Now, the practice of psychiatry in the West today is not as extreme as in Nazism, but there are parallels.
— boethius

This is all I need to know.... — Anaxagoras

Since you're continuing to participate, I'll assume you're serious about your proposed moral standard of "not as extreme as the Nazi's".

Please educate me, is this a mainstream view in psychiatry that the moral standard to clear is Nazism? Are there papers, from which you derive the content of your expertise, that explain how this ethical standard follows from sound scientific principles in understanding reality and how it is to be applied in psychiatry practice?

To be clear, the point of my comments is to point out that US libertarian or conservative proponents can't in one context claim Scandinavia is an example of capitalism succeeding, and in another context argue that things like universal health care, free university, strong social net, large and powerful unions, that are features of Scandinavian government, are a path to socialist tyranny.

I wanted to be clear we agree on that before continuing the discussion, as if people disagree, I'd be interested to hear how that works.

If we do agree, then I'd move on to pointing out the word "socialism" also has many different meanings depending on context as does capitalism. With many definitions, Scandinavia has strong socialist component. Even in the Marxist sense: strong unions that de facto share in the ownership of the means of production, perhaps not equally but more than zero, government regulation of industry which is also de facto voter, whom are mostly workers, share of ownership of the means of production. In the sense that socialism is used to refer to strong social safety nets, again a strong socialist component with this definition. In the sense socialism is used to represent the idea that government should advance the "public interest" over "private interests, based on a moral system of property rights defined by those interests", again a strong component of this definition of socialism in Scandinavia.

Likewise, if socialism is used to mean tyrannical micro management by a centralized bureaucracy with zero democratic oversight, then Scandinavia has little of this socialism. If socialism is used to mean a complete absence of a market economy, this also doesn't describe Scandinavia.

These programs are completely compatible with capitalism as it is understood by US conservatives?
— boethius

Actually yes. — ssu

This is your starting point ...

And your end point is:

Hence the argument has to be taken to a country that actually Americans don't know in order to create this idea that the Bernie type socialism is bad and that social welfare programs are incompatible with an economy based on free market capitalism. Yes, Europe is doomed. — ssu

So ... in other words, Scandinavian social programs are incompatible with US conservatives understanding of the term capitalism (due to propaganda? if so, I agree) and are an example of socialism (from their point of view)?

And furthermore, what you call "Bernie type socialism" is actually correctly labeled capitalism?

I don't see how your argument functions.

You place a tremendous amount of responsibility on the mental health community for the enforcement of community values and propaganda on the citizens. — Hanover

No and yes.

No, I avoided using the term "community values", because an oppressive state generally doesn't reflect "community values. I'm sure you're aware that every oppressive and/or totalitarian state claims to be representing "community values".

If community values are indeed reflected in an effective democratic system where no one is disenfranchised and everyone has equal say and political dialogue is open without parties with disproportional external or internal manipulative or obstructionist force, then I would expect mental health professionals to be in constructive dialogue with society to manage the issues outlined above without any fear of career repercussions of criticizing current policies as potentially unethical.

Yes, if mental health professionals are engaged in creating and/or enforcing state propaganda, directly or through all sorts of subtle ways their profession in organized, I place a tremendous amount of moral responsibility on them for their participation.

Mengele was a physician I suppose, but I can't blame medical science for the horrible experiments on human beings, often children, that the Nazis performed. — Hanover

This is exactly my point. There was no incompatibility between the Nazi value system and the science of mental or physical health. Being an expert in mental health therefore is not grounds to argue "we're helping more people than we're harming: trust me, I'm an expert"; Nazi scientists who participated could successfully argue they were top experts in their field. Nazi scientific expertise has no relation to the moral argument of what purpose it served in Nazi society. The point of this is to show that more evidence than "10 years of academic study in psychiatry" is required to argue the function of psychiatry in a given society is doing more good than harm.

As another historical fact (which is why I cited that quote of you above) the 1970s marked a departure from using psychiatric diagnosis and psychiatric treatment on inmates, leading to a far more punitive approach to corrections than previously. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3762476/ — Hanover

This is deflection without any relation to the points I bring up.

First, it's a false dichotomy, "punitive" measures, longer sentences, and worse conditions for inmates known to damage mental health, isn't the only alternative to relying on over diagnosis of the terrible psychiatric framework of the 70s. If you are accepting the premise that the US justice system is oppressive, then and now (something I'm not arguing here, but what principles would apply if it was; so substitute China or Saudi Arabia or then if no oppressive state exists, imagine one hypothetical), then government deciding to make it even more oppressive isn't a good argument for a previous "less bad" oppressive system.

Second, the "departure from using psychiatric diagnosis and psychiatric treatment on inmates" was precisely because the profession entered the exact moral-political crisis that people in this thread are referring to. The state was happy when psychiatry as a whole would diagnose anyone making problems for the state as "mentally ill"; whether it be "all the blacks" are prone to more violence (especially in the sight of beautiful white women) and segregation is scientifically sound, that marijuana leads to mania and should be illegal, why homosexuality is a deviance and thus a crime and a disease, or to just paint any disruptive political behavior as mental illness whenever the need arises; it's a convenient synergy where the state doesn't even have to pretend there's an ethical argument for any given policy and psychiatrists and pharmacology producers make bank and can power-trip without state interfering with nuanced ethical questions: the opposition are all mentally ill! and questioning the profession is the worst mental illness of all (they are "experts in reality" after all, they should therefore know their profession is good in reality).

The policy change from relying on diagnosis and psychiatric treatment of criminals was not because "we might be criticized for enforcing compliance, let's err on the side of safety" but because the discipline couldn't withstand scientific scrutiny. Experts couldn't come to the same diagnosis for the same people, and, famously, a healthy scientists pretending to be "a bit weird" was misdiagnosed and their explanation that it's an experiment to test accuracy of mental diagnosis was itself categorized as even worse mental illness (the scientist couldn't escape, no one knew where he was, and he had to pretend to accept the prescribed "reality" and pretend to get better in order to eventually get released and publish his findings).

At the heart of the problem, there was no scientific basis for evaluating states of mind, but all diagnosis was based on the psychiatrist imagining the state of mind of the patient.

So I don't see what you're suggesting, that it was some voluntary shift of a system that "worked" (to avoid uncomfortable but ultimately unfounded criticism?) to the sad only alternative of increasing punishment, decreasing all forms of rehabilitation (which, again, is a false equivalence with psychiatry and mental health to begin with), and increasing the prison population as a whole?

... Or, was increasing the prison population and increasing punishments a response from embattled institutions to turn the oppressive nobs up where they could on the black community, since the moral justification of the time honored tradition of segregation was falling apart?

But whatever your answer, I don't see the link with the topic at hand.

As for psychiatry, the whole crisis in the 70s emerged precisely because American society was resisting oppression and psychiatry was correctly identified as an integral part of justifying and enforcing those oppressive policies (segregation, homosexuality, female opportunity-gap and "female hysteria", etc.), so dissident scientists set out to test these claims using the scientific method rather than just "some expert said so". In some cases, best practices, under scientific scrutiny, turned out to be literally torture to maintain a disincentive for bad behaviour. In other-words, the entire "science of mind" was under the mass psychosis of believing they could imagine correctly what other people thought and perceived and could predict correctly how their interventions corrected the thoughts and perceptions, and a further mass-psychosis of believing that actual science, starting with basic scientific principles, could and did support this belief. There may have been a period that followed the crisis of more caution, more discussion of the difficult ethical and political questions, but I would say that period has ended since a while now: there's too much money to be had in making society believe it's normal to be mentally ill, which is more or less the point we're at. There's an even larger portion of money to be had making society believe false things are true. Everyone involved has been selected for efficiency in attaining these goals, and benign parts of the profession are selected based on not asking uncomfortable questions. The danger to society, as I mentioned, is mentally healthy people believing that poor performance in adverse conditions are a "you problem" and not a "how society is organized problem" and that luckily you can be fixes! or at least feel less bad about being broken; the other danger is a large portion of people believing total nonsense is fact.

Scandinavian countries aren't socialist, they are capitalist. Period. — ssu

So when conservatives in the US characterize universal health care, free education, and other state run social programs as "socialism", this is just propaganda? These programs are completely compatible with capitalism as it is understood by US conservatives?

My question is: "Is the modern day interpretation of Special Relativity correct?" — MrCypress

Yes. The predictions of special and general relativity come true at the scale of a space ship that goes anywhere in the universe other than inside a black whole (...in which, if a prediction goes wrong, conveniently for relativity the occupants can't come back and tell us about it), according to every experiment we have so far.

If you want to know how special and general relativity works and the experimental evidence for them, there's plenty of resources.

What might be more suitable for a philosophy forum is a short discussion of what general principles are preserved in Einsteinium relativity from Galilean relativity and which change, and sort of the general epistemological questions we can discuss.

In Galilean relativity, velocities commute. If you through anything, a ball or light particles/waves, from a moving train, what you through will move at the velocity of the train plus how hard you threw it. This is how things behave in our everyday experiences. This simple rule as developed further by Newton, leads to what's called universal time. What universal time means is that all observers will be able to agree on when two events happen simultaneously (they may need to wait for signals, but everyone can work out and will agree that two events A and B happened simultaneously or not). If we lived in a Newtonian universe, we'd also all agree on what speed something is going.

The philosophical relevance of this is first that there's no really good reason we couldn't live in a Newtonian universe, as far as I know. Not only is it consistent theoretical, it's consistent with what we experience in our part of the universe (on a planet with weak gravity where nothing goes terribly fast), and, I'd say for both these reasons, is easy to imagine. Everything that happens, happens at the same time, and the universe progresses from one instant to another like a giant film.

However, there's also a deeper relativity principle that Newtonian mechanics obeys, which is that all observers can agree on causation (what events caused other events) and what laws governed that causation (if observer A calculates a given force moved object B, observer C will calculate the same force from any other perspective). If we didn't agree on what causes what and / or we didn't agree on what laws of physics are at play in a event ... we'd be in an epistemological place that would be difficult to deal with.

We don't live in the universal time and simple velocity addition version of relativity, but we do live in a universe where observers will agree on what causes what (that A caused B, and no one will calculate B caused A) and why (that the caused event makes sense to everyone employing the same rules). What we lose from Galilean and Newtonian relativity is universal time (observers don't generally what is happening simultaneously, and if they try they end up in paradoxes) and we also lose simple velocity addition relativity (if you're on a train at 90% the speed of light relative point A, or any speed, and you shine a flash-light forward, you'll see the speed difference between you and the train as the speed of light ... but someone at point A will not see a speed of light difference, but only the 10% difference).

This is extremely difficult to imagine and no one was even pondering such a possibility until experiments started making problems for Newtonian physics. Electro-magnetic experiments and Maxwell's equations led to paradoxes. Basically 2 big ones: that light is a wave and not a particle, and so from this we predict there is a medium for the wave to vibrate in (they didn't have quantum mechanics of wave-particle duality, just electromagnetic fields where light oscillates in); this medium must be "fixed in space" and so we should expect results of experiments to change depending on how fast we're going with respect to the electromagnetic medium. For instance, if two magnets are going through the medium faster, then we'd expect the force they communicate to each other to start to miss, just like two boats side by side don't hit each other with waves if they are going fast enough (they cannot tell the other boat is there, by observing the water, after a certain speed), and so fast magnets should lose force and at some point no longer repel or attract as they can't "see" the other magnet is there. And especially the waves in this medium will be going at different speeds, relative oneself, depending on how fast one is travelling, just like a surfer can catch-up to a wave on the ocean.

It turns out magnets don't behave differently between themselves no matter how fast they go, and even more bizarre, you will always measure light at the same speed regardless of how fast you are moving or from which direction you measure.

This is bizarre, but, thinking fairly deeply, Einstein realized that it's only a really big problem if causality and physical laws don't make sense from different reference frames, and that maybe there's a way to maintain causality in this bizarre setup (this wasn't obvious, other physicists were trying to develop "fixes" to light and magnets and Maxwell's equations that would make everything work out; for instance, in my boat analogy, maybe a different kind of medium than water will have some sort of compensation effect with speed to keep the force the same, so the boats are always affecting each other the same way regardless of speed; maybe they "get less force" but going faster happens to make the affects of waves greater, so it stays the same, these sorts of ideas; for the speed of light, the experimental evidence that it went the same speed in all directions wasn't super strong, most physicists assumed it was experimental error or some similar compensation scheme would work it out).

So, keeping in mind that simple mass-particles don't have any of these wave problems, so this problem doesn't arise in Newtonian mechanics equations, and even adding fields there's no a priori reason that the electromagnetic field wouldn't be like a big fixed fabric through space and we could easily tell when we are moving or stationary to the electromagnetic fabric by observing how our magnets change.

What I find philosophically interesting is that the above Newtonian + Electromagnetic fabric is conceptually simple, but would make physics way more complicated. For instance, as your rocket ship goes faster it may just fall apart, or (even before) that your bio-chemical reactions would stop working properly. Results of experiments would change depending on what direction the earth is moving relative the medium, which would depend the earths rotation, the season as well as the sun's direction in the galaxy and the galaxy's momentum relative the medium. Astrophysics would be ridiculously more complicated as we'd need to take into account how fusion changes depending on the rotational and current velocity of gas in the start, velocity of a star in the medium etc.

So, what I find really interesting, philosophically, is that conceptually Einstein relativity is harder to grasp ... but it describes a universe in which it is far easier to understand what's happening since electromagnetic and nuclear forces don't change with speed relative a fixed frame of reference.

