A) that it does not end abruptly (for example, through a nuclear war or catastrophic climate overheating), and B) that life is not a continuous source of suffering for millions of people. — Seeker25

Both are difficult, but eminently worthwhile and do-able. Maybe we could say B) that CIVILIZATION (such as it is) not be a continuous source of suffering...

Famine, for instance, usually has political causes -- Sudan, for example, or Gaza.

A propensity for life; diversity; fragile and ephemeral life; beauty; balance; freedom; intelligence; socialization; mutual dependence; complexity; and consciousness — Seeker25

I agree with the first three items, plus balance. But 'beauty, freedom; intelligence; socialization; mutual dependence; complexity; and consciousness' are, in my opinion, NOT part of earth-trends. They belong to the sphere of human activity, and of course are also eminently worthwhile.

"Earth-trends" is your term, and you define it more inclusively than I would. We may not be able to agree on the fine print, but I seems like we are both on the same side.

We possess enormous capabilities that allow us to determine what kind of world we want and, if we choose, how to adapt it to the Earth system of which we are a part. — Seeker25

One of the things that emerged from our evolutionary progress is hubris.

On the contrary, they can imagine long-term futures, reconciling them with collective interests, and devising ways to act accordingly. — Seeker25

We can certainly imagine long term futures. Science fiction writers do a handsome job of this.

Let's say there were clear predictions in 1976 that the level of atmospheric CO2, methane, and other green house gases was expected to reach reach high enough levels to begin producing significant climate / weather changes by 2026. Whatever level was reached in 2026 would not be a peak. In 2026 we know that the greenhouse gas levels continue to rise and whatever consequences will derive from these gas levels will last far into the future (because greenhouse gases are long-lasting).

Did the ordinary people of the earth do much about global warming? Did governmental leaders, possessing considerable power, do much about global warming? Did the leaders of various industries who manufacture greenhouse gases (directly or indirectly) change any company policy? Did I, an ecologically concerned guy, change my diet to cut greenhouse gases? Did you? Did you do everything you could to assure a future for you, your siblings, you children, and your friends?

The answer to these questions is almost certainly "NO" in all cases. Why?

In 2026, the industrialized countries of the planet have not accomplished much in the way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They have met, made earnest speeches, signed treaties, and so on but nothing much has resulted. The main reason is that reducing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is highly inconvenient (it really is), it involves uncomfortable changes in life-style, (it really does), and it will cost a lot of money (it's expensive). AND we who will be the first to experience the inconvenience, the discomfort, and the cost will not see much benefit. The people who will see the benefit of our efforts haven't been born yet.

We may not agree about this, but I don't believe we are actually able to make major sacrifices for people who are not born yet. When we benefit future people, it is usually after we have benefitted ourselves. Hoover Dam was finished in 1936. It benefitted people right away. It still does.
We are still using the Brooklyn Bridge (1869), but it wasn't built for our benefit. it was built for the people who needed it in the 19th century.

Maybe there is not enough mass suffering for us to see the wisdom of working hard to eliminate greenhouse gas production. I know it is happening, but so far the climate in Minnesota has remained quite pleasant. People (with AC) still like living in awfully hot Phoenix, apparently.

Do you have thoughts about the end of our species? — frank

Damned if I know.

The major extinction events were the result of external catastrophic events. We could certainly have one of those -- a big rock hitting earth or a super volcano blowing, for example. Either of those could cause a precipitous drop in global temperature (sunlight greatly reduced by dust) long enough to starve us out along with a lot of other species.

We are a threat to ourselves. Global warming and nuclear war come to mind. The minds behind The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (thinking of their doomsday clock) are not optimistic about our future.

We should definitely face the possibility of extinction in order to protect ourselves from the delusion that we will just survive, no matter what. The space that was emptied in previous extinctions stayed empty. Chickadees are dinosaurs, but they are a far tweet from T-Rex. Our smart, conscious species might never be replicated. Mind might be gone forever if we are lost.

But who are we? We are not merely evolved animals that behave according to instinct, that is, beings that produce similar reactions in response to similar stimuli. — Seeker25

I think it was Richard Feynman (bongo-playing nuclear physicist) who said, "nothing is mere". We are evolved animals, and many animals who appear to run only on instinct have to operate in a real world where instinct is not enough. So do we.

Our brains are designed to operate in a similar way, and we see each other doing very similar things from infancy forward. If that is so, it takes nothing away from our uniqueness as a species or as individuals. Other species also have various kinds of intelligence, and must make choices -- even honey bees. Consciousness is something we apparently have. I am not sure that we can determine that no other species has it. Earth worms? Probably not. Dogs? I suspect (without knowing) that they may have some consciousness. Primates? Probably. Maybe elephants.

I like to emphasize that we are part of a continuum of life which has been created over a long period of time. Our evolutionary history is why "we are what we are" and every other species is what it is as well.

