↪Athena I believe that free speech is important, but some people just don't. A lot of the time people see progress as a straight line, and never consider at all that there could be some truth in different ways. At the end of the day, even though I don't believe in God, I can't say that he isn't real any more certainly than a devout person can say that he is. Free speech and expression help to reach the end that is a society where all views are at least given a platform, but in practice, people use those rights to deplatform their rivals and that sort of defeats the purpose of free speech. It's a tricky situation, but also a problem worth solving.

As for the power of Christianity, as far as I was aware it has been a huge part of American and western culture for hundreds of years. I may be mistaken, but it seems like up until 1958 schools did teach morals, but they were Christian morals, which kind of defeats the purpose of mentioning how they stopped teaching them in an argument against Christians themselves. I would imagine that a lot of moral positions you hold are also ones the church held, (The Ten Commandments and such. Of course maybe not all of those, but for the western world they seem to be the starting point for most senses of morality.) and those were probably taught in schools. Of course, some things the Bible says (Like stoning homosexuals and women being traded almost as property) are certainly bad, (at least today) and I don't disagree with that. So overall, I don't think everything religion teaches is good, or accurate, but they are certainly a useful institution that has had power for a long time and is worth keeping around if for nothing else as a sort of "devil's advocate" (ironically) for an increasingly Atheistic society.

I think my position is something close to pacifism in a political and moral way. There is no universal answer key telling us what is right or wrong, true or false, so hurting others emotionally or physically for holding a view is a risky venture at best. (Of course, I assume you don't do those things, but some people certainly do.) So I don't think the church should be the primary source for moral teachings to the general populace, but I don't think secular organizations in schools should be either. Isn't the most egalitarian way to give both a platform and let the people decide from there? What about the other organizations that have strong moral views? I don't see why they are any more right or wrong than the two mentioned before, so they should have platforms to discuss too. Ideally, society would be governed (at least in the context of morality) by the majority group out of all of those, or by none at all, each acting as sort of guiding hand to those who wish to learn their ways and then apply those.

. — TogetherTurtle

Freedom of speech- arguing with each other about what is true and right is vital. What is essential about this is understanding there are rules of logic that must be followed. Just spewing off at the mouth is not protected freedom of speech. A President of the US refusing to speak with a leader of another country is violating the principle of freedom of speech. The purpose of freedom of speech is rule by reason. It is not power plays carried on by a couple of jerks who unfortunately have positions of power. I will repeat the important points. Democracy is rule by reason and this very different from dictatorships or monarchies that are the rule of humans over humans. Freedom of speech is essential to rule by reason and it must comply with rules of logic.

Religion- religion violates the rules of logic, therefore it violates good moral judgment and rule by reason. Sure religions carry some morals, but it does not prepare anyone for good moral judgment. The story of the Little Red Hen or the Empires New Clothes and most fables from many lands transmit morals. Jesus spoke in parables to transmit moral concepts and this is no different from telling fables. Mythology is about preparing the young to be adults in the communities. While all of this helps us be better humans, it is not truth as science is truth. Believing one has the word of God is nuts and it causes a lot of problems! A lot of problems- from ignorance that leads to people dying of disease, to wars with all sides believing a god is on their side.

A huge part of our problem is spell check thinking, technological thinking instead of philosophical thinking. There is truth, and spell check insist I write "the" truth, not of truth. There is a serious and important difference between thinking of truth versus "the" truth. Education for technology along with leaving moral training to the church and people who think they know God's truth is killing our democracy and liberty.

Education for democracy, liberty and good moral judgment is education in logic and increasingly complex concepts. I repeat, education for good moral judgment is education in logic and knowledge. It was Socrates' goal to expand our conscience- con means coming out of and science means knowledge.

"There is no universal answer key telling us what is right or wrong, true or false,"

"I don't think secular organizations in schools should be either."

Ouch,that thinking is the problem today! And we come to this by leaving moral training to the church and leaving the masses to believe they have God's truth, although they disagree with each other about what that truth is. This is nuts and it will destroy us.

What about logic and social agreements? Please, we are reduced to running around like a bunch of monkeys or pack of wolves without logic and the ability to make social agreements based on reason. Religion with its notion of having God's truth has us really messed up! No one has God's truth in a book written by men. There is only human reasoning and a human concept of truth. Understanding our reality gives us a better reality than the reality that monkeys and wolves have. We came from living like animals, and only recently got out of ignorance and poverty, and today's reasoning would destroy our wonderful achievement. Because of human nature, reasoning and accumulated knowledge(math and science) the ability to have social agreements, we have had a few hundreds of amazing progress. Christianity almost wiped this progress out of human memory when it got control in Rome. Truly history is not a straight line of progress. Christianity threw us into the Dark Ages, and we might return to that because of ending education for good moral judgment and leaving moral training to the church. We are destroying what we have achieved with ideas like the selfish gene and freedom to say or do anything we please. The reason for morals is to avoid that destruction. Morals are logical reasoning.