All throughout school I was taught the importance of recycling, turning lights off when you leave the room; in the second grade I wrote a short story about a personified horse who has a dream about an apocalyptic future, and upon waking, realized a new personal commitment to recycling, not littering ect. — Grre

There is a thesis (that I find correct) that what you're referring to is "ecological theater" which puts on stage ecological principles without solving anything. This serves two purposes. First, the government and companies can point to the theatrics and say "look, we're doing something", whether it is to get votes or marketing or things that reduce costs and framing it as ecological action is simply a free win. Second, these theatrics shift the responsibility for the ecological crisis to individual action, not policies; the framework that people can consume what they want is not challenged.

This has a tertiary affect, that I feel your post is a good example of, which is that the people that are ecologically conscious are forced to live as hypocrites in this system and this reduces both internal motivation as well as external legitimacy. For, living fully ecologically as an individual is essentially impossible and, just as importantly, making even a half-decent attempt takes so much time and effort that there is little available for political effort. Now, "leading by example" is a thing and does add value whenever it's possible in life choices, but engaging politically to solve what is fundamentally a political problem (and not consumer choice problem), is also leading by a much better example.

This is the point that people fail to understand. The ecological crisis does not consist of merely pretty forests being cut down. Boo hoo. — Grre

This is another win by the propagandists behind the above points. Preserving nature probably entails valuing nature, and trees vs people is a false dichotomy to begin with as we depend on trees for survival. However, by accepting the paradigm that people are fundamentally more valuable than nature rather than dependent on and a subset of nature (that we cannot rationally value humans, a part, without valuing nature as much or equally, the whole), it more-or-less transfers to legitimizing what any group of humans seem to value and so setting up logical impasses. Some people wanting to continue to drive large vehicles as a single occupant becomes as important in this framework as the safety of the entire planet (to say otherwise is to be a crybaby hippy that values trees over people).

I have a career to attend to, a life, my identity is necessarily built around consumerism and productivity. — Grre

Your identity is not necessarily built around consumerism and productivity. Your identity is contingent on your upbringing, which I agree tries to enforce conforming to consumerism and producing consumer products directly or indirectly, as well as your own choices since becoming conscious of this processes.

Your false dilemma isn't yert vs consumerism, it's yert (isolationism, that can be good for some people who feel politically effective from that position) vs political action.

For instance, if you want to go around arguing in favour of better public transportation... you're probably going to have to use a car, given that's society's system of getting around effectively at the moment.

As to your questions:

-To what extent will we (my generation thereabouts) be morally culpable for our complacency with regards to the ecological crisis? — Grre

As much as every other generation since the issue became alarming (at the latest, around the time of driving the passenger pigeons to extinction).

Which generation is more responsible is a fairly useless question in my opinion. Every generation is responsible, if they are responsible for anything, to meet an existential threat.

-To what extent can we enact change, dispel this disinterest regarding the ecological crisis? What is philosophy's role? Should there be more emphasis on environmental philosophy?? Why waste time debating the role of logic when, likely, the human race a hundred-years from now will be in a very different position? — Grre

I agree a lot of people use philosophical material for escapism (directing the mind to unimportant issues to crowd out the important and uncomfortable ones); and participating in that is of no use. However, if that's not the motivation, every philosophical area is relevant to the ecological crisis. Why exactly do we value humanity or the earth? What ethical conditions should we place, if any, on solving the ecological crisis? What are the correct philosophical frameworks to evaluating fundamentally uncertain scientific studies of future climate in terms of credibility and, most importantly, risk analysis (which is an application of ethically determined risk-toleration levels)? What political institutions and economic systems are integral to the ecological crisis and must be solved in parallel for a good chance of ecological success (i.e. what's the political scope of the ecological crisis)? Should people be manipulated into being "good ecological actors" or are the "would-be-manipulators" counter-productive at best and evil at worst and general good-faith must be assumed: and so non-manipulative information sharing is the morally sound and/or only effective strategy available?

-Is this disinterest from younger generations proof of the inevitability of such a crisis, are we really doomed? — Grre

There are two answers to this question. First, interest of youngsters is very context determined. Countries that have implemented a lot ecological policies don't have much "forced hypocrisy", focus the debate on policy and so don't have the framework that leads to much "forced hypocrisy", and are often actively trying to enable more political engagement of young people on the ecological issue. If you feel that you'd only be effective in a pushing best practices forward even further, it's probably best to just move to one of these places (i.e. places like Scandinavia, which is what I did, but there are other places as well). Where propaganda has been effective in creating scientific denial or a maze of false-dilemmas that render most people that aren't in denial politically ineffective, then it's reasonable to stay if you feel your most effective resisting this propaganda in a very harsh environment (it is mentally very difficult to live in a society that you judge to be a mix of immoral and insane; hence why I moved to Scandinavia, because I viewed myself more effective in pushing forward best practices and policy debate, and that's only really feasible to do "where it's happening", akin to moving to Silicon Valley if you want to make a startup, or New Orleans if your interested in Jazz, or New York if you want to do contemporary art; not necessary, not even effective for everyone, but there's a big "where it's happening" advantage for any activity).

The second answer, is that young people maybe inactive now, but only because conditions are relatively stable. When I was growing up (around a decade and half before you) there was near complete belief among people accepting climate change is a problem that consequences are "a hundred years away" and governments "are on a good enough track to solve the problem" (leading up to and after Kyoto, most people thought it was a watershed moment, as it followed the same pattern as other global issues ... you had to be particular discerning to realize it was basically meaningless, fossil industries weren't "going down without a fight" and they were just getting started).

This 100 years away belief was because the political organs behind reporting on climate science were largely influenced by the oil lobby as well as the media, so discussion of any legitimate risk-analysis (that it could be 100 years away ... but it could be a lot sooner: reasonable to err on the side of caution) was labelled as alarmist. This alarmism paradigm was so effective that people in the climate movement itself started doing the job of propagandist journalist in labeling experts discussing the risks as counter productive (due to the alarmism finger pointing the whole movement will receive from the propagandists).

Fast forward to today and no one believes consequences are 100 years away, and the correct risk-analysis paradigm is coming into view in the media (that to be clear, essentially every expert did know and most tried to present in both alarmist and non-alarmist tones; the media just refused present any risk discussion as anything more than alarmism and kept insisting on "where's the proof").

However, consequences are still no evidently harmful to most people, fires, floods and storms are still either only affecting a minority or are not too damaging as to warrant real alarm. This will change. The reason climate change is so dangerous is because it will keep getting worse and worse. At some point -- when infrastructure fails on larger scales for more time and more frequently, when crop failures lead to food shortages and rationing even in Western countries and disaster scales that exceed even the "disaster fatigue thresholds" that have been built up to that point -- it becomes impossible to project oneself in consumer society. Since young people haven't drunk much the denialist coolaid, when it's no longer possible to pretend life can just "go on as normal" there's only one option available which is to act on the problem. In my view, ecological policy strategy is both "what's the best we can do now" as well as "what material can we prepare for when the crisis becomes intolerable".

I'm disappointed that no one is arguing for the free-market solution I propose to the problem: of letting people act with their own wealth, as it is my understanding the point of this thread was to contrast free market principles and central planning principles in this example.

There's clearly the conditions of a market with specialization of at least shipbuilding and sea fairing skills. By allowing people to use their existing wealth to meet this problem the way they see fit, this no only creates a diversity of solutions but also ensures survival is heavily weighted towards the "wealth creators", which, we can presume based on no evidence, are the kinds of people that can best reboot their society wherever they land. Now, of course there will be less people on boats overall compared to one of the central planning options proposed by the OP, But, private property will be respected in the free market scenario and thus more moral if we assume private property is moral bedrock of society, so what would be hypothetically more effective doesn't matter if we take this view.

However, as alluded to in my previous post, people who will be left to die may get angry. My question is what is the optimum way to deal with such anger to ensure the market runs efficiently and doesn't interfere with the efficient boat building of those with wealth?

I started a thread here, so some of you can continue to bitch a moan under a proper subject. I say "bitch and moan" because apparently a couple of you perceive to act like you know more about the realm of mental health, and considering that I've spent almost ten years of my academic life in its study not to mention this is what my current profession entails. — Anaxagoras

If you review this thread, please consider the possibility that you are cherry picking (selection bias) engagement with only the most extreme anti-psychiatry position, which I am not even sure are as extreme as you think.

As a "mental health professional" your usage of the words "bitch and moan" to minimize your opposition is incredibly typical of people in positions of authority who have no real argument justifying that authority.

Your responses are on par for abrasiveness and some areas I would say exceed, for instance in the category of deflection, your opponents in this debate. In the vernacular, I would say you have been "triggered", far more than your counter-parties that openly admit to a history of mental illness whereas you claim to be, of one degree or another, an authority on mental illness.

You also seem to have problems perceiving the reality here. No one has claimed to "know more about the realm of mental health, and considering that I've spent almost ten years of my academic life in its study not to mention this is what my current profession entails".

Your interlocutors have pointed out philosophical problems in the construction of what "mental health" is, that it is as much a social construction as a scientific construction. The component that is a socio-political construction cannot by definition be professionalized, and naming experts of the socio-political component of mental health is for the purpose of imposing order ... an order that can be challenged on political grounds.

Now, I will admit there is also a scientific component to mental health and that the various mental health professions do help people in this category.

However, the socio-political component is incredibly dangerous to society, and not simply people misdiagnosed or "had bad service" that one can claim are bad apples the profession is always working to remove.

Leo has provided a really good thought experiment that puts this issue in to perspective ... that you dismissed off hand in a thread entitled "Psychiatry’s Incurable Hubris".

If you were a psychiatrist trained in a system where you are taught that concentration camps are normal, and that mentally healthy people are well-adapted to concentration camps, if your career and social status depended on you accepting that concentration camps are normal, would you look at the concentration camp itself as an external factor that could contribute to a person's dysfunction, or would you see the concentration camp as an essential part of reality that the person ought to adapt to? Would you then look for other causes behind the person's dysfunction, such as hypothesized brain defects, and then attempt to treat them by making the person ingest some drugs? If these drugs made the person's behavior appear less dysfunctional in the concentration camp, would you then consider these drugs to be an effective medication to treat the mentally ill? — leo

Your reply was:

You're using a play on words and hypotheticals here because this would be utterly ridiculous. If you expect a serious answer can you use a less ridiculous hypothetical example? — Anaxagoras

Leo's example is not a play on words, I don't see where you get that from. It's also not a hypothetical. The concentration camps actually happened, psychiatrists managed inmates with chemicals to increase compliance, and psychologists and psychiatrists made and applied criteria of what mental illnesses are "undesirable" and weakening German society.

The German psychiatrists and psychologists had all sorts of "science based" theories on why some people needed to be put in concentration camps, developed the criteria for putting people in camps and, once in camps, criteria for distinguishing "good laborers" from the bad. They also experimented on and found chemicals to help people adapt to the conditions in the camp without challenging authority as much.

Now, a lot of this is just bad science (some science specific to Naziism and some more or less global beliefs of the discipline at the time) and if you claim "well, we've learned since then", I'll accept that answer on the science component of mental health (in this debate).

However, part of this practice stemmed from the values of Nazi society and was an entirely logical follow through of those values. "Getting rid of undesirables" is a logically consistent value system and many societies have shared this value, and "deficiencies in mental health" is a logical category of "undesirable". In this case, psychiatrists are charged with identifying, trying to "fix" and if that fails labeling "for extermination" mentally ill people. (They also had theories for why entire ethnicities were mentally ill and performed experiments to see if anything could be done to fix these people and concluded that no; however, to simplify the discussion I want to focus on the Germans identified as mentally ill).

So considering this actually happened and as a university student of the subject for 10 years you are certainly aware, claiming it is a "hypothetical" is deflection at best and disingenuous at worst.

Now, the practice of psychiatry in the West today is not as extreme as in Nazism, but there are parallels.

The danger today (in the West) is not exterminating people, but a displacement of ethical and political dialogue, society must engage in to resolve new political challenges, to psychiatric expertise. For instance, in the past if working conditions became intolerable, the reaction to these conditions was political action; this is how 40 hour work week, for instance, came into being. Today, there is another option available: working conditions are fine, it's individual people who have problems that are "maladapted". So, if the truth is that working conditions are not fine, then the situation is a direct analogue of the concentration camp example: society as a whole is the (granted not as bad) concentration camp and psychiatrists direct their efforts to the people who find conditions intolerable and improve their adaptability; and this can be tracked by science (even if we disregard self-reporting of moods, we can track "people getting back to work" and other objective behavioral metrics; and conclude that psychiatry is "helping people and society").

However, the justification of mental health interventions rests on the justification of the government policies, both in the specific systems that deploy mental health but also in the general good governing sense. If government is oppressive, then the natural reaction is to be angry, anxious, depressed about it (if you are in an oppressed class, of course) and it is these feelings that motivate political change. To lower these feelings with chemicals is to participate not in the assistance of the individual, but in the sedation of society as a whole for adaptation to further oppression.

An extreme example today is the Chinese "re-education camps" of Muslims. Professionally trained to a western standard, psychiatrists and psychologists help build the systems to identify who needs "re-education" and how to "re-educate" them to be adapted to Chinese state management of their land, economy and culture.

Yet the mental health profession in the West has nothing to say about this, and any professional from China involved in the above system could easily move to the West, have degrees recognized and complete any remaining licensing condition, and practice professionally in the West. If they were an effective technician at enforcing state policies in China, there is no reason to question their effectiveness would change in the West. There has been little to no discussion (by the mental health professional community in the West) about the abuse of the science of mind to enforce compliance of an entire culture using large integrated AI systems, re-education camps, manipulating children to give information on their parents, and every other method available, all informed by the behavioral sciences. For instance, there has been no attempt to identify and blacklist participants in this oppressive system.

It's not as extreme in the West, but is there really no analogous issues? And as Leo points out, would you be able to know just in virtue of having a psychiatrist degree?

In the West, psychiatrists and psychologist are an integral part of the enforcement of compliance in school, the work force, public spaces, prisons and the home.

