Good things happening to bad people (perhaps) jar's people's trust in God to do the right thing more than bad things happening to good people.

there was something fishy about it — rickyk95

There is something fishy about all arguments concerning the existence or nature of God.

Suffering isn't necessary, it just IS. We suffer because we have a complex neural apparatus that enables us to sense the environment. Sensing helps us avoid harmful stuff like very hot food, sharp objects, poison ivy, hornets, and a few thousand other unpleasant things.

Alas, the body's neural apparatus which tries to avoid unpleasant stimuli can be afflicted by harmful stuff we couldn't, or didn't, avoid -- like a nail in the foot, a cancer in the jaw, a hammer hitting a thumb, an infection in the gut, the death of a lover.

We could be like trees and be ripped open by a lightning bolt, and just keep maintaining the leafy green as well is we might.

To quote a revolutionary...

Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure.

You are right -- "self-less love" doesn't make sense. — Bitter Crank

Agreed? Yes? No?

From this angle it seems like a hopeless case - there can be no true/selfless love. Everything, from inanimate rocks to humans, is about give-take economics. — TheMadFool

You are right -- "self-less love" doesn't make sense. It's a hopeless case. Let's bury the idea of "self-less love" once and for all.

Where did this idea of "true love or the highest love means selfless love, self-denying love" come from? The lover and the object of love, be that a dog, a man, or a god has nothing to do with the subject of love denying himself, or being 'self-less'. The subject-self can not be subject-less or self-less.

Selflessness does not seem to be a feature of the kinds of love which are often cited as 'canonical' -- agape, eros, philia, and storge. Does the idea of self-negation come from "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."John, 15:13? As you noted, there is a give-take exchange in love. Christ's sacrifice, or anyone's sacrifice, is on behalf of, and intended as a enhancement of, or salvation of the object of love.

Christ's sacrifice was transfiguring, not self-denying or self-erasing. When someone has the opportunity to lay down his life for his friends (fortunately for us, the opportunities don't come along too often) the sacrificer is transfigured. Saints aren't fading, shrinking self-erasing personalities. The reason they are remembered is that they were such very, very strong, rich selves / personalities.

Did this idea of self-less, self-denying love arise from reading Christian (or other religions') literature which presented monastic self-suppression as the ideal? I don't know.

In love, the subject is self-affirming, self-exchanging, self-sharing, and self-giving, always with the object. (Nothing is perfect in human affairs, so our transactions are often pretty flawed.)

I am wondering if we have justification to conclude that love is real in any universal sense, other than as we find it, as a bonding emotion in mammals, or more generally in organisms.

For example, is the complex and subtle love experienced by intelligent humans, in some way a real expression of something universal in nature, or of divinity? — Punshhh

We are real, and we experience love, and we are part of nature and some think part of divinity too. So, sure. Love is real in a universal sense. We didn't invent love, it was given to us through evolution's good offices. It was likely given to other species as well, in a form appropriate to each.

It certainly won't hurt anybody to suppose that the love we experience and express is an expression of both the earthly and the divine. What might hurt some, maybe many, is to suppose that love is nothing but chemicals sloshing around in a system concocted over the eons to assure reproduction--period.

"Love, love, love, love.
The Gospel in one word is love."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epynV_tray0

The voice of people should be heard loudly — Ashwin Poonawala

Definitely, because... Vox populi, vox Deus. The voice of the people is the voice of God.

Each of us has different opinions. — Ashwin Poonawala

They're working on that problem. Stay tuned.

Authoritarian governance is bad — Ashwin Poonawala

I totally agree. Very bad.

I am not a libertarian or a conservative; I do not worry about labels. To me, what makes the society happy is the right way. — Ashwin Poonawala

Fine by me, but I like labels. You still look like a libertarian to me (being libertarian is not a bad thing in itself).

