When it comes to police violence, you are right -- blacks and whites are not in the same boat. Here's a link to a Vanity Fair article that quotes a number of studies validating your statement about police violence against blacks.

Some of the police violence against blacks is just plain incompetence. 12 year old Black Tamir Rice would probably not have been killed IF the responding officer had followed tried and proven de-escallation procedures: Stop the police car a good distance from the suspect (even a 12 year old). Use a loud speaker (or voice) to instruct the suspect what to do (like drop the gun or object and walk away from it). THEN approach the suspect, slowly.

Instead, the officer roared up to the 12 year old, rolled the window down, and shot him -- all with in 2 seconds stop time. Very, very bad procedure, never mind it being a crime in itself.

One sees the opposite approach in all sorts of situations: A police call is made (might be a shoplifting complaint) and 4 or 5 police cars roar into the intersection or driveway...whatever, and jump out and start running around. It's a wonder they don't shoot each other. They are OVER REACTING which is very bad practice, but you see it all the time.

But blacks and whites in poverty are in the same boat, because once you reach poverty, the chances of economic recovery are poor -- for anyone. It's just very hard to rebuild a life after you have been ratcheted down. For instance, well educated people who commit crimes and go to prison, usually have a very difficult time gaining employment (any job, not just the kind of job they used to have) once they leave prison. Felony convictions and prison are the kiss of economic death.

Some good books have been published just recently and over the last few decades, documenting how the federal government, banks, and real estate interests acted in concert to destroy black communities. It wasn't KKK terrorists. It was explicit federal policy in conjunction with banks and real estate interests (all who shared the same goals) to segregate and suppress black people. "They" were extremely effective, and over the course of 80 years, effectively kept black people marginalized and poor.

THE COLOR OF LAW: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Richard Rothstein
2017
W. W. Norton & Co.

On Hand (see Erik)

AMERICAN APARTHEID: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton
1994
230+ pages
Harvard University Press

MAKING THE SECOND GHETTO: 1940 - 1960
Arnold R. Hirsch
1983
Cambridge University Press

FAMILY PROPERTIES: How the Struggle over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America
Beryl Satter
2009
Henry Holt & Co.

THE NEGRO GHETTO
Robert C. Weaver
1948
Russell & Russell

Everything you said here is true. Lots of people have been saying the same thing for a long time.

All problems usually have aspects which can be addressed by differing approaches. Enforcing (or changing) laws about fair housing, fair employment, equal educational opportunities, and so on are one approach. Limiting stop-and-frisk actions may or may not help (I don't know). School integration has been employed. Social programs have been dumped (like AFDC = Aid For Dependent Children) and replaced by 'welfare to work' programs. Welfare benefits are skimpy and get trimmed every now and then. All of these (and other) approaches have failed to make much of a dent in racism. Frontal attacks on racism on college campuses (minority safe zones, hate speech rules, etc.) don't seem to have helped a lot either

The fundamental fact for a majority of colored people in white societies is that they are poor, have very low status, and continue to be the object of discrimination, abuse, scorn, and so on -- and they don't have many resources to draw upon to improve their situations.

Poor white people (white trash) are in the same boat. They are scorned and discriminated against, have low status, are abused, and so on -- and they don't have a lot of resources to draw upon to improve their situations, either.

What poor people need are jobs that give them independence, capacity to improve their lives, afford better education, better housing, better diet, better medical care, and so on -- and the one way to get that is through work. The pride of self advancement can't be dumped on people.

If the poor can't improve their lot as working people, then they are just totally screwed. That's why economic distribution of wealth is a working class issue that very much touches upon racism and white trashery. Access to at least some wealth through work provides the best and (for the most part) only means to empower one's self. (I'm not a big believer in symbolic empowerment.)

As much as work is over rated and can be a very disagreeable experience, it's still the best place for people to forge bonds with others, and to build a community base. Healthy poor black and poor white communities used to exist that had mostly working people, had community organizations that helped tie life together, provided a place to feel pride and authenticity, and all that good stuff. A lot of those communities were deliberately destroyed by urban "renewal", suburbanization, industrial flight to cheap labor, and so on.