"Hell if I know. From personal experience, I can tell you that at least where I live, Atheistic ideas and institutions have never really held power. The only reason I ever learned about the concept was a book about the Bill of Rights I read when I was in 5th grade. I grew up around people who thought I was a freak for not believing in God, and for a time I thought that they shouldn't be able to speak their mind because they didn't think rationally, but as I got older I questioned rationality itself. How can we be sure we are correct when our brains forget things and make up new things all the time? It is my belief now at least that a fundamental part of the human experience is not knowing the truth. I find it hard to think that I am above my friends and neighbors and family when I don't even know if I'm right after all.

As for a Military Industrial Complex, maybe. We have been militaristic almost as long as we've been religious, so it would be hard for me to say without looking into it more."
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We can never be absolutely sure we are correct.

Democracy is an imitation of the Greek gods who argued with each other until there was agreement on the best reasoning. And we all know, after everything is settled, someone gets a new insight or our situation changes and we have to start the reasoning process all over again. That is what makes democracy different from religion. Religions are not self-correcting. Democracy is self-correcting.

Our good manners is based on the fact that we can not be absolutely sure we are correct. Being like a 10 year child who can only deal with absolutes is not a desirable trait for adults. We have to live with paradox and opposing rights (this is right and so is that right, but we have choose) and other difficult choices. I used to wish I had a magic ball that would tell me my best choice. :lol: Our reality is not as black and white as education for technology can lead us to believe.

NO, We WERE NOT MILITARIST! :cry: I am overwhelmed by the challenge I face in these forums. The Enlightenment springs out of a lot stupid warring in Christian Europe and a determination to have rule by reason, rather than rule by the reasoning of few men who think life is nothing more than power struggles and their personal purpose in life is to have the most power.

Democracy is rule by reason. Liberty is about living with rule by reason. The US was known for standing against war. It demilitarized after every war. Not until Eisenhower and the Korean war did the US determine to maintain military power. When we geared up for the second world war, we ranked 17th in military might, below small countries. Our American revolution was in part a rebellion against paying taxes for England's military might. US tax payers were strongly against having a large military and paying for it. That they think the power and glory of our military might has always been part of our national pride, is like Jesus putting on an uniform and leading us into war. And damn, but if the Christian Right does not love our presidents who take us to war in the name of God. SOMETHING HAS GONE REALLY WRONG!

The same thing happened to Germany and for the same reasons. Hitler's New World Order and Bush's New World Order are the same. This is the gift of Prussian military bureaucracy applied to citizens and education for the Military Industrial Complex. We lived for the love of God and the Prussians lived for a love of war. We are all Christians you know, but can you picture Jesus dressed like Ceasar?

I am not understanding your reasoning. Do you agree it is natural to experience fear of the unknown? The stranger is unknown and this can result in fear, right? Under what conditions is this not true?

Do you agree it is natural to experience fear of the unknown? — Athena

Everything that anyone does or experiences is natural in my view. So yes, it's natural to experience fear of the unknown. There are people who experience that.

The stranger is unknown and this can result in fear, right? — Athena

Sure.

Under what conditions is this not true? — Athena

Since it's a statement about possibilities, I think it would be difficult to say conditions under which it wouldn't be true. That doesn't imply that strangers DO result in fear. It's just true that they can. It depends on the people involved, the exact circumstances, etc.

I would not say strangers cause us fear but we are programmed to be on guard when our paths cross the path of a stranger. This would include job interviews, public speaking, or walking through a new neighborhood, especially if the neighborhood is populated by people who are noticeably different. The fear is a sign of intelligence and we are programmed by nature to experienced it.

