intention (in the British Balfour Declaration) to include the West Bank as part of Israel. That didn't happen de jure; it's been de facto.

Israel now has the problem of pacifying the Arab population in its midst, never a nice process. It is traumatic for the resident Palestinians to endure, and it is degrading to Israeli culture to do it. I don't see an acceptable way out for either side.

The point I want to reinforce, is that this isn't a new problem: it was created when the first Jews left Europe for Palestine. This is, for better or worse, the way the world works. Columbus's expedition, then later the British, was the beginning of the end for native western hemisphere cultures. When Australia was discovered and claimed by the British, that too was the beginning of the end for the aboriginal culture.

Nobody lands on the shore, discovers people already present, and says, "Oh, look, Jack. See, there are people already living here. That means we must leave so as not to disturb them. They were here first, and they deserve to remain the only residents here."

No. Never happens that way. Instead, calculations are made about what it will take to win a beachhead, then move in settlers. If the calculating is sound, the discoverers will lead to settlers and that will be either the end of the existing residents, or a very long war and then the end of the earlier residents.

Colonial expansion by one people normally occurs at the expense of the natives -- in this case, Arabs. It may not be nice; just; fair; reasonable; and so on, but that is the way the world works.

I have shown why with two very simple counter examples. — Thorongil

I don't care. I disagree with you about the morality of eating meat.

True enough, slavery has been considered a moral institution -- by a good deal more cultures than the various southern states of the US. Slavery was ubiquitous in ancient societies that we revere (Greece, Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the children of Abraham. Eventually these empires and practices crumbled under various circumstances and slavery faded (more than disappeared) from the world). Cultures changed their positions about slavery. Eventually slavery became viewed as a moral evil.

That some vegans think that meat eating is immoral isn't normative for everyone, it's only normative for vegans, at this point. Perhaps at some point in the future vegetarianism or veganism will become morally normative, and then eating meat will be seen as immoral.

I prefer to view dietary habits as healthy, unhealthy; affordable, unaffordable; convenient, inconvenient; sustainable, unsustainable. There are consequences to eating meat that may be consequentially unacceptable at some point in the future, and then we can all stop eating meat.

I'm not ceding the role of moral leadership to vegans. If they find it morally appropriate and uplifting, whatever, bully for them.

Yes, Thorongil, this is elementary stuff.

Eating meat is a legal, long-standing, socially approved, culturally familiar, doctor recommended, popular dietary behavior. There is no reason why enjoyment is not a full and sufficient justification for doing it. If some people think there is a moral problem with eating meat, that is their problem, not mine. I am under no obligation to agree with their minority view that eating meat is immoral.

Western society has long deemed it moral, reasonable, and appropriate to eat various meats if it was available, along with all sorts of other things.

Maybe vegans just don't like meat and feel they need to disguise their deviant preferences as moral superiority. Maybe their wretched quinoa burger tastes better with with a hot judgmental sauce. Perhaps their ideas about eating meat are skewed by sentimentality about furry or feathered animals.

Omnivores have default moral justification.

I don't have a problem with the practice of raising animals humanely and then eating them. — Bitter Crank

Why? — Thorongil

"Why?" he asks.

I like cooked animal, to start with. I grew up eating meat, milk, and eggs.

The animals we raise for slaughter were domesticated for that purpose thousands of years ago. It's a sensible strategy: domesticated animals can eat plants (grass, small leafed forage plants like alfalfa) that we can not digest and turn into meat, milk, and eggs that we can digest.

What doesn't make a lot of sense is for us to feed animals plants that we could eat just as well--which is what happens in beef and hog feedlots. Animals are fed corn, wheat, soybeans, and various other foods, all of which we could eat directly.

Some animals eat plants, some animals eat other animals. There is nothing superior or inferior about either group, and choosing to be a plant eating animal isn't more moral than being a meat eating animal.