Let's just leave it at that. — Thanatos Sand

Let's just leave it at that. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

"Whose "that" are we going to leave it at?" said the rat in the hat.

For me philosophy is nothing to do with defending our societies and our actions now. — Andrew4Handel

All right, but the very act of challenging foundational assumptions takes place in the present by someone in particular, and they need to understand what they are about. For instance, one can uproot any foundational assumption -- like "individuals have the right to fulfillment" or "taking care of the poor is a good thing". One can stir up a great deal of uproar. (There are some who do that here -- like by insisting on the rights of unborn people to not be born, as if they could make a decision as non-existing beings.)

Even though I live in a mature capitalist society which many people seem to like a lot, I still think it is dead wrong to organize production for profit. I have to find a way of putting that in terms that people who think capitalism is good for them can understand.

So, we have to take into account the society we are in now, and the persons we are now, so that it is clear where we are coming from.

I think we need a radical confrontational philosophy not one that delineates and attempts to justify the norms, nor just a dry fairly helpless theorising. — Andrew4Handel

Absolutely. Some of the ideas lodged in various minds that need to be attacked:

• Only minorities are oppressed.
• Poor people are inherently lazy, shiftless,

Minorities are selectively oppressed as part of the general suppression of the working class--which is populated by people who retired from wage work, work for a living now, or would work if they could get a job. If you depend on a wage for your sustenance, then you are working class.

There are people --poor and otherwise -- who are just plain lazy and shiftless. People whose multigenerational experience has been about nothing but poverty tend not to be go-getters. This shouldn't surprise anybody. Poverty is a grueling, dehumanizing, discouraging condition. Their experience tells them that hard work is not rewarded. Some poor people do get ahead -- poor immigrants, for example, usually in the first and second generation, because they have experience which tells them that their hard work will pay off. (It may pay off to some degree for a while.)

• Capitalism is the best arrangement for satisfying human needs.
• Economic freedom is the most important freedom. People should be able to make and spend money however they want -- it's their money, after all.
• Everybody has the right (and a chance) to become as rich as possible.

Capitalism and its markets have proved to be a very effective way to marshall capital, put capital to work, and generate profit for a small percentage of the population. The logic of capitalism does not countenance the widespread distribution of wealth. ("What would be the point of doing that?" the capitalists say.)

Freedom IS a very good thing; let's have more of it! But economic freedom in a capitalist economy requires enough wealth to play the game of economic freedom. Now, having $10,000 in the bank for emergencies gives one a cushion against small disasters. But economic freedom under capitalism requires having a few million in the bank, and the backing of investors.

No rich person has expended much, if any, effort in producing wealth. Ultimately, labor produces all wealth (except for crooked speculation using non-existing assets). Real property (factories, railroads, airlines, shopping malls, warehouses, etc.) is theft--taken from the working class.

"Getting rich" is a dream which many people entertain. Most people have a better chance of getting rich by their own labor than a snowball has in hell. The changes of winning the multi-state power ball lottery for $100,000,000 is about 80,000,000 to 1. Dream on.

• America is vastly different than all other countries.

There are some bits and pieces of "American Exceptionalism" to be sure. Some of it is good (The ethos of the City-on-the-Hill Puritans, and some of it is bad (genocide and slavery, for instance). The good and bad tend to be mixed in together.

But in most ways, the United States is pretty much like every other nation. That's because people are pretty much alike. We are one species with a particular evolutionary history, and we all tend to act alike, given similar circumstances. Pick a nation, any nation on any continent, and it is likely that bad things happened there. Not just bad things to one or two people, but bad things happening to hundreds of thousands of people. Humans have a long history of wiping out people who are in their way. The American genocidal experience seems like such a deviation because it is recent and present. But bear in mind, the people who started genocide and slavery were Europeans. As a specifically "American" society developed, it incorporated good and bad parts of European culture, including capitalism.

Americans don't need to feel unusually guilty about their history. What is important is that we undo the damage of past generations, and improve society now and in the future.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.

