Interesting - can the treaties or agreements be interpreted, therefore, to "own" the land (but mayhaps only in respect to their parties)?

A human is as they are with other humans. The Crusoe myth is as wrong as the early Wittgenstein solipsist myth. When I wake I find my mother is there. There are always others. The Other is always there. How else would I be I? — mcdoodle

Of course you are in respect to the other people, but are non-living objects? I'd say not (but then again they are objective as well). The question becomes, what do we make of non-living but also not-objective and non-physical things, such as abstract man-made concepts?

Humans are animals. The animal is unitary, no separate body and "Consciousness".

Animals, including humans, are purposefully-responsive devices, not different in principle from mousetraps, refrigerator lightswitches or thermostats. (..but differing from then in complexity, and natural-selection origin). — Michael Ossipoff

I kind of feel like starting to throw ad hominems around after reading that, but then again the inclusion of humans confuses my insultedness. I guess I'm fine with the conclusion and the reasons based on which you believe what you believe about animals, but I'm still insulted by the way you draw the simplicity of humans from the simplicity of animals.

Ah yes, we can't communicate with animals so let's take the lowest estimate for their mental capacities. Can you imagine how ridiculous it would be of someone to say the same thing about african people just because that person doesn't speak any of the african languages? Yeah, that's about how you sound to me.

Other than that, I buy the view almost completely. Just one detail - I can't see how a physical structure of matter could access the consciousness, whatever it is, so I believe it's the other way around: the consciousness attaches itself to matter, and specific patterns of matter support bigger amounts or more complex structures of consciousness around it.

Why because it's de-platformed must people talk less about it? — Pseudonym

Isn't that the point and the goal of de-platforming? Whether it works is a different thing.

I don't understand. How could an idea become rationally more attractive simply because it has been de-platformed. What rational step means that an idea is more likely to be right because lots of people don't want it talked about? — Pseudonym

It's de-platformed -> the people opposing it talk less about it -> the people opposing it argue less against it -> less rational and logical arguments are presented against it -> it's easier to rationally come to the conclusion that the idea is correct.

So the question ''how do we know we're not computer code?'' is more important than ''is this AI conscious like us?'' — TheMadFool

Both are more important than "what's the weather like?" which is still relevant, so I don't see what conclusions can be drawn from such a comparison.

In order that de-platforming makes ideas more attractive we must presume that people are motivated to agree with ideas, not on the grounds of the rationality of the argument, but on the grounds of how well it fits into some preferred narrative. — Pseudonym

No we don't. If the ideas are only de-platformed and not rationally argued against, they become more attractive from the rational point of view.

Does not change the fact that a consensual exchange of ideas is highly implausible between people who do not mutually believe in each other's existence. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

So now you're only considering people who believe in each other's existence? That's essentially saying that people who agree agree.

Depends on what everybody has agreed on. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

But they haven't.

If people were not essentially in agreement--we exist (can't imagine a substantive dialogue between a being who believes he and the other exists and a being who believes his own self and/or the other does not exist); the symbol "1" represents a particular quantity; words uttered aloud are associated with thoughts in the mind of the utterer and are not random sounds; etc.--the exchange of ideas would not be possible. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Seems to me more like the universal subjects of agreement are the superficial ones, rather than those of disagreement. By the way, there's not even agreement on whether we agree on the meanings of symbols and whether the words mean the same to everyone.

Did heliocentrism prevail over geocentrism because disagreement came to a head and the facts settled that or because agreement could no longer rationally be denied? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Probably the former to be honest. And actually there's more disagreement on that nowadays than there was before.

Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and disagreement is millions of minds trying to put everything back together. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

How are these connected?

If naturalism suits your taste: the mind was unified when if first appeared; it then diverged into hundreds/thousands of languages and/or cultures; disagreement is that fragmentation. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

The direct conclusion of this is that there's disagreement. Where does the agreement come in? Also, the conclusion does not follow from the premise of naturalism.

No matter how you prefer to explain it, the more that I hear/see people interacting intellectually, the more apparent it becomes to me that we are all basically in agreement while nitpicking and splitting hairs over superficial differences. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

1) Define superficiality.
2) Let's take, say, rejecting the existence of everything but one's own mind, and rejecting the existence of the mind as examples. How is the difference between these a superficial one? What do they even have in common?

No, most states are democracies which means that each citizen has a part to play in devising and revising these moral decisions. — Pseudonym

No single individual can affect the laws, so they're under the power of their authorities. And that the authority (state, society, laws) is chosen democratically by the people does not make it any less an authority.

There was no vote on the ten commandments. — Pseudonym

No, but they have so much space for interpretation they actually leave a lot more freedom for moral decisions and the choices and preferences of the individuals than actual laws.

An authority is needed for morality in any society, because otherwise we're left with pretty much an anarchy or the state of nature with everyone following their own interests. In my opinion that authority should be democratic, but also more open-ended like that of religions'.

Racism exists outside of neo-nazi groups so we shouldn't act against neo-nazis? — Pseudonym

Statistically neo-nazi groups have proportionally more racists than the general population, whereas priests don't have a higher probability to be child abusers than other men. Let's shut down hospitals and schools as well because then there are less opportunities for child abusers.

The reason the above isn't a good idea, even if stopping child abusers at any cost was the top priority, is that blocking a single way to do that won't stop the abusers, but instead they'll find another way. And on top of that I don't think any pedophile becomes a priest just because it's an easy way to abuse children; they're just priests that happen to also be pedophiles.

So if a teacher in a faith school teaches that all non-believers are so evil that they deserve to be tortured for eternity, that's fine — Pseudonym

It's fine in the faith school, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be tolerated here.

