That's not terrible, that would've been justice and the right order of thing especially if that traitor Pence got killed. At least, that's how I imagine Trump's thoughts go to the extent he has them.

You misunderstand his quote. Terrible things might happen to Trump. Terrible things happening to others aren't part of his moral calculus. The temperature going down is about the DOJ and FBI backing off and only they are responsible for the current temperature. He was so drunk on power that the idea of him having done anything illegal as president doesn't compute.

However, where we may differ in views is that I do not believe governments are able to resist against this phenomenon, and giving governments further mandates to fight private business will only result in larger, more unaffordable behemoth government, and more mandates that will be in the end abused against the citizen. — Tzeentch

Yes, we definitely diverge there. We know from history that smaller government leads to worse abuse by capitalists (exploitation). Especially in light of modern corporate power, the state is the only entity capable of being a counterveiling force to capitalist power. Trust in the Dutch governments was highest with "vadertje Drees", a social Democrat. The last politician we had that was respected across party lines when the ontzuiling wasn't even fully accomplished. Because back then his breed of politicians at least tried to do what was best for most citizens, instead of catering to special interests.

Since then we've seen the slow erosion of the welfare state due to liberal theory's narrow idea of freedom (as only negative freedom). Without financial solidarity, there's no social solidarity. And when a government isn't seen to combat social injustice, you get distrust of the government. If that distrust isn't addressed but instead exacerbated due to an immoral shift in political culture, you get the what we have now. Combined with a rising power of corporations due to internationalisation, concentration and financial deregulation, they are also more prone to be influenced by special interests.

In this day and age while I'll always be more of a socialist, I think it's no longer about party ideology but personal character. We need representatives that can ignore party politics, set aside their ego and sincerely think about "what is best" instead of technocratic adjustments and I don't really care if he's a liberal or a socialist deep down. Both ideologies brought a lot of good and probably reflect in a sense a basic human contradiction: that of belonging (socialism) and being yourself (liberalism).

I consider capitalism as it's ordered at this point in time to be an affront to both. Wage slavery, attacks on labour unions in the US, liberalisation of international markets meaning that people are slowly all become flex workers with related deterioration in labour protections and room and freedom for personal development, etc.

Indeed. Still, I remain puzzled with the intensity of the reaction to what I remember as a respectful, even insightful 'novelisation' of Mohammad's revelation. — Olivier5

If the Quran is supposed to be divinely inspired then the suggestion some of the text is the consequence of political considerations is blasphemous. That part seems relatively straightforward, if possibly alien/ridiculous to most Christians and atheists.

Which worked out perfectly for capitalists (and just them), which was his point I think.

We're both Dutch. You're welcome to share everything that you think is going wrong and we can talk about how those specific issues would be best solved over a beer.

I have plenty of problems with the Dutch government but that's not really the point between us at this moment. Where "evils" were perpetrated, you have to show this is the result of government functioning or the result of politics. It's almost always the latter, although I'd argue the US governmental institutions and their relations are set up in such a way that they invite abuse with too little in the way of counterveiling forces. So there are definitely systems that are better than others. I think the Dutch system is one of the best - one of my favourites is the easy access for new parties that allow for the introduction of new issues in political discourse that are relevant to society but ignored by mainstream parties. The better the system, the less corruption or "special interest" have a chance to influence decision making. But at the end of the day, to me it's mostly about political culture.

I might be mistaken and it's just because I'm older and notice it more, but I feel that Dutch political parties have become more corrupt than say 20 years ago, with political leaders not taking responsibility for governmental failures, a focus on political symbolism and point-scoring in media. Just look at the toeslagenaffaire, how Pieter Omtzigt was treated and the talk about a new "culture of transparancy" but nobody following it through. Just windowdressing.

And this has influence on how ministries are run and act. They are increasingly in the business of keeping elected officials out of trouble. So they avoid taking difficult decisions because the minister is not going to sign off on it any way.

I applaud that step. Contains the problem to the USA.

So they say the attack is justified. — Michael

Lovely.