Karl Marx

Is it philosophy that is lacking, or is it knowledge about the world (and its political/social/economic problems) and the will to struggle for change that is lacking?

Very large numbers of people appear to want change, but they do not know how to marshal their strength and use it. This is one of our political problems. A few people are immensely wealthy and have control over essential institutions, and their interests operate against all others. This is one of our political problems. Many people are engaging in self-destructive, counter-productive activities which add to other social problems.

Is it philosophy that is lacking here?

Neo-orthodox wing, 1962 reformation sect Appolloian — Hanover

A memorable reformation in the sect of the far-seeing, boundary observing Apollo Sun God, if I remember correctly, which I, of course, do. We studied your sect in Classics back in 1979. I took notes. I got an A in the course.

Yes, you have named MO's problem, obstinate sun-worship. But even sun-worshipers, worthy though they may be, should understand the origin of the disk of which their sun is the star performer. IF they don't, the TRUE worshipers of the sun will have to extirpate this heresy and burn them all at the stake. If stake-burnings happen to not be in vogue (it comes and goes), there's always the Cult Cure Camps to which they can be sent for re-education.

False Sun Worshipers, consider yourselves warned.

In other topics here, everyone seems to be a science-hater and an evolution-denier. — Michael Ossipoff

Well, there are a few science haters and evolution deniers here -- far less than in the population as a whole.

But getting back to a sub-topic of your post, the formation of the solar system...

One of the questions that arises, for which I don't have an answer, is how did the nebula from which the solar system is derived, pick up spin in the first place? They say nothing does not move in the universe--everything is always in motion--motion of some kind. We can see (thanks to the Hubble telescope) very large nebula (large on an astronomical scale) where stars are forming. What we can't see (given distance and time) is any circular motion. Still, the galaxy spins, stars spin, solar systems spin, and the disco ball of public relations spins (very fast).

Whence all this spinning?

Troll-talk.

One part of the definition of a troll is his asserted assumption that what isn't in agreement with him must be wrong. — Michael Ossipoff

By that definition, your insistence that the planets are derived from the sun is trollish.

Bitter Crank, maybe your astro-history teaching needs a little work. Don't quit your day-job yet. — Michael Ossipoff

Michael Ossipoff, au contraire, it wasn't my astro-history, it was taken directly from a NASA page describing the formation of the solar system.

I don't know where you acquired the idea that the planets were derived from a big ball that flattened out and would later turn into the sun. This erroneous belief will not interfere with your life in any significant way that I can think of, so carry on.

Definitions can be different, but not wrong.

Except when they are wrong.

Michael Obstinate:

Before the solar system, there was a nebula in this general region of the MW. Some disturbance (a big one -- probably a relatively nearby super nova) roiled the amorphous nebula and the dust in the nebula started moving. Particles collided, and got bigger, and began to accrete more particles. In the fullness of time, the accretion of particles begat little blobs, little blobs begat bigger blobs, bigger blobs begat still bigger blobs. The nebula, now kind of lumpy-bloby, started to turn--first slowly. As it turned, and as very slight gravitational pull of little blobs gradual attracted more matter and became bigger blobs, the messy-shape of the nebula began to be pulled by gravity into a flattened disk, still with a great deal of dust (organic and inorganic molecules). The biggest blob collected the most stuff and became the center of the disk, and the other blobs were stretched out away from the center, in some sort of order.

The biggest blogs attracted the most dust -- and the WINNER was... the envelope please, the sun! However there were two runners-up -- the blobs that would in the far distant future bear the names of Jupiter and Saturn.

The proto-planets and future sun began sweeping up most of the dust in the system, except the stuff out at the edges which has it's own less well understood history.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the big ball of stuff at the center of the disk got so big that it fell in on itself and got denser and denser and denser until it ignited. The proto-plannetary blobs also compressed themselves and the heaviest material sank to the center of the compressing bodies and became extremely hot. The planetary bodies (the inner ones especially, being rocky) heated up so much they were balls of molten stuff.

