Also Megan did not know — Punshhh

A wife who has naturally pair-bonded with her husband would not deliberately choose to live two continents away separate from him. It's not that they "grew apart" barely one year after their wedding. Someone who has lost her natural ability to pair bond, does not really "grow apart", because a real bond simply never forms.

Of course, she could not have known beforehand that she would deem the daily presence of the prince, or any other husband for that matter, to be suffocating -- maybe she actually did know from experience -- and that she would prefer to be on her own, two continents away, but the royal family should have advised the prince that this behaviour was to be expected, given the fact that she has a long and well-documented personal-life history of doing exactly that.

es she may be a bit self obsessed and can't understand what Royal duties are about, — Punshhh

Agreed.

But Harry and Megan have been hit by a tsunami of racist hatred and personal attacks from the right wing Zenophobic newspapers. — Punshhh

Not sure that it is about race, really.

There has been a hundred times more talk about racist remarks than any actual racist remarks. I am sure that you can find such remarks, if you diligently dig for them. You can always find someone who makes them, if you look hard enough.

Still, these "racist remarks" seems to be much more of a convenient excuse used to draw the attention away from the fact that Mrs. "Strong and Independent" has bailed out, dragging the royal child in tow, several continents away from where the child is supposed to be, i.e. at the royal palace, under the watchful eye of her majesty the queen. Furthermore, isn't a married woman supposed to be living with her husband? Since she can apparently do as she pleases, whenever she pleases, I wonder what that marriage was supposed to be about?

The next step will obviously be a divorce, after which her already non-existent obligations completely cease, while his (financial) obligations will be made to continue. He has signed a rotten contract, with obnoxious terms and conditions, with an even more rotten person. Prince Harry is an idiot. Sorry to say.

With the ongoing Brexit apparently never coming to a conclusion, are we now also witnessing a Megxit in the British Isles? It looks like we can already give to Prince Harry the 2020 "cuck of the year" trophy!

I think there's truth in that these days, but we know that historically it was the reverse. Math was purified from its immersion in applications--by Greeks as I understand it. — mask

Yes, apparently, Greek geometry originally came over from the Egyptian harvest taxation bureaucracy. Arithmetic came through from harvest inventory accounting clerks. It must have eventually led to memos getting circulated on how to systematize these things.

For computing it was exactly the other way around. The mathematical properties of computation were known at least a decade before they finally managed to build the first computer.

My primary point is that philosophy isn't like pure math and yet is what we have for dealing with the world strategically. — mask

That may be overly ambitious.

Computation only gets us so far. — mask

I think that it can be used to mechanically verify the paperwork that epistemology says must be present.

But if it's just chess, then why should we expect it to matter in the real world? — mask

Short story: it doesn't.

If 'pure knowledge' is just formalism, how could it be important for us? — mask

Long story: Some of it may (unpredictably) meander downstream through the hands of science and engineering. From there on the question becomes: Do science or engineering matter? For both mathematics and science, usefulness is ultimately harnessed by engineering.

Ultra pure math is something like language purified of all ambiguity but also therefore any reference to the world we live in. — mask

Yes, agreed.

Without purification, however, it would be substantially less interesting to use in science or engineering. We also cannot know during the discovery process of mathematics if science or engineering will ever be able to do anything with it. That could take decades, if not, centuries.

That is why I do not particularly like the adjectives "useful" or "meaningful" in mathematics. The ever continuing abstraction process tends to remove both of those. Good mathematics is rather "interesting", "surprising", "beautiful", and/or "intriguing".

I have a sneaking suspicion that you say discoveries are commendable because they are the work of God. And then it becomes a conversation circling the idea of God, which just kills everything. — Brett

I am not a religious scholar or a specialized mufti.

Therefore, I do not know how to derive something like that, or its opposite view, from religious law, while asserting that type of proposition would definitely require a legitimate ruling ("hukm") in fiqh ("jurisprudence").

But my interest is whether our inventions, compared to our discoveries, are problematic. — Brett

Yes, I personally also think that inventions are problematic while discoveries are commendable.

Has Capitalism, for example, as an invention, been successful or problematic? — Brett

Free trade, and marketplaces in permissible products and services, are permissible behaviour, while usury is a problem and deemed, impermissible behaviour.

