I’m beginning to doubt its scientific credentials. :lol:

We are likely just boringly representative of the clever and the charming. — Baden

Well, as Stephen Colbert said, ". . .reality has a well-known liberal bias."

By that test, I'm not very woke. :sad: :smirk: :grin:

Could it be these accusations of mass wokeness are but figments of feeble-minded fascist fantasists?? :chin:

I don't know; the whole "War on Christmas" thing seems pretty convincing to me. Maybe we are out to get them. :wink:

I care about equality, fairness and justice. I don't care about being nice to assholes who don't care about the same things I do. You can be Conservative and care about the same things though. In fact, justice and equality surely are Conservative values nowadays?

Whatever snowflake. — Benkei


How have you managed to sink to this level? — Andrew4Handel

Some turds float and others sink: it's just the way of things.

Because it is claiming something that isn't yours. It doesn't belong to anyone. — Andrew4Handel

Well, what my question is getting at is what, exactly, is claimed? And before anything can be claimed as stolen, it must first be determined what was stolen.

Well, what my question is getting at is what, exactly, is claimed? — tim wood

What is being claimed is an exclusive right to something. This claim means none else can share the thing with you. You can share land and use it in a sustainable way.

Well, what my question is getting at is what, exactly, is claimed? And before anything can be claimed as stolen, it must first be determined what was stolen. — tim wood

An idea I like to play with is air. I personally think that while I don't own all the air, I own that which I inhale; at least until I exhale it. So, if an individual, a corporation, a state or a state-sanctioned entity pumps poison into the air, and I can't breath without getting some of that poison, has there been a theft of clean air to breathe? Or am I only entitled to my last breath, and not the next one?

It feels that the whole internet is now just a bunch of people taking offense at something.

I may have started this thread well under the influence..

But I believe philosophy could benefit from taking nothing for granted.

You appear to believe that the striving for absence of bias is the ‘correct’ role of philosophy. Others will suggest that this view is just one among competing notions of what philosophy is about — Joshs

I don't have a problem with disagreement. As long as it is not based on emotions or ideology.

From their vantage your aim is what they call a god’s eye view, or a view from nowhere. (...) Not only does it likely conflict , but the ‘wokists’ will push hard to expose your view as ‘oppressive’. — Joshs

My view is more a kin to nihilism than the God's eye viewpoint. I don't invent axioms to start a debate but critique the axioms (Some of which have become PC and woke). I am not denying bias. I think PC and woke ideas are new or rehashed biases.

It feels that the whole internet is now just a bunch of people taking offense at something. — Andrew4Handel

So much so that I feel uncomfortable, out of sorts, when someone agrees with me. It must be a trick, right? Or sarcasm? What am I to do if I can't take offense, or if I have not offended?

It may seem foreign to the well adjusted, but I must work on accepting peace, a compliment, good will.

What is being claimed is an exclusive right to something. — Andrew4Handel

So it's the exclusivity of it - which I pretty much agree with. But is that property? Now. as our Brother Riley makes clear, "property" at law is a term of art, and that is worth consideration. All this just to put a little backbone and rigor into the discussion.

I got woke, as did my sort of right wing conservative housemate.

My point isn’t that bias exists as the opposite of impartiality but that the dichotomy bias-impartiality is incoherent. It is not that pure lack of bias is an unattainable ideal , but that truth as correspondence with a fixed external reality is an inadequate philosophical position.

I think PC and woke ideas are new or rehashed biases. — Andrew4Handel

Give me an example of a position or feature of philosophy that is not a bias of some sort or other.

I’m clearly a dinosaur. Though it would be disingenuous of me to pretend I didn’t know what the woke answers were or when such an orientation is appropriate to enforce.

The general argument concerning free speech of course has nothing to do with the argument concerning moderation on any particular forum any more than an argument for free food choices obliges an Italian restaurant to serve hamburgers. And yet posters consistently conflate these debates. There’s no inconsistency whatsoever between supporting free speech and running a moderated forum. — Baden

To me it just depends on the rules of the forum. Free speech isn’t always conducive to good philosophical discussion and good discussion is the highest priority here. That’s why we’re here.

Give me an example of a position or feature of philosophy that is not a bias of some sort or other. — Joshs

Questions have two sides.

Is reality a dream? Side 1 Yes Side 2 No.

A bias is to already favour one side of an argument explicitly or implicitly or to start an argument with unjustified premises and axioms. The dubious initial example I gave was just to show that certain ideas or arguments or already dismissed prior to any kind of investigation based maybe on "triggering " people.