Besides dust and the planets, there was a big batch of chunky matter that had formed, here and there. The big outer planets' gravitation stirred up this stuff and it began to move, but it was shepherded by the various gravitational pulls of the planets. This chunky hard matter started moving toward the center, and was thrown this way and that by the rotating planets, and bombed the daylights out of the rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars...).

So, here we are, a few billion years ago: A sun, a string of planets -- all arising independently from one nebula, and a bunch of asteroids and comets.

problem lies in thinking good and bad are relative concepts. They're not. They're absolute concepts with a clear well-defined boundary. — TheMadFool

↪TheMadFool Oswald is a bad man. Jack Ruby, who killed Oswald, is a bad man. Hitler, who directed others to kill millions, is a bad man. We don't have to weigh how bad these bad men were. — Bitter Crank

So, Oswald isn't a good man. He's a bad man just as Hitler. However, within the class of bad men, he's ''better'' than Hitler. — TheMadFool

There you go.

"Identity" isn't a new concept. Births and deaths of persons have been recorded by religious and civil institutions since the medieval period, if not before. If everyone is unique, a person unto themselves, then they have an identity. In small communities where travel rarely, if ever, occurs the members of the community can keep track of each person by memory of name, face, voice, gait, social status, and so on.

Maybe we can do that in a community of 100 or 200. Once we expand communities beyond a few hundreds, our ability to remember names, faces, voices, gaits, social status, and so on fails.

It isn't having an identity that is problematic, it is tracking the actions of each person bearing a unique identity that is the problem. Governments do this, but this is done even more intensively by corporations.

Google, Bing, FaceBook, Twitter--all sorts of social media corporations track billions of us. Trans Union, Experian, Equifax and other credit reporting companies track billions of individuals; credit cards, email accounts, the unique number of your address on the internet, your cell phone, your social security number, your drivers license, your license plate, your trip through an airport--all enable intensive tracking, and many corporations track actions, if not the individual identity (but they could be connected if someone so desired).

What do they do with all this tracking data?

Mostly, it's used to facilitate commerce. XYZ Data Mining corporation isn't really all that interested in YOU, unless they are being paid to be interested in YOU, particularly. They gather data to move merchandise and services through the market. They want to extract every piece of loose change you've got. Hence, an infinity of banner and video ads, junk mail, robocalls, and more -- trying to get you to go buy, buy, buy. And, being suggestible, we do.

I find LLBean ads very seductive. Their stuff looks so good in their ads and on their web page. Some of it really is good, but one only needs so much stuff - good or not. But YOU, identity # 20934848390230498, need to get out there and buy it, or LLBean is just whistling in the wind -- and they don't like that.

As it stands, your post is incoherent.

Does that mean that if Mahatma Gandhi, who preached non-violence (Ahimsa), could've killed just one man and still be considered good? After all he saved millions from oppression. — TheMadFool

Yes, Gandhi could have killed one man and still have been considered good. (Gandhi didn't personally save millions from oppression. He organized and led an independence movement in which millions of people participated.) Pick a great man or woman -- someone noted for their really fine accomplishments -- and somewhere in their history are actions that were not good. No matter who you pick, any real person for whom we have solid history, you will find a mix of actions over the course of a lifetime. Most of their actions will be of an indifferent nature; some will be exceptionally good, some will be quite bad. That will be true in your life, as well as mine. It's a universal feature of human existence.

There is a wide range of goodness and badness about any action that we judge, and there will be a range of goodness and badness in a whole life. Black and white all or nothing thinking leads us to very dubious conclusions. Take the situation where some people want to erase names because their whole lives were not 100% good. Take Woodrow Wilson and Princeton University. Wilson, born in 1858, was president of Princeton University starting in 1902, and had a distinguished career in public service.

Wilson is now accused of racist actions during his public life, actions which in the minds of some outweigh all the other accomplishments of the man, and they want his name removed from the Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Thomas Jefferson is another case. Wilson and Jefferson are just two of many who are being judged anachronistically. By the standards of some 21st century activists, they were very bad. Wilson is accused of watching the film "Birth of a Nation" (1915) which is about the Ku Klux Klan while he was President of the United States. Well, of course -- the film was released while he happened to be President, and he -- and many other people -- arranged to see it.