You are absolutely right in your quoting, "Eminent physicist John Wheeler". That said, I have no idea whatsoever how human consciousness shapes not only the present, but the past as well. Because, As some body said, "Not only is quantum mechanics hard to imagine, it's harder than we can imagine." Something to that effect. "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." —Richard Feynman

Clearly you could have been mistaken, and could still be mistaken. — NKBJ

That is true: I could have been, and could be in the future mistaken about the morality of meat eating. But it probably won't be based on the rights of animals, or their needs. My first and most sincere recognition of wrongness would be "eating meat is environmentally unsustainable." It is unsustainable now, (that is, it can't continue without further and increasing harm).

I already have strong doubts about the morality of eating fish when other meat sources are available -- fish and the oceans seem to be in worst shape than cows and grazing land.

The argument "I've done x, therefore I do not think x is a bad thing to do" is not very sound. — NKBJ

I wasn't claiming that my chopping a chicken's head off was a good argument for meat eating. I was simply indicating that I knew, on a first hand basis, what it meant to kill a food animal. It isn't an abstraction if one has beheaded a few chickens.

As W. S. Gilbert said, "a quick chippy choppy on a big black block".

From the vegan perspective, the omni diet is rather bland and single-mindedly focused on animal-derived proteins and fats — NKBJ

I guess it would depend on what one was actually eating, and whether one used strong flavored vegetables and spice. Indian vegetarian items are at least flavorful -- sometimes too much. Stir fries and chutneys, garlic, fish sauce etc. solve the blandness problem The vegan food I've been exposed to was not very good. Not unwholesome, just not attractive to the senses. As for proteins and fats...

I get the largest share of my calories from vegetarian sources (vegetables, grains, potatoes, yams, fruits, dried legumes, nuts) . A substantial chunk of calories are from dairy--milk, yogurt, butter, cheese in that order). I generally eat slightly less than 1 3 oz. serving of meat per day (some days none). I eat very little highly processed food. So most of the sugar I eat, I add myself.

I think the logical thing for meat eaters to do is eat less meat -- one 3 oz. serving per day supplies the nutrition that meat eaters expect to get from meat. 8 or 10 ounces of meat per day supplies more nutrition than usually needed, but also more fat than most people need.

I too am an omnivore, and I too recognize that my diet is problematic from some angles. I have bits of pig, chicken, cow, and fish on hand, and I look forward to eating them. I like meat. Meat has the advantage of being nutritionally dense, easy to prepare (no mixing required, just put it in the oven or in the pan) and sensorially satisfying.

It could be that the lamb, pig, chicken, cow, and maybe the cod fish too were all despondent as they contemplated their fate in the last moments of their lives. I don't approve of the way animals are raised (crowded cages, small pens, over-populated feedlots, etc.) and there is no excuse for slaughter methods that are not instant and pretty free of bungling. These methods of raising animals are not only unpleasant for the animals, but they are highly un-ecological and unsanitary.

I don't have a problem with the practice of raising animals humanely and then eating them. So, you chickens, just keep eating and clucking away. You're just about ready for a beheading. Yes, I have chopped the heads off chickens and butchered them. I've seen cows and pigs killed and butchered. It didn't dull my appetite very much.

There is a very, very large problem with raising animals for food that could be, for me, a compelling reason to switch to vegetarianism (not veganism -- the practice of people who basically hate food):

Raising animals for food is environmentally unsustainable. Never mind cattle belching up methane, which is one problem. The bigger problem now, and in the future, is producing enough food of any kind from the available arable soils. As oil becomes more expensive and more difficult to get, and as natural gas is used up for fuel and plastics, there will be much less energy available to manufacture and ship fertilizers, tillage, planting, harvesting, processing, storage and distribution.

This probably sounds far fetched to people who think oil will last forever (it won't--we've already passed peak oil), but in the future we will need to allocate a substantial part of our land to food for horses to raise vegetarian food for ourselves. Prior to the internal combustion engine, about 20% of land was needed to raise oats and hay for horses used for traction. Unlike cattle, horses can't make do on any-old fodder. They aren't cud chewers, and they have 1 stomach which doesn't ferment crude fiber the way cattle do with their 4-chambered stomach. Horses need quality hay and oats to be able to work.