Given that the Earth system behaves in this way, do we truly believe that we can achieve stability and well-being by killing people and destroying habitats rather than preserving them; by allowing those with different skin colours to starve; or by imprisoning those who think differently? Do we really think that these ideas (simple to explain and justify) cannot be understood and supported by large segments of humanity? — Seeker25

One of the features which Mother Nature gave us (for reasons which she didn't explain to me) is a 5 generation attention span--at the very best--between our grandparents and our grandchildren--about 100 years. (That really is "at best". Way best.). A lot of us have difficulty laying out a 5 year plan. Hungry investors want to see bigger profits every 3 months. Football (baseball) fans can manage 3 or 4 hours of sustained attention. Politicians think in terms of 2, 4, or 6 year terms. Personally, in my old age I tend to think of a day or two ahead.

So, when it comes to the question of:

how much water we can safely pump out of an aquifer
how long will it take to pay off the national debt
how much soil can we afford to lose every year
should we build houses on this flood plain which has been dry for 40 years

and so on, we are totally out of our element. We just can't act over long time periods, most of the time. Sure, some people are good mid-range planners. Doctors, for instance, have to plan for 12 years of training to be a specialist. Oil company execs have to think about how long an oil well will be productive. But oil executives may be completely unable to think about the long-term consequences of burning the oil in the well.

Most of the time, most of us work with very short range plans, and feel we have to resolve our needs and wants in that short period of time. So, to use a current event, Donald Trump can't wait for diplomacy and negotiation to work out access to Greenland. No, we need to demand it RIGHT NOW. Vladimir Putin can't wait to work out some sort of security arrangement for Russia; he insisted on seizing bits of the Ukraine RIGHT NOW (starting with swiping Crimea 12 years ago).

We give lip service to peace and protecting earth's ecology. But when push comes to shove, peace and nature get tossed out the window. Why? Because our immediate concerns take precedence over more distant concerns (even if the consequences of ignoring ecology are grave). It's not that we are inherently evil, stupid, or insane. We simply are wired to prioritize the immediate over the distant when the immediate stakes are raised.

I don't like it, but that's the way it seems to be.

The “Earth system” to which we belong, generates life, diversity, intelligence, and other emergent properties. — Seeker25

As products of the earth system, we are what we are, for better and for worse. As you say, "The current state of the world is dangerous, generating instability and widespread human suffering." We are often authors of our own suffering--being what we are: primate descendants with a big brain and strong emotions. We can't help that we have the brainpower to carry out irrational (even insane) plans. We can't help it that our aspirations are not in sync across 8 billion people. The world at universal peace and contentment would require that we were in agreement about how to live good lives. It would require magnitudes of reduced friction in all aspects of life.

We being what we are, universal peace and contentment and friction free human interaction is remote, at best. That's unfortunate, but that is also reality.

life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom — Seeker25

I disagree with Schopenhauer: There is no swinging pendulum. Pain and boredom are not the sum of existence. There is also joy. happiness, sadness, pain, boredom, joy, grief, amusement, love, sex, indifference, hatred, longing, inspiration, brilliant insight, abysmal stupidity -- all manner of moods and modes make up the 'stew' of life.

We can understand ourselves fairly well -- but more understanding won't change us. We would just see our good, our bad, our ugly, and our beautiful with more clarity.

One of our several problems is that there are a lot of us, and we have difficulty staying out of each others way. But then, when there were only 250 million of us (about the year 1000 a.d.) we had the same kinds of problems we have now. So, fewer of us wouldn't make that much difference.

We may be doomed to suffer from our own faults, but we can do at least a little better.

As far as I can see, the Western democracy is mostly an illusion; the Western countries are ruled by the financial aristocracy. — Linkey

We aren't "ruled by the financial aristocracy"; we are ruled (so far) by civilian government. But as Marx said "The government is a committee for arranging the affairs of the bourgeoisie." So, a prime concern of the government has always been he needs and wishes of the wealthy class.

the workforce (labor) seems to have given up on fighting for stronger economic condition. — L'éléphant

It's less 'have given up' and much more "they've been defeated'. It is extremely difficult to overcome the legal barriers erected against unionization; equally difficult is attempting to organize a company when the workers are deluged by anti-union messaging and threats. Fewer and fewer workers have experienced work in an effectively unionized company.

Another barrier is cheap labor (unemployed people, immigrants--documented and not documented) are willing to work for less than the previously unionized workers were. For the newly hired striker-replacements, the lower wages paid are still a lot better than what they were getting at home south of the border.

I live in HCOL area, I just cannot understand how local governments can allow housing costs to go out of control without corresponding wages going out of control to match the housing costs. — L'éléphant

As far as I know, local governments usually do not have control over rental rates. It isn't just that they haven't tried; they can't. They have to be granted that power by their state legislature. Needless to add, property interests fight VERY hard against rent control.

For the most party, government does not have control over wages (except for their state employees). Not congress, not legislatures, not city councils lay out wage rates which companies have to pay.

Wages and rental rates are affected by labor markets and housing markets far, far more than any regulation.

we do not try to understand how our money held in banks and retirement accounts are being invested. — L'éléphant

Pretty much true. And we don't know enough to invest our own money in a complex equity markets.

The minimum wage is not a living wage. — L'éléphant

No kidding! $15k vs $90k.

