but we still enslave animals. — Herg

I was hinting at that with the "know better" argument but I wasn't as brave as you. However, since the idea's been broached, I believe that if we are still around in 100 year or so, humans will be looking back and wondering WTF we were thinking. Some of them will say "Oh, well, it was a different time, and they didn't know any better." BS. We knew. And I hope someone then corrects the record, saying "They knew."

But I'm a hunter and I've go no truck with killing and I respect predators. I think we are omnivores and I love meat. I just try (and fail) to live in grace with what I eat. I only hunt what I consider to be prey species and none that mate for life. I did try being a vegetarian for two years, but fell off the wagon and never went back.

I used to represent one of the largest ag companies in the world, and as part of discovery in USDC, we toured the slaughter house under an alleged CWA violation. I won't tell you about the fetus dance in the basement, but I will share a poem I wrote back around that time:

Next!

No longer wild, no longer free
Domestic, you belong to me
But the sparkle in your eye
Makes my ownership a lie

No matter what that we have done
You are still another one
I know this now in empathy
As I watch your tragedy

Up the ally on your way
To where you’re going to die today
The smell of death and anxious fear
Now you fathom what is near

The bellows of the ones before
Who’ve passed beyond the cold steel door
Still not sure, you stay in line
Past the gates the false lights shine

If it is the worst to be
Time permits you fight or flee
But now the noise and sight to greet
A head-knocked friend slides at your feet

Any chance that it won’t be?
Look around most desperately
Your Sacred Hoop spilt on the floor
Down the drain to ever more

No! — counterpunch

:broken: :grin:

(I imagine you're not too keen on the idea of pets at all - would I be right?) — Herg

You are right, but I'm a hypocrite. I have a dog and three cats. I love the dog and one of the cats. Two kill mice and gophers, and I'm good with that, but I hate when they kill birds. We keep them inside 90% of the time because we have eagles, bears, mountain lion, coyote, fox, etc. We don't have any wolves, but they are in the hopper so we can hope. I've had horses and other critters.

But I've often wondered if domestication of species was original sin. You take something and deprive it of it's essence. That can be utilitarian but I don't think it's good.

I don't accept your analogy. It doesn't refer to anything real. — counterpunch

An analogy, by definition, is not the thing itself. It is no argument to simply point that out. Rather, it is incumbent upon those who wish to defeat it to draw a distinction with a relevant difference. That, you have failed to do.

the woke ignore the fact that slavery was practiced all around the world since the dawn of time until western civilisation developed the philosophy, politics and economics to allow for individual freedom. — counterpunch

Irrelevant. Let me draw another analogy for you, in an effort to address your concern about the failure of the woke to address the fact that evil was prevalent and woke people got rid of it. In the law, if X steals Z from Y, then Z still belongs to Y. If X has children and passes Z on to them, Z still belongs to Y, even if X's children don't know it. If Y has kids, then Z belongs to them. If X invests Z and grows it, all that growth belongs to Y and/or Y's kids. If X's kids invest Z and grow it, Z and all the growth belong to Y's kids. If all this occurs over generations, where X and all of X's generations hence have risen up on the ill-gotten gains of X, then the generations of X owe. X's generations can't look around and whine like a little bitch when Y and and the woke Xs decide to try to make Y whole. And X's generations can't bitch if Y is a little pissed and flexing when Y get gets his turn.

Now, we have "statutes of limitation", but they aren't designed to protect X or X's generations. They are designed to protect the courts from loss of evidence. In the case of the balls-out theft of labor from blacks, and the theft of land from Indians (and genocide upon them), there is not loss of evidence. In regards to the latter, "Treaties shall be the supreme law of the land" and our violation of them was not merely screwing the Indians, it was a violation of our own law, so we screwed ourselves. And, where a people is a sovereign, then X never died. X still lives, as does Y. And in the case of blacks, the evidence still exists.

desalinate water to irrigate land, — counterpunch

developing wastelands. — counterpunch

Don't develop or plow another square inch, and recognize wastelands as those places like cities. There is no such thing as a natural wasteland. If that is done, I'm all in.

