Comments

  • Israel and Zionism
    ↪Noah Te Stroete
    Now it's certainly tricky. But one thing they could do right off is admit that Palestinians were there all along. That those who were mass displaced in the creation of Israel had as much right to be there as the Jews who lived there and that a big part of today's problem is how they were treated. I think also saying that it is not meant to be just the homeland for the Jews, despite whatever a scripture may say, would also be simply honest. From there you have a lot of hellishly complicated problems. But then that is the case now.
  • The "thing" about Political Correctness
    There is another component to PC that should be addressed, and that is the use of euphemism and a kind of bureaucratic "broadcaster-speak" to alleviate offense. As an example Good ol' George Carlin, an enemy of political correctness, brought up the point that many soldiers with "post traumatic stress disorder" might have been given help a lot sooner if they had left the malady as "shell shocked". I think it's a good point that political correctness will disguise reality in favor of making palpable, like taking a hard-to-swallow pill by eating it with ice cream. — NOS4A2
    I love George Carlin, but I don't think he's correct. People who were called shell shocked were also often considered cowards. Also the term is not accurate, or at best, to some degree accurate for some of the veterans. Those whose trauma came via shelling. I don't see that term as PC. It is distanced clinical speak, but it was part of seeing that people who suffered after war (and then later rape and other things) were not weak people, but actually suffering a natural reaction to, well, trauma. The main problem is that this got channeled,as most things where there is emotional pain get channeled these days, into the arms of the psychicatric/pharma people. There are many non-medication approaches to dealing with trauma, but vet get over medicated almost as a rule. Money decides. I don't think keeping the term shell shocked would have kept vets out of the clutches of those guys. And the stigma would have kept most of them in the closet.
  • On deferring to the opinions of apparent experts
    ↪Bartricks
    I think your post is generally correct - in that anyone who is an expert on whether God exists is a metaphysician, but must one have taken a course in philosphy to know God exists? IOW could one not be a practicing religious person who has regular experience of God?

    I realize one might argue, via epistemology, that such a person doesn't meet jtb, say, but it seems to me an academic metaphysician, with what turns out to be a great deduction on paper, might have no experience of God at all. It's a bit like telling me I don't know my wife exists but some scientist who never met her does.

    IOW I think you are correct about what those who are experts must be, I would just include people who are not academic experts on metaphysics.
  • On deferring to the opinions of apparent experts
    ↪tim wood
    This feature of the contemporary conception of metaphysics is nicely illustrated by a statement of Sartre's:

    I do not think myself any less a metaphysician in denying the existence of God than Leibniz was in affirming it. (1949: 139)     — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • The "thing" about Political Correctness
    ↪A Seagull
    Oh, jeez, it's more complicated than that. And the Right use to have the power behind their PC and you were unpatriotic if you didn't support some dumb ass war or communist if you were against cuts capital gains taxes or a faggot if you ....well, jeez there were a million things that could set off possible faggot charges, or you were a threat to the family, or somehow bringing up the idea of actually cancelling a corporate charter - as intended as an option by the founders, meant that you were unamerican and hated freedom. Unamerican, not patriotic, helping the Commies, but criticizing someone in office, not supporting the troops when you are trying to get them out of a war zone by not funding the war. Then there was the whole religious PC crowd and all of their pet things that were not Bible GodTraditional values PC. I mean, it has gone crazy out there with PC. But it's not so neatly tied into not having the intellectual capacity, though I am sure that might be some people's problem. Control issues. Whatever. The right woke up to the concept of PCness when it wasn't there political correctness that had the high status. Great, they got it, often,on the left pc. But my sense is they haven't learned a damn about their own pc. Stuck between maniacs we all are.
  • Was Jesus born with Original Sin?
    Neither do but scriptures say god never changes. He, if ignorant of pain, could not gain that knowledge as it would belie the WORD of god. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

    Certainly there are confusing and contradictory things in scriptures. I am not fond of the Abrahamic scriptures, but, then, they are NOT math books. IOW taking them apart as if they were a thesis in math or something doesn't really end up demonstrating anything except, perhaps to those Christians, say, who think everything in there is perfect and makes sense. But those people are not going to listen anyway. A bunch of different people wrote the Bible. Even if many of them were, say, 68 percent right - just throwing out a number - there would likely be confusions and contradictions. Especially if some of the language was meant literally and some metaphorically. Perhaps some of the things meant literally are true, despite their being 'supernatural' (a mess of a word). Even then, there would be issues. It's not a tome from analytical philosophy or natural science. Some people want a yes, no and want their texts or other people's texts to be another kind of text or only another kind of text. As if humans suddenly were always AIs.
  • Was Jesus born with Original Sin?
    If you understand why people are open to such things, what is your take on why people are willing to believe supernatural statements of all kinds as real, without evidence or proof? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

