Whoever is elected will be reliably committed to the articles of faith of the dominant capitalist paradigm. The economy is not democratic -- it's plutocratic. The millions of extremely rich, very rich, and merely rich income groups will be well taken care of. Fuck the food stamp crowd; fuck the must-drive-old-car-crowd; fuck the must-work-3-jobs crowd; fuck the priced-out-of-housing crowd; fuck 'em all! — Bitter Crank

:clap: That just about covers it! I wonder when the masses will fully realise, they have the power to change this almost ridiculous reality you accurately describe. Will they just continue to watch 'the Elon Musk show' or shows about how the rich wives of millionaires interact with each other socially and spend the money their husbands leached off the backs and sweat of their workers?
Will they continue to watch such insults and think 'hey, that's who I want to be, that's the life for me!, those are my role models, my ideal humans.' REALLY!!!! :rage:

Btw, a small aside, It annoys me that you gift the nefarious with the handle 'bitter crank,' to throw back at you, when you type such social/political truths.

The most important development will be the end of the tradition of people from the privileged upper middle classes being groomed for a life in politics. Eton and Oxford are responsible for perpetuating this.
It looks as though this might now be happening. — Punshhh

The people you mention are indeed indoctrinated to believe they are the chosen ones who were born to lord it over the masses. They can't do it without many members of the masses supporting them. They are expert manipulators of the politically ignorant mind. That's why many poor people vote tory and that's why they will fight tooth and nail against the idea that politics should be taught in state schools, from an early age. Capitalism is about nurturing personal profit and growing personal wealth, it is not about nurturing people, and it never ever will be

They never do. — Christoffer

I remain convinced we can see beyond the 'circus.'
Most people I talk to about the attraction of 'reality TV' and the various opiates of the masses, do understand the human attraction to the freak show and the oooh ahhhhh scandal media news stories.
It's a double-edged sword, as its good when all that is said is true and it brings down the nefarious, but it is not so good when it is not true, and it is simply used as a tool to fool many people most of the time.
Most people know this, and they can be convinced to be more sceptical and drill down a little further and check all sources of the info they are being fed.
Removing party politics and presidential elections would greatly help imo.

wrestling fights between individuals and media covering who wore the best clothes and so on. — Christoffer

This could still happen at a constituency level but no more than it does now. It would be the responsibility of an educated electorate to see past such bullshit between constituency candidates.
People have to grow above the excitement and entertainment of the freak show.

Could devolve into becoming just like presidential elections and wrestling fights between individuals and media covering who wore the best clothes and so on. — Christoffer

No there should be no president or presidential elections as there would be no political parties.
The representatives elected by the constituencies would elect and remove their own 'hierarchy' as they saw fit within the 4 years they would have.
There would be a citizen's chamber, who would act as the second house and they would be made up of the main stakeholders such as science, business, youth, the aged, police, military, medical etc. They would 'moderate and scrutinise' the main chamber.

I'm not that well read-up on British politics so I didn't know that they did that. — Christoffer

When Maggie Thatcher was asked what she considered her greatest achievement her answer (true and a very bitter pill for all true socialists, like myself,) was TONY BLAIR!

In the UK, the left or right are just rejected by the majority in England. The center ground is therefore where the main dance then happens between capitalism and socialism.
We need to get rid of party politics. No political parties allowed. Each constituency should vote for their own local representative based on agreement with their viewpoints. People should be voting for people not political parties.

Tories just leave and start their own new party and leave the incompetent and stupid parts to drive Tories into the ground? I think they would have tremendous success if they did that at this time. — Christoffer

You are kinda describing Tony Blairs New Labour Party or perhaps even Keir Starmer's current labour party, who are indeed having tremendous success in the (non-Scottish) polls. That's why the tories keep stealing a lot of their policies, because they are soft tory policies.
Current labour and the liberal party should just merge as there is very little between them. :angry:

Send back the clown, there has to be clowns, send in the clowns, BUT, they're already there!

Your 30 mins prediction was quite close to the 'time left for the latest tory donkey.' I can already hear the HEEEE HAWWWWS of her potential replacements.
What a farce!

The other point to consider is that the country is in such a mess that giving labour the reigns and watching them probably fail to make any significant positive improvements in the next 4 years, might be the best way to dupe the populous into liking the tories again.