But the government should not have its fingers in all pies deeply. — Ashwin Poonawala

I insist that they wash their fingers very thoroughly before sticking them into my pie.

Can you imagine what would happen, if government starts deciding what medical procedures will work on which sicknesses, or how engineers should design machines and structures? — Ashwin Poonawala

Well... To some extent we want the government (like the Centers for Disease Control or the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) to be involved in the regulation of medical procedures. Somebody needs to tell doctors to stop handing out antibiotics like candy to people with head and chest colds caused by viruses. Chicken soup actually will do more for them then tetracycline or amoxicillin. (The doctor needs to say, "I don't care how much you whine, moan, and groan. You're not getting any, so get your virus-infested face out of my office. And don't come back unless you break a leg or green pus is running out of your ears." It's part of TrumpCare.)

As a matter of fact, there are official, government standards for structures. Countries where people aren't paying attention to official structural standards have buildings fall down unexpectedly. People hate it when that happens, especially if they were in the building at the time.

But commercialism is based on greed. Too much economic control in the hands of greed makes the society unhappy. Greed needs to be channeled, to make it work for the society, and not against it. — Ashwin Poonawala

I think greed is one of the basic problems that all people deal with, sooner or later. It long proceeded capitalism, and it will be around long afterward. Greed (one of the 7 deadly sins) maybe can be channeled, but I doubt it. We can try to suppress it as much as we can (not totally, for sure).

Dorothy Day (The Catholic Worker) said that we need to make a world where it is easier to be good. We tend to make the world such that many people are forced to act like greedy rats to survive.

Capitalism is essential for production. — Ashwin Poonawala

Capitalism is one way to organize production and, as it happens, it is quite good at it. However, capitalism tends to externalize it's costs. When a power plant burns coal, the smoke goes up the chimney and spreads out as far as the winds carry it. That's externalizing costs. The Environmental Protection Agency was created to impose some limitations on corporations externalizing costs by dumping all their crap in the air, water, and land.

The Soviet government -- essentially a form of state-capitalism, was even worse at externalizing costs. Just gawd awful!

Capitalism is predicated on exploiting its workers as much as possible. Everybody gets exploited so that a few people can get rich. (You can read a summary of this in the short book, Value, Price, and Profit by Marx.) In a nut shell: Apple workers make iPhones and receive $1.50 per hour. Each worker takes 10 hours to make a phone--$15. The phones they make, however, are worth $600. Apple pays each worker $15 and sells the phone for $600 and keeps the $585 that is left over. (This is very simplified, obviously.) That's why the Chinese laborers are poor, even though they are working full time, and why Apple Corporation is sitting on something like 100 billion dollars worth of cash.

There are other methods of arranging production. You said that every society has some socialism. I'd like a lot of socialism, such that the stockholders of companies and their stakes in the companies are dismissed, and the workers take over the corporations. (What would happen to the once rich stockholders who were now poor? They'd have to go out and look for work -- a refreshing change of pace for them, I would think.)

his is not my first mistake. — Ashwin Poonawala

And it won't be your last, so press on with diligence.

Governments should confine their efforts mainly to security, law and order, safety net and the top tier management of the country. Its attempts to micro manage social affairs always creates a mess. — Ashwin Poonawala

This is a standard Libertarian view. Perhaps you are a "left-libertarian", since you are in favor of a quite limited government and interested in eliminating the baleful aspects of 'commercial greed' by which I suppose you mean 'capitalism'.

I'm a non-authoritarian socialist. I would be quite happy to see capitalism abolished in favor of a workers' democracy. Fat chance, but I think it would be a good idea.

