if people are grumbling about taxes it means the government hasn't quite explained the rationale behind taxes. — Agent Smith

They never explain the rationale behind the taxes because they have the risk of losing votes. This is what makes me upset... The public expenditure only cares when national elections are coming up.

Spain plans to raise taxes for rich, make lower earners pay less. Government says temporary wealth tax will raise €3B


Our treasury minister planned the so-called “solidarity tax” which consists on:

Two-year wealth tax that would apply to those who own more than €3 million in assets. The scheme would see around 23,000 people paying on a scale of between 1.7% and 3.5% of their riches in extraordinary taxes, according to the plan.

With that wealth tax, Spain hopes to raise around €1.5 billion annually from the country’s 0.1% most affluent segment.

In parallel, those earning more than €200,000 per year would see income taxes raised by one percentage point.

Meanwhile, small companies earning less than €1 million per year would see taxes decrease from 25% to 23% (23% of your revenue applied to taxes is still a lot...)

I still think we pay a lot of taxes here and in the other hand those benefits not always are good managed by the government.

It would have to be a pretty lousy simulation if the people in it were constantly pointing out they were in a simulation. Really, at that point it ceases to be a simulation and just is the context. So, any answer is that we simply live in our version of the real world — Cheshire

:up: :sparkle:

The Brazilian left wing needs another leader. Lula has a lot of experience and he governed the state once but he already has a lot of people who loves or hates him. There is not a middle point.
In the other hand, Lula has been in jail. We can be agree here that he was put in prison because of corrupt judges. Nevertheless, it still be a negative mark in his political career.

Bolsonaro won the previous elections for many reasons but one important: public order. Many Brazilians were tired of living with a lot violence in their neighbourhoods. Bolsonaro reinforced the power of police officers and let them to act more aggressively in favelas. Many citizens applaud this decision.

Bolsonaro doesn’t give a damn about the environment. — Xtrix

Exactly. This another fact. Brazil has a good GDP (11th position of the world) but, sadly, is due to the destruction of the environment.

what happens if he does win? — Xtrix

He would suffer a lot of pressure from Brazilian elites and probably a Coup d'état.

I think we share the same point of view but with different words

‘where do your personal earnings go?’. There is no ONE answer to this question. — I like sushi

That's true. Nevertheless, we have to accept (unconditionally?) that a considerable percentage of our earnings go directly to taxes or other kinds of expenditure.

Governments are a minority. They could not rule without control of opinion. — Yohan

:up: :sparkle:

Nostalgia is one reason why we would want to simulate an older version of The Matrix. — Agent Smith

:up: :sparkle:

The Cambridge dictionary defines nostalgia as: a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past.

It is interesting because the cause of nostalgia is on the fact that we no longer can live those experiences. If we able to do so, we would not feel nostalgia then.

we could be simulating an older version of our world — Agent Smith

Interesting. That's would mean there are different time versions of our real world. Then, the "real" world (who is simulating others) is the only one who is living in the correct time. If we think it deeply, probably you and me would be 150 years old in other reality

The simulation depends on ourselves! The imagination of humans is extraordinary :sparkle:

I think of the categories provided, the church is the most powerful. Everyone — in whatever class, in whatever position of power, and whether a politician or king or CEO, has a religion. — Xtrix

Agreed. We should not forget that Catholic Church is even a state (Vatican City State is an independent city-state and enclave surrounded by Rome, Italy. Also known simply as the Vatican, the state became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction")

Religion is powerful towards education. Karl Marx wrote that religion is“the opiate of the masses” disconnecting disadvantaged people from the here and now, and dulling their engagement in progressive politics.
Nevertheless, according to Landon Schnabel, Religion still has a strong influence, but in a new way. Rather than making people less political, religion shapes people’s political ideas, suppressing important group differences and progressive political positions.

Here is the source: Religion: less ‘opiate,’ more suppressant, study finds

If the universe is a simulation, everything in it should be computable, like in a game world. — Agent Smith

:up: :sparkle:

Black holes are where God divided by zero. — Steven Wright

:down: :zip:

There is no God. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either — Stephen Hawking

:sparkle:

The ai (Silicates) contemplated philosophy amongst many things but they could not come up with anything new themselves. — Seeker

So interesting. Nevertheless, I think we the humans are not originals on philosophy either.
Whatever the theories which have always been written they follow the basic principles or "roots" from Greek mythology.

I'd like to see -- if forced to choose -- what forum members think about power. — Xtrix

Power always existed in the different aspects of society. From a simple mayor to the PM of the state. If you want to hold the power you have to be ready to take the "wrong" way against ethics. If you check all the people with power you would see that most of them break the law. They do not act ethically but viciously to maintain such status.
In the other hand, while I don't see any interest on politics. I remember that when I attended to the university there were a lot of "affiliates". Well, most of them were fake, selfish, arrogant and cheaters. I guess these are the main characters of a politician (apart from the fact that they are rich) and probably they are senators now.

