That's not really relevant. I'm sure the average woman doesn't play chess either. Obviously chess playing women are devilish heathens.

Your reply was a blanket denial of the conclusion of the research. Of course anyone normal would assume you had read it. So I have you the benefit of the doubt and asked, because the answer was peculiar if you had. I didn't assume a thing at that point.

If you want to make a point of argument, then quote the referenced paper. — Janus

This is blame. I'm to follow your unpublished rules of engagement and I'm not allowed to expect you to read something that denies your claims. Silly me. Here I thought you'd be happily surprised people are willing to make sacrifices and you'd actually be interested. Guess that resolves that mystery: your opinion is more dear to you than actual facts. Nice.

Maybe next time just say you haven't read it, or better yet, don't reply as if you have, instead of this nonsense where you're now pretending it's my fault for you not having read it. The point I made was in the initial post and based on the linked science. Since you haven't read it, you'll accept it as gospel truth then. Great!

The point of the research is that a lot of policies that seem economically effective, like tradeable carbon credits, are hated because people consider them unfair. People have no problems with making sacrifices as long as everybody does. I was mentioning the specific ban because it suggests Janus hasn't read any of the papers I linked, I wasn't arguing the effectivity of that specific policy.

And yes, CM, people respond better to subsidies than taxes, no surprise there but there's still a majority for making sacrifices also in the form of taxes.

I'm talking about giving up the SUVs and driving tiny cars, or taking public transport, or using bicycles, giving up the international and domestic air travel and reducing general consumption to a minimum. Of course all these thing would in turn be very bad for the economies, leading to further drops in general prosperity. Whether the majority of people would be willing to do all these things I don't know, since I can't ask the majority of people on account of there are way too many of them, and I'm not sure I could trust what people say in answer to a hypothetical question anyway, but I sure as hell don't believe the politicians will be asking them to make such sacrifices. — Janus

Did you look at the research I shared? Your reaction seems to indicate you haven't. A ban on combustion engines is an actual proposed climate policy in the survey of the top most research paper. So people are prepared to do this, provided rich people are under the same ban.

Not sure if this is true but your tax comment reminded me of this clip a friend shared: https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChfCepjP-sN/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

This is actually not true. A majority of people are fine with making sacrifices if they apply to everyone and you can't just buy your way out (rich buying co2 credits, for instance). See: https://www.stefanie-stantcheva.com/research/

Worse for whom? In any case, two wrongs don't make a right. Just because other former Presidents were terrible too, isn't an argument not to do something about this specific one.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/543213

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/543238

Before we get into prejudice, racism and oppression semantic discussions, please read the above two comments and perhaps we can at least agree on shared terminology.

Some short thoughts from me:
Oppressed people can be racist.
Not all racism leads to oppression.

Both oppression and racism are bad.
Personal racist opinions usually don't cause harm or are too particular to solve through political means.
Personal racism alone doesn't lead to oppression.
Oppression is "cumulative" personal racism borne out by social groups or (in)directly caused by the operation of systems.
Oppression is a social injustice.
Social injustice requires political (e.g. "group") solutions.

We don't police people's thoughts so we can't do much against personal racism other than education. If it directly causes damage courts are open for claims.

Oppression is a social injustice which requires political action beyond the ability to file claims and state "we're all equal". Why? Because culture eats rules before breakfast. Or in other words, it's not enough to punish behaviour, you need to take steps to change culture/system to end oppression.

She needs to take advantage of this 15 minutes of fame. — Hanover

I wasn't aware your attention span was that long. You're improving. :kiss:

Correct. She can always become a background dancer for Beyonce.

Agree with most of the points you made. Don't forget social work is generally a degree level discipline. When I recruit social workers for my organisation, they frequently have 4 years of university behind them. Sometimes several degrees. But yes, experience and aptitude is more important. When I hire someone with a lived experience of substance misuse, they still need a degree. Lots of terrible mistakes made by people who don't have some foundational education - professional boundaries, case formulation and planning, unconditional positive regard. — Tom Storm

:up:

They're still going to have to agree if they want to pass laws but at least we'll have decent representation instead of power coopted by political parties when negotiating the coalition. About 8 people decide what will happen for the next 4 years. I'll take needing 75 random people agreeing on a way forward any time over what we have now.

Very little, I'm sure. But when given a choice between a booksmart goody two shoes and someone with life experience, I will go with the latter. In fact, I'm all in favour of just pulling lots to decide who gets into parliament. Let's fully randomise it.

Life experience beyond the gilded cage most politicians grow up in seems to me essential to even conceptualise what's going on in society. Truss still thinks the poor are poor because they don't work hard enough. The US is a bunch of millionaires. The Netherlands has their own brand of white, male, straight, not openly religious, upper middle class ruling class that are largely blind to the problems people are actually dealing with. Marin's dance, while she probably had a relatively sheltered life, at least demonstrates not a total disconnect with what people typically do at 36.

People arguing for a type of politician are arguing for elitism and a disconnect between politics and citizens. The worst kind of democracy. These are the typical politicians that are really good at telling regular people what they're doing wrong, while stacking the deck against those very people.