Take school for example. Western schools are to a significant, but a lesser degree than China, also filled with propaganda. Lot's of things in textbooks are verifiably false, misleading or simply absent (for propaganda purposes and not simply time constraint purposes). On top of this, teachers can be prejudiced themselves. If a student evaluates the direction of society as "bad" and so makes the logical conclusion of needing to resist conditioning and "wakeup" his or her peers, what will be the result? An arms-wide welcoming of a critical thinker out to improve society, and a sit down with the student body to put on trial alleged state propaganda? ... Or, will that student be labeled a trouble maker and enter various pipelines to be "fixed", and after the failure of a few disciplinary measures, will find themselves quickly diagnosed with a mental health issue.

Now, if the reality is there is not state propaganda in curriculum, no teacher prejudices in this student's case, and the general direction of society is morally justified, then indeed the student is living either "outside reality" or then the agitation, anxiety and disruptive behavior is due to brain chemical and wiring and the rational of "resisting conditioning" is simply a childish excuse to retroactively justify inappropriate behavior due to an unfortunate underlying physiological and mental condition the student does not have the skills to identify. If chemicals fix the emotions and disruption, it can be considered a win.

However, if the evaluation of the student is correct, then the resistance is justified and diagnosis of a the reasonable response of the student becomes not medicine but an organ of state oppression, to fix the problem at the behavioral level: whether it means sedating political actions or as a form of mental harm to increase the cost of resistance beyond what the student is willing to accept, both mechanisms will have the desired behavioural outcome and contribute to the statistics showing the treatment is effective.

Likewise, if legal working conditions are simply not acceptable, a psychiatrist employed by a company or even sought out by the worker to increase productivity by suppressing natural mental reactions to intolerable living and working conditions, is again a tool of state oppression. If working conditions are fine, then it's just helping the outliers have a normal and productive life. Again, a big difference as to the nature of what's happening.

If a justice and prison system is maintaining oppressive and racist policies and the conditions in prison are inhumane and closer to a concentration camp of forced labour than to anything resembling justice and rehabilitation, then it is justified to resist such conditions. Again, any mental health intervention to enforce compliance of prisoners with prison conditions is a tool of state oppression. If the justice system is great, rehabilitation as effective as it can be, then helping prisoners with mental health issues is part of a good rehabilitation system. Again, big difference.

Now, in all these cases, genuine mental health problems will be mixed in with reasonable methods to resist oppression, so the practitioners will always have clear cases of a mental problem to point at and say: look, no one can deny this persons hallucinating or can't function at a basic level. But this is a red herring used to justify and enable state oppression as whole, which is far more dangerous and damaging to society as a whole than fixing the genuinely mentally ill along with the politically disruptive.

Now, to be clear, this is not a personal attack on you. I don't know what system you are in, and, even in a bad system, being aware of these issues, an individual psychiatrist could try to do more help than harm by allying with the oppressed and either minimizing harm or helping them to "get through the cracks" and advance their cause without being caught by the mental health machine.

However, based on your responses you seem to believe there is no issue, that psychiatry deals with "reality" and never dabbles in enforcing compliance of government policies.

To be doubly clear, I am not asking for a justification of your system visavis the above issues, but response on the principles level. Are the Chinese mental health professional that are helping to track and predict using integrated surveillance and AI systems to minimize disruptive Muslim behaviour doing good work (are they potential terrorists with the mental culturally wide health conditions the Chinese government claims, or legitimate political actors seeking self-determination, as most other nations did at some point)? If they aren't doing good work, are they bad behavioral scientists, or just bad people? If they are bad people, would behavioral science tell them this, if, so, what papers and studies? If there's nothing in behavioral science that would point to an ethical problem, are they not then good behavioral scientist but simply with ethical and political beliefs you disagree with? Likewise, are the examples of the student, worker and prisoner simply impossible? If they are possible would you argue that psychiatrists are trained to identify and "leave alone" legitimate political grievances in the situations I described, in, for instance, the US?

To preempt one potential response, I am aware that these issues have been written about and some professionals maybe aware of them; however, my rebuttal would be only a just society trains to understand and employs people who apply such considerations: an oppressive state will train for and select for effectiveness in achieving the policies.

With the high taxes, crippling regulations, need to build 37 bathrooms (one for each gender) and designated “safe spaces” on each deck of the ship, etc etc, the lava would be knee high before the socialists could launch even one ship. — praxis

What elements of the scenario do you base these conclusions?

The scenario seems to be constructed that each have an equal "expected return" of people surviving, but a different expected return on anyone at all / the culture surviving. The scenario then posits the people discuss the two options but without relation to what their collective goal is.

A better free market analogy is that the choice is between the two centrally planned decisions (when Cesar had his men build a bunch of ships to cross the Adriadic instead of one big ship, this was still centrally planned, just so happens a certain size ship was considered optimum), on the one hand, and on the other a truly free market where people can only use their existing wealth to build ships for themselves or for sale, and that the people that do not own an ax nor any land and cannot build any ships are kindly requested to labour in return for food (or the market rate, if it's slightly more then some, if they labour enough, may even afford a little raft of their own some day) if offered by the people that do have wealth and are also kindly requested not to make a fuss about likely being left out entirely of any benefits society may generate with this approach. The people with wealth would then more effectively allocate those resources to try and save themselves, than some central planner simply mandating a given number of ships be built, regardless of whether it is 1 or several, and appropriating Private Land and Privately Owned Trees to fulfill that mandate. However, if the poor people do make a fuss and cause conflict, then this would lower the odds of surviving for those that do have the resources to build ships. The poor are just moral degenerates if they do that and will need to be dealt with for their attempt to overthrow the social order and steal resources from those that have worked hard to accumulate them prior to the disaster for the benefit, among other things, of being more able to survive in a disaster.

Your analogy is self contradictory.

Allowing everyone to build their own boat will almost certainly result in some death, but it has a much higher chance of saving at least some lives. — VagabondSpectre

Contradicts:

Without knowing something more about the situation, there's no good way decide which strategy is superior — VagabondSpectre

We do have information, which is some small boats have a much higher chance of some people surviving.

Predicting which strategy is superior is impossible without knowing more about the circumstances of the situation and environment. — VagabondSpectre

If the goal is to make sure at least some people survive (to carry on the culture, tell the story) then we already do know that the small boats strategy is best, since you have specified that some small boats have a much higher probability of some to survive: strategy done.

The only reason to change strategies is if the goal is different: for instance people want to "survive as a group or sink as a group", in which case the big boat is the only choice in your scenario, as you also specify that some people in the small boats would certainly die.

In the real world, we wouldn't know if some small boats would be essentially guaranteed to survive. It could be all the small boats sink, and the big boat (more stable, more hands, more volume and resources per person) has a better chance of surviving even compared to a single boat of the flotilla. It would depend on their sailing skills and experience, which you postulate they do have; beyond that, depends on the goal.

If they value "the idea surviving" as Bret assumes they do, then it's whatever results in the highest probability of anyone surviving, which you simply specify the small boats have a better survival chance; so problem solved. If they have little concept of a "wider humanity" for their idea to contribute to, they may not see any value in a single boat surviving but only the community as a whole.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me that this debate is officially no longer productive. All we'd be doing from now is re-asserting points we've already made. — Kenshi

You realize that "what seems to you" is fairly incompatible with "officialness".

What's your standard for deciding a debate is no longer productive?

And productive for whom?

You think that I don't understand your position — Kenshi

Yes, I don't think you understand many of my points. You have yet to respond on what other variable than "being black" affects job prospects for black teenagers. You did not understand by "public vouchers" I meant "public vouchers", a public education system where the rich subsidize the poor.

I don't think you understand mine. — Kenshi

Yes, many of your positions I do not understand your supporting arguments or how you resolve apparent contradictions, that is why I have asked many questions.

You're claiming that I'm accusing you of saying things that you didn't. — Kenshi

I didn't use the word accuse. My claim, for instance vis-a-vis education, was that I was pretty clear that in referring to public education, a public paid voucher based system is still a public system and not a free market system. So by responding about tax-rebate voucher system where the "money is your own" you were not responding to the question. If a free market system is more efficient, then zero education subsidies for the poor would be more efficient (people competing freely for education services): if not, then it is not a free market system.

So this is one example. If you did respond to the actual question, please cite where you do so.

You're accusing me of saying AND thinking things that I didn't/don't — Kenshi

Where do I accuse you of thinking things that you don't. I even say things like "I don't know if you identify as Libertarian", but since it's a argument libertarians often make I think it is useful to present that context for the benefit of other forum participants. Precisely to avoid accusing you of thinking or saying anything you haven't, I ask many questions and specify when I am unsure if a counter-argument applies to your position, which is very unclear to me so I ask questions.

and I reiterate my final statement from my first response: That neither of us are likely to budge on these issues. I thank you for your thoughts. — Kenshi

How do you know if I am likely to budge or not? If your position is simply true and you have good evidence, shouldn't you be confident of persuading anyone seeking the truth of matters? Do you have evidence I am not seeking the truth? Do you have epistemological grounds to know our positions are simply unbridgeable regardless of facts or truth seeking or debate? Or, are you simply not confident your arguments hold up to scrutiny?

Now, if you don't have time, what time constraint is there? Perhaps in this case simply say you don't have time but you may return when you do? Or then that you must pace out your responses.

If you don't have answers to the above questions, you may be confused as to what goes on here. On a philosophy forum, participants generally do not expect to persuade each other in a couple of comments and generally do not even place a requirement of confidence in persuading other interlocutors to there positions as condition for continuing debates.

If it is necessary for you, then speak for yourself, but don't imply that it is a mutual belief that we will not budge from our position or that it is a mutual sentiment that we should therefore not discuss further. Both conditions I would view as irrelevant to continuing to debate. And for my own part, I feel it is actually quite likely that your position will budge, perhaps not today, but based on your comments there is plenty of potential triggers for aporic doubts to flood your entire world view; generally, it is some personal experience, not debate on a forum, that leads to such reflections, but, if I was a betting man required to place a wager on scant information (as most gambling entails), then I would wager events will eventually emerge in your personal life (whether yourself or someone you know) that leads to a re-evaluation of the issue of public health care, education and other social programs. On that day, I will be smiling ... but only because I tend to smile everyday, it's a likely coincidence. For, if free market capitalism turns out not to be the most efficient system, it should be manifest in many practical scenarios.

My issue with them is that they're unsustainable. The market would be better at handling these things because competition drives quality up and costs down. Private/Charter schools in the U.S. are objectively better than public schools. There is also the issue of morality: What if I don't want to go to college? It's still my financial concern that other people get to go? On what grounds do you or anyone else claim the fruits of MY labor? Why should anyone be forced to pay for something that doesn't benefit them? Also, a voucher system is NOT the same as free schooling. It just means that you get to decide where your money goes. — Kenshi

This is I think the core issue, and deserves more unpacking and critique than the erroneous understanding of voucher systems vs actual free markets (where no money of parents to pay for school would equal no schooling).

I want to address here, your question "On what grounds do you or anyone else claim the fruits of MY labor?"

This is the usual contention of libertarians (I'm not sure you identify yourself as that or not, but it's a principle they often bring up). The general pattern is first arguing that a public system is actually worse for the poor somehow, but if that fails due to actual evidence out there in the world that social safety system help the poor, then the real belief comes out which is "taxes are theft".

So, "On what grounds do you or anyone else claim the fruits of MY labor?"

First, on what grounds to you claim the fruits of other people labour to pay for the US military? Or police, or court houses? You seem to be supportive of the US military as well as against corruption. These things are paid by taxes; you are supporting policies which are funded by the government "claiming the fruits of people's labour" to fund.

There's only two places to go for libertarians from here. First, is to say "oh yeah, taxes are theft, the military and police and legal system are paid by taxes, so, yes, these systems need to be also privatized". I don't think this is your case, but I have argued with many libertarians who advance this; that paying for military and police protection should be "opt in". Of course, the break-down of law-and-order in society has actually happened, and people do seek to pay for protection; that's where the term mafia comes from, private justice groups in Southern Italy that emerged to protect people from crime when the tax-funded government became ineffective. Somehow, this form of libertarian can manage to believe the outcomes of the exact conditions they are advocating for actually coming to pass many times in human history, isn't relevant to their argument: free market justice would be more efficient and more moral than public funded justice.

So, the other alternative is to bite the bullet as it were and accept some public institutions are required and need to be paid by a tax system where the rich pay more (as the lowest common denominator can't pay for the system). However, this system of argument becomes just "taxes aren't stealing if it supports policies I support, but it is stealing if it pays for policies I don't support"; libertarians of this group believe that "oh, it's obvious" is some sort of argument, and there need not be any criteria to determine what services should be public and what should be a free market. Obviously, it's not obvious, otherwise there wouldn't be the first group of libertarians claiming that those institutions too should be free market, nor would there be people claiming those and additional institutions should be publicly funded. The only criteria available is of course "it's good for society to have a military, police, and justice system"; notice that it is not "good for everyone", as such systems aren't good for the leaders of criminal gangs that benefit from lawlessness.

So, if taxes are stealing, "fruits of labour appropriation", then this principle doesn't actually matter if you are in this second line of reasoning. And I would agree that taxes are labour and value appropriation, and under certain definitions of stealing I would even say "yes, it's theft of the majority on minority groups using violence"; the state (when functioning) is a monopoly on violence in a region; taking things using violence is the simple definition of theft, unless we basically add taxes as an exemption (which is how society actually uses the term; it's theft if it's not through the justice system, if it is through the justice system, and no corruption occurred that an effective justice system would try to correct, then it's by definition just and we call it taxes instead).