Thomas Aquinas said that atheists should be executed. He was echoing Plato. None of those guys were crazy. It's part of who we are as a species to get murderous about sacrilege, which has many forms. I don't say that to apologize for Muslim leaders who are silent now. It's just that I need a way to understand. — Tate

Agree. I believe civilisation really is only a very thin veneer, easily dropped under various circumstances.

This: a few translators and sympthasizers have already been attacked. The Japanese translator died and the Norwegian and Italian translators survived.

We got guys ready to kill for hearsay, for a fucking rumor...

I guess some people beg to be manipulated. — Olivier5

I unfortunately do not share your disbelief. Isn't every religious war exactly this? It requires you to buy into the religious fundamental assumptions that I'm pretty certain most believers never experienced either. God is infallible, omnipresent, angels, hell, heaven, etc.

I suppose it's not so much manipulation but the indoctrination resulting from whatever society you grow up into. Most people do not question their position or role in that society. And I'd say "education" is an important factor in avoiding this but then Iran was well-educated and "modern" well into the 70s. So it's also politics and how politics and religious thinking can be (mis)used. Just like "God save America", "God is with us!" and "I'm doing God's work" are and were used for political purposes.

Another excellent piece mentioned our 'internalisation' of the fatwah with links to other articles.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/13/we-internalised-the-fatwa-against-salman-rushdie-this-horrific-attack-is-what-follows — Amity

This is a good article and makes an interesting link to identity politics.

Upon reflection, what surprises me is that despite the decentralised nature of religious leadership in Islam, such a fatwa can have such a far-reaching almost monolithic agreement with the fatwa even by Muslims who aren't part of the religious tradition of Ayatollah Khomeini. I somehow feel that it can't just be identity politics that resulted in that. Am I overestimating European societies ability to create room for people to have their own opinions about these sort of things? Hell, I have very fundamental different views than my parents about almost everything to do with politics.

I'm just glad he survived.

I want to say yes just to see you talk more silliness.

I didn't know that. My Persian ex always corrected me and said "It's Farsi idiot".

we had double digit inflation in the 70s here. Golden years. It's not very interesting if wages can keep up.

my bed and wrote in persian — Olivier5

You mean Farsi.

RM?

I suspect the lawyer is so bad, he didn't actually check and simply asked Trump and accepted his answer as true.

If that's your point, then you are arguing semantics.

The whole "price stability" has been bullshit from the start. "We'll never have another crisis": my ass. Only hyperinflation is an issue. Both moderate deflation and inflation should just run its course.

It's just a really, really big mushroom. Keep your distance.

Yes, which then leads to increased acidification again so not necessarily a good thing.

FYI, found a reference to the research about lower temperatures in the northern hemisphere: https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/207427

Sorry, it's from memory. I think I read it in relation to the little ice age. It's something I must've read in 2004-2010 when I was working at the ESA. Might even be obsolete nowadays to be honest.

Even if the thermohaline circulation would shut down, this would result in relatively local climate change limited to eastern North America and Western Europe and would result (as far as we understand) to lower temperatures.

What a cheap retort to what is an argued position. It must be wonderful to be so convinced about your own position you can dismiss others without trying to understand them and instead impute bad faith.

I see people are back to arguing the equivalent of "water causes itself to be wet". Whatever floats your boat I guess. Carry on. :yawn:

Always nice to see people rant about governments without acknowledging what they have managed:

1. prohibited slavery
2. prohibited child labour
3. gender equality
4. welfare
5. healthcare
6. labour laws
7. environmental laws
8. independent courts
9. infrastructure
10. accessible educations
11. anti-trust legislation
12. police
13. fire departments
14. etc.

I could go on but I thought of one every second just now, each institution or law program improving socio-economic circumstances of a lot of people and to the extent it cost money it improved social justice. I don't really care about the motivation of people who are against governmental action toute court, because it's based on a total lack of historic perspective and only driven by ideology.

