... being a loving family member, being honest in your job, and obeying most of the laws is a good start.

1. No idolatry
2. No blasphemy
3. No murder
4. No theft
5. No sexual immorality
6. No eating limbs torn from live animals
7. Help establish just laws and courts

is more specific; I would agree that it isn't very 'deep' -- except for #7. #7 has more depth.

Someone who has fulfilled your initial minimum, or 1-6 of the list of 7 is ready to go further. They have learned how to behave themselves. Behaving ourselves is a good share of morality.

Conceiving just laws and courts isn't the only thing remaining. There is nothing proactively positive, forward looking in the list. Someone who is in a loving family has a good start. But (at least to me) one should strive to "love more". Love more actively. Being minimally good doesn't include acts of mercy. One's family, job, and legal compliance doesn't include seeking justice.

At least as I conceive of it, "morality" is more than the minimum. It looks beyond the family; it examines the work place critically, and is prepared to judge the laws to which we are compliant. There is nothing about the good of generosity towards those in need. As Hosea put it, Do justice, love mercy...

It's good that people are in loving families, are good workers, and obey the rules. But the value of the good is diminished when they see injustice and say "Well, that's not my problem." "No, I don't want to get involved." "I gave at the office." "I never sign petitions." "No, I won't give you a dollar for food; you'd just waste it on booze--get a job, you lazy bum." and so on.

It's good to give to beggars: it might be more good for the giver to part with a dollar than for the bigger to get the dollar--or more. Sure. They might spend some of their money on booze -- well, so do I. They might be lazy, just like I am lazy sometimes. But begging all day is rather hard work. I generally assume that they can't stand the constraints of working with other people on the job, so begging is about all that is left. I have quit jobs several times because I just couldn't stand working in the place. Found my coworkers positively loathsome.

So, morality includes discerning the situation in other people and not judging too harshly.

Is all of this anxiety over nothing? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, it is anxiety for nothing IF you never try to produce writing about the history of something or someone. What about the history of international development? A lot has happened in this field over the last century -- some of it very good, some of it very bad. There is a lot of history that has not been 'captured'.

One author said "Just get it written". Dive in to some manageable project and write some history. Then you'll know whether you can do it or not.

There is also a legal reason why psychologists and psychiatrists operate differently: their licenses are different. Physicians (psychiatrists, for instance) can write prescriptions, psychologists can not. At least in the US. Doctors can admit patients to hospitals, psychologists can not.

It's either taking toxic drugs or figuring out how to pay for it yourself. — Rich

Even assuming the drugs are not toxic, the patient desiring high quality psychotherapy (50 minute sessions, various types of talk therapy, long duration (many months) will have a hard time paying for the care. Ideally, patients would receive high quality psychiatry and high quality psychotherapy together. Fat chance they'll get either one.

Perpetual growth is, of course, unsustainable.

Crop yields can keep going up only as long as one can sell the harvest at a high enough price to pay for the increased yearly inputs that are required to sustain yield growth year after year. Eventually, however, the inputs no longer work because the soil is exhausted--structurally as well chemically. Then yields start to fall, no matter what, for maybe... 5000 years, until the soil is rebuilt by natural processes -- if we are lucky. Meanwhile...

Population can keep growing only as long as sufficient food, water, shelter, lifestyle magazines, and beauty products can be delivered. When food and water, especially, but shelter too become unobtainable, then population crashes. This happens among wild animal populations, and will eventually happen to the tame animal population to which we belong.

There may not be a practical limit on how much wealth one can accumulate. If one's wealth is derived from financial manipulation rather than production, there isn't much limit. On the other hand, one can consume only so much stuff, even if that amount is very large. After one has bought a mansion on the moon and Mars, after one has dressed one's self in the rarest of fabrics (probably golden orb spider silk) after one has eaten the finest food, after one has installed the major orchestras of the world in one's various houses around the world, after one has bought a bullet train to get one from this estate to that estate... eventually one runs out of time to buy something new and one is dead.

Corporations need to keep growing because their investor-owners want more dividends this year than last year. They would want to sell their stock for more than they bought it. If a company is stagnant, it's expected profitability falls, making the stock less attractive. Plus, there is the competition; if they don't keep capturing a larger share of the market, somebody else will gain a larger share. Then, iIf their dividends fall, if their profits fall, it will become more difficult for the corporation to sell more stock to raise capital, or they will have to pay more to borrow it.