The Federal Minimum Wage is absurdly low -- $7.25 per hour. That's about $15.000 per year, full time. Some states have set higher minimum wages. Minnesota's minimum wage is $11.41, almost $24,000 working full time. The minimum wage in Minneapolis is $$16.37, or a little over $34,000 a year. $34,000 might be ok for a frugal single person, but it certainly would not be much for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children) not matter how frugal they were. An estimated "living wage" in Minneapolis is considered to be about $43.11 per hour for a single earner supporting a family of four (2 adults, 2 children). That works out to be a little over $90,000 a year. $90k isn't luxuriant. A reasonably nice apartment for 4 people could easily cost $36,000 a year.

Five -- taxation of the wealthy the size of the galaxy. — L'éléphant

What is the size of the galaxy -- the wealth that isn't getting taxed or the state income if we taxed wealth at the formerly high rates?

Wait until you piss and shit your pants on a regular, or at least a semi-regular basis. — baker

Wow! So very glad you reminded me of that possibility.

Sticking with the OP topic of Technology and the future of Humanity...

Marx thought that the working class would acquire and use the technology of the capitalist class (owners and high level management) for their own benefit against the ruling class. The bourgeoisie would sell the rope with which the working class would hang them." They sold the "rope" but there haven't been many "hangings".

We (workers, 90% of the population) have acquired and adopted the technology, sure enough, but have mostly used it for personal goals -- entertainment, the home budget, sexual stimulation (porn), and so on--all good uses. True, resistance activities (such as organizing against ICE) do use tech resources effectively. But resistance activities are at this point a political niche activity.

Workers can use this technology to organize and form unions intended to give them power. — Athena

And capitalists can use this technology to subvert, prevent, and destroy worker organizations and unions, and they have -- quite effectively. It isn't just tech, though. Capitalists have been given effective legal tools to suppress workers.

Manipulation of public opinion doesn't depend on the latest AI. Joseph Goebbels did a fine job of it 90 years ago using old fashioned print, radio, and film. Because access to the traditional tools of communication [radio, television, film, print] are very asymmetric; and access to new communication tools [internet, chat apps, and so on] are democratically accessible, they are also highly dispersed. It's difficult to locate one's desired audience. Well funded users can swamp the population with a particular bias.

How AI is going to figure into this discussion is a bit unclear, to me anyway.

One of the great fears that haunt me is that ecological disaster will overtake technological and economic predictions and render them irrelevant. A heating climate, rising oceans, erratic weather events, unorganized population displacement, food production crises, and so on. It isn't that I expect the human species to be wiped out, but the carrying capacity of the planet could fall enough that all social, economic, cultural, military, political bets are off.

I'll be 80 this year; I won't be around to find out what happens by 2050, or 2100, but billions of other people will be.

Investors, capitalists, techno-optimists have a lot of faith that new technology will solve the problems of global warming, and produce an economic boom too. I'm not confident at all that there is any sort of technological fix in the offing.

And finally, humans themselves. What should they do? What should they do? Even in everyday life, machines already do our laundry, robot vacuums, and so on. — Astorre

I am grateful that I don't have to do my laundry by hand, beating it on rocks in the river.

Were I 18 instead of 80 this year, I am not sure what it is that I should/would/could expect for my future. I don't know what I would recommend to an 18 year old who wanted to find the best way forward for himself.

I'm not sure what I would advise my species to do, either. There may be ways to roll back global warming, but the fixes might be as intolerable as the problems. We should immediate cut consumption of resources in food production, clothing, housing, transportation, and so on. Mass transit instead of individual vehicles; apartments over individual houses; far less clothing production (both natural and petroleum based fibers); much less meat production; produce far less plastic; leave the oil in the ground, along with coal; refrain from introducing technologies which render large numbers of workers irrelevant--and so on.

I don't see any of this happening voluntarily. We'll stop producing steak when there isn't enough corn and wheat to feed us, just for example.

We need to replace the autocratic industrial order with a democratic order and return to education for democracy. — Athena

That's why I support "industrial democracy" and socialism. I'm not optimistic about the working class (90% of the population) self-organizing in the near or intermediate future. Provided that we did self-organize, the new order would replace fake democracy and autocratic control with democratic ownership and management of the economy. Don't ask! Nobody has worked out the details of how that would work. I believe it can work, will work; but 300 years of the capitalist management since the Industrial Revolution hasn't paved the way. Ursula Le Guin proposed a radical anarchism in The Dispossessed (a great sci-fi novel).

Right, the 9 Nations of North America -- one of which is Cascadia.

Another nation is the morally upright Yankeedom, which extends in a gerrymandered state from New England to Minnesota, leaving out large parts of PA, NY, OH, MI, IN, IL, WI, and MN. It isn't that the areas not included in Yankeedom are shameless immoral shit holes, or something; they just have different affinities.

But to be fair, there are pockets of shameless immoral shit holes which are close to, but aren't appropriate for Yankeedom--like southern Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. In the same way that Idaho, Wyoming, and Eastern Oregon / Washington have more in common than Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver have. Yeah, you don't need Los Angeles.

