But to save time in the future I'd really like to get clear what not to write. And is it a moderator or an overzealous algorithm at work? — Kym

The site guidelines are pinned at the very top of the main page. Here's a link:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/480/site-guidelines

It was a sensible but short question on physics, dutifully posted in the Science folder. The title was a bit silly "Do Black Holes S*ck?" (replete with vowels). Maybe this was interpreted as obscene?

Or could it have scanned as too short? The question only included two premisies leading to an apparently paradoxical conclusion - one I'd really like resolved. — Kym

The moderator who deleted your posts might respond in this thread to inform you why they did it.

@CuddlyHedgehog @Sir2u

Stop it. You want to behave like kids, go somewhere else.

In case you missed it, Dennett responded: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/04/03/magic-illusions-and-zombies-an-exchange/

Those who sat on the right in the National Assembly and in the assemblies that followed it were the nobility, and the monarchists. It seems to me that neither rightism nor conservatism are essentially (and transhistorically) pro-free-market.

And there is the obvious fact that fascism is uncontroversially right-wing and yet is not especially pro-free-market, and has in fact often been explicitly against free markets.

I love conspiracy theories. They always get people to think more deeply about a problem rather than just listen to the official reports. — René Descartes

Somewhat off-topic, but...

In my experience the opposite is true. Conspiracy theories appeal rather to those who want neat, logical answers, in which motivations are clear and intentions are cleanly carried through. They want a world that isn't messy like real life. Their thinking is anything but deep. Conspiracy theories are cartoon facts.

From the Communist Manifesto. They are not the "rules of Communism" and they are not a description of how communism might work. They are suggestions for the first steps towards communism.

Just the functionality I would expect.

EDIT: Well, the way it handles replies to conversations that have been deleted could be improved I guess.

I don't like Wittgenstein's use of the term hinge-propositions, because a proposition is a linguistic phenomena. I would say that some beliefs, especially those that are pre-linguistic have a causal explanation, which I explained in other threads — Sam26

But for W, to identify a belief is not to identify a thing in the head. To call it a proposition, and to say, "she believes she has legs", is not to suggest that she has a matching thought, an internal statement, "I believe I have legs" or "I have legs". A belief may be pre-linguistic in your sense, or in W's appeal to forms of life, but also linguistic in the sense that it can be stated (later). It becomes linguistic when we talk about it, and it is as a propositional attitude that we must talk about it--she believes that...

This makes belief an odd kind of post hoc thematisation.

I just read an interesting article on Aeon that might make it clearer what I meant when I said this:

new social restrictions surrounding sex, an impoverishment of sexual interaction and a degradation of individual autonomy — jamalrob

How do we understand sexual pleasure in this age of ‘consent’?

Some quotes from the article:

Sometimes what we want is not fully known to us in advance. The details of desire and satisfaction are often discovered, and produced, in the sexual moment. Rather than a question of individual will, sexual autonomy can be expressed through the interaction of two (or more) partners. Sex can be a uniquely utopian experience, in that the act of sexually relating creates novel ways of being together socially.

Women’s sexual pleasure is often viewed as more complicated and less predictable than men’s. Historically, this assumption has contributed to the over-regulation of female sexual and reproductive capacities. Rather than the exception, ambiguity about exactly what is desired, and how that desire should be expressed, is the sexual norm. Women’s emancipatory projects should therefore focus on ways of incorporating this fact, rather than shunning it.

This is not to say that there are no limits in sex, but rather to propose that we devise limits that align with the erotic potential of the sexual encounter. Liminal trust is a space in which partners can explore the value of sexual experiences precisely because they directly engage the line between permissibility and impermissiblity. Both affirmative and enthusiastic consent cast this kind of sexuality as deviant and criminal. That is a mistake.

#MeToo explicitly relies on patriarchy as both cultural context and target. It sees women as objects of sexualised male domination. Men, we are told, have an interest in furthering, or at least maintaining, misogynistic forms of social control over women. They are assumed to want to go ‘as far’ as they can before being confronted with a woman’s expression of non-consent to sex. This picture provides, at best, an idiosyncratic and regressive picture of human sexuality. At worst, it encourages us to police sexuality in conservative ways.

And if you have no idea what she's talking about, well, you're doing it wrong. :wink:

No doubt she'll be cast as a rape apologist by the mob.