If we are really sure of ourselves and confident we can handle whatever happens, we will be less fearful. Good social skills could reduce our fears. A belief that a God is protecting us can reduce our fears. Being logical can increase or decrease our fears, depending on the reality of the situation. Special military training can override our natural impulses. In public speaking if we think of the feeling as excitement gearing us to do our best, instead of fear, we can trick ourselves into feeling safe and very alert. :grin:

Ouch,that thinking is the problem today! And we come to this by leaving moral training to the church and leaving the masses to believe they have God's truth, although they disagree with each other about what that truth is. This is nuts and it will destroy us. — Athena

What is the difference between the masses thinking they have the truth of God and disagreeing on exactly what that is, and scientists thinking they have the truth of logic and disagreeing on exactly what that is? As you said-

Our good manners is based on the fact that we can not be absolutely sure we are correct. Being like a 10 year child who can only deal with absolutes is not a desirable trait for adults. We have to live with paradox and opposing rights (this is right and so is that right, but we have choose) and other difficult choices. — Athena

So, to restate what I said before, Religion is almost certainly wrong and I agree with that, but I don't think we should be so hasty to adopt the next great thing in entirety and ignore the dead ends that can leave us with. (String theory, unexplained phenomena, the 99% of the universe we have never seen or explored) Doesn't logical thinking kind of backfire when what we came to logically turns out to be a paradox? In other words, a logical solution could not possibly solve some questions we ask, therefore logical thinking may be very powerful, but not powerful enough to explain everything and certainly doesn't always provide absolutes. I agree with you to an extent that logic and reason are the best we have at the moment in terms of explaining our world, but people may have very different things to say about logic and reason in the future and may think of us as just as ignorant as we think of those dark age peasants.

Speaking of the dark ages, saying that Rome adopting Christianity was the cause would be a bit of a stretch. Generally, the position historians take is one that follows this line of thinking, "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times". Many factors went into the collapse of Rome, and I think most would attribute it to size and corruption (that was present in the government of Rome far before Christ was even born) as well as enemies on the borders seeing opportunities. Even so, it was probably more complex than that. One of the world's most powerful empires ever doesn't fall for just one reason.

NO, We WERE NOT MILITARIST! :cry: — Athena

I think the majority of human societies throughout all of history have been militaristic. Say what you will about the enlightenment and how those European nations started to slowly encourage thought, but they still had wars and still forcefully took control of lesser off nations as colonies as late as the world wars. Even now, lots of businesses have factories and plantations in poor areas of the world that used to be colonies used for those things anyway, and they pay very little and rule with an iron fist. As for America, I think that Native Americans and Mexicans who lived in the Southwest and colonists from other European powers would disagree in your thought about America being more pacifist than militarist. Manifest Destiny is sort of just militaristic conquest said politely so people don't feel bad for stealing land. Of course, I don't believe in absolutes, especially morally, so I don't have a position on whether that was right or wrong, but I think I can classify it as militaristic.

Not until Eisenhower and the Korean war did the US determine to maintain military power. — Athena

This is true, but more out of necessity than greed. If America did not have a competitive military, Russia would have and would have steamrolled through America. Greed was certainly there and is a driving factor now, but if they hadn't of done that, I feel confident in saying that we would be speaking Russian right now. Make of that what you will, I don't like to bring politics into discussions online. All I'm saying is that it's hard to make agreements with a very large, very fanatic nation with a very large military if you can't at the very least make sure that when negotiations fall through, you can defend yourself.

Democracy is rule by reason. Liberty is about living with rule by reason. — Athena

Democracy - a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Liberty - the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

These are copy and paste definitions. I know that definitions are kind of shaky on things like this but I suppose whatever people say it is the most is a good place to start.

Democracy seems to be rule by the people in some capacity. I think we can both agree that the people of any nation (and the human mind itself) are very easily deceived. The average person does not decide who they want to be president or what laws to pass on just reason, and sometimes no reason at all. When people go to vote, a lot of complex reactions are happening in their brain and I'd be willing to bet most of them have something to do with emotion. A people can value reason all they want, but unless they modify their own brains in order to only see reason, they will also have emotions and that will skew the result. Personally, I'm not against genetic modification of any kind, but I don't think artists would be very happy about you removing their children's emotions.

Liberty seems to have very little to do with rules, especially those by reason. Liberty seems to be the opposite of rules in a sense. If you live by reason, that is totally fine, but telling people what to think is inherently authoritarian, even if you're "right". (Right in quotation marks because we have both already established that speaking that absolute is troubling.) It is also just as authoritarian even if what is right changes with what the evidence is, If anything, that would be more authoritarian because you are then not only telling outsiders what to think but also forcibly changing what your own people think.

