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Culture is critical
... but mostly, friend, they willingly live likeAt our best, I think humans ... — universeness
dogs and sheep. :mask:
:100: I'm convinced @Athena is completely incorrigible on this topic, but I appreciate you also making the case to expose the deeper 'civilizational' rot driving Pax Americana's inexorable decline. -
Currently ReadingApparently lacking the courage of a 'deliberate loser', I'd missed by calling ...
https://psyche.co/ideas/learning-to-be-a-loser-a-philosophers-case-for-doing-nothing?utm_source=Psyche+Magazine&utm_campaign=78d8097442-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_06_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-a9a3bdf830-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&fbclid=IwAR3cNftEpT4EMUxsrNGL5tokEGxsPY6vgQdmDvVzK-qJWTgnLLW7h9rEQv8
:death: :flower: -
Dualism and InteractionismIn philosophy, what distinguishes, or differentiates, a "higher truth" from a truth? I'm quite familiar with P. Hadot but please put it in your own words based on your own understanding, sir. Thanks.
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Culture is critical
:smirk:You are struggling as best you can, for the sake of all of us, yes?
— universeness
Hell, no! All of yous are on your own.
Are you not still a secular democratic socialist?
— universeness
Nope. Cynical, burnt-out iconoclast — Vera Mont -
Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West BankYour late friend was so right (as history shows), and I agree with you too. How can there be any lasting peace for dispossessors-occupiers-oppressors unless they effectively genocide the Palestinians (like Indigenous peoples in the Americas have been)?
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Culture is critical
... relinquished our divergent perspectives and interests. "We all" are always already entangled in at least as many or more win-lose / lose-lose than win-win games. "We few" micro-cooperators, perhaps many times over, is more like it – scarcity-exploiting partisans, sects, gangs, networks, tribes, etc. "We all", my friend, just doesn't effectively scale (re: global governance, the UN, international law enforcement (e.g. climate change, WMD proliferation, wealth laundering / tax-defrauding, etc) ... globalization ... communism ... "utopia", etc). AFAIK, wars & black markets are our most prevalent, recurring forms of macro-cooperation. Even the "Tower of Babel" myth is quite insightful about the inherent fractiousness of the human condition (ergo the unfortunate, historical utility of religio, religare). Don't forget, mate: at our best we're primates, not angels.if we all ... — universeness -
Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/16/judge-imposes-gag-order-on-donald-trump-in-d-c-trial-00121743Mr. Trump is a criminal defendant. He is facing four felony charges. He is under the supervision of the criminal justice system. He does not have the right to say and do exactly as he pleases. … No other criminal defendant would be allowed to do so and I am not going to permit it in this case. — Tonya Chutkan, US District Judge, Wash. DC, 16Oct23
Who's your daddy now, bitch?! :lol: -
Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West BankThank's for posting Harari's observations.
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Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)I guess one of you MAGA morons will have to murder a judge, prosecutor or prosecution witness in order to convince some court to revoke Seditionist-Traitor-Rapist-Loser1's bail and remand him to pre-trail detention like every other indicted thuggish lowlife. :mask:
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Culture is critical"The vast majority" of the house is not yet on fire. Where there's smoke, the house is on fire.
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Absolute nothingness is only impossible from the perspective of somethingYour assertion seems unwarranted to me.
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Absolute nothingness is only impossible from the perspective of something
This is entailed by "nothingness is impossible" (i.e. there cannot be not-something), no?[T]here may be no ultimate reason for existence; it may be that reality is a brute fact. — Ø implies everything -
Culture is critical:up: :up:
Well, to begin with, I didn't understand your "explanation" (maybe because it doesn't directly address the objections I'd raised here ). Also, I believe I've expressed my position on "democracy" in a number of exchanges with you previously, such as earlier on this thread ...↪180 Proof Wow, I gave a lot of time to my explanation and you have not kept your promise to address democracy. — Athena
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/807143
Here's an excerpt from an old thread with the disingenuously polemical title Why Must You Be Governed?Okay pleaselist 10characteristics of democracy and perhaps say something about how they relate to our ideas of right and wrong. — Athena
In other words, "our ideas of right and wrong", Athena, are symptoms of the neoliberal ideology (or there is no alternative (T-I-N-A) to the corporatist status quo). The American Republic was founded on economic autocracy (read Charles A. Beard, 1913) just as classical Athens – your "educated for democracy" ideal – was founded on economic autoocracy (read Orlando Patterson, 1991); and the manifest purpose of "US education before 1958" was the same as it has been ever since 1958 (except maybe in style): generation after generation, for students and their teachers to internalize unquestioning conformity to and support for economic autocracy (e.g. neoliberal corporatism) in order to reinforce being full-time consumers while, at most, being quadrennial citizens. For 'the demos', of course, this is (still) a failing project.Democratize the economy as much as practically possible.
Political democracy in the absence of economic democracy (aka "economic autocracy" (becomes neoliberal corporatocracy)) has always been a failing project. [ ... ] Read A. Smith closely. & Read P. Kropotkin closely. Read D. Schweickart & T. Picketty closely. — 180 Proof -
Are you against the formation of a techno-optimistic religion?"I have no idea" because what you describe, Bret, does not make any sense to me. Post-singularity ubiquitous smart nanotech seems more likely to transform planetary civilization into a Global Experience Machine^ (à la "The Matrix" or wireheading^^) than to enable hedonic beings to somehow "transcend" (or to religiously seek "transcendence from") being hedonic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine ^
https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/wireheading ^^ -
Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West BankIran has used Hamas to set the trap and Israel must take the bait in Gaza. The US-NATO hegemon will eventually extract Israel from the trap of razing Gaza while (maybe) deterring Iran et al from opening up secondary fronts (e.g. Hezbollah). NYC, Paris and/or London might become tertiary fronts (TBD).