It also seems to be the case that most stock-issuing companies have to keep growing because they don't retain a lot of their profits. Each quarter they pay out dividends. (Well, Apple Corporation has something like $261 billion in cash; i don't know what they are planning on doing with it. I feel like I've done enough for Apple Corporation over the years that they could and should send me a free new iPhone or iPad. Hell, send both.)

So, several market forces keep the pressure to grow on companies.

I assumed it was built to house the language departments. — T Clark

Are there more heretics in the language departments than the theology department?

Is Virtue found in most people — MysticMonist

I think most people are at least reasonably virtuous, though "virtue" might not be a word they would use to describe their own behavior. Parents teach children the basics of virtue, unless they (the parents) are mentally, emotionally, or morally ssdefective. Virtue, for most people, is a behavior rather than a philosophical system. They live lives in which they behave properly (more or less), obey the rules of social interaction, obey the law, put in an honest days' work

What does being a virtuous person in today’s world really look like? Is Virtue found in most people, most of the time or it is rare and only the product of intense training and self-renunciation? Is human virtue is even possible? — MysticMonist

Is it enough to be a loving family member, be honest in your job and obey most of the laws? In short to not be terrible and ruin it for everyone. — MysticMonist

I am happy with that simple definition, even if it not a complex system. I would be even more happy if everyone hewed to being so virtuous as your simple formula.

be a loving family member
be honest in your job
obey most of the laws

involves prerequisites:

being able to love others
recognize the great value of loving families (even if many are not)
the ability to be patient and caring

having honesty as a trait in the first place
understanding or exercising the necessity of mutual honesty; (we can't do business if people aren't honest)
being responsible and diligent

understanding civic responsibility
understanding where their own rights end, and someone else's begin
having the capacity to discern very important laws (insuring one's car, obeying the speed limit) from less important laws (not putting enough money in the parking meter)

They just finished this large tower to be higher than anything else in the city to house their theology program. — MysticMonist

The better to throw heretics off of...

(Got to love when you can use the 2nd person plural). — MysticMonist

Although there is some dialectal retention of the original plural ye and the original singular thou, most English-speaking groups have lost the original forms. Because of the loss of the original singular-plural distinction, many English dialects belonging to this group have innovated new plural forms of the second person pronoun. Examples of such pronouns sometimes seen and heard include:

y'all, or you all – southern United States,[1] African American Vernacular English, the Abaco Islands,[2] St. Helena[2] and Tristan da Cunha.[2] Y'all however, is also occasionally used for the second person singular in the North American varieties.
you guys [ju gajz~juɣajz] – U.S.,[3] particularly in the Midwest, Northeast, South Florida and West Coast; Canada, Australia. Used regardless of the genders of those referred to
you lot – UK,[4] Palmerston Island[5]
you-all, all-you – Caribbean English,[6] Saba[5]
a(ll)-yo-dis – Guyana[6]
among(st)-you – Carriacou, Grenada, Guyana,[6] Utila[5]
wunna – Barbados [6]
yinna – Bahamas[6]
unu/oona – Jamaica, Belize, Cayman Islands, Barbados,[6] San Salvador Island[2]
yous(e) – Ireland,[7] Tyneside,[8] Merseyside,[9] Central Scotland,[10] Australia,[11] Falkland Islands,[2] New Zealand,[5] Rural Canada
yous(e) guys – in the U.S., particularly in New York City region, Philadelphia, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan;[citation needed]
you-uns/yinz – Western Pennsylvania, The Ozarks, The Appalachians[12]
ye/yee/yees/yiz – Ireland,[13] Tyneside,[14] Newfoundland and Labrador[5]
Although these plurals are used in daily speech, they are not always considered acceptable in formal writing situations. — Wikipedia

I hear "youse" (z sound on 's') in the midwest; whether it is ethnically derived (eastern European) or an affectation of working classness, I do not know.

Loius C.K. apparently forces female comics to watch him masturbate — Wosret

I wasn't invited, and I would have enjoyed it (assuming he does it well).

bailiwick
— unenlightened
:-O I never heard of this word. — Agustino

It's an interesting word. "Bailie" is Old French for 'bailiff'--an officer of a court who handles ordinary matters, like looking after prisoners, serving writs on people, etc. 1066 brought a large batch of French legal terminology into English. "Wick" is Old English, meaning 'village'. So, the bailiff's village--bailiwick--the area that a bailiff was responsible for.