True, they could become the third party or even 4th behind the SNP. But they would at least survive. The liberals were almost wiped out after their very bad coalition with the tories and they have made a respectable comeback since. But you may well be correct that the tories will be too scared to drop down the league so far, even temporarily and will prefer to try to rebuild their status over the next two years and hope they don't shatter into a hundred factions in that time.

Yep, I think you are correct, BUT, only the tories themselves could call for a general election, and they may actually do that, if they think that they have no alternative but to spend time in opposition, so as to rebuild their nuked party. If they continue as they are, no matter who steers their crippled ship, they might totally sink without trace before the two years they have left, passes.

It will just be a case of another donkey leaves and yet another donkey enters. Every tory is a personal careerist first and foremost and their lowest priority is the well-being of the individuals that make up the masses.
Only a general election in the UK and a labour government down South will improve things a little for the UK. But labour under Keir Starmer and the right wing of the labour party is just a less offensive shade of capitalist blue. It's a shame so many people will have to continue to suffer until some kind of UBI system/economic parity alongside a resource-based economy is finally embedded.
Not in my lifetime probably but we are moving snail speed in that direction imo.

Mini brain/dish brain is a very interesting advance in the world of organic computing.
The organic computer combined with the quantum computer will I think become very important to the future direction transhumanism may take.

My point is that explanations in terms of intent do not apply to dishbrain. Talk of intent is part of a different language game. — Banno

But there is no evidence that the universe itself had any intent in the forming of sentient life. It happened because it could happen. The mini brain was created from human intent.

My suspicion is that for some act to count as intentional, the organism might in some sense have done otherwise. — Banno

Do you not think that intention requires the system to be self-aware and be able to 'judge' based on phenomena such as instinct, rather than simply choose from a list of alternate actions based on a conditional input?

I don't want to upset your apple cart mon ami. — Agent Smith

Why not? You might convince me I am wrong, but you need to be in it to win it!

Indeed it can! — Agent Smith

I'm sorry to get a bit panto on you but 'OH NO IT CAN'T!' or to respond more in kind, 'OH INDEED IT CANNOT.'
Gangsters can all agree democratically to act as gangsters act but if they are being tyrannical to others then they have no consent from those they are being tyrannical towards, so they are not acting DEMOCRATICALLY! You cannot employ democracy within your own group and then abandon it when dealing with another group who is not threatening you! Such behaviour IS CONTRADICTORY.

You're describing an ideal morality, not "intelligence." You can be an evil genius. — Hanover

No, I just have a higher opinion of the potential of the average human being than you do. I am not someone who assigns too much importance to ancient concepts such as platonic forms or Aristotelian ideals. I do accept that humans can always improve the systems they live by but there is no such 'final destination,' as an ideal morality. It's like trying to reach an ideal accuracy for pi or the speed of light in a vacuum. 3.14159265 will provide better solutions to certain problems compared to 3 or 3.1 or 3.14 and it will be ever so. An evil genius is just a measure of evil, nothing more. Genius is impressive but it is also relative and fallible.

Because they are immoral. — Hanover

Ok, I am fine if you prefer to go with your 'immoral,' label rather than my stupid, moronic and evil labels.
The response will hopefully be the same, we will both continue to be compelled to oppose and combat such attitudes.

Why are you now offering additional reasons for the South's loss of the war when you previously argued it was due their having adopted an evil system? — Hanover

The reason the Southern confederacy lost their war was myriad and the fact they had adopted an evil system was one of the main reasons the war started and was one of the main reasons they lost.
You should read the memoirs of Ulyssess S. Grant. I just finished it a few weeks ago.