Just compare a cow plop with a pile of horse shit -- there is a big difference. (YOUR TASK: find some fresh bull shit and horse shit; compare and contrast.)

If someone else who was a good cook was preparing my food, and they could do a good job making vegetable food (including milk and egg products) I'd make the switch quite willingly. I know how to make some vegetarian items, which are good, nutritious, and satisfying -- but my repertoire is limited and at this point... can't eat that many bean products.

as it happens, I wasn't thinking of Heraclitus. It's the opening verse of St. John's Gospel.

It's a non-problem.

Until some point after the big bang, from which all things follow, there were no beings anywhere (leaving out God here, the Logos, "in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God...") YET, here we are. That the universe could exist for a long time with no beings of any kind, and progress on to a universe where there are probably many observers and describers, should settle the matter of whether the universe can get along with out us.

In a word, "Yes! Quite well, thank you."

Now, if you want to throw in God, Logos, or whatever deity (deities) you want, then there was an observer (were observers) before the universe was created.

From this I can assume that you are all atheists? Matthew's gospel... — Count Radetzky von Radetz

I am a reluctant atheist, baptized Christian. I have no grievance against believers, or God either. I am quite familiar with St. Matthew's gospel and commend it regularly. I don't believe that gods exist, or miracles, or a hereafter.

You don't have to disbelieve in your particular god or pretend not to believe in it to keep it to yourself as a matter of politeness and consideration for those who don't believe in it. If an American Muslim was elected President and constantly said "Allah, who is great, bless America", the collective red states would have a collective heart attack and start reaching for their guns, so your argument falls apart very quickly. — Baden

Americans, by and large, don't expect each other to keep religiosity to themselves, any more than they would expect people to keep their state of origin, their city of residence, or their job to themselves. That doesn't mean that the typical American would welcome every evangelical on the bus asking them if they had accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

There are, of course, Americans who consider politics, religion, sex, and money to be inappropriate topics in any social setting. I tend to avoid that type.

Australia and the United States are different. Australia may be majority atheist (don't have any survey data handy) but the U.S. is majority theist. A supermajority of Americans believe in God and a majority of Americans are affiliated (perhaps loosely) with a religious denomination. The percentage of atheists in the US is quite small.

There are, of course, historical reasons for this. 17th century colonists were in many cases ardently religious. There were two "great awakenings" -- evangelism drives -- conducted in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. There was considerable variety in Christian denominations, and there has been a great deal of religious activism in the US since its founding.

Peak religion was about 1965; since then there has been a substantial decrease in religious participation, but not a steep decline in belief in God.

So, when the POTUS or someone else says, "God bless America", he or she is speaking the language of the people.

Does he mean it? I don't know. From one person's mouth "God Bless America" is a meaningless platitude; from some else's mouth, it's a sincere invocation. "God" is a more general term than Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Christians, Jews, and Moslems share the term "God" (at least in English). "God" is more 'official' than "Jesus" is. "Jesus" is personal. I think American Christians would be startled and off-put if the POTUS said, "Jesus, bless this country." They would be startled if the POTUS invoked the trinity, or pronounced the Aaronic benediction. Jesus is church-talk. It would sound very odd coming from a secular leader.

Congruence between ideals and life. It doesn't happen often enough, but sometimes it does and then one finds out where one's authenticity lies. Authenticity is a great feeling.

If this biological drive was inherently as strong as you suggest, there’d be no cases of deliberate self-harm or suicide. — CuddlyHedgehog

Yes, suicide would seem to contradict what I said. But if the biological drive to live was not inherently as strong as I suggest, there would be a lot more suicides. Life can be quite unsatisfactory at times. But you didn't quote the second part of that paragraph:

until some point of decay and dysfunction is passed when life is no longer feasible. At that point, we begin to actively die. — Bitter Crank

When despair becomes sufficiently intense, or when loneliness is too severe, or the pain of existence (from physical or mental disease) is too great, people turn toward suicide and consider that option. Despair, severe loneliness, and psychological and physical pain (especially together), are a kind of dying. Middle aged (like... 45--60) blue collar men are among the groups currently experiencing the highest rates of suicide. For many, they can't find a manly way of belonging to this society, doing the kind of work, supporting their families, and so forth that had in decades past defined them. They also tend to be isolated (sometimes self-isolated).