But at least we were together. Sort of. Ever Closer Union and all that. — Cuthbert

Brexit completely disappointed me in terms of democracy. How can a country like UK what fought for the allies has left and countries who cause World Wars (as Germany) remains? Wow

A Christian site reports:

Russian Church Leader's Sacrilegious Claim: Says Soldiers Can Cleanse Their Sins by Dying in Ukraine (Sep 27, 2022) — jorndoe

It literally feels like they still live in Middle Age

For my filthy lucre, "capitalism", in sum, is a global, commodifying, market system institutionalized for maximizing shareholder returns (i.e. private profits) on stakeholder investments-taxes (i.e. public costs). — 180 Proof

Possible that capitalism is not an economic system at all, but a type of (partial) government system. — Srap Tasmaner

:up: :sparkle:

It is the system where the market is the only capable of promoting laws and regulations, not the lawmakers represented in the Parliament.
Being sincere, inside capitalism the markets and "central banks" act as a true legislative power.

Well, we vote for a person, not a party. — Michael

Who decides (or chooses) that person previously to go to the polls? I don't see we are allowed to choose between one member or another. For example: What leader of Labour do you want to run for presidency in the next elections? A) Jeremy Corbin. B ) Keir Starmer. Choose one of the candidates.
Well, we can't take part in such decision because one or the other are elected by their affiliates.

We don't have a President. — Michael

Prime Minister, whatever... I see the same problem in both Republic and Monarchy. I live in a kingdom and it is similar the process of elections.

I don't know the solution neither. But the system is flawed when the leaders of each party are not elected by the people but the few who are part of the political arena. For example: you vote for Labour, but... who chooses the person who would run for the presidency? Here is when the problem starts.

The referendums in eastern Ukraine went swimmingly for Russia. Annexation is next. — NOS4A2

Putin would have annexed the territories anyway :lol: the referendums were just a make up.

I think it would make more sense to let public decide who leads the party … — I like sushi

That's would represent a real democratic system!

Jeremy Corbyn. — ssu

He was one of the few brave politicians who critized Elizabeth II openly and publicly saying: the British monarchy needs a lot reforms according to modern world.

And this is common with other religions too. The link even far more obvious in Islam. — ssu

:up: :fire:

More quotes related on Kierkegaard works:

Christianity will not be content to be an evolution within the total category of human nature; an engagement such as that is too little to offer to a god. Neither does it even want to be the paradox for the believer, and then surreptitiously, little by little, provide him with understanding, because the martyrdom of faith (to crucify one's understanding) is not a martyrdom of the moment, but the martyrdom of continuance." — Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

The deification of the established order is the secularization of everything. With regard to secular matters, the established order may be entirely right: one should join the established order, be satisfied with that relativity, etc. But ultimately the relationship with God is also secularized; we want it to coincide with a certain relativity, do not want it to be something essentially different from our positions in life – rather than that it shall be the absolute for every individual human being and this, the individual person’s God-relationship, shall be precisely what keeps every established order in suspense, and that God, at any moment he chooses, if he merely presses upon an individual in his relationship with God, promptly has a witness, an informer, a spy, or whatever you want to call it, one who in unconditional obedience and with unconditional obedience, by being persecuted, by suffering, by dying, keeps the established order in suspense. — Kierkegaard. Practice in Christianity

From that point of view, I don't read Kierkegaard as an anti-modernist. He belongs more in the 'same as it ever was' camp. — Paine

I don't think Kierkegaard is an anti-modernist either. I was just answering to the OP with some arguments about why Kierkegaard is more a simple existentialist rather than a "Christian existentialist"
Most of the works of Kierkegaard show an important criticism of the Church. From a quick search in internet: In Kierkegaard's view the Church should not try to prove Christianity or even defend it. It should help the single individual to make a leap of faith, the faith that God is love and has a task for that very same single individual. He wrote the following about fear and trembling and love as early as 1839, "Fear and trembling is not the primus motor in the Christian life, for it is love; but it is what the oscillating balance wheel is to the clock-it is the oscillating balance wheel of the Christian life.

I think this is Sartre — Tom Storm

Yes, you are right is from Sartre's "Being and Nothingness"

"'But what will become of men then?' I asked him, 'without God and immortal life? All things are permitted then, they can do what they like?'" — Tom Storm

Made famous by Dostoevsky, the question of whether we can be moral without God has always haunted secularism and has consistently been the most vocal criticism of unbelief. "If there is no God, then everything is permitted?" Moral Life in a Secular World

There is no crime or misdeed going that theism hasn't sanctioned or advocated in the name of doing a god's will. — Tom Storm

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The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy." — Dermot Griffin

:sparkle: :fire:

Without God Everything is Permitted — Dostoyevsky

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Christian existentialism seems to heavily criticize the rise of modernity and its budding secularism. — Dermot Griffin

As most of the religions do. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a novelist who himself was a Christian but who has characters that often display what later will seem to be Existentialist attitudes and ideas. One of those characters (in The Brothers Karamazov,) says "Without God, all is permitted". Indeed, if the loss of God means the loss of all meaning and value, then actions are without meaning or value either, and one cannot say that it matters whether actions are "right" or "wrong," since those words, or the corresponding actions, don't mean anything more than anything else.

