So that offers another way to answer the OP: a true statement, in the abstract, is what we think the world would say if it could talk.

Right. It even extended to creativity. There was a god who gave humans paper, another god who invented iron smelting, as if the human psyche was turned inside out, broadcast over the cosmos.

Over centuries, we dehumanized the natural world and pulled all those psychic elements into individual minds, each one like an island floating in a dead, unconscious world. Now the problem of other minds is insurmountable. In philosophy, you can see the pendulum trying to swing back, like with the idea of the extended mind.

I really think there's something to that. :grin: :up:

'Belief' is also a useful approximation, especially when predicting how other people are going to behave. * — Srap Tasmaner

People used to think conscious divinities coursed through the world causing storms and crop failures. Schopenhauer focused on how that way of understanding the world is still built into language. So maybe "belief" is really an all purpose black box for why?.

So the model is a black box. I think it is for neuroscience as well. It's just that some organisms behave as if there is a model, so science posits one and quests to find it.

What you're saying is that we don't really know how it works. We shouldn't assume we know what's going on before an organism acts, or in the case of a person, before speech.

I think you just replaced beliefs that are just sitting there, to a model that's just sitting there. What sort of thing is this model?

Thanks! It's not bad at all.

Blinkin says Ukraine has already taken back 50% of the land Russia seized.

Woot woot! Go Ukraine!!!

Identity groups did not achieve major victories in improving society and reducing unfairness and injustice. It was broadly based efforts like the Progressive Movement, the FDR-era reform efforts, the Civil Rights Movement, and Women's Rights movement. These efforts were broadly based and were directed at diverse targets. Their work promoted a greater sense of unity across divides. — BC

I think most of what I would call identity politics, you would say is not. What would an example of identity politics be then?

Blacks are a major demographic, less an "identity". — BC

They really aren't that big a demographic, but they're a huge identity. Why am I seeing this backward?

That makes it the right word. Aside from the fact that it's always been the progressive left that fought for racial and gender equality, as well as social services and education for the disadvantaged segments of the population, of whom visible minorities constitute a disproportionate part. — Vera Mont

Right, but times change. Notice in the article I linked, it explains that DeSantis is a pain in the GOP's ass at this time because they want to court minorities. If you're opposed to racism, a fair portion of your allies are conservative. And so maybe that's really the identity politics that needs to die: where we divide off against one another along conservative/progressive lines when the really important issues of the day aren't divided that way. We need a shake-up.

Yea... except the allocation of resources as imagined by the left and right have a decisive effect on which groups are able to exercise their citizenship rights. — Vera Mont

I don't really think there is any leftism of any significance in the US. Maybe that will change someday, but in the meantime, the nazis are making progress starting with indoctrination of children to disregard the American heritage of slavery. This is what I'm saying: it's time for Americans to wake up and realize that left/right isn't important right now. Identity politics is important.

t was hard enough, and he had to be resourceful and ruthless enough at that time, to get bipartisan support.

That couldn't happen now. And to make sure nothing like that could happen again was the reason for the huge divide we see now. That's when the segregationists began aggressively to campaign on religious issues, like reproductive rights and equal marriage, plus the scaremongering against immigrants. — Vera Mont

There were actually national security interests that made the Civil Rights Movement possible. Otherwise, it wouldn't have happened then either.

Who benefits? Who pays? None of this can be separated from economic issues. — Vera Mont

Really? I'm not seeing why.

He was asked a question, as is evident from the video. — NOS4A2

Nah. He was whistling to racists.

I don't think a divided left can prevail - either on the communications or in the legislature. — Vera Mont

I'm not sure I understand how leftism is really any part of it other than a historic association. As you said, people who are opposed to racism might believe any damned thing about how society should allocate it's resources. They're joined by the conviction that racism is wrong and they don't want to live in a society that accepts it. So leftism is the wrong word. Do you agree?

The question should be whether it is true or false. — NOS4A2

He's a politician. It's totally appropriate to ask why he's asserting P at time T.

What do you think his motive is?

. If DeSanity will contract to be my slave along with a few generations of his descendants I'll teach him whole bunch of shit. — unenlightened

I'm sure he'd appreciate that.

We need balanced identity politics. Identities are useful in so long as they don't make us forget that we're all part of the same identity: the human race. — Philosophim

I think that's the primary goal of supporting an identity. Whatever DeSantis' goals may be, I think the effect of his brand of politics is acceptance of bigotry. Groups focused on identity are struggling for the opposite: inclusivity with regard to rights.

Political collectives need policy platforms more comprehensive than the interest of a readily identifiable social identity. — Vera Mont

I think they usually do. My point is that in the present political climate, specific identities are under attack by what's quickly becoming mainstream conservativsm. The response also needs to be specific. If that means progressives are divided by focus, that's ok. I don't think they're really divided in spirit, are they?