God has permitted trade but forbidden usury. — Quran, Al Baqarah 2:275

So, yes, I consider an economy with at its core a usury-infested fiat bankstering system to be an evil invention. Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, it is the entire ideology that justifies usury as morally permissible that is reprehensible.

I am not going to argue against commerce because God has permitted trade.

is Capitalism an invention — Brett

If capitalism means:

an economy with at the core a usury-infested fiat bankstering system

then yes, it is an invention, just like putting the GOSPLAN at the core of the Soviet economy:

The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan (Russian: Госпла́н, pronounced [ɡɐsˈpɫan]),[1] was the agency responsible for central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Gosplan had as its main task the creation and administration of a series of five-year plans governing the economy of the USSR. — Wikipedia on the GOSPLAN

Of which period in history are you referring to? — Brett

Nowadays, it is very strong. I guess that it is as strong as in the late Roman empire, if not stronger.

Rampant depravity is often considered an end-of-civilization phenomenon. The western world is widely considered "about to implode" because that kind of events is typically preceded by widespread degeneration.

I can’t be sure how you’re using the word “paganism”. Do you mean it in its original sense, or in a perjirative form condemning modern times? — Brett

Well, the usury-infested fiat bankstering system is based on very serious violations against religious law. At the same time, these people still "believe in something", if only, in the usurious depravity in which they wallow. These people are burdened in debt because of their false beliefs.

The further unspecified "something" in which they happen to believe, is a set of false, pagan ideologies, which include the belief in the permissibility of usury, which is in turn just one small element in the collection of falsehoods that they subscribe to.

This problem is not even specific to modern times. Paganism was, for example. also rampant during antiquity.

Paganism is the strong belief in counter-natural behaviour.

It is the strong belief that we can relax the laws that govern human nature. Self-discipline goes out of the window. That what used to be considered wrong, becomes good, and that what used to be considered good, becomes wrong. It is the slippery slope to the world upside down.

In some ways, the self-inflicted misery of the pagans is also funny. That is why it is ok for me, because I can endlessly laugh at them. That is probably also the reason why I do not feel the need to save the pagans. In that case, I would need to find something else to laugh at. So, no, just leave it "as is".

This raises an interesting point for me. Is a Capitalist economy invented, or is it a natural evolution of existing ideas? — Brett

It depends on what "capitalist" is supposed to means. It is certainly not a synonym for free trade or free markets.

At the core of a contemporary western economy you will find the usury-infested fiat bankstering system, which is not merely a "natural evolution of existing ideas". It is the 1913 Federal Reserve Act that started imposing this form of organized theft in the USA through the use of force.

When people began to realize that the banksters were lying to them, and tried to call their bluff, another spectacular, forceful intervention followed:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Executive_Order_6102.jpg

So, Roosevelt threatened 10 years of imprisonment for anybody exposing the banksters' lies and manipulations.

The usury-infested depravity at the core of the contemporary economy is kept afloat with highly manipulative propaganda, gigantic bankster bailouts, skyrocketing taxes, along with an extensive police force which will incarcerate anybody who refuses to submit to the lying and scheming banksters.

Ultimately, the bankstering system is kept afloat by the false belief in the fake legitimacy of the voting circus. Therefore, it is merely a byproduct of rampant paganism. Religious law strictly forbids usury, but the unbelievers do not care about that, because they were born and came into this world in order to wallow in depravity and rampant promiscuity. They are a lost cause anyway. So, just let them crash and burn.

The Zionists love to qualify any criticism of the policies of the apartheidsstate of Israel towards the Palestinians as antisemitic racism. For example, if anybody believes that the Palestinian refugees should be allowed to go home, that person will automatically be deemed antisemitic. To cut a long story short, I personally believe that the partition of mandatory Palestine is an abomination.

By the way, there is also real antisemitism. That also exists. However, nowadays it is a relatively minor phenomenon.

Furthermore, Jewish victims of prejudice are not more deplorable than for example black people. On the contrary, while Jews do not necessarily have to disclose that they are Jews, "real" racial minorities simply cannot hide that fact.