I don't think the American government is quite as ineffective as you think it is. If you count all levels of government (township on up to federal) governments express much of the will of the people. For instance, the people want properly maintained water works, sewers, streets, schools, and parks. Local governments mostly pay for these, and local residents pay for the services through local taxes.

is it possible to make a straightforward categorical distinction between philosophy, no matter how pyrrhonian it purports to be, and cognitive-behavioural therapy? What is their relation? — sime

"Therapy means change, not adjustment." (Motto of the Radical Therapist)

philosophy as the passive analysis of signs, language and human behaviour — sime

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx

Your long post covers a lot of territory; it would be a good idea to break-up your piece into several posts, maybe in two or three separate new discussions. Very long, multi-topic posts tend to attract very little response, because it hard to find the core idea.

Capitalism is behaving the way it will behave when government's regulating role is weak. In what is called "the Gilded age" (1870s-1900, roughly) capitalists were able to operate with little regulation in a rapidly expanding economy. Many huge fortunes were made. The Gilded Age was followed by the Progressive Era, when governmental regulation on business was greatly strengthened. The Progressive Era was followed by the Great Depression (world wide) and then World War II. A boom followed WWII, and eventually (in the 1980s) regulation on business activity was loosened again.

The most anyone can hope for (in the present circumstances) is that the operation of capitalist economies will be regulated and restrained somewhat. Capitalists generally have a strong hand, and presently they have the upper hand--which is why limited regulation is the most we can expect.

The behavior of capitalists in the late 19th century is similar to the way Silicon Valley corporations are behaving. Whatever capitalists say -- whether it be John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (Standard Oil) in the 19th century or Garrett Camp (Uber) in 2016 -- they are in business to exploit people for their own gain. They are NEVER out performing a public service.

The 19th century giants--Carnegie Steel, the railroads like Pennsylvania, New York Central, Illinois Central, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, and so forth were sometimes profitable, were generally very wasteful of resources, and screwed the public in as many ways as possible.

Walmart, Uber, Airbnb, Google, Apple, Tesla, et al "disrupt existing business models". What this amounts to is attempting to destroy previously existing businesses, replace them with their own operations, and reduce labor costs--all for the maximization of profit which flows to an already wealthy group of stockholders. In other words, screwing the public in as many ways as possible, as per usual.

It seems like my response to the Philosophy graduates offended some people. I am sorry for making some persons feel bad. I had no intention of it.

I am a new member, and not good at navigating through the website yet. I did not notice the 70 year old's previous write up.

I have a mind with limited means. I cannot relate to all the situations portrayed on the forum. I only select the ones I understand and respond. If I this is causing any resentment, I am willing to take a back seat. — Ashwin Poonawala

Ashwin Poonawala, welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

You haven't offended anyone. You haven't made anyone feel bad. The fault is mine. I apologize to you for using your perfectly fine post as the basis for a joke. There is nothing wrong with joking here, but I definitely did not intend to make you, or your post, the object of the joke.

We all have minds with limited means. Stay up front where you are; don't take a back seat.

Again, welcome, and understand I encourage your participation here.

An interesting case. It was good of you (really) to help this chick fly.

But it is amazing how many people that age are clueless. And 25 is no child. That is a full adult, there should be no excuses by then, but it amazes me how many people in their late twenties have no idea how to think. — TimeLine

Is it because, when these people are children or adolescents, that they do not have enough real experiences in unprogrammed life?

"Middle class children" are wrapped in a sort of cocoon by school, extra-curricular classes (like dance, Suzuki violin classes, sports) driven by parental aspirations, 'immersive' games, and so on. They do not spend a lot of time alone. Many/most don't have gainful employment in adolescence. Toward the end of adolescents they go to college, live in dormitories, and attend classes. Then they are turned loose, finally.

None of it is bad, but it doesn't leave "extended time alone" and real-life open-ended situations where you have to learn how to cooperate but remain 'who you are'.

no prizes at all are awarded to shelf stackers — unenlightened

Don't you believe it! — Barry Etheridge

Barry, dear, you quoted an irrelevant article on awards for grocery bagging--an altogether different existential experience than shelf-stacking. Bagging is a non-essential perk offered by better grocery stores. Shelf-stacking is the soul of the grocery business

It pains me to hear the stories of you 25 and 64 year Philosophy graduates. I cannot directly relate to your situation, since I have had relatively successful career. — Ashwin Poonawala

As well it should pain you.