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Metaphysics as an Illegitimate Source of KnowledgeA truth-maker is a referent to which a truth-claim (i.e. truth-bearer) statement refers that makes the statement true; it's not the "agent" asserting or "making" the statement.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truthmakers/ -
Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
and then ...Eliminate Hamas — 180 Proof
Yes, including free from the post-1967, settler-apartheid strategems of the State of Israel.Free Palestine
— 180 Proof
You mean free from Hamas and other terrorist organizations. — magritte
Evict settlers from ALL of the internationally recognized Occupied Palestinian Territories.Evict Settlers.
— 180 Proof
Israel has actually evicted settlers. — ssu
https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201007_by_hook_and_by_crook
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-205221/ -
If only...:up:
Lucid daydream/s of a (not-dystopian) post-singularity, posthuman f u t u r e is my "ideal place". My damn novel (series), however, just hasn't gotten – let itself be – written yet. -
Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West BankEliminate Hamas :fire:
Remove Likud.
Evict All Settlers.
Free Palestine :flower: -
Culture is critical
:roll: :shade:Unfortunately, I doubt that anyone understands the importance of what I am saying. — Athena -
If only...I've never heard of Islandia so thanks for that. I guess I liked Huxley's Island when I read it as a high school freshman. A few years later I read Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea trilogy, and though I was mad for Tolkien's "Middle Earth" back then (re: my fantasy roleplaying games days), the only fantasy world that was ever an "ideal place" for me was the archipelago-world of "Earthsea" – especially the islands of "Roke" & "Gont" – which became more real to me with each subsequent book.
Btw, a sister of my best 'non-jock' friend in high school was a huge fan of both Anne McCafferty's Pern & Andre Norton's Witch World series, IIRC – I never got past the first volume of either series. Now that I think of it, my earliest "ideal place" during the '70s even before "Earthsea" was probably Clarke/Kubrick's alt-"Earth" in 2001: A Space Odyssey (though I was (still am) a '60s Star Trek obsessive too – "The Federation" was cool but not "science fiction-y" enough even for my grade school nerdiness :nerd: ). -
If only...My "ideal place" is (still) the late anarchist and novelist Iain M. Banks' galaxy-spanning civilization The Culture developed and explored through nine space opera novels and one collection of short stories (start here).
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TPF Quote CabinetTwo women with
the same claim
came to the feet of
the wise king. Two women,
but only one baby.
The king knew
someone was lying.
What he said was
Let the child be
cut in half; that way
no one will go
empty-handed. He
drew his sword.
Then, of the two
women, one
renounced her share:
this was
the sign, the lesson.
Suppose
you saw your mother
torn between two daughters:
what could you do
to save her but be
willing to destroy
yourself—she would know
who was the rightful child,
the one who couldn't bear
to divide the mother. — A Fable, Louise Glück
d. 2023 -
Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West BankAn interesting interview with former Israel PM Ehud Olmert from 11Oct23 ...
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Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West BankWhat is 'zionism without justice' but ...?
He who sows injustice will reap violence, and the rod of his wrath will fail. — Proverbs 22:8 -
Pacifism and the future of humanity:up:
It's called "maturity", no? Having become wiser.I was an idealist when I was young, but life turned me into a realist — Agree-to-Disagree
:up: -
Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West BankNo justice, no peace.
When the oppressor Goliath has been (by any means necessary) bled enough by the knives & slings of their oppressed David, (maybe) they will try coexisting without oppression (e.g. overwhelming rejection of Likud's hardline apartheid-terror policies). The tragedy is, however, it may be decades-too-late for oppressed David to give up on Goliath's oppression even if Goliath relents one day and gives it up. Like survivors of genocide, slavery, ethnic cleansing, mass dispossession – "Never Again" (also) means forever wounded, crippled, haunted, cursed ... vengeful. :death: :fire:
No peace, no justice.
Has there ever been a version of "Waiting For God" in which "Estragon & Vladimir" are portrayed by two elderly women, an Israeli (Golia) and a Palestinian (Davi), on a low dusty hill in a refugee camp? Is "Godot" their fathers, husbands, sons & daughters ... ancestors? Were these widows once cousins? step-sisters? in-laws? lovers? Maybe :flower:
Friday prayers. And the children of Abraham are murdering each other's children again. Why?! Well, why not ... -
Culture is criticalThose assertions do not account for the objections raised (again) herein
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/845168
addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/807895 -
Pacifism and the future of humanity@Vera Mont @Pantagruel
By "history" I mean only recorded history, which is the operational framework of modern civilization/s, no? Left to our own state-capitalist (plutocratic) devices, IMO, "global governance / unity" is thereby manifestly improbable (i.e. an intractable N-body problem).History teaches ad nauseam that we, as a species, are incapable of deliberative self-governance (i.e. liberty) above the municipal scale, as the contemporary state of "global affairs" savagely demonstrates. — 180 Proof
180 Proof
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