[Vector addition] if it works, buys facticity, but it is of little benefit to (law) realists who believe that the phenomena of nature flow from a small number of abstract, fundamental laws. — Cartwright

I guess I was thinking that facticity--which the laws give us, or can give us--does amount to descriptiveness, even if they don't amount to the metaphysical grounding that the law realists claim for them.

Just on the subject of descriptiveness (and sorry if I'm inappropriately fisking here)...

It can account for why the force is as it is when just gravity is at work; but it is of no help for cases in which both gravity and electricity matter — Cartwright

Didn't she already supply the solution here:

For bodies which are both massive and charged, the law of universal gravitation and Coulomb's law (the law that gives the force between two charges) interact to determine the final force — Cartwright

That is, the laws of physics together describe how things behave. Which means that this is wrong:

Once the ceteris paribus modifier has been attached, the law of gravity is irrelevant to the more complex and interesting situations — StreetlightX

Surely we can, and do, apply multiple laws?

We can't impose a delay, but there are two things we can do. There is a setting to require staff approval of all new users, and we can enable two anti-spam plugins. I've just enabled the plugins to see how they work for us, so I'm not going to implement the signup approval just yet.

EDIT: Actually, three things: I've also turned on reCAPTCHA to prevent automated signups.

Well spotted. Not such a big problem, I wouldn't think (how did you uncover it?). We don't have direct access to the code to implement a fix, and there are several things that would take priority, but I guess I could mention it next time I send the devs a list of feature requests.

:cool:

Actually it was just my excuse for not practising today :grin:

I do remember Wayfarer as a keyboardist of some sort; I know a few others who tinkle the keys, but I can only remember TS as someone who is/was apparently a semi/full professional musician, other than myself. — Noble Dust

Ah yes, I see. Me, I sacrificed my glorious musical talents to Mammon and my creative spirit was crushed by the relentless imperatives of capital. :wink:

More interesting than that, what's the correlation between civil engineering and web development — Agustino

I actually know several guys I studied with who went into programming of one kind or another.

Seems like a dialect issue; amateur has a negative con' over here in Ammuurica. — Noble Dust

Yes, also in the UK, but I like to emphasize the word's etymology, according to which it means someone who does something for the love of it, not for the money.

Oh right, how many other aspiring career musicians do you find around here, other than old Terrapin Station, who seems to have disappeared? — Noble Dust

Wayfarer is a musician I believe, and I noodle on a cute little curved soprano sax from time to time.

Please, I'm an amateur, not a hobbyist.

T Clark and Agustino are the only philosophical civil engineers I know, so I'm guessing it's just a delightful coincidence.

I actually am a civil engineer by degree — Agustino

Me too.

But if you keep working after that in the same conditions, then almost certainly you've stopped growing. Either you must change position, or you must start on your own, a consulting company, a general contractor, etc. — Agustino

But changing position, taking on more responsibility and so on, can also be done in an established company. In any case, you were dead wrong to respond to T Clark's comment, "working for a company run by others doing what you are good at is a better option ...", by saying "no, that's just a way to stay in your comfort zone". It isn't always.

Most people have this fairy tale idea of the entrepreneur as some kind of invincible hero who always succeeds at whatever he touches - a sort of Midas. But that's not true - he succeeds because he puts in literarily almost non-stop working hours for many many years, and battles through whatever comes his way, whether that is mental illness, fear, lack of finances, etc. - whatever comes his way, he will bear it, and like a bull not get his eyes off the ball, not give up. — Agustino

This is also a fairy tale, one we often hear from entrepreneurs. The successful ones, of course. The ones who give TED talks extolling the virtues of failure and reminiscing about the days when they lived on gruel, and so on and on.

Working for a company run by others doing what you are good at is a better option for those of us who are not as dynamic as you perhaps are. — T Clark

No, that's just a way to stay in your comfort zone. You never grow that way, so if your life is about feeling safe, sure, do that, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it because you'll regret it later. — Agustino

This is a careless comment Gus. If you're, say, a civil engineer, then working for an established company is the best way to develop your craft, because it provides the resources, variety of projects, and administrative support to allow you to focus on your specialist tasks. Sometimes, security is necessary to give you the space to progress. Think also of what academia does for scientists: it is not an easy option, but rather the proper context in which they can concentrate on what they're interested in. How useful is it for an engineer to have to worry about business when what they really want to do is build great dams?

