An Initial requirement is you have to have a pole up your behind.
— Ansiktsburk

A portrait of the earnest as a wrong man? — lll

Rather a man who puts on an image of being right. Or at least, talking right.

Where do you wanna start? — Agent Smith

Good question. Probably somewhere in the reigion of un-happyness and in the region of meaning. Maslow territory.

I just, lately, thought about it harder than usual, and then the question came to light: What about families?

Maybe I am not personally the kind of person that is able to form a family and that is okay; but most people... That should be somehow alarming. Why? Because think about it... Think about a family in which they are "Free" to give love (real, familiar love) to whoever they eventually want. — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

I was obviously the kind of person, do now have two kids in their tweens, so I can look back at familyhood. And “family” is kind of not a very definite concept.

Growing up in a family with a mum strong in maths and a dad with managerial talents, in my 60’s childhood, the arrival of the firstborn meant mummy quit job until youngest child 10-ish. Dd was the patriarch and mum was the not-so-happy-to-be-at-home submissive. She died 2 ys ago and I do not visit her grave. When my kid brother turned up me 4yo I made mince meat of him, everybody unhappy.

In the 90’s when we started production of offspring the choices were much more free. And kindergarten here normally starts from 1,5 yo, sometimes earlier. So when our sons little sister popped into his life he was like - cool! He had been around kids half his life, taking and giving. And involved her in all kinds of adventures. I have enjoyed family life immensely, in the version Inhad the privilege to be a father in, and the other involved parts seem to agree.

Don't you think the "Father figure" and the "Mother figure" play both a special role? — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

Being the father in a very egalitarian realtionship(my wife make twice the money I do) living in a academical neighborhood with strong progressive leanings you bet your azz they play special roles. Maybe more obvious in a equal right environment as the Scandinavia where I live. Where women chose freely. Famously it is here that women to the highest degree chose traditional women jobs, and I think women here also chose the Mother role with more emphasis. Sure, we guys here take a big part in household chores, and take paternal leave after the maternal leave period when a new child is born. But MAN are women motherly here. Especially academic women with progressive values. The world should be egalitarian but bloody well not my babies…

Either happiness is subjective or objective. No one, as per Wikipedia, wants to get hooked up to an experience machine. In other words... — Agent Smith

”Happiness” seems a bit too simple to describe the OP. And even if one talked about happiness, dividing it into subjective OR objective seems a bit simplistic too. We do have our own feelings and experiences, shared and polluted by the other, by all kind of puclic opinions and sentiments.

The picture the media paints. The physicist that has the answers to existence because of some sacred knowledge, unattainable to "the ignorant layman", exactly as in religion.

Einstein dreamt of a final unified theory. At CERN the fundaments of the universe are probed. I can tell them what to find at higher energies without ever having experienced the ultra small directly myself.

Hawking, Einstein, Witten, Rovelli, Carroll, Wheeler, Smolin, Lederman, Teresi, Süsskind, Strominger, etc. All painted as the priests of the church of science. — EugeneW

Good ol’ Nietzsche stuff. And he wasnt much of an anti-atheist either.

If doing like old Martin Heidegger, and try to explore the world by looking at the bits and pieces, and just use yorself as the guinea pig - is the OP true? For you? For me?
What really makes life suck is only partially brain ghosts I come up with, as well as seeing the bad stuff around me. Real shit that hits the fan hurts like hell. And hey, all stuff when you think about the world aint bad. You don’t run around doing that balance stuff. If I was to say if World is a good or bad place, I couldnt answer

And when I REALLY think hard, solving problems, write texts, reads and analyzes what i have read, I cannot be in a better place.

The problem with women is their connections with other people, generally speaking. Otherwise they’re pretty cool.

I asked grandma 3 yo ”is there a tap in heaven where the water in the sea comes from? “. Thats kind of philosophical, right?

An Initial requirement is you have to have a pole up your behind. Think that saying goes in English too?

Well, since people can eat from plates with pink or gold on them without puking there’s some phenomenological stuff going on with these colors.

Coolest stuff here is if you watch those youtube clips where guys get those glasses that let previously color blind people see colors. The initial wtf reaction, and then they do understand what red, blue and so on are without asking.

They answer them in boring ways, but maybe good ones

Whatever promotes equal opportunity and kills rap culture. For the sake of all of us foreigners, wanting crime glorification to stop. If a black female judge in the Surpreme Court promotes that, fine.