    If you understand why people are open to such things, what is your take on why people are willing to believe supernatural statements of all kinds as real, without evidence or proof? — Gnostic Christian Bishop
    Why do people think 9/11 was carried out by some Saudis with box cutters after seeing the videos of, amongst other things, Building 7 going down? Why do people think the US is a democarcy? People will believe things that feel right or where they get the information from peopel they want to believe. Of course some people do have evidence of things that get called supernatural, but that's another kettle of fish. Why does anybody believe that their experiences make them sure what other people can know? We tend to be very conservative creatures.

    If Adam, would you have educated yourself or would you have remained with your eyes closed and unable to reproduce? — Gnostic Christian Bishop
    i have no idea what it would like being in the Garden of Eden with a deity that spoke directly to me and presumably perfect food and water. I've seen many interpretations of that story, including ones where it was meant to be that they chose what they chose - though we should give Eve credit, Adam just went along. And I've come up with some of my own.
  • Was Jesus born with Original Sin?
    To an eternal being who has never felt anything, even as scriptures say that god never changes or learns anything, a bit of pain would be like a breath of fresh air.

    God would have ever so grateful for any new input in his never changing personae.     — Gnostic Christian Bishop

    If you think you can know that kind of thing...
    Me I have no idea what an all powerful being would enjoy.
  • Was Jesus born with Original Sin?
    Was Jesus born with Original Sin? — Gnostic Christian Bishop
    Not in Catholicism, for example. Chritianity is a bit like saying 'asian culture is....' and one must ask `´then 'which one?'
    If so, then he could not be the perfect sacrifice.

    If not, then he had no human side and was pure god, and god cannot die which, makes the sacrifice a lie.     — Gnostic Christian Bishop
    The way I got it growing up was not that he was the perfect sacrifice because he ended up killed. In fact I never heard the phrase 'perfect sacrifice'. The idea was that God made himself vulnerable, in the end to torture, but even to human things like desire and guilt and doubt. And when Jesus was crucified he suffered human agony. I suppose it was obvious to me, even as a child, that some people have been tortured much longer than Jesus was, so it wasn't the most horrible suffering even. But it was a deity willing to enter into manifestation, when this deity did not need to. And I suppose I got the idea that perhaps his suffering became universal, like he allowed it to encompass mankind in some greater way, like suffering more that the exact torture and this was the sacrifice. But we all knew he was going to actually die, in fact that's how the story is presented.

    So, I wonder if 'perfect sacrifice' is a strawman. It doesn't fit what I was taught. I am not Christian now, nor was I really then either, but how you are presenting it does not fit my experience.
    Could these facts be why the Jews have no Original Sin concept in their religion? — Gnostic Christian Bishop
    I think the differences around Original Sin in Judaism and Christianity are nicely explained here....
    https://outreachjudaism.org/original-sin/

    If not, then he had no human side and was pure god, and god cannot die which, makes the sacrifice a lie. — Gnostic Christian Bishop
    it seems to me this is assuming that the human side is Original Sin, period. The human side does have this aspect, but also other aspect, some of them I mentioned above.
    Is that also why Jews rejected Jesus as their messiah, — Gnostic Christian Bishop

    Some rejected him. Some accepted him.
    the abdication of one’s responsibility for their actions, which is against all moral legal systems? — Gnostic Christian Bishop
    This is binary. It's not binary. Obviously Christianity considers people responsible for their actions. Just because there is something that contradicts this, in relation to a phenomenon, does not mean all the other parts of Christianity where one is, clearly, responsible no longer apply.

    I could see saying that the idea of Original Sin seems to contradict other ideas about personal responsibility, but it doesn't simply erase them.
    Why have Christians embraced such an immoral and illegal concept? — Gnostic Christian Bishop
    Most organized religions have contradictions. But here's the rub....

    whatever the truth is, it will likely seem contradictory, confusing, paradoxical. In science, in spirituality.

    Whatever is going on, deep down, in the universe, from any angle, is not going to be set up in some grid like tic tac toe with rules that are easy for

    we

    fallible

    creatures

    to just understand.

    I hate the concept of original sin, and I could give my take on why it arises. But I also understand why humans are open to these kinds of things.
  • Science is inherently atheistic
    For example, claiming that "science is atheist". — alcontali
    Which I disagreed with. Me, not being a scientist. Yes, there are many people who babble about science incorrectly. In fact I would be that some scientists would even spout similar nonsense. Do you really think assuming the writer of the OP is a philosopher makes much sense?