We Minnesotans are fond of our map's shape so we would regret losing Lake of the Woods. In the bigger picture, though, the southern 70 miles of Vancouver are undoubtedly worth a lot more than Lake of the Woods, which is just one more lake among many. It would be a good deal for the US. Vancouverians probably like the shape of their map too, so they'd be unhappy. In the end, it doesn't matter, since when we take over Canada, all of Vancouver will be ours, and maybe Minnesota and Manitoba will be merged. We'll lose our little chimney up there.

Hands off Greenland. And Canada, too.

if we simply start handing out money to people simply for living, inflation will instantly reduce this money to nothing. — Astorre

Is this true? Maybe not.

We already do hand out billions of dollars to people, actually. Welfare payments, social security, retirement (especially from under funded plans), unemployment, and so on. Inflation does occur, but government remittances aren't the only factor.

I don't know whether a guaranteed basic income for everyone would be highly inflationary or not; would it not depend on the size of these payments? Sure, a million bucks for everyone all at once would be intensely inflationary, but that's not likely to be the case. More likely is that the basic income would be closer to "not enough to live on, but a little too much to die" -- subsistence, in other words.

At any rate, I agree with you: rendering the working class redundant -- 90%+ of the population -- would be a species-wide catastrophe.

I've done tedious white collar work which I thought a computer really should be doing. On the other hand, it paid the rent. But the fact is that the working class has not seized control of the economy in order to protect itself.

That’s not to say it doesn’t squash people sometimes — T Clark

That's what our system of squash courts are for: upholding morality.

The Left are to blame for this because they prioritized corporate controlled identitarian politics, to make everybody fake and gay, over their older anti-corporate economic policy. All genuinely anti-corporate thought has been pushed out of the American Left ever since it was discovered how easily identitarian politics could transform dangerous left wing movements into becoming financially non-threatening. — BenMcLean

Right. "The only war is the class war" is probably incomprehensible now. Instead of the middle class constituting maybe 10% of the population, its membership is now stretched to 80%. I'm not sure how many people are aware of how dominant the "1/10 of 1%" at the top are. Working class? It's almost a slur.

I'm gay and it is a critical part of my identity. I'm also white; protestant; sort of educated (2 degrees not all that substantial); midwestern; retired; a socialist (pre-Bernie); classical music fan; history buff, and so on. All that is peripheral. Being a wage slave (that is, dependent on a job with a regular paycheck to survive) trumps everything else. None of my peripheral characteristics paid the rent. Being trans gendered; black, hispanic, asian, Native American, physically or mentally handicapped, autistic, dyslexic, neurotic, and everything else are very important to the individual possessors of these characteristics, but are peripheral the class war, which is the only war, so the slogan goes.

So yes, the politics of personal identity is a waste of time and very misleading. It might make one feel better in the short run, but it won't / can't change the way wealth and power are distributed.

there does need to be some limiting principle on how far to the economic Left I need to go in order to avoid Soviet style tyranny — BenMcLean

Try 'democratic socialism'. It's Marx with an emphasis on using democratic ways and means to replace capitalism. Does it work? I don't know -- it's a long game. Time will tell, but we certainly don't need more dictatorships.

we have not seen any progress in philosophy or in the arts for the past 50 years — magritte

For sarcasm I want to say it's been a lot longer than 50 years, but never mind that.

What would "progress in the arts" look or sound like? Same for philosophy. People are still debating Plato, for Aristotle's sake.

I'm not sure 'the arts' can 'progress'. A poem by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keates, or Billy Collins, or you or me, is successful if it resonates with its contemporary audience, for whom it was written. Whether it resonates 500 years later is the responsibility of successive generations, not the original poet.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) reintroduced linear perspective in drawing. That might be called progress. I'm not sure whether abstract expressionism is progress. (I like Pollock, for example) but are his works "progress"? I don't know. Must it be "progress?

All sorts of formal and informal musical styles flourished in the 20th century -- some of it minimalist, some of it very harsh, and some of it exquisitely beautiful. Progress? I don't know, but I like a lot of it.

It seems like in the arts "there is nothing new under the sun". True, between the medieval period and the present many new instruments have been introduced that didn't exist before (like the Theremin). I'm very glad the piano was a big success; it has useful features which harpsichords lack (like volume). But music is like poetry -- it has to please its immediate audience. Tastes change (do they progress?) and last year's opera hit is this year's opera bust.

I'm not sure we need to call every variation or invention in technology "progress" either. Computers were "progress". I'm not at all sure AI is progress. Airplanes were progress, perhaps; I don't think supersonic missiles are progress. Are mobile phones progress? Just about everything they do are things that other gadgets do -- cameras, telephones, radios, televisions, computers, etc. The "mobile" part might be progress. And miniaturization, We wouldn't like Apple's latest phone if we had to wheel it around in a heavy-duty cart.

Uhh ... no? Did you get that backwards? — BenMcLean

No. I was joking about space porn (AI will do the trick) but not about pregnancy.

We animals won't be going on multi-generational travels in anything but the remote future, if ever. We won't be going on months or a years-long trip anywhere unless we solve the problem of being bathed in ionizing radiation. It isn't just pregnancy that would be at risk -- the DNA in our animal cells would be at risk.

Maybe the radiation problem will be solved in an affordable manner; maybe not--I don't know.

