• Adult Language
    In a discussion of childbirth...Frank Apisa
    Then let's hold off the word fuck for discussions of intercourse, rather than air out our dirty laundry, using it every which way - what say you?
  • The "thing" about Political Correctness
    No one with half a brain should care whether you agree or not.I like sushi
    No one without one or a full one either, but that's irrelevant.

    The scientific consensus isn’t even a ‘consensus’, it’s and plain and simply fact of how “species” and “race” is defined in the sciences.I like sushi
    It's not a fact, it's the most recent assertion.
    The fact about who discovered America changed several times, so like the above, it's not a set in stone fact, but I reiterate - the most recent assertion.

    Mind you, there's several scientific interpretations of species and race.

    You can of course simply refuse to take my word for it or you can ask anyone who knows the basics of zoology and genetics whether I’m talking rubbish or not.I like sushi
    It's not about whether you're talking rubbish, but whether it sounds convincing and to me it doesn't.
    When I've asked geneticists if humans evolved naturally, most conceded that they probably didn't and were artificially mutated - which, and this is my assumption, leads to many human variations, some of which have survived to shape the modern day races.

    Maybe I'm in the wrong here, but the alternative seems counterintuitive to me.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    When the empirical evidence confirms that this is so, then yes. Guns are used by people to kill people. That is their primary function, as verified empirically.Pattern-chaser
    You being from England, may have heard of Walter Arnold who got fined for driving at 8 mph.
    This in modern day's time seems ludicrous, as it's about the speed of a leisurely bicycle ride.

    And yet the speed limit has continuously increased and with it the amount of car fatalities.
    So empirically, car deaths correlate to the speed limit - but it hasn't receded, has it?
    No, authorities don't constitute it's due to high speed, but due to careless driving.

    So how come shootings aren't due to careless wielding of firearms?

    All I'm hearing are excuses on how guns hold all the responsibility and humans hold none.
  • Reading the mind of God
    Who gives a rat's ass about what people "claim."Frank Apisa
    When the people in question are Abrahamic prophets who dispute your claim in its entirety, it's you who should care.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    Those are unusual uses of gunsPattern-chaser
    So hunting with a gun is unusual despite there being Hunting Rifles? Hmm.

    firearms displays and shooting competitions" are just demonstrations of how they could be used to kill people.Pattern-chaser
    So competitive archery and javelin throwing are about killing people, right?

    Because something gets militarised it's suddenly only for killing people, is that it?
    And guns being predominantly militarised is your check, right?

    Cigarettes' primary use is to harm people. But they're okay cause they're not as graphic.

    the primary point: guns are for shootingPattern-chaser
    Full stop.
  • Reading the mind of God
    ANYONE who accepts that there is a GOD can read the GOD's mind.

    It will tell them exactly what they want to hear.
    Frank Apisa
    No? Neither Jesus nor Moses nor Ezra nor Daniel nor Muhammad, to claim a few, could or claim that they could read God's mind.

    And their stories all undergo surprise after surprise.
  • Adult Language
    Prick is as good a word as penis to indicate the male "member" (there's a beauty)Frank Apisa
    Would you also call a woman a cunt with the beauty of childbirth in mind?
  • The "thing" about Political Correctness
    Of course. And from there I can tell you that the two most genetically similar chimps on earth are more genetically dissimilar than the two most genetically dissimilar humans on earth.I like sushi
    Sure, but DNA is still under scrutiny.
    Maybe in time, when it's further understood - humans won't seem so similar. Maybe.

    Point being there are not subspecies of humans AND there is far more diversity within groups than between them.I like sushi
    I personally disagree on the lack of subspecies.
    I feel it should be pretty evident, at least anatomically - that there are.
    And something that compels me, is again, the coexistence of neanderthals with many varied mutations of the Homo genus, one being Sapiens.