Regarding push back, the analogy I like to use is this: If you are unjustly kicking a man when he is down, and then you quit kicking for whatever reason (forced to quit or voluntarily quit), you simply cannot expect the man to get up, brush himself off and say "Why thank kind Sir, for stopping that brutal kicking!"

If he gets the opportunity, he's going to F you up. Especially if he perceives you resisted the change. Broaden shoulders, man-up and embrace the change; thanking your lucky stars it's not worse than some weak woke shit. Oh, and respect private property enforcement of woke policy. Go somewhere else if you don't like it. If some tool doesn't have to make a cake for a gay couple, then a private outfit can demand wokeness in their free market sales of goods or services.

So, if you see some group that has been treated like shit for centuries and then the treatment stops, don't expect a "Thank you." Expect a F you. Maybe a little payback. Look around and see what we are doing today that you know damn well we should not be doing, and get on the wagon against it. Be on the right side of history. If you don't, then your offspring down the line, who had nothing to do with it, but nevertheless benefited from it, is going to pay.

But please, don't expect no push back. It's human nature.

:100:

The molten interior of the earth is the nearest large source of energy available, and harnessing that energy would generate such great wealth, that we could afford sustainability. — counterpunch

I'm good with geo heat. But the part about 10 to 12 billion turns me off. Even if your approach could sate their desires, without the giant sucking sound of Earth into their gaping maw, there is the issue of space. If you could promise to reserve for me some elbow room, like 10k square miles of untrammeled wilderness, every other chunk, then I'd be good with it. Oh, and maximum biodiversity.

So you got a big problem there bud. — Gregory

No, it's you who has the problem. Abortion is legal and we kill people all the time.

ou're proposing a radical change in American federal and state policing and gun policy which you have acknowledged will lead to many deaths. The burden of proof that it will succeed rests with you. — T Clark

Again, it is a strange world we live in where the Bill of Rights is a pipe dream and a fantasy, and now, where the burden of proof is upon me because federal and state policing and policy has drifted so far from the BoR (infringement) that many deaths may occur if we honor it.

Seems the burden should be on the other side to say "Oops!, how do we get back to where we should be, with the security of a free state?"

Interesting thoughts, but everything you say takes planning, foresight and thought. The right and capitalism are not famous for thought. They like invisible hands and laissez-faire.

If you want long-range strategic planning, you have to go out further than the next quarter returns and a fiduciary duty to wedge your head up shareholder's butts. For that, talk to progressives and the left. The sooner you pull them in to the table, the less push-back there will be and the less chance they will haul out lady razor for the next close shave.

Come on, you are being intentionally dense. — T Clark

Uh, no. Being "pretty sure it won't work" doesn't constitute a response to the merits of my proposition. You brought up the thing about cops shooting unarmed people. Does it sound like a free state that many of our citizens live in? I pointed out MI and I could point out Malheur NWF, the Bundy Ranch and many other situations, including Robert F. William's examples of black people standing up and checking back-water Klan types. Securing a free state takes personal responsibility. It doesn't help when only one "faction" exercises it. In fact, it makes it worse.

This is the pipiest of all pipe dreams. — T Clark

If we're gong to fantasize, — T Clark

It is a strange world we live in where the Bill of Rights is a pipe dream and a fantasy. :wink:

Pro-choice people have zero natural law instincts — Gregory

BS. Natural Law has a huge element of "mind your own f'ing business". Pro-choice people have tons of that.

Round-up every self-identified woke college and university student — synthesis

And prove their point?

You see, they know people like you are out there (people who would round others up if they could), and as a result of the natural human inclination toward push-back, they want to make you pay. And, because of your recalcitrance, you should.

We all know better, but we don't always do better, and when we don't do better, someone is getting screwed, and when we are given decades, if not centuries, to un-fuck the mess we created but refuse to do so, then we can expect the pendulum to have a blade attached to it upon return. The way to avoid that, is to do better, and part of doing better is to advocate and legislate for those who are getting screwed.