Wilson didn't integrate the armed forces. Neither did Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, or Roosevelt. Harry Truman did, 30+ years and 4 administrations later. Wilson didn't act to open up Princeton to black students in 1902 - 1912. Neither did the president of any other Ivy League University.

Again, every life contains a mix of good and bad, and if we apply anachronistic standards, the record is even more mixed.

Some evil e.g. hate speech seem morally redeemable. — TheMadFool

You have named a very soft, squishy target in "hate speech". Such speech has been variously defined so that many statements which are quite neutral can be defined as hateful, if for no other reason that they do not fulfill the wishes of some group. For instance, taking the view that marriage is a heterosexual arrangement that doesn't properly apply to homosexuals can be considered homophobic hate speech. (I think it is legitimate for people to disagree about homosexual marriage.)

Others like murder are unforgivable. Some good like self-sacrifice are high up in the moral landscape while others like donating to charity aren't very laudable. — TheMadFool

Is murder unforgivable? And why is donating to charity not very laudable?

Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an anti-nazi Lutheran pastor, participated in the plot to murder Hitler. Is his action unforgivable? (as it happened, the plot failed -- the bomb injured but didn't kill Hitler.)

Is it that morality is comparative, or our judgement about morality is comparative?

Our general moral code says that murder is immoral. The law defines gradations of culpability, but law isn't morality. We judge actions by comparison, but our judgements aren't "morality"-- they are applications of morality.

Comparing Lee Harvey Oswald to Adolf Hitler, or Woodrow Wilson to Jefferson Davis, or John F. Kennedy to Richard Nixon are not morality, or moral actions, or moral judgements. What we do in making these comparisons is an act of historical judgement. Yes, I think Hitler was very much worse than Oswald, Davis was worse than Wilson, and Nixon was worse than Kennedy.

I'm not dismissing morality here, and it may play a role in our historical comparisons. But how does morality figure into a comparison of Ghengis Kahn and Caesar Augustus? Or Attila the Hun and Vlad the Impaler? Or St. Theresa and St. Catherine? Or Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone?

Good.

Good.

Now, I think it is important to apply our concerns for human dignity, human rights, and minimization of suffering to the workplace where production goes on. Granted, there are many workplaces which are far from the 'dark satanic mills' of Victorian England. Though, some of our workplaces are brightly illuminated, air conditioned satanic mills (because the work is so excruciatingly dull and dehumanizing).

Then, a lot of primary production sites (like slaughter houses, auto plants, etc.) are in physical terms, very bad places to work, and while some unionized workers receive decent pay, only a fraction of workers are unionized, and most workers are at the mercy of the profit extracting companies. Suffering is hardly minimized.

Human rights are a nuisance in the workplace, so best not be too concerned about them. Workers in America, for instance, do not have "freedom of speech" in the workplace. Workers can be ordered to not talk about certain subjects (like the deficiencies of management or the need for a union) and can be fired for disobeying those orders.

If human dignity, minimized suffering, and human rights isn't honored where we spend the bulk of our time for the largest chunk of our waking lives (at work), then we are getting cheated.

How do abstractions like "good" or "evil" transcend productivity? Just explain it. I'm always suspicious when people use the word "transcend".

So you did -- I widened the concept, since production is always part of a system. Well, can you or can you not transcend production?

They denote moral and immoral behavior that can be irrelevant to and transcend productivity. — Thanatos Sand

CAN someone "transcend" the economic system? Wage slavery (per dclements) is an evil that is part and parcel of the economic system. There are many things about society (not just the western society of crooked white people, but the societies of crooked colored people as well) that are inherently evil and are part and parcel of the social/economic/religious institutions of those societies.