I think the emphasis on freedom and responsibility, something we find in all these thinkers, is crucial in understanding the way our world is going. — Dermot Griffin

To be honest, I don't see freedom neither responsibility in those thinkers. It would be even contradictory to their works. Existentialism is a philosophical which is based on absurdity.
Søren Kierkegaard is an Existentialist because he accepts, as fully as Sartre or Camus, the absurdity of the world. But he does not begin with the postulate of the non-existence of God, but with the principle that nothing in the world, nothing available to sense or reason, provides any knowledge or reason to believe in God.
Nietzsche expressed precisely this same thing in one of the most famous sayings in the history of philosophy, "God is dead". Since Nietzsche did not believe that there ever was a God, this expresses his view that the effective belief in God was dead, but he has a bit of fun with the metaphor of dying, decay, smell, etc. Unlike Sartre, he is a bit clearer that this is a catastrophe, since it leaves nothing; it leaves, indeed, Nihilism which is the condition of not believing anything and having nothing to live for.

Your new home. — Changeling

I wish...

Mars.

Is there a ritual that isn't meaningless on its own? — Tate

hereditary monarchies and Tanistry

@Agent Smith check this out. Related to our discussion on Western Classical v Eastern Mystical.

So, talking about translations...
And I was looking at the repeated patterns, noting Ivanhoe referred to Ch 51, Part 2 of the TTC.
Came across this:

'Tao Talks' by Derek Lin
Useful slides.
Here's the Tao Te Ching 32
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69PbMr3BVu0 — Amity

There are two important parts in the Tao:

1. Interpretation. How do you interpret the phrase you have shared? We already discussed the meaning and nature of Tao at: My favorite verses in the Tao Te Ching.

2. Translation. Trying to find out the correct words to put it on our language or vocabulary. People as Derek Lin did his best to translate it to English: Chinese - English by Derek Lin

Neptune and its rings come into focus with Webb telescope

The Tao Te Ching has to be read in Chinese to understand it? — Agent Smith

No and I fully respect the work of translators and interpreters who help us to read the Tao in our languages. Nevertheless, we have to be agree with the fact that the original version is better. The Chinese alphabet is based on ideograms. So we need to know a basic sense of Chinese culture before interpreting the Tao. We are not limited to read it and debate about it but... I feel we are losing something when a complex language is translated to Spanish, English, French, etc... There are a lot of filters in the way.

math is a universal language — Agent Smith

It is not the same. Maths are precise science. We are debating about how we express ourselves through philosophy, art, literature, etc...

However, given the popularity of Daoism in the West, I'd have to say there's a two-way exchange of philosophies. — Agent Smith

Agreed. But we have to consider the fact that we in the West have interpreted Tao Te Ching or Confucianism according to our "culture". I mean, those translated works are adjusted to the Western world criteria.
Probably if we read it in the original version/language we would get confused because we wouldn't understand it

:up: :sparkle:

That would make it even more realistic. — Cuthbert

How can an AI defines realism if we didn't teach them what is "real" yet?

It cannot. It basically cherry picks from human thoughts. It does not ‘create’ any new ideas and anything that looks ‘new’ is simply due to the reader’s interpretation. — I like sushi

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Should Artificial Intelligence provide (previously unseen) insights into matters of philosophy? — Bret Bernhoft

It is not possible and it is even a paradox to let the AI thinking for themselves. I say it is a paradox because if it is complex to progress on knowledge by our own personal skills... Why we should put this task in a machine? Keep in mind that these "programmes" or "algorithms" do exist thanks to us. We create them. So, it is not possible to create something clever than us if we don't reach the peak of knowledge yet.

we're not intelligent enough to create (more) intelligent machines! Perhaps this is one of the rare occasions our idiocy saves us from a possible grim Frankensteinian fate where the invention destroys the inventor. — Agent Smith

Wow! No, I don't so. Humans will always be one of the most intelligent species on planet. We always survived to all catastrophes and even evolved thanks to that. I don't give any chance to machines. Just for the fact that they depend on our technology.
I can't imagine a machine using their own "technology" or programming because all of these tools come from us.

I generally think people do not think too much. If there is a ‘modern’ issue it is likely more along the lines of ‘distraction’ that excessive thinking. — I like sushi

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