    I wouldn't call myself a philosopher, though I have read widely and done my best to be rigorous also. Someone saying that in many a philosophy class at a liberal arts college or university would meet serious critique. And certainly anyone who studies epistemology or the history of science, both potential parts of humanities programs and pretty much necessitated by a philosophy major would have serious issues with the OP.

    Just as they would with your broad stroke dismissals of liberal arts people, assumptions about everybody, not realizing that one can study religion in liberal arts programs and so on.

    I mean, if we were to go by religious people who participate in many religious forums we could, using this kind of 'logic' dismiss religious education, which some people do.
    In epistemology, people study the abstract, Platonic world of a particular kind of knowledge, and then look for patterns that occur in that world.The vast majority of philosophers do not study the abstract, Platonic world of science to detect patterns in it. On the contrary, they just fart imaginary nonsense out of their butt that is totally unrelated to the database of existing scientific knowledge. — alcontali

    Philosophers? I truly doubt that. People who participate in philosophy forums, certain some of them.

    For the same reason. For example, they have never read in the vast database of Islamic jurisprudence, but they still know everything about religion. How can someone who has never read a ruling ("akham") in al-fiqh, know anything about the practice of Islam? Again, they know absolutely nothing, but they believe that they know everything. — alcontali

    I am sure this happens. However anyone trying that crap in an essay in a liberal arts philosophy course or religoius studies course or even in a literature course looking at some specific example of islamic literature stands the main chance of getting a low grade or being sent off for a rewrite. It would perhaps depend on what they said about Islam, but someone making claims about Islamic jurisprudence had damn well come up with some references and clearly traceable support.
    They do not even have any awareness of the existence of these knowledge databases. They would not be able to find them online, not even to save themselves from drowning. So, for heaven's sake, what do these people believe that they know? — alcontali
    'these people' surely exist, but they are not the whole of people who have come from liberal arts education, not remotely. And what you are complaining about is common in every category. Do you really think most religious people understand science or humanities if they have not studies these things? Don't many of them comment on things they do not know, because certain critiques make the rounds in their circles.
    Would I recommend them to talk with the liberal-arts crowd? — alcontali

    What I see in our small exchange her is not the slightest interest in conceding even points where you are obviously confused. For example, what a liberal arts education is and is not. Your posts wouldn't pass muster in a liberal arts facilty, not because of your conclusions but because you are generalizing wildly, have misconceptions about what you are talking about, cannot interact with critique but simply repeat your position with information that does not adress the critique. IOW it suffers some of the same problems you are saying the liberal arts crowd as a whole has. You wrote about stuff you don't know. And you painted a huge group with a single brush stroke, even though you know little about them, it seems.

    I'll ignore you in this topic from here on out.

    And if it does anything to make consider for a second that you might be confused in your generalizations I have a liberal arts background and I am a theist often critical of positions that seem to bother you.
  • Science is inherently atheistic
    I am not sure about how it works for other religions, but in countries with serious infrastructure for that purpose, Islamic studies are never amalgamated with things like "gender studies" or other typical liberal arts activities. — alcontali
    Gender studies is fairly recent, but sure, it's now a part of many liberal arts programs. Of course it is generally optional.
    If you do not like someone else's subject, then stick to your own. — alcontali
    I think anyone who wants to follow that rule, should. I found certain majors vastly less interesting to talk to than others, though I don't have a rule.
    In my opinion, the liberal-arts crowd had better shut their mouths about STEM — alcontali
    STEM as in science tech, etc.? But those can also be studied at liberal arts institutions and certainly can be studied on the side of other courses or before and after humanities educations. I think that might be what you mean when you say liberal arts: humanities. Like the literature majors should never talk about science or something like that. But certainly philosophers can and should talk about science for example. And shutting their mouths about religious studies would be counterproductive if those were their studies, and further why should, for example, religious students in liberal arts educational institutions not talk about religion? And then I think discussion is valuable between students in the various disciplines in the humanites, including religion students. Here you are talking to people who are presumably of a variety of backgrounds. Should some of these people not interact with you?
    They are totally ignorant about what these things are, and they just spout their stupid remarks on things that they would not understand, not even to save themselves from drowning. It is not even their business! — alcontali
    There are plenty of experts in religions who have liberal arts educations, many of these religious people themselves. The personal lives of specific religious followers may not be their business but of course any important phenomenon in the world is a valid subject: read: their business. Those who aren't religious might even become religious via such dialogue and interest.
    Quite a few corporations understand and respect that. For example, all McDonald's restaurants in Malaysia are certified halal. This company tends to be very respectful of religious prohibitions. They even have an internal department to supervise that. — alcontali
    That has nothing to do with people with liberal arts backgrounds not having anything to do with religious people or religious topics. That simple respect for customers. In fact it's an idea that fits well with liberal arts values.