One of the problems of guns is that they are very swift and generally fatal. A loaded gun doesn't allow for much chance to reconsider. People who would use slower methods (hanging, for instance) have time to think twice and often do decide not to take the final step.

Here's an article about neanderthals from Science News from 1975:

those who throw flowers into the graves of their deceased" — javra

Right. The neanderthals were not the clod-kicking club carrying characters of cartoons. They engaged in aesthetic activity (ochre coloring and holes added to sea shells) and were capable of kindness. There is a skeleton of either a very early homo sapiens or neanderthal who was quite deformed, but who reached adulthood. He would have had to have been cared for to survive, and survive he did, apparently well cared for.

Some humans have historically done this … and the fatalism to “always will because it is in our genetic/God-given nature to” doesn’t sit well with me. — javra

Which behaviors are in our genes isn't entirely clear, but certainly some fairly socially unattractive features are bred in the bone. Homo Sapiens have a tremendous potential to be really awful, and frequently are. BUT, we also have tremendous potential to be really splendid, and we also are -- fairly often at least. Some goodness is genetic, some badness is genetic, and a lot of it is mediated by culture. For instance, the marines (a cultural institution) build soldiers by overcoming biological and cultural resistance to following orders implicitly through thorough-going training.

Convents, religious orders like the Jesuits, monasteries, and the like also overcome biological and cultural drives to create nuns, monks, and priests. Boarding schools, residential colleges, prisons, and the like also shape behavior by thorough-going training. (No institution, of course, is always successful.)

It isn't a matter of belief, the evidence is in a comparison of denisovian and neanderthal genes (of which there are complete reconstructions) and homo sapiens genes. They was definitely interbreeding. Was it advantageous? The benefit/harm picture isn't clear, as far as I know. If genes were gained from neanderthals connected with the immune apparatus, this could be the source of disease resistance or immune system problems for our species which went on for 30-35,000 more years and now lives with much different diets than we once ate--like gluten rich diets. (Just fishing there -- don't know if there is any connection to gluten and neanderthals).

Denisovans interbred primarily with Asian H.S., while neanderthals interbred with European H.S.

"Yes, Virginia, you actually are a bit of a neanderthal."

They aren't separate species, as far as I know -- not enough time has elapsed. And as is the case of dogs, the number of genes involved in the moth's difference in color is one lousy gene. The wide array of dog shapes and sizes is likewise controlled by one or two genes (which I guess activate other genes). Foxes become tame, with more barking in adults and more upright tail waving, simply because a stress hormone gene is suppressed in the taming. (Tails go up, ears come down. The tame foxes aren't a different species either -- their just tame foxes.

They wouldn't be more dog like until they passed on the gene suppression to their offspring over many generations. How stable the gene suppression is, don't know. The gene suppression that tamed the foxes also ruined their fur for trade purposes.

Speciation in progress:

In the often-told evolutionary tale, the color shift in moths began as factories in Britain started to darken the skies with coal smoke during the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Victorian naturalists took note as a newly discovered, all-black carbonaria form of peppered moths (Biston betularia) blended into soot-covered backgrounds; the light-colored typica moths, which lacked the mutation, were easily picked off by birds. By 1970, nearly 99 percent of peppered moths were black in some localities. As air pollution decreased in the late 20th century, black moths became more visible to birds. As a result, carbonaria moths are now rare. — Science News

BLACK AND WHITE As soot settled onto trees in Britain during the Industrial Revolution, a black version of the peppered moth (right) started to overtake the mottled-wing form (left). Scientists have now found the mutation that caused the color shift in a gene called cortex.