See: https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1418&context=nlj, particularly page 7 and footnote 20. Rape of black women was legal during times of slavery. — Hanover

I never claimed unjust laws have never existed. You misunderstand and misrepresent the spirit of the word democracy imo. The word is about consent and rape does not involve consent and therefore there is no such concept as democratic rape. You yourself gave the argument that exemplified a situation such as a single non-nazi standing amongst a hundred or a thousand nazi's. You typed that that single non-nazi would be the one who was still morally correct, in your subjective, democratic opinion. I agree and I further project this onto the claim that there cannot be such an entity as a tyrannical democracy as the two words contradict each other. Your counter argument is that a group can democratically vote yes to the rape, pillage and conquering of another group and you are trying to sensationalise this by labelling it a 'democratic tyranny.' By trying to do this you 'soil' the word democracy unfairly and unjustly. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE CONSENT OF THE WOMAN during rape so such an act CAN NEVER BE DEMOCRATIC! The same applies to the other examples of skewed and atrocious authority tolerance towards continued jungle like behaviour from historical or current groups of men, you cited.
The vast majority of biblical edicts/guidelines are just embarrassing or else we should be still burning witches. Any group that still advocates or actually performs such acts would be considered evil, yes?

You didn't. You presented a justice prevails because it is just argument which is essentially the same thing. It argues that as long as we fight for righteousness we will prevail. — Hanover

You are making some bizarre interpretive jumps. I type something like 'when evil gets too big for its boots it gets smashed,' and you jump to some 'righteous religion on a crusade against evil,' BS.
My typings are about how humans react to evil empires such as the Greeks/Macedonians under Alexander the great savage, Rome, France under Napoleon, Great savage Britain, Germany under Hitler, Russia under Stalin etc, etc. THEY FALL, exactly as Gandhi stated.
Yes, as long as we fight for a global society where all humans can take their basic needs for granted and have equal status under the law, we will prevail, without any reference to, or need for, appeals for support or sanction from non-existent supernaturals.

If my point is obvious, then why do you argue otherwise? I have submitted that the majority will is irrelevant when deciphering morality. — Hanover

Because it's not true! The majority will is not, in any way, irrelevant, it is very relevant to identify, support and embed morality. 'Rape is immoral,' is correct, objectively as you suggest, even in the case of 1 victim (in one of your favoured unlikely scenarios) in a city of men who have all democratically voted for rape to be legal within their city state limits. It is all the other people from outside that city state who will smash it up, physically or politically and change that law! Even if it takes 10,000 years to achieve it. THATS WHAT HUMANS DO. That is their legacy and their compelling potential.

How does this contradict the idea that a democracy can be tyrannical? — Hanover

I think I have been crystal clear on my opinion that the concept of tyrannical democracy is contradictory and makes no sense within REAL human civilisations that have and do exist. You can peddle the idea of democracy running within gangster style authorities which may operate or exist within human civilisations, but you are just misusing the word democracy, when you try to apply it to gangster groups of moronic humans who cannot exist beyond their jungle beginnings.

Trump as the political incarnation of free energy. — Banno

Trump would baulk at all definitions or concepts of the word 'free.'
Trump as a smaller brain than a mini brain, satisfies me more, than your comparison with what random energy may manifest into, if given enough time and interactions with the nuances of current USA politics.

It was certainly immoral and wrong, but trying to preserve an economic system that resulted in great wealth doesn't point to a lack of intelligence. — Hanover

Yes it does. Intelligent people see 'the big picture,' they think about more than themselves and their family, they also consider the wider community, their nation and the planet they live on. Their economic system only benefited the few and an immoral and wrong few as you yourself describe such attitudes.
How can intelligent people consider other people inferior due to the colour of their skin or their tradition or their culture or the fact that they are less technically advanced than you. That's not a demonstration of intellect, that's a demonstration that you cannot think beyond your 'law of the jungle,' beginnings. If you see native peoples in the way the Southern Confederacy saw their slaves, then they should have gone back to the jungle they came from and continued to behave as the animals behaved.
The pursuit of personal great wealth is imbalanced and evil imo.

I think more mundane causes can be given for their loss. — Hanover

Yeah, their economic slave system made them technically stagnant and mainly backwards.
Another major difference was that the South had no navy to speak of, so the union blockades of Southern ports were eventually very decisive.

I wish that were the case. It would mean that we need only sit back and wait for those unjust nations in existence today to finally become enlightened. — Hanover

That is exactly what is happening but not because of those who are sitting back but because of those who are actively changing things for the better.