    Meaning some people from Siberia are no different than people from the amazon genetically speaking, scientific speaking and in scientific terms of what “race” is defined as.I like sushi
    I'd disagree that they're not different; they're clearly different.
    Yes, they're alike - but they're not identical, clearly.
    So even if their makeup is the same, like say that of liquid water and ice, they're different - like liquid water and ice.
    So even if they may share the same genetics, those genetics may be re-arranged every which way - to create a subspecies, that are strikingly similar.
  • The "thing" about Political Correctness
    Clearly not scientifically minded then?I like sushi
    Why not? There were different groups of humanoids all wandering the earth; it wasn't one group that spread out. What's the problem with having some of these groups evolve in to the modern breeds?
  • Wiser Words Have Never Been Spoken
    There is certainly a plethora of guns in the US which we could suggest is indicative of gnu deathsI like sushi
    I'm sorry, I had to do it. :clap:
  • The "thing" about Political Correctness
    “Race” is common parse is a societal phenomenon and a complete misnomer. Scientifically speaking there is only ONE race of humans.I like sushi
    Well sure, there's one contingent of humans, but there's plenty of human breeds, which didn't necessarily originate from the same ancestor.
    Neanderthals lived alongside modern man; one could argue they still do.

    Either way, I don't see anything unnatural or problematic with there being several races of the human species.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    See this is exactly what's I'm talking about. The responses here are so tortuously awful it's difficult to tell if this is just outright stupidity or sheer nihilism.Maw
    So, do you disagree it's people that kill people?
  • The "thing" about Political Correctness
    Nothing convoluted about trying to avoid racist and sexist languageIzat So
    It's quite convoluted, because you're 'avoiding' the problem, rather than going through it.

    Several researchers in the field would disagree with you.Izat So
    That's fine. I maintain that the brain does not need culture to back up its feats, much as AI doesn't.
    Culture is just a consequence of the realisation of the brain, rather than a prerequisite.

    Well women couldn't vote. They were paid much less than men for the same job. If they married, their husbands became the owners of their property. They spent most of their time working in the home while men spent most of their time in the public sphere. Among the men, the privileged were wealthy landowners, the rich, the well connected, who set the laws, the norms of public behaviour and the stories about what women could and could not achieve given their "frailer" minds and bodies. Ideas deeply rooted in history often take centuries to be transcended, so the narrative is still mostly the old patriarchal one, but with the invention of the pill, factory produced food, labour saving devices in the home with the introduction of electricity - with these technologies - women came to occupy positions in public more and more. Optimistically and I think more realistically, the narrative will resume its progress after this backlash to rather primal patriarchal behaviours or we will just end up in a tribalized nightmare world. This short summary of Obama's recent talk in Ottawa seems pretty dead on vis the last point.Izat So
    Well see, I don't remember it that way.

    I remember both boys and girls forcibly laboured for equal pay.
    And when those boys and girls became men and women, on the off-chance that they worked the same job at the same place, they earned equal pay, again.

    And though women didn't directly vote, forgetting for a moment that there was one political party, they would vote indirectly through their husbands, over which they had a strong influence.

    I also don't remember men telling women what they could and couldn't do; I remember strong girls becoming wrestlers and frail girls working the arts, and all girls attending to the household.
    The reason as to why women were integral to the household being - they filled it up.
    A man would have a lady bring some beauty and order to his home, rather than live brutishly on his own.

    Of course, I'm talking of my own personal experience. Maybe yours is different.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    and guns are flexible in ways that cars are not, and deadlier in ways that knives are not, so the comparison is absurd.Maw
    And cars are flexible in ways guns are not.
    Also, how is a bullet to the brain deadlier than being beheaded or disemboweled?
    Do you think guns are deadlier because they've got range and rapid fire? Just load some fireworks with shrapnel, like you know... frag grenades?

    As the NYT pointed out, the singular explanation for US mass shooting are the abundance of available guns.Maw
    It's not the abundance or availability of guns, it's an education rooted in violence.
    A pacifist with a hundred tommy guns won't shoot you, but a homicidal maniac will kill you with a fork, without a second thought.
    Go ahead, remove the guns and watch people go back to swinging pipes and bats and knives; they'll die just as often.

    Hand-waving deaths caused by guns whether homicide, mass shootings, suicide, etc. because there are alternative tools that can kill, are displays a nihilistic callousness; buffoonery dressed as intelligence.Maw
    It's not waving deaths caused by guns, it's waving the presumption that deaths are caused by guns and not by people and positing that the same stones that were used to build walls, meaning to defend, were used to stone people to death, meaning to kill.
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    And yet we park on driveways and drive on parkways...creativesoul
    An the ON button on the remote is the OFF button on the remote.

    It's a strange world out there.
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    Then a screwdriver is not a screwdriver in relation to it's application...creativesoul
    It is, in part - and that part is inadvertent, as I told you above.
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    This makes no sense. If a screwdriver is a screwdriver in relation to it's application, then it needs a relation to it's application in order to be a screwdriver.creativesoul
    Nay, lad.