In short, we made our bed so we can sleep in it. Or, we can wring our hands in consternation and make mountains out of mole hills and complain about boogey men who ain't no thang. So, the next time there is a woke power point presentation or policy change that has all the horrid imposition of a piece of cloth over the face, we just man up, we understand, and we just chill.

I think a lot more people will die. — T Clark

You are correct. Unless and until members of a community learn to take personal responsibility for their own actions, and treat each other with dignity and respect, there would most definitely be a thinning of the herd. I just can't help but think how things would have been different if most of those adult cell phones had been ARs slung politely over the backs of all the onlookers Floyd's murder. No need to brandish because Chauvin wouldn't have been acting up.

In fact, we may not even have to arm up. Close your eyes and imagine this: Illinois and Chicago (I chose them instead of MN because of all the deaths there now) decide to issue state-of-the-art hand-held military shoulder weapons and side arms, along with unlimited ammunition to all men and women who don't have criminal records. Included with the package would be training (starting in early school) in the use thereof. Here are the expected responses from different communities:

White supremacists: "Wait, what?"
Fascists: "Wait, what?"
NRA: "Wait, what?"
Inner city gangbangers: "Wait, what?"
Criminals" "Wait, what?"
Law Enforcement: "Wait, what?"

So, now that everyone agrees we should wait, LOL, we could all pump the breaks and start revisiting those little things like personal responsibility, dignity, respect, and our own actions. If the threat were real, and we'd be training up and arming all the good, law-abiding citizens in the worst areas of Chicago (who, I believe, vastly outnumber everyone else), then there might be a reckoning.

If crime rates did not drop and the foregoing "Wait, what?" communities did not start to mind their Ps and Qs, then yes, we go forward with the program. And yes, there would be a period of blood. But in the end, because good people (currently unarmed) outnumber the bad (currently armed), I think things would settle out to the point where people would stop carrying because it can be inconvenient for some folks, especially when there is no longer a need. We may even end up with Bobby's twirling their night sticks as they whistled down the sidewalk.

I think Europe doesn't deal with these issues because they suffered through two World Wars in thirty years. That, and they don't have the history of independence we have here.

Anyway, I periodically find the truth to be counter-intuitive so I give it thought.

Edited to add: In my fantasy world, the education begins early and is cutting edge and includes a deep steeping in the Liberal Arts, reading, writing, languages, philosophy, logic, civics, history, political science, sociology, phycology, and etc. All, including the guns, voluntary, of course.

Tell the police. . . . — T Clark

They've been told. No joy.

stop killing unarmed people. — T Clark

Maybe people should arm themselves. If you're going to get shot anyway, might as well be legit. And arming up seems to work for some. It's okay for Billy Bob and Cletus to be sporting guns, but, well, "those people" not so much. We don't see cops engaging insurrectionists in Michigan or D.C., but they are all over BLM. Hmmmm?

There was a difference in ideas between MLK and Robert F. Williams (Negros with Guns) about the pacifist vs the fight-back response to white oppression. Williams made a good case on real life examples.

Little known fact, but Ronald Reagan's CA gun control came about as a result of a fear of black people arming up.

Blacks, as a minority, would need their white compadres to back their hand, but the left seems to walk away from some of their delineated civil liberties (2ndA). Oh well.

The mother has the right and duty to be a mother and her offspring is her child not her enemy. Your reasoning is bizarre, but I can't work this out for you because people can always find ways to avoid what is for them a hard truth — Gregory

One need not be an enemy to rate killing. My reasoning is sound. The hard truth is killing.

Good response, I care in a sense also, but the afterlife in particular, not so much of a subscriber. Maybe I'll actually wake up! lol — Enrique

Could be. What I suspect will be the truth of it is something that I hope we can glean now, before death. I don't want to piss off the real physicists, but I think all the answers they seek will be forthcoming after death. I think if they continue on their current course, with a dollop of humility, and a revisit to what are probably some mistaken assumptions that form the foundation of their current thought, they might just pierce the veil. I hate to use the this term, but if they do so, they will look upon the face of god. I think, at that point, all creation will be saying "Welcome."