And I say this as someone who, perhaps like you, gave up working for other people and started a business.

Banned

evolutionary psychology, a version which is even considered extreme among those who do, but he doesn't get into that as much until his Blank Slate — Saphsin

The Language Instinct, as I recall, combines Chomsky's linguistics with evolutionary psychology.

A trivial point.

If the discussion is not returned to public view for public participation, I may be taking my interest in trivialism to another, more understanding, and more respectful online forum. — Paul E. Mokrzecki

It has been deleted and it will remain deleted, and if you post any similar evangelistic confusions, they will be deleted too, preferably before they get any responses.

It's a philosophy forum and we try to maintain high standards. Discussions about conspiracy theories as a social or psychological phenomenon would be interesting. Discussions that take the theories seriously on their own terms are much less welcome. Conspiracy theories are examples of bad thinking and I want to see less of that here.

It's true that there is nothing in the site guidelines to suggest that conspiracy theory threads will automatically be deleted, and I know that other moderators would have let it go, but beyond the guidelines we have to sometimes make editorial decisions based on other criteria.

Notice that you can agree with the Chinese party line, as presented by Erik, and still support Tibetan self-determination. Even if the Chinese brought some welcome modernization, the Tibetans may have liked the chance to do it themselves.

(Y)

Ah yes, I remember now. I think I asked the developers to remove the cumulative score. Without that I think it would've been ok.

But it seems most people are still against it anyway.

Oh

I do miss upvotes. I like to see what people are thinking and how popular certain posts and kinds of posts are. But first of all, last time I checked you couldn't get upvoting without downvoting (as far as I can recall), and secondly, voting is probably mostly used for agreement and disagreement anyway, which is not the ideal use of the feature.

I agree with those who suggest expressing approval or thanks with words. Even posts with just a (Y) are okay, within reason.

women seem inordinately attracted to bastards — Pseudonym

A quick note to say that this is a misleading cliché. Psychological studies and ordinary experience suggest rather that many women are attracted to men with qualities that "bastards" often happen to have, but which many non-bastards also have: confidence, independence, a lack of neediness, emotional unavailability, and so on.

interiorized misogyny — praxis

Every woman who criticizes the movement is condemned for "interiorized misogyny".

You are making the confusion, by using a definition of belief which is basically meaningless, as it encompasses 1+1=2 as a belief, and I believe in fairies. — charleton

I don't see how it follows from the fact that some beliefs are true and some are false that this concept of belief--a very ordinary one, and also the philosophical one--is meaningless.

Ah, I see what you mean. Actually though, I think one can believe--without choosing to--without being able to justify it. In fact, I think there are basic beliefs that cannot be justified. Rather, they are implied in the way we go about things.

I believe nothing. I seek to know. — charleton

When you know, you believe.

And when you take it to be the case that "the idea that people are free to believe what they want ... is a dangerous and damaging idea", then that is what you believe. You believe it's a dangerous and damaging idea. To take something to be true, or the case, is to believe it.

It's not belief that's the problem, but certain kinds of belief, for example, belief contrary to evidence.

ProgrammingGodJordan was unable to see this. I hope you're not.

There are subtleties, of course. One says, "I don't believe it, I know it", which is an attempt to give a guarantee of the claim's truth, or, more charitably, to show that the belief is well-founded. It's to say, "I don't merely believe it, I know it". But it doesn't escape the fact that belief is involved whether or not it's knowledge.

Yes, I agree. I'm implying that what would have been my initial reaction to the discussion, i.e., to delete it, would have been too hasty.

I seem to remember there were quite a lot of this kind of thread on the old PF, and speaking personally, I learned a lot from seeing the likes of Banno reveal the basic mistakes they were making. So yeah, I'm happy with how this went, although I admit I'd have been inclined to delete the discussion if I'd seen it before it gained any responses.

for what reason? — Noble Dust

He was banned, so he created a new account.

I will say to the moderators, even though the thread was far too popular for you to delete or close, I appreciate that nonsense like this was able to be addressed. Free speech means that all ideas, no matter how close-minded, need to be brought to the table, if only to be shot down. — Noble Dust

I agree, but in the long run such people are not good for the forum. He was banned for evangelism. As it says in the guidelines:

Types of posters who are not welcome here:

Evangelists: Those who must convince everyone that their religion, ideology, political persuasion, or philosophical theory is the only one worth having.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/480/site-guidelines/