But the idea is that mathematical knowledge was already there. Does this then mean that everything is already there, it only awaits our ability to see it; America was there before it was discovered, Einstein’s theory of relativity was there before he formulated it, viruses existed before we identified them. — Brett

Agreed.

Mathematics, science, and engineering are discovered, while economics, for example, is invented. One can invent an unlimited number of different economics. The Soviet Union successfully invented one too.

Quite a few academic disciplines are rightfully considered to be inventions. Economics is one discipline which still often gets incorrectly classified as being a discovery, while it is obviously also merely an invention.

Is belief the suspicion of something existing that can’t yet be proven? — Brett

We cannot prove anything about the physical universe. The definition of proof requires a set of "ab initio" basic beliefs, i.e. first principles or axioms, from which we derive theorems. We do not know the first principles of the physical universe, i.e. the Theory of Everything (ToE). Hence, proof about the physical universe is simply impossible.

The best we can have about the physical universe are falsifiable suspicions, i.e. science.

In general, my problem with prioritizing strictly formal proofs is that we forget that moving from formal proof to the real world is an act of informal interpretation. — mask

Formal proof is never about the real world. Furthermore, mathematics is not directly applicable. It first has to go through a framework of empirical rules and regulations, such a science or engineering. In that sense, there is no act of informal interpretation of mathematics.

Without downstream empirical discipline that regulates the issue of correspondence with the real world, mathematics is simply not applicable.

In real language, we can't strictly control the meanings of our signs. They are caught up in history and context. — mask

Natural language is primarily used for non-knowledge which is the overwhelming majority of what is being expressed. In fact, we do not use that much epistemically-sound knowledge. It is not the main purpose of language (or communication in general) anyway.

Yes, science is not algorithmic, and hence not certain. — Banno

An important part of science can actually be verified mechanically. I propose to reserve the term "scientific" to only that part of science. In other words, there is a lot of non-science deceptively masquerading as science.

It's difficult to see if you're making an argument or making a series of unconnected statements about formal languages but not about the reduction of epistemology to formal languages — fdrake

I was just replying to something you wrote.

formal systems don't just have syntactic rules, don't just have formal semantics, they also have conceptual content. — fdrake

Not necessarily. For example, the MU puzzle's formal system does not have any conceptual content. Still, it is an important example formal system.

Another problem is that the term "semantics", which is extensively used in model theory, does not really mean "meaning" in the ordinary sense. It rather means "satisfiability". Therefore, a model is just another un-semantical/meaningless formalism. That is good, because the introduction of real semantics in mathematics would be a dangerous thing.

never-mind the reduction of epistemology to effective procedures. — fdrake

That is what it is today already. Verifying the justification's paperwork is a procedure. If there is no procedure possible for that, then the justification is unusable.

You don't even need a formal meta-language to consider differences in axiomatic systems, natural language suffices. — fdrake

Maybe, maybe not.

I like formal metalanguages.

Tarski's convention T is an interesting take on the matter. Tarski does use formal metalanguages in his theory of truth. In fact, he pretty much has to. The metalanguage must be able to express everything the object language says. So, the metalanguage is a superset of the object language. The difference is that the metalanguage can also express statements about the object language.

Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Tarski is the only way to go about the problem. It is just that Tarski's work has left a profound impression on the subject. His fingerprints are all over the place ...

So, we shouldn't trust you to know when a formal system is relevant for epistemology or not... — fdrake

Who is "we"?

The MU puzzle ultimately goes to the core of the epistemology of mathematics.

The MU puzzle is a puzzle stated by Douglas Hofstadter and found in Gödel, Escher, Bach involving a simple formal system called "MIU". Hofstadter's motivation is to contrast reasoning within a formal system (ie., deriving theorems) against reasoning about the formal system itself. MIU is an example of a Post canonical system and can be reformulated as a string rewriting system. — Wikipedia on MU puzzle

Through its stronghold on their language and related invariants, mathematics has a profound influence on science and engineering.

The MU puzzle may be absurd but the proof for the fact that it cannot be solved, is not. That proof is pure knowledge. That is probably why wolfram.com, "Computation meets knowledge" , is also so smitten by it. They know exactly why they say "Computation meets knowledge". As I have said already, if epistemology describes the paperwork requirements for knowledge, then computability describes the procedure to verify that paperwork.

