I 'hooked up' a lot when I was younger, but honestly my attitude and worldview on it was that it was more of an adolescents insecurity than anything else.

As of right now, I would honestly prefer playing a video game than trying to 'pick up' a woman at a strip club.

The main ethics would be the notion of 'hooking up', especially as a lifestyle goal, even if one doesn't specifically invoke 'religion', generally monogamy is viewed as better ideal, and one which isn't rife with potential sensationalist media controversies which make rounds on the media as of late. (The cultural and legal philosophies surrounding monogamy as an ideal in 1st world countries as opposed to polygamy or 'hooking' up).

One that on, arguments will tend to either take the vein of it being 'using' one or the other person (generally the woman), or the other extreme, in which such an attitude is archaic, anti-intellectual and anti-feminist, and treating a woman (or men) like a helpless child who as a consenting adult can't or shouldn't choose who she has sex with.

I'm not sure I totally buy into that one as a universal, but then again every serious take on marriage or monogamy as an ideal, even including Biblical ones (in which marital problems and conflicts are a recurring theme) is that it would require a lot of work and sacrifice, with many marriages or relationships not being part of the ideal, and of course presently and historically it also served and serves a pragmatic purpose, not solely a "Romantic" one (which seems more of a notion from Rousseau than anything within the realm of legal philosophy or even religion, such as quasi-deterministic themes of 'love at first sight' and whatnot).

For what it's also worth, there were some historical queens who had male concubines:

http://historytothepublic.org/empress-wu-and-her-male-concubines-concubinus/

lol, incels.

Actually, from what I've heard historically, is that in some ancient societies, "low status" males were made into eunuchs and forced to serve in the king's harem.

As far as your other posts, from what I've seen, meritocratic ideals for men and women have existed in some for or another in a diverse variety of societies, as well today, varying by a complex multitude of circumstances, such as socio-economic, familial, legal, personal, intellectual, and so on.

(I believe that Plato is considered a classical example of the meritocratic ideal, much as how women in different positions of influence, intelligence, and so forth, ideally above and beyond the 'bare minmum' standards of whatever societies they are a part of, which aren't and never were that 'high' on average regardless of male or female, women such as Marie Curie or Joan of Arc being exemplars and not the "average" woman of their day and age necessarily, much as is the same today, such as in regards to a woman lawyer of some signfiicant reknown, education, familiar circumstances and whatnot, nor similar circumstances in regards to "average" males versus more culturally exemplar examples of past or present.)

I'd have to read up on more history with an emphasis on women, however I'm inclined to harken back to women such as Marie Curie, or others, such as Greek women philosophers of some reknown, as well as the idealization of women in the incarnations of 'goddess',

Won't get into this one, but as far as the law goes, responsibilities outside of what are required by law (e.x. respect for people rights, such as not stealing, murdering, etc) are in the domain of private contracts or relationships.

Some people, for various reasons, practical or otherwise might negotiate a living arrangement, such as sharing or inheriting familial property, all of which is totally legal and ultimately at the domain and discretion of the people entering the private contracts or agreements.

(Despite popular and mass media misninformation designed to 'sell' things to people, this is where most of the "big money" or the "super rich" make their money from, whether one is talking Wall Street Executives, Professional atheletes or CEOs - through negotiating deals or private contracts, rather than exchanging time or labor for "fixed" wages).

Even if "credentialing" plays a role in establishing it, ultimately it's at the discretion of the individuals engaging in the private contracts (e.x. the law cannot "force" a company to hire someone even if they have the most exemplar resume in the world; the company could still choose to hire someone with "fewer credentials" on the basis of other desired factors, whether something such as rapport of familiarity (e.x. the company's owner is friends with the person's family, etc).

For that matter, even in the contexts of credential systems (e.x. a specific trade or college program), bar perhaps 'professional' trades in which law plays a direct role in credentialing requirements (e.x. law school, medical school, government jobs such as military or law enforcement), the credentialing is still a tool or means of negotiating or establishing a "trust" with someone else, legally it's ultimately at the discretion of the employer, much as how a private company can choose not to take someone's money or do business with them (bar scenarios in which legal or civil action might become involved, such as racial or religious discrimination).

For the most part, I would definitely agree - as pretty 'commonsensical' examples, a person living in a homeless shelter, or spending life in prison has all of their 'basic material needs' provided for them without having to do much of anything.

But for most people, this would not be a desirable goal or aim in life. Most people would desire better quality housing, food, transportation, etc even if they had to sacrifice or make more personal or mental effort to acquire it, than simply the 'bare-minimum' required to live on, though I do not believe that everyone's goals are necessarily reducible to "things" per say, such as in the case of a scientist or an artist, whose goals are less "tangible" and more mental.

There is a book on the subject called "Superforecasting".