    In any case this 'everyone' feeling contempt for people in the liberal arts is hallucinated. And here we are in a forum dedicated to one of the humanities, philosophy, one of the liberal arts.
  • Science is inherently atheistic
    Hence, where do the born losers from the liberal arts, who are treated by everybody else with contempt only, find the temerity to criticize other fields, such as religious studies, that unlike them, allow for successful professional careers for their graduates? — alcontali
    Religious studies are a part of many liberal arts colleges and universities and can be majored in, often, and masters and doctorate programs are also available at liberal arts institutions.. I don't notice people with liberal arts degrees, including religious studies, being treated by everyone else with contempt only. I do understand that some think one must specialize early, though the data is mixed on that at best, but I can't see why wanting to study a broad range of fields while transitioning to adult life should lead to contempt from 'everyone'. More importantly, it's simply not the case that everyone feels that.

    Just for fun we can throw in

    https://zaytuna.edu/

    In fact it seems to me that Muslim culture, certainly in many periods in history had the advantage of being more liberal artsy than, for example, European institiutions.
  • Statements are true?
    What does it mean to say that a statement is true? — A Seagull
    That if people believe that statement and use it to inform their actions, they will be more likely to make useful decisions related to what the statement refers to.
  • On deferring to the opinions of apparent experts
    And I'm not sure, generally speaking, on philosophical grounds, whether my impulse to dismiss them as spewing obscurantist nonsense is really a better response than just blindly taking their word on faith. I'm curious to know what other people here think about such things, on general principle. — Pfhorrest
    I don't think one can have a general principle, even for oneself. There certainly could be situations where someone's expertise in a field I do not consider relevent, actually has a strong argument that I dismiss or want to. There certainly could be situations where they are overextending themselves or just hallucinating. Smart people with or without specialized knowledge are capable of fooling themselves. That applies, therefore, to both me and them - unless my sense of myself as a smart person is an example of me fooling myself.

    A few thoughts in general:
    We have to use intuition in these situations.
    We don't have to think in binary terms about these situations. We can remain unconvinced, for example, but notice we are not sure. There is some weird idea that is usually not uttered but seems to control people: We have to decide if an argument is right or wrong so we can put in a box. I assume it causes anxiety not to do this, but I think it would be better if humans stopped viewing things this way.
    Whatever heuristic we develop for this situation is going to be terrible for some humans to follow. They may be terrible at intuition and/or introspection. They may find ideas they disagree with to threatening, in general, to even take a look at.
  • Science is inherently atheistic
    ↪Frank Apisa
    I suppose I agree, but I put it differently and say that science is a methodology, not a set of positions on various issues. Perhaps scientists will find some way to rule out a deity or demonstrate there is or was one. Those would be content conclusions. Right now concensus should be agnositic - we don't have a way to test or demonstrate.
  • Science is inherently atheistic
    This contrasts non-atheistic scientists on this matter, who disregard or "turn off" scientific endeavour while analyzing religion. — VoidDetector
    I think this whole schema is way too neat, in a number of ways. I don't think people turn off, at least necessarily. What's the experimental protocol for seeing if there is a God? Atheists, scientists, well, everyone, we all have portions of our life where we can test or rely on experts to have tested...and then there are a lot of things we cannot. And we make decisions through a variety of epistemologies...all of us.
  • What can logic do without information?
    ↪ovdtogt
    One can't draw good reasonable, that is logically arrived at conclusions in daily life without...what, scientific experimentation? I can't use, say, deduction, process of elimination - me, just running through some recent conclusions and how i reached them. Or are these religious processes?
  • Conspiracy theories
    n
    I haven't watched the movie, but "Creating gravitational waves" with a reactor sounds fishy. Force of gravity is a funcion of mass and distance. In the classical physics sense. Neither can be faked. If someone claims to be generating "gravitational waves" with a reactor, methinks he is blowing it from the hothole. In other words, his or her credibility is gone. Because the person obviously has no physics knowledge, yet tries to use physics, false and impossible physics, to prove his or her point. — god must be atheist
    Let's look at your approach. You don't watch the video. You decide, based presumably on your knowledge of current physics models and current technology that this technology is impossible and that the speaker has no credibility. You conclude that the person has no physics knowledge. The technology in question, should it actually exist, would be more advanced then ours and based most likely on processes we don't currently understand. Just as within science, if we go back 150 years, say, many things we now know not only to be possible and some existent, were ruled out based on then current knowledge. This in relation to findings and processes discovered or proposed by other scientists. So, your approach to reaching a conclusion that this person knows no physics was to not actually listen to them speak and assume that you can rule out any significant possible technological advances that might seem to be ruled out now by current science.