I am overwhelmed by the challenge I face in these forums. — Athena

I never had any intention of being cruel. I just wish to have a pleasant discussion about life with strangers on the internet. I have to say that most of your points have been interesting if not flawed (Just like everyone else's, including mine I'm sure.) and I do look forward to further discussion on this. If someone is actually belittling you, I can't do anything to stop it, but I would like to treat you as an equal if not a superior. (I saw in another post of yours that you used to live in Hollywood in the 50's. You have obviously had a lot more life experience than a lot of people here and are a very important asset in a discussion.) So if you take anything away from this, just know that at least I am not deliberately trying to deny things you hold as truths, but challenge them just as you should mine and just as everyone else should to everyone else in the most respectful manner possible.

Ouch,that thinking is the problem today! And we come to this by leaving moral training to the church and leaving the masses to believe they have God's truth, although they disagree with each other about what that truth is. This is nuts and it will destroy us.
— Athena

What is the difference between the masses thinking they have the truth of God and disagreeing on exactly what that is, and scientists thinking they have the truth of logic and disagreeing on exactly what that is? As you said-
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Hey, that question is too easy. It is impossible to have any evidence of a God creating the first man and woman. While the theory of evolution is based on evidence. When religious people argue the meaning of what is in the bible their arguments are logical but not scientific. There is no evidence to collect and no experiments to do. Although religious arguments can logical there is no evidence.
-Athena
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quote=turtle
So, to restate what I said before, Religion is almost certainly wrong and I agree with that, but I don't think we should be so hasty to adopt the next great thing in entirety and ignore the dead ends that can leave us with. (String theory, unexplained phenomena, the 99% of the universe we have never seen or explored) Doesn't logical thinking kind of backfire when what we came to logically turns out to be a paradox? In other words, a logical solution could not possibly solve some questions we ask, therefore logical thinking may be very powerful, but not powerful enough to explain everything and certainly doesn't always provide absolutes. I agree with you to an extent that logic and reason are the best we have at the moment in terms of explaining our world, but people may have very different things to say about logic and reason in the future and may think of us as just as ignorant as we think of those dark age peasants.
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Religious thinking is also logical. But it is not evidence. I know some people think pointing at what is said in the bible is giving evidence, but by the science standard, holy books are reliable evidence. Holy books are mythology.

My point was we are not absolutely sure of anything and we should stop arguing with the belief that we can be absolutely sure of what we think we know. Our science truths are based on evidence, but it seems evident to us things are solid and it is all energy. That is pretty strange, isn't it.
-Athena
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Speaking of the dark ages, saying that Rome adopting Christianity was the cause would be a bit of a stretch. Generally, the position historians take is one that follows this line of thinking, "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times". Many factors went into the collapse of Rome, and I think most would attribute it to size and corruption (that was present in the government of Rome far before Christ was even born) as well as enemies on the borders seeing opportunities. Even so, it was probably more complex than that. One of the world's most powerful empires ever doesn't fall for just one reason.
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Rome in the west fell because it exhausted its supply of gold and there is nothing they could do to resolve that problem. But that alone is not what lead to Dark Ages. It was the Christians and no one else who turned out the lights. They very intentionally destroyed the papan temples and turn their backs on the accumulated knowledge that is math and science-based. Those pagan temples were places of learning math and learning about the universe. Somehow we have got to get this into our present consciousness. Christians are still standing in the way of science and causing us problems and science we replace liberal education with education for technology and left moral training to the church the problem is much worse.
-Athena
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quote=turtle
I think the majority of human societies throughout all of history have been militaristic.
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The old world order was ordered by family order. The Military Industrial Complex or New World Order is ordered by Prussian military order applied to citizens. The Prussians lived for a love of war. The people in the US lived for a love of God and this is because of the Enlightenment. :grimace: This is all paradoxical and I need a stronger cup of coffee to work through it. I greatly appreciate you backing me into the corner and forcing me to think how to change how people think of this. And for those wars, you write as though you think this is human nature. Raiding parties are human nature. Modern warfare is not human nature.
-Athena
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Quote+turtle
Say what you will about the enlightenment and how those European nations started to slowly encourage thought, but they still had wars and still forcefully took control of lesser off nations as colonies as late as the world wars. Even now, lots of businesses have factories and plantations in poor areas of the world that used to be colonies used for those things anyway, and they pay very little and rule with an iron fist. As for America, I think that Native Americans and Mexicans who lived in the Southwest and colonists from other European powers would disagree in your thought about America being more pacifist than militarist. Manifest Destiny is sort of just militaristic conquest said politely so people don't feel bad for stealing land. Of course, I don't believe in absolutes, especially morally, so I don't have a position on whether that was right or wrong, but I think I can classify it as militaristic.
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All evidence is that the US demobilized after every war and did not maintain the war industries and stand ready for war. Now Manifest Destiny is another matter. May I point out that is a religious problem? Paradox. The world was certainly made worse with a religion the claims there is only one god and this god has favorite people and tells people to kill every man, woman, and child so "God's people" can have the land. But as I said before raiding parties and modern warfare are two different things. We need to raise awareness of the difference. We need to remember it was extremely hard to drag the US into the world wars. If you want to discuss, we need to create a thread for that. What you said of Russian plowing over the US, needs to go in another thread.
-Athena
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quote=turtle
Democracy - a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
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We do not have a democratic form of government. We have a republic. The political power of this republic has steadily increased and is now so controlled by industry and military interest, we are far from the democracy we defended in two world wars. And that democracy was a social order that was defended in the classroom. That democracy is no longer defended.
-Athena
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Quote=turtle
Liberty - the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