According to the author, wisdom of the crowd if one aggregates opinions or advice, tends to be very effective, not necessarily as a "miracle", but because even if no one person is an "expert" or "authority" on the subjects, each person could be providing bits of knowledge or information from a diversity of other sources.

(For example if an opinion on psychiatric medicine was asked, one person may have had a grandfather who was a licensed psychiatrist, another person may have studied to be psychiatrist before dropping out and pursuing another career, another person may have been quoting a peer-reviewed journal they read online, another person may be an avid reader who has read various published books on the subject, etc etc).

I would also assume the move from polygamy has less to do with economic concerns than the move toward greater civil rights to women.
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Right, that's what I would tend to argue, if it was solely about "sex and reproduction", then from every pragmatic perspective then polygamy would be more desirable, since a man with 4 wives can potentially reproduce more children.

However, in 1st world countries, whether one invokes "religion" or invokes treastise on the law and or civilization such as John Stuart Mill, we consider monogamy to be a cultural evolution up from polygamy, with an emphasis on the better quality of marriages and relationships and better quality in raising children, rather than simply "maximizing" physical reproduction.

That may vary - his pyramid is just an approximation, and not, in practice how each and every person actually behaves, nor "should" behave.

In practice, if a person was physically starving, or hit by a car and needed to go to the emergency room, then for most people, they would have to prioritize these physical needs, however in a 1st world countries, most of these physical needs are already met on a bare minimum level, and the vast majority of wants which people prioritize their time and or life around, are of the higher mental variety.

(As an example, you can look up the "Seninelese Tribe", which is one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer tribes, having lived and "survived" on stone-age era conditions for 10s of 1000s of years; the tradeoff seems to be that while they were able to survive this way without the direct need of many modern innovations, such as modern medicine, they also lack any immunity to modern diseases which modern medicines were designed in or as a result of, and as a result have to shut themselves off to Westerners; likewise they have no modern military technology, so in the event that a modern nation "invaded" them, I do not see how they would manage to resist it).

Or as another example, the philosophy behind some forms of "ascetism", such as Buddhist monks living a life of material austerity in order to seek out higher or transcendent ideals".

As far as psychology, I have never read Freud, however the basic notion of his "id-ego" concept is that the "id" (body) is akin to a horse, and the ego (mind) is akin to the rider or controller of the horse, so naturally the physical desires or the horse would be subordinate to the higher mental desires of the rider.

The dichotomy isn't as true as the OP is making it out to be, much as his claims are mistaken for a myriad of reasons.

For example, the "problem of evil" is both a problem within "religions" as well as philosophy.

The "because God say" is a strawman, or that arguments for God "saying" so developed in a 'vaccum' completely abstracted from whatever various circumstances proceeded or played a role in said arguments to begin with. Such as in Socrates' Euthyphore delimma.

(Another example would be the philosophy of the Common Law, as per Holmes and others; modern law and legal system having evolved or developed out of older systems of law and justice, including "religious" ones).

Likewise, nontheistic religious such as Taoism, some types of Buddism, or other nontheistic religions do not invoke a "God" necessarily.

Henry said that upon his execution, not during the context of any legal or diplomatic setting;. context is important.

And of course, 'liberty', "freedom', and so on in any civilized, 1st world country are not absolute, and for good reason.

A rapist does not have the "freedom" to rape women, nor a slave owner have the 'freedom' to own Africans as property, nor does one have a right to yell "fire" in a movie theater, and call it "free speech". Nor is there any right at all to 'riot' as opposed to peaceably assemble, and so on and so on.

The same with idiots who think that "free speech" mean that a private individual or employer doesn't have a 'right' or delegation' to decide its own rules within the limits of the law, regardless of what they want to argue about not respecting "free speech" in principle.

A private business, for example does indeed have a legal right to have a legal right to remove people at its own discretions and common sense, regardless of ultimately what one thinks about whether or not they "should" do it - sans a person proving it was done discriminatorily in a way recognized such by the law, such as racial. (For example, a business would have every right to personally decide to remove an individual for promoting Neo-Nazi propaganda, even if technically what they were doing was legally protected, as far as the law goes, the business would likewise have every right to not want to be associated with it, and would not be obligated by law to provide them a free platform to do so at their own expense).

Since the vast majority of these "free speech" arguments are predicated on complete legal ignorance or apathy on what "free speech" actually is, in practice, as far as the history of law and legal precedents and interpretations, and ultimately they could care less about the "constitution" to begin with, and would still be arguing for it simply because they "want to", Constitution or otherwise, since it's predicated on mob psychology and irrationality, rather than so much as having read a single book on the subject or care enough about it to to begin with.