Pretty much. I'd trust a social worker with an actual drug history more to solve drug issues than someone that read it in a book. There's no replacement for experience where it concerns social issues. One of the reasons poverty is such a pernicious problem.

I hadn't put it in such a context but that's certainly a fascinating take. I assume you have a background in Islamic or Middle Eastern studies?

I personally think is not funny at all. There are a lot of young people who die because of overdose every year... — javi2541997

There's millions of people who do drugs and never die. There's millions of people who don't drown when swimming. There's billions of people who don't crash their car. All this reflects is a bias for negative deviation of the norm.

Here is we disagree and it is fine. We have totally different concepts of life. What I wanted to say in your thread is the fact that we should expect more righteousness from a public representative. If she loves to be a young lady (despite she is already 36 years old) is ok but please do not be a politician then. — javi2541997

I know how it is to use and not use drugs because I used some drugs at some point in life. As a result I have experiential knowledge in understanding drug use and to a lesser extent addiction. I know for instance that Oxycontin is far more addictive than most commonly available drugs and that's after a single use dosis against pain. If you don't understand drug use and addiction, you can't regulate it in a manner that makes sense.

What we should expect from our representatives is to manage political problems, manage a country, solve socio-economic issues and possibly have a vision about where we should go to. Nothing about dancing influences this and it certainly says nothing about their "righteousness". That's all about you projecting a boat load of assumptions on a dance.

Personally, I'd be worried if a 36 year old woman couldn't dance like that, didn't drink and didn't do drugs. It would mean she has no idea about life, no experience interacting with others and therefore totally unqualified to rule because she has no idea about what actual people get up to. I'm a bit disappointed the drug test turned out negative to be honest.

I love the word "racy". Jugdmental much? What are you? A fossil? Obviously I raised "worse" behaviour from men that was never used against them. Eg. a double standard.

I'm saddened about the fact that pretty smart people have the moral intuitions of medieval peasantry.

You're not answering the question. Why is it unprofessional to dance?That you don't think she has a right to a private life (which I think is nonsense, everybody has that right, just not when acting in an official capacity) still doesn't answer why it's unprofessional.

What's unprofessional about dancing at a private party exactly?

Not what I said. And let's not pretend you actually now how Sharia works. You raising straw men every post is tiresome so I'm done here.

Not my problem you don't understand the harm principle. I'm not deciding anything, I'm explaining you're not applying the principle correctly and that it was never considered by the ayatollah. Not even avant la lettre.

Ah, I see your mistake where you confuse legal accountability with moral accountability.

That's demonstrably false. Just look at most governments. :razz:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/19/salaman-rushdie-attack-was-unjustifiable-says-pakistans-imran-khan

The anger is "understandable". Is it really though? It's understandable in the sense people are emotional and half of the time act like sheep and do act irrational. Other than that, not so much understanding here for many reasons. The most important one that Rhusdie's representation of that time is exactly what Muslim scholars talked about until the 800s. So Islamic religious truth in this case is a joke and if Khomeini was worth his salt as a scholar, he would know this. So we can rest assured this was entirely political.

I can but making shit up as if those ayatollahs considered the harm principle has nothing to do with seeing a different perspective.

you don't need to ask him to tone it down because those were reasonable replies in the umpteenth anti-natalism thread offered as one of the options for anti-lifers but baker likes to selectively quote.

Rushdie and those who defend him are implying that it's okay to reinvent history. You see no problem with that? — baker

Rhusdie's account is historically more accurate than what is now considered truth among Muslims.

"Offending the Prophet" is how they apply what you call the "harm principle". — baker

The prophet is dead, he can't be harmed.

Respect for religious authority. — baker

Respect for people sure, respect for things not so much. Respect for people means respect for life, that always comes before authority.

As if ridicule would be a civilizational accomplishment. — baker

Most certainly. George Carlin is a prime example of how to marry ridicule with intelligent commentary. I'm obviously not as funny but I'm several hundred steps above promoting people to kill someone. I confidently and comfortably claim the higher moral ground there.

You're so confident. Wait until you apply for US citizenship or want something else from the US. — baker

I wouldn't want anything from the USA even when it was the last government on Earth. It's only marginally better than most dictatorships.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/13/iran-lebanon-reaction-to-salman-rushdie-attack

Interestingly, the "denouncements" in Iran focus on the detrimental consequences to Iran but not the immorality of the act itself.

https://www.firstpost.com/world/attack-on-salman-rushdie-shows-divisions-among-lebanese-shia-11072441.html

There are vocal Lebanese that denounce it but they in turn receive death threats.

The title of Rushdie's uses a phrase borrowed from a western characterisation of an incident in the life of Mohammad, a phased not used in Islam. Probably because the reference to the cranes is less embarrassing, less sensational, and more technical.