"Wick" on its own is interesting too. You are probably familiar with the "wick" of a candle or oil lamp, coming from the primitive eastern provinces of Europe as you do where people lived in dark hovels until just recently when they switched from lard lamps to LED lighting. "before 1000; Middle English wicke, weke, Old English wice, wēoc(e); cognate with Middle Dutch wiecke, Middle Low German wêke, Old High German wiohha lint, wick ( German Wieke lint); akin to Sanskrit vāgura noose"

Now you know.

Knowing this about me, would you ever expect me to on depend on a "responsive court system" to make myself "safe from undesired advances"? Do you think I would attempt to organize or join a "union" to keep myself safe and have the Union fight my battle? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

There is nothing wrong, weak, or deficient about having help when you fight your personal battles.

#MeToo is presumably about more than one creep -- Harvey Weinstein. It's about a pattern of bad behavior which some privileged men engage in when the local culture (in this case, Hollywood) tolerates/enables it.

Responsive court systems will generally help people one by one, after the damage is done.

IF we want to change social systems, and sex abuse is something we all want to change, it takes something different than a one-by-one post-assault approach. That's where on-the-job protections provided by strong unions and conscious-raised workers come in. Good unions aren't just about collecting dues and calling strikes. They are also about educating workers about the respect to which workers are entitled.

You have a strong moral compass, but lots of people's moral compasses are not so strong. A young woman with hopes of fame and fortune, working in a highly competitive industry where individual favor by a director or producer is critical, might not have the wherewithal to accuse the big wig of sexual assault or rape, on her own.

Where strong unions exist, people are treated better. Why? Because the union is capable of making life very difficult for management. Weinstein's ego would have been considerably more restrained if his productions could be halted over rape-on-the-job complaints by union sisters. Everyone looked the other way for both personal and corporate reasons. Individuals kept their mouths shut because they didn't want to hear the phrase "You'll never work in this town again" and Weinstein's peers were watching gate receipts, profits, and award lists.

Oh my... this is a typical case of projection, where one side dreams that the other side has what they lack. I think neither of them have "class consciousness". Why would you say that some have class consciousness and others don't? Working class person isn't aware that they are working class and therefore are under different conditions than the capitalists?

And how can "class consciousness" help prevent abuses? — Agustino

First, I am not projecting -- I am working class. I know of what I speak. Second, some people have class consciousness and other people don't. Not that difficult a concept, is it? Third, absolutely -- a lot of working class people (especially in the United States) have "false class consciousness". A couple of examples:

"In America, anybody can be whatever they want." False. Most people in the real world exceed the accomplishments of their parents only to limited degree. Children may get more education than their parents; they may enter a skilled trade like medical technology, oil drilling, teaching k-12, accounting, and so on; they may make twice as much as their parents earned, but none of that lifts them far above the accomplishments of their parents. Most people's parents were working class, and most of those children will remain working class.

"I own my home, I went to college, I have a professional job, I have season tickets to the symphony. I'm not working class." Some people own their own home. Most people share ownership with a mortgage company. Lots of people go to college and lot's of people have "professional jobs". Lots of workers have refined tastes. There are only a few professions which enable occupants to act like bourgeois people: physician, law partner, small business owner (having...100 to 200 employees, producing a high value product or service), tenured professor, senior pastor of a wealthy church, and the like.

Sure you are working class IF your wage or salary is tied to a job which you must perform in order to get paid... Doctors who own their own clinics have become bourgeoisie. Partners in a law firm have become bourgeoisie. Tenured professors are sort of bourgeoisie. Fat cat pastors of wealthy churches are merely parasites.

Thinking you are not working class when you have to go to work to get paid is FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS.

Workers who have class consciousness understand that individually they are powerless, and that in union they become strong. Uniting in labor solidarity won't make them rich, but it will protect them from egregious practices by employers. Class consciousness means understanding the difference between having to work for one's wages and living on accumulated riches.

Cosby though, I thought was actually drugging and raping women though... I thought that other guy was just making use of the casting couch, not literally a serial rapist, just trading roles and stuff for sex, I wouldn't consider those things remotely similar. — Wosret

I don't consider them the same either.