Now, there's a third group of libertarians that are aware the above lines of reasoning go nowhere; making everything free market and nothing paid for would mean not having the conditions of what is meant by a free market (protection of private property, both internal and external, contract enforcement, and a hodgepodge of other regulations of the market, such as consumer or investor protections, that a given libertarian supports), and as soon as we say "taxes are fine for A, because it benefits society as a whole" then it is open season to debate what other things can be supported with the exact same argument: such as universal health care, education, worker protections and safety nets, as well as limits to monopoly formation and wealth accumulation whenever it is more dangerous than beneficial to society.

So, this third group, though often using the "taxes are theft" when dealing with less sophisticated opponents or potential converts, argues in the presence of more sophisticated opponents that yes there is a criteria, which is whatever maximizes personal liberties on the whole. So the state can in fact infringe on your liberties, such as exacting a tax, if it on the whole maintains more people's liberties than not.

Since you are in the second camp, that taxes are theft, we should for now stay on that topic, but I wanted to foreshadow the two places to go from there: either everything is free market, including defense and justice, and there is no tax (state enforced theft) at all, or then, regardless of whether we call it theft or not, taxes are fine under some conditions, if it maximizes personal liberties overall. Now, there's a fatal flaw to this third argument as well, but it's only relevant if you are abandoning the "On what grounds do you or anyone else claim the fruits of MY labor?" position. I don't want to assume that is a foregone conclusion.

1: It's arbitrary because market value has nothing to do with the health of society. — Kenshi

You're saying smoking does not lead to ill health for both smokers and anyone inhaling second-hand smoke?

If it did, it ought to just be banned. — Kenshi

You are really ready to ban everything that is bad for society's health? For instance, if it was shown that car exhaust was bad for society's health, you'd support just banning cars outright, and certainly any elective use of cars?

2: I do NOT condone every way that people gain capital. No Capitalist does. Using the state to get rich is socialist if anything. — Kenshi

Capitalists that use the state corruption to gain more capital condemn themselves?

I don't follow; there actually socialists?

Some capitalists (people who have and control large sums of capital) only believe in gaining more power and wealth for themselves; in other words, they believe in "might is right". They not capitalists in your view? Or do they not exist? Or are they actually socialists? What version of socialism do they follow?

If and when a capitalist corrupts the organs of the state to increase their capital and influence, this is not socialism.

The expression of "socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor" when capitalists get bailouts and subsidies; it is pointing out the capitalists that argue for people "competing fairly" without a social safety net, and no government intervention in markets and certainly no subsidies for competing industries or the poor, suddenly want a safety net for their company and industries and state intervention to "maintain market stability" when their own interests are threatened and of course to keep the subsidies their own industries have been receiving for decades. The point that is being driven at, is these capitalists who fund propaganda (via think tanks, owning media, etc.) against safety nets, government intervention and subsidies, only bring out these arguments when they serve their interests. When it doesn't serve their interests, they suddenly have a different set of arguments supporting government intervention, subsidies and bailouts.

In other words, they are hypocrites. "Socialism for the rich" is supposed to be ironic, not that they are actually socialists.

However, for certain forms of libertarian and conservative ideology, this creates a problem, as if it is claimed that the rich produce value and social good for everyone by pursuing their own interests, then it follows from this that if you can gain by corrupting the government and court systems and get away with it, then you have followed your own interest and gained handsomely, so what is the problem?

So, is there are moral problem of corrupting the state for one's own benefit? Why isn't this "being good at competing" within society? If it's not good, is there a problem with the idea of competition as the basis for value creation? If so where? Likewise, if there is a problem, who should try to fix it, what arguments should they make to justify fixing it, and what steps should be taken?

4: Who are you even talking about? How do you even know that these people exist? Even if we knew, at least some of them would be black. Thomas Jefferson had 6 black children. Also, most wealthy people are self-made, not heirs, so it seems to me that this issue is a non-sequitur. — Kenshi

This does not address the question. The question I raise are in principle. If in principle, the slave trade was capitalism doing good by creating wealth through people competing to capture slaves and extract value from them, as with any resource, then there's nothing more to discuss.

However, if you want to deflect, let's deal with your deflection. "Most wealthy people are self-made" is simply untrue. Most wealthy people are born in the upper class and remain in the upper class; it's called social mobility and there are statistics available for the present and the past.

5: Black teenagers generally live in big cities with bloated minimum wages and terrible government-funded schools. This combination has made it far worse for them economically. — Kenshi

You clearly do not understand my argument. You have made another argument where the only variable tying black teenagers to their conditions is that they are black. Therefore, from your argument we must conclude the conditions are because of their blackness.

6: R&D is not the same thing as automation. They accomplish entirely different tasks. People DO benefit from automation. If not for factories or GMOs, we'd lose immeasurable resources and many would starve, not to mention the number of technological advances that few people would be able to afford anymore. In terms of whether or not the government should be handling such things, why? 75% of all FDA approved drugs come from the U.S., nearly entirely privately funded. If not for the FDA (a Government Program), even MORE medicine would be available to people. So no, I don't think that the state is particularly well equipped to deal with R&D. — Kenshi

Did I say R&D is the same as automation?

I'm sorry but I will not be able to continue the discussion if there's no good faith read my words; if you say I say something, quote me.

I said "workers through their taxes fund a large part of the R&D that results ultimately in new automation that replaces their jobs".

I am clearly referring to the "R&D that results ultimately in new automation". That statement does not exclude other forms of R&D, so that quibble is not available. As for substance, what's the alternative to automation resulting from R&D? That it is spontaneously invented?

I also clearly state that the issue is not about automation itself.

I literally say "I don't view automation as bad. I was simply pointing out that the "socialist" issue around automation is who gets all the benefits, who owns capital (the means of producing things); socialism has no problem with automation."

The question is who benefits. In our system as it is today, governments fund, especially the early speculative and high risk components, the R&D which later industry employs to automate; that funding is through taxes that the workers contribute to, who then lose their job. My question is that is this a fair setup? If the workers contribute to the automation, shouldn't they also benefit? For instance, through a social safety net being available to deal with job loss that is disproportionately contributed to by the taxes on the wealthy that have the direct benefit of automation (i.e. through a progressive tax that pays for social systems that benefit directly the worker being automated; as the rich do not need public transport or subsidized education or healthcare, as they can afford it).

7: Where do you think these countries got the money and resources to do these things? Capitalism and Free Trade. Doctors and teachers don't work for free, In your case, they're tax funded. Taxes come from income which is created by the market. Under Communism/Socialism/Marxism, no new capital is created and everything becomes horrible. To quote Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." Don't twist my words into saying that free healthcare and education are good things. My issue with them is that they're unsustainable. The market would be better at handling these things because competition drives quality up and costs down. — Kenshi

It's you that implied Scandinavia are examples of capitalism working, even quoting the Danish King, which, as a Finn, isn't much of an authority on anything (Finland has no king, Finland needs no king).

Scandinavia has universal health care and free education at all levels, so if you use Scandinavia to support your arguments as successful "market economies", my question was how do you explain these social systems they employ. How are they able to compete as high-tech, high-innovation countries with an inefficient public health and education system? If they've succeeded despite these inefficient systems, what's the mechanism?

You proposed these arguments, how is it twisting your words to ask you to explain how your arguments work?

Private/Charter schools in the U.S. are objectively better than public schools. There is also the issue of morality: What if I don't want to go to college? It's still my financial concern that other people get to go? On what grounds do you or anyone else claim the fruits of MY labor? Why should anyone be forced to pay for something that doesn't benefit them? Also, a voucher system is NOT the same as free schooling. It just means that you get to decide where your money goes. — Kenshi

This is just more bad faith debate without reading what I say.

I say a publicly funded voucher system is a public system, not an example of a private system. A private education system is one where you only get the education you can afford.

If you pay taxes that fund a public education system, either through vouchers or public school boards, you are funding things that don't benefit you.

A voucher system is free schooling if your parents would not otherwise afford any school. Going to university for free is free schooling for the students that do not pay. Now, is there a cost that is paid by not-the-student, yes. I think I have been pretty clear that taxes pay for these systems.

Now, the grounds that the government, and society insofar as the government represents society, can use to tax you is simply that it can. Nearly all societies have taxes, and nearly all societies have tax systems where the rich pay more taxes than the poor. There are different reasons society's have had to justify taxes.

But, before going into those reasons, isn't it just winning at competition to be able to tax? Agreed, it's not winning if those taxes are counter-productive, but assuming they are productive and benefit most people, isn't this most people getting together as a team and "winning" against individuals that would rather not be taxed? Why should the winning side need to justify their actions to the losing side? Seems like sour grapes.

8: Vouchers are SELF funded. It's YOUR money. — Kenshi

There are two voucher systems. I clearly state publicly funded vouchers. For tax-rebate based vouchers, this is simply the ability to take the money in one's taxes that would otherwise represent contribution to one's children's schooling, and use it to pay or partly pay for private schooling. However, one is still paying taxes (especially if one has kids) that cover the schooling of any child of poor parents who is going to school (whether that system is vouchers or public school board). It's another debate which of these public systems is better and under what policies. Neither are a free market system where people can only buy what they can afford. Both are public, and I state ahead of time I am referring to both systems as public funded schooling precisely to avoid obfuscation with "market principles" in a public system: if you are supporting market principles in a public system, you are still supporting a public system created due to collectivist concerns (the difference is only on the technical implementation of the system; there is no ideological difference). A free market education system is one where parents buy the education services they can afford; just like if you can't afford a fancy car in a free market system society does not buy you that car, if you can't afford education for your children society does not buy you that education.

9: China is a good example of how Capitalism produces wealth. THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT IT'S OK TO HAVE AN OPPRESSIVE STATE. With more freedom, China would be great. Why isn't it free? Communism. Why is it rich? Capitalism. Capitalism>Communism — Kenshi

Do you have any arguments to back this view up? Did China use a free market capitalism to train their workforce? Did they use unregulated markets with little state intervention?

Your argument seems to be backwards, that anything you consider good you attribute to capitalism, anything you consider bad you attribute to socialism and / or communism. If capitalists are corrupting the state, that's "bad" capitalists. If China has industrialized, that must be capitalism (nothing to do with the "great leap forward", or Western nations and firms agreeing to "open china up" and use wage and environmental arbitrage to produce cheaper, not because of a free market where people are free, but because China has a tyrannical oppressive state that crushes any movement that wants freedom, better working conditions, better environmental laws). Who has benefited? We agree it's not really the poor as they are not more free. So who has gotten all this wealth? Is it through honest, nose to the grind stone competition? Or is it mostly through state corruption?

13: ANY European country would be absolutely CRUSHED by the U.S., Russia, China or Iran. Exactly ONE of those countries is interested in protecting Western Europe.

Because of that, Western European countries don't need to spend too much on defense, so they have more money in the budget to spend on social programs. — Kenshi

This is simply factually wrong.

Your saying that without the US, Russia, China and Iran would invade the EU?

Now, if you're talking about the cold war with the Soviet Union, where there was a legitimate threat to invasion, it's still a complicated issue between the US overestimating Soviet forces (largely thanks to employing the Nazi in charge of soviet intelligence who wanted more budgets and more Nazi friends hired, and a bigger Soviet threat aided that), and UK and France having a Nuclear deterrent as well.

But it doesn't matter as the cold war is over. China or Iran invading the EU is simply laughable.

In the case of Russia, they have a lot of tanks, missiles and planes, so I would grant there is some sort of contest in a full-scale invasion of the EU by Russia absent the US. I still wouldn't bet on Russia though, the EU has a larger population, far larger military budget, many states have conscription (which is a significant force multiplier). Russia has far more nuclear weapons than the UK or France, but you don't need thousands to maintain a nuclear deterrent; hundreds will do.

However, if you feel Russia, China and/or Iran would invade the EU without the US around, please explain how this is both politically and militarily likely to succeed?

The alternative, is that US military spending is not in the benefit of Europe; it benefits US elite interests. Not only could the US military budget be easily reduced to pay for universal health-care, it's not even economically necessary to do so. The US health-care system costs more as a percentage of GDP than European peers with worse outcomes, and so changing to a European style health care system would simply shift money currently spent today on private insurance (with mandated "no negotiating" prices) to a single payer system that could, with money to spare that could then be used to increase military spending!

But, more importantly, which one is it: The US must sacrifice it's health-care (foregoing a more efficient and beneficial public system) to spend on its military to protect fragile Europeans ability to pay for a public health care system? Or is it that a private free market health care system is more efficient and benefits everyone and makes society better, and so the US is only helping somehow for Europe to harm itself with public health care systems?

There's one more critical problem with your arguments, perhaps the root, which warrants much more time, so I will put it in it's own comment.

I think people simply prefer a single answer to problems. Blaming “Capitalism” for all the woes of the world is kind of silly, yet deeply appealing to those who feel hard done by. — I like sushi

Since you are replying to a Kenshi who's replying to me, it seems implied that you are referring to my "blaming capitalism". However, please correct me if I'm wrong and you are referring to others in the thread or just people out there.

If you bothered reading my post, no where did I blame "all the woes of the world" on capitalism. If you furthermore read carefully, I focused on specific issues such as crony-capitalism, free education at all levels, universal health care, publicly funded poverty reduction programs of any sort. My main purpose was to respond to the idea that "only capitalism" has reduced poverty.

I make clear that capitalism is used in two sense, an hypothetical free market in some contexts, and in other contexts as the essentially Western "system as is" (where if we are talking about technology, it's an example of how "capitalism" of the first time works in practice, and if we're talking about market failures and monopolies this is due to the system not being real capitalism but big government and social programs are preventing getting the benefits of real capitalism; i.e. the system is and is not capitalism depending on context). So, depending on how capitalism is used I may or may not various things to say.

In some contexts, proponents of these first two definitions of capitalism use a third definition of capitalism simply referring to the need of "capital tooling and investment" to make anything. I agree.

