@BitconnectCarlos Ok. Your talking about a particular level of Intelligence. Although I dont see how an IQ test determines your suitability for most jobs. I mean a binman or till operator dont take IQ tests. These folks still have family and welfare do they not. I find all this rather victimsplaining and over thought. And in no way should an intelligent person feel bad because lower intelligence people exist.

@BitconnectCarlos I'm asking because I thought you were referring to somebody injured or something. But if you are referring to people who are just normally less intelligent then how is that unjust for them? That is what they are. Doesnt mean low intelligence means oppressed or disadvantaged. Just go to any workplace and you will see low intelligence people doing just fine economically.

@BitconnectCarlos What do you class as intellectually disabled?
As to talented people to call it privileged seems totally wrong. And talent in one field doesn't always mean talent in every field. In sports a lot of times a more intelligent champion beats the more specifically talented champ.

@Ciceronianus the White my bad. My comment wasnt that you had said it was a democracy I was addressing another post talking about democracy and agreeing with you that the US is a plutocracy.
Every govt has been a plutocracy simply because only the mega rich can govern. Yes there are different types of plutocracy but only in size and composition not the actual ideology of wealth being the requirement for govt.

@thewonder I hear you! I'm Transpolitical! I'm only interested in Free Speech really. I trust groups like I trust
foxes. Revolution! How many lies have been told in the name of this concept!
Marx was really an evil man.

@Judaka but how do you explain the people in high positions who are patently not attractive? Just look at politicians,almost without exception they are hideous yet they have wealth power privilege.
To say nothing of civil servants.
I really think a lot of people have been brought up to feel unnatractive. I mean this in a general way not just in a romantic manner. I have a male friend,6ft,PhD, fluent in chinese,punjabi,English,working scientist,very intelligent happily married children who most people would say was very handsome yet due to a bad upbringing hes not confident in considering himself handsome and he has problems with self esteem. Attitude and psychology counts for everything.

So there was a time when the US was a "democracy"
and wasnt a plutocracy?!
Every govt in history has been and is now a plutocracy.
Just look at the worldwide governmrntal response to the so called covid,purely a matter of the mega rich trying to line their pockets. But they overreached themselves and now all these ministers and businesses are scrambling and throwing handouts so as not to lose public support.
Plutocrats need the masses to create their wealth. So the masses must be kept reasonably comfortable in order to work. The US is based on economics not freedom. Always has been.

@BitconnectCarlos I think you reading to much into pure external appearance rather than the skills and abilities of a person. Some taller guys carry themselves like dweebs and some shorter guys carry themselves with charisma and confidence. Being a native speaker of English does not exclude someone learning english and becoming better than the majority of native speakers.
I would rather just appreciate different peoples talents rather than just talk about difference being inequality in some unjust unfair way.
Sure there are obstacles,there is elitism and economic inequality. But then it comes down to what you regard as success. Lots of money or freedom,personal development and a happy family.
I really there is far too much victimhood and pessimism rather than a positive go get em approach. On a practical level you cant expect govt or society to spoon feed every less talented or pessimistic person.

@Judaka It is annoying when people refer to facts but then extrapolate some political point as if the fact and the political interpretation are correlated,which they are not. A similiar thing is done with "statistics."
I feel a lot of errors and sleights of hand are due to folks implicitly thinking we are all blank slates and that with some "social engineering "everyone will be on a level playing field. Talent cannot be manufactured.
And unearned privilege comes from the ultra rich. Which is a product of ruthless elite capitalism.

Violent protests are a combination of political manipulation and a tiny minority of low intelligence rabble. They expose the mindset of those encouraging political violence and looting. As if the violence and looting will make people think oh wow,they look like decent folks let's join them!
And these protests in the US wont achieve anything except a mistrust of the BLM antifa and any other leftist backed propagandists.
The burn it all down mentality is a cover for dumbwits which the politicians of both right and left use to their advantage.
Its particularly funny when a huge amount of black folks condemn BLM and violence yet white "intellectuals" ignore this or worse...

Intelligence and beauty are not unearned privileges!
Intelligence and Beauty are Innate essential talents of human beings.
You cannot not Express your Intelligence because others are less intelligent or ugly. Some people can work for ever at basketball and will never be decent. Others can pick up a ball and master the basics very quick. You cannot eliminate these innate differences and its foolish to legislate or pontificate this as some unearned privilege.
Inequality of Wealth is the problem,and this is caused by coercive govt and capitalism. Politicians want you to focus on this nonsense so you bicker and virtue signal,whilst ignoring the cause of inequality,human greed.

@thewonder The problem with all this "revolutionary" thinking is that you need a huge amount of resources and public support to mount it. Ie,it has to be funded and planned by the mega rich who got rich by precisely being
ruthlessly authoritarian! In other words just a changing of the vanguard. And in modern democracies the elite have know that revolutions are untenable given modern popular culture and are not good for business or stability.
You cannot overcome political coercion with more political coercion. Politics is intrinsically about an elite coercing a majority as long as the majority get enough bread circuses and ego esteem and nationalist pride.
Freedom comes from the Individual Outside the govt perusal.