Ah yes, the MU puzzle, something which entirely resembles how humans come to conclusions using evidence and argument... — fdrake

The way in which most humans generally come to conclusions amount to stirring in a pile of total bullshit.

That is why nobody trusts people who cannot understand the proof for the MU puzzle for anything serious. They will go to great lengths to keep them from building a bridge or flying an airplane.

I think you found your own answer, then. — fdrake

The absurd, useless, and meaningless MU puzzle cannot be solved. There is proof for that, i.e. justification. Hence, "The MU puzzle cannot be solved" is a justified (true) belief, i.e. legitimate knowledge.

Furthermore, there exists an entirely mechanical procedure to verify the paperwork for its justification.

Hence, the associated paperwork is both epistemically justified and computably verifiable.

By the way, Wolfram has built a complete demonstration project to illustrate the problem.

You mistake the claim that all stipulated axioms and formal systems are useful or arbitrary or relevant in every sense for the much weaker claim that some stipulated axioms and formal systems are useful or arbitrary or relevant in some sense. — fdrake

Well, no. I do not even care if a formal system is useful or meaningful.

For example, I have just viewed a video that mentions the MU puzzle. I think that the MU puzzle is fantastic. It gave me a kick to investigate it. The MU puzzle is an axiomatization that is purposely useless and meaningless. That is probably one of the reasons why I like it so much.

In my opinion, the reason why mathematics can be very attractive is not because it is useful or meaningful. On the contrary, the more it has real-world semantics, the less it is "beautiful". In my opinion, good math looks a bit absurd.

The axioms of formal systems are not immune to these consideration, and are not arbitrarily chosen — fdrake

An axiomatic theory does not need to be useful. Since its model is not the physical universe, it is automatically also not meaningful. Therefore, I reject these considerations.

For example, in what way is the SKI combinator calculus useful or meaningful? It is obviously neither. It is merely "interesting".

and moreover are not choosable algorithmically — fdrake

Axioms are not chosen algorithmically. On the contrary: there is no justification for choosing any particular set of axioms -- not even an algorithm -- and there shouldn't be one.

Why would a computer choose the Turing machine formalism over the arbitrary decision procedure formalism to talk about computation? It couldn't, without having some criterion. — fdrake

We almost never choose the Turing machine formalism. Approximately all computers in use are based on the Von Neumann architecture.

Is that criterion arbitrary? — fdrake

The Von Neumann architecture has taken off like wildfire. There may be reasons for that, but not one that can be explained by using a formal system. Hence, this real-world phenonemon falls outside the realm of what mathematics is supposed to study.

all derived theories from the formal specification of computability are not legitimate knowledge — fdrake

If you take an arbitrary axiom A and a theorem S for which you can prove in proof P that it necessarily follows from A, then the sentence X="A $\Rightarrow$ S" is legitimate formal knowledge.

Sentence X can be utterly useless, and probably also meaningless, but it is nevertheless a justified (true) belief, with the term "true" referring to the fact that it is logically true in the model(s) for the theory embodying axiom A.

Therefore, the knowledge in the theory of computability T is not T itself, nor any arbitrary theorem S, but sentences of the type: T $\vdash$S, i.e. "T proves S", along with proof P that justifies this sentence.

Aah, so I can stipulate {alacontail is wrong about the significance of axioms to justifications in natural language} and derive that and have it be true because axioms arbitrarily stipulated and nothing more can be said. Right? — fdrake

It will obviously be true within the model that satisfies your axiomatization. This is never the physical universe, since your axiomatic theory is not the theory of everything.

This is generally like that.

For example, none of the models for PA is the physical universe. Therefore, not one statement that PA proves, necessarily says anything about the physical universe. PA only proves statements that are true in its models.

How do you decide what goes into an "axiom pack"? — fdrake

You can create absolutely arbitrary axiom packs and use those instead. There is nothing wrong with that.

If the language in which it is expressed is Turing-Complete, then you can use it to describe any computable procedure. For example, you can perfectly-well load the language+axiom pack of the SKI combinator calculus instead of PA, if what you want to do, are algorithms.

