in that nothing ever improves or dis-improves. — counterpunch

I think he was referring to meliorism. Certainly conditions change, but looking at the hole, are we in a progression or a procession.

I make mistakes only to make myself more likable. it's a godlike quality where what apparent evil I might do is for the better and what errors I make are actually for the best. That's how great I am. — Hanover

Did you teach that to Counterpunch?

I think there is a distinction to be made between wanting people to agree with you and needing people to agree with you. Everyone has the former. Everyone likes when people agree with them. However some go an extra step and decide that there is something to lose when people disagree. In other words, become entitled to others on the forum reacting to them in a specific way. Become reliant on it like food and water. — khaled

Well said. I am so often struck by the ratio of philosophical and psychological in posts.

A lot of people just want to insult and belittle me, when all I'm trying to do is promote ideas that will provide for a sustainable future. Why do you think that is? — counterpunch

The first part is wrong. Take out the word "me". The second part is a projection, a presupposition. You aren't working on anything that we can see, you are waiting for applause.

I’m sure Counterpunch wouldn’t mind if someone mentioned that magma energy is not a new idea and that it obviously isn’t his. It does have the potential to bring 10 times more energy than today’s geothermal, but is difficult to obtain. It is being tried in Iceland where they are drilling about 2 miles down and they have to hit just the right kind of rock for the hole to be usable. And then the water will be highly corrosive which will cause other problems. This is not an easy layup.

The point is that his beloved capitalists are not dragging their feet on this. No one is. If this was the best return on investment at the time, then wind farms would never have been built. It will take time. Counterpunch complains about what people are doing while waiting for something that can’t be rushed.

And finally, this parallel line on racism. There is no prize given out for ending slavery. For one, it hasn’t ended, and two, you don’t get a trophy for ending what had become unsustainable. The purpose behind BLM is not going away. They are not interested in your rationale or anybody else’s.


I'm duty bound to share my uniquely enlightened thoughts, and shepard humankind into a prosperous and sustainable future - despite your apparent determination to misunderstand, and blunder into extinction. -Counterpunch
Read this aloud into a mirror

The ranks of the successful are everywhere populated by drooling mongoloids, as the current president-eject so amply illustrates. — StreetlightX

:up:

In theory then you would have to apply non-action to everything you do. Can you really see that as the moral choice when you do it sometimes and don’t other times? — Brett

excellent point.

Are we as a society moving away from morality to ideology?

Are morality and ideology different.

Is the categorical imperative an ideological concept? — Brett

Are you just playing devil's advocate or do you see real ramifications for the difference?

But could non action be regarded as a Categorical Imperative? — Brett

If you do not vote in an election, you are still affecting the outcome. So you are not really involved in a non action.

But wouldn’t that mean that the action is to do nothing, which would hardly be moral. — Brett

The action would be to not interfere with the private actions of consenting adults who are not violating anyone else's rights.

I think the moral choice is not "for it" but to not stand against it. That could be defended as a moral position.

"Oh we'd fill it" — Maw

That's right. I forgot he said that.

I wonder what McConnell has to say about a Supreme Court nomination in an election year?

it's a fantasy of being law enforcement or soldiers, or perhaps just walking about with a gun excites them — Ciceronianus the White

Exactly. Just provide them with a high minded excuse and they've got the whole package. Boy could this get out of hand.

Hard to know for sure from memory recall, but I don't think I have ever used the term "gibberish" on this forum, not that I'm opposed to it, I just don't think I've expressed myself this way. More to the point, what was it specifically in my reply that led you to classify it as "gibberish," aside from the obvious and emotional fact that you disagree with it? — JerseyFlight

Gibberish was a poor choice of words for your response, but it would appear that you are not opposed to using that term for responses you disapprove of. I was reacting emotionally because you completely missed and misunderstood the point and implication of the Meliorism remark and that is exactly what you accuse other posters of doing to you, and you do it in an almost pedantic way that is irritating.

You aren't going to leave this forum for greener pastures, you are having too much fun castigating the sophists.

The Meliorism reference was off topic anyway and is better suited for another day.

This is a tragic and fallacious standard that assumes violence and cruelty merely arise from some fictional, metaphysical nature in man, when in reality, any horror we could cite would also have a sociological history that brought it into being. These things are not like asteroids hitting the earth (although even that has a causal history). What you have here articulated is basically Nihilism. It is in no way impressive to arrive at a false positive through the projection of a false negative. — JerseyFlight

This is exactly the kind of gibberish you have been complaining about others posting

You need to be educated, my friend. I'm not talking about changes in conditions, technological advancements, more and better data, I'm talking about some actual teleological (verifiable?) improvement / advancement in the human condition. Can you site that? Give me a horror of the middle ages and I'll show you the equal today.

you could stand a refresher course in attitude. — Bitter Crank

:up:

The question is how do we go about preventing ourselves from becoming learned fools? — JerseyFlight

Ask Sisyphus. When has it been different? Do you believe in Meliorism?