The title "satanic verses" may thus be seen as tendentious, as not using the due respectful tone and vocabulary one should use while speaking of the Prophet. And it is also western and therefore ideologically suspect from a modern Muslim perspective. — Olivier5

Didn't original muslims scholars (back in the 600s-700s) actually refer to them as inspired by Satan? Rhushdie's version sounds at least as historically true.

Ownership creates that accountability. If you have started a business, invested in it and operate it, it's success or failure depends on you. Even in an cooperative it's the members of the enterprise, not others, who have this accountability. What is collective (effects others) should regulated the laws your business operates in. — ssu

I don't know where to start. This quite frankly sounds insane.

I see both, honestly.

I see a certain need for government, and a certain need to enforce rules that allow people to live together in cooperation, but I also see that at its essence government is predicated on violence and coercion. — Tzeentch

Ending it with "predicated on violence and coercion" doesn't sound like seeing it both though but I'll take your word for it and think that you probably have a much lower limit for what should be the government's job than I and consider the current setup too broad.

What kind of government activities are you against? I seem to recall you thought the lock downs were inappropriate. (We'll not rehash that discussion here, I disagree with that position during the immediate pandemic but agree the current permanent change is unacceptable as it removes the case-by-case oversight of Parliament). Any other things?

I struggle to see how capitalism is responsible for all of that, or how a departure from capitalism would solve it. But I'm open to hearing ideas. — Tzeentch

That's too much to write online, particularly at this time, but it's already interesting to me that what is obvious to me, isn't to you. At the same time, I think we agree on quite a few issues about what's wrong in our country so an important part of our moral intuitions are aligned. We differ in our assessment what caused them and therefore differ in what we think it would take to solve them. We're going all over the place (kind of by necessity, but still). I'm not sure how to get this back to a manageable subject for discussion.

I don't think solidarity that's forced at gunpoint is solidarity at all. — Tzeentch

These statements always rub me the wrong way. You see force, I see democratic cooperation/social contracts and contracts need to be enforced. What we saw in the 70s was a strong government that had broad support from society and not just the parliamentary coalition partners.

As an aside, coalition agreements back then fitted on an A4 - certainly part of the problem as the coalition agreement is a non-democratic instrument now used to lock-in voting behaviour of the coalition parties' members.

They are unprecedented reactions to unprecedented actions by Trump.

Hillary provided access to the entire email server and there was no issue surrounding paper documents because there was no probable cause she did that too. So she was cooperative. Trump on the other hand, knowingly retained documents that he knew he was supposed to return.

I'm not sure what situation with Bill you're referring to. He had sex with someone and I can't recall confidential information was involved.

That's just the thing: It _is_ law. It is _Islamic_ law. — baker

No, it isn't. Depends on whether a given country recognises is as such. So it might have been law in Iran but it certainly wasn't in the US.

The Islamic authorities disagree. — baker

Point me to the part where they considered the harm principle. They didn't disagree, it simply wasn't a consideration. Your statement is therefore false.

Would you make the same case for hate speech? — baker

A book that would call for violence against others is not protected speech and does harm others when people act upon the call. Since Rhusdie didn't, your suggested equivocation is wrong footed.

Wrong. It's not about not wanting to be aggravated or insulted. It's about not tolerating such aggravation or insult.

Nobody specifically wants to be aggraved or insulted. It is not fair to expect some people to quietly tolerate aggravation and insult, while others get to revenge themselves. — baker

You're simply missing the point and arguing against a straw man. The point is that aggravation is not grounds for punishment. You currently aggravate me with a badly argued post. Off with your head.

Blasphemy does damage a higher norm. — baker

Which higher norm? You're free to follow a religion, I'm free to ridicule you for it.

Example: If a person who is not a citizen of the US says or does something that the US authorities consider harmful to the US, what does the US do? They punish this person, and this punishment can include death. When another country does this same kind of thing, why is this problematic? — baker

This is not an example but an interesting representation of your biases. I talk shit about the USA on a daily basis and I'm fine.

Equivocating a fatwa with a rule of law is just plain wrong. A fatwa isn't law and in this case the rule was also intended to have retroactive effect, because it imposes a punishment for behaviour that existed before the rule was communicated. That is always bad law.

The reason high treason is punishable is because it generally detrimentally affects a large group of people. So from a typical liberal perspective, the harm principle can be applied. Since nobody is harmed by Rushdie's book, they can after all choose not to read it, punishing it is quite frankly ridiculous. If you don't want to be aggravated or insulted, don't interact with people at all, don't read, don't watch television and don't listen to the radio.

In a similar vain, treason that could never damage people or protects a higher norm, shouldn't be punished either. Generally, judges tend to take such effects into account when deciding on the severity of punishment.

https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlagschennis#:~:text=Vlagschennis%20is%20het%20verbranden%2C%20verminken,de%20nationale%20vlag%20strafbaar%20stellen.

The Dutch version explains it's neither a crime in the Netherlands nor Belgium.

I'd hope not! :rofl:

If you were to burn the Dutch flag in public, what would be the consequences?
It's just a piece of cloth, isn't it? — baker

Nothing happens. It's not considered criminal behaviour.