Delusional people twist certain evidence to support their belief, and ignore other evidence that contradicts their belief. — Harry Hindu

That doesn't mean anyone that twists certain evidence to support their belief and ignores other evidence that contradicts their belief is delusional.

Cons -
The discouraging of critical thinking
The absolving of moral responsibility to an authority
Religious wars
Child abuse
Psychological abuse

Pros -
Nothing that is not already replicated in atheists — Pseudonym

Religion does not discourage critical thinking. "Absolving of moral responsibility to an authority" is neither a strictly negative thing nor one caused only by religions; every state in the world does that with their legal systems. Wars exist without religions, which are just excuses. Child abuse happens outside religions as well, you might as well say that religious people die and therefore list dying as one of the cons.

Or when people say that democracy is better than the alternatives do they have something other than aggregate pleasure minus aggregate suffering in mind? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Why not?

I think the idea of creation is an inherently flawed concept. It just coming back to what created what created what. — Xav

It's turtles all the way down.

If you're making illogical jumps from companies to the areas of services they provide, you're the silly one. Take the prostitution or beggars for example, both are only problems when they become organized and the workers are being exploited. Or, take Nestle. I'm definitely against Nestle because using slavery and killing union workers and causing the deaths of millions of starving children is wrong but it doesn't mean I'm trying to make drinking water illegal.

He rails against Social Media by attacking social media companies - quite obviously. — charleton

Adding "quite obviously" in your comment is not an argument - quite obviously.

Cavacava already posted that link alongside with quotes, which I refuted in the comment immediately above the one I'm replying to right now. The fact is Soros does not speak against social media in the text you provided, but only against the social media companies, which are some of the the big corporations that are a danger to democracy. And those are the companies you claim Soros wants to give more power to.

Facebook and Google

social media companies

social media companies

As I said, give me a quote of Soros criticizing social media. Not the social media companies.

The old media and the rich with their corporation have been in control since the dawn of time, and their control is at last being challenged by social media, which gives people a chance for the first time in history to push for REAL democratic change. — charleton

Then give me a quote where Soros says anything against social media.

The article nowhere states that internet or social media are dangerous. It only talks of the big corporations. They influence and brainwash and exploit us just like the traditional media, or any of the biggest world-wide corporations. Facebook as a site is good, but as a company it's bad.

How are you even claiming the big social media or IT companies are good for democracy?

If it was as you said and Soros just wanted the control back, he'd be advocating Google and controlling their collection of our personal information.

but when set B is exhausted — alan1000

It won't be, because it's infinite.

3) You could assign every number n from the set A to number n+10 in the set B, or you could assign that to n+11 and have a number left over from B.
4) Would not follow even if 3) was true so I'll just leave this to the burden of proof.

(2) In the arithmetic of the countable infinities, A = B; but: A - B = 10. — alan1000

Incorrect. That only holds for natural numbers. When A or B equals infinity, that's not true.

(3) In other words, if we pair the elements of infinite set A one-to-one with those of infinite set B, we have 10 numbers left over. — alan1000

Does not follow.

(4) Therefore, an infinity may be smaller than some natural number. — alan1000

Does not follow.

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And that is another reason why the abolition of belief is a good idea. — charleton

No, that is another reason why you think the abolition of belief not supported by evidence is a good idea.

We must note here that unlike the scientific method which generally promotes that we pay attention to evidence, belief permits that people can ignore evidence most of the time. — uncool

Cars generally speaking are not purple. My car is purple. Therefore my car is not a car.

That's correct, the example isn't. What's relevant is whether the belief is correct, not whether the person has it.

What I said was de facto correct; 'belief is used for taking as true regardless of evidence'. — charleton

You have the implication wrong way around. Taking something as true regardless of evidence is belief, but not necessarily vice versa.

Why would a god do that?

And your point is? Are you trying to claim the empirical observations are also necessarily true?

And why would you need to believe in empirically observable things, like the body? — uncool

Exactly. Believing empirical observations is a belief.

This makes no sense. Looks like you've ran out of arguments, given the evidence that I've laid out before you :) — uncool

I never said you don't have evidence, but the evidence you mentioned is no proof. Science is not proven.

As charleton says, there is no doubt that religion exists, however, this doesn't suddenly mean that religious doctrine is any evidence. — uncool

I didn't say it did.

Edit: it seems I never answered , nor did I fix or correct the comment that was an answer to, which led to some confusion - sorry, my bad. What I meant in this comment was evidence for the doctrines of religions being correct, not evidence for the existence of religions.

And immortality is that area — charleton

sarcastic — BlueBanana

I can even go ahead and admit my confusion about my mortality if that makes you happy but I'd be delighted if this discussion could advance somewhere, so would you care to explain how the history of human civilization is evidence of my beliefs?

Human reasoning is more abstract than animals. — TheMadFool

Can you speak in a civilized manner without insulting animals?

But ''where?'' can be reduced to ''what is the location?'' — TheMadFool

"What" in this context is different than "what" in general. Ie. What is the location of the object? The location is the part of space where the state of having the asked object is true.

Not as good as I once was.

You do know how quotations work, right? If I quote a claim of yours and say "clarify" I mean "clarify the thing I quoted".

You made the claim I believe in "the myth of positive thinking". I asked for proof. You quoted that question and said you "have the entire history of civilisation" as your proof. My obviously sarcastic and rhetoric question was a clear implication the history of mankind cannot be used to draw conclusions about my personal thoughts. Then you denied this by calling me confused, and I asked you to clarify your reasoning for this claim.

Well it's directly comparable to evidence for/against religions. The evidence as a whole is against them, including for example the science, but even if that is stronger than the evidence for religions, it doesn't mean there is no evidence for them.

Neither, just a bit confused by the sound of it. — charleton

Go ahead and clarify then.