But what about us JUST TRAGIC 70 year old English Lit graduates? It apparently didn't pain you much to hear about our suffering (and great it was, you may rest assured).

I hope, we are talking only about the lack of satisfaction of being successful, and not of not making enough for sustenance. — Ashwin Poonawala

There are, you should know thousands of graduates of Philosophy, English Lit, and Cross-Cultural Studies in Gender and Race who populate the homeless shelters across America and who queue up daily for stale cheese sandwiches, long-past sale date apple sauce packets, and hard, indeterminate cookies. News Flash: Soup kitchens haven't make soup in decades. It's stale cold food you get.

All those none-too-articulate, kind of unkempt panhandlers on city streets and freeway exits? They're all liberal arts graduates in the more arcane fields, with masters theses on Vegan Praxis in Suburban Poughkeepsie, New York, or POMO texts on sites of resistance at high-fashion discount stores like Off Saks 5th... The irrelevance of their scholarly work is proportionate to their humiliation while panhandling--experience which would be, btw, excellent material for some real scholarship. Too bad they're too immiserated to do it.

Your post leaves me verklempt.

How are you two now?. May be by this time you two have good news for us. — Ashwin Poonawala

Oh, they have! They've moved up from the open dormitory shelter on the first floor to the 4-per-bay facilities on the second floor.

tongue in cheek alert

If you don't get that language straightened out, it's going to be a lot worse than kangaroos loose in the top paddock, figjam and all.

Whinge is also British Isles, so you probably got it from them.

According to the Urban Dictionary, to wit:

Sooking
An Australian slang term used to indicate another person is soft, easily upset, or just a plain pussy.
Joe: I'm in so much pain right now, I've got such a bad bruise on my knee.
Bob: *Looks at Joe's Knee* You call that a bruise, don't be such a sook, my dick has had bigger bruises on it than that.
John: Yeah Joe you fucking pussy, don't be such a sook.

Sookie
Sookie, Sukie, Sukee - An easy woman. Easily scored pussy. Cross cultural languages all relatively carry the same meaning. Native languages imply "other pussy" as well as "gullible pussy". All are meant as derogatory toward the one called.

"Other pussy"? What kind of insult is that?

Arvo
One of the many words that Australians have cut syllables off and replaced with "-o". This one represents the hours after 12pm, and is used by people, myself included, who can't be bothered saying "-fternoon".
Hey Davo, I'm goin' to the servo for arvo smoko.
Translation: David, I'm going to the service station to purchase some food for the afternoon break.

Bikkies
1) Plural of Bikkie.
2) What Australians call a biscuit.
3) The Australian version of the snack 'cookie'.

The other Ozlandic slang you used was too debased for even the urban dictionary to grok.

Gawd, what an appalling abuse of the language! It's as bad as the American deep south and black English (or "Ebonics"). We do not approve of either black English or ebonics. Black English is bone lazy. They can't even say their archetypal curse, "mother fucker" properly. It's been mumbled down to "mofo".

Dizgusting. (In dramatic rendering, "dizgusting" is a bit more repulsive than mere "disgusting",

A government (whether national, state, provincial, county, or city) should be:

Competent
Honest
Effective
Efficient
Responsive

But the higher-lower brain dissonance I refer to is not ''little''. — TheMadFool

In the case of our brains the disharmony is fundamental. Inconsistencies arising in the lower brain directly threaten the very essence of our higher brains - rationality. — TheMadFool

You are quite right about this: a highly agitated, disruptive state of emotions will certainly interfere and threaten our rational thinking. When this disruption is sustained, we call it 'mental illness'-- such as when someone is afflicted with bi-polar disorder or major depression. Even when the disruption is brief (such as in a fit of jealous rage) the results an be disastrous.