PA is just a very standard pack of axioms. Same for ZFC. There are obviously alternative number and set theories, i.e. alternative axiom packs. There is not necessarily anything wrong with those. I guess that the standard packs may allow for deriving "more interesting" theorems than other axiom packs.

Furthermore, the reason why we often (but not always) use number and/or set theory cannot be explained from within mathematics.

there is a component of choice involved in accepting any hypothesis ... That is, the process is not algorithmic. — Banno

If accepting/rejecting a hypothesis is not algorithmic, then anybody may accept or reject a hypothesis on merely subjective grounds. If that is possible, then the hypothesis cannot be sound knowledge. Furthermore, this situation does not occur in mathematics and it generally does not occur in science either. It may occur in other academic disciplines, but then the question becomes: Are these fields even legitimate knowledge?

For example, for over 70 years, there were two versions of economics, one of which was the Soviet one. If that situation is possible, then the question becomes: Is economics actually legitimate knowledge? At the same time there was clearly no separate Soviet version of mathematics nor of science.

The existence of such "component of choice" points to the fact that the body of statements, i.e. the discipline, is in fact not legitimate knowledge.

Logicism failed, but set theory is nevertheless the foundations of contemporary mathematics. — Pfhorrest

Logicism did not fail. It just hasn't achieved its goals.

Logicism would have "failed" if someone had provided proof that the 10 axioms of ZFC set theory (or even the 9 axioms of PA number theory) cannot possibly be derived from the 14 axioms of propositional logic. I have never seen such proof.

It would have "succeeded" if they had successfully been able to build set theory (and/or number theory) as a dependency inside logic theory. They haven't been able to do that either.

Therefore, the status of logicism is not "failed" nor "succeeded", but "undecidable".

In my view for Iran the best response would be to spend time and work on those nukes as much as they can and try to get Iraq really to go with it's Parliaments decision of sending the US troops home. If Trump really responds with sanctions on Iraq, it's a win for Iran. — ssu

Now that Iran has casually shot missiles at American bases in Iraq, and with Iraq already demanding that these bases be gone, I wonder what the next improvised response is supposed to be? The assassination of another Soleimani?

Iraq is now militia-land, just like Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

That is what was achieved by removing Saddam Hussein from Iraq, Qaddafi from Libya, and trying to remove Bashar from Syria.

My gut feeling says that we can expect an assault by Shia militia on American bases in Iraq and Syria. These militia have been watching them closely for years now anyway ...

This is the stupidity of Trump as the Obama agreement was indeed a better option. — ssu

Obama seemed to have been better at juggling with Israel's pressure on the USA "to do something" about Iran. Israel is very selfish and will drag the USA without hesitation into adventures that are not in its best interest. Obama knew how to manage that. Well, he clearly did. By the way, I am otherwise no fan of Mr. fake Nobel prize winner Obama.

The assassination of Soleimani was certainly not the worst thing that Trump has done in this context. It is the insulting speech that he gave in West Palm Beach afterwards that is the worst. His allegations were so incredibly insulting that even CNN now demands that he must "prove it". He went seriously over the top there, and there was absolutely no need for that. On the contrary, it is not even an appropriate way to start a war, if that is what he actually wanted to achieve by rubbing salt into the wound.

I do not agree that the scientific process is algorithmic in the way you describe; nor, even, that it ought be. — Banno

If scientific evidence -- represented by its paperwork -- is objective then there exists a mechanical procedure to verify such paperwork. One step in this procedure must indeed consist in repeating its experimental test. Even though that step is necessarily a physical activity, there must also exist a procedure for carrying it out. Hence, the verification of the paperwork is entirely objective, deterministic, and procedural. Otherwise, it is not even legitimate scientific evidence.

Verifying the legitimacy of scientific evidence is therefore a computability problem.

The first point is about the history of science; and I would point to, say, Feyerbend as showing how science is a human, indeed a political process. — Banno

In his books Against Method and Science in a Free Society Feyerabend defended the idea that there are no methodological rules which are always used by scientists. He objected to any single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would limit the activities of scientists, and hence restrict scientific progress. In his view, science would benefit most from a "dose" of theoretical anarchism.