    I think that's poor epistemologal practice in a few different ways.
    Another point is the convoluted serving of the topic. They don't have a point; they try to pull the wool over the viewers' eyes by presenting their own self-contradictory facts so far away from each other in time and in topic line, that they hope nobody notices it. If they had a clear case, believe me, they would present it clearly. If they don't have a clear case, their (the conspiracy theorists') only hope is to not be noticed for that, and the only way to do that is to convolute their presentation. — god must be atheist

    I don't understand. You didn't watch the film but talk about the 'serving of the topic'. Then go on to attributing motivations to a person you have no experience of. You seem also to be claiming that people who have presented cases for ufos being alien craft, etc. don't present clear cases, period. The go on to present more mind reading about their hopes.

    You use the general term 'conspiracy theorists' though obviously some people who believed in conspiracies later had their cases confirmed,even when consensus opinion was against them. These conspiracies are not longer, of course, considered the product of 'conspiracy theorists', a term that is irrational in the extreme, since it implies conspiracies, or at the very least large conspiracies, do not happen.
    These are not criticism of the theory of conspiracy in the film, these are general observations also applicable to the film — god must be atheist
    I thought this was fascinating. Your hypotheses, including knowing what is going on in other minds (motivations, hopes....) is applicaple to the person in the film you haven't seen.

    Now I don't think the film should convince anyone that something specific is true. I just found him extremely credible. I think one needs to have an interest and continue looking at evidence, and, yes, choose people who seem to have nuanced and intelligent minds and focus on what they say and what data and evidence they provide. But I don't assume anyone should pursue this. Nor do I think there is any problem with skepticism. I have it in boatloads.

    But I find it interesting how some people, supposedly on the more rational team, approach learning and drawing conclusions.

    I do truly think it is fair to conclude from you post that you have a closed mind on the subject. I also appreciate your post because i think it is part of a general pattern where specific conclusions are considered a part of skepticism rather than specific processes of inquiry.

    You drew a conclusion soley based on intuition and speculation and mind reading. If people you considered not skeptical used just those tools you would likely bring out some valid criticisms of those processes, but seem unaware of your own epistemology when reaching your conclusions.

    I find that what is presented as a gap in epistemologies is actually just people on different teams. Sometimes they try to reverse engineer their conclusions so they seem the result of the epistemologies they supposedly value, and so what I appreciate about you post is that no effort at all is made to do this.

    I'll be ignoring you on this topic. I know you have an excellent mind, from our contact in other topics, and a flexible one in some areas. But on this one I hope even you can see that you don't.
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪creativesoul
    The reactor could be on or off, which he explained.
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪creativesoul
    What parts of what he said looked convoluted?
    It would be strange if that kind of work was not highly complex.
  • Down with the patriarchy and whiteness?
    ↪Marchesk
    Oh, well that's not a problem then. I stand by my reaction to the position, but I get now that it doesn't apply to the situation you were in as a whole.
  • Down with the patriarchy and whiteness?
    ↪Possibility
    I actually think this is brilliant what you wrote here. I disagree in one core way, but nevertheless let me start with what I agree with. First, I like the implicit philosophy of language issue raised. It reminds me immediately of Reddy's Conduit Metaphor:
    http://www.reddyworks.com/the-conduit-metaphor/original-conduit-metaphor-article
    The idea being that we conceive of language as containing information. We put ideas in language, send the language like a container for language to the other person and they unpack it (hence conduit). That this model underlies a lot of our metaphors and hence assumptions about language and at best this is limiting, at worst misleading.

    You are suggesting that the workers take the idea about white people as eliciting truth or information rather than containing, and move forward in a charitable outlook, using this experience as part of their own growth.

    Lovely.

    And since they are forced to participate, most likely, I think this is a good suggestion.