Extra-solar system travel is pretty much out of the question owing to physics. We just can't get to the nearest star system (unless "worm hole shortcuts" appear) in any time short of many years. How about to a moon of an outer planet? That takes from 1 to 7 years, depending on destination, path, and planetary slingshot assists one might make. Getting back to earth is not something an unmanned spaceship has done; a human flight might be a one-way trip.

I love good science fiction, but in that genre all the problems of space travel have been miraculously solved--which is perfectly fine because it IS fiction, after all.

I think the concept of humans moving off planet is exciting, progressive and morally valuable (in the sense of morale, not morality as such). — AmadeusD

Sure; I'm proud to belong to the species that sent Voyageur beyond the solar system (and it's still ticking 50 years on). I'd be proud if we could and did establish successful stations on the Moon and Mars. I would not be so proud if a moon base just operated for PR purposes, and I wouldn't be thrilled IF a multiyear effort to establish a station on Mars ended in crashes, dead astronauts, and trillions of of wasted dollars (or Euros or any other currency). And there needs to be some real point to establishing these bases. If we can't manage to survive on a planet to which we are suited, it seems even less likely that we would survive or thrive on a planet to which we are NOT suited.

Sex in space absolutely needs to be explored for strictly pornographic purposes. Pregnancy in space we can do without.

Yes, we have proved that we can operate in near earth orbit, and that we can manage to send a very small number of people to the moon. Other than collecting moon rocks and bringing them back, I don't know of anything significant that the Apollo missions accomplished (other than bragging rights).

There are several problems with manned operations in space:

It's very expensive. We have more pressing problems which are also extremely expensive to solve.
There is a lot of radiation out there, and short of heavy shielding (even more cost), it's an unsuitable environment for animals.
Getting to destinations like Mars takes a long time. Establishing a real working base for asteroid mining would require many trips ($$$$$) and what could possibly go wrong?

IMHO, our best bet is using robotics. If robots can't do it, then it probably won't get done.

If a meteor needs to be deflected from a collision trajectory, a robotic mission will probably be faster, cheaper, and better than sending out some guys to blow it up. Orbiting manned vehicles are sitting ducks for easy destruction. A few bullets through the skin of the vehicle and PFFFT -- the whole thing is kaput. Better to have no military operations in space, but if we must, durable robotic equipment would probably be better.

are there any real good reasons to spend millions and millions of dollars on manned spaceflight? — an-salad

A "good reason" for manned spaceflight is that a given scientific enquiry can not be performed by remote equipment. For instance...

Robotic equipment can't tell us about the long-term effects of being in zero-gravity. We might want to have space stations orbiting the earth, and if we do, we need to know what zero-gravity will do to people on board. On the other hand, robotic equipment (satellites, rovers, etc.) have done a fine job on Mars. A manned exploration of Mars might be better than a robotic one, but not so much better to justify the high cost and extreme risks of sending people there.

Except for near orbit work and a few trips to the moon, everything we have done in space was done by unmanned mechanical devices (like Voyager, launched in 1977 and now beyond the far reaches of the solar system) or the successful comet sampling projects like STARDUST (NASA) and CAESAR (ESA).

It seems like manned space travel for research has been mostly unnecessary or impossible.

It's been a very long time since I read Milton; I just plugged 1 stanza into Google Search and copied/pasted what it spit out. I was surprised by what it put at the top of the results (pasted above). I'm afraid I'm one of those modern readers who lost the taste for very long difficult poetry -- or very long difficult prose, for that matter. As soon as they become available, I'll buy a set of those literature chips that are implanted in the brain, allowing the transfer of long texts (like all of Dryden or Milton) into one's memory without having to spend weeks actually reading the tedious texts. I hope they work in 80 year old brains.

AI Overview
The verse provided is from the poem "Paradise is not Lost", attributed to an author using the pseudonym Ecurb (which appears to be "Bruce" spelled backward).
The full poem was shared in a 2023 discussion thread on The Philosophy Forum:
The poem explores a reimagining of the traditional biblical narrative of Eve in the Garden of Eden. It suggests that when Eve was cast out of Paradise, she took with her not just the forbidden fruit, but also a multitude of plants and flowers from the garden, bringing the Earth's variety of flora into existence. The full poem can be found in the referenced document.
Paradise is not Lost - The Philosophy Forum
3m. PoeticUniverse. 1.7k. "The world was all before them..." Was paradise lost? Or gained? — Ecurb. With flora mystical and magica...

The Philosophy Forum
Paradise Lost | Summary & Facts | Britannica
Dec 1, 2025 — John Milton (born December 9, 1608, London, England—died November 8?, 1674, London?) was an English poet, pamphleteer, ...

Encyclopedia Britannica

Paradise Lost: Book 1 (1674 version) | The Poetry Foundation
O how unlike the place from whence they fell! Breaking the horrid silence thus began. In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n, A...