    A screwdriver does not need a relative application to be a screwdriver, it is a screwdriver a priori. A screwdriver will develop its relative application inadvertently, but not by necessity - ironic as it may sound.

    Simply put: If a screwdriver was all there was, it would still be a screwdriver without any external relations; but its external relations being inescapable in this world, become inadvertently part of what a screwdriver is. But it is not dependent on them, they can be added and subtracted at will.

    So A's an A in relation to B, as it is, but it is also A regardless of B, as it is always A relative to itself.

    You're conflating names of things with uses of things.creativesoul
    Maybe - but I figure words derive their meaning in reference to application.

    Like how shears are shears because they shear and apples are apples because they grow on apple trees.
  • On Good and Evil
    Can people be pure evil - or pure good for that matter?jasonm
    No, only good and evil can be purely good and purely evil.
    People may be good and evil to a degree; a consequence of their freedom.

    Evil then is just a 'fairy tale,' something just made up to justify why people behave in such a way.jasonm
    Evil is by no means a fairy tale, it is as actual as salt.
    And reiterating the aforementioned, only salt is purely salty - foods seasoned with salt, are salty to a degree. And being that it is in degree, it allows for people to interpret and reinterpret and misinterpret, making good and evil relative in the human world.

    I also realized something from this on a personal level: if I mind evil so much, how am I not actually 'overly benevolent' - a 'moral saint?jasonm
    The hatred of evil is begotten by evil - which is why Christ's patent is 'love your enemy'.
    A saint is not someone who minds evil, but has forgotten it entirely - which is the essence of Moksha.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    Guns are just for killing people.Pattern-chaser
    Except they're not. They're for hunting wildlife and firearms displays and shooting competitions too. :grin:
    I'm sure you're well aware gunpowder's main and intended use was for fireworks displays at festivals; but much like atomic energy, it got quickly militarized, due to warmongering.

    Did it? Did the removal of guns from French society cause the French Revolution? I'm not a history buff, but I'm not convinced that happened. Yes, there was a revolution, but it wasn't caused by the removal of guns from citizens.Pattern-chaser
    It was caused by a populace left to rot. That was unarmed, unless you count turning farming implements in to makeshift pikes and using their alcohol rations as molotov cocktails; in which case they would be highly armed - despite under severe famine.

    The populace of the Balkans is also rotting away, and would cause a bloody revolt to start another World War if the government decided to forcibly seize people's armaments, due to the number of home invasions on the rise. The Balkans are already revolting, mind you, but the guise of 'democracy' is what's withholding a full blown civil war. Even rats grow furious when backed in to a corner. :smile:

    Here, I'll give you another example as a freebie.
    When the Ottoman Turks took over Bulgaria, they confiscated all armaments and culled the populace far and wide, whilst also enlisting Bulgarian children in to their ranks - commanding them to kill their own parents. This suppression of the local populace did not stop it from revolting, it only served to fuel their hatred for the Turks and lead to many revolts.
  • Adult Language
    If you want to comment on a male anatomical part known to some as a penis…why are there people who will arbitrarily demand that it not be called a cock…or pecker?Frank Apisa
    Because then you're confusing synonyms of 'rooster' with penis and render children's vocabularies to a few misused words. Their vocabularies are already bad as it is, and applying your whim to the world philosophy will be forgotten in a decade and replaced with 'we da realest 1hunna'.

    General Orders
    Head Quarters, New York, August 3rd 1776.
    Parole: Uxbridge.Countersign: Virginia

    That the Troops may have an opportunity of attending public worship, as well as take some rest after the great fatigue they have gone through; The General in future excuses them from fatigue duty on Sundays (except at the Ship Yards, or special occasions) until further orders.1 The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish, and wicked practice, of profane cursing and swearing (a Vice heretofore little known in an American Army) is growing into fashion; he hopes the officers will, by example, as well as influence, endeavour to check it, and that both they, and the men will reflect, that we can have little hopes of the blessing of Heaven on our Arms, if we insult it by our impiety, and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense, and character, detests and despises it.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    So you agree that free access to guns is a Bad Idea?Pattern-chaser
    No, free access to guns is not a bad idea. Desensitizing the public to violence through entertainment is a bad idea.