    My disagreement comes in for a couple of reasons: 1) the idea that white people per se do harm, iow by existing they do harm, is coming from employers. The employers have power over those employees and already are enacting something that parallels what minorities go through. It would be one thing if in an early part of a confrontation or dialogue with a black person, say, this idea came up. Here the white person has the option to leave and can also take the statement as expressive, as eliciting, much more easily. Well, this guy is talking to me, so let's see where there goes. The context can have an implicit, there is more going on here, and since I am talking to you, having a discussion, I likely also have other ideas - such as that this need not be permanent. Workplaces passing memes is both a situation of power imbalance and a context where things are to be taken literally. IOW they function along the lines of what Reddy is saying is a limited view of communication. It would be confused to take them as eliciting experiences. And what they are doing is wrong, even if they have good intentions, if they have them. A lot of people confuse guilt with good intentions. 2) a couple of reactions can take place at once. One reaction can be to the meme as it is presented and as presented by a not fully competent place of employment. The other reaction can be a making the best of it and following what you are suggesting. IOW the person can both react extremely negatively to what an employer is doing AND also participate in the mandatory dialogue considering the information as a useful trigger. It's not either or, but kudos to you for coming up with a way to, I think, add in an extra way to learn from the experience.

    I think the contexts of these ideas are very important. See my post at the end of page 1 and then the one just before your post to see some of my thinking on this.

    I was once in a position where I was at a workshop as part of staff development. There was a workshop leader who was teaching us about the symptoms and experience of those who had undergone sexual abuse as children. She was a radical feminist (as were many on the faculty, that is my peers, and said she was going to use gender specific pronouns. Perps would be referred to as he, victims as she. She knew as a professional in the field that either of those pronouns could well not be the case, and in fact my personal experience was the precise opposite, my own childhood experience. I knew there was one more person in the room who the presented form was not correct for. I came very close to confronting her because, of course, she kept asking people what they were feeling (lol). But I think I rightly sussed out that there really was only so deep emotional feedback would be welcomed - I confirmed this later when I spoke to her and my supervisor privately.

    If attendance was optional, she can go ahead and decide to run her workshops however she likes and it was clear there was a political bent to her approach, and yes, I am aware that males are much more likely to be perpetrators and females are more likely to be the victims. But since we had to attend these meetings, and really it is not their business what we have personally experienced - iow I chose to explain the problem by referring to my own case rather than simply in the abstract - she needed to respect our possible situations and use non-gender specific language.

    I went one to take what I could from the workshop and set aside the rest. But I also found working at the institution impossible in the long run, partly around issues like this, and despite my considering myself pretty damn feminist and not just 'for a guy'. And heck, I even consider that more or less ok. The amount of professional places of work where women get treated as second class citizens vastly outweighs the opposite. I don't really begrudge them having the few exceptions they have. I don't think it's ideal, but things do not even out all of a sudden everywhere at once.

    But it was never a real dialogue with me. It looked like a real dialogue, but it wasn't.

    (and just to add to the problems, the faculty and the workshop leader interpreted politically active 'problem' students as showing signs of having been abused. Hence their objections to this or that policy or staff person started being classed as symptoms. This I attacked openly in the meetings. But that's a tangent. Imagine a workshop designed to help teachers deal with students who are sexually abused ending up making the faculty treat valid political positions as symptoms! And even if they were right, in some cases, I couldn't see how being nice and condescending (inside) helped the students. A rational discussion of their complaints, reform demands and suggestions seems vastly better than secretly seeing them as sick. ah, well.)

    But anyway, despite the bulk of my reaction being on my disagreement, I thought you made an excellent point in a clear way.

    *edit - just found out the situation was not as polarized as I understood it to be from the OP. But I think the issue was still worth diving into under my misunderstanding of the specific case.
  • Down with the patriarchy and whiteness?
    ↪Pfhorrest
    It's a tricky situation. Perhaps he has good reason to feel guilt and shame. Perhaps he feels guilt and shame because his parents did shit to him and it's getting displaced. We all have some reason, I would guess, to regret things we've done or attitudes we've had and perhaps still have to some degree. But you can't build your own life around it being wrong to be alive. I mean, you can, sort of, but its a damaging paradox and I doubt it helps women or other races in the slightest.

    I sort of think of it this way.

    Let's say there's a woman who has been sexually abused by men. She distrusts men. She feels like there is something wrong with them in general.

    Well, shit, who wouldn't have those feelings and there are, of course, certain aspects of truth in there.

    I haven't the slightest issue with her feelings and attitudes. I hope they can evolve over time and her emotions can begin de-universalizing. But I have no schedule for her and if her abuse was long term or extremely violent, jeez, I just hope she takes care of herself and if hating men gets her through the day in part, well, go for it.

    But I can't have a meeting with her based on my existence is damaging. And really, why would she want to have a meeting with me. There is no point to that meeting. We can't rationally discuss a solution to my no longer existing. If I think so, then I should quit that job and if I can't isolate myself from women entirely, I should commit suicide. If she thinks so, then there is no point in discussing it with me. That would be doing harm to her.