And such is subjectivism. It means rape was moral when the population said it was. If morality is an opinion, then it is fluid. Should rape fall into favor, it will be moral, as you are relying upon the majority to tell you good from bad. — Hanover

No, because no SIGNIFICANT HUMAN CIVILISATION has ever in history said rape was moral. Which civilisation declared all rape as moral? What evidence do you have? Are you talking about some rule of kings or nobles that was only their exclusive right? or a rule of conquest such as 'to the victor, the spoils?' These have always been 'jungle rules,' perpetrated on others as acts of violence or power, they have never been set as a moral law which any significant human civilisation has used as a fundamental base for their society. You are sensationalising and trying to suggest that such extreme behaviours could become the accepted norm.

Again, whether you intend for this or not, you are arguing a theistic view, where nations rise and fall on the basis of their aligning themselves with good or evil. — Hanover

Where did I mention gods or supernatural BS? People make nations, people can treat others as they would want themselves treated or they can act like the animals in the jungles we came from. There is no theistic garbage in the points I am making, there are only my viewpoints on human interrelationships and the fact that I am convinced we can build a far better human civilisation than we have now. Clan sized groups of humans to nation sized groups of humans is not what we should focus on. We need to focus on how we can all work together so that we push forward to a day when the human race can finally shed all of the bad habits that still hold us back. All the bad habits and bad behaviours we experienced from our days in the wilds during our Darwinian evolution.

I don't know if the oppressed outnumbered the oppressors or not, but it's screamingly irrelevant. Had there been one more Nazi than the sum total of the oppressed, then the Nazis would still have been wrong. Had there been a single man mistreated, scapegoated for the crimes of others, with only a single person objecting on his behalf, that person would have been right and the rest wrong. — Hanover

Your point here again merely states the obvious and the much more important point is that the human race continues to progress and is in its totality, more moral and does in its totality behave better towards each other in general, in comparison with our ancestors.

Maybe read some de Tocqueville: — Hanover

I don't always look for backup or counter opinions from long dead philosophers, I prefer to listen to those alive now. Without, of course, ignoring the mistakes of the past often highlighted by such as the person you refer to.

Take some time to work through your position. It's just not making sense. You are arguing that it is logically impossible for the empirical reality of a tyrannical democracy to exist. That is, you are suggesting it is impossible that the majority of people would vote to oppress a smaller number of people, as if to suggest all laws, as long as there is a 51% consensus must be just by definition. This
argument is defeated by actual history. — Hanover

All I can say is 'right back at you!' So, give a real example from history that supports your claim.
Was there a referendum of the British people taken before the thugs in their royalty or military decided to go to war with the French, for example? Were all the people in Clan Campbell above the age of 16, male and female, democratically consulted before their clan chief and his top thugs/gangsters decided to fight those from Clan Macdonald?
Was there a referendum before America joined WW 2. Was that what took them so long? :halo: (No offense intended).

That is, the will of the majority of the people can be advanced by the enslavement and even murder of a minority. That is not a hypothetical construct. It is the very history of the US. — Hanover

Your generalisation here is your claim that 'the will of the majority involved,' was in fact obtained and acted upon. I maintain that this is a bad assumption, and it is in fact more likely that these horrors were performed based on the wealth, influence and power base of a very small group of dynastic families/leaders.
The mostly uneducated, religiously duped populous involved, merely followed like sheep or were simply never consulted.

I agree. I think it's reasonable to know a good person by their deeds and not just what they say. Actions speaker louder than words. Hypocrites use words to signal virtue they don't actually themselves embrace pretending to be something they're not. Good people say and do in harmony. They practice what they preach.

Its a simple thing but an important one. — Benj96

:clap: Anyone given authority MUST accept all scrutiny of WHAT THEY DO! No matter what labels/badges they wear on their jacket including socialist/humanist/honest/decent/good/trustworthy person.
What they say, no matter what bells, whistles, promises, vows and special effects they employ should be taken with no more than a pinch of trust. Totalitarianism, autocracy, plutocracy, aristocracy, cults of celebrity or religion gaining significant power and influence etc must become as impossible as we can make it by installing very powerful, permanent checks and balances.
Any person or group must be relatively easy to kick out of power at any time the majority they represent want them gone.