Now, the human in me would have all creation saying "No shit, Sherlock!" Or "What took you so long!" Or "If you had only listened!" Or "Roll eyes!" Or simply "Snicker." But I think all creation is happy with whatever, so a simple "Welcome" is more likely.

All their reasonings on this are arbitrary though. — Gregory

No they are not arbitrary. It can be killed so long as it is inside the mother. Not after. That's not arbitrary. It's based on a morality that places the mother's decision making over and above the life of the baby. Two competing values: Life vs Choice. I place choice over life. You place life over choice. One is not more arbitrary than the other.

"maybe it is a person so I won't support this" — Gregory

I say it is a person, and yet I support it anyway. The mother too is a person, and she's carrying the baby. Her house, her rules.

This issue can cause you to lose in life in general — Gregory

Or win.

We can understand biology's relation to ethics through reason, but not pro-choice sterile reason — Gregory

Sure we can. I have done just that.

Who cares what happens after we die? Makes no difference to us! — Enrique

That was not the question. The question was: "So, then, what is it that you think you can't really know or figure out."

I answered that question.

But I can say in answer to your question: I care.

Whether it makes a difference to "us" is irrelevant. I don't check in with "us" before decided what I care about.

Biology is not relative — Gregory

Actually, it is. In fact, it is you that seems to be considering biology in relation to morality.

So, then, what is it that you think you can't really know or figure out. — Thinking

For now I can't really know or figure out what's going to happen after I die. I have a real strong feeling about it, but I can't know for sure. And, even if I am right about my feeling, I don't know what that feeling will be.

See how easy that was? All you have to do is throw me a bone that I actually have to chew on. Now I have to go chew on that and leave you alone. :nerd: :grin:

I don't know how to solve all these problems in society, — Gregory

I do. Let the woman decide.

but proper principles about pregnancy are essential — Gregory

Yep. Let the woman decide.

I’m just curious where this notion comes from. — NOS4A2

That would be the first people I referred to: people who are chomping at the bit. People who make up myths and lies about themselves and their forefathers. There might actually be a few "real deals" hiding out in the bush somewhere, but like I opined above, we will never hear from them. I live out west (U.S.) and there are lots of folks who fancy themselves isolationists, even though they are clearly not. They pretend to champion the real deal isolationist in theory, but if one is found, he is looked upon with fear and suspicion. And he is not left alone.

Actually it is up to men to control woman in some ways because women can't be happy unless they are controlled by men in some way — Gregory

Oaky-dokey. As the kids would say "Peace, out, Bro. LOL!

As to anarchy, notwithstanding several attempts to understand it, I never got what that was anyway, so I won't address it.

But being selfish, yeah, that can be a trait.

Except no individualist (as far as I’m aware) conceives of individuals as hermits or wild stallions, as if every single human was Robinson Crusoe. So who is spreading this lie, exactly? — NOS4A2

I'm not sure anyone is spreading the lie. It might be like the War on Christmas. If anyone is spreading it, it might be those who feel put-upon by someone else.

On the other hand, it could easily be the "someone else" engaged in that universal human trait of setting up straw men in the opposition. In this case, a more socially oriented person might put the myth of isolation out there to more easily knock it down. Just as the individualist might point at commie ant piles, Stalin and Pol Pot as the alternative.

So, if no one is really making a claim to isolation as part-and-parcel of individualism, I say let it go.

Except no individualist argues conceiving of individuals as separate from society. — NOS4A2

If they did, we wouldn't know about it.

We do what we always do: we fight. That is when the individualist comes on bended knee to his fellow man, looking for help in fighting off his fellow men who are working together, either against him, or to keep his greedy ass at bay.

By way of one example only, "We" didn't overcome the "Indian problem" with a bunch of individualists. The self-identified individualists got the government to come out and clear the way for them. Then they created a myth of "pioneer spirit", "manifest destiny" rugged individualism" "enlightened self-interest" "boot-strapping" etc.