    So any meeting where the assumption is one party should not exist is a ridiculous meeting. Or where one party is considered damaging to life, per se.
  • Down with the patriarchy and whiteness?
    their existence as a white person was harmful to others, — Marchesk
    I think in a way it was good that this was put out in this form, rather than simply being implicit. Because then it can be dealt with. I have sympathy for that feeling and if I'd been black, I'd probably feel that way at times. But if that is a position. IOW considered a factual statement, in its universal, general form, then there is no discussion.

    There is no reason to have a discussion with someone whose existence is pernicious.

    That means it was better they did not exist.

    Improving that person's behavior does not change the fact that they exist.

    So, it doesn't fit with teambuilding/development.

    Anyone who assumes that and considers it a fact and a basis for a meeting is confused, about themselves, because the only thing a white person can do with that is feel permanent guilt and shame or end their existence. It is not a basis for improving things.
  • In Defense of Self Pity
    ↪Wheatley
    I think it might be useful to reframe what is getting labeled self-pity as other things: self-love, grief related to activities and people and connections lost, self-concern, honest emotional reactions to situations and events and relationships

    and so on.

    A great book on the actual roots of depression is

    https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Connections-Uncovering-Depression-Unexpected-ebook/dp/B07583XJRW

    There is a more than ever pathologization of emotions - not coincidentally profitably for some organizations and professions.

    Yes, there is no reason to learn to hate or feel shame for sadness. Sometimes we get into habits with emotions. IOW we can stay in sadness when we are actually at least also angry. That's just one example. It may be good to notice how our habit of focusing on one of our emotional reactions is keeping things frozen. But there is nothing wrong with feeling bad about what is unpleasant.

    There's a war on, a war against the limbic system. We are all being taught to hate ourselves, our emotions and reactions. Right now that war comes through ideas, medication, surface presentation/branding of the self via social media, psychiatry, advertising and more. Right now they are working on getting at the physical roots of their hatred of the limbic system through genetic modification, human machine interface and better drugs, nano-interventions.

    I am being melodramatic and realize that in each person's life it looks, generally, nothing like a war. Think of it as a cyberwar, a meme war, a psyops campaign. It's slower and subtler that a literal traditional war. But it is still violence.
  • Conspiracy theories
    I've seen no good evidence that there have been aliens and alien spacecraft recovered and/or captured by US governmental agencies. — creativesoul
    Perhaps you will not consider this evidence, but give it a watch and see if it shifts how you approach the issue and how you go about looking for evidence.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪Noah Te Stroete
    I've heard other explanations for why Building 7 had to come down. I don't know. I just don't buy it came down from the scattered and not very large fires.
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪creativesoul
    'Short'? It supposedly fell due to fires. This is not considered possible by most engineers, given how it is made. It collapses perfectly at almost free fall speeds which fits with demolition and not destruction by fire. There is a whistelblower in the organization tasked with examining the evidence for the government. The whistleblower says that organization did not carry out its investigation in good faith or with good science. Then there are the scientific and engineering argments against the fire destruction theory and I think it is much better if you read the accounts by the experts who are critical of the government findings.

    A recent study by the University Alaska also does not support fire as the cause of the collapse. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/university-study-finds-fire-did-not-cause-3rd-towers-collapse-on-911-300911896.html

    It also pretty much just looks obviously like demolition.

    and demolition is not easy. To get a building to fall into its footprint takes expertise, tons of preparation, carefully placed and times explosives and still one can find on the internet failed demollitions of buildings by professional teams.

    And yet on 9/11 three building received asymetrical damage, one building 7 minimal, and yet all three buildings fell straight down into their footprints.

    Demolition companies should just start fired high up in buildings. It'd be cheaper and time saving. There is lot of other evidence, including seismic measurements, witness reports of explosions, scientists who found nano-thermite in the dust after the explosions and a lot more that do not fit with the official story.

    I think anyone mulling over, from an engineering viewpoint, how three buildings with asymmetrical damage all fell directly into their footprints at near freefall speed, would be skeptical of the offical report. There is a tremendous amount of evidence relating to many different facets of that day by professional in a variety of fields out there.

    Building 7 got me. That's just BS. Look at the films of the fires, then the film of the collapse, then listen to the architects and engineers who are critical explain their criticism, then read the report from the Alaska university and listen to the NIST whistleblower. If that doesn't give you a serious skepticism about the official story and curiosity to research further, then I don't think other angles will, though there are many. But that angle, to me, is just obvious. The official story of building 7 is to me obviously false.

