Those who try to survive in the middle ground between two such historically implacable enemies, are either very brave or very foolish.

I guess time will tell. I think their bravery or foolishness is interpretative and applied by the bias of being at one of the two extremes.

The middle can be claimed by either side all they want. But that doesn't detract from the fact that it is inherently the middle. Of course, both sides want to claim it because it would mean majority. But the middle, by It's very nature, does not identify wholly with one polarity/bias over the other.

Just as nature does not side with predator nor prey. But rather exemplifies the dynamic itself as a neccesity to the health of all cohorts.

Those who ignore the lessons of history (past times) may well be doomed to repeat them! But as you suggest 'You reap what you sow.'

history is written by the Victors. The truth always lies within the middle of two biases.

So not by those who occupied the middle ground then.
Josephus worked for the Romans!

No. The middle ground does not profess a truth. Truth does not exert or enforce itself on anyone. It merely is. The object of speculation and argument by the prejudiced.

The middle does not assert themselves. Assertion is done by those who are convinced they're correct, the oppositions, the contestent.

The middle ground is the unspoken chess board. The competitors are back or white pawns in the game.

:wink: Life is like a game of chess eh?

in a sense yes. Combat between idéologies. When in fact ideologies always exclude the exception. Because exceptions are by nature not ideal. There is always an exception to the rule.

Rules are made to be broken.

Why do you think there is no god piece in chess?
Human reps fight human reps in chess, no god influences.
Why do you think the creators of chess were not compelled to include supernatural reps?

Even the human bishop reps have no supernatural style moves they can make, they just move diagonally as their human equivalents rarely move 'straight.' :lol:

HeyI surely someone created a chess set of 'Olympus' Vs 'Asgard!' But it would be boring unless the 'Thor' piece could throw his hammer at an Olympian! How about a Christian V Muslim chess set? Inappropriate?

Well if humanity is represented as chess pieces I would argue God is the chess board/game Itself.

The pieces have predetermined characteristics - where they are allowed to move. What they are permitted to do in the hierarchy of the chess society. A feudal system. The laws.of "Chess physics".

That feudal system is based on power or ability to move. The Queen being most potent.

The ultimate power would be a chess piece that can move to any square whenever they desire (omnipresence).

And exert their effect (disqualification/removal of any chess piece) whenever they desire or "omnipotence".

And can anticipate all possible moves (omniscience).

But such power renders the game useless. As unrestricted access to power moves is hardly a power play at all. Restriction provides the scope for tactic - clever game play.

If there are no rules of gameplay (physics), there's no point in contest for the title of Victor.

Well if humanity is represented as chess pieces I would argue God is the chess board/game Itself — Benj96

Would that not make god, Gaia, Earth, a planet based transcendent?
That would be too small a god for most theists.

But such power renders the game useless. — Benj96

True but we could ask ChatGPT to come up with rules for our god chess. What happens when omnigods clash. To quote a line from the film 'Highlander,' 'There can be only one!' Perhaps we can feed the rules of democracy into ChatGPT to help it come up with rules for deciding the outcome of a clash between Zeus and Odin! OR Yaweh and Allah!

What happens when omnigods clash — universeness

If omnigods clash they're equally matched. Therefore not omni-anything. "omni" pertains to "all". If it is not an all encompassing entity, a singular thing, then it does not possess "omni" qualities.

pmno — Benj96

Is this a mnemonic?

The truth always lies within the middle of two biases. — Benj96

Between, yes. Not in the middle. In no conflict are both sides equal in any particular, including honesty in recording.

There's no such thing as a perfect social system; the more individuals, the more unhappy about something, that's just history and statistics, and homo sapiens.

Democracy itself is more about how rulers are picked than about what they do, though, and so they sort of become representatives empowered by a majority (at least in theory), which is also due to practical matters (some sort of temporary hierarchy if you will). They tend to promise different than what they (can) keep — a marketing type thing.

Any one person is outnumbered by two with a different sentiment/attitude. Individuals in a society could be ruled by organized thugs or a (transparent) democratic majority. Personally, I'll run with the least bad. Don't like democracy? Then just leave the ruling to me. ;)

However democracy is or might be implemented, the details, is another matter, and could be discussed/voted until kingdom come, is my guess.