These are copy and paste definitions. I know that definitions are kind of shaky on things like this but I suppose whatever people say it is the most is a good place to start.
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Only highly moral people can have liberty. Anarchy is not tolerable and if it is not suppressed with strong laws and law enforcers, it must be kept at bay with education. There are two ways to have social order. Authority over the people or culture. We stopped usingeducation to transmit that culture and that leaves on authority over the people.
-Athena
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quote=turtle
Democracy seems to be rule by the people in some capacity. I think we can both agree that the people of any nation (and the human mind itself) are very easily deceived. The average person does not decide who they want to be president or what laws to pass on just reason, and sometimes no reason at all. When people go to vote, a lot of complex reactions are happening in their brain and I'd be willing to bet most of them have something to do with emotion. A people can value reason all they want, but unless they modify their own brains in order to only see reason, they will also have emotions and that will skew the result. Personally, I'm not against genetic modification of any kind, but I don't think artists would be very happy about you removing their children's emotions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Yes, we are in a real mess because democracy is protected by literacy in Greek and Roman classics, and we must be prepared for good judgment (liberal education) and Christianity stands in the way of that. Now it is also the Military Industrial Compex standing in the way of the education essential to good moral judgment and democracy.
-Athena
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Liberty seems to have very little to do with rules, especially those by reason. Liberty seems to be the opposite of rules in a sense. If you live by reason, that is totally fine, but telling people what to think is inherently authoritarian, even if you're "right". (Right in quotation marks because we have both already established that speaking that absolute is troubling.) It is also just as authoritarian even if what is right changes with what the evidence is, If anything, that would be more authoritarian because you are then not only telling outsiders what to think but also forcibly changing what your own people think.
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:lol: Yes we have mass ignorance. Our liberty goes with science. Moral is a matter of cause and effect.
-Athena
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Quote=turtle
never had any intention of being cruel. I just wish to have a pleasant discussion about life with strangers on the internet. I have to say that most of your points have been interesting if not flawed (Just like everyone else's, including mine I'm sure.) and I do look forward to further discussion on this. If someone is actually belittling you, I can't do anything to stop it, but I would like to treat you as an equal if not a superior. (I saw in another post of yours that you used to live in Hollywood in the 50's. You have obviously had a lot more life experience than a lot of people here and are a very important asset in a discussion.) So if you take anything away from this, just know that at least I am not deliberately trying to deny things you hold as truths, but challenge them just as you should mine and just as everyone else should to everyone else in the most respectful manner possible. — TogetherTurtle

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I absolutely love the discussion and very much appreciate what you are saying. It is my inadequacy that is the problem. I have been doing this for years and still, struggle to answer questions.

Someone who shared his knowledge of Qabala in a forum many years ago, explained without discussion people do not gain understanding. We have to talk and discuss liberty and democracy daily and this must be a constant part of our lives, just as Christianity is a constant part of life for Christians. Our Forefathers were Masons and they were discussing liberty and democracy or reading about it daily. WE, THAT IS THE HUGE POPULATION OF THE US, ARE NOT DISCUSSING OUR LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY. We can copy and paste, but what do know of the meaning?

Terrapin Station
5.5k
Do you agree it is natural to experience fear of the unknown?
— Athena

Everything that anyone does or experiences is natural in my view. So yes, it's natural to experience fear of the unknown. There are people who experience that.

The stranger is unknown and this can result in fear, right?
— Athena

Sure.