So it depends what we're talking about. If we're talking about markets with regulations to internalize the true cost of production into the cost of the product and regulations to prevent working condition and environmental arbitrage, I have no problem with such markets. If this is what someone means by "capitalism" then I do not view this as a problem for society. If someone wants to use this definition of capitalism but not use a reasoned science and precautionary based risk-benefit framework to evaluate "true-costs" but rather a hodgepodge of fanciful reasoning originating with paid propagandists, then I do have a problem.

Likewise, if by capitalism you mean "market based economy" where education at all levels if free (including retraining), healthcare is universal, voting is proportional, there is robust public transportation, public funded news and cultural programs, housing is subsidized for the less wealthy, and taxes are progressive, the budget balanced, parties get money for each vote they get and private campaign financing is limited and strict, a very wide definition of corruption, and there is conscription for the defense of the nation but a constitutional block to invading another country, then I can get behind your definition of capitalism. Do these policies count as capitalism at work for you?

And the motivation behind arbitrarily increasing the cost is irrelevant. — Kenshi

If the motivation is not arbitrary, then the action is not arbitrary. You can just say "increasing the cost decreased motivation to buy". The only reason to add "arbitrary" is to try to avoid saying "for the purpose of internalizing the true cost to society". It is not just semantics.

Do you agree that increasing the cost of cigarettes internalizes the true cost to society in the cost paid for the product? Do you agree that this is a good policy to follow with cigarettes as well as any other product? Why or why not?

Capitalism is about the "free" exchange of goods and services. Capitalists often call for less government control of the market for exactly the things that you mention. There's a reason that the practices you talk about are known as "Crony Capitalism", because everyone knows that those are examples of capitalism being exploited, not implemented. — Kenshi

Yes, I mention in my post that there are two definitions of capitalism used by the proponents of capitalism: hypothetical "free markets" is one definition and "the US / Western system as it is today" is another definition. These definitions are of course not referring to the same thing.

For instance, when you say "Nearly every instance of the elimination of poverty has been the result of Free-Market Capitalism" you are clearly referring to systems that actually have and do exist.

If capitalists can use their money to pass laws to make "crony-capitalism" legal; how is this "exploiting capitalism". They've used their capital to make more capital, what's the problem vis-a-vis capitalism. Should constraints be placed on people who control large stores of capital to convert part of their capital into influence that legalizes and promotes "crony capitalism"? What should these constraints be? If there shouldn't be constraints as people should be "free to use their money as they way" and this leads to the crony capitalism being amplified, entrenched and a positive feedback loop of using crony capitalism to get generate more capital to generate more crony capitalism, how then should this problem be solved?

When you say "practices you talk about are known as 'Crony Capitalism', because everyone knows that those are examples of capitalism being exploited, not implemented" does this include the politicians implementing crony-capitalism into law and the lobby groups promoting to the public these crony capitalists laws are actually good or freedom or whatever? If these people know they are exploiting capitalism for their own benefit, how does this contradict the motivation to make as much profit as possible? Is anyone in the wrong? If not, presumably it's up to the people to stop them, but it f there is no economic benefit to engage as a citizen in politics as the effort to vote does not equate with the likelihood of affecting the outcome (free rider problem), then how are people who don't engage in politics in the wrong for likewise following their own interest?

Many, MANY more black people came to this country voluntarily than they ever did as slaves. — Kenshi

What are the numbers here? "Many, MANY" seems to me like orders of magnitude, what do you mean by this in terms of numbers?

Only 2-8% of whites owned slaves when it was legal, and there's no way that anywhere close to the majority of whites are descended from slave owners, nor blacks descended from slaves. — Kenshi

I did not say "all whites" nor a majority of whites, I said the descendants of slave owners that benefit from capital accumulated during the slavery. Is it fair they keep the benefits of slavery? To start, only even in principle. If it's fair, was slavery just and simply capitalism at work (free folk using their labour to kidnap people and use them as slaves)? If it wasn't fair nor capitalism at work, should the stocks of capital that resulted from slavery that still exist today that are used to extract rents, an example of capitalism working? My question here is not whether there is a practical method of separating slave-derived capital from other forms of capital, my question is one of principle of whether such stocks of capital are fair or not? Would such capital come from "'free' exchange of goods and service" which you claim capitalism is and so it seems to follow all stocks of capital are examples of the result of "'free' exchange of goods and services", does this include the capital that resulted from slavery? Or does capitalism not include all forms of capital. If not, please explain.

I say that the system is fair because good life choices are the biggest deciding factor in long term wealth, not race/color. The poverty rate of black married couples is 7%, the poverty rate of white single parents is over 20%. The Brookings Institution (a Liberal think-tank) found that American citizens that graduated high school, didn't have children before marriage and worked full time almost never wound up in poverty, and given the number of ways that one can ruin themselves financially, there's no reason to immediately assume that the remainder were poor because of some kind of bias. Also, "good responses"? I really hope that doesn't mean what I think it means. Also, "racism"? I'm black, so is my grandmother who grew up incredibly poor, and despite being a single mother of 2, she went to college on a loan, got her degree and worked her way up to a 6-figure salary, a 3-bedroom house and 2 cars. Living proof of what I'm talking about. (It's just an example, I'm not claiming that anecdotal evidence is finalizing) — Kenshi

I don't see what your point here is and I don't think you understood my argument.

If there are no structural reasons that "especially black teenagers can't find jobs"; i.e. if there are no processes in society that have disadvantaged black teenagers, that the only variable is that they are black and they can't get a job because they are not willing to work for low wages; then the only variable left is that they are black. If the only variable is that they are black, then they are poor in a fair system because they are black and because the system is fair it must be that black people are less capable.

To remind you of your words, you say "Regardless of how big a company gets, it's never worth it to pay someone say, $12/hour when their productivity earns you something like $10/hour." and you follow from this premise with the conclusion that "That's the reason that teenagers, black teenagers in particular, have so much trouble getting jobs."

The premise is true for all people, but you say it's particularly true for black teenagers. If there isn't some unfair structures within society built up over time to disadvantage black teenagers (that the system isn't fair), then your argument is it's particularly hard for black teenagers to get a job because they are black. You have no other variables in your argument and you seem to be saying the system is fair, so again, how is this not vanilla racism to attribute the cause of black "under performance" to the variable of being black?

What would "good responses" mean in this context other than solid arguments that address my questions? I don't see this or any of your response addresses my questions.

5: No, it's not a recent phenomena, it's just of particular concern to people today. Automation is on the whole, a good thing considering all of the affordable luxuries we now have as opposed to people of the same, or in many cases even greater economic strata, say a century ago. Plus, even with all of the automation and outsourcing that has and does occur, the vast majority of us are still employed. Even if you think that automation is entirely bad, you're only making it worse by arbitrarily raising the cost of labor. — Kenshi

I don't view automation as bad. I was simply pointing out that the "socialist" issue around automation is who gets all the benefits, who owns capital (the means of producing things); socialism has no problem with automation.

To provide food for though, a lot (most) of fundamental R&D is paid by the state because it is too early stage and too high risk for investors to finance. In other words, workers through their taxes fund a large part of the R&D that results ultimately in new automation that replaces their jobs; yet, the worker that is replaced doesn't benefit in this scenario. Should the state not fund R&D with people's taxes? Should part of the value produced by automation be redistributed back to the worker who's taxes helped create it (for instance, through things like re-training, health-care, general safety net while finding a new job)?

6: I wouldn't say that those things don't help the poor. I just think that the market is a more powerful tool to solve the problems associated with those institutions than the state. Also, I think it's disingenuous to say that something is good because it's free. In England, you are far more likely to die during a hospital visit, forcing universal health care on people was deemed a human rights violation by the Canadian Supreme Court, etc. — Kenshi

I'm no sure you understand what your words "Nearly every instance of the elimination of poverty has been the result of Free-Market Capitalism" mean. By saying "nearly every instance" is due to X, this implies it's a very small part that is due to not-X.

I am glad you have revised your position, and agree that universal health care and free education help the poor. However, please explain how a free market is a more powerful tool to provide education and healthcare or that going without these things is a counter-intuitive help to the poor. Also, in the case of education, please keep in mind a "voucher system" is still public funded education; I

The Prime Minister of Denmark openly said to stop pointing to them as a beacon of socialist success. "Denmark is FAR from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a MARKET economy", he said. — Kenshi

have zero problem in principle with a voucher system, if it is the same voucher for all students it is public-funded-education and fair (whether vouchers and which kind of voucher system and if and what kind of quality control is needed, is more effective than public school boards, is a different subject). Free-market education is not public funded voucher system, but children only getting education that they or their parents can afford, and someone not being able to pay for something means not getting that something.

I said "nearly". Even so, China is a free trade GIANT. — Kenshi

Yes, I agree China is a free trade giant, is this a good example of capitalism? You seem to equate capitalism with free trade, so is communist China a good example of capitalism and the wealth the communist party has accumulated a good example of capitalism at work?

They also only really lift people up when they display excellence of some kind and greatly impose on the freedoms of such ones. — Kenshi

I'm not sure what this means, but I understand that you admire parts of the Chinese communist party system? Or no?

My support of Capitalism is really more about freedom than anything else. Even though China is rich, it's not free. So no, I don't think the citizens of China are well off, but it has nothing to do with Capitalism. — Kenshi

How does this follow from China being a free trade giant due to integration with the global capital system? Since you agree that the Chinese are not better off because they are not more free (we agree here), how is capitalism not involved if the wealth and power of the communist dictatorship is due to integration with free markets? Is the global free market system not an example of capitalism?

In regards to the Scandinavian countries, Sweden is probably the most successful and they have VERY low tax rates on big businesses and the wealthy, it's the middle and lower classes that are funding their welfare state. — Kenshi

But above you said that a free market system is more effective than universal health care and free education. If Sweden is a success, did they achieve this despite inefficient well fair state policies or because of them?

It's not clear what your position is on universal health care and free education.

The Prime Minister of Denmark openly said to stop pointing to them as a beacon of socialist success. "Denmark is FAR from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a MARKET economy", he said. — Kenshi

Yes, Scandinavia is a market economy, but not anything close to a free market economy. The Scandinavian countries have a social democratic system with a strong well fair state. There are a lot of environmental regulations, there are strong unions, there is free education at all levels, free money for the poor and various poverty programs, there is universal health care, there are tax and tariff systems that seek to internalize the true cost of products.

Do you view all these policies as example of well run free market system? If not, how does this square with your view that these countries are a "success"?

The U.S. has the largest defense budget in the world and spends more than the next 26 highest spending countries combined. This is because the U.S. has a vested interest in keeping as many countries free and trading as possible, because that keeps the country rich. Most of the free world benefits from this, ESPECIALLY the smaller European countries. At the end of the day, all of the Scandinavian countries employ Capitalism just to stay afloat, and in some ways are MORE Capitalist that we are. — Kenshi

I'm not sure how this argument follows. How are the Scandinavian countries "more Capitalist"? Also, keep in mind that Finland has conscription and is not part of NATO, and so has hundreds of thousands of reservists; Sweden too has conscription (we Finn's just don't take them seriously).

They don't even have a minimum wage. Every time I've tried to find it, I'm given graphs of "average earnings", not minimum. They understand that the rich are the ones stimulating their economy and that without them, the whole thing would crash and burn. — Kenshi

I'm not sure about the other Scandinavian countries, but in Finland it is true there is no mandated minimum wage across all industries. However, there is a law that if unions representing 50% of an industry come to an agreement with their counter-party employers on a minimum wage, this minimum becomes law for the whole industry; i.e. smaller unions or non-unionized businesses cannot undercut the large unions. It is basically the extreme opposite of right-to-work laws. Is this Finnish approach to minimum wage a good example of "more capitalism" in the sense of free trade based on personal value? Why or why not?

I'd just like to conclude by saying that you are very well spoken and intellectually challenging, which I greatly appreciate. I get the feeling that neither of us is going to budge on this, but I appreciate you forcing me to try rationalizing my positions. I hope we can both agree that we both want what's best for our poor and just don't see eye-to-eye on the solution to poverty, rather than assuming malicious intent of the other. Cheers! — Kenshi

I have not assumed any malicious intent, so please be at ease. Where I am unsure of your position I have asked for clarification. I appreciate you reading and responding to my post. I think it is premature to assume no one will budge. I have moved a lot on all these issues over the years.

However, when you say that the debate has "helped you rationalize your positions", it is an interesting phrasing. One interpretation is that you already decided your on your conclusions even if you had no good reason to at the time, and now generating reasons backwards from your conclusions. Another interpretation is that you have strong intuitions that require more work to articulate. Perhaps a combination of both. Maybe worth thinking about.

Thanks for this, maybe we need to define (or take as assumption) that the functional definition of time for an entangled state, or indeed that of a waveform, is zero or instantaneous. This could offer insight into quantum phenomena such as observed in the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser - where the choice to measure the interference of an entangled photon is made after its pair has already hit a detector. — Jonmel

Yes, I alluded to in an above comment that functional time does not exclude metaphysical definitions of time. For instance, the time between clock ticks (i.e. the shortest and most accurate clock ticks we can make) has no functional definition, but we are free to presume that there is a non-functional time that does pass between clock ticks. Likewise, the "time" used to progress quantum states between observations is not functional (by definition we are not making any observations, about anything including clocks) and again we are free to employ and use a non-functional definition of time to try to understand better what is going on.

You may have noticed that I, and others with training in the math of relativity and quantum, have a strong tendency to avoid any interpretation at all. And, many professionals would hear "metaphysical time" and react immediately that the conversation is meaningless.

However, by trying to understand "what's going on" from different metaphysical points of view (that, should be noted, cannot be eliminated altogether: functional time depends on meta-physical definition and intuition of time to be formulated), in my view is productive way to clarify ideas as well as generate new ideas.