This is more related to our lack of authentic documentation from earlier than about 6000 years ago.
— universeness — Hanover

Slavery existed in the US only 150 years ago, it still exists in parts of the world today, and woman are considered chattel in parts of the world today. I'm not referencing unknown, ancient civilizations. — Hanover

You misdirect from my point. My quote above was in response to this quote below from you. So it was a response to your inaccurate words about when egalitarianism began, and had nothing to do with the issue of human slavery.

Unfortunately egalitarianism is s fairly modern invention — Hanover

The fact that slavery and misogyny still exist in our world today, should simply enhance your determination to help eradicate both, whenever and wherever it is identified. Do you agree?

The American South did not create slavery because they were stupid. — Hanover

Of course they were stupid! They caused a bloody civil war due to their stupid economic model and their pursuit of profit and power for a racist, sycophantic few who leached off of the backs and sweat of enslaved people who they considered inferiors. That's why the South was utterly defeated. It was really stupid and moronic to bring such devastation onto themselves instead of getting rid of slavery themselves and sharing the resources of the South with all 'Americans.' Of course, the first issue for Americans is their genocide of the native tribes.

In any event, you miss the point terribly. The point was that the role of the majority is irrelevant in determining morality. — Hanover

No Its not, that's just naive. Morality is a human invention (or at least an invention of sentience). I think that the majority of humans NOW accept that rape is morally wrong. That morality is created BASED ON that OPINION of the majority. It then has the force needed to become an objective truth BUT only an objective truth within human civilisation. The role of the majority is essential in determining HUMAN morality.

don't employ scapegoating in any shape or form,
— universeness
Again, you miss the point terribly. You argued that Hitler was an example of a minority will over-ruling majority will, resulting in an evil that wouldn't have existed had he more concerned himself with Germany's will and not his own. — Hanover

No, I suggested that Hitler was a result of being able to fool some of the people all of the time but he over-stretched (as most tyrants do) and Germany was utterly smashed because the people of Germany were duped into following him. The majority of the people on the planet at the time were not duped by Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito etc so they lost the inevitable world war. Whenever evil grows too big for its boots, it gets smashed. That's why Gandhi pointed out that tyrants and empires of evil, always eventually fall, every time, every example, has indeed eventually fallen.

(1) you're factually incorrect to assert that Hitler was subjugating the majority because the subjugated (Jews among many others) were a minority, not a majority, and (2) a democracy can be tyrannical. — Hanover

Hitler called the Aryan race the superior, chosen race. Anyone who was not Aryan was inferior and surplus to requirements so what are you typing about? If you add the Jews, to the gypsies, the slavs, the catholics, etc, etc all the non-aryans then you have a vast majority! yes?

By definition, a democracy cannot be tyrannical unless the lunatics have taken over the asylum and only those people are involved in voting in the 'democracy' you describe.
The 'democracy'' you describe reminds me of the 'democracy' as defined and favoured by creatures such as Trump and Putin.
But that is simply an abuse of the word.
All past tyrannies were run by a nefarious few, who had their power and position 'rubber stamped,' by a duped, terrified populous.
Such is no different from the Russians claiming they have a democratic mandate to annex regions of the Ukraine. The numbers involved DO matter. If the part of the Russian diaspora living in Glasgow all voted to become part of Russia. Could Putin make a valid claim on Glasgow?

Unfortunately egalitarianism is s fairly modern invention, meaning there was a time in our not so distant past that women were considered men's property. The same holds true for certain races. Caste systems allow subjugation as do religious systems to this day. — Hanover

This is more related to our lack of authentic documentation from earlier than about 6000 years ago.
You and I have no idea who first suggested that we are equal and thrive better when we work together rather than in conflict. Perhaps many members of many early hominid species regularly suggested that they should work together, as equals. I agree that hierarchy does seem to dominate within most animal and insectoid groups and there is plenty of evidence of it in humans, but humans rose to the top perhaps because many of us decided to work together as equals and have always rejected the idea that hierarchy is the only way and the best way. Socialism/humanism rejects the notion of a ruling hierarchy and would only every employ it, if it is demonstrably, (and is constantly so,) in service to the majority. Of, for and by the people.