So it's the exclusivity of it - which I pretty much agree with. But is that property? — tim wood

The owner can demand total control of the property or some one can make a claim on behalf of other people about their inalienable right to something. Or the owner can allow general access to the property

In the Israeli/Palestine debate I tried to get the topic of property/ownership off the ground and someone started a thread about it elsewhere but that thread was full of hyperbole. "War Crimes" "Genocide" "Ethnic cleansing" "Apartheid" "Theft of Land"

I said I think the conflict will become intractable under this approach.

You and your damned reasonableness. Would you please stop it!!!

I've been in quite a few exchanges like this one, both as a participant and a bystander. In those situations, censorship by bullying is a common tactic. Moderators sometimes are part of that, although others certainly participate too. When a moderator does it it can be a lot more intimidating. — T Clark

I can’t help it lol
To me that’s just part of the battle of ideas. Don’t let people bully you into silence.

Is this forum woke and politically correct? No. It seems too chaotic and random to me - a mix of crackpots, monomaniacs, educated, autodidacts and political warriors of diverse camps. There doesn't appear to be consistent or monolithic approach.

So it's the exclusivity of it - which I pretty much agree with. But is that property?
— tim wood

The owner can demand total control of the property or some one can make a claim on behalf of other people about their inalienable right to something. Or the owner can allow general access to the property — Andrew4Handel

There is something slippery here. But I am confident it can be grasped, and until grasped, the topic not understood. The proposition in question is that "all property is theft." Let's consider a plot of land, call it an acre. Well, pretty clearly that cannot be stolen. You can awaken in the morning and look out the window and find your car gone, but it's never going to happen that you look out your window and wonder where your back yard went. Nor did you steal it, slipping it into a sack when no one was looking and bringing i home. So on this example it's clear that what is stolen, if anything, is not the property.

But let's not be absurd. Of course what is meant is control of the property. Looking at "control," however, leads to a similar absurdity. There's your acre. Control it. Make it roll over and play dead. And so forth. So "control" isn't quite right.

This reduction can be pursued for a while, but I think we will agree that what we end up with is a limited opportunity for you to do what you want, as opposed to what others may want to do. Probably you can plant a garden. Subject to zoning you probably cannot start a pig farm or a tannery: this limited opportunity.

Let's suppose that this is in fact what is owned, with access to ancillary, usually police, powers to protect your possibilities. Is there anything more to it than that?

Implied, then, is law. Implied by law is community. Ownership, then, is a claim you make that your community will support you in if you care to act on it. Expressing this as ownership of, for example, land, is just a convenient short-hand fiction for the truth of the matter. But the fiction leads to confusion, a confusion that obscures real issues when there are real issues.

Sense so far?

Is this forum woke and politically correct? No. It seems too chaotic and random to me - a mix of crackpots, monomaniacs, educated, autodidacts and political warriors of diverse camps. There doesn't appear to be consistent or monolithic approach. — Tom Storm

You're probably right.

Let's consider a plot of land, call it an acre. Well, pretty clearly that cannot be stolen. — tim wood

I am surprised you would say this because that is often the main contention that someone took land from someone else. You stole the land from them, by evicting them from it or preventing them for returning to it.

It is possible to own almost anything now, from radio waves, stars, ideas, inventions, names, ever smaller slices of land selling for massive sums of money.

The idea that you can own something has cascaded to contention over ever smaller bits of matter.

The internet actually contrasts with that thanks to Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He allowed it to be a free for all. Which is why at a low cost or even no cost we can disseminate ideas from four corners of the earth to challenge the capitalist idea that you have to pay for everything and earn your opinions.

I think our freedom comes from people who offer free stuff and don't make you have to earn your right to dissent. Woke and PC ideals appear to be an off shoot of capitalism.

https://quizly.co/how-woke-are-you/ — Baden

Ah, oh no, test said I'm totally woke, this whole time I didn't realise. :sweat:

I don't know; the whole "War on Christmas" thing seems pretty convincing to me. — James Riley

Well, December 25th is actually the birth of Sol Invictus. The early Christian bigwigs pretty much acknowledged that they had no idea when Jesus was born, and were using the date to celebrate his birth disingenuously because of its well-established popularity as a pagan holiday. So, Christ was never there to begin with, I'm afraid.

It is possible to own almost anything now, from radio waves, stars, ideas, inventions, names, ever smaller slices of land selling for massive sums of money. — Andrew4Handel

It's possible to own whatever law says can be owned, in fact.

In fact, justice and equality surely are Conservative values nowadays? — Benkei

I just love irony. But if they were Conservative values, I question whether Conservative values exist anymore here in God's Favorite Country.

But I believe philosophy could benefit from taking nothing for granted. — Andrew4Handel

Cicero said, quite rightly, that there's nothing so absurd but some philosopher has already said it. But absurdity and stupidity don't seem, to me, to be worthy goals of philosophy.