So these conversations I fully endorse, whether between professionals or amateurs.

However, once one understands the math ... it's very hard to actually come up with interpretations or any candidate for "true time" other than "that time in which clocks tick". Quantum and relativity have a way of making any real change to these theories essentially unthinkable, and the theories themselves have a way of making any access to the underlying reality (the "true substance") completely opaque. For instance, questions like "is 4D space-time a single 'material'?" and "what 'decides' any particular quantum observation?" have no sensible answers. Relatively presents space-time as a 4D "object" that is static (yet we experience time) and quantum theory rules out any "hidden local variables" that determine the results of any given experiment in a "sensible way", and yet any particular experiment has a result (we really do experience only one of the probabilities, and yet quantum theory essentially rules out even the possibility in principle of getting any insight ever into what makes a particular experiment spin up or down, the detector activate here or there).

What's even crazier than perfectly sensible questions being eliminated in principle from our theories (unlike in Newtonian physics where universal time goes forward moment by moment and any process will be wholly determined by probing smaller processes that make it up), is that our two theories are not mathematically compatible.

As for the issue at hand, how "entanglement works" again has no sensible approach to answering in quantum theory as it exists today. It simply is what happens, there's no way to explain how it happens. But it is not actually much more bizarre than other quantum things, it's just we've gotten used to each individual experiment being "purely spontaneous" and the uncertainty principle between momentum and position. What's different with entanglement is only that it took more time to rule out completely every local variable possibility.

However, there remains the possibility of a complete revolution in physics as profound a change as classical to quantum. But within the context of the theories as they are today, everything does make a lot of sense. There's not some trivial or obvious nonsense happening with modern physics theories; this is the basic point I'm trying to make in this thread.

Going beyond our current understand is a profoundly difficult and subtle undertaking. A lot of really smart people created our theories, made them work and many of these same people also tried every way they could think of to make it "sensible". Nevertheless, it is a journey I wholeheartedly encourage anyone to join.

Wages are meant to be based on productivity and merit. When you arbitrarily increase the value of something, fewer people want it. — Kenshi

When you say "meant to be" do you mean "actually are"?

When you arbitrarily increase the value of something, fewer people want it. We did that with cigarettes, for example. — Kenshi

Do you mean arbitrarily increase the cost? How would you arbitrarily increase the value of something? And in the case of cigarettes, if your talking about the increase in cost due to taxes, was it arbitrary or was it based on internalizing the real cost to society (second hand smoke, various social costs for people dying prematurely) into the cost of the product?

Regardless of how big a company gets, it's never worth it to pay someone say, $12/hour when their productivity earns you something like $10/hour. — Kenshi

Neither proponents of capitalism nor socialism (of whatever form) argue about people producing more than their wage. The discussion is, given that producing more than one's wage is a given for an activity to be economic, what is done with the surplus.

In a an "ideal capitalist" system (what proponents of capitalism imagine when they justify capitalism), owners of capital get capital by working harder, being smarter and more innovative, in investing and building businesses and however the surplus is divided up is fair.

In capitalism as it is actually implemented today, owners of capital are able to own land and housing and monopolies on various needs and extract rents from the working class who do not have capital. In our actual reality, a large part of this rent extracting capital originates prior to our modern democracies in feudal rights, profits of wars, appropriating land and minerals from natives etc. and another large part of this rent extracting capital is due to government protected monopolies, through laws a tiny part of this capital is put to work to form through legal forms of propaganda and influence as well as illegal forms of corruption (a self reinforcing loop); an example of this feedback loop is passing laws that expand the domain of "legal influence" into what was previously "corruption" such as reinterpreting a bride to require an explicit recorded agreement and reinterpreting a campaign contribution to require an explicit and recorded plan for how the contribution helps. Another part of this capital is accumulated due to externalizing costs of production to society as well as direct state subsidies; again, with this capital put to work to stop people from trying to fix such distortions in the market. Another part of this capital is due to labour law and environmental law arbitrage where production can be outsourced to countries where worker protection is less or non-existent as well as it being even easier to externalize costs of production, such as pollution, onto both local and global society; and again this capital can also be put to frustrate attempts of workers in nations with better laws to correct this arbitrage. In other words, privately controlled capital is able to change the structure of society to benefit privately held capital.

In this latter case, proponents of capitalism generally say "what's wrong, all these practices are just looking out for number one; if people can't get together to protect their own interest to reverse ill gotten gains, manage monopolies through one way or another, internalize the true cost of production, and make trade rules that prevents labour and environmental law arbitrage to force down wages, then that's their fault! However, notice that the argument that when the "rich win, they're just winners" is not actually an argument in favour of the system; when workers manage to win on one of these issues the same people don't say "look at that, the workers won, good for them", but rather they invent and spread fantastical propaganda that they know to be false: privately owned land is just more efficient regardless of whether it originated in feudalism or colonialism, and colonialism and slavery benefited the collonized and slaves for that matter and taught them manners and civilization and gave them technology so it was a good exchange for them, climate change and pollution doesn't exist and in anycase the burden of proof is on whoever wants to limit a chemical in food or environment to prove beyond a doubt not within science and risk-benefit framework a company would use but a bizarre system of argument where anything goes and nothing needs to be consistent or make sense, and if a country is able to lower production costs by being a communist dictatorship without any labour or environmental laws nor any freedom of speech or right to assembly, well that's just the magic of capitalist competition at work and the whole world is benefiting from a reduction in the cost of commodities.

Marx views these rent extracting capital structures as one of two main mechanisms surplus value is appropriated by the owners of capitalism.

Which brings us to your next point:

That's the reason that teenagers, black teenagers in particular, have so much trouble getting jobs. — Kenshi

If slavery wasn't a benefit to the black community (do you agree with this), then there are negative consequences to the black community that persist through time while positive consequences of the owners of the capital that was created with black labour during slavery. Would you say that slavery was a capitalism at work with wages based on productivity and merit? If not, why is it fair for the for the descendants of black slaves to inherit the negative consequences of the institution of slavery, but descendants of slaver owners inherit the positive consequences (the surplus value the slaves created)?

Likewise, if the black community today has less home ownership (less of an ability to keep a large part of their wage by avoiding rents) because lending policy was structured by the already wealthier class to not only explicitly exclude blacks communities but on-top-of-this make a condition that white recipients of federally subsidized home-loans cannot build close to a black home. If this wasn't a fair structure, again how is the system today completely fair? If education of the next generation is tightly tied to the wealth of previous generations, is this a merit based system if nearly every generation has had unfair appropriation of their labour or structures that ensure a large part of the wages they do earn go to rents?

If you have no good answers for the above questions, how do you explain your view is not just vanilla racism?

It's also why automation is making such strides in replacing human laborers. We've incentivized business owners to invest in automation because they're becoming more cost-effective than people. — Kenshi

"They're becoming more cost-effective than people" as a recent phenomena? One of Marx's main predictions is that capitalism is relentlessly replacing human labour with automation. The question is who should own this form of capital.

It may not seem like it, but allowing business owners to pay someone only what their labor is worth is the only way to lift up the poor. — Kenshi

Subsidized education does not help the poor? Nor universal health-care? If so, how are states in Europe with free education at all levels as well as free retraining when factories shutdown and universal healthcare harming the poor? or at least not benefiting them, if the only way to help the poor is through paying what the labour is worth?

Nearly every instance of the elimination of poverty has been the result of Free-Market Capitalism, the tenets of which require that people make exchanges based on their personal value. — Kenshi

Do you agree that poverty has been reduced in communist China over the last couple of decades? If so, are people really better off with the strengthening of the communist regime due to the West sending large sums of investment and importing large quantities of goods, even if they seem less poor on the surface? I.e. if the poverty reduction is real and truly a benefit to live in a much more powerful totalitarian regime with democracy potentially far less likely and further off. I.e. is the poverty reduction really a true benefit to the Chinese people even if the communist regime is much stronger due to working with Western goverments and corporations to deploy labour law and environmental arbitrage? If so, is this true benefit within the Chinese communist system, due to capitalism working as the only way to benefit the poor (that this poverty reduction was due to people freely exchanging their personal value under capitalism)? Please explain.

Likewise, within states that provide free education and universal health care, voted by democratic processes, and that have low poverty rates, is there no link between these things? How do you argue the poverty reductions were only due to the free market working? For instance, Finland was very poor before and after WWII, now it is considered a rich country; the Fin's believe they have benefited from large investments in education and other social programs since WWII. Do you disagree this is the case; that Finn's would be equally or more rich without such programs and have even less poor?

The poor benefit exponentially under capitalism when compared to socialism or communism. It's obvious. — whollyrolling

Do you consider Scandinavia well-fare state (free education at all levels, universal healthcare, high taxes on the rich) as socialism or capitalism? Are poor people doing better or worse than a system that is more "capitalistic" in your view?

"Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it". - Marx.

That was essentially my point. You either work from within the system, or you work towards revolution. I assumed the former in my criticism. — S

We've been over all these points before. If the MP's voted for another referendum, that would be working within the system. If the MP's voted for May's deal that would be working within the system. If the MP's voted for something else, that would be working within the system.

None of these possibilities are "anti-democratic" as democracy is currently understood in the UK system as it is today.

Your argument is that a second referendum is somehow anti-democratic, or for whatever reason should be dismissed prima faci. However "best 2 our of 3", nor any of your other arguments, is not an anti-democratic process; if the MP's voted for a 2 our of 3 contest they could do that and, insofar as first past the post is democratic, then the 2 out of 3 referendum would be democratic too.

All arguments you have presented are not based on the principles of democracy, neither from some philosophical view of what democracy is or should be nor from the practical implementation of what the UK calls their democracy today. All the arguments you have presented, and other "no second referendum" participants to the conversation, are either simply bad arguments (that if a second referendum was held and Brexit lost this would be unfair to the voters of the first Brexit and somehow anti-democratic) or then arguments from practical considerations (that having too many referendums too close together is simply not practical).

Think about it: "elected MP's voting on an issue they decide to vote for" is anti-democratic within the UK system.

Now if your projecting that I believe it would be anti-democratic not to have a second referendum in the UK system's current democracy, and you have just poorly formulated the above argument from the opposite starting point that not-having a second referendum would not-be-democratic in the current UK system, no where have I made that claim. If the MP's vote for May's deal or something else that's not a second referendum, then likewise nothing anti-democratic has occurred within the first-past-the-post system of democracy.

My mention of first-past-the-post is that criticizing Brexit proceedings by the government and in parliament as such reduces to criticizing the first-past-the-post system, there is nothing special about Brexit in such a criticism. This was to simply make clear that none of the outcomes voted by MP's I view as undemocratic in the current system and that debating first-past-the-post would be a conversation largely independent of Brexit.

I've been predicting a second referendum, but not because the UK citizens have a right to a second referendum, but because it is the-least-worst-option for the debacle and at some point MP's will have a hard time making objectively worse choices.

Though second referendum may seem "too late", it is still very much in the running as it maybe the only way to secure a long extension from the EU.

From the Tory government perspective, there are only 2 good options among only bad options. Work out some sort of exit from the EU that can be called Brexit and move on (May's deal) or drag on the negotiation be at least able to say "we tried" and then create a last minute crisis where a second referendum needs to be carried out before a general election; this would at least bring some semblance of closure to the issue and the Tories could regroup before the next general election (whereas a "Brexit" general election would be the worst possible scenario for the Tories at is would an election where the only subject to talk about is Tory incompetence).

So, given May's deal is dead then (maybe) my prediction remains second referendum will spontaneously generate over the next couple of weeks out of the chaotic negotiations with the EU for an extension. The EU has now more reasons to revoke an extension than to grant one, but at the end of the day the EU is about democracy so there is no possible principled opposition to granting an extension for the purposes of a second referendum, which if the UK people voted to remain it's basically the best possible outcome for the EU: the UK is humiliated and the EU suffers zero negative consequences remaining as strong economically as before with a few countries having gained some business and investment from all the uncertainty (so all other EU national leaders as well as Brexit technocrats would be able to toast to that).

Of course I could be wrong, the humiliation of admitting a mistake and letting the people of the UK resolve by referendum a crisis created by a ill-defined referendum, maybe too great for the crust of English high society (in other words, the English upper class, in particular the Tories, may prefer to harm UK citizens much more by a chaotic Brexit or just stupid trade policy with their biggest trading partner, rather than harm their own pride even a smidgen; long term the consequences could be grave even for political careers of those involved (relative hiding behind a second referendum, just as the goal was initially with the first referendum), but who cares about that).

However the entangled photon could have interacted with a particle billions of years in our past, or even billions of years (or more) into our future. Yet these two events happened simultaneously as viewed from the photons' entangled states. — Jonmel

There is no functional definition of time from the photon's entangled state. No clock can be built to tell us this event happened simultaneously; we can only make a clock that records the time of experiments; so in this case when the two particles were observed (which due to relativity has no absolute definition of simultaneous already), and from there we can note a correlation between the results of experiments of the entangled particles. However, it's not meaningful to say that the photon's experienced the observation of the entangled variable at the same time; photon's do not experience anything at all and have no perspective and no functional time (no clocks) ever tick for any photon.

Your argument could be reformulated without functional time, with a context of some form of meta-physical time. I'm not sure how that would be done, but it's important to have clearly in mind what observable time is in these sorts of arguments.

A conclusion I could infer is that the whole universe is predetermined, macrospic time is therefore merely an illusion. It might be true to say that the whole universe lived out its entire existence instaneously through quantum intereractions. We are now merely witnessing the realtime effects of all these interactions play out... — Jonmel

It's not clear to me how your inference works. Entangled observations still happen at moments in time (in whatever frame of reference you want to choose), and what makes entangled observations strange (in most interpretations of what is going on) is precisely that they are not determined, an observation does not reveal a correlation that was already present (hidden local variable) but brings into existence the observation and correlation (a non-local link between the observations). However, there is nothing instantaneous between the event that created the entangled pair and the time one or both are observed. Likewise, the speed of causality is not violated as we cannot use what appears to us as instant communication between the entangled particles to communicate any information at faster than light speed, we can only bring results of experiments together at sub-light speeds and note interesting correlations between the results.