Why? Whatever Trump does, it doesn't matter for his supporters. Because it's all just fake news, even if they hear about the issues. What would change their minds, other than Trump going full liberal? — ssu

What exactly is funny about Saudi Arabia getting nuclear weapons information?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/11/russia-oil-production-sanctions-limited-effect-ukraine-war

Limited effect on Russia. Europe on the other hand... There's a lot of Dutch families having trouble paying their bills due to the increased energy prices and there's a larger wave expected at the end of the year when the invoice for actual use is sent. Here we have a system where you pay an advance, which is calculated on historic use but also prices when the advance is set (eg. beginning of the year or contract if you have a longer term contract). So unless people have voluntarily raised the advance, they will have a hefty bill at the end of the year. The National Institute for Family Finance Information has already pointed out too little people are doing this and they expect a significant spike in defaults at the beginning of next year.

So if sanctions aren't really hurting Russia but are hurting the most vulnerable in our own societies, why continue with them?

HAHAHAA! — ssu

There's nothing remotely funny about this so I'm puzzled by your reaction.

Well, raiding a house of a previous president and a potential presidential candidate does raise eyebrows. — ssu

Yes, so since it would be political suicide if this were directed by the Democrats or done without probable cause, we can be confident there actually was a smoking gun.

Meanwhile Republicans are like the raid was "disturbing and dangerous".

Fuck.

Just wondering out loud, can he run while he's not been convicted yet? And if either he or another Republican wins the next presidential election, can he be pardoned?

Quit with the antinatalism discussion. It's not the subject of the thread but now dominating it.

it is so, we have current observation and enough data of the past 800,000 years to know it ain't going to happen to be relevant for global warming and possibly not at all for the next 100,000. But then that requires you to actually understand the science.

So at least another 2000 years before we really notice anything. As I said, too late to make a difference and therefore it has no place here.

250 million people will be directly affected due to rising sea levels by 2100 and that's assuming we can reach the 2030 goals, which it's quite obvious we won't. When's the next ice age expected again?

Climatologists do speak with such confidence, just not in their scientific papers. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-by-global-warming-has-already-begun.amp.html

So stop your obfuscation in a misplaced attempt to think you're trying to do science.

Oh, I don't know Tate, how about the documents about reglaciation you yourself sourced and when we could expect an ice age at the earliest based on that and then comparing that to the IPCC reports on when we can expects coastal areas to disappear due to rising sea levels?

Do you have any more disingenuous questions or is that it?

It's 100% certain it won't happen naturally anytime before the climate crisis of global warming displaces and kills millions.

Except of course she was investigated by the FBI for just that.

I’m reading what you wrote. We’re talking past each other. I’m arguing about moral behavior; you’re arguing about moral outcomes.

Like I said, I think moral outcomes are illusory in the sense that they are never moral enough, an infinite regress, so one needn’t concern himself with such thoughts. Had you known the woman’s kids might go hungry you might buy the more expensive chair. She spends the money on booze instead. She gets drunk and kills a family in an accident. Regardless of the outcome you acted morally. — NOS4A2

The difference is that you claim a moral right to the outcomes merely because you followed the rules. My point is that merely following the rules does not result in such a right if that outcome isn't moral. I subsequently put forward that since the market mechanism (or actually the price mechanism) doesn't take into account moral considerations, it will result by definition in immoral outcomes.

Your example above and point about the regress are valid points but then I never claimed acting morally and taking responsibility for the consequences of our choices is easy.

True. My hesistance to commit to anything absolutely true other than those true by definition is that the OP required us to be "sure" about our absolute truth. For me, certainty in a rational sense should leave no room for doubt (like a properly constructed logical argument for instance) and since we have two possibilities it might not be true, I wouldn't commit to it. That said, from a more practical point of view, I don't have any reason to doubt the veracity of the 2nd law of thermodynamics at any moment in my waking life.

The forum is improving - no "existence exists" yet.

I wouldn't dare to commit to this one by the way:

Total entropy of closed systems (e.g. post-planck era universe) cannot decrease. Corollary: local order is a transient phase-state (i.e. aspect) of global disorder.

Have you heard of Poincaré's recurrence theorem? In short: a closed system in thermodynamic equilibrium will (if you wait long enough) randomly reach a state of lower entropy, And then increase again, so you get fluctuations in entropy. Moreover, if I may refer to one of my favourite little books "The Character of Physical Law" Feynman makes a good case for physical laws to be symmetrical and therefore in theory allowing for objects to fall upwards, time to flow in reverse and entropy to decrease.