You keep telling people they don't belong in the same room as the adults. Well as a voice from the foyer, just what are you achieving in there that you can hand out so many dunce caps. You talk like a Headmaster. Is this the forum you want?

I'm doing well. I only had to look up three things in your answer. :smile:

Do you believe in meliorism?

After Trump is gone they will still be there. And if we keep ignoring their concerns and calling them idiots they will find somebody else to vote for other than us. — Nuke

:up:

If we want to understand Trump voters, we could start by trying to understand ourselves. Why are we clinging to polarization? Why do we so enjoy having an enemy? Why are we so drawn to the endless repetition of superiority poses? These are things we can work on which don't depend on anybody else. — Nuke

Eric Hoffer, in a book called True Believer, wrote ......extremist cultural movements, whether religious, social, or national, arise when large numbers of frustrated people, believing their own individual lives to be worthless or spoiled, join a movement demanding radical change. But the real attraction for this population is an escape from the self, not a realization of individual hopes: "A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation"

And, "...when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment.”

I think this is the primary reason that Trump voters ignore so many faults of the man. They have a power now that they never had before and they want to keep it. The left looks at all the faults that we feel are harmful to all of us, while the Trump voters just want to be part of a winning team. The left feels superior to this position.

Thats very dishonest. — DingoJones

I'll leave that right where it is. Go ahead and take the last word.

im accusing you of being a liar. — DingoJones

First of all If you have followed anything that NOS has posted on this forum you know that NOS can defend himself if he feels it's necessary. But of all the highly personal flaming that has occurred and been discussed on this forum you get triggered by:

So you lived in the US and then moved to Canada? I was just always surprised at your level of interest in US politics.
— Monitor

And you leap from your foxhole to defend poor NOS from such a vicious unprovoked attack.
I urge you to contact the Mods about me.

As for the Gotcha, I didn't ask him if he still beats his wife. In fact I was trying to let him correct an inconsistency that was apparent in my post and deflected in his response. This is not the first time there has been inconsistency in his posts. And we still don't know how he voted for Trump in 2016 while living in Canada? Dual citizenship? I don't know. But he has incensed people around here to the point that some think he is a Russian troll so I don't think I out of line by quoting him directly.

Perhaps you are like NOS and the late Chester and just love to argue for the sake of arguing.

Please check my spelling. You might find some ammunition to use against me that's accurate.

"Many former democrats and independents who voted for Obama have voted for Trump, myself included." NOS

I was born in the US and I moved here in 2008. — NOS4A2

How did he vote for Trump in 2016? No ad hom here.

So you lived in the US and then moved to Canada? I was just always surprised at your level of interest in US politics.

have voted for Trump, myself included. — NOS4A2

I live in the capital of British Columbia, Canada. The rules here are not as hard elsewhere in the country.
— NOS4A2

I actually find it comforting to have it stated that way. So simple, so final.

Well, we don't teach critical thinking in our schools, such as they are; it's bad for capitalism

:up: I'm still waiting to hear that they are still pro life.

:up:

Well my thoughts don't feel very welcome at the moment.

1. I said "We" because I presume there will be more joining this discussion than the two of us.
2. In the five years I have been on this forum questions like yours are always greeted by asking the
poster to define his terms. It's fundamental. It keeps people from straw-manning each other.
3. No I don't expect him to tell us what he meant, I expect you to at least tell us what it meant to you and
your thoughts on answers vs. solutions to give it a little shape in the beginning.
4. I'm so American? Perhaps I'm wasting your time.

Alright, do you have an example or context to what this lovely man was talking about? Math? personal struggles? golf swing?

We would have to have a definition of both terms, which might be a lot of hair splitting

Do you/did you post signs on yours? , — tim wood

Yes. Most insurance requires it I believe. It does happen I agree. I've found people who have made it to the second floor and they weren't wearing shoes. That is when I object the most.

I know very well that it is in the community interest to to be able to see what's going on at such a site. I have therefore always felt I had a basic right to enter any construction site and look around. — tim wood

Tim I read and respect a lot of what you post, but this is a doosey. I am a general contractor among other things and you have no basic right to enter a construction site at all. It's private property and your presence is a liability and you will happily sue the contractor when you drive a nail through your foot. And you will win. And my insurance won't cover it because I didn't keep you off. But you know very well and feel you have a right?

and the shooting, which could be construed as self-defense. — NOS4A2

Why do armed white men always feel their life is in immediate danger from unarmed black men? Do we really believe they were going to use there guns to turn them over to the police?

Interesting, because the answer would be revealed in meliorism. Do you believe that the human experience, as a whole, has actually improved over human history? Yes, conditions individually improve or worsen but are we still advancing by some measure? If you believe that, then we are capable of prehending new thoughts because the old set didn't work, we had a new thought, and we improved our experience.

:up:

"Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan took another step toward running for president on Tuesday, saying he has formed an exploratory committee to look into his chances of winning the Libertarian Party's nomination."

and is a prolific Democrat donor. — NOS4A2

is a fallacy of irrelevance that is based solely on someone's or something's history

And they love it.