Why do you reckon this is the case, given the conservative beliefs with regards to marriage? — Agustino

Inactive beliefs are less important than active practice. It's one thing to live in a progressive or conservative community; it's another thing to be engaged in that community. One can never darken the door of a church, but have great concern that the worship be conducted in a particular manner.

Engagement in a religious community will affect life-outcomes (like divorce) much more than sitting at home and nattering on about religion and the #)(%#*(@!)#(%& government, Obamacare, feminism, et al.

Being conservative, per se, isn't the critical factor in reduced rates of divorce. It's active involvement in religion that is correlated strongly with reduced divorce rates. Being conservative and secular is not correlated with reduced rates of divorce.

couples who are active in their faith are much less likely to divorce. Catholic couples were 31% less likely to divorce; Protestant couples 35% less likely; and Jewish couples 97% less likely... Christianity Today

Other factors might also contribute to lower rates of divorce, like economic stability, population stability, lower rates of alcohol and recreational drug use, and the like.





At a quick glance, it would appear that marriage and divorce rates are something of hodgepodge. While some contiguous areas have higher or lower rates of marriage and divorce, a clear connection between political behavior and marriage or divorce would be difficult. The country didn't change between 2012 and 2016. What changed was the candidates and the style of campaigning. Obama's outgoing over-all approval rating was far higher than Trump's in-comimg approval rating -- something of an aberration in itself.

So your belief is ill founded — unenlightened

Not ill founded. Of course there is no gene "for" PTSD and child abuse or gunshot wounds. These are caused by experiences of extreme violence, often repeated and prolonged. Schizophrenia, OCD, bi-polar disorder, and other major mental illnesses have entirely different origins.

There are either defective genes which produce certain disorders in the body (like Huntington's disease or bi-polar disorder), there are structural malformations which occur in utero (like mental retardation), or there are external causes of disease such as prions, viruses, bacteria, metallic poisonings, radiation, pesticide/herbicide exposures, etc. There are also diseases of aging which are caused by exhausting the body's capacity to renew itself.

[We have recently learned that the British are eating a lot of burnt toast and scorched potatoes. Whether the inability to operate a toaster is inherited or not, hasn't been determined. The descendants of the English in the US and Canada seem to be capable of toasting bread properly.]

we already know that genes play only a contributory part in schizophrenia — unenlightened

Your link doesn't support your view that my belief is ill-founded. There seems to be a genetic connection between genes and schizophrenia. Granted, it's not a genetic slam dunk as genes are for Huntington's disease or a couple dozen other specific genetically caused diseases. That there are other factors as well is also the case.

I don't trust them fuckers. Behaviorism, and introspection are not reliable enough. Multiple different causes can manifest the same symptoms. Think about all of the things that could cause you to be worried, and how little you could infer beyond symptoms based on their behavior. We can then ask people why they're worried, and they can be wrong, or lying. Not that I don't think that anything interesting comes out of there, but just as a supposed medical profession, they should be looking for physical causes, and things they can reliably check, and prove. — Wosret

OKAY, don't trust them. Fine by me.

Yes, many 'psychological' or psychiatric problems are presumably caused by physical causes. Unfortunately, the means to look for causes in the brain (or elsewhere I'm the body) just haven't existed until relatively recently. Researchers have found no physical marker in the brain for bi-polar disease. It does seem to be inherited, but the means by which genes trigger an attack is just not known at this point. Same for a number of other major mental illnesses.

I believe we will eventually get to the point where we can say "This person is bi-polar, or paranoid schizophrenic, because xyz gene is overactive or xyz chemical is metabolized too quickly (or not quickly enough. But... we aren't there yet.

As for ordinary depression, there might be causes; or maybe depression is mistaken for something less clinical like: to much alcohol, chronic debt, working too much (or not nearly enough), bad relationships, bad on the job working conditions, and so on.

I actually don't understand how such statements works, how they are valid. — disspeach

What statement -- the one about Freud being wrong about a lot? Not complicated.

For Example:

Freud's error was not in identifying infantile sexuality; the error was in magnifying it's importance way too much. Sexuality continues from infancy forward, but Freud found the cause of too many neurosis, odd behaviors, and so forth in sexuality.