Oh dear, class consciousness.... — Agustino

Yes, dear, class consciousness. Capitalists have it -- why shouldn't workers benefit from it as well?

This I understand but what you have explained can happen to anyone. I fail to see how it is specific to sexual harassment/and or abuse by people in the position of power. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Power differentials are ubiquitous, even if the differentials are not always as great as between the king and the serving wench. One can get fired for arbitrary and capricious reasons because the boss has more power than the employee. Sexual harassments occur for the same reason.

Not only are power differentials ubiquitous, but they are essential operating protocols in this world. The organization of power is not the topic, but it can't be separated from the topic of sexual harassment. Sexual behavior will always occur -- no matter what the behavior is -- in the context of power differentials.

Even if we develop responsive court systems that deal with sexual advances that persist after clear rejection to deal with the bold marauders in the corporate suites, power differentials will continue to exist in simple and exaggerated forms.

IF you want to be safe from the undesired advance, then something more than responsive court systems will be needed: What is needed are very strong employee class conscious unions that can collectively resist arbitrary and capricious actions of management. I don't know how much you will have to pitch overboard to take on strong class conscious unions, but if you want social change...

BTW, the reason strong class conscious unions are needed is that unionism is the best vehicle for the change in consciousness among all workers. If Hollywood actors and other workers in the crafts of illusion had a class conscious union, everyone in Tinsel Town would have a much clearer understanding of why Harvey Weinstein's behavior was unacceptable.

The same methods (strong class conscious unions) that prevent arbitrary and capricious firings also prevent sexually improper behavior.

Capeesh?

You seem to live in this lyric, "All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray". I'm pretty sure you will reject whatever interpretation is offered, like with Marx. "Just more bullshit."

Communism in the Soviet Union turned out very badly, but there is still something very worthwhile in his view of religion. People need an opiate -- not Fentanyl, but an anodyne, if they are going to live in this wretched world, "this vale of tears". The hope, though, is not to push more dope, but to do something about the wretched world.

The thing with feathers is not a supernatural beast. Perhaps, it is the hope that springs eternal in the heart, that keeps us going.

Despair, depression, gloom, futility, darkness... all dull our capacity to feel hope. Some of this we can not help, and some of it we can.

EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Since your referencing Marx, let's get the whole quote:

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.[2]

Strange thing, nobody - absolutely nobody - voted in this poll. I guess TPF members aren't very open with regards to this sort of thing. — Agustino

Probably because

A. most of the participants are male
B. probably haven't been sexually exploited on the job
C. probably haven't even been offered sexual exploitation
C. are philosophers who would disarm their exploiters with incisive invective.

To start with I should let you know that AZ is a right to work state which also means the right to fire without reason given state. I believe Unions represent 4% of workers in AZ which seems very low in comparison to say, Minnesota or Illinois. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Minnesota has about 15% of its employees represented, Arizona has about 5%.

"Right to work" are rules disadvantageous to workers who seek protection from unionization. "Employment at will" (meaning one can be fired any time for any reason) is separate from "right to work", and operates where no contract (union or professional) is in force.

Getting fired because someone lied about you, or because somebody just didn't like you and had made trouble for you, or because the boss just didn't like your long hair, or short hair, or whatever hair -- all sorts of reasons -- can be devastating. One suddenly finds one's self without an income, insurance, cut off from the social circle of work, etc. Also very common is injury on the job or sickness because of the job because it was cheaper to have an unsafe, unhealthy workplace. This is considered normal by many people who howl about sexual harassment.

Correct me if I am wrong but what I am reading is that you might believe that if the rewards are good enough, a boss or supervisor should be able to come onto an employee? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I wasn't clear. I meant to apply the rewards to the employee who accepts sexual exploitation as a way of getting ahead. In other words, an employee might find it advantageous to tolerate being exploited. It does happen that people screw their way upwards in an organization. The exploiter has generally already obtained a superior position.

Monica Lewinsky probably calculated greater advantage from sex with Bill than calling a press conference announcing that Bill had come on to her (literally).

Sexual exploitation is a specialty within the general practice of exploiting employees (aka, workers). "All workers can expect to be harassed on the job, sooner or later, whatever form the harassment takes. The reason for this is that most jobs are exploitation to start with. Sexual harassment is but a specialty."

