Thanks, I've just sent that feature request to PlushForums support along with the other things. See the OP in this discussion for the latest list.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Reza Aslan.

To say that it's the social context, and therefore the contemporary religious interpretation that matters, is not necessarily to say that the religious motivation is unimportant. I think it's silly, ahistorical--and from a practical standpoint counterproductive and damaging--to say that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity, but I think it's also silly, counterproductive and damaging to claim that, for example, Isis is not Islamic or that Islam is a religion of peace, etc.

Once the starboard nacelle is fixed I'll get right on that.

At least it gives the general impression I know what I'm doing. :D

Thanks for the heads-up. Chrome only just recently started showing the warnings. It's all secure now.

And thanks for the donation. :)

I'm just saying that a baker ought to be able to refuse to bake a cake he finds offensive, but ought not to be able to refuse to serve someone just because they're gay (or whatever). The latter is already clear in law, but the former is beginning to take its place in the legal definition of discrimination.

Some gay people are against gay marriage, and feel strongly about it. Imagine a gay baker being compelled to bake a cake that promotes gay marriage.

(Y)

Doesn't the distinction between spectral colour and perceptual colour resolve your dispute?

protection against individuals and businesses that wanted to deny homosexuals certain services. For example, if a baker didn't want to bake a wedding cake with two grooms on it, then the law would protect their right from a lawsuit or other sanction for that discrimination. — Hanover

I've made the following point before, a point that seems to be mostly ignored. A baker declining to bake a cake representing something he disagrees with is not an example of "wanting to deny homosexuals certain services", if by that you mean a denial of service because they are homosexual. That is, it is not in itself an example of discrimination against the customer on the basis of sexuality. Many such bakers would most likely bake non-gay cakes for people whom they knew to be gay, and if so they are not guilty of discriminating against gay people.

Edit: just realized this is an old thread in which I already made the point :D

if you reach Hanover's conclusion, then you've gone wrong somewhere along the line. — Sapientia

General guidance?

The study concludes that "careful siting of new reservoirs" is required. Kate Horner, on the other hand, is an anti-dam activist.

Jamalrob has undertaken state control of the means of production for fuck's sake! — Agustino

I and the rest of the staff are but servants of you, the people.

No - it actually isn't doable. They have no direct control as far as I understand on what js scripts are running on the forums, what php code, or the forum's css, and they can only affect html structure in ways which are permitted by the software. Maybe the software allows them to select a series of "themes" as well, I have no clue as I never used Plush. — Agustino

You may be interested to learn that Plush is based on a fork of Vanilla Forums.

Looking at that jamalrob, why did you go for the separate Articles site rather than the integrated blog? — Michael

In the beginning we had big plans to publish a lot of high-quality articles in a nice format--that was one of @Hanover's ideas, I think--and an independent platform seemed like good decision. I expected more article submissions than we got. As it turned out, we only got three, only one of them was any good--and they were all mine anyway.

Oh, and a couple of us are going to work out some sort of "Ask the philosopher" deal. Are you cool with that? — Mongrel

What is it and what does it involve? Sounds fine though.

So we really have no control over the format? — Mongrel

Installing software on my own server and then customizing it would have been too much work. PlushForums doesn't allow much customization because it's a hosted service; and as such it is much easier to run.

Works for me. If you paste in the URLs you tried I can check to see what's up.

No rush, Q. To be honest, I was testing to see if you were genuinely interested in his philosophy, rather than just in his life. When I was younger I would read biographies of great thinkers, including Wittgenstein, and at the time I think I assumed I wouldn't be able to tackle their actual philosophy itself. In then end I realized the biographies don't really give you much.

What do you think of the Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough?

Most of them felt quite lonely and I suppose they couldn't find someone to fill that hole. It reverberates strongly in Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings and personality. — Question

And yet, when you read those remarks on Frazer that Nils Loc posted, what comes across is a lively kind of fellow-feeling--a sympathy for human beings and a passionate defence of their practices, rather than any anguished estrangement from people. And reading just a page or so of it reminds you why the thought of philosophers interests us so much more than their lives.

I'd certainly like to see debates. I'm not sure about the real-time thing, but if the participants were to agree on those rules, then sure.

Okay. I don't know the questions or how you answered, so I can't judge for myself at present. But if you're in favour of absolute freedom of speech, then, by implication, you're in favour of causing needless harm. For example, shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. — Sapientia

Incidentally, this is one of our many disagreements.

Thinking about this some more...

What might work better than inviting celebrity philosophy professors, as on PF, is inviting popular bloggers or podcasters on philosophy (or politics, sociology, science,etc.), many of whom are academics of some sort but, crucially, are always ready to engage with others online.

I haven't considered it, and on old PF it seemed like a lot of trouble for nothing very interesting or exciting. Others may think differently, so I'm not saying it won't happen.

values which you'd deem to be sexist or whatever, despite the fact that they would apply equally to men and women (such as chastity for both) — Agustino

Talk about a straw man. If those values do equally apply to men and women, then how can they be sexist? Why do you think I would hold such an irrational position?

This reveals their deep rooted world view on nature, which is contrasted by conservatives, who are much more wary of nature and its dark aspects — Emptyheady

Notice how this is pretty much the opposite of the traditional understanding of these political positions. For conservatives, the status quo, e.g., class hierarchies or disparities in the treatment of men and women, is defended partly on the basis of its supposed naturalness, whereas leftists--at least in the old days--either point out that these things are social and amenable to change, or else deny that we must respect what is natural.

The confusion here is probably partly down to your American libertarian understanding of conservatism. In any case, it's one reason why I see much of the green movement and today's Left as conservative.

I'm a Leftist and I positively love cooling towers.

There's not actually many people who think for themselves, and who actually have their own views on things, not determined by what others encourage them to think. — Agustino

And that is precisely what universities ought to be encouraging: independence of mind and the free play of ideas. But that's not what's happening now. I'm at risk of agreeing with you here.

I don't recall agreeing with you in that debate. I remember you as one of my main adversaries, hence why I called you a petit bourgeois reactionary lickspittle or whatever.

So me, you and Crank are on the same page. — Sapientia

Interestingly, though, I seem to disagree with you and BC as much as agree.

Last time I did it I was about the same as you for the first two tests, maybe a bit more libertarian.

I got bored with the other one.

I think the difference is that the objects of science are described or defined entirely in terms of their measurable properties, via their effects. But to say that the cause of religious practices is the supreme being and creator of the universe, etc., is to go far beyond the evidence, i.e., beyond the effects.

I'm still on the right track here. — TheMadFool

You're not, because in saying that God has measurable effects you're assuming that God exists, so the argument begs the question. Others have pointed this out.

One thing is the problem of ancestrality (not that Schopenhauer uses that term):

Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent on the first knowing being, however imperfect it be; on the other hand, this first knowing animal just as necessarily wholly dependent on the long chain of causes and effects which has preceded it, and in which it itself appear as a small link. These two contradictory views, to each of which we are lead with equal necessity, might certainly be called an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge. — Schopenhauer, WWR

I don't know if that's the kind of thing Mongrel had in mind, or whether it's relevant to your conversation, but it strikes me as quite paradoxical.

Up North, perhaps. — Sapientia

There be dragons.

Then count me out.

The SEP takes the alternatives seriously:

What might a fact be? Three popular views about the nature of facts can be distinguished:

A fact is just a true truth-bearer,
A fact is just an obtaining state of affairs,
A fact is just a sui generis type of entity in which objects exemplify properties or stand in relations. — SEP, Facts

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/facts

I notice the land masses in the last image there are in fact orange, perhaps indicating the dominance of the Dutch in the future communist utopia.