Take gayness. Freud can't be blamed for not identifying genetic or pre-natal maternal influences on the development of sexual deviance. He had neither the chemical nor genetic tools to even begin thinking about such things. He found the cause of homosexuality where he happened to be looking -- mostly in the neurotic lives of Viennese middle class hausfraus. Had he examined the histories of 1000 more or less happy, reasonably successful homosexuals, he would likely have come up with a different theory -- but he wasn't (could hardly) review a thousand cases of out, happy, successful homosexuals in late 19th/early 20th century Vienna, or anywhere else.

Freud is one thing. Freudians are something else. Sort of like Marx and Marxists, or Christ and Christians. The followers are not always clear reflections of the leader.

I can't seem to keep my right hand on the proper keys today. I keep typing "m" when I mean "n". Who can better explain this? Freud? Jung? Dr. Neurologist? A deck of tarot cards?

In siding so heavily with neurology, you are overlooking psychodynamics. Neurology will probably never explain why mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, have all the hostilities they sometimes have for each other. Or the unusual affection, either. Or how suddenly some people switch from being a nice sibling to being a total son of a bitch sibling.

I didn't find the videos at all interesting or helpful.

Both men are irrelevant from the perspective of current psychological practice. Freud's ideas dominated the field up until the 1960s (a good 60 year run); Jung's ideas did not have traction as a therapeutic method, but he has been somewhat popular as a cultural vehicle. I would credit Freud with being more influential. Both Freud and Jung are worth studying, if one has nothing better to do, but other psychological theorists are more useful. Freud's schema was more complete than Jung's.

Pioneers can have brilliant ideas alongside some that are just plain cuckoo. Wilhelm Reich, one of Freud's apostles, cooked up the 'Orgone Box' which was supposed to concentrate psychic energy (one sat in the Orgone Box.) Nutso, to use the technical terms. On the other hand, his ideas about authoritarian personalities and adolescent sexuality are very substantial.

I think Freud was wrong about a lot, but some of his ideas about psycho dynamics (Id, Ego, Superego) reflect human behavior. The Oedipus and Elektra complexes are pretty much worthless, and men have a lot more penis envy than women do.

It is important to remember where Jung and Freud came from. Both were born in the 19th century--Freud I'm 1858, Jung 1875. Jung was Swiss, Freud was Viennese. Both were more or less bourgeois. The field of psychology really was hatched around this time. William James, born in 1842, was the first person to offer a "psychology" class in college. This generation created the field.

Didn't get it all right? Not to worry. We still haven't gotten it all right.

Sure routine and variation are a reciprocal pair.

I'll just state this again.

What I mean is that antinatalists, and nihilists too, have a hungry heart -- it has not been satisfied yet. You are hungry for something. Actually, lots of people who are neither antinatalists nor nihilists are equally hungry. For assurance? Meaning? Certainty? Clarity? Belonging? Love? Something basic. — Bitter Crank

The US can choose who can immigrate to the country by virtually any criteria it chooses — Thorongil

Agreed. This is part of the "sovereignty" deal. Sovereign nations not only can, but have a responsibility to control their borders. If they don't want short or left-handed people, they don't have to admit them.

I thought there was something in the constitution about not having an established religion. — unenlightened

There is--the establishment clause. The Government can not "establish" a religion like the Church of England or Islam. (This was added to protect religion from the state, not just the other way around.)

In the present case, the argument can be made that Christians and other non-Muslim minorities in the Middle East are the most in danger and in need of assistance — Thorongil

The current Islamic persecution of Christians is closely connected to the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the Shiite / Sunni civil war after the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and ISIS and Al Qaeda in the middle east and elsewhere, like Nigeria. The percentage of Christians still living in the middle east has fallen from 10% (1900) to about 3% today. Israel and Lebanon are the only two middle east countries where Christians are free to practice their religion.

Yazidis and Zoroastrians also experience continuing oppression under Islam.

Some sort of vetting is necessary in any event, since the US cannot be expected to take in all the refugees in the world indefinitely. — Thorongil

And nobody else can either. There are scores of millions of refugees from all sources, not just the million or so that made it to Europe recently.