If we are going to be against harassment and exploitation, then we should be against harassment and exploitation across the board.

AI experts can't even come up with a decent chatbot. — Baden

This is a very cogent point.

People forget that the animating intelligences within computers, robots, etc. are... humans. The "effect" of "intelligence" is altogether misleading. Deep Blue succeeded at Jeopardy because of the many, many hours humans spent loading it's data base with Jeopardy-type facts in a format the data processor could handle following a program that... humans wrote.

A "self-driving car" isn't smart: it's processing incoming data and executing instructions that fit the data. Did the self-driving car learn how to do that by itself? Of course not. It has taken large teams of workers years and years to come up with the hardware and software that enables a car to drive itself even fairly well.

I'm in favor of developing better computers. I'd like to have a computer that can recognize that it's me sitting in front of it, remember how I like to do things, figure out what my favorite music is -- without me having to tell it that xyz song is a favorite. If I play it 15 times, can't it draw any conclusions from that? Not so far, it can't.

But "better computers" won't be artificial intelligence--if we even know what artificial intelligence would be.

How would artificial intelligence differ from natural intelligence?

All workers can expect to be harassed on the job, sooner or later, whatever form the harassment takes. The reason for this is that most jobs are exploitation to start with. Sexual harassment is but a specialty.

I'm not making light of sexual harassment. Nobody should be pressured to fuck the boss or supervisor or co-worker--except where the rewards are going to be very attractive. On the other hand, pursuing relationships on the job seems like a normal activity to me -- and just as raping one's date is a bad way to start a great relationship, mauling one's co-workers isn't an auspicious beginning either.

I suspect that Monica Lewinsky thought the rewards were going to be pretty attractive. I don't know what Bill got out of it -- blow job? Hand job?

But back to my first point -- workers get jerked around on the job rather often. Sure, there are some jobs, some work sites, where there is more bullying, or less arbitrary and capricious docking of wages, and there are even a few places that workers land in that are quite pleasant, at least for a while. But workers are at the mercy of their employers (thanks to corporate interests killing off unions). Workers have no job security (employment at will means you can be fired for any reason), no freedom of speech while on the job, and no real protection from unreasonable demands -- of any kind.

Harvey Weinstein may be a creep, but Hollywood has been run by energetic, creative, ingenious egotistical, manipulative, jerks since the place started making movies. Why are we so surprised when one of these guys is called out for being a jerk??

Distant places look younger because their light just reached us, which of course it was anxious to do. The more distant the objects, the older they are--isn't that the case?

What do galaxies with out stars look like? Bright blobs? Or can we see them at all?

I remember maybe 10 years ago, a meteorite was found that had organic material encased in it. It was speculated at that time that this might be evidence of life and might be how life began on earth. — T Clark

There is a lot of "organic" chemistry going on out there. In 2014 Iso-propyl cyanide was detected in a star-forming cloud 27,000 light-years from Earth. Iso-propyl cyanide is "organic" but it has a long way to go before it's like the stuff inside your shirt.

Amino acids have been found in dust clouds, too. If you mix up a batch of basic chemicals you will get amino acids. They are "organic" but not "life".

Still, when the earth was forming from the Great Dust Ball which became our solar system, there were, like as not, a lot of these chemicals included. Most of them would never have been available to be life because most of the our share of the GDB ended up as the solid earth, and the surface was VERY hot, and the chemicals would have been morphed and remorphed zillions of times over.

Even so, as the earth cooled for the last time (around 4 - 3.x billion years ago) some of the organic chemicals were on the surface, and likely more was falling. The organic chemistry, including the amino acids, might have become life because of a photo-life form falling to earth and getting the ball rolling.

Or not.

As noted, panspermia doesn't solve the origin of life problem. It's as improbable as life starting here on its own (which, however, it seems to have done -- else we really are a simulation running on a computer in another star system).

I can testify to the notion that movies affect the way people think. For instance, I admired the lifestyles of adults in movies who had leisure and money for adventure and all-round pleasant lives. The connection between "work" and "having money to do interesting things" was generally absent from movies. Movies provided very poor vocational preparation for me, that's for sure.

No doubt all the cowboy and Indian movies affected the way I thought about American Indians--and cowboys, for that matter. One couldn't watch Gone with the Wind without getting a skewed view of blacks. What few horror shows I saw as I child (we weren't allowed, usually) gave me phobias about the dark.