I often have philosophical thoughts. — Shar

You are very fortunate to live in a time where effective treatments are available to suppress philosophical thinking. >:)

How about an old definition of evil: Radix malorum est cupiditas. Greed is the root of all evil. The expression was famously used by the Pardoner in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Pardoner was an itinerate preacher (who always preached on the subject of... Radix malorum est cupiditas and sold promises of forgiveness. He also used fake relics as part of his racket.

Note, it is not "money" that is the root of all evil; it is a love of money that is the root of evil.

if the sun is the source of the matter of earth, then something from earth falling into the sun is only solar matter heading back whence it came.

No. Rhetorical terms such as paradox, irony, coincidence, contradiction, metaphor, simile, comparison, etc. all have specific meanings. What you are talking about is not a paradox in my opinion. Its not being a paradox doesn't lessen the value or meaning of the statement that "Hitler is worse than Oswald who is worse than Ruby who is worse than ..."

"Hitler had good traits and bad traits." is only to acknowledge that there were contradictions in his personality and character. A comparison of his good traits and bad traits leaves us with the conclusion that he was much more bad than he was good. That he could preach extermination of Jews and at the same time be concerned about the humane treatment of animals is a gross contradiction in values.

Did you invest in Paradox, Incorporated--that large company that deals in "contrary to fact" statements?

Exactly. But then how do you make sense of Lee being good (compared to Hitler) and bad (compared to us)? — TheMadFool

It doesn't make sense as paradox. it makes sense as comparison. As you say, Hitler is worse than Oswald and Oswald is worse than you or me. But then, everybody is worse than me and thee. (I want to deflate my earlier statement that bad is bad--not reject it, but give it less emphasis.)

Paradox:

a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory: a potentially serious conflict between quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity known as the information paradox.
• a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true: in a paradox, he has discovered that stepping back from his job has increased the rewards he gleans from it.
• a situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities: the mingling of deciduous trees with elements of desert flora forms a fascinating ecological paradox. — Dictionary

What is paradoxical about Hitler is that he cared about the welfare of animals. It's paradoxical NOT because he was both good and bad (everybody is a combination of good and bad traits), but because it is a stunning contradiction.

Yes, 'worse' and 'better' are used all the time -- for comparison -- and comparisons are not paradoxes. "This peach is better than that peach" is a comparison, not a paradox. "John is better at math and French and worse at art and biology than Martha." A comparison, again, not a paradox.

OK, so Oswald is better than Hitler and you are better than both of them. Again, it's a comparison and not a paradox.

Oswald is a bad man. Jack Ruby, who killed Oswald, is a bad man. Hitler, who directed others to kill millions, is a bad man. We don't have to weigh how bad these bad men were.

Was Hitler 10 millions times worse than Oswald, Ruby, or some thug who kills 3 strangers by firing a gun from a moving car? No. Bad is bad.

Hitler, Oswald, Ruby, and the thug are distinguishable by the characteristics of their crimes. Comparing badness isn't very helpful. They all may have been involved in criminal enterprises -- one on an international scale, two possibly in some sort of CIA/underworld scheme, and one in local gang activities.

The maximum punishment for all of them would have been the same: execution. We can't kill Hitler more than the thug.

Why are people saying that cultural practices are not "natural" anyway? It's culture, not biology. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

As for biology, as Kinsey (supposedly) put it: "The only unnatural act is one you cannot perform."

Whatever humans do--not matter how appalling--is "natural". Appalling behavior is part of our nature. We may not be appalling all the time, but most of us have, at one time or another, done things that we ourselves felt were appalling and were very embarrassed by what we did. Lots of appalling acts that people have performed are also powerfully sanctioned, and people still do them -- like murder for instance.

There are better adjectives: appalling, disgusting, nauseating, revolting, repulsive, annoying, ugly, trashy--all kinds--that better describe human behavior than "unnatural".

I just don't think it's necessary to garbage the sun too. — Michael Ossipoff

Doing anything that would detract from the sun's character is beyond our operational capabilities.

It's just the energy-source, immediate physical origin, and immediate physical reason for for Earth's life. — Michael Ossipoff

While the sun IS the source for solar energy, it isn't the immediate physical origin of the earth. already pointed this out. The disk of dust that spawned our system spawned the sun along with the planets.