You are attempting to defend your subjectivist position by arguing that your moral positions are subjective but that they are universal, meaning that they so happen to be moral because of a universal consistency in human preference and thought. — Hanover

They are my subjectivist position, yes, and are opinions held by many others, subjectively.
I democratically debate for them to be accepted by you and as many others as possible so that they do become universally applied. I am defending and I am trying to convince others to become believers, yes.
I know that when people have trusted others to hold authority, they have suffered for it BUT I believe that we can get it right. That which sounds good can become universal quite quickly.

If true socialism/humanism cannot demonstrate its tenets are the best and fairest system humans have ever lived under then it must fail and be thrown on the scrap heap with all the other failed attempts in history. We will then try again under other labels. BUT, the point is that as long as humans exist, many will try to make things better for all. For me, that is what it means TO BE human.

The problem with your position is that it is an empirical statement and it is wrong. From nation to nation, culture to culture, time period to time period, there are fundamental distinctions in what is considered right and wrong, including the issue of rape.
What we need to say is rape is wrong, regardless of where it happens, when it happens, or which dictator says it is. That is moral realism and it demands objectivity.
Democracy can legalize slavery. It cannot make it moral. That is the point. — Hanover

My political and socioeconomic position requires consistent empirical demonstration, yes. Open, honest government must have this ability. Any culture, or time period or different moral arguments regarding right and wrong do not in my opinion include issues such as rape or the ability to take the basic needs of survival for granted. Mutual consent to sex and economic/resource-based parity are fundamental in demonstrating the difference between humans and animals. Such parity is essential if we are to show that we no longer play by jungle rules. I don't care about culturally driven traditions which differ from these fundamentals. Nothing good can be built unless and until these fundamentals are accepted by a global majority. From what you say in your quote above, we fully agree. That which builds from subjective democratic debate/opinion can indeed become Universally accepted and objectively applied.
But the hard work has to be done first. Universal application of a fair, benevolent, just, system based on equal human rights is what I advocate for.

Democracy can legalize slavery. It cannot make it moral. That is the point. — Hanover

No democratic system can legalise slavery unless the people involved are stupid morons and I do not consider a group of stupid and moronic humans, capable of creating a good civilisation. SO, the imperative is to make sure that the planet Earth is not populated by a majority of humans who are stupid and moronic. I don't therefore think the point you make above has any importance other than as a statement of the obvious.

The Jews were a minority. In any event, why are we counting numbers here? Are you suggesting if we scapegoated a sufficiently few for the common good, then the scapegoating was moral? — Hanover

I don't employ scapegoating in any shape or form, except to cite it as a common use that theists use gods for. I do state that the nefarious behaviour of a small number of humans throughout history have resulted in the bad social, political, economic and environmental systems we now globally employ.
The colour, creed or culture of the nefarious is completely irrelevant to me. I do not scapegoat the nefarious rich and powerful, I justly and directly accuse them, in the same way as the French did during their revolution. A pity, morons such as Robespierre messed it all up again!

I assume we are all sincere in our posts.
I only ignore those who I think are completely cooked and there is no wiggle room.
So far, I have mostly only included certain fully cooked antinatalists in that category.

And so rape would be good if humans so defined it as good? This sounds like subjectivism and subject to the many problems associated with it. — Hanover

I can't conceive of a human civilisation that would define rape as good and still be able to retain the label civilised. I would engage in armed revolt against such a civilisation, wouldn't you? The bizarre projection you are attempting is sensationalist and is based on a quick jump to extremity approach. Such a jump is a bit irrational. Democracy is based on subjectivism, which is fine as long as you have an educated populous, which is the socialist/humanist goal.

Except to the extent they might have an enlightend sense of selfishness, where they feed their narcissistic ego through apparent acts of kindness. That is to say, your focus on the psychological motivation seems less significant than focusing on the intent generally as well as the behavior.

For example, if Hitler's motivation was truly that he thought Aryan supremecy would result in a greater good for the world, he still would have been evil, even though his motivation would include advancement of his community generally, would not be narcissistic under this description, and would be just as evil. — Hanover

You simply exemplify that benevolence must be demonstrated not claimed or promised, based on never never claims of future equality. The terms enlightened and selfishness are combatants, they never belong together. Hitler demonstrated evil towards the majority, and benevolence, only towards his chosen few. I find little of significance or value in your rather obtuse angle of logical argument here.