Under what conditions is this not true?
— Athena

Since it's a statement about possibilities, I think it would be difficult to say conditions under which it wouldn't be true. That doesn't imply that strangers DO result in fear. It's just true that they can. It depends on the people involved, the exact circumstances, etc. — Terrapin Station

I already replied to your post but walked away and thought about it. The reason I am being so bloody picky about how we understand our nature and fear is because I watched a video of Bill Moyer talking about our violence. Someone pointed out, what looks like a lot of anger is actually fear. Now these are macho young men raging and beating the stranger or fight with that other gang, and hell would freeze over before they admitted their behavior is about fear. We need to recognize our fear and think about it. Are we creating a world we want to live in when we build a wall to keep others out and ignore the danger that some people are forced to live with? Is a man screaming at us at these people are criminals and rapist, telling us all we need to know about building a wall to keep people out? How can we throw stones at the Russians for the wall they built and be proud of ourselves for building one? What are we really feeling and how much reasoning can we do?

And for sure, life in a highrise apartment is not living with nature.

Someone pointed out, what looks like a lot of anger is actually fear. Now these are macho young men raging and beating the stranger or fight with that other gang, and hell would freeze over before they admitted their behavior is about fear. — Athena

I know it's going to seem like I'm just trying to be disagreeable :grin: but I strongly disagree with comments in this vein. (Re being disagreeable, I simply have a lot of views that are not the "normal" views.)

What makes anything "about" something is how the individual in question is thinking about it. When we're talking about something that a lot of people are doing, it's not going to be the case for anything that everyone is thinking about it the same way. The only way we can know what something is about to an individual is to ask them. They may not give us an honest answer, but we can't know better than they do whether their answer is honest.

So re people wanting a border wall, for example, there are probably tons of different motivations there--it's just going to depend on who we ask.

Re the highrise comment, that's not "living with nature" if we're making the distinction man-made/versus not man-made. But then no construction is living with nature in that sense (and anything we do wouldn't be nature in that sense, since we'd be making our activities the demarcation criteria).

I absolutely love the discussion and very much appreciate what you are saying. It is my inadequacy that is the problem. I have been doing this for years and still, struggle to answer questions. — Athena

And so we all come to the same conclusion eventually. We enjoy the journey but the destination is disappointing. Or maybe we haven't reached the destination yet.

The only constant theme there seems to be is that our minds restrict us in terms of our knowledge of the universe. If only we could become more.

I know I will have left a lot of points left undiscussed doing this, but I really can't keep this up. I am leaving for a trip soon and won't be able to use the internet while I'm gone, and the scope of our discussion seems to have reached critical mass. Someday we will pick this up again, but for now, I have to say farewell.

I know it's going to seem like I'm just trying to be disagreeable :grin: but I strongly disagree with comments in this vein. (Re being disagreeable, I simply have a lot of views that are not the "normal" views.)

What makes anything "about" something is how the individual in question is thinking about it. When we're talking about something that a lot of people are doing, it's not going to be the case for anything that everyone is thinking about it the same way. The only way we can know what something is about to an individual is to ask them. They may not give us an honest answer, but we can't know better than they do whether their answer is honest.

So re people wanting a border wall, for example, there are probably tons of different motivations there--it's just going to depend on who we ask.

Re the highrise comment, that's not "living with nature" if we're making the distinction man-made/versus not man-made. But then no construction is living with nature in that sense (and anything we do wouldn't be nature in that sense, since we'd be making our activities the demarcation criteria). — Terrapin Station

About the wall, there seem to be two sides. Those who are afraid of the stranger and those who are not. I don't think the details of individual differences matter. Trump is speaking to one side when he tells us how threatening the strangers are. He speaks to their fear and what we see is their anger.

I have a neighbor who is severely depressed about Trump shutting down the government to get funding for a wall that many of us do not want. She is very afraid she will not get her Social Security and will become homeless. None of us dependent on Social Security would be happy campers if that happened.
This does remind me of the fall of Rome. The invasion of the barbarians and rapid change in government personnel and no one trusting anyone else. I never thought we would see the day when a President of the US acted like a tyrant, but even the way he came to office fits the ancient definition of a tyrant. Like Roman citizens lost control of everything and one tyrant after another took control until the secular government was too weak leaving only the church to hold things together.

It is no longer reason holding us together and ruling over what happens. It is institutionalized tyrants and corruption, and our freedom of speech which is vital to something different is perhaps the most corrupted part of the mess we are in. What individuals think does not matter when we are running on emotions and mostly fear. A tyrant to takes advantage of our fear of strangers can control the mob. And one who can shut down our government is beyond democratic control. We are in serious trouble. Trump could not do what he is doing if so many humans were not so fearful of strangers. And after our reaction to the fall of communism and its wall, how can we take pride in building a wall to keep people out? We are not strong again. We are chicken little running out of control. This is a we problem not individual problems.