Eventually the sun will take back everything it allegedly gave us. Towards the effective end of its yellow*** star life, it will enlarge beyond the orbit of earth -- which won't be vaporized, but will be rather thoroughly fried. Eventually the sun will collapse into a dwarf and earth will be a ball of rock which won't host life again (not enough time, not enough energy, no water, no more water-bearing bodies falling on it in huge numbers, etc.)

The sun is entirely capable of dealing with anything we send its way.

If you want to worry about a long term problem, worry about plastics. The billions of tons of plastic that we let loose into the environment are practically immortal. The plastic out of which your oatmeal bowl was made may not be in the shape of a bowl by the time the sun overtakes the earth and burns up all the crap once and for all time, but all of it will be in little pieces somewhere (unless it gets incinerated first by our efforts).

***Bob Dylan said the sun isn't yellow, it's chicken.

Micah puts it this way: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God?

Much of the work that people do in industrialized societies is unnecessary work. A good share of the work that needs to be done is being performed by machines (automation, robots, computer analysis of data, etc.)

If society was organized to produce necessities and not profits or luxuries such as 20,000 sq. ft. mansions for 2 or 3 people to live in, we would not have to work 40 hour weeks. Maybe 15 to 20 hours a week would be sufficient (but not all jobs work this way; strawberries have to be picked when they are ripe whether it takes sun up to sun down or not. Complicated surgery may take many hours. A broken pipe under the street has to be fix IMMEDIATELY, even if it takes all day and all night.

Studies show that depression can also be improved by diet for instance, which is one way that psychiatrists can help and inform patients. — Joseph

Science has shown that good food is better than bad food, but good food won't cure many psychological problems.

Some of the problems people have are brain disorders rather than personality disorders. Such as the case with bi-polar disorder, or schizophrenia, as pointed out.

From this perspective, I feel as though I will cynically approach my studies and become disheartened in my studies, as with everything else I take on doing. What are your thoughts? — Question

With that attitude, you may well approach your studies cynically and become disheartened.

Namely, psychology would be a field of study where I would achieve a sense of flourishment. However, there are some ideological roadblocks that I wanted to bring up. — Question

It is unclear why you would go into clinical psychology at least, with your belief system about psychological disorders. Whatever you do in psychology, you won't be prescribing medications. So... you don't have to worry about that part.

A bachelor degree in psychology may not qualify you for very interesting work. You would probably need a masters or PhD. How much advanced education you need depends on what kind of job you want.

Some psychologists, for instance, consult. That is, they evaluate patients using standardized measurements of IQ, personality, and behavior. A psychologist may be called in to evaluate a client who has suffered trauma and may have impaired mental functioning. Or, it may be to assess prospective employees or applicants.

Psychologists may provide talk therapy or CBT for clients. Clients may have been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, for instance. Your task might be to provide weekly support counseling, helping the client to cope with the problem. If this kind of work interests you, you might want to get a professional doctorate -- not quite a PhD, but solid training beyond a masters level.

Successful therapists have come to terms with their own problems (even therapists have problems), understand the dynamics of how they, themselves, tick and can identify non-judgmentally with the client's situation. So, if someone came to you for help with depression, you would need to be able to work with their diagnosis in an accepted way, and in a way which the client can believe in. Telling a depressed client there is no such thing as depression might not be terribly helpful.

There are various schools of psychology: Rogerian, Adlerian, Rational Emotive Therapy (Albert Ellis), Behavioral, psychoanalysis, and so on. You would need to find advanced training in a college or institute that taught that particular approach.

Philosophizing and having a good sense of humor and being perceptive are great, but in themselves they rarely help people or significantly contribute to society or those in need. So, I still don't see the ethics in their asceticism. — Thanatos Sand

Maybe you haven't spent enough time around people devoid of a sense of humor to understand how valuable a sense of humor can be. As for philosophizing... That's what we do here. Is it of any value? I think so.