Schrodinger intended his cat analogy as a joke. — T Clark

If he did then perhaps his science was much more successful than his comedy.

There is no way to compel you to respond to that which you do not want to respond to.
Suffice to say however that this suggests you have 'boxes,' you will not open and fully examine.
Perhaps I have some to, I don't know for sure, but If I do, I am not sure where they are in my head.
I WANT TO open all the boxes and look inside. I have always preferred that the solution to Schrodinger's cat, at any instant of time, is to open the freaking box and describe what you see. I think we need to always open all the boxes. I don't mean we should just ignore the warnings about opening pandoras box, I just mean that the contents of pandoras box were never avoidable in the first place, so we must learn to combat them better. Pandoras box/jar was never ever closed!

What evils did Pandora release?
The Evils of the World! Curiosity got the better of Pandora and she lifted the lid of the storage jar which released all the evils of the world. These terrible things included disease, war, vice, toil, and the necessity to work for sustenance.

Addition: Pandora is just Eve, an apple or the contents of a jar/box, not much difference in the imagery. Pandora is just another BS fable where Women get the blame for releasing all the evils in the world, yet again. We need to stop any such story being peddled as potentially based on true events or else the word EVIL will retain its fake supernatural power over humans based on their primal fears.

Btw, @Jamal, does it mean anything to you that Levi is an anagram of evil. I hope not, but I bet some nefarious people have used such meaningless observations to abuse the Jewish people and Jewish culture.

Why would it be my job to determine what Christians' "main tool of judgement" is. Why would I care. — T Clark

Perhaps not your 'job' but you seem to feel protective towards Christians, perhaps because, according to your earlier typings, you married one. I intend no offence by this, I am merely suggesting a reason which drives your demand for 'respecting people's beliefs.' I respect people, not their beliefs, especially when they try to preach them to me, not as merely their belief but as truth revealed by a supernatural deity than I must accept or be damned by.

I don't think the idea of "evil" is false as such, just not useful. It's not a word I use very often. — T Clark

Fair enough. But you have stated that it's origin and source is human and not supernatural. I am merely trying to follow your logic as you apply it every day, and I am interested in what actions you follow based on a conditional such as. If I don't accept that 'evil' has a supernatural source (as you seem not to) then what is your response to a Christian theist who states with personal certainty, (the kind of personal certainty you object to me displaying) that the devil is the source of evil and you are one of the damned if you don't accept the Abrahamic god as your saviour.
A fully cooked Christian will consider you one of the damned, will they not?

If 15000 children's deaths can be prevented. And we see all children on the planet as deserving protection. Then it's imperative to try and do so. Otherwise we are just spectators observing bad and good things being done but not actively contributing to it ourselves or worse... Being manipulated by bad people and liars to do their bidding for them unbeknownst to ourselves. — Benj96

:clap: Your words are honest and true imo.

No. The evil act is done to the child — 180 Proof

If we don't do all we can, when we can, to stop 15000 innocent, preventable deaths, then we have to live with the statistic. This is what I mean by 'evil that humans can perform on themselves.'
This is happening EVERY DAY and the weight of such evils are intolerably pressing on the conscience of most people, as most people imo, are good.
I personally don't do enough imo. I have been involved with such as 'sponsor a child' since it began many years ago but that's just throwing some money at the issue. I do some other stuff as well but not enough. I think some people can become anti-life/anti-natalist because their conscience cannot deal with some of these horrific, true statistics. We must all do better or else literary words such as:
those that are poor or ill are surplus to the needs of society and if they would rather die, they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
will forever gnaw at all good people and increase the number of antinatalists among us.

We are fragile, and so we are fearful. And of those whose fragility is exploited and abused, there are some who are destroyed psychologically. One can see it sometimes in the eyes, a deadness, — unenlightened

Very good words which are bitterly true.

Their strength is to project their own weakness onto the world and punish the world for it. This is hell, because it can never end, and there is no one left to save. Pity the pitiless! — unenlightened

I think this can end if we can make people less fragile and less afraid.