Feyerabend was also critical of falsificationism. He argued that no interesting theory is ever consistent with all the relevant facts. This would rule out using a naïve falsificationist rule which says that scientific theories should be rejected if they do not agree with known facts. — Wikipedia on Feyerabend

In my opinion, Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism is a dangerous point of view. It would prevent us from determining whether a proposition is scientific or not, because there would no longer exist a benchmark for that. Hence, it is his approach that would restrict scientific progress, simply, by removing the restrictions on the progress of snake oil. Feyerabend's view on science is a dangerous throwback in time because it reopens the door for accepting mere alchemy as science.

But... verifiable is exactly what a falsifiable hypothesis is not. — Banno

This is not about verificationism. We are not trying to verify the claim itself. We are trying to verify its paperwork.

A claim is justified if the required paperwork, i.e. the justification, is attached to the claim. From there on, we merely verify that the paperwork satisfies the epistemic regulations for the claim.

For a scientific claim, it means that the paperwork in annex contains a reproducible experimental test report, meaning that the claim is indeed falsifiable. We must indeed verify the claim's falsifiability. This is obviously not the same as verifying the claim itself.

I had understood that what is to count as "objectively verifiable" is itself one of the main issues in epistemology. — Banno

It depends on the knowledge-justification method. Mathematical justification ("provability") is eminently and even mechanically verifiable. Scientific justification ("falsifiability") is also verifiable, even though it requires repeating the experimental tests, often manually or at least partially so.

So, mathematics has epistemic paperwork ("proof") and so does science ("experimental test report"). Verifying that paperwork is a procedure. Hence, it is fundamentally a question of computability.

Other disciplines may not produce mechanically verifiable paperwork with their knowledge-justification method. Those disciplines can therefore be considered epistemically unsound.

When ought one believe such-and-such? — Banno

In the context of a sound knowledge-justification method, there is no need to believe any particular person. Only the result of the mechanical justification-verification procedure matters. In other words, if it matter who says it, then what he says, does not matter.

People in poor nations also have a sense of entitlement but don't really expect more. — ernestm

Poor nations are generally no longer relatively as poor as they used to be.

For example, in PPP, income per capita per year in the UK is $46,000 while in Thailand it is $20,000, slightly less than half. Thailand is not that poor in relative terms, compared to the UK. They've clearly got the basics covered too, and then some.

In my opinion, this gap will further shrink in the next few decades, to the point that it will no longer be relevant for most countries.

So the word "formally" bugs me. What precisely is the difference between a formal justification and any other justification? — Banno

In this context, it just means "objectively verifiable", which automatically implies that a procedure to carry out such verification can be documented.

Moreover, does an insistence on formal justification simple rule out empirical justification? — Banno

Certainly not in science. The idea is rather that repeating the experiment should be straightforward, which implies that it must be possible to document a mechanical procedure for that.

On the other hand, if there is no mechanical verification procedure possible, then any such justification cannot be objective either.

and second because its income is lower than the prior generation. — ernestm

It has most likely nothing to do with absolute level of income. If it did, then marriage should be almost non-existent in very poor countries, while that is clearly not the case.

The drop in marriage rate is probably more related to the shrinking difference in income between spouses. Marriage generally does not take place, if it does not allow the lower-earning spouse to gain access to the resources of a substantially higher-earning spouse.

Unconditional "romantic love" has always been just a Hollywood fairy tale. Marriage is first and foremost an economic arrangement.

Too much equality seems to lead to extinction! ;-)

North Korea can avoid war if they don't want one.

Iran, maybe not.

The US would not dream of assassinating any North Korean general or other high official. By the way, if Saddam Hussein or Qaddafi really had had weapons of mass destruction, they would have been in a position to avoid war. They were not, simply because they were too gullible.

It is Kim Jong-un who has got it completely right. Never hesitate to press the button, and make sure that the other side clearly understands that you will not hesitate for one second to effectively do it.

The only way to avoid war now, is for Iran to urgently acquire a nuclear arsenal along with the ballistic missiles to strike anywhere on the globe. Hence, for Iran, it is a race against time now. By the way, Iran should obviously have done that a long time ago already.

Another possible solution for Iran is to place itself under the Russian nuclear umbrella. If anybody strikes at Iran, the Russian Federation will immediately and without hesitation strike back. I think that this is to some extent already the case anyway.