    If you ban guns, please ban cars as anyone can simply get in his car and run over a dozen people at will. :smile:
    Any kid could stab another kid with a pencil in the neck, but they mostly don't; sometimes they do however, and it's not because of the pencil, is it? :roll:

    Wait! Are you saying here that removing guns from general circulation would CAUSE civil and world war? :gasp:Pattern-chaser
    Didn't it already happen with the French Revolution? :chin:
    I distinctly remember a bunch of french peasants with makeshift weaponry committing regicide.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    Give Serbia guns and watch another Balkan War.
    It's not that people resist the urge, PC, it's that any such attempt leads to a civil and consequently world war.

    The recently attemped coup at Turkey illustrated that quite well. The governments far east are holding down the floodgates to a civil war and you're unlikely to hear about it, because it's not reported. :smile:

    America being so public about anything irrelevant leaves the impression that the problem is exclusive only to it.
    And yeah, I do find America's failure in homeland security irrelevant, when governments have started arming themselves with nuclear arms again.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    Other countries don't allow guns. Still other countries do allow guns, but their citizens rarely shoot each other.Pattern-chaser
    Because offenders are quickly disarmed. Go figure.

    Because, with one or two exceptions, this is an American problem.Pattern-chaser
    The tools change, but war lives on. Are mass stabbings and being run over by a car better? :roll:
  • My "nihilism"
    Have you asked them if they feel unsuccessful? Maybe they feel better off.
  • My "nihilism"
    For a biological organism, success is reproduction.yupamiralda
    What about mules?
  • Cannibalism
    Nonsense. But we will talk more about this when I post the thread I'll eventually get to.Frank Apisa
    It's just the natural order, buddy - which governs both our responses, mind you.

    Bullshit.Frank Apisa
    See? Fecal matter. Poor hygiene.

    More bullshit.Frank Apisa
    Yeah, more fecal matter. Are you trying to replace the word philosophy with 'the love of fucking wise shit'? Cause that's all adult language is good for in the layman's hands.
    And is the driving force of the modern ape.
  • Cannibalism
    The Martians did not consider cannibalism to be immoral...and in fact, considered it a necessity.Frank Apisa
    What Martians?

    Morals are a product of convenience and agreement.Frank Apisa
    Nay. Moral is a pre-ordained law, whereas human moral convictions are supoositions.

    Making certain sounds (speaking certain words) is considered vulgar.

    Why? Why on Earth would there be agreement on something like that?
    Frank Apisa
    Because words carry great responsibility and can be misused.
    Adult words often show poor verbal hygiene and tend to be misused; which is the equivalent of eating with dirty hands, something you teach your children not to do.
    Does that answer your question?
  • The "thing" about Political Correctness
    The term "political correctness" has been around since at least the 80s. It's not new.Izat So
    I did not mean it was a new word, but a new buzzword.
    Epic is not a new word, but it's a new buzzword, for instance.

    The reason why PC speech is thought to be helpful is because we are all influenced by the discursive themes in our culture. This affects people's opportunities and liberty. So if minority people are being insidiously dismissed (or outrightly ranted against by racists with a legitimate platform like Trump) then this becomes the norm culture wide. There may be individual variations but averages will prevail.Izat So
    But here there's a convolution.
    If the cause of political correctness is to monitor exchange, and shape its path - then some side gets dismissed anyway and political correctness performs what it is battling against; making it redundant.

    From one angle it would be politically correct to give everyone a fair hearing.
    From another angle, it would be unnecessary, if some are clearly unfit to contribute; also politically correct.
    Considering the fluidity of politics, where should political correctness take its stance?

    Our brains have evolved so that we cannot fully realize our brains' design without thorough acculturation.Izat So
    Doubtful. It's doubtful that any realisation or evolution of the brain is dependent upon culture, moreso it's the opposite. No amount of acculturation will fully realise the brain, rather acculturation is a side-effect of the current state of the brain. Realisation in full would require throwing away acculturation, at least species wise.
    Here's an analogy: The brain is bread, and culture is the amount of salt and sugar within the bread.
    That makes culture just a flavour, which does not determine the realisation of the bread, but is reversely determined by the (type of) bread.