There's no such thing as a perfect social system; the more individuals, the more unhappy about something, that's just history and statistics, and homo sapiens. — jorndoe

It's basically about how many people there are. Representation becomes a necessity even if the group of people is rather small.

In my life one example of democratic decision making is for example the private road going to my summer place. The people sharing that road decide on what to do with the road and in order not to create a large hassle about it, every house has one vote (if something would be voted on) independent on just where on the road they live. Of course, one household or land patch has one vote, so there's the representation. And even if there are roughly 20 landowners on the road, some never participate. And only a few do the actual work and keep up the maintenance of the road (as there still are farmers with appropriate equipment to maintain the road).

And in this microcosm you could find (possibly, if the people wouldn't work together) nearly every defect or problem of democracy: the limits of representation (not all adults vote), free rider problem (not all participate in the decision making) and that "power" usually tends to be with some active people as others aren't so interested. Hence these problems are inherent for democracy.

Yet that democracy is so popular and can create stable countries is shown by the handful of cases of the total opposite: Absolute monarchies which are stable and have people happy living in them are basically tiny, extremely wealthy mini-states (Monaco, Brunei etc.). If a citizen has a problem, but can easily approach the monarch, then that representation problem can still be solved with an absolute monarch... assuming the monarch understands to listen to the needs of his subjects. Hence if our private road would be owned by one entity, I think the 20 land owners wouldn't have a problem, if the road would be maintained with minimal cost and the land owners would be listened to. Easy with 20 land owners. Yet they (we) understand how expensive (and thus stupid) it would be to buy the service from some company of maintaining the road would be as the company obviously does it for a profit.

But once there are hundreds of thousands of people or millions that "direct democracy" or "direct connection to the monarch" simply cannot exist. Hence larger absolute monarchies (Saudi-Arabia) or poorer ones can face difficulties, corruption, and usually have to form a police state. The absolute monarch cannot decide everything, thus the underlings have to decide things on behalf of him.

However democracy is or might be implemented, the details, is another matter, and could be discussed/voted until kingdom come, is my guess. — jorndoe

Yes. And the extremely radical approaches can be left to philosophical theorizing, because usually they have to assume something from the society which simply isn't there.

pmno
— Benj96

Is this a mnemonic? — universeness

I see you edited, :up:
So in any monotheistic god posit, there is no middle ground, no start point, no end point, nothing linear.
God is not a creature who could be democratic as 'there can be only one.' In your dualist viewpoint, can democracy exist? Wherever you perceive the disembodied part of your individual consciousness exists. Do you perceive that they can communicate with each other or can each only communicate with its own related brain? When you think about the credence you give to the dualist aspects of each of us, do you perceive such as having an ability to inter-relate or are they completely restricted to the physical brain each is connected to and it cannot be affected by any external force or phenomena?
In dualism, how is the democratic imperative communicated?
I am merely interested in how you perceive the methodology involved in how this disembodied aspect of human consciousness functions, as related to such concepts as democracy.

Democracy itself is more about how rulers are picked than about what they do, though, and so they sort of become representatives empowered by a majority (at least in theory), which is also due to practical matters (some sort of temporary hierarchy if you will). — jorndoe

Democracy does not elect 'rulers!' It elects, as you more accurately suggest, 'representatives.'
A measure of 'true democracy,' is how easy it is to remove individuals from authority, when they have demonstrated nefarious acts or actions that contradict the 'contract' or 'manifesto' they established between themselves and those who elected them.

n a true democracy the government should serve (all) the people, — TheMadMan

This is totally impossible. Sometimes one cannot even satisfy all the members of a family or even of a small group. For the very simple reason that people's needs differ in a lot of ways.

That is why, in a group the members of which disagree on a certain issue, a voting is carried out. And the majority wins, i.e. get what they want. Sometimes, it's not enough to have a majority, e.g. when there are more that two options, but the votes must cover a certain minimum percentage (50%, 2/3, etc.) This is what they call "absolute majority" (although the term is somehow self-contradictory.)

There is no and cannot exist such a thing as a "true democracy". True is an absolute, and democracy is relative. Groups and nations can be said to be more democratic than others.

In all our attempts to create a true democracy — TheMadMan

When and by whom was this is ever been attempted?