"They also served who have the time to talk and laugh." There are a lot of lonely people out there. They have a great (and perfectly normal) need to connect with someone who will patiently listen to them for a while, in a friendly empathic way. Someone who has time to listen to them.

Their live styles are ascetic by necessity
— Bitter Crank

Then they aren't ascetic. Asceticism must be voluntary or else it quickly becomes destructive and immoral, which asceticism isn't in itself. — Thorongil

Their asceticism was voluntary--no one forced or coaxed them into living that way. The phrase "ascetic by necessity" is confusing. so just ignore it. The point is that one can't live out an authentic ascetic life on a well endowed trust fund. Were they making a virtue out of necessity? "We have no money, so let's profess the advantages of poverty." I suppose that's possible, but most of these men (1 woman) were capable of earning an income, and did earn what they needed. (Larry the philosopher/used-book seller was probably doomed to not work. I don't know who would have hired him, looking the way he did. Later on, he went on a social program which included Medicaid and they paid for a set of dentures.)

Larry is a good example of what happens when one fails to live up to marketplace standards. If one falls too far below the minimum acceptable aesthetic standard, one is an untouchable, no matter how bright one is.

How exactly is their motivation ethical if it doesn't make it easier for them to help their families or others? It would seem to lower their ability to do either. — Thanatos Sand

These guys (mostly guys) couldn't have supported and didn't have families. There are ways of helping people that don't involve money; two guys operated a used book store (which they also lived in) and were available to philosophize. One of the guys--Larry--was at least in his 50s. He was toothless, not too healthy, dressed in old clothes; a decrepit guy, looked like a bum. But Larry was smart and well educated and had many theological and philosophical interests. He also had a good sense of humor and was quite perceptive.

I wonder what their motivations are for living a poor life, a life that is more than just being monetarily poor? If there isn't a religious conviction, is their choice purely selfish? If it is selfish, then I find that contradictory with asceticism's goal, which is to limit one's desires and attachments to the world and what's in it, which includes one's own self! — Heister Eggcart

Not working a great deal frees up ones time for other pursuits -- quite possibly of considerable benefit to other people. The people I'm thinking of had desires and attachments a plenty. WHAT they desired was freedom from the constraints of the work/market place.

Yes, there are inherent contradictions in choosing poverty.

There are people (not too many) who practice voluntary poverty who are not religious, and are quite capable of earning a decent income. It isn't just 'simple living'. Their live styles are ascetic by necessity, but asceticism as such isn't their goal.

They have opted to be poor as a way of largely freeing themselves of the expectations of the market. Their motivation is ethical and they do not sponge off parents or social benefit programs. Generally they do work to maintain themselves in independent poverty (food, shelter, minimal essentials).

Not many people do this because it is difficult, and one needs a very strong motivation to fail marketplace expectations. I know maybe a half dozen people who have done this for a period of time (the longest was about 15 years).

It has become increasingly difficult to succeed at this. The cost of minimal food and housing have risen enough that unreliable episodic or part-time work no longer produces enough income. One ends up needing to work close to full time (in low paid, low-commitment work) which undermines one of the goals of voluntary poverty--ample free time. The other effect of rising costs is to push the would-be ascetic back into more demanding work, which requires them to meet marketplace expectations.

I wasn't aware that monogamy had become a burning issue. Where are you coming across this groundswell of anti-monogamy? Faithful monogamy--now, that's a problem for a lot of people. Monogamy may be honored more often in the breach than in strict adherence, but that isn't what you were asking about.

I don't think there is anything morally bad inherent in monogamy, but it is certainly possible to implement monogamy in a restrictive, oppressive, demeaning manner. This was far more true in the past than in the present in some countries, and still is in others.

Some people think that sex-defined marital roles are inherently oppressive. This would probably be especially true for those who think biology has nothing to do with destiny. Like, "Just because I'm a woman, why should anyone think it is my responsibility to take care of the children?" But sex-defined parenting doesn't have anything to do with monogamy. Whatever the official marital relationship, whether it is polygamy, polyandry, monogamy, or origami, sex roles in relationships can be an issue.