Refugee advocates have a vested interest in refugee settlement. Groups like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services are responsible for a lot of the settlement activity, for which they are paid under contract with the State Department. Aside from contracts, advocates are highly focused on whatever their particular issue is.

Have we decided that economic migrants and refugees are a force of nature which are no more controllable than the weather? What are India and Burma going to do when Bangladesh finally floods later in this century? Burma almost certainly will be unable to help a lot; India hasn't solved it's own envirommemtal problems, let alone taking on an influx of 30 million rising-ocean refugees.

I heard that God is starting to use the phrase, "so help me Trump" whenever He has to take a Divine Dump.

all the other tropes I usually bring up via antinatalism — schopenhauer1

Many people do pair bond without any intention of continuing the species, you know.

I have thought, think, and will probably continue to think that anti-natalism is a cry from the heart. By that I don't mean antinatalists are profoundly unhappy (maybe you are, maybe you are not -- I don't know). What I mean is that antinatalists, and nihilists too, have a hungry heart -- it has not been satisfied yet. You are hungry for something. Actually, lots of people who are neither antinatalists nor nihilists are equally hungry. For assurance? Meaning? Certainty? Clarity? Belonging? Love? Something basic.

Antinatalism IS a trope: it's a virus. It's a meme. (and no, I don't think these things perpetuate and spread themselves. We are the vector.)

Rather, it is the implication that the individual does not matter here except as a vehicle in a broader process. — schopenhauer1

In one way this is true, and in another way it is not true. In the grand, multi-galactic scheme of things, one squirrel getting run over, one human at work, doesn't matter. But in the same big scheme of things--from a different perspective--individuals are all that matter--life is present only in individual creatures, not as an over-arching abstraction. Humans matter on an individual basis. Just try to not matter to yourself.

If you want teleology and purpose, why don't you just take up with the God of Abraham, who will give you both? You don't have to give up genes to do it, either. Just assign evolution and its mechanisms to the methods which God employs to carry out his teleological, purposeful will.

It seems like you are trying to find meaning by smuggling it across the border inside a package of evolution.

Don't like Jehovah? Zeus maybe? Amazon.com has other god-models you can order and have delivered by lightning bolt.

The Lutheran insight that work is a central human act remains:

…the works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks…all works are measured before God by faith alone.

Martin Luther

It doesn't matter whether the work is domestic duties, civic duties, or wage-earning employment: work is holy.

If human labor is replaced by entirely mechanical production, then it will be a life-and-death matter to redefine the meaning and value of ordinary people, and ordinary work. Without vocation, (however that is defined) Homo Operatur will be hard pressed to fill his years with meaning, or even survive.

If the cosmos began without meaning, it would still have no meaning UNLESS something happened to create meaning.

Genes and memes are not meaning creators. Neither are physical forces, biological processes, evolution, earthquakes, and so on. They are real, but they don't make meaning. There can not be pawns in a meaningless world. The pieces for which pawns are stand-ins have meaning.

Something happened.

Meaning makers came into existence. Meaning makers, of necessity, have the capacity to impose meaning on a meaningless world. We meaning makers can create and destroy pawns; we can generate ideas that "trend" mightily. If we were to disappear, the cosmos would return to meaninglessness.

Billy Preston resolves the question.



Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin' if you want to be with me
Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin' if you want to be with me
I'm not tryin' to be your hero
'Cause that zero is too cold for me, Brrr
I'm not tryin' to be your highness
'Cause that minus is too low to see, yeah
Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
And I'm not stuffin', believe you me
Don't you remember I told ya
I'm a soldier in the war on poverty, yeah
Yes, I am

I found the antidotezine article very informative and somewhat surprising. Thanks for linking it in here.

It didn't increase my level of paranoia.

It isn't the collectors, analyzers, and correlators of big data that worry me. Advertising companies have been working toward individual tailored ads for quite a few years. (Target Corporation can now tell within 60 days when a female Target card user has become pregnant based solely on purchases of certain products that do not have anything to do with pregnancy or child care.)

