You know, I've experienced some of the worst withdraws imaginable. But, this entity whom I refer to as 'Y', had such a profound effect on me, that at times it felt like our two beings merged.

When I couldn't maintain that state of existence, when I was referred to as 'K' (Y+me=K) you can't imagine how painful it felt to be no longer with Y.

I know this is verging on psychoceramics; but, I cannot doubt the feeling of love I felt.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one ought to remain silent.

What do you mean by that?

I thought your nick was pretty witty. Other than that it's hard to stand out from the crowd.

I have a personal hunch. Had Pearl Harbor never happened, and America stood on the sidelines, they would have adopted fascism. 1930's America, as per Dewey upon visiting it, was praised as the greatest social experiment. Thing is that after observing the ludicrous transformation within the span of 15 years of the German nation after the treaty of Versailles, it would have made any economic manager of the country drool with envy.

I don't mind people suggesting that. — Andrew4Handel

Yeah; but, my point was that it denies you the possibility of hearing out other opinions as if there were some authority on masturbation or sex...

Because therapy can help a lot in changing beliefs like this.

It's just a matter of how much you want to change and whether you can accept help or not. — Terrapin Station

Fine, but you might as well tell a person they need to see the doctor over a common cold, you know?

Why the fuck are people telling @Andrew4Handle that he needs to see a therapist?

Well, I'm no sex psychologist; but, in simple terms, there's a great deal of guilt associated with sexual activity and especially masturbation from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

It's hard to apply reason to the situation, and a lot of neuroticisms arise when one tries to do so.

Just don't go searching for a hookup, that's probably the ultimate debasement.

In a nutshell, fall in love without the unconscious desire to have sex.

I'm nearing 30, and have never had sex. Eventually, you grow out of the super conditioned dubbyliminated response to want to have sex, that manifests in masturbation.

what if your sphere of interest is the boats? — Mark Dennis

Communism?

I am aware of the history of the term, but Smith never referred to market forces as an "invisible hand". Indeed Smith's usage of the term is highly questionable, since the term is never explained and seems rather like a deus ex machina (and Smith may have meant literal divine intervention) to salvage a conclusion that otherwise just would not follow. — Echarmion

Personally, I think it was a term popularized by the religious fanatics. Smith just went along with it.

Swany, I can't go back. It fundamentally altered me.

Talking about Adam Smith, it's quite funny that China turned out to be the very type of economy he was criticizing. A mercantilist superpower, though they are shifting towards a service-based economy as of late, and a green one too.

Whimsical bullshit. Marxism is as failed as it was from the start, there is just a new generation that hasn't ever seen Marxism-Leninism in reality and hence the left can blissfully forget everything about all the failed experiments that all ended up in tragedy. — ssu

It must be tiring to constantly point out the no true Scotsman fallacy towards China. Fascism just doesn't sound right in my mind, at least not yet.

Are you being sarcastic here? There is no such thing as an "invisible hand". — Echarmion

No, it's a term baptized by Adam Smith, although he never would have imagined that it would be the grand signifier of his neo-classical economic theory, in his magnum opus, being The Wealth of Nations.

Well, under the guise of rationality, why go out of one's sphere of interest? Let the economy take care of the rest of the boats, or not...

But but the invisible hand does wonderous things for us. Why shalt one bite it?

Trouble is, it's not an economic solution but an ethical one; and hence it is quite unlikely that folk will choose it. — Banno

But but my liberal arts degree told me that ethics is good and the tragedy of the commons is bad. What went wrong here?

You’re American I gather? — I like sushi

101%

She moved away, somewhere I am unable to get to.

But, I'm slowly churning through everything, and need some rest.

So why the question? — Old Brian

Because the love I experienced/felt/hallucinated/dreamed of was so real that it makes me want to either die (something she told me that would allow us to meet again) or figure out how all of this happened and how to understand it and replicate it again for others and myself to experience again.

This topic has been bittersweet to me.

At once I agree with ol Schopenhauer and at the same time want to disagree.

Banno's comment is elucidating, in that philosophy becomes redundant and worthless frankly. What takes supreme importance is to appreciate life.

Philosophy of Logics by Susan Haack

With Naming and Necessity and Reference and Existence on the way...

In short NOTHING about ‘beauty’ is sociocultural, so to speak. — I like sushi

That can't be true, can it?

OK, *goes and wallows*.

Can we disable pictures in PM? I'm honestly afraid of getting a PM with some snuff/gore/etc.

The internet, you know...

Well, I've been adding @Baden to the conversations in PM of a particular user who has been PM'ing me.

Point is, that it can't really be abused since no information is hidden. So, there's full transparency.

Just my two cents.

I don’t see how our aesthetic disposition has changed. I don’t see how our approach has changed either. — I like sushi

How so? What's the trait or constant wrt. to the beauty that allows us to appreciate art over many generations. See what I'm trying to do is discern how much of beauty is socio-cultural and from this idea that something is inherently beautiful.

And now non sequitor and incoherence. The reason, I suspect, you're so slick is because there is no bone in you anywhere, just jelly. And not a good jelly. — tim wood

I loled.

Are you unable to tolerate his t-shirt? — NOS4A2

Sure, I can. But, I don't want to sit next to him on my flight to Hawaii.

You had to add “lynching a journalist” to make it sound like the guy was being intolerant. — NOS4A2

Maybe you didn't get the reference... Are you from the US? Southern states perhaps?

Clearly wearing a t-shirt is not lynching a journalist. There is only one intolerant person in the photo, and it is the person holding the camera. — NOS4A2

Are you on crack?

No, we should not tolerate the intolerant. — NOS4A2

Then why lynch journalists or at least tacitly approve of such an action/state of affairs?

I don't know. Should we tolerate the intolerant?

No, what’s bad is surreptitiously taking a picture of someone’s t-shirt and spreading it among the uncritical masses on twitter for political gain. — NOS4A2

Political gain, eh?

How about being a concerned citizen?

Shit is wild.

Saying that aesthetics is "philosophy of beauty" is a lot like saying that philosophy is "love of wisdom." There are perspectives from which it makes sense to say both, but they're pretty specific, limited perspectives that don't tell you very much about the activities we actually do as philosophy or aesthetics. — Terrapin Station

So, then how do you ground the concept of beauty? What's the axiology here?

To say something is priceless, means what?

I don’t think our political approach to aesthetics has changed other than by means of propaganda spilling into advertising and such. It’s always been there though. Is that the kind of thing you’re looking at? — I like sushi

There's a performative contradiction here. If our aesthetic sense of appreciation of art has been steady for some 1000+ years, then how do you explain such examples of the swastica being adored to death in the past, while being reviled with disgust in the present?

So, the swastica is really beautiful to most blokes still nowadays?

How have our approaches to aesthetics changed across history? — StreetlightX

I think I'm focusing on that question at least with the OP.

Though I'm always ready to talk about the persistence of aesthetic abstractions that is mathematics...