To me this is just a complicated way of saying that by creating meaning for the decisions you make in life you are doing exactly what a human meant to do. — vanzhandz

Time, existing and reality…

Remembering Neil on the moon I have taken my fair share of decisions, like, together with my then girlfriend now wife, deciding to skip the pill and the rubber and see what happens.

Now, I know that you’re taking this up as a philosophical problem, but do your musings on time and reality have ANY bearing on decicisons you have or will take IRL?

Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche and The Sun Sister, Lucinda Riley.

From an egalitarian pow it sounds rather attractive. Noone marries into money, the droids would of course be doled out attractive according to measurable service done for society, in the package with housing, vehicle, and other fruits of ones labor. Kids born sent to common kindergarten as fast as possible to guarantee fair race.

Would suppose the aftermath of slavery and later Jim crow laws is the biggest driver. A gigantic lower class construed. Also the home of the rap culture. The symbolic defeat of the hope for a fair race and the biggest driver for glorification of crime worldwide. All the making of the guys who really were racists.

But of course, gun laws, lack of social welfare, immigration on an uncomtrolled scale, drugs do not help.

The cure - the fair race as the vision. The ruthless meritocracy with comfortability strictly doled out according to personal merit. And no fast lanes from birth. No mommies asking offspring what they want to do with life. All in the same race and all work office/factory/hospital hours until same age retirement. If you want to talk justice, are you ready to walk that walk? Crime would be pretty hard to commit in a community like that, wouldnt it?

Yep, the Scandinavian word "Lagom"

This seems an incredibly naive belief, and it is not a consensus in the medical ethics community. Many countries have not implemented any sort of vaccine passport, precisely because it is in stark contradiction with forced medical procedures, of which it is a foundation of modern medical ethics not to do, so much so that it is put into laws that are very difficult to change, essentially constitutional (and many medical ethecists say shouldn't be changed).

And domestic vaccine passports are not the same thing as needing a vaccine to travel to a different country (where you are a guest and are not "forced" to go to) nor for participation in a relatively minor set of professions (you are not "forced" to have that profession).

Forcing everyone to undergo a medical procedure by making life practically impossible without it, is obviously a controversial thing in medical ethics. Nazi's thought they were "improving society" too; and, that institutions can go disastrously wrong (if not today, then maybe tomorrow) is the foundation of the moratorium on forced medical procedures in favour of "informed-consent" based medicine. — boethius

I agree to this, this is barely a kind of "ethical" question. I think the good people not ready to get a vaccine should avoid getting infected for own egoistical reasons. Getting that germ is no walk in the park. That should be reason enough not to go hugging galore.

Trivia : My Scandinavian home country had a national referendum 1980 on whether Nuclear Power was to be allowed here. All the discussions here on the last page, I do remember(Just barely not old enough to actually vote) from the discussions leading up to that referendum. If something, better discussions, since the late 1970's-early 1980´s was a time(at least here) when political agendas were on a low for sexual appeal.
Global Warming was definitely a part of the discussions.

So, looking back to the OP and what hs been said, has any conclusions been made so far?

↪Ansiktsburk ↪boethius
Well I feel like that covers only a small range of people, those who proscribe things that they themselves wouldn't have to do because they are shielded by money in one way or another.

Global warming is like a guest at a dinner party who embarrasses everyone, doesn't respect the rules of polite conversation, mentions the elephant in the room etc.

We could spend trillions on geo-engineering but we don't. We don't because rich people have all the money and states work for them. The logical conclusion is to get rid of rich people, but that's awkward because for many decades rich people have made us believe that they are gods.

What to do in such situation? — Jingo7

That like the trillion dollar question and the right one. What to do?

In a situation where right wingers like me (in Scandinavia which is probably midway btw Democrats and Republicans in the US) tend to try to say that global warming isn't happening. But, being anti-activist-as-a-lifestyle I still would say that IF global warming was not probable you would have seen big studies by relevant institutions saying so. The economic backup for such studies should be no problems... but we do not see such studies, just odd scientist having doubt. So - as far as I am concerned - and, unlike some activists who probably sees fighting the global warming as a "goal in life" and in line with their red-green agenda, I sadly must believe the global warming is happening and that it will have consequences.

And it seems like most western countries are at that place. I do not see the situation is "something our lifestyle" has produced, capitalism or whatever. I come from a poor family, most scandinavians were around 1900, and the society has given my family a much better life, which I cannot for my life see as a bad thing. I would say that people being angry on "capitalism", should do some genealogy.

But, the problem is that our good efforts, to make life better, do cost a lot of energy, and that energy mainly comes from burning of fossil fuel.