But one thing we can not forget: the higher thinking functions of the brain were never and are never separated from each other. They evolved to work together. I have "a feeling" (emotional brain at work) that quite often the dissonance is a result of the rational brain not paying attention to the emotional weather.

For instance: Perhaps you have come to find your intellectual job very burdensome, and you can't seem to do it well (where once one could). You may spend a lot of time analyzing what is happening on the job, but the analysis doesn't help. The circumstances of the job may have changed, but it is also possible that your emotions are no longer satisfied by the rewards of the job, or are offended by circumstances.

Your emotions may be conspiring to find something more rewarding. You aren't aware of the conspiracy because you are out of touch with your emotions. Your work deteriorates and you get fired. Oddly, you suddenly feel much better. Emotions 1, rational mind 0.

I know in my own life that I should have paid more attention to my emotions. I was often working at cross purposes. What I was doing was in conflict with what I wanted, and a lot of time was wasted pursuing dead ends.

If there's the slightest dissonance among the instruments what emerges is cacophony/noise. — TheMadFool

Let's say if there is too much dissonance, or nothing but dissonance, we end up with the noise of a cacophony. Picking up the musical theme, a little dissonance can add a great deal--as many a composer has found. In the course of living our lives, we sometimes have the opportunity to deliberately act in discord (because we want to) with what we think is best, or most polite or proper. So, maybe we engage in some improper sex with a stranger that we know definitely does not pass muster with the rules and regulations. But because of the frisson of dissonance, the sex is about as good as sex can get. [Sadly, scandal is NO GUARANTEE of great sex.]

Not a cause for great concern, but certainly a need to harmonize.

First, we need to do away with higher and lower brain. The whole brain evolved, and if some parts are old, like the brain stem (the reptile brain), the reptile brain performs vital functions -- like keeping your heart beating, your breathing steady, putting you to sleep, and very important, waking you up. Emotion and cognition are tied in together -- which is why, when we hear beautiful poetry or soaring political rhetoric, we feel it. Emotions affect thinking, thinking affects our emotions. Exercising the body helps the brain function better. A healthy brain keeps the body healthy.

Philosophers sometimes rely too heavily on the good work of the pre-frontal cortex and look askance at those deeper functions in the hippocampus, amygdala, and so on.

So, harmonizing starts with accepting what is. From what is, we move to what can be. Emotions can be toned up, and thoughts can be directed into healthier lines of investigation. If there is heavy conflict between the emotional centers and the cognitive centers, maybe professional help is needed, but most people are not so troubled.

See, MadFood, we are a unity. We are basic emotions, simple drives, biological functions, perception, memory, coordination of movement, and thought. No one part of the unity is more important to the organism than any other. Thought isn't at the peak of the pyramid with sex and hunger at the bottom. Thought, sex, hunger, perception, and movement -- everything -- is all one. That's what being holistic means. We are not "thinkers" unfortunately chained to this animal that has all this biological stuff to deal with. Thought and all that biological stuff is actually rather thoroughly mixed together.

Not a cause for concern. For one thing, I am not sure it is the lower brain (so called) that is confused, self-contradictory, and irrational. Survival is the mandate of the lower brain and it does that in a straight forward way. It is the cerebral cortex (the higher reasoning part of the brain) that get's tied up in knots over bullshit.

Life would be better for all of us, I think, if we stopped thinking (in our high brain) that life is all about whatever the high-brain comes up with. The high brain would do well to acknowledge the importance of our lower functions, like emotions -- which, by the way, have cables reaching into the high brain from the low brain attached to levers which the emotional centers of the lower brain can pull, and send the high brain into a tizzy, if they so choose.

So we have overly cerebral people who think they have it all figured out until the Department of Gonad Motivation down in the Sex Control Center gets a load of that most attractive number walking by and stamps its foot on the GO pedal and makes the poor slob up in the forebrain have palpitations and hot flashes.