What about a parent though? Since you want to raise ethical and not psychologicaly damaged kids would you keep away R rated movies when they are five? — MysticMonist

When I was a child (born 1946) we went to the local movie house once a week. The fare was quite often second rate westerns in which cowboys and indians were shot. The plots were very low-key and the shooting and dying was perfunctory -- not even remotely realistic. Sometimes we re-enacted the story when we got home. Was this harmful? I don't think so. But these were very formulaic movies with very low-intensity drama levels.

I don't think children should be watching TV, films, or other media which frequently depict killing in realistic blood-drenched fashion with lots of screaming, howling, and terror. Of course one wouldn't want anyone's children emulating this kind of behavior, but I don't think the intensity of this sort of show -- even if it didn't involve killing -- belongs in the minds of children. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf isn't suitable fare for younger people either -- no blood, no killings, but lots of very adult anger and drinking. Lots of movies deal with adult themes that children should not be burdened with. (Of course, children shouldn't be burdened with some of their parents' behavior either, but that's another problem.)

What about being a virtue seeking adult? Would you avoid overly gruesome films with senseless violence and poor moral messages? Would you pride yourself and think you were doing some worthy by boycotting anything with so much as a cuss word? — MysticMonist

I do avoid gruesome films with senseless violence and poor moral messages. There are quite a few films that I saw and enjoyed in my prime movie-going years that I positively can not stand to watch now. I think "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a great movie, but the last time I saw it, it left me angry and agitated. I walked out of Bonnie and Clyde the last time I tried to watch it again. Just too much gratuitous blood, death, etc.

I don't like horror and monster movies, either -- not because they are immoral, but because I find them upsetting. I'm a sucker for all the tricks of the people-frightening trade. I read On the Road by Cormac McCarthy -- it starts at bleak and it goes down hill from there. It was OK as a book. I decided to watch the movie too and found it unbearable. I didn't want vivid images of the desolation of On the Road floating around my memory, so I quit after about 5 minutes.

I don't think children should see movies like Bonnie and Clyde or The Godfather. The story lines are too adult, too intense, and the depictions are too vivid. But then, I wouldn't take a child to watch an Ingmar Bergman film either -- like The Seventh Seal or Wild Strawberries. Children would find them terminally boring, at best. Casablanca would be OK for children to see -- at worst they wouldn't appreciate it.

Mad Men, Breaking Bad -- both very good shows, I thought; just not children's movies.

haha.. oh man. I'm in serious trouble if spelling or typos are at all related to virtue!! — MysticMonist

You just said:

fantasy and media (everything from written and oral stories to movies and video games) are highly related. — MysticMonist

We can not trust the fantasies of anyone who misspells Mozart. Take him away.

Of course we still get angry and do things we regret, but I wonder if violence was never portrayed it might not be emulated except by mistake. — MysticMonist

Stephen Pinker The Better Angels of our Nature showed that humans were more violent in the past (like... 15,000 years ago or more) than they are now, because we have developed cultures of central control -- eg, the state. Where there are strong states making people responsible for their violent behavior, violence is reduced.

Even if we can watch dozens of murders, and other crimes, on television, even if we can watch videos depicting every conceivable vanilla or kinky preference, even if we are able to meet and greet others who like the same kinky stuff, we are still responsible to the state for our behavior.

Why doesn't fantasy bleed into daily life on a steady and regular basis? It doesn't because fantasy is, itself, wish fulfillment. A man can imagine raping another man, or one can imagine being the man who is raped, without having to actually do it. A properly conducted fantasy ends in satisfaction.

I hasten to repeat that there is a difference between "fantasy" and "rehearsal". Someone may rehearse the performance of a sex crime in detail. Chances are, the rehearsal is imagined with quite a bit of realistic detail, and quite possibly involved actual people as victims. The rehearsal isn't intended to satisfy one's desire, it is intended to prepare for execution. I can fantasize about pitching a no-score game. Rehearsing the kind of pitches I might use would be an entirely different cognitive experience.

Does the difference between fantasy and rehearsal make sense to you?

The police just judged you: You spelled Jay Z correctly but misspelled Mozart. Clearly low brow.