So you are describing a fraternity, a social group following a prescribed lifestyle which works on a local scale across borders. — Punshhh

The original congregations of Moses (عَلَيْهِ ٱلسَّلَامُ), later on of Jesus (عَلَيْهِ ٱلسَّلَامُ), and later on of Mohammed (عَلَيْهِ ٱلسَّلَامُ) were actually like that. For various reasons, the Islamic congregation turned into a State later on. Still, it also works fine without seeking secular power, if the existing State leaves everybody alone, which they often don't, which in turn, creates the need to get rid of it, and so on.

Unfortunately when it comes to the health of the country as a whole — Punshhh

Countries are actually quite irrelevant in this context. I am not interested in the health of the secular State. Their health is their problem and not mine. Furthermore, I just pick the place that suits me best, and if need be, I just move. The local economy is of no interest to me, because I tend to use the internet to make money (whenever I am actually interested in making money, which is not now).

media fuelled political bias towards a free market capitalism — Punshhh

Al-Baqarah 2:275 Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest. — Quran

In Islamic terms, the problem with capitalism is not free trade but the widespread practice of usury, i.e. the entire fiat bankstering system that you will find at its core.

But then again, if you personally try to keep Islamic law, you will avoid most of the problems that the fiat bankstering system causes. You will do fine while the unbelievers around you will suffer from their enslavement to Satan and his usury. Furthermore, there is no need to save the unbelievers from their own choices. We cannot prevent anybody from making his own decisions or seek to exempt him from the consequences of his own decisions. That is not even allowed. These people eagerly desire to be slaves to such depravities. They actively want that. So, just let them. Myself, I am enslaved to the laws of Allah, our beloved Master, Lord of both worlds, and Creator of this universe. That is why, unlike the unbelievers, I am not required to pay Satanic usury fees. I enjoy my situation and they enjoy theirs.

I am happy for you and the society you describe, whereabouts in South East Asia do you live? — Punshhh

Today, Cambodia (and Vietnam) mostly. That is not really "fixed", though. In 2017, I hired a Filipina tutor for the kids for a year, pulled them out of their private primary school, and travelled around Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines with them. Their then non-existent English became fluent after that. I am toying with the idea of doing that again sooner or later. It would probably be really good for their English literacy.

I am aware that there are some societies in that part of the world which function well, I am not well acquainted with the Islamic ones. — Punshhh

Cambodia and Vietnam are not Islamic majority societies. There is no need for that. These places just have thriving Islamic communities. That is more than enough, actually. Islam is not meant to be a country. It is just a neighbourhood where people think alike. In Cambodia and Vietnam, these local Muslim neighbourhoods are surrounded by Buddhist populations. My wife is actually a Buddhist. She knows how not to break Islamic law such as by serving me pork for dinner or allow relatives to hold beer drinking parties in the house.

The Buddhists, but only the traditional ones, are actually quite similar in lifestyle to the Muslims but their traditions are now eroding rapidly. My intuition says that sooner or later the only functioning neighbourhoods will be Islamic or Orthodox Jewish. Everybody else will be wallowing in depravity ...

I have spent some time in Egypt and it has an Islamic society which does not function well, corruption is widespread, torture in prisons and jails is commonplace. — Punshhh

The State may not function well, but that is actually a good thing. If the State has too much power and/or too much money it will soon try to shove its bad ideas down everybody's throat, creating in that process the need for a civil war which will dismantle the State and reduce its obnoxious ambition to impose its views.

For example, Cambodia was a more pleasant place to live in before 2000 than today, when the civil war was still going on. The government did not function back then, and that was a good thing.

You really have to give them a war to fight, because otherwise they will start paying too much attention to you, and try to micromanage every aspect of your life, and you really don't want that. The locals here still remember how they used to carry around their machine guns during the war, in order to shoot first and only then ask questions. Consequently, they still don't take any shit from the government.

My personal experience says that the best place to live, is right next to a war zone. As long as you don't get shot, life is much better there. From my perspective and in my experience, Cambodia and Vietnam are still quite free societies today, but the creep has started already, and I guess that sooner or later a new reset will be needed.

Freedom gradually erodes, and only a good bout of war can bring it back.