Quantum phenomena remain bound by the speed of causation, so it's not clear how an inference would be made that all events happened instantly.

Time does not pass in the frame of reference of a photon, but what is really going on is that the speed of light is not an admissible frame of reference. The speed of light remains the speed of light in all reference frames, and a light beam world line (in a sub-light speed reference frame) cannot be transformed to be at rest. What "from the perspective of" means, in a physical sense, is that the thing in question is considered at rest and everything moving relative to it. This transformation of the coordinates everything is following can be done for all sub-light-speed particles and observers, and the paths of everything else relative to the thing we're now considering at rest worked out. However, no matter how much we try to transform the path of a light-beam to be at rest it can never be done, light just stays at light-speed. So, there's simply no sensible formulation of the "frame of reference" of a light speed observer: it's impossible to have such a frame of reference in our physics. The point is, arguments are not sensible from a non-sensible frame of reference (i.e. "what light experiences" or "from the perspective of a photon" etc.).

Of course, there's plenty of theories, both predating and postdating quantum mechanics, that the universe is pre-determined and both the past, present and future already exist and experience is an illusion.

I was saying it makes no sense as something that could actually exist, not as an abstract construction. — Terrapin Station

I've already presented several arguments that a 2D universe could actually exit.

First, there could be another universe that actually exists detached from our own.

Second, our universe could be actually a 2D hologram.

Third, we could actually be in a 2D universe in the straight-forward sense, but have both mistakenly interpreted our experience as 3 dimensional. I.e. we must verify with our experience the dimensions of the universe, we cannot reason that it's impossible there's a 2D universe out there and rule that out a priori.

Do you see faults with the above arguments?

If you're using the term "non-sense" to mean "not a sensible interpretation of our experience in our own particular universe", then yes, I'd agree that 3 dimensions is a good conclusion to draw from our experience. But there's a difference between "not sensible in itself" and "not a sensible conclusion from our day-to-day experience".

Your original argument was that length contraction to zero at the speed of light made a non-sensible interpretation of the world and therefore there's some sort of problem. My points above are that the conclusion does not follow, nonsense is not the result of length contraction to a 2D description of reality (it's completely acceptable in our theories and is sometimes done on purpose to simplify certain calculations).

Why would you believe that things we can construct via mathematics might correspond to objective reality? — Terrapin Station

You quote me saying 2 dimensional universe is possible, asking why I "would you believe something like that", I responded why I think it's possible. No where do I say I believe it is the case. I already qualified my use of possible as being internally consistent, not "buildable" and certainly I do not equate possibility with what is true. The context of my assertion is responding to the claim that removing length makes no sense; i.e. results in some internally contradictory scenario, to which I am pointing out that a 2D universe is not contradictory in itself.

Maybe the universe really is 2 dimensional, in the most naive form, but I have just been under the illusion it is 3 dimensional. I cannot dismiss the idea I live in a 2 dimensional world because it makes not sense, I must appeal to my experience and use induction to be highly confident the world of my everyday experience has 3 dimensions.

And once I am confident my everyday experience is 3 dimensional, there remains the possibility that reasoning and more subtle experiment convinces me the world really is 2 dimensional but stores 3 information that I experience as 3 dimension through something exactly like or similar to a hologram.

Whether the "true substance" of the universe is holographic is another question as different is the question whether it is a good pathway to make a better mathematical description of a theory uniting relativity and quantum mechanics (regardless of how we want to interpret what the math really represents, other than correct predictions).

The problems a holographic universe would solve, and why experts are working on the idea, is 2 essential ones.

The first problem is that the only arbitrarily precise measurements we can make are from an arbitrarily far distance, and in such a description we are completely free to then claim that the measurements at this arbitrary distance (what we actually observe) are what actually exists (strict functional approach to physics where we only view experimental results themselves as existing and any object we imagine to exist for ease of calculation is exactly that mathematical mirage you refer to, and there is strictly zero basic to assume that math represents anything beyond the correct answers it gives, which in this scenario measurements at an arbitrary distance); this arbitrary distance we can then view as "at the same distance" for all the measurements we make and this then forms a 2 dimensional surface upon which all our measurements exist (a particle accelerator detector is an example of trying to approach this method, and although the LHC detectors don't seem big compared to the size of the universe, they are immense compared to the size of quarks and other subatomic particles they study). Therefore, if our most accurate approach to modeling the physical universe actually takes place on a surface, then the 3rd dimension that we imagine constitutes the things "inside" our observation shell we can simply dismiss. So, from this perspective, the 3rd dimension of space is simply superfluous to the true (i.e. most accurate) description of nature we can make. Just as developing relativity required abandoning the assumption that time was universal (ticked at the same rate wherever you are) and our quantum theory required abandoning the assumption particles have a precise position and momentum -- in other words just as relativity and quantum required abandoning our expectations of how the universe works based on ever day experience, where time does really does seem universal and constant for everyone and everything we can hold and toss in our hand really does seem to be really there at a well defined position and momentum -- maybe the next revolution in physics requires us to abandon the idea the universe has 3 spatial dimensions even if our everyday experience really strongly suggests space has 3 dimensions (of course, such a theory would still explain why we experience 3 dimensions, just as relativity explains why time seems pretty constant and quantum explains why big objects seem pretty discrete and determined in position and momentum).

The other reason, which is beyond simply a minimalist strict experimental functional approach which has helped us in the past, is that quantum systems seem to have a "non-local" communication within them (which just means things happening faster than the causal speed limit I've already referred to). Though we can't exploit non-local communication within quantum systems to actually pass information around at faster than light-speed, it's difficult (and most experts agree is impossible now) to explain the result of certain quantum experiments that have things happening at a distance (and then those results brought together at equal or slower than the causal speed limit to analyse them) without non-local information transfer within the quantum system. One property real physical holograms have (not 3d illusions based on parallax but real holograms), is that information is stored on them non-locally. If you cut a hologram in half, unlike a normal photograph, you get two smaller copies of the whole hologram each with less resolution. So, if the "true substance" within which quantum phenomena is really happening is holographic, then the information of the universe is stored non-locally and there's no puzzle about quantum systems seeming to communicate non-locally; this non-local information holding "holographic substance" has rules that give rise to our rules of accessible information never travelling faster than our observable causation limit, but quantum systems use the non-local aspect to resolve the results of experiments.

Of course, even if the holographic principle does play a central roll in our next physical theories, that doesn't imply it wins the "true substance" argument or even that such an argument can ever be won. Maybe out next, next physical theory will describe a 2 dimensional holographic surface within a 3 dimensional space and that parts of the the surface can interact with other parts through the 3rd dimension of this space, which appears to us like energy disappearing and reemerging through a 4th spacial dimension in our experiments (in more naive, less accurate description that don't take into account things are really a holographic spherical surface within a larger higher dimensional spherical space).

Oy vey. Say what? Why would you believe something like that? — Terrapin Station

It's possible because it can be mathematically consistent.

Nothing about the rules for what was required for either leave or remain to win the referendum was inconsistent with the political system of the United Kingdom, which is a form of representative democracy. It was all perfectly legitimate. Leave won, remain lost. Maybe some people would rather the rules had been different. Well, that's too bad. — S

I thought we already went through this. S and and Benkei are just pointing out that votes do not necessarily entail "will of the people" or democracy. If you don't view first past the post as democratic, but a sort of managed aristocracy, then the rules setup are likewise undemocratic. Though this is another part of the debate.

For the matter at hand, "dem's the rules" is also an overstretch. The promise was to trigger article 50, which has been done, so the PM's and government can claim they already fulfilled the mandate of the referendum. The fact that it was presumed to be irreversible and this assumption turned out to be false, we can say is "tough titties" for the leavers, and given this new information it's the responsibility of the house and government to review whether revoking article 50 is the best course of action today including putting it to another referendum vote. Likewise, even ignoring new information as the "dirty tricks" of remainers, it's entirely consistent with the "rules" you describe of putting the form of Brexit to another referendum and including in that vote the option of reversing it; as any deliberating body always has the option to change their mind, whether a king, cabinet, MP's or the electorate as a whole.

Likewise, it would be consistent with "the rules" to argue MP's must push Brexit through as it's of practical importance to not make Britain look like a total farce and their responsibility as first-past-the-post MP's is to make these tough decisions even if a majority are against it now. Criticizing this position reduces to criticizing the first-past-the-post system itself, not the particulars of Brexit proceedings within the system as it is.

However, that it is in principle undemocratic to use a democratic process to make a decision, because that decision might contradict the result of a previous democratic decision, is not consistent. Decisions can change, even in a democracy.

Now, one can argue there should not be a second referendum, but that argument does not follow from democratic first principles but from practical constraints (i.e. we can't have a referendum or general elections about everything all the time, and a second Brexit referendum falls on the other side of the line we must draw).

Also, to be clear, it's likewise possible to argue that functional time equals true time.

For instance, there is a position in the metaphysics of physics where the observation of particles is truly spontaneous, there is no mechanism of any kind but truly pure random occurrence manifesting with any particular observation; conforming to statistical rules but with absolutely "nothing happening in between" that determines if a particle is observed right or left, spin up or spin down. Although this seems difficult to accept, it seems equally difficult (to me at least) how to reject this view without a infinite regress of mechanism for the mechanism for the mechanism.

Hidden non-local variable theories are still in the running though? — Devans99

Yes, this is what I mean when I say "some mechanism that determines where a particle actually appears", such a mechanism could be a hidden non-local variable theory or something totally different (maybe there is some deeper level that radically overturns our current quantum understanding, just as quantum radically overturned our classical understanding). A revolution in physics could lead to our understanding of functional "clock time" as emerging from some more fundamental time, that in turn could still be far from "true time". My use of the term "meta-physical" time basically refers to the fact we can always posit that something more is going on beyond whatever our current physical understanding of time is; i.e. today we are free to question whether there is a "time" beyond the closest clock ticks we can measure; and there are people working on theories where our functional time is an emergent property of something more fundamental; though it's very unclear if, even in principle, such theories could even have any physical meaning other than clever mathematics that happens to give right answer (predictions to experiments), just as building a mathematical framework based on holographic math doesn't imply the answers it gives is actually of a holographic system, it's just one mathematical path to the right answer (just as neither wave-mechanics nor matrix-mechanics has any preferred interpretive value beyond generating the right answers).

Two dimensions isn't really possible. It's just an idea we have. — Terrapin Station

It's entirely possible our world's true substance is a 2 dimensional hologram.

It's also entirely possible a 2D world really does exist somewhere out in the wider existence beyond what we can observe.

We couldn't build a true 2D physical system, nor can we build other universes of any dimension. But to say something doesn't make any sense, especially in a philosophy forum, is usually interpreted as some internal conflict in the idea itself, not that we simply can't build it. Also, it doesn't create a conflict to make a frame of reference arbitrarily close to the speed of light where the contraction is so great that it's dimension can be ignored, it doesn't approach non-sense to do so but is a physics trick called "boosting" that helps calculate certain problems.

The wave function could change but that is only our estimation of where the photon is; it is not the actual particle. Maybe the photon remains unchanged whilst its wave function evolves? That would fit in better with the photon experiencing no time? — Devans99

That's my point, the particle does not exist in a classical sense between events; we are still free however to suppose there is some substance and some non-classical time to it's existence. The interpretation that the wave function is only probabilistic prediction of "where the particle actually is" does not stand up to scrutiny; all local variable theories have essentially been ruled out, so the "particle", insofar as we're still calling it a particle, does actually somehow exist in some sense everywhere it's possible to observe, we simply cannot make any description of it's "true substance" beyond this "existing in some sense at all the points it can be observe". If we interpret time as evolution of a system, what I called metaphysical time (as there's no experiment that is not functional "classical time" of clocks), this wave function experiences this sort of metaphysical time (doing these calculations to predict things has no physical interpretation; but we are free to suppose it might); the only reason to have such a definition of time is simply to remind ourselves that there could be a reality beyond our functional time experiments that we are unable to access (at least for now); for instance, there could be a mechanism that determines where events actually occur (selecting where in the probability space to actually show up); it's not metaphysically ruled out, but we have no way to ask this question in the sense of experiment (again, for now; that things could change with some revolution in physics, is the practical reason to remind ourselves of functional definitions of things may not be the true definition).

How can we have a two-dimensional space? — Terrapin Station

Dimension just mean how many coordinates are required to define a point in space; in our physics that really means an event in space as Andrewk points out. So you can simply define a physics system with 2 dimensions. A classical system is easy to visualize as it's like most 2D computer games: objects move around in 2 dimensions and interact based on rules.

Of course, we can't actually build a physical 2 dimensional system in our world (when described as 3 dimensions and not a hologram), as our world has 3 dimensions so there will always be interactions along the 3rd dimension even if we try to reduce those interactions by doing experiments on a surface. In certain particle physics contexts, due to the length contraction, certain problems can "drop" the 3rd dimension as it becomes negligible, but it is still there, so this isn't a good example.

I think that we must be going wrong somewhere with our theories, because it's incoherent to have an existent with 0 length. — Terrapin Station

To add to what Andrewk says about this, we can have a 2 dimensional space, it's no incoherent. Indeed, since 3 dimensional information can be recorded on a hologram, it's possible to consider physical systems existing on a "holographic" "true substance" and work out all the math and predictions we "think we experience" in 3 dimensions in 2 dimension. So (on top of being able to make coherent 2 dimensional spaces with working physics; such as a 2D computer game) we can even build a symmetric 2 dimensional universe that expresses a 3rd dimension implicitly. So contracting length to 0 does not create any fundamental problem.