At least for now social security won't be affected:

https://www.businessinsider.com/government-shutdown-2018-social-security-checks-still-paid-2018-1

At least for now social security won't be affected: — Terrapin Station

Thanks. I was not overly concerned because I know when things get bad enough, they will turn around and I really want things to turn around. But oh my goodness when will people believe things are bad enough to throw out the tyrant who is abusing his power?

The place to protect our freedom of speech and democracy is in the classroom. Trump is acting like a tyrant and even if we will continue to get our Social Security checks, our government is obviously too weak to fend off the take over a tyrant. We must return to liberal education and training the young for good moral judgment and understanding what that has to do with our liberty and democracy.

And so we all come to the same conclusion eventually. We enjoy the journey but the destination is disappointing. Or maybe we haven't reached the destination yet.

The only constant theme there seems to be is that our minds restrict us in terms of our knowledge of the universe. If only we could become more.

I know I will have left a lot of points left undiscussed doing this, but I really can't keep this up. I am leaving for a trip soon and won't be able to use the internet while I'm gone, and the scope of our discussion seems to have reached critical mass. Someday we will pick this up again, but for now, I have to say farewell. — TogetherTurtle

:love: We did become more but then we changed the purpose of education, and we are destroying our human potential. We must understand education must be teaching the young how to think, not want to think. Education for technology is preparing the young to serve the beast. I know that is a biblical term that may turn people off, but just because something is written in the bible, it doesn't make it wrong.

Rome became the beast when military powers took control of Rome. The military got control of Rome because of economic causes. The cause doesn't matter so much as understanding the nature of the beast. Mythology and religion attempt to control with culture and this empowers everyone. When a nation shifts from cultural control to military control, the beast becomes the power over the people. The purpose and power of the beast totally different than when it is mythology and religion organizing society.

DOES ANYONE ELSE REALIZE WHEN EVERYONE IS WORKING FOR A PAYCHECK AND IS OVERLOADED WITH BY A WORK SCHEDULE AND FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES, THAT DOES NOT LEAVE PEOPLE FREE TO DO THE DISCUSSING AND THINKING THAT IS VITAL TO OUR LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY! OUR GOAL TO EMPLOY ALL ADULTS IS DESTRUCTIVE OUR HIGHER HUMAN POTENTIAL. Like Rome our military forces are superior, but our human potential that can only be realized through philosophy and our government are as weak as Rome in the last days. This a serious moral problem.

DOES ANYONE ELSE REALIZE WHEN EVERYONE IS WORKING FOR A PAYCHECK AND IS OVERLOADED BY A WORK SCHEDULE AND FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES... — Athena

The 30 year mortgage did a great deal to pacify the population.

The growing masses that rent and move around a lot, and those who have no place to settle in the evening, are destructive social harmony that is dependent on developed relationships and social ties. I think our industrial society is now like a tree that is dying? Our focus on money surely has been a focus on developing the human good, but that has turned sour. Now we have a focus on money, the bottom is the dollar, but this is disconnected from the social good meaning all people.

In the Age of Enlightenment, the discussion was how to make life better for everyone. I think we need to get back to that discussion.

Life IS better for everyone in general. At least, according to Steven Pinker. Life expectancy, happiness and well being are up, disease, crime, poverty and most other bad things are down , thats worldwide.
We seem to be past the conversation and into the doing. Heading in the right direction.

I do workshops for people with diabetes and I also volunteer at a homeless shelter. I hardly think life is better for the homeless people in the US, except they are getting more food than they once did.

The new research found that the average homeless person has a life expectancy of 47, compared to 77 for the rest of the population: a startling difference of 30 years. The life expectancy for women was even lower, at just 43 years.Dec 21, 2011
Homeless die 30 years younger than average - NHS
https://www.nhs.uk/news/lifestyle-and.../homeless-die-30-years-younger-than-average/ — nhs

Even for those who have housing, the health of low-income people is not that good.

People with Lower Incomes Report Poorer
Health and Have a Higher Risk of Disease
Poor adults are almost five times as likely to report being in fair or poor health as adults with family
incomes at or above 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or FPL, (in 2014, the FPL was $23,850 for
a family of four) (figure 1), and they are more than three times as likely to have activity limitations due to
chronic illness.5
Low-income American adults also have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and
other chronic disorders than wealthier Americans (table 1).
https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/49116/2000178-How-are-Income-and-Wealth-Linked-to-Health-and-Longevity.pdf — Urban

I am one of those poor people because I was disabled, so we might want to understand what real health problems and disabilities have to do with being a low-income person. The cause of poverty can be a health problem, or poverty can be the cause of a health problem. However, my life is extremely better than it would have been 100 years ago thanks to medical care, government assistance, and education. I am far above those people who do not qualify for assistance but for one reason or another can not compete for jobs or housing.