@thewonder It's from thus spake zarathustra. Talking about his fantasy "ubermensch".
I agree with most of your psychological analysis of cruelty. I would add that it is explicit in the elite echelons of politics. Every natural politician has that innate cruelty
and this is one virtue all Authoritarians live by. And they are praised by the populace as being "great leaders"...
The folly of politics!

The SJWs will Enforce Freedom...

Anti Authorities in charge! Bravo! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :cool:

@thewonder You are only Free when you Dance in the gaps. Herr nietzsche expressed this idea but it wasnt original to him.
Society is one of those nebulous words.
Coercion is the original and only sin.

@thewonder I dont feel any system or group can govern without coercion or violence. All govts have military,police,taxation,judiciary and all govts enforce and legitimise themselves with force.
The entire ideology of politics is predicated on coercion and taxation. The only thing politics is good for to a philosopher is to criticise. The philosopher lives in the gaps of the state. And creates his own gaps. Mind the gap!

@ssu Do you feel there is or could be any system that is not exploitative not Authoritarian?

@ssu My meaning of a real philosopher is like a wise elder. Someone who has observed society and politics and seen how actually power works. Your example of Machiavelli is perfect. But machiavelli never wrote with a view to declaring ALL politics to be exploitative and therefore a rigged game. He wanted to be reform Italian politics,and by any means necessary to be honest.
My point is you cannot reform what is intrinsically Authoritarian and ruthless and so the real philosophers who see through this focus on individual freedom and truth. Think Guatma Buddha. Apolitical practical and concerned with human individual flourishing only.

@ssu Oh I agree with that analysis. In fact I would go further and say philosophers/priests,are the investigators and bulwarks of all govts and ideological movements.
Guys like Plato and moses laid the written foundations for large scale fascism and elitism. I blame them 100% they knew what they were doing. And its that narcissism
and will to power that drove these men.
What I was saying in my post was ironic, thats why I put the thinkers emoji there. I'm suggesting these people considered "philosophers" great or otherwise are really Authoritarian rhethoricians and politic sophists concerned with ruling and dictating to society.
Real philosophers are concerned only with individual and Real Freedom.

@ssu 100% agree. But surely philosophers cant fall for divide and conquer. :chin:

If you examine the premise of "govt" it is absolutely Authoritarian no matter which wing or type you have.
A single elite group with a monopoly on law,taxation,violence,printed money,education yada yada.
Authority is having ONE Author a copy book of laws and traditions designed to restrict and treat people as purely economic resources for the benefit and stability of the said elitist authority.
No getting round this point. The current covid climate emphatically highlights what the motives and aims of govts have always been.
Freedom has ZERO relation to govern ment. (Latin for mind control.)

@ssu Cheers for the heads up.
Its truely bizarre and patronising how people who claim to value truth and "oppose" authoritarian groups are so quick to get triggered by folks defending Free Speech. Pot kettle black.

@ssu You are spot on! Dog whistles!!! I like it!
Ah,so "free speech" will now put me in some kind of "conservative" trope. If only they knew what politics I subscribe to!!!

@NOS4A2 :cool: I did note the wild language! I shudder to examine it too closely. Who knows what insights one could glean?!

@ssu :up: Politics surely does bring out the worst In folks. I really think this kind of ad hominem distracts from Free Speech. But anyways,we cooler rational heads will march on Freely.

@ssu I've said many times that what actually passes for discussion and philosophy is in fact " public therapy" and venting due to low self esteem and frustration.
The consistent Authoritarion super ad hominem postage is generally a sign of lack of skills eloquence and paranoia.

This division of people into fixed rigid "groups" and narrow "identities" is itself Discrimination and Prejudice.
But then that's exactly what politicians and populists want. And the elites are laughing at the stupidity of the so called "educated" and "intellectual".
Politics=privilege=Class= mythical "Identity". Or maybe you dont want to see this obvious truth.

Is Innate Intelligence or Beauty a "privilege"?
Is being muscular and athletic a privilege?
Sounds like a lot of jealousy on some peoples part.
The will to power of misfits and Elitists.
Theres a whole heap of priviledge being exercised at the moment in the name of "covid". And this comes from politicians and big business owners who are of every race sex and creed. But from what class?
Its ludicrous to divorce privilege from wealth from the mega rich.
Maybe Obama Hillary and the Saudi leadership are oppressed minorities due to this SJW logic!!!!.
Just virtue signalling from misfits and middle class zealots.

To think that words dont refer or point to something or some intention every time is wild. Seems the worship of wittgenstein et al goes beyond common sense.
This behavioural bogusocity is just more platonic authoritarianism that makes language some objective fixed generalised entity with some ad hoc additions when the theory falls apart. Language is use! What a trite nothing statement!
Language is Intention....How about that?