That strikes me as over reach. How is "the cat is on the mat" computable, that we might believe, or even know, that it is true? — Banno

Is "the cat is on the mat" formally justifiable (=epistemology)?

If it is, there is a formal justification procedure to produce that justification. In that case, carrying out such formal justification procedure is a matter of computability.

If it is not, then neither the justification exists nor any need to carry out any procedure to produce it.

Justification is the paperwork while computability is the procedure to fill out the paperwork.

You are a social conservative, apparently, given your "It could also be handled by solidarity at the level of the extended family, along with charity at the level of the religious community" statement. It could be, but that hasn't been the case in the United States (and other industrialized countries) for a long time. — Bitter Crank

In Islam, it is the arrangement that emerges from the framework of verses in the Quran that organize welfare in society. Islamic society has lived like that for 1400 years. I have left the West behind. I have left Christianity behind. I live in Southeast Asia now. I try to keep Islamic law now.

From a personal perspective, it does not matter particularly much to me if the West cannot re-adopt a functioning social structure. The Islamic extended-family and solidarity system work fine for me, and that is enough as far as I am concerned.

By the 1920s multigenerational arrangements were pretty much history. Working class houses were too small to accommodate 3 generations. — Bitter Crank

Excuses. There are always excuses for everything, if you keep looking hard enough ...

Thinking that the economy matters less than perceived is an extremely flawed idea. It's not even wrong, actually ... Sure, people do waste an appreciable percentage of their income. — Bitter Crank

That obviously sounds contradictory. Once you have enough to subsist, prioritizing making more money, and/or seeking to spend more, is in my opinion a bad idea.

What would your life be like if you "made do" with 50% of your current income? — Bitter Crank

Before cashing out my startup shares, I spent less than 50% of what I spend now. I wasn't unhappy at all. Well, I still do not spend particularly much, but my wife spends more nowadays, but only because I have no problem with that. Otherwise, I would at once rein in her profligacy.

The downside of poor folk's thrift is that we are usually not very knowledgeable about finances. — Bitter Crank

Well, what a poor person really has to be aware of, is that riba/interest is haram/inpermissible. That knowledge is enough to avoid most of the traps in finance. The Quranic prohibition on usury thoroughly reins the manipulations and other misbehaviour of the banksters. For example, the practice of paying off a credit card balance or student loans is forbidden to the believers who are not even allowed to enter into that kind of contracts. Seriously, these practices only exist to punish unbelievers for their unbelief. Since the unbelievers do not want to be enslaved to God, nor constrained by his laws, they will instead be duly enslaved to debt and constrained by snowballing interest payments.

For a poor person, possibly with not much formal education, it is therefore mostly a question of stubbornly sticking to the provisions in Islamic law concerning finance, and never to believe a word the unbelievers say. You cannot trust the unbelievers, because they want to mislead you, saddle you with usurious loans, and hence enslave you, while only an unbeliever is supposed to be enslaved to a crushing debt burden.

Had I added a wife and 1 or 2 children, a house payment or much higher rent, even an old car, etc. I would have gone broke in short order. — Bitter Crank

Well, my wife cannot spend more than what I give her. She sometimes tries, of course, but that kind of things are manageable. Just make sure not to use things like "joint bank accounts" or what have you. I also don't see what there would be so expensive about kids. I don't spend more on them than I want. They are not going to do better later in life because you wasted more money on them. On the contrary. What exactly is there so expensive about kids?

How much charity could this church actually disburse? ... That still leaves 86.400 people to care for. Who's going to do that, in your privatized scheme? — Bitter Crank

Christianity may not be a suitable religion for establishing a functioning charity system. Not sure, but it may indeed not work. If it failed, I would not be surprised.

In Islam, there is the mandatory charity, called zakaat, which is a 2.5% levy on net capital gains or else 10% on farmland harvests, if applicable. Next, there is the voluntary charity, called sadaqah, which are charity payments made over and beyond the mandatory contributions to the poor.

Why would the combination of zakaat and sadaqah be insufficient?

The reason why the laws of Allah limit the mandatory level of charity to the level mentioned above, is because Allah deems such level to be sufficient. And Allah is All-Knowing.