Unless you start discussions from another standpoint I think you will be unsuccessful. You will only make the majority of people angry, and the majority will decide in some way. True, governments and big companies have agendas to make money but at the end of the day its about people.

And I think what is actually done, Windmills, solar power and - yes - nuclear power do work, energy is produced. And I think the psychological effect of that is good. As well as practical stuff people can do in societies where a lot of energy is consumed, eating less red meat, recycling, drive cars that have low emissions. That is important, to get people in favor of getting things done.

Then, bigger measurements are needed, maybe geo-engineering, maybe restrictions - including ALL energy consuming countries. It's not like Canada and Sweden that emit the most. But the world must be in a Corona state of mind to get things done. Sadly, Corona impact was very visible and very fast. Global warming is not.

What I wish is that people like my Countrywoman Greta Thunberg would try to side up with people having a good reputation even among "right wingers" of the world, like maybe Bill Gates, to de-activistify the question. It is much too important to become a flower power romance ingredient for children from academical families looking for "things to do with their lives". Which is, imho and to a large extent, how certain protests, and sadly also warnings by scientists(very seldom coming from a daytime worker background), are perceived by the people of the world not being left wing, daytime workers, and which will only do bad for getting things actually done.

Public transport. — Jingo7

If someone who do not commute tell other people how to commute, that is not necessarily a good thing. I'm not saying you do, but that is a possibility in discussions like this. A lot of people do, for instance blame "capitalism" for causing problem when they themselves get the pleasure of not having to do a daytime job thanks to a social position guaranteed by some grandparent who made money enough to let relatives become scientists, artists or musicians, having the cultural capital to do that. One has to be very careful in discussions like this, not to talk about what "we" have to do when it is in fact "they" who will pay the price. You didnt, which is good.

That said, Geo-Engineering is a viable way to reduce impact of global warming, or rather, reduce global warming but I doubt that that will actually happen. But again, one never knows.

The solution is planetary-scale geo-engineering, all other solutions are moot at this point.

I don't think people have understood yet the full implications of golbal warming and the response this will require.

On the other hand at a practical level it seems incredibly easy. Just direct, say, 3 trillion dollars every year toward geo-engineering and research, as well as producing good policy, mass-transit etc. — Jingo7

What is Mass-transit?

[

↪Ansiktsburk conservative weak but nationalism strong... interesting — deleteduserax

A northern european country governed by social democrats long time. Majority very poor 1900, a slow revolution that made equality around say 1970 very strong. Strong focus on personal merit, big trust in institutions. Good people working. Last years, global havoc, big immigration followed with high criminality. Lower class non-immigrants badly affected by immigration, upper class progressives happy "having saved the little man". The only conservatives - immigrants from muslim countries. Of course, absolute majority of immigrants good people. But havoc in a classroom is not caused by the majority being chaos kids.

Where I live, socialism is an ingredient in the local mix of isms that make up our democracy. As libertarianism, Conservatism(locally weak), nationalism(locally strong), red-green activism(locally strong) and some other isms. A pretty good system. (Guess my country...)

white supremacy über alles! — 180 Proof

Well, where I come from, we´ve had frog eaters and black haired guys ruling us blondies for centuries...
You bring up Lady Di and all that, I think you´re on the right track there, Royalty, as well as noblesse and clans from Rockefellers, Hells Angels, or clans wherever never was about "supremacy", really. Not anything in the line of Meritocracy. Rather, a way for rather mediocre guys enjoying the fruit of the labor of others. And some kind of artificial imagery to cater for that. Meghan having a baby too dark might fck that up. She should, as you say, have been aware of that.

Give us some true Meritocracy and we'll see who is the surpreme...

At Blake then, in my listing?

Donald Trump Covfefe
Carlos Ruiz Zafon Shadow of the Wind
William Blake Tyger Tyger
Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg, 'Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang'
Khachaturians Adagio of Spartacus
RHCP Otherside

Can they be put under the same umbrella? Where does music begin?

Some claim that free will precludes a speaker being held responsible for listeners' actions. — creativesoul

Yeah the guy who shot McKinley, wasnt he at a meeting with some hotshot anarchist celeb before shooting the Hawaii stealer? If I remember correctly that guy who held that meeting got some serious flak from media afterwards?

The soft nihilist says there are no transcendent values, no external source of meaning, nothing. I am free to invent myself. This could be considered exciting. — Tom Storm

If one simlpy likes living, going to ones not-so-fantastic job, do whats needed in the family and then just chill, driving ones wife half crazy by saying no to all fany plans for the future, does that qualify a guy to the ranks of the soft nihilists?