Poetry Foundation

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I guess the big elephant in the room I haven't talked about is immigration — BenMcLean

I have a non-socialist, non-leftist, non-progressive view: Sovereign states are obligated to control their borders. First, for the protection and security of its citizens, second, for the protection and security of its neighbors (also sovereign states). Uncontrolled immigration allows individuals from other countries to make policy on the hoof. A handful of unauthorized immigrants might have a negligible effect on society; 14,000,000 unauthorized immigrants is another matter altogether, having large consequences for citizens and governments at all levels.

Can they be removed? They can, of course. It's possible. The question is whether the citizens have the stomach for the kind of enforcement that would be required to expel large numbers of unauthorized immigrants from the country. I have no enthusiasm for mass roundups. So far, many Americans have found roundups, detention centers, and expulsions quite unappetizing when they shift from the abstract to the concrete. Then there are the militant pro-immigration groups who agitate against ICE enforcement. Besides that, ICE is hardly a sympathy-generating organization.

Besides removal, there is the matter of the economy. Immigrants become an important part of local and national economies--not altogether positive. A large number of unauthorized immigrant-workers willing to work at substantially lower wages than America citizens, undermines wages. It depends on whose ox is getting gored. Companies employing cheap labor don't complain.

On a global level, millions of people are already on the move, from areas of less opportunity and less favorable conditions to places where they can hope for better--like it or not. Managing global population movement is something that no government has tackled, other than to maintain tight borders.

I think real historical Communist regimes really were against the working class owning a car and a house — BenMcLean

I'm not going to defend the brutality of the USSR or China. But it is true that the Soviet regime did improve the lot of working people in the Soviet Union. However, the good has to be weighed against the bad aspects of Soviet / Stalinist rule, the gulags, purges, etc. The benefits that accrued to the higher tiers of soviet rule were nothing like the lavish rewards showered on the top tiers of American rule.

That's not just American society: that's every society. That's the Golden Rule: "Whoever has the gold, makes the rules." — BenMcLean

Generally, yes; but the concentration of wealth in the USA has few parallels elsewhere, especially in other democratic industrialized countries.

I'm not at all confident in utopian schemes which make grand claims that we can somehow get away from this near universal reality of human life. I would instead be inclined to look at policy to align incentives so that the reward of wealth stays linked to socially constructive and morally positive — BenMcLean

Sure. I don't know how old you are, but I found utopia schemes a lot more attractive when I was a young man. That's sort of the way of the world. Fizzy utopian cocktails are a drink of youth.

↪DifferentiatingEgg The Left has an ideological crisis right now too, but I honestly have difficulty articulating it in a non-polemic way, since I'm not one of them myself. — BenMcLean

Quite right. As an old-fashioned socialist, it's clear to me that "the left" lost its way when it turned from class (working class, ruling class conflicts) and toward identity -- all the woke crap of gender, race, etc. I am also an old fashioned gay, the sexual liberation era immediately post Stonewall. "We" (whoever belongs in that collective noun) weren't interested in gay marriage and family and trans identity (etc). I'm still not (though at 80 years old, it's now kind of irrelevant). Whether one is gay, straight, some sort of transgender, male, female, and so on is only personally important. Economics trumps identity.

It's somewhat disconcerting that the once clear certainties of the LEFT and the RIGHT have both been blurred and made difficult to decipher.

The true origin of American conservatism as we understood it in the first quarter of the 21st century starts with William F. Buckley and his National Review magazine in the 1950s. — BenMcLean

I thought your exegesis of the American Right was worth reading, even though it is a much longer post than I usually engage with. It's well composed. Is it gospel? Probably not, but the gospel truth is pretty hard to find.

When the adjective "true" is attached to some noun, like 'origin', it becomes suspect. I view "conservatism" as a fairly durable, on-going aspect of American history, along with its "liberal / progressive" opposite. Neither are static; they are rather, renewable from decade to decade.

The interests that opposed Social Security and Unemployment Insurance in the 1930s, opposed Medicare in the 1960s, ended "welfare as we know it" at the end of '90s, and oppose the Affordable Care Act, are pretty similar.

Is there really a right wing and a left wing in the US, or was Gore Vidal right when he said, “There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat”? — Tom Storm

@BenMcLean: I think Gore Vidal was quite right. The "property party" isn't about the working class owning a car and a house (if they are lucky). It's about the rights and prerogatives of the wealthiest class who own and control capital wealth -- stocks, bonds, factories, income-producing properties, businesses, and so on. The 1% is not a new group in American society; the rich we have with us for a long time, generally calling the shots.

Most of the time, most of the decisions of government are controlled indirectly by the wealthiest class in their interests. Sometimes those interests match political party interests, sometimes not.

Blake is great, of course, but we have to give credit to Hubert Perry who composed the music which turned the poem as a favorite hymn in 1916 during WWI. I had not heard E L & P's version, so I checked it out on YouTube. It has a lot of merit, but I prefer it sung by an English choir or congregation.

I've not read the Book of Mormon, and it isn't on my list of books to read. It came out of the "burnt over territory" of up-state New York, where there was a lot of what one could call either religious innovation or religious lunacy, depending on one's feelings about it. There was a lot of religious fervor around that time -- the Second Great Awakening of religious activity in the United States.

contrary to Nietzsche's famous phrase (to wit: "There are no facts, there are only interpretations") — Arcane Sandwich

Are you more interested in the absence of Kenya, the US, or Mongolia in the Bible, or Nietzsche's denial of facts? Seems like the latter, since there wasn't any reason for biblical authors to mention places that didn't figure into the narrative. It seems like a non-issue to me.