The vast majority of people I have seen peddling this privilege ideology seem to me to pretty well off themselves and are highly patronising to "victims" they claim to represent.
Using butchered statistics bogus history and myths to create a problem when there isnt one. There are lots of low income white people who have nowhere near the lifestyle of a middle class black person. Are those black people privileged? Should they be aware and give back some of their privilege to white low income youths?
The whole thing Is hypocrisy and identity politics so already rich folks can try to further their political aims.
I dont trust folks who base every discussion on victim and identity politics,or rich celebs, politicians, the middle class and academics talking about oppression.
Oppression is primarily to do with economics and class.
And if your rich and middle class and support the elites and corporate capitalism then your arguments stand on thin air and hypocrisy.

This word Privilege is thrown about mainly in a virtue signalling ideological manner for political ends. Its instructive that all sense of rationality and discussion becomes pretty much obsolete when honest people oppose this vastly inaccurate and ill informed concept.
Why is it mainly academics politicians and left wing students who espouse this rhethoric with zero explanatory power?
If you believe in big govt and capitalism then you full well
should know that rich elites keep privilege and capital between themselves whilst allowing enough freedom for the non elites to be happy enough to contribute to the rigged economy and give enough support to allow govts to continue their pilfering.
Rather than direct your ire and virtue signalling at unpriviledged ordinary folk who dont agree with your ideology and branding people privileged purely on racial identity why not actually address the cause of poverty?

@Daniel By what we normally define as shape it's quite hard to affix shape to a moving phenomenon but I suppose we can say it is a kind of moving field. The shape we assign would be approximate and even then its constantly moving in different directions so visually it is not reproducible. You cannot see the wind totally only its effects.
Gas 'molecules' and gas 'laws' is a whole can of worms.
Science becomes completely incoherent when it talks about laws of dynamic systems and reduction of macro phenomenon to molecules. Dynamic systems must have some sort of "driver" I fail to see how molecules can drive macro systems. Too much Like a fly pushing a freight train!
We don't understand the mind? Well,everyone In history is intimately familiar with mind every second of every day. It's only scientists and philosophers who have a problem understanding their minds. And that's sometimes because of linguistic confusion and reducing everything to inorganic matter.
The Mind is your Identity,that which creates,perceives,breathes,classifies and talks. To me that's Amazing,divine in the sense of unmatched by any other phenomenon in nature.

The Mind interacts so it is obviously physical,moves and occupies 'space'. I think a lot of miscommunication occurs when the words 'material' or 'non physical' are bandied about. The wind is not 'material' nor does it have a shape nor a fixed location but it is definately physical and interacts with matter.
This cartesian and platonist nonsense and a non physical realm is ludicrous just like the equally bizarro scientismistic
notion of mind being composed of lifeless matter.
Sometimes it pays to step back and just think of how beyond rationality and common sense both of these positions are.
And it detracts from the truth that the Mind is absolutely Amazing and has properties of Creativity and prediction which are rightly classed as Divine.

It's most definitely Interpretations all the way down.
Though scientists and platonists have their own Interpretations of my Fact.

@Mww Feelings refer to language and vice versa. In fact language is just a different type of feeling. If you were to say you have no doubt about a theory that Is just using a different word to Express your certainty. These expressions are emphasising your feelings through language. There are also obviously degrees of uncertainty possibility which are also feelings.

@Mww So all knowledge Is contingent until falsified?
How is it that facts and truths differ from verified theory?
You expressed your certainty that all bodies have extension in space. Certainty is a feeling.

@Mww Is induction a theory?
Is there really a difference between verifying empirically and rationally? The common verification method is the intellect yes. But the intellect and intuition are different words for a psychological expression a feeling. Human calculations and predictions are feelings. Human language is an expressed feeling. The reason computers cant verify real time phenomenon Is because they lack subjectivity AKA Feelings.

@Mww Any scientific theory or data is verified by the intellect the intuition which Is a feeling. Would a person claim a theory was correct if he didn't feel it was?
All truth and knowledge needs a subject an interpreter. And the proof is always the 'aha' moment.

I live in the UK and I stumbled across a BLM protest a couple of weeks ago. I have lived in multiethnic
poor and lower income communities all my life. The experiences of overt racism that BLM and this particular speaker at the protest claims exist against black people Is something that just does not exist at the ground level. Being a person of color it was bizarre that the vast majority of the crowd were white University students.
And to be Frank the speaker was patronising and racist and just appealing to emotion rather than making any sense. I find the dogmatic nature and ideology of a group that is in itself emphasising one race whilst blaming another race for its ills Is disingenuous and purely political and opportunistic. The generic sweeping implication that ALL black people have some sort of homogenous experience and that that they are all targeted or discriminated against carte blanche is ludicrous.
And the word racism is trotted out at every Instance of supposed discrimination by a group that is based on race?! Common sense has left the building.