When first encountering relativity and quantum, these sorts of puzzles proliferate.

To make a long story short, there is not really any solution to them, which is why the motto of modern physics is "shut up and calculate". However, at the same time, to excuse the pun, of course someone trained in these sciences does understand something of what these puzzles are and that there is no contradictions or paradoxes of the kind you describe.

It's not exactly true to say the photon does not experience "time" in the metaphysical sense. If time is change, the photon's "wave function" changes over "our time"; so this evolving wave function can be viewed as a metaphysical time. What the photon doesn't experience is classical time, or functional time which is the time that we live in. Likewise, it's a misleading shorthand to say fundamental particles "don't exist" between observations, but rather more accurate to say they don't exist in any classical sense.

We only observe classical time and classical particles, and nature has given us zero clue as to what things are really like behind our observations. For instance, we can easily assume from a metaphysical standpoint that there is some "substance" to a particle and some "mechanism" that causes it to appear on one part of the screen rather than another at each observation, but nature forces us to rule out any "substance" or "mechanism" that makes any sense to us.

To answer more directly your pondering, what "classical time" means is a series of regular events. Einsteins simple clock he used to build relativity and general relativity is two mirrors with light bouncing back and forth, let's say at 1 second per bounce. Let's now consider these mirrors at some speed away from us; now the light must bounce at an angle and travel more distance between each bounce to "keep pace" with the mirrors. Since light travels at the same speed to all observers (just take this as experimental fact for now), then from an observer travelling with the mirrors the light is simply going straight back and forth at 1 second per bounce; but from our perspective the light is going more distance at the same speed and so takes more than 1 second per bounce, therefore we see time for the fast mirrors pass more slowly than our own time (any repeating event, i.e. clock, we will see happening slower than the same setup up kept with us). Of course, an observer travelling with the mirrors can consider themselves at "true rest" and us travelling at a speed and comes to the same conclusion with the rolls reversed. In this setup since we are travelling away from each other, we never meet and who is "really at true rest" cannot be resolved. In order to meet, acceleration of at least one party is needed, which is like being in a gravitational field where clocks run more slowly for same reason that again light must travel a greater distance in a gravitational or experiencing acceleration, but this time the parties can meet and see that less time really did pass for the party that underwent more acceleration.

So the above is a "functional" view of time, based on light bouncing around and "ticking" regular events. So, let's now replace the mirrors with light and imagine that 2 light beams can bounce a third light beam between them. That light doesn't do this doesn't actually matter because all three beams must be going in parallel to "keep pace" with the clock, and so they never converge and never bounce, no ticks in this setup are ever recorded. From this, it is too far a jump to say the universe must therefore be a single point. First for a technical point that it's only 1 dimension that gets contracted, leaving 2 dimensions for all information to be represented in. Second, because our "classical time" is made up of events of fundamental particles. We cannot conclude that classical time is the "only time", and why would we? Fundamental particles must somehow go from one event to another between events, there's simply by definition no "classical time" available for this more fundamental time.

Light travels at the speed light obviously, but what's special about this speed is that it's the speed of causation, nothing happening at A can cause anything at B faster than this speed. What limits a particles speed is mass, and so any mass-less particle goes as fast as it can and delivers it's cause from A to B at the speed of causation. If the speed of causation was infinite, everything would happen simultaneously and classical time would not exist.

With this concept of speed of causation we can now more clearly see that anything going at this speed cannot experience any internal events, no clock can tick for it. But it's also true that our whole concept of experience relies on internal events, within a clock or our brain etc. and so there's no experience at all. A photon travelling between events does record any information and has no perspective as we understand it. So it's not accurate to say "it's clock is stuck at the time of the cosmic microwave background" but rather that the photon "has no clock at all", and so any questions about the photon's clock are simply functionally meaningless: there is no clock you can build that travels with the photon and no experiment you can perform that measures this unconstructed clock, so all questions about time for the photon are not well constructed questions.

We can accelerate things close the the speed of causation, but can never reach this speed and anything even ever so slightly slower can experience time and internal events and has a clock and there's no problem.

So Theresa tries to clinch the MV3-deal by offering BoJo and Moggle potential power by resigning, if either wins the Tory vote for class president. That might work. But you can ask whether the split is all that meaningful. The withdrawal agreement explicitly states: — Benkei

It seems a moot point now (though perhaps 4th times the charm), but explicitly excluding something in a negotiation is generally basis to argue that it creates a wide birth around what would otherwise be implied (i.e. compared to had the thing in question not been proposed and removed, it may very well have been part of the agreement by implication of other language present); I do this all the time in negotiations. There's a latin expression for it, but I can't remember. So, in this case, removing the political declaration would be the basis for the next PM to argue that political declaration and everything implied by it was not agreed to, even if remaining language would otherwise imply the entire thing.

Yes. And sublime hypocrisy that the rejection of a second referendum (in favour of repeated attempts to get this through) is based on the idea that you shouldn't get to keep asking the same question until you get the answer you want. — Baden

Thanks for pointing this out, it's the icing on the Brexit crumpet.

I have to admit that a second referendum, which I have been arguing as more probable (though far from guaranteed), seems less likely now, and that May's strategy of "my deal" or chaos may work out for the conservative party. But, it will be interesting if the deal fails to pass again. Likewise it will be interesting if it passes, what leaving out the political declaration part will mean down the road; will it lead to some sort of eternal brimbo, a brexitory of lost souls?

If our elected representatives cannot find a way to implement the result of the first referendum - and it seems so far that they can't - is there any alternative to a second referendum? Must Parliament not return to the people and say "we tried to implement your wishes, but we have failed to find agreement. All the available options we can find are these: XXX YYY ZZZ. As we cannot choose between them, we return to the people for your decision."

What (democratic) alternative is there? — Pattern-chaser

Yes, this is more-or-less the position I've been debating with, mostly @Benkei. A more or less standard governing principle is that things can only be overturned by an equally authoritative process. A duke cannot overturn the ruling of a king etc. A lower court cannot overturn a higher court. In this framework, then we'd normally conclude only a referendum could overturn the results of a referendum. If government represents the will of the people, then their can be no higher authoritative deliberation process than a vote that directly represents that will. One can argue it's the will of the people to not be consulted directly in referenda (including a will to not have a referendum about having referendums), but once a referendum is held it's difficult to argue less direct expressions of the people's will, such as representatives, can overturn that vote.

So, this is why I think this logic can ultimately not be escaped and without a second referendum there can be no closure (in a no-Brexit scenario, which seems very likely due to the parliament votes against and for reasons discussed below), and why I think it's ultimately likely (that the EU will give whatever time is needed to have another referendum, so the "running out of time" issue is not a fundamental obstacle.

The problem is that referendum aren't a real thing in the UK (unwritten) constitution, so technically it was an advisory referendum to just poll the sentiments of the people .... but, the conservative government promised they'd treat it as final (presumably thinking Brexit would lose and they could declare the issue final).

So the situation is unprecedented and has no firm legal basis; what does the verbal promise of the last prime-minister to treat the results of an advisory referendum as more than what it is legally mean? No one knows. The situation is also unprecedented because a government who's official policy was to stay in the EU called am unnecessary referendum on a thing that if passed they had no plan to achieve. Normally referendum are called when the party that promotes the policy is in office and has either an actual plan to carry the policy through or the will to deal with the chaotic fallout (for instance, the Quebec referendum happened when the separatist party of Quebec was in government in Quebec, so there was no doubt what would happen if the separatist party won a referendum on separation). In the case of Brexit, the conservative party believed in the democratic right of a referendum and promised one to appeal to voters on the far right anti-EU (stem vote-bleed to UKIP) as well as settle any internal debate within their own party.

The result of this is total ambiguity of what the referendum meant legally, but as importantly a political situation for the governing conservatives that has no solution. Their brand isn't "screw the EU, economy be damned", but rather "fiscal responsibility" (of course, their fiscal policies of privatization and lowering social investments of all kinds, in particular immigration integration while being tough of immigrants but also letting in as many as possible to drive down wages, and support of the oil industry, arms manufacturers and banks at all costs, leads directly to the economic dislocations that inspired people to vote Brexit, but usually over a longer period of time that goes unnoticed by an uneducated population which is achieved through low social investments, closing the circle of ignorance that the conservatives need to prosper). Suffice to say, making a swift work of impoverishing people is noticeably off-brand. An analogy would be that you're a sadistic bus driver trying to drive some clueless voyagers of a cliff; but on the way you run into a tree and people lose confidence in your bus riding skills and start to question the whole project of going to cloud-world (like, cloud-world sounds great, especially if you just need to just enjoy the ride to get there without doing anything but trust the leaders ... or maybe cloud world is a mirage and the leaders are just pocketing your fair and bringing you to drown in a flood of poverty): point is, rock your own boat and you maybe out of a job and you don't get to destroy society, it's bad for business. So an actual Brexit isn't an acceptable solution (for the conservatives interested in keeping a job); "soft-Brexit" that carries all the costs of staying in the EU but less benefit and no say in its governance no sane politician would vote for (it's like a restaurant running low on supplies that decides to deliver rotten food to their impatient clients; the joy of being served is short-lived); and reversing Brexit would re-ignite (with much added fuel) the internal debates and vote-bleed to UKIP and demonstrate total incompetence in every way imaginable.

As I mentioned in my last post, the only viable strategy is to run-down the clock and then have a referendum (the least bad option, as at least you can hide behind "the will of the people"), then manufacture other crisii before the next general election, probably war and violence and fear.

Wait, they voted against a "no-deal Brexit" right? — Benkei

Yes, I meant to say voted for no "no-deal-Brexit".

Yes, I don't see any other interpretation available. The idea that May didn't see losing by the largest margin ever, doesn't stand muster. Their strategy has worked surprisingly well so far, but there still has to be some definitive action at some point, so it will be interesting how they do that and what the fallout will be. Will the whole Brexit thing just be a bad memory that everyone wants to forget? Or will the Brexiters come roaring back? Of course, presuming Brexit is now dead, which I think it is.

Well Parliament just voted against no deal and they voted against what the EU says is the best deal possible. How much sense does it make to put the same question to the people in a referendum? And what if it's a piddling majority again? — Benkei

Yes, the other option is to resolve the issue in parliament.

However, the vote was for a "no-deal Brexit" in the context of Brexit still supposedly happening. It's not yet a vote to cancel Brexit.

I agree that parliament can just cancel Brexit, but that's simply not good democratic principles for parliament to override a referendum that they said they wouldn't override. A referendum to overturn a referendum resolves that issue.

In my opinion, the Tory leadership likely knew there was no way the deal would pass the first or second time (though they needed to advance like they didn't know that, to successfully complete a negotiation with the EU, to both say they tried and for the EU to say it's the best deal available), and so, knowing it wouldn't pass because presumably they know the position of their own members, the strategy was to wind down the clock to be able to push through a resolution of the situation without a general election. Once the solution emerges, either parliament or calling a referendum, the Tories will be all "sorwy, no time for a general election, we're really, truly sorwy". After the situation is resolved, the Tories can then try to outlast the embittering stench of the whole thing and focus the nation on other issues for the next general election. Whereas a general election in the midst of the consequences of your party's total incompetence is bad timing. Also the reason calling a snap election before starting the negotiation, before the impossibility of the task was clear, also helps avoid an election during the deed.

So far, there have been no signs of sufficient parliamentary support for a referendum. This may change if it looks like supporting a referendum is the only way to avoid a no deal situation. I am not holding my breath though, the second referendum is very dangerous to the individual careers of politicians. — Echarmion

Yes, I completely agree with this sentiment. The danger to careers is grave indeed; however, disorderly Brexit would be dangerous for the conservative party as a whole and at some point the interests of the country do override careerism.

At the end of the day (in my view) a second referendum is the only way to have some sort of closure to the situation (now that a soft-Brexit deal is dead).

That's correct, I thought a referendum would've been impossible in the given time frame before March 29. — Benkei

Though the official time-frames seem unfeasible, the EU is at the end of the day a democratic institution and there's no realistic way for bureaucrats (or the leaders of the other countries) to not acquiesce to giving more time for a referendum if Britain requests it.

I think the second and better option would be to have a general election. — Benkei

Though I agree a general election would be a good idea, it would likely be a disaster for the Tories so they will do everything to avoid it (and thus make concession to the DUP necessary). I feel strategically, the only reasonable option is to about face and call a second referendum now that the deal is defeated in parliament and there can be a binary "hard Brexit or reverse Brexit" vote. This would provide closure to the situation as well as time for the Tories to reorganize post-massive-ridicule.

... Of course the whole point of the first referendum was to resolve internal Tory differences, and that didn't work out so well for them. However, the basic logic that a referendum can provide fairly long term closure to an issue remains sound. Not that reversing Brexit with a referendum wouldn't cause high levels of consternation and lingering bitterness and division, just seems the least bad option of only bad options at this point.

The previous discussion revolved around a referendum before March 29. Any extension of the deadline will require that the UK has a concrete reason for it or the EU would not agree to it. — Benkei

Yes, the referendum option most likely hinged on an extension, which I found likely the EU would give for the purposes of a referendum. I thought a referendum was more likely, whereas from what I understood you thought a deal would be more likely. Of course all positions were fairly speculative at the time.

It seems a deal is off the table now, so it's either no-deal or a referendum ... or some cockamamie situation where parliament has no position, there's no general election, they're forced to unilaterally cancel Brexit somehow in the name of continuing Brexit.

In other words, there seems to me now no alternative to a second referendum (which of course implies extension). Do you agree with this, or do you think there's another option?

@Benkei

To continue our previous conversation on this Brexit thread, do you feel a second referendum is still unlikely and in any case a bad option? I'm curious if your thinking has changed.