I believe there is something of a mathematical structure or logic behind art, in practice though it requires some good discernment and subjective judgments, as do other areas which there, in practice is no 'perfect' mathematical way of defining, even if there is or 'should' be in pure theory.

As a related example, in courts, there is no perfect mathematical formula or system for defining 'pornography', so in practice, it is left up to the subjective judgments and discernments of the judges, using precedents as a guide.

Can you give me a more detailed description of "Democracy", since the term often gets slightly misused.

As an example, if one wishes to point out "rabid Trump supporters", my understanding as far as political theory is concerned, is that this would be viewed as one of the "negative" aspects of Democracy, as in the sense that many "demagogues" who use strong appeals to emotions and "mob" mentalities or "group-think" over reason is one of the negative aspects of it; albeit a necessary ill.

This wouldn't solely be the case in regards to "Trump" and his supporters, so much as a part of human nature (such as is seen in the psychology surround "sports" riots and violence, for example) but regardless, it proves the point.

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As an example, "direct democracy" would be anarchy or mob rule (there would be no legislators / parliment, judges, elected representatives, etc), perhaps not even any written or encodifed "laws" which is why no contemporary 1st world country is a direct democracy, nor was ever intended to be.

(Direct democracy briefly reared its ugly head in the French Reign of Terror, as a perfect demonstration of why it doesn't work, politics and candidates turned aside).

I'd assume he meant that being "injured", such as losing one's leg in a car accident, was a bad thing, but if you wish to interpret it as an intended "attack" against people for using wheelchairs, nothing can stop you.

For more "serious" gamers or people interested in game design, there's a free ebook by David Sirlin called "playing to win" which discusses the design and philosophy behind video games (as a well as how this relates to other strategic games such as chess).

I'm not sure what you mean by that, and don't find that the more 'serious' or 'competitive' games are simply about wanting to 'go out of the world' or whatever it is you are saying; I find them mentally stimulating, akin to a "serious" competitive or mental game such as chess. Obviously this varies by the game itself, it's design, and so on (such as if it was ever a game intended to be played in some kind of organized tournament or competition, versus a more "casual" game with an emphasis on instant gratification rather than strategy and reasoning).

I'm not an expert on China, I've heard they are less "Communist" today than during the days of Mao.

I'm listening to this on Scribd, very insp9iring, but difficult advice to follow.

One can subjectively feel that life is meaningless, however one cannot affirmatively say that "life is meaningless", as this is effectively saying that the "meaning of life" is to believe life is meaningless.

If "life is meaningless", then a person consequentally doesn't have to "believe" it's meaningless to begin with; they can believe in whatever meaning they want to, or believe in any number of things, whether ghosts, goblins, flying spaghetti monsters, or any other thing, simply because they can, and because they want to.

If some is saying they "can't", then they're lying and saying that the meaning of life is to "believe that it's meaningless", which is an oxymoron, as I've already pointed out.

So if a child's father went to prison for murder or child molestation, would you tell them at 5 years old or wait until they are older?

Interesting, are these themes obvious or are they "hidden"?

I played Dark Souls 3 before, and most of the symbolism and backstory was not very obvious unless one dedicated a huge amount of time examing in-game "lore".

I think you're conflating different things, if by "science" you mean Francis Bacon's method based on "induction" or "empiricism", that's a completely separate institution or method from "deduction", aka logic / reason or "rationalism".

As far as "ghosts, magic, gods", unless someone attempts an actual definition, rather than just a very stereotyped 'image' or 'archetype' of one, I find that discussion rather points.

For the same reason I would find a discussion on aliens pointless, if a person's fictitious idea of an "alien" was a stereotyped cartoon image of "Marvin the Martian", rather than a real discussion about what actually makes an alien an alien to begin with.

"Supernatural" is another term which gets used and abused.

If anything which isn't "natural" in the sense of matter / energy is "supernatural", then one could easily say that mathematics, thoughts, logic, ideas, etc are "supernatural".

Generally this term gets used to refer to "God" or a very clichéd or childish archetype of what a "God" or something similar is to begin with, usually something more akin to one of Carl Jung's archetypes than anything else.

In reality, I believe that such "childish" archetypes and people's perceptions of them exist in other instances, even one's not traditionally thought of as referring to the "supernatural".

The point I'm trying to make is that people can act in a "religious" or "fanatical" way about things even if they aren't traditionally what is defined or perceived as a "religion".

Possibly.

As far as defining it, I'm not an expert, I doubt there's any perfect mathematical way to do it, though I do that most people would reasonably distinguish between a Mozart symphony and someone "farting" into an audio recorder and calling it "music".

At least as much as people would distinguish between a legitimate sport or competition like chess or baseball with some measure of organized rules, versus one beating their head against a rock and calling it a "sport". Even if expression, spontaneity, or innovation is a component as well, and it's not solely reducible to purely 'formal' or mathematical rules, I'd still be tempted to argue there would be something akin to logic behind it.