I've been thinking about life lately and I'm starting to wonder whether or not life is actually worth living. The vast majority of people want to live and we're always attempting to evade death. So presumably it is better to be alive than to be dead. That being said, what sort of calculation do we implicitly make when we say that life is worth living and that death should be avoided? — Purple Pond

"Why some people ask this question, 'is life worth living?'" is perhaps more interesting than the philosophical question itself. What it is that propels creatures -- from worms on up to philosophers -- does not depend on, has nothing to do with, is altogether separate from such questions. The biological and non-conscious drives which power our existences can not, and do not, ask such questions. As far as the body is concerned, and all philosophers are first and foremost bodies without which they are nothing, such questions do not exist.

Organisms, including humans, are designed to live actively, and we all keep living, and we all keep wanting to live, until some point of decay and dysfunction is passed when life is no longer feasible. At that point, we begin to actively die.

The important question, and one which is consonant with the philosopher's embodiment, is "How should I live". — Bitter Crank

"Why should I live?" "is life worth living?" "What is the point?" "Pleasure makes life worth living; pain makes life not worth living." and so on are not "ultimate questions" they are a sort of petulant juvenile question. Oddly enough, these questions are often asked by younger people who are supposed to be more intensely embodied than us old, dried out, not-long-for-this-world people.

This calculating business is silly. The only people who pause to calculate whether life is worth living or not are people who exist only inside this idle question. (OK, every now and then, a real person is caught in extremis -- a real secret agent who has to decide whether to kill himself or reveal the secrets he is carrying. 99.999% of the time, none of us ever find ourselves in such situations. That is what spy novels are for.)

"Is life worth living?" looks like a question worth asking only at first glance. The question has been asked here so often, our first glance can be very brief.

the risk of transmission is very small, even for vaginal intercourse (0.40% or so - but for some reason people seem to assume much bigger risks when it comes to HIV — Agustino

It depends... IF you have many sex partners in a population with a low rate of HIV, the chance of transmission is low. If you have sex with only one person -- who is HIV+ -- over time the risk of infection becomes much, much higher. OR if you have many sex partners in a population with a high rate of HIV (like North American gay men, or among South African blacks, for instance) the risk is much higher.

All this assumes one is never using condoms and/or not taking a prophylactic medication like Truvada (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate). Being HIV- and taking the daily Truvada capsule greatly reduces risk of infection, even if condoms are not used. Truvada blocks reverse transcriptase so that HIV can't become established.

a lot of people lack seriousness — Agustino

This is true, but I don't think that a "lack of seriousness" is exactly what is bothering you.

People working together in an economy establish standards of performance. This is both a top-down and a bottom-up process. McDonalds has a well-known standard of performance. So does BMW; so does Emirate Air Lines; so do a lot of businesses, industries, governments, etc. Sometimes the standard of performance followed is superb, sometimes is is abysmal.

The standard of performance usually isn't established by one person working alone. It is usually established by many people working together in an enterprise or agency. An established standard isn't necessarily high. Some companies, industries, agencies, etc. have established low performance standards which seem resistant to improvement.

You may have a high performance standard for yourself, but it may exceed the performance standards which (apparently quite a few) businesses in your country have established as their 'standard level of performance'. Or you are working with individual entrepreneurs who are not striving for excellence. They may not know what "excellent service" looks like. This isn't unique to where you live. In time (maybe while you are still alive) this will probably improve. But then again, maybe not.

We all live in what is supposed to have become a 'service economy'. So why is it sometimes so damned hard to get good service? Service is bad because the standards of service business performance are not very high.

"Serious people", that is deep thinkers who care about the world, about individuals, about doing good work, and so on are not necessarily great workers. They might be "big picture" thinkers who just don't care about the trivia of getting everything exactly right the first time around. Their heads may be in the clouds. So, you ask, "Why are you working as a janitor in this building when you really don't care how dirty the floor is?" The answer might be, "I just have to have a job so I can eat, and this was just slightly better than what else was available. To be perfectly honest, I don't care how dirty your floor is, but I do like to eat."

Have mercy on the poor souls who can not work in the clouds where their heads are, for whom seeing the big picture (maybe really well) is just not a valued skill.