Nietzsche was ahead of his time, I suppose--no facts, just opinions.

Did you know that the Mormon religion, founded in the United States, actually believes that Jesus Christ visited America on a spiritual plane? — Wayfarer

Here's another retro-edit placing a non-biblical country into the biblical narrative. You have mentioned this, but for others...

Jerusalem
source: William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

Good point about QR codes. They off-load various forms of labor (sign-making; menu-handling; in-person or point-of-sale information-providing, and so on) to a webpage . Of course, the organizations that use QR are not trying to disadvantage anyone. They are trying to be efficient and hip (up to date).

There are a lot of people for whom all sorts of barriers have to be navigated (if possible). Why is accommodation so hard to achieve? Well, money of course, the easiest excuse.

A 'deeper' problem is the dominant understanding of "embodiment" -- the manner in which human persons are physical beings. The preferred form of embodiment tends toward the ideal: (for men) tallness, athleticism, rugged features, deep voice, above average IQ, competitive drive, and so on. A real man; a man's man' etc. There is nothing wrong with having ideal embodiment; but not very many people actually meet the ideal, and it's perfectly possible for a person whose embodiment matches the ideal to be a total asshole.

The 'ideal' is a strong enough idea that even those whose embodiment involves missing limbs, poorly functioning sensory organs, failing hearts, degenerative diseases of various kinds, mental health issues, intellectual barriers, and so on have difficulty valuing their own and others' embodiment. They quite often feel not worth of acceptance and being valued, and they may view other persons like themselves in a negative way.

Persons who face barriers are sometimes viewed as "deficient people" rather than embodied beings like themselves and worthy of respect. Why spend so much money on all the accommodations needed? It's a waste of money, and able-bodied people have to put up with the ramps, large font signs, sign language, and so forth -- like the accommodations make their 'normal' lives living nightmares, or something,

Hate and love are not opposites; their opposite is indifference. Indifference is a lack of emotional / mental arousal. "I don't care" quite literally; I have no feelings about it one way or the other. I'm not motivated to engage.

Love and hate are different states of emotional arousal, each with different consequences. Neither are rational. Both have social consequences, but of the two, hateful arousal tends to have much stronger consequences, because hate can be harnessed to focus on individuals or groups with whom we have no personal connection.

As one wag said, love doesn't make the world go round, but it keeps it populated. That's eros. The Greeks have a taxonomy of love (eros, philia, agape, etc.), but not one for hate, as far as I know.

We like to be among our own kind (whatever that might be); it isn't so much "love" of our own kind as comfort. We tend to delineate "our own kind" by exclusion of others. It isn't that we hate everyone who isn't "our kind", it's that we don't find much comfort among outsiders. Discomfort with outsiders can slide into hate, or be pushed into that unfriendly state, by excessive social friction or deliberate manipulation.

I don't have confidence that love can be marshaled on behalf of the outsider, especially groups of outsiders. We are, according to religious preaching, supposed to welcome the stranger in our midst. That such action requires a command suggests that it doesn't just happen spontaneously.

Perhaps this is a pessimistic assessment. Humans have been manifesting love and hate for a long timed I don't expect any change. We are what we are.

Is there a defensibly “normal” human body? — Banno

Somebody once said that Germans tend to focus on how we are all alike; the French tend to focus on differences. I guess I am more "German" than "French" on this question.

What matters to the individual persons is that they are able to be physically, emotionally, and mentally participate in the particulars of their lives, whether they are "normal" or not. IF the individual is unable to be an active participant, then they are likely to perceive their body as disabled or not normal and problematic.

I was born with significant visual defects; I wasn't blind, but my vision was quite limited. Was it a significant limitation? It was, and the limitations have endured.

I was also born gay. In 2025 this might not be viewed as a disability, but at the time I was born (1946) it was both a personality abnormality and (if performed) criminal. I grew up in a very small midwestern town; the resources that could have made my physical and emotional characteristics less problematic just didn't exist. (So yes, the human environment can make a particular physical feature more or less problematic.).

Many states have active accessibility rules. Ramps and elevators have to be reasonably convenient for people who can't climb stairs. Digital displays (like computers and tablets) make print much easier to access. Some (by no means all) public events include sign language. Civil rights legislations has reduced discrimination.

Transportation can become a major problem of anyone who can not drive. I have always had to limit jobs to places I could get to by public transit within a reasonable length of time. That ruled out a lot of possible jobs and social opportunities (particularly in a low-density metropolitan area designed for cars).

None of this is equivalent to being a paraplegic / quadriplegic. Poor vision beats blindness. I'd still opt for being gay had I a choice.

The major problem of "normality" is viewing "abnormality" as a degraded state. After all, having a very high IQ is abnormal, and so is being able to run a marathon in about 2 hours (averaging 13 mph). And there certainly are plenty of people who view abnormality as degrading--a quad can't be a real man, for instance, and like bullshit.

just find that Hume's sceptical account of everyday causality, very true in itself, doesn't really take into account the advances of modern science, say like theoretical physics. — hwyl

Hume died in 1776; he wasn't in a very good position to account for developments in physics (relativity, all that) which began around 1900.