You really should go first.

In a full life, many things are relished, enjoyed greatly, and missed when they are gone. And over time, if we live long enough, we lose a lot of it.

I miss my dog a lot. Was she the most important thing in my life? No, but a skillful dog succeeds in becoming the center of things. Their seductive love is unconditional and ruthlessly enforced.

I miss my spouse more, however.

And I would miss the flavor, stimulation, and social function of coffee.

So. There was no chance of them dying. What were they whinging about, then? Or, had they been here, whining about?

When "hwinan" became "whinen" in Middle English, it meant "to wail distressfully"; "whine" didn't acquire its "complain" sense until the 16th century. "Whinge," on the other hand, comes from a different Old English verb, "hwinsian," which means "to wail or moan discontentedly."

This can be confronting when you tell them or show to them that they are thinking incorrectly and sometimes such people exhibit violent or aggressive behaviour towards the party that exposes their false idea of the world since it may result in the complete collapse of their identity. — TimeLine

It's traumatic because it involves the undoing of how someone understanding the world with respect to identity, status, power and worth, a loss of the ideas and narratives which one has sorted the world into... — TheWillowOfDarkness

We are to assume, I suppose, that the agents pointing out to these guys that their thinking is incorrect, or undoing someone's understanding of the world with respect to identity, status, power, and worth, are correct and the objects of their instruction are wrong. I mean, armed with right theory and right praxis, how could agents correcting these neanderthal troglodytes possibly go wrong?

Suppressing the gag reflex is more useful than suppressing the startle reflex. Unless, of course, you were gagged by an unusually large organ menacing you at midnight in a Walmart Store with Widor's 5th Organ Symphony and you screamed "Holy shit!" and ran from the store, seeking comfort in early crude rap.

I had a long day rock-climbing with whinging girls. — TimeLine

Of course they were whinging -- after 2 of them had just splattered on the sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

It is surely environmental. For instance, notions like masculinity play a pivotal role in opinions that are not really authentic, particularly in relation to moral points of view. I said recently that to be loved is something earned and that one must appreciate how to give love in order to recognise what they should do to earn it, but the men I spoke to immediately denied the concept of love in its entirety because it was like their masculinity depended upon it. People have been taught that earning respect is a given if you conform to the right image and so people are not only not learning how to give correctly, but they are also expecting it to be given if they do conform. Those who have conformed to these notions are the ones that react with confusion since they are shown their perceptions of the world are false. — TimeLine

This is intriguing but I don't see how it figures into the cingulate cortex and to shocked reactions. Unless, of course, your saying "to be loved is something earned" was a sudden, shocking, traumatic event to the guys you were speaking to.

My question is how do we make sense of this ''strange'' behavior? — TheMadFool

You are analyzing an observed / remembered reaction to a sudden, intense traumatic event in the leisurely comfort of our philosophy forum and over-thinking it. When your are T-boned in an intersection on your way to work, there is a 99.99999% certainty you won't be wondering what zen koans have to do with your reaction.

The words that bubble up from

... a "lower brain" area - the cingulate cortex... — apokrisis

will have to be words you have heard/used before and have available, and they have to match the situation. "Holy cow" has been an expression of amazement / shock much longer than "holy shit". According to Google Ngram, "holy cow" has been used (in print) since 1800. "Holy shit" started appearing in print abruptly in 1960. The Supreme Court obscenity ruling had something to do with that.

I'm 99.99999% certain that if you are T-boned in your car, you will not say "oh fudge", which hit peak usage in the 1970s. If, on June 25th, 1977, you dropped your keys on the wet sidewalk you might have said "oh fudge", were you old enough to be carrying keys at the time.

including being made into dolphins or whatever — Terrapin Station

I am unanimous in the opinion that nobody should be allowed to be made into a dolphin. I mean, do we really want to insult dolphins that much?