The lies we tell ourselves are all bullshit. We only overcome each other by working together.

The foregoing is just an example. It applies across the board because man is a social creature whether he likes it or not. He's not born into any state except a total reliance on his mother's tit. And the only thing that keeps a strange man from dashing him against a rock is other men. Ostracization is a good thing, but it's a social engineering tool and it got us where we are, for good or ill.

Again, we need not go to a system of ants on an ant pile, all working is some communist utopia. But neither should we lie to ourselves about how the individual rights we honor some how make us self-sufficient loners against the world; wild stallions to be let free to run through and eat the crops of others hard labor.

Pregnant mothers intuitively feel their child as their own offspring while pregnant. There is also such a thing as "fetal-maternal microchimerism" where mothers don't only affect the child growth but the fetus keeps the mother healthier throughout the pregnancy. — Gregory

I can stipulate to that being true in some cases. Where it is true, that just goes to prove that the decision to kill does not come lightly, on some flip version of abortion as birth control. Pro-lifers can't have it both ways.

Where it is not true, the woman doesn't feel that way, obviously, or she wouldn't be killing the baby.

Regardless, it's not for you, or the state, to make that call for them.

or her body — Gregory

That sounds like someone who's obsessed with sex. Pro-abortion folks just understand the difference between life and quality of life. And many (including men) are offended by the notion of pro-life people concerning themselves with what goes on inside the body. And they really get offended when the pro-life people turn to the state to stick it's nose in where it has no interest except the votes of pro-life people.

Pro-choice people get strangely confused by respect for life, because they are obsessed with a mother's "right" to deny her motherhood — Gregory

They are obsessed with her life.

The only problem with individualism is individualists who like to externalize their costs. That, and folks who think everything has to be either/or.

There's a good meme floating around about a Native American who noticed a distinction in the way he was raised vs many in the dominant culture. I wish I could find it. But the upshot was this: Many folks are raised with a sense of "rights" where as he was raised with a sense of "obligations." It might be difficult for one person to relate to the other. But there is also an infinite number of combinations between the two.

If the Chinese want to cut me out of a conversation, all they have to do is speak Chinese. If physicists want to cut me out of a conversation, all they have to do is speak physics. Don't they have a panoply of formulaic gobblydegook they toss up on a chalk board that only they can read and understand? In fact, when I first arrived here, I think I got notice that this forum, unlike many, allowed for the use of such characters. Seems pretty simple to me.

But when they wander on down from the heights to mingle with us great unwashed, and start using *our* English, they just entered my bailiwick. They can then expect some participation.

A little off topic, but since I am not a musician, mathematician, physicist, or logician, maybe you folks can clear something up for me: I think I once heard or read that all logic could be reduced to formula. The idea I got was that logical argument, fallacies, and such was really just journeyman stuff, and the continued pursuit of logic would bring one to formulas. Is that true?

I also saw a recent post here that asked about physics and math, as if someone might think they are different. I always viewed physics as just another form of advanced math, like calculus and whatnot. Am I wrong on that?

I've heard music is another language. I certainly can't read it (yet, it's on my to do list). But two people from different countries that don't speak the same "regular" language can both get the same song out of a sheet of music. Correct?

Anyway, I really don't want to be a nuisance. But that doesn't stop my head from spinning with intuition and ideas. Every once in a while, I'll throw something on the wall and see if it sticks. It's pretty easy to shut me down with numbers and formulas. No need to berate me, just X%$# y *@! / 56! = 5 = $ and I'm gone.

:grin: :up:

Philosophy is the junkyard of science — Woe is me who forget the name of this philosopher

Philosophy is science? I thought science was the bastard step-child of philosophy. :gasp:

And then, there are all those infinities . . . :scream: — jgill

Don't forget the God Particle.

I'm sure there a bunch of terms that physicists pull from somebody else's discipline because they keep getting punked by "reality." It's no wonder others feel free to chime in when they see the struggle using familiar terms.