Reminds me of a thing I noticed about some US women - voices like the Chipmunks — unenlightened

I haven't seen that. They just talk like humans for the most part. But just today a woman said that the last time she gave birth she told the doctor she wanted her tubes tied and the doctor said he'd have to consult with her husband. That's sexism.

I am interested to hear what people have to say about this. I'm open to hearing an approach from any direction. — Matt Thomas

You're right. It's like left and right, up and down, big and small. If you could delete one side from human thought, the other side would also disappear.

It's a pervasive situation. Every object of thought appears to the mind against a backdrop of it's negation. It's part of how we think.

Nobody finds that blameworthy - few beside the most staunch pacifists claim that they should choose the oppresion over the war. — Jabberwock

And pacifists usually have some sort of otherworldly faith. The nasty, belligerent pacifist doesn't exist.

Thus masculinity becomes toxic to the extent that it identifies itself with power, and femininity with love. — unenlightened

I think this is the main reason women might be expected to present themselves as childish. I'm thinking more about Japanese culture where women are simultaneously ridiculed for behaving childishly, but the women themselves say they have to behave that way for acceptance and career advancement.

burikko

Yaay a suggestion, though it could use (or needs) some fleshing out. — jorndoe

We could sit down with Putin and just have a heart to heart. I think he might come around.

We decided the limits of the world are the limits of language. :smile:

I read that the Russian military is building prisons to detain and torture Ukrainians. It's insane.

Isaac is having a nervous breakdown because nobody wants to do land for peace. :smirk:

What citizens notice and the News broadcasts comment on is weather, not climate. Climate is measured by scientists, not felt in your back yard.

Of course weather is broadly influenced by climate, but only broadly. — LuckyR

And this is an important point. It's unseasonably cool where I am. That's El Nino: it makes it cooler in some places. Likewise, climate change hasn't changed the average temps where I live at all. You can't go by your backyard.

Cool, thank you!

Scientists have talked about "tipping points", that features of the climate will not change smoothly over time, but will display sudden patterns — BC

Tipping points aren't necessarily abrupt, it just means it's not as easy to go back to the previous state, sometimes because a positive feedback loop was triggered.

Are the current round of exception heat, exceptional rain, exceptional drought, etc. the result of large systems "tipping", producing dramatic change? — BC

It's El Nino. It's always hotter in some places (cooler in others) during El Nino events. Last year was a La Nina. I think it was the third in a row. It's usually cooler during a La Nina, but we had record highs. That signalled that when we changed to El Nino, it was going to make more record highs.

So about 500 years of social change in Europe since around 1400 or so, has been compressed in Russia into a single century. — unenlightened

That makes sense. Probably especially in times of stress, they would tend to go back to what's always worked?


Thanks! :up:

Missile attack on Ukrainian grain. Flight to safety on the currency market. :grimace:

Germans, French and Italians - yes, the spell of the inexplicable infatuation with Russia seems to lift. — Jabberwock

Isn't Germany basically the leader? Excuse my ignorance.

The Dutch are obviously vengeful. — Jabberwock

Why are they vengeful?

Eastern Europeans, of course, had the doubtful pleasure of interacting with Russia for the past few centuries, so they are aware of the 'problem'. They scrambled to be in NATO, against the objections of the West, as they were painfully aware that sooner or later Russia will turn to them again. — Jabberwock

So this is something I don't quite understand. Has Russia always sort of been "hollowed out" as a kleptocracy? Is this the way their culture is normally? Or is this an aberration?

You could say the US is at fault because they talked the Ukrainians into giving up their nuclear weapons after the Cold War. If they had nukes, this wouldn't be happening.

I was reading an article that said Europeans are presently becoming more hawkish about Russia than the US is, which is probably as it should be. Putin is their problem more than an American one, right?

:up:

My guess is that the missiles or rockets they use simply don’t pack the punch to demolish such large structures. Yes, it would need demolition charges at precise points to get part of the bridge to splash into the water. — ssu

They need James Bond to snorkel over there and blow that shit up.

:up:

Seems that the Ukrainians attacked the Kerch bridge again. — ssu

Why don't they sneak in and attach bombs to the columns? Boom!

And if we would be discussing war that was in Afghanistan or the war still continuing in Yemen etc, suddenly we would have a lot to agree with. — ssu

Of course. :up:

Common sense, being one. — Tzeentch

Possibly :lol:

I thnk there’s a lot of good answers here ↪Jabberwock of just why it is odd to cling on to these kind of fringe ideas about why the war is still going on. — ssu

People have their reasons for believing things that seem really weird to the rest of us.

The far right, the lunatic fringe, the tea party, crypto-fascists, etc. hate all that stuff--from social security onward to Obama Care. It's all burrs up their butts. — BC

The elderly are a powerful voting bloc though. Some elderly people are turning to Obamacare to bridge them till medicare kicks in at 65.

I asked Baden. He said you need to watch this video.