What worries me is big data's bad-actor customers -- people like Donald Trump, or the Brexit campaigners. Their clear-enough stated political goals are what is scary, not so much how they go about targeting ads.

I want the politician to be truthful about who they are, what he or she believes, what he or she has done in the past, what he or she plans to do, and how he or she plans to do it. That's what I'll vote on.

So do you disapprove of men in drag? — Mongrel

As long as the results are sufficiently absurd, no.

Caption for picture: Duchess Kate has long been a fan of wearing nude pantyhose to cover up her legs.

Question: Is there some other reason for wearing pantyhose?



Fortune Magazine answers the question, "Why pantyhose sales are still surprisingly strong"

Another exception: I will never hire a male nanny to look after my children. I have a deep suspicion of male nannies, and I hold that right to be sexist in this regard. — Emptyheady

I agree.

Very wealthy and powerful people used to employ both governors and governesses to educate their children. "Nanny" isn't quite the same thing -- more of a glorified babysitter. I would question why, exactly, a guy wanted to be a "nanny". Private tutor, sure; nanny, no. I would suspect the male nanny of being some sort of (heterosexual) wimp. (w.i.m.p. = whingy ineffective male person).

Attractiveness and culturally appropriateness do not seem to be relevant to me. — Emptyheady

Many people would agree that you have not perceived attractiveness and cultural appropriateness as relevant to yourself. [just joking, of course...]

"telos" of a particular job... applying "telos" to say, small appliance repair or long lines supervisor at the old AT&T seems like a $10 word for a 10¢ concept. Maybe the telos of a philosopher..., male or female, would be appropriate.

This is some dumb shit right here — Heister Eggcart

I have found that my shorter, less nuanced posts are getting read more, and generate more response. You may think my style preferences are some dumb shit, but at least you responded. Thanks!

You have a right to think whatever makes the most sense to you. — Mongrel

↪Bitter Crank Are you fucking kidding me? — Mongrel

So, are you really in favor of people thinking whatever makes the most sense to them or not?

The comment was about the STYLE of filling male roles, not that females can't fill male roles, or males can't fill female roles. If women and men were both drafted here the way they are in Israel, being a female soldier would be routinized. It isn't in the US.

If you find my style preferences to be an affront, then I say, that is too fucking bad.

You must know, as "a very conflictual person... I enjoy conflicts" that conflicts can be extremely risky -- not that one will necessarily be shot (except if you live in Chicago) but one is more likely to get fired, passed over for promotion, demoted, shunned, etc. if one is too conflictual. At the very least, you'll find that the only people who want to be around you are also conflict-addicts. (I also love a good conflict, as long as it stays verbal OR I have overwhelming arms superiority.)

I don't find it attractive or culturally appropriate when (heterosexual) women take male roles (soldier, firefighter, steel construction. philosopher) and fill them in an "as-if-they-were-male" style that amounts to caricature. The same goes for (heterosexual) men in typical female roles who ape women's styles of job performance. Waiters don't have to act like waitresses, so to speak.

Women avoid excessive risk taking, and women are less likely to put up with living in a laboratory, making morning toast on a bunsen burner. Getting to the top appears to require laser focus on THE GOAL. But most men also don't take excessive risks, and like to be free in the evenings, and don't enjoy bureaucratic dog fights that much.

I was quoting you, about your allegedly accidentally flagging empty heady.

Lol I accidentally flagged your comment man... sorry :-# — Agustino

Heh, heh, heh. I accidentally flagged your comment.

I am actually baffled by your insightful post. I often don't read them. — Emptyheady

The same thing, only less of it. Better? 145 words v. 307.

Camille Puglia says women have had plenty of opportunity to be great painters. Apparently they don't have what it takes (like, the male gaze).

The standard distribution will not be mocked. Most (99.009%) people never do anything great because most people have ordinary abilities. Whether it be mathematics or horse shoeing, genius is rare. Very perceptive, creative minds seldom occur. Smart people are a small minority. Most of us live in the big hump in the middle. That's OK because we mediocrities in the big hump actually keep the world turning.