It turns this place into a soap opera. — Hanover

The Socrates & Plato Show wasn't a soap opera?

The question I was thinking about when I opened this discussion is whether some fantasy is immoral even if we can be sure it will not lead to immoral action. — T Clark

Another angle on whether a fantasy can be moral or immoral is whether we choose what we find arousing, or whether it is below the level of choice. I'm not sure how much we choose to fantasize, and how much of what we fantasize about seems to arrive unbidden, rather than be ordered up How much of our minds are we in positive control of? Some, certainly, but not all of it.

The kind of objects we find sexually arousing aren't picked from a menu; it's more that we discover what we find arousing. Some people find sexual satisfaction in being bound, gagged, and whipped (literally). I don't know what accounts for such polymorphous perversity, but if it's not altogether uncommon in behavior, it seems to be de regueur in fantasy.

We fantasize about many things other than sex. A good deal of our fantasy wouldn't bear public examination, either, even if these fantasies are not in the least obscene, immoral, illegal, or contrary to the national interest -- it's just that they are our own, structured for our own amusement or interest, and not intended for anyone else.

You are old enough to remember what Jimmy Carter said. I think it was before he got elected. He said that he had sinned by "lusting in his heart." — T Clark

I find this piece of Christian teaching very troublesome. Equating lustful thoughts with adultery, hateful thoughts with murder, is just too literalist an approach. Intentions matter, certainly, but I prefer a morality that applies to acts, rather than wishful thinking. One might donate a million dollars to an excellent Christian charity solely for the purpose of getting public recognition, glory, admiration, etc. Christians (who would certainly accept the money) would also say that one should give for selfless reasons if one wishes to be good.

But the fact is, the charity got the million dollars, whatever the intention, and that is a good thing.

If there is an all-knowing God, then he will have to sort out our good, bad, ambiguous, conflicted, muddled, indecipherable intentions. Here on earth, we will be doing well if we are merely above average at telling good acts from bad acts.

I don’t plan to go into my fantasies in any detail in this discussion — T Clark

Oh. Rats.

If one believes in an omniscient God from whom nothing can be hidden, the content of one's mind is as open for inspection as ones public acts. Talk about Big Brother!

Isn't there a difference between fantasy and mental planning and rehearsal with the intent of execution? I like to fantasize about winning $100,000,000 in a lottery, but this fantasy isn't organized around buying a lottery ticket. I like to fantasize about designing a city, but I have zero interest in actual urban planning. Sexual fantasies are the same kind of fantasy as winning a lottery: They are not organized around actual performance.

On the other hand, I have thought about, imagined, and rehearsed a long bicycle ride which I intended to do. Mentally rehearsing a particular performance (like pitching a curve ball) seems to improve performance. Rehearsing a flight made by flapping one's arms won't get one off the ground, no matter what. One can still imagine doing it.

Sexual, masturbatory fantasies may be all sorts of things, but they do not lead to enactment. Actual masturbation is on one track, the fantasy is on an altogether different track -- different gauge, different engine, different in all respects.

Fantasies are not acts, and can not be judged as acts. There is no analogy between fantasy and act.

An eminently satisfactory joke. Well structured, good punch line.

It seems to be the case that the majority of people on here don't think there is a "human nature" as such. — bloodninja

I don't know whether this is true or not, but for some people "human nature" is the hinge on which swings the question of whether we can be more peaceful, more caring, more constructive, more etc. OR whether we're doomed to outbursts of war, cruelty, destruction, and so on. It's the basis of the "constructionism vs. essentialism" debate.

It seems to me evident that humans have a nature, just as it is evident that wolves and apple trees have a nature. One of our problems -- problems that wolves and apple trees don't have -- is that we are capable of contriving very destructive behavior which, had it been unmanaged, would have extinguished us quite a while back. It may yet extinguish us.

Morality is our necessary "crowd control" system. It's our built in (we have to learn it) self-control mechanism. "Built in" but not pre-programmed. It has to be taught and learned. But "taught and learned" doesn't preclude a built in, biologically based capacity for crowd-control and self-regulation.

Psychopathy is a proof of how our morality works. People who are extremely psychopathic don't seem to be able to make the neural (biological) connection between "do this and do not do that" and punishment. Most people learn this as children -- because they are predisposed to learn it. Psychopaths can't.