There is a category of harmful actions that we commit out of ignorance, which is seperate from evil.
Then there is a category of harmful actions we knowingly and purposefully commit. That is evil. Such actions are always accompanied by some form of justification, which I regard as self-deceit. — Tzeentch

I think this is fundamentally correct but ignorance is not the only reason and ignorance is sometimes not an excuse if you could have easily become aware by just making a little effort.
Mental illness is also not evil imo.

The evil in me was foul, but I loved it. I loved my own perdition and my own faults, not the things for which I committed wrong, but the wrong itself. — St. Augustine (Confessions Book II, section 4)

The more I read quotes that people use from this St, Augustine character from history, the more I dislike him, as I do when I read words attributed to most historical characters given the title saint. A title I find personally, particularly ridiculous. What do you think people really do love here. I understand that a person may be 'mentally ill,' have 'bad wiring' etc and therefore get all 'jack the ripper' or 'ted bundy' on people and feel no regret or compassion afterwards but that's because of their psychiatric problems.
A child who steals candy from another child, and sits and eats it whilst the first child is in tears? Is that evil? or is that just behaviour we learned in the wilds?
A program I watched recently showed an example of a time of lack of resources amongst a group of monkeys. A male monkey decides to attack one of the children of another. He kills it and starts to consume it. Other monkeys in the troop join in on consuming the infant monkey. The mother of the monkey screams her protests at the group. One of the female monkeys stops eating the infant for a moment to embrace the screaming mother in what can only be described as an attempt to console her.
As a human, I cannot label this scene as anything other than pure evil but I also feel the need, not to do so and see this event as what can happen if you continue to live under jungle rules.
I think the same applies to 'romanticising' statements (I am not suggesting you are doing so, but some people do) such as the one above from Augustine. If you love your own perdition and your own faults, then your thinking is rather flawed imo. I think you need to accept responsibility for such but to LOVE such is folly.

You and I agree that evil, to the extent it exists at all, is human. Maybe that's the difference between us - I don't believe there is such a thing. Evil is just something we call the worst human behavior. I've never seen it as a religious thing. — T Clark

I think the label 'evil' is ok to use as a convenient descriptor for certain judged human behaviours. I see it similar to other labels such as 'time.' Time may well have no reality outside of a convenient way to measure the 'duration of events'. I agree with you that evil has no relevance outside of the human experience or perhaps more accurately, outside of the experience of all creatures capable of emotional feelings. If you remove 'evil' from religion and you don't see evil as a religious thing, then what do you leave the Christians (for example) as their main tool of judgement. Why do you jump so quickly to their defence, if you think one of their most important tools is being used by them, falsely? Is it because you, in truth, fully accept my first sentence above?

No. Self-victimization doesn't make sense. — 180 Proof

I agree and therefore I think that the label self-victimisation is inappropriate. BUT, the label 'responsibility,' is appropriate or perhaps 'shared responsibility.' 15000 children die every day for preventable reasons. Do you consider this daily occurrence to be evil? Do you think that all humans who know about it have a shared responsibility to stop this?

That being said, the worst thing a person can do is hurt a child. — T Clark

I think the purpose of human society is to raise and protect children. Why else go to all this trouble? — T Clark

Two good points. So, 15000 child deaths per day, from preventable events cannot be allowed to continue. We all share the responsibility for this imo.

If a human stands by whilst an innocent child is murdered, (to use the example offered by @T Clark)
could such be offered as an evil act you have performed against your own self?

Can a human therefore not perform an evil act on themselves?

I did have a little wow! moment when I heard about this. 'A mini brain,' yep, things continue to get more and more interesting in science. If a mini brain can make decisions enough to be able to position the line (bat) to deflect the white dot on the screen, then surely a mini brain would be a good candidate to win as the republican party nominee for the next president of the United States, as a valid alternative to the micro brain currently called DJ Trump.

But we all do nonetheless teach here, and we all learn here. Have you learned anything since you joined TPF? If you have, then someone must have been your teacher in such instances. You also must have typed ideas, concepts, viewpoints which have caused others to modify one or more of their own viewpoints or provided them with information/data they were previously unaware of.
So, imo, we are all teachers and students here!
I have merely typed about what I consider, is the skillset of a 'good teacher.'

"Quick & dirty" is just a common phraase. — 180 Proof

Not common to me. Do you think masochism is an act of evil?