    Culture changes when technology changes and we need to reorganize to be able to use it effectively.Izat So
    Not necessarily. Cannibals can turn vegan; that's a culture change, and it doesn't entail a technological change, but a moral reassessment. And higher grade technology, such as atomic, does not entail a culture change - the atomic bomb shows that the culture of warmongering lives on.
    It's a moral question, not a technological one.

    So today, we are moving to a global economy and an economy where most of the work that was done traditionally by women in the home is unnecessary and women are emerging with their voices into the public sphere.Izat So
    Unnecessary to be done by women. But cooking, clothing and cleaning are still there.
    If you could, do please elaborate on how women are emerging with their voices, as I don't see any difference from where they were before. Even during the recent time of Socialism women played an integral role.

    This is a public sphere that is informed by hundreds of years of public discourse narrated largely by privileged men with exponentially increasing availability of memes.Izat So
    Privileged in what way?

    It will take a while for us to overcome the holdover biases we maintain about the public good, power and who has the right to it.Izat So
    If by biases and power over the public good you mean tribal warfare, it won't take that long.
    As to who has the right to govern the public - that would be the monarch. :up:

    Right now we're going through a backlash. That's why IMO it makes sense to call out Peterson et al as SQWs - Status Quo Warriors. But we can't stay here.Izat So
    I wouldn't call it backlash, but nostalgia. Similar to painting a masterpiece and then throwing it in the bin and starting over. Something that is sought to be overcome through Tibetan sand painting.
    Clearly the path is forward, something that is the natural consequence of all this friction.
  • Cannibalism
    eaten my own meatShamshir
    I've never been that flexibleFrank Apisa
    It appears to me, we're eating two different kinds of meat, you and I. :sweat:
    But do tell me, in relation to the thread, would you consider your efforts cannibalistic?
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    As a spoon? Sure. It's all in the intention of the user.
    Which is what I'm repeating, more or less.
    Objects are absolutes. Relations are user experience.
  • Pantheism
    a large number of degenerate Dionysian cults who took drugs and had orgies in forestsernestm
    That's just a misinterpretation.

    Any cults devoted to Dionysus were merely people trying to live in harmony with nature, as the ancient eastern tradition proposes, and paints the Garden of Eden.

    The drugs and orgies were barbaric tendencies of migrants who assimilating with locals formed The Greek. Now guess which direction they came from.
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    This would apply to, say, identifying the screwdriver as an ice pick. Perhaps, a screwdriver by any other name?Merkwurdichliebe
    What even is a screwdriver? A sharp stick of metal.

    Can you use a knife as a screwdriver? You can.
    But you don't, because you the observer choose not to, not because they are intrinsically different.

    But you can't cut with a screwdriver, right?
    You can, using the tip - which is the way you cut with box cutters and box cutters are essentially pocket knives.
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    A screwdriver is an individual thing. Its qualities, likewise, are individual things.

    So any relative application of the screwdriver would appear additive, but it's actually divisive.
    As it's not a screwdriver plus a relation, but a relation of the screwdriver - which would entail, it was latent and merely pulled out.

    Now does rediscovery and partition of an object, alter it? No.
    It merely alters the perception of the object. The object remains the same throughout all instances, but relative to the observer it alternates, due to the changes occuring with the observer; which is to say discovery.
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    It's because additional meaning dissolves in to a partition of the original. You're no longer adding on to but discovering of.

    And the original always holds these parts, regardless of their discovery.
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    A screwdriver is always a screwdriver. With the added meaning that relation grsnts, it becomes a screwdriver+.
    Go back to the first sentence and realise the meaning dissolves like salt in water.
  • Existence is relative, not absolute.
    All thought/belief consists entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between different things.Merkwurdichliebe
    Partly, not entirely.

    The screwdriver is a screwdriver in relation to its application. It doesn't need that relation to be a screwdriver, but the relation is an inevitable consequence.

    So belief does not need an attachment, but may consequently develop one.
  • Cannibalism
    Unless you have a toothache.
  • Cannibalism
    I've eaten my own meat. So either I'm human or I'm not.
  • Virginia Beach Shooting-When will America stop?
    Firearms are irrelevant. Everyday on the news I hear someone killed his wife or kid or both.
    Everyday 10 people die from famine, another 10 from car 'accidents', another 5 get their house burned down, another 5 middle schoolers die in a fight and so on.

    Proportionally violence is much more rampant where I live than in the US, but I'm still worried about the elderly Japanese who commit crime to get shelter.
    It's not a US problem, guns or no guns.