The people on the top (or out there in the .001% of high achievement) clawed, bought, or bullied their way to the top. It takes more than genius--it takes balls. And connections don't hurt, either. Most women don't have balls, but a few do.

Camille Puglia discussed why there are very few great women painters. She observed that this is the case despite women having plenty of access to artist-training--several hundred thousand women taking drawing and painting classes (over the previous 2 centuries). She attributes the dominance of male painters of great stature to "the male gaze" -- the priority of looking. Visuality is more important to men than to women. Could be.

If you take the population as a whole over the last 2 or 3 thousand years (what... 10 billion people?) very very few people did exceedingly well at anything in the areas of 'cultural production'.

Performing far above the plane of the average, truly excelling in cultural production, is limited to a small number of people. The barrier to high-level performance isn't in the stars, isn't solely in oppressive systems of discrimination, it's in us. The "package" -- genius, high levels of creativity, unusually profound insight, high ambition, aggressive competitiveness, is rare. 99.99% of us are not going to be notable at anything.

Take any field -- mathematics to shoeing horses -- people will perform somewhere on the normal distribution, from really very good to just very bad.

One would suppose that women and men are as evenly represented in the thin, extreme ends of the distribution as they are in the fat middle. It seems like the conditions of success at the high extreme end are such that only those with social support (family connections, wealth, social status, etc.), high levels of competitive drive--aka aggressiveness, or the ability and willingness to survive as loners, are going to make it.

What it takes to succeed at the high extreme end just might not be all that attractive to women.

And maybe, a lot of what academically oriented men do just isn't that interesting to women either.

Because of your abilities, your needs, or the clogs (sabots, actually)?

I heard the devil was planning on drowning the Dutch.

All workers have become temps. — Benkei

People? Not so much. — Benkei

The other day I picked up Air Conditioned Nightmare by Henry Miller (author of Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Sexus, etc.) which is based on his 1939 trip across the US. For the previous 10 years, he had been living in the Parisian hothouse of expatriate artists and writers. The first chapter, Good News! God is Love! is a rant set off by the contrast of witnessing the brutality of Pittsburgh and having just finished a biography of Ramakrishna.

The theme of revulsion at the dehumanization of 1939 Great Depression America is still going strong in subsequent chapters. I don't know whether his scathing prose does justice to his reaction to the barbarism he sees. The oppression of the ordinary man by the rich was less disguised then than now--maybe.

Anyway, his ranting is fresh and alive. Ruthless exploitation, dehumanization, oppression, brutality, and so on are very much with us. Maybe it is not quite as grim--2017 compared to 1939. Or, maybe I would need a decade of pleasant exile to see it anew. It wasn't just poverty. It was the crude, barely concealed violence that he encountered in specific people.

"All workers have become temps" is literally true for a large share of the workforce. They may not be called temps, but they are. One difference between 1939 and 2017 is that immiseration is perhaps a slower process for the working class, certainly--but middle class too. I takes a while to strip a family of all assets, all resources, all the compromises and adjustments they can make before they are literally broke and broken. (Just like in 1929 - 1939, not everyone was thrown out on the street. 3/4 of the workforce was then working; it's probably about the same now--if you go by the real unemployment and seriously under-employed/part-time rates.

Well, isn't an eye for an eye ''deserved and proportional''? Yet the law seems to disregard/condemn such a philosophy. — TheMadFool

An eye-for-an-eye system is proportional justice. If somebody attacks you, and you lose your eye, you are not entitled to more than the justice of depriving them of their eye. Without proportional justice, retribution is unlimited. For my eye, you might lose your life, and the lives of your wife and children as well.

Most justice systems these days are proportional. For instance, in the case of accidentally killing somebody, you might not be liable for punishment at all (like in the case of hunting accidents where there was no premeditation, no clear negligence, etc).

An eye-for-an-eye system was a major advance over the unlimited retribution system (and this was... roughly 3000 years ago, at least in some civilizations). In Chicago, these days, crossing the street into rival gang territory can result in your losing your life. The sanctity of Crip territory is more important than the life of a Blood whose GPS (gang positioning system) was in error.

Well then, if it isn't, wtf kind of fact is it? If I said it is a true fact about my statements...