You missed NOS4A2's retraction.

Thanks for the correction. To error is human, claiming the error as your own is divine. Sort of divine, anyway. The gods usually don't admit to error.

Here's another tidbit about Oliver Sacks: He was "face-blind". I can relate to the -- I'm not face blind, but I certainly have difficulty recognizing faces, sometimes. There is a back office in the brain that specializes in facial recognition, and if it's not working well, people's faces don't register in memory. That's a problem for social animals.

I just read a book about a man whose father had sexual contacts with him as a child (and did the same to numerous other children). The author's personality was quite screwed up, but did an exceptionally poor job of explicating a connection between what seemed like very limited sexual contact and a life of mental suffering. Father and son were both screwed up, but were otherwise successful men. Was the man (the subject of the book) screwed up because of the sexual contact, or screwed up for other reasons? Can't tell. I wish he had done a better job of explaining.

POINT IS: illustrating psychological or neurological disturbances effectively is apparently difficult to get right. Sacks was able to vividly [from Latin Vivere - to live] depict his patients internal reality. I'm grateful for that.

Well, thanks for the thread. It's been interesting reading.

Full disclosure: I too was duped by his writing, especially the apparent empathy he had towards his patients, who may or may not have existed in the first place. — NOS4A2

I don't feel duped at all. I do feel like The New Yorker article makes possible a deeper understanding of the way Sacks experienced and reported on the world -- which was perhaps unlike the way many of us do.

If we can't take Sacks word about his patients as fact, we probably can't take his word about himself as fact either. As one of his friends said [quoting from the article] “Come on, you’re extravagantly romanticizing how bad you are—just as much as you were extravagantly romanticizing what the patient said. Your mother’s accusing voice has taken over.” And you gotta wonder about a doctor who is so disturbed by a nighttime erection that he "cools his penis" in orange jello (from the article).

Being a homosexual physician in 1960 was certainly difficult -- being homosexual at all back then wasn't easy. Sacks mother managed wonderfully to screw up her son's sense of sexuality and selfhood. I can relate very personally to the act of maternal sexual shaming and condemnation. Such parental acts can really screw up gay sons's personalities.

I've read several of his books. One, about deaf people, "Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf," is a good example (as far as I can tell) of Sack's ability to deeply relate to others, and his observational skills. The group of deaf people that Sacks wrote about had sensory deprivation (deafness) but no other neurological problems. But sensory deprivation is a significant limitation to normal human experience.

How was Sacks a sexual abuser? Did I miss something in the article?

There is an important role in society for the "skilled detractor" who takes on the reputation of famous people. They do a good job of moderating tendencies toward hero-worship. A socialist I know who was a leader of local party activities, an insightful commentator, a hard working dedicated true-believer, was also a deadbeat father, never providing support for his daughter. I could write a book about him, depicting him as a personal fraud.

Such a book would be an unfair representation. It wasn't as if the guy lived a comfortable life with stable employment, a home, benefits like health insurance, and so on. His commitment to the cause pretty much demanded impoverishment, the same way a future saint committed to the poor demands impoverishment.

Some people might accuse this fellow of living in some sort of dream world; but he was a very hard-nosed realist.

There are any number of cherished figures who could be savaged by some skilled researching maybe axe-grinding de-constructor of reputations. Some of them deserve it. Some do not.

Any reaction this @Tom Storm

I'm a agéd leftist; my experience has been that very ideologically committed leftists (Marxists) can be intolerant of other people's statements, when they don't match the ideology.

I've been denounced for disagreeing with the idea that the working class must achieve class consciousness in order for the global warming crisis to be averted. "I never want to speak to you again", he said, and he hasn't for several years. It would be just great if the working classes DID achieve class consciousness this afternoon, but our enlightenment doesn't seem to be on the horizon, and at this point, the global warming crisis is becoming present tense, rather than future tense.

Defenders of embattled ideology (which Marxists are, pretty much, especially in rampantly capitalist economies) are reluctant to agree with the opposition on anything. That said, the opposite very conservative, ultra-religious types are in the same boat. They find it difficult to grant credit to dissenters on just about anything.

Ideology is a chunk of the problem, as is personality. Some people have rigid personalities who experience pain when they have to bend, even a little. Some informed ideologues, left and right, are able to be flexible enough to agree with opposing ideas.

Group think sets in, too. Social dynamics make it difficult to wander even a little from the party line, be that revolutionary or reactionary in nature.

Why the link to a video about not having children — Philosophim

Having children is in the basic animal design -- one doesn't need a manual. Raising children, on the other hand, is just very very complicated, maybe? I mean, you suddenly have an infant, and you're committed to about 18 to 22 years of careful oversight. By the time you have figured out how to properly raise a child, you have spent at least 5 to 10 years making major mistakes and the kid is doomed to a lifetime of self-help books and weird support groups.

Hey -- I'm 79 and still working out neurotic work-arounds.