    I am not sure what it's having been evacuated means, but if that seems to preclude it having been intentionally taken down, I would need to hear the argument in a fuller form.
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪creativesoul
    Yes, I answered above. That is my understanding, that it was evacuated.
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪creativesoul
    that's my understanding
  • Conspiracy theories
    I've seen no good evidence to suggest that Oswald acted in cooperation with anyone else. — creativesoul
    The House select committe on assassinations considers it likely there was more than one shooter. The do dismiss a number of conspiracy theories but I find it interesting how few people realize that the lone gunman theory is considered likely incorrect even by official government positions:

    https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html

    I.C. The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy — House Committee on Assassinations
  • Conspiracy theories
    I've seen no good reasoning and/or evidence to believe any of the alternative explanations for 9/11. — creativesoul
    Start with the architects and engineers for truth about 9/11 regarding building 7. Youtubing or googling that should get you started at the easiest hole in the official story.
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪fishfry
    Spot on. Marginalization of whistleblowers is one factor.

    The Bletchly Circle kept their work secret for decades after WW2 despite it not being a threat to national security.
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪Bartricks
    I think the OP is arguing that one should not per se dismiss a conspiracy theory, which is a common practice, not that one should consider, for example, government officials guilty until proven innocent. It think a dash of distrust is not a problem. In fact I think it is healthy. To be skeptical of those in power seems a healthy attitude. This doesn't mean one assumes that really they are lying. It does mean that one considers it possible that powerful people are capable of pretty much any level of immoral behavior (as are people with less power) if it furthers their interest. Everyone bears the onus for any assertion of a new hypothesis, not just conspiracy theorists. If someone argues that a goverment official is right for saying we should go to war, that person has a burden to demonstrate this. If someone argues that the government official is lying, they also get the onus.
  • Conspiracy theories
    ↪leo
    Spot on.
  • Conspiracy theories
    Some examples? — tim wood
    Of conspiracies? The Gulf of Tonkin attack that was used to justify mobilizing us forces in Vietnam. The whole WOMD, Colin Powell thingie to get the second Iraq war going. That the government encouraged producers of alcohol to add dangerous chemicals to alcoholic beverages during Prohibition. That the NSA was snooping into, well, all sorts of stuff.
  • The "D" word
    ↪Pfhorrest
    I suppose I think that some of that emphasis comes from the taboo, even if you and I don't fully believe in the taboo like those offended by the term damn. I mean, I have mixed feelings about this. I think it is silly to give negative magical power to these words, though on some level I do it myself, and, of course, a word like 'cunt' or 'nigger' or 'faggot', I have negative magical reactions to myself, and I would find it hard to find situations where I would use either one in a direct expressive sense. Obviously I just wrote them, but as information about the words themselves, at a meta-level. My mixed feelings are that I think it is silly that a word like shit or damn is offensive. They are blunt terms, and God, presumably the concern in relation to the latter, must have bigger fish to fry than getting mad at people for not using 'darn' when they are in fact feeling 'damn' deeper down. On the other hand, the fact that these words, even in secular minds, carry a hallucinated weight gives them a power that I think would be lost. In a sense I think we all have one of these Million Moms deep down inside us and that inner sense that these words are special in a negative way makes them useful in certain situations. So, I have this double reaction: the Million Moms are ridiculous, it's just a word, but then also, liking the fact myself that the word has a frisson other words do not. What I like about that frisson, as opposed to the charge around the words that bother me I mentioned above, is that they don't put people permanently in a box, dependant on their gender or race or sexuality or temperment. They are expressive without being linguistic apartheid makers. I want that expressive dash, but I don't want to use words that contribute to putting people in sections of an updated Dantean hell.
  • The "D" word
    ↪Pfhorrest
    I don't think that's a good analogy. Let's say I call out 'This is bullshit' in a meeting, a meeting where management has been breaking rules in their treatment of staff. I have expressed something in a blunt way that makes that word useful. Or if you never think it is OK to use that word in a professional, imagine I simply use it in relation to my own behavior. I notice a rationalization, again, about something, and call myself on it. Words are not bullets. And having words with extra charge, a dash of the taboo, is not killing anyone and it has a use. I think they have a place. I find them useful and satisfying. That doesn't mean I think those words are always ok. I don't use them in all situations - not that I think it is easy to find rules for them,
  • The "D" word
    ↪Teller
    Just to be a kind of half devil's advocate...
    I agree, but imagine no one was offended by certain words. Then those words would lose their bite.
  • Proof and explanation how something comes out of nothing!
    Not even light can escape a black hole, so they should not be able to give birth to universes. — Devans99
    tell it to the cosmologists. Us lay people sitting around speculating deductively AND ruling things out is, I think, hubris.
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