I see... the list gives an air of verisimilitude to the otherwise airy notion that there are more than two genders--male and female.

Just as well the Social Psychology Quarterly is on the case! — Wayfarer

What drugs bring on the states-of-mind that enable people to write such crap as this?

more than two genders, some up to five — Wosret

Would you care to explain what the 5 genders are?

"The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt — TimeLine

Klimt has become quite popular, seems like. It's been a long time since I read Anna Karenina. I should reread it. (It's on my list.)

I hate to mention this in the present company of high art, but there is a children's story that I think makes a quite good point about love: The Velveteen Rabbit. I first heard it as a middle age'd adult. The Velveteen Rabbit wants to know how to become real. The rocking horse explains that one becomes real by being loved. Adults who prefer sucking lemons won't like the book.

The book doesn't explain how people becomes loved if they are not loved already. That problem is dealt with elsewhere--or it isn't, depending on one's perspective.

http://thesolutionsproject.org/

I'm curious what everyone thinks about this — MonfortS26

There are 2 parts to their site -- the information map obtained from Stanford and then their own organization page. Their organization looks like a conventional well-meaning non-profit that is promoting some nice idea, but nothing substantial.

Many assumptions and estimations went into the information map projections which would need to be assessed to determine how "real" the projections are. My guess is that the projections and estimations were quite optimistic. Not that a little optimism about solar/wind would be a bad thing.

Around 10-12 years ago, someone in Worthington, MN claimed that the 6 wind generators outside town provided most of the town's energy--though the diesel generating plant was still needed (the wind doesn't always blow). True or not? Don't know. It seemed plausible. Worthington is a town of 10,000 with a couple of ag plants -- an alfalfa dehydrating plant (uses natural gas for heat) and a meat-packing plant. Otherwise, it's just down at the heels retail and residential.

If the short-term storage problem is solved, if residential and commercial demand is reduced, and if transportation is shifted from 1 person per car to 80 people per trolley, freight shifted to electric trains, we might be able to make it work. Whether large-scale agricultural field operations can be conducted by electric motors, I very much doubt -- not with existing batteries. Very long extension cords, maybe?

In the long run, we don't have any choice but to rely on wind and solar (and/or nuclear), so we had better figure out how to do it.

Feminists need to take constructivist position because they want to eliminate all barriers (like biology) from the accomplishment of their wishes. Unfortunately for feminists, biology has decreed that women shall be the exclusive agents of child bearing. Female biology is built around their reproductive role, just as male biology is. Men just happen to have a much more pleasant role in reproduction than women do: For women, a baby is often a prize they had no wish to win; for men, the fuck 'em and forget 'em approach is much easier. Not that we would recommend that approach, of course.

Feminists also want to get shut (southern US expression) of socially defined roles that they feel are restrictive.

Are feminists crazy for wanting to be free of biological and social limitations on the way they want to live their lives? Some feminists are decidedly crazy, and unpleasant spoiled brats besides, but sure--be whatever you want to be. If you want equality, fine--just don't shirk ditch digging, street cleaning, and foot soldiering during the next war.

Sometimes you have to take the horse by the tail and face the situation.

"gender self-determination" — Wosret

For better or worse, 'transgender' or 'transsexual' is grouped with gay and bi. One prominent issue in the discussion of sexuality within the GBT population is whether sexual orientation and gender is "constructed" or "essential". The "construction" is engineered by society, but individuals can take a hand at shaping their behavior, their preferences, their identity. The opposite of this view, essentialism, assumes that sexual orientation and gender is at least largely determined by biology.

Which is right? Well, in my opinion it's biology over society for the most part. Biology doesn't specify that women wear skirts and men pants, or that women should be teachers and nurses and men should be executives and engineers. That's all society's doing.

People who are gay or transgender generally sense they are different (and in what way, more or less) before society has a chance to define all this for them. That's biology at work.