OK, it is a true fact that more precision is needed in my statements. Maybe.

But it's not, and adding the word "here" shows that you know it. On the other hand, "1 gallon of H2O weighs 8 pounds always and everywhere on Earth" is true. There is no case for the relativity of truth here, unless you just mean that a statement can turn out to be either true or false depending on how clear it is, or depending on your interpretation. Interpretations are relative, but interpretations are implicit reformulations--which is where things get interesting. — jamalrob

I'm fine with truths like "3+5=8"; "the table of elements is accounts for all the matter that we have encountered"§; "the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776"; and so on. These truths state facts that can be proved, and whose proof is universally accepted.

But then there are other kinds of truths and facts. "William the Conqueror won the battle at Hastings." Fine, fact and truth match. "His victory resulted in beneficial changes in England." As far as I can tell, truth and fact match here, but it is possible to disagree with the facts and truth. "William's victory ruined the English language" is true, in that Old English was transformed. Whether "ruined", "corrupted," "transformed", or "enriched" are all true or not depends on how you define ruin, corrupt, transform, and enrich. There are facts supporting various interpretations. Isn't there more than one 'truth' here?

Then there are a lot of treasured statements about truth which that are not connected to any facts at all.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

John 8:32 you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...

John 18:38 "What is truth? retorted Pilate."

"Philosophy is a search for THE TRUTH." So, is philosophy in search of truths that match facts? Like "Fish absorb oxygen through their gills."


§Dark matter is thought to exist, thought to be necessary, but we haven't 'apprehended it' yet.

2+2=4 is always and everywhere true. 1 gallon of H2O weighs 8 pounds always and everywhere is true here, but it wouldn't be true on Mars. So, a gallon of water weighing 8 pounds is relative to the planet on which it is being weighed. It isn't always and everywhere 8 pounds in weight.

John Keats' concluding line to An Ode on a Grecian urn...

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

sounds good but as far as I can tell, it isn't true. It depends how you define beauty and truth. As for that being all we know on earth, no -- that is not true either. It certainly isn't true that that is all we need to know. None the less, some people maintain this is all true. So Keats' truth is relative--in my book. (I have very mixed feelings about Keats. It's been a long time since I read him. I suppose I should give him a second chance.)

"Having more than one wife at a time is immoral." Some would say that is true, some would disagree.

Evidently truth is relative.

The fact of Joe's belief doesn't contradict the fact of rain falling. What is contradictory is Joe seeing rain and continuing to believe that it is not raining.

Joe is entitled to his own beliefs, but he isn't entitled to his own facts.

This is quite sensible. Where'd you get this from? — Heister Eggcart

Naturally, you are referencing my sensible post which was about to appear when you mistakenly addressed praise to Wayfarer. People are ignoring my posts again, so I have to seize whatever recognition i can.

Of course it is both a fact and true that Joe believes it is not raining. He hasn't been outside recently. That's one thing. Another thing: Is it raining? If you walk out the door and see that rain is falling, then the fact that it is raining is true. Actual rain can not begin to dissolve the fact of Joe's believing it is not raining until Joe opens the door and sees that it is raining.

If he opens the door, sees that it is raining, closes the door and says it is not raining, he is wrong about the rain. But it remains a fact that he believes it is not raining.

President Donald Trump believes the crowds watching his inauguration were larger than the crowds watching President Barack Obama's inauguration. He has been apprized of the fact that his crowd was smaller. He, however still believes that his were bigger.

For President Trump, it must be true that his crowds were bigger. He says it is a fact that they were bigger. What is true and factual is that President Trump holds a mistaken belief, and that is a fact which is true.

Whether Mr. Trump is demented, obstinate, or just plain stupid, the fact is that he is President. The truthfulness of his having taken the oath of office and now lives in the white house is a fact with which it is difficult to become fully comfortable. That is a fact for people who didn't vote for Frump. For the people who did vote for Slump, it is not true that it is difficult to feel comfortable about his living in the white house, his finger poised above the little red button that will trigger the end of life as we know it. They believe that the Stump is very clever, all wise and good, and will only drop his finger on the little red button if is in the interest of making America great again. Heil Skunk.