I found your comments usefully explanatory. There is something fishy about the Harvard International Review article. It seems to fly in the face of what I have always taken to be a common sense view of income, taxes, government spending, inflation, and so on.

Debt usually is a problem eventually. Most people carry more debt than they can reasonably pay off quickly (it amounts to too large a share of their income and assets) for ordinary goods, autos, college education, and so forth. There are various schemes for banks to extract the value of houses (the home equity loan). Some corporations have quite a bit of debt (maybe not Apple, but Apple isn't everybody), and the there is the federal debt.

Governments shouldn't be free of the discipline of debt payment, balanced budgets, and so forth, because a lack of discipline disables any capacity to make intelligent decisions. Spend a trillion on this war, that tax cut, whatever... Great. It will play well on Main Street, Wall Street, or Dead End Street.

Debt and balance of payment deficits should alert us to failures in our economy -- that we are not utilizing all our economic resources--that we are wasting lives, rather than the greatness of paper money to waive away all problems.

So in some ways, I am very risk averse - and in others, I am very risk tolerant. — Agustino

As are most people. The person who seeks out and takes all available risks will probably be dead before too long, and the person who avoids all available risks might as well be.

risk tolerant or risk averse in situations is how much you like or desire something — Agustino

True -- there has to be some motivation in the first place. Sex is a strong motivator, but still some people are very cautious in the their sexual behavior (risk averse) and others very risk tolerant. Engage in unprotected oral sex? Moderate to very risk tolerant people will do that. Engage in unprotected anal sex with another gay man? Very risk tolerant people will do that -- especially if the incentive is high (i.e., very attractive guy). Very risk averse people basically don't have sex because there is no way one can guarantee zero risk. Couples regularly take risks with pregnancies they don't want, and when the means to manage fertility are available.

Also, people are not good at measuring risk. Compare the risk of serious, disabling or fatal auto accident and a possible shooting: A big game will be played and 60,000 people will be in the stadium One person will be shot at random by a marksman and will die from the wound. Which risk will change your behavior? People routinely accept the risk of driving, and (when asked) say they would not attend the game under any circumstances. But the risk of death might be about the same, or perhaps higher for driving.

The risk of being infected with HIV from unprotected oral sex isn't actually known, but it seems to be quite low, and the figure of 1 infection per 10,000 blow jobs is often cited. (1 person is unlikely to perform that many blowjobs, however, no matter how enthusiastic they are. At 5 b.j.s every day, it would still take almost 5 and 1/2 years to get to 10,000.)

I regularly ride my bicycle and take various risks. I ride perhaps 20 miles from home without a tire-patching kit or a spare, and (previously) no cell phone. The risk of a flat tire is high, and the walk to a bus-stop could be quite long, but the risk has seemed acceptable. (I am getting less risk tolerant in this respect. I now have a tire patching kit and cell phone. Now for the pump...

My guess is that risk aversion vs. risk tolerance is largely determined by genes but shaped by nurture. I think if you could follow people longitudinally from birth through 40 years you would find the risk averse at 40 were risk averse as children, and visa versa. Most people are somewhat selective about the risk they will accept or reject. Someone might be risk tolerant for drug use but risk averse for rock climbing.

Childhood rearing practices could certainly influence risk-acceptance/aversion. If children are encouraged to take risks in play (like climbing trees) or discouraged (don't go near the water) that could have some influence.

Maneuvering high up in trees has always been something I have not liked since my earliest memories. I did climb trees quite often, but found it nerve racking. Other things, like exploring new cities, unfamiliar parts of town, tasting plants in the woods, or sex have been territories where I readily accepted risk (or was too stupid to fear).

Some people are generally risk averse, or risk accepting. Their lives take different but not better, not worse courses. Systematic aversion or acceptance of risk alone doesn't result in good long-term decision making. The risk averse, for instance, won't invest well, since investing entails risk. The risk tolerant are more likely to invest in dubious projects.

In a simpler environment (like the stone ages) the benefits of risk aversion were clearer. But then, hunters had to take some risks or vegetarianism would be the diet by default.

how terribly interesting — CuddlyHedgehog

Touché.