That's not even comparable. Assume there's direct control over what TeleSur puts out and what the Venezuelan government demands of them. Great, now how is that at all comparable to governments having near unhindered success at making private entities hide or remove content they don't like based on political reasons (e.g. revealing government corruption and malpractice)? It isn't comparable. You're comparing suspicions you have about one entity reporting a certain way, with a certain slant, and on the other hand engaging in censorship and widespread PR for the government. — MindForged

In 1958 Eisenhower made new connections with the media and research facilities, and education for technology replace liberal education at all grade levels. This education leads to dependency on the experts/authority.

When Reagan took offices, all research on poverty disappears from the abstracts and in its place is research on welfare fraud. Such a change in research leaves no question that research is biased. In a short time, the media is flooded with stories of welfare fraud and the war against poverty became a war on those living in poverty. At the height of a long recession caused by OPEC embargoing oil to the US domestic budgets were slashed and we began pouring money into military spending.

That is when our efforts to take military control of the Mideast got serious, and it brings us the Bush and the invasion of Iraq. There could not be a more glaring example of the devastation of our free press than this. There was no investigative reporting, only reliance on "authority" and for the first time the US began a war against a nation that was not mobilized for war against the US. This was not good for our international reputation. It could be argued our military actions in the Mideast lead to 9/11- the attack not on US citizens but against the Military Industrial Complex. It was not Iraq involved in 9/11 but Saudi Arabia and the US remains on friendly terms with Saudi Arabia and gladly sells it arms.

I think we have strong reasons for being concerned about what 1958 has to do with what is happening today. We have serious reasons for being concerned about what happened to the control of the news we get. We can start with Reagon lied to us about not needing foreign oil, and why we escalated our military position in the Mideast. In the 20tys a newspaper article warned us, "Given our known supply of oil and rate of consumption, we are head for economic disaster and possibly war". We need to understand that as Roman's needed to understand their economic crashes and economic growth was about exhausting gold mines and finding new ones and the need to secure resources with military force and the taxes to pay for the bureaucrats and military that kept everything going. The same beast is now running the US only it is oil, not gold mines feeding the beast. Self-government demands understanding our reality and understanding our reality demands a media that believes it is the duty of media to keep us well informed, not cover the political nominees or party or industrial interest that pays the most of media coverage. We do not have the media a democracy must have, because we stopped educating for that.

Back to Tumblr and Facebook et al: To suppose that abrupt policy changes (some in place for a decade or two) are a matter of political indifference is shortsighted. We don't have the Great Fire Wall of China, but we have a (so far) softer system of thought suppression. — Bitter Crank

Just like the principal (no, not the principle) of the thought you think the corporations are suppressing, the more it gets suppress'd, the more it will stand up.

Just a thought. And it's the thought that counts.

We don't have the Great Fire Wall of China, but we have a (so far) softer system of thought suppression. — Bitter Crank

One upside of Draconian laws, if such even computes, is that people become (under duress) highly creative and put their wetware to work in earnest for they must break/bend rules without actually doing so, they must stretch the laws/regulations but not violate them, loopholes are the key to doing what's actually illegal legally, and it takes genius to find and use 'em. Hmmmm...gives me ideas!

A lot of so-called cultural and social progress has taken this roundabout/elliptical route (a learned scholar like yourself should find many real-life instances) and many have expressed great admiration at such feats of intellect par excellence. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. Using the backdoor is a legit tactic under repression. When you take away my freedom, you free my mind! :grin:

the more it gets suppress'd, the more it will stand up. — god must be atheist

When you take away my freedom, you free my mind! : — Agent Smith

That is the most positive construction we can apply to suppression.

We hope that suppression of thought will rebound to inventive free thought! Alas, quite often suppression works quite well. When it does, the suppressed ideas eventually disappear, not just from public view. That's not the end, of course. Ideas that were suppressed occur afresh in another generation.

Alas — Bitter Crank

There are limits of course; exert enough pressure, for long enough, and minds collapse (zombies/automatons). It's happened before, so you're on target. For such times, the apt motto is nil mortalibus ardui est (nothing is impossible for humankind! Perhaps I'm (too) optimistic.