Morality among peoples seems to have a fair amount of commonality. A fair amount, only. We are capable of classifying some pretty ghastly behavior as moral.

No. How does it go?

It gets even worse than that. For a while some Scandinavian companies were air-freighting freshly caught fish to China to be gutted, de-scalled, filleted, frozen, and packaged--then flown back. The air-freight fuel is a good example of externality, as is the pollution caused by dumping all the fish guts into the river. (I don't know if they did that. More likely they processed the fish guts into fish sauce. You put the guts in a tank, ferment, decant, run it through a sieve, add salt and vinegar, and serve.) Goes well on egg roles. Bon appetit. The externality in that process is dead bodies caused by food poisoning. I've never heard of anybody dying from fish sauce (except for some people who tried making it at home).

And why would it be preferable to leave Europe to the tender mercies of the Russian empire?

That's a totally disgusting video.

Are you on Monsanto's payola?

Report by Wiley 5/17/17
An analysis of data in Illinois has found a link between higher county-level use of an herbicide called glyphosate and reduced abundance of adult monarch butterflies, especially in areas with concentrated agriculture. — Cavacava

As I explained:

Populations of Monarch butterflies have been greatly reduced because the one plant that their larvae feed on -- the milkweed -- have been largely killed off. — Bitter Crank

Roundup is used on crops because the crops are GMO-immune to the herbicide. ("glyphosate inhibits a key enzyme found only in plants and bacteria – EPSP synthase".) Milkweed, and most other weeds are not -- and they die off rather quickly (except for the weeds that are developing natural immunity to Roundup -- but milkweed isn't one of those plants).

The monarchs aren't being poisoned, they're being starved out of existence, at least as far as glyphosate (Roundup) is concerned.

Adult monarch butterflies don't eat plants -- they don't have mouth-parts for chewing. The adults are nectar feeders. They lay eggs on the milkweed plants, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae (caterpillars) chew up the plant. When they have eaten enough, they spin a cocoon and emerge as adults after maturing in the chrysalis. Monarchs caterpillars are dependent on ONE plant -- the various variety of milkweeds. They don't and they won't eat other plants. No milkweeds, no monarchs. Got that?

If adult monarchs are being killed, it is most likely not from herbicides. Much more likely adult monarchs would be killed by pesticides, which are used against insects (insects--broadly speaking). The usual chemical in pesticides is some sort of nerve-toxic agent that kills the animal. That's what the neonicotinoids do. Neonicotinoids are related to nicotine, which in concentration is quite toxic to animals.

Nicotine of course comes from tobacco. Tobacco is part of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes, ground cherries, peppers, eggplant, chinese lanterns, and petunias.

Roundup has been listed by the State of California as a carcinogen.

Generally speaking, I don't approve of heavy use of any herbicide, pesticide, or fertilizer.

Go back a hundred years and women worked as much as men, often from home. The notion that women should stay home and look after the kids is more recent. — Banno

That expectation is recent, but women working in jobs as much as men was conditioned by marital status, class, geography, demographics, economics, and custom.

Women have always performed labor, certainly. But women's labor apart from domestic labor has generally been limited because the demands of food, clothing, shelter, and child-care for a family required too much labor and attention to allow for extensive work outside the home. Think what doing laundry meant without a washing machine, hot water heater, and a clothes dryer. Even with lower expectations about how clean "clean" was, it was still a lot of work. A lot of clothing was made at home, and that was time consuming. Convenient foods were quite a ways down the road.

An additional demand on women's time, especially, was "community". Social services were pretty limited for most of history, so a lot of the help people needed was provided by people like one's self. Women couldn't hold society together (on the home front) if everyone was at the factory. Exploiting child labor eliminated some of that problem, literally, in many cases.

The idea that in the 19th century women worked as much as men (in paid labor outside the home) isn't true for the US, at least. By 1840 the percent of women working outside of the home was less than 20%. (I'm not including slaves because they really had no choice in the matter at all; slave women worked at whatever labor was needed, pretty much the same as men.)

Over the late 19th and 20th century it climbed to the levels it is now. During WWII women engaged in all sorts of non-traditional labor in the mobilization. There was a change after WWII. Many women didn't work in the post WWII boom because wages were high enough to allow one wage earner to support a family (adequately if not amply) and there was that expectation of women making a home rather than working at the factory.