Not solely "Christian" theology.

I've heard some suggest that the brain is a "receiver" of consciousness rather than a "generator".

On this, I tend to disagree, I won't get into it deeper, but my thoughts is that at the "beginning" of everything, there was some eternally existing source behind the things which came after the fact, this does not necessarily equate to "God", or the Judeo-Christian God, for the record.

Interesting, that could be something which naturally tends to happen when there is a major war.

Tricky subject, but I think that it's well documented, such as by biology or evolutionary psychology that not all behavior is "learnt", as in the outdated myth of "Tabula Rasa" (which even during the day and age when it was popular, was known to be nonsense by legal theorists, such as Holmes in "The Common Law").

As far as "civility" or the law is concerned, the premise of the legal philosophy seems to be that some things are more or less rationally discernable, such as once a person enters the "age of reason" (e.x. that rape and murder is illegal and immoral), and a person can't claim "ignorance" of the law or "bad parental upbringing" as an excuse for their behavior.

What are people's opinions on consensual "domination" fantasies between married or couples (e.x. as depicted by some romance novel authors such as Loretta Chase)?

Some may immediately say that suggesting such a thing is suggesting rape is "good", however as far as the law is concerned, if it legally qualifies as "consensual" then that's what it is, even if the physical act is "identical" to an actual act perpetrated by a "rapist".

Much as how the physical acts in a contact sport like martial arts would be illegal and criminal, if they were done by a mugger without a person's consent, but in the context of a sport, where all participants voluntarily and legally consent, it is not considered as such.

To me it seems pretty cut and dry, but could you elaborate more?

The problem with these arguments is that presume a "good" to begin with.

Such as that if a God exists, it would be "better" for him to care than to not, or that a lack of suffering would be "better" than suffering.

So whether or not one wants to mention a "God", these arguments are appealing to some type of higher source of morality or truth than the ways of the world as it is.

If one is a nihilist, one can't say that "suffering" is even bad to begin with; as far as my take on it, all suffering is "loss" of some sort (death is loss of one's physical body and mental attributions), however if one concludes that life isn't 'worth' living to begin with, they could easily rationalize nihilism, suicide, and things of that nature, which would mean that 'death' or suffering isn't bad to begin with, and something akin to the "Voluntary Human Extinction Movement" would be a more consistent view, in which death should not only be embraced, but expediated as much as humanly possible.

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As an analogy, I'll use a chess match or a video game; if one is playing it "losing" the game is perceived as bad, but that's entirely dependent on there being a way to "win" to begin with.

If there is no way to "win", then there is no way to "lose" either, it's not even a "game" and "loss" is entirely meaningless.

Don't believe it's only "madman", rather people tend to act more irrational when they perceive a wound to their nation or pride has occurred.

I won't go into the histories of recent wars, but the theme is that there have been many diverse people supporting a war, and after things have "cooled down", they look for a scapegoat.

My limited understanding is that, for the most part, war in civilized nations is primarily about ideology or national pride, not rational.

"War for resources" is a myth, except in the most impoverished areas of the world (e.x. Sub-Saharan Africa, street gangs, etc); Typically it's the other way around, it's "resources for the war", the war being an end in and of itself.

As an example, if you want to use a stereotypical "rabid Trump supporter" as an example, they may not literally believe Trump is a "God", however they may refuse to say anything negative about him whatsoever, and treat any criticism even if constructive as a 'personal attack' or insult.

(The same may be true of rabid 'supporters' of any person, cause, idea, but I'm using Trump as this example).

I tend to agree, there was an author on a book called "Combating Cult Mind Control" who also observed that any group, regardless of its particular ideology or beliefs which is predicated on "the end justifying any and all means" is a sign of a cult.

(In this sense, 'cult' is used in a strictly negative sense, as opposed to merely the sense of a group dedicated to a particular person or cause, and not necessarily a "bad" thing to begin with, such as the "Cult of Reason" during the French revolution).

I've read that it's possible that animals such as chimpanzees have a "proto-culture" or "pro-morality or premoral sentiments).

I'm not an expert on ants, but ant colonies are comparable in a lot of ways to human cities.

What are copyright laws in relation to art and entertainment, or the fine line between 'plagiarism' / theft and inspiration, or independently coming up with a similar concept?

(e.x. I used to play the Metal Gear Solid games when I was younger; some of it borrowed themes from James Bond, but it wasn't considered similar enough to be plagiarism).

(Or in other cases, I've heard of bands such as Coldplay being sued by other artists such as Joe Satriani, however it was determined that it wasn't 'appropriated', but rather that the artist independently came up with a similar song; given that all music is based a similar music theory, this is not unlikely).