I do agree that it is possible to be ecstatic as a nihilist. However, I believe that it is complicated because for some the nihilism leads to suicidal despair. Some people with despair over lack of meaning in life do present to mental health services, looking for possible interventions. We could ask to what extent is despair a mental health problem? — Jack Cummins

When you just observe the beauty of the latest week's beautiful scandinavian sunrises and sunsets, you get pretty ecstatic in the progress. Or if you listen to certain parts of "Down Down" with Quo. What does saving the world really add?

So all this talk about determinism, free will and physical processes - how does that have an impact on Free speech at campuses?

Values and life goals are pretty much the reasons why anyone is alive at all.

Life is not a joyride, it's hell unless you're in the developed world. — Darkneos

Do you say that from own experience? Don't forget most of us non-academy guys have poverty just a few generations back. My grandfathers and grandmothers was from the scandinavian plebeys, born late 1800-s. They for sure enjoyed life. But using the Rosling measurements they sure grew up in the lowest of those 4 clasiifications. Food on the table was the level of life.
Also, most people, if you read both Rosling and Pinker is NOT on that poverty grade any longer.

Myself born in working class with no mothers curling or enthusiasming have absolutely no need of "goals in life" or "meanings". If we go further than have a job and make sure the kids are fine. As long as all catastrophies are taken care of, give me an Ipad or a book, and I do need no more "goals"

I am born in working class but stumbled into university since I did good in school, I have no problem understanding complex problems, so I ended up, doing the work I was alotted, living in a semi-posh neighbourhood. Kids here do definitely get curled. And they do have that "meaning of life" karma hammered into them from the semi-posh parents. I can see that a lot of these kids end up as "entrepeneurs" or "social justice warriors". It seem like, the more you are spoiled the more you have to be a utilitarian. Know what's best for the world. And MUST have those meanings and goals.

While the good folks I grew up with and people I have met travelling in "poorer countries" seem to enjoy life a lot. Without all that fancy meaning.

Why should one kill oneself at all? Why do one need "values" or "life goals" to live? Enjoy the joyride. Sure there are people that live shit lives, mental disorders or whatever. People that run into hopeless situations. Those people also probably dont think much about values and stuff, they know bloody well their pain and thats probably it. But for anyone not in a current hell, why suicide?

Rather than Dylan and that 68 I wish we could get to something better. Flower power just pisses daytime workers off. A worldwide movement towards empowerment and responsibility. As a matter of fact I do think this IS actually happening. But very, very slowly.

The key at the moment I would controversially say - is to bring in the women into that loop. Women need to start to see people as people and not as roles. Their children, other peoples children, oppressed people and whatever. People need, worldwide, to take personal responsibility, not to be taken care of. I am NOT saying that women do not take responsibility, they do - too much! They need to make other people take responisbility. Do their part of the chores that need to be done. Starting with their own children.

Thread start looked promising, but going to the last page i mainly see stuff that looks like mathematical equations.

Could anyone active in the thread summarize the findings so far in this thread?

You say that, 'Its easy to be a Robin Hood when you do not take the consequences yourself'. I can assure your that I am not leading the most comfortable life. I don't have a — Jack Cummins

You say that, 'Its easy to be a Robin Hood when you do not take the consequences yourself'. I can assure your that I am not leading the most comfortable life. I don't have a job and feel very uncertain about my own future. So, I don't feel that I am writing from the perspective of advantage. I also think that many of the categories between working and middle class have broken down. Also, academic qualifications may not count for that much nowadays.

So, my whole discussion of prejudice must be seen in the context of a rapidly changing world and of changing values. We may be moving into a world in which yesterday's prejudices may be receding and a different set of new biases and inequalities surfacing. Therefore, my consideration, which was stressed in the opening of the thread, is not simply about seeing prejudices 'out there's in the world but about the whole way in which we think ,form and hold on to preconceived ideas about people. I see us being in this altogether, despite our often lonely struggles, and the only solution I see behind it all is a general need for compassion. — Jack Cummins

Sorry for late answer, aint here too often..
From an overall perspective I do to a great extent agree with your views here. But the ways to adapt to a changing world can be good or bad, and the ”posh children leftist-Activism”, similar to the ”students” of the 1968 revolts has not proven to be the best catalysts.

Even if the world is changing the ”end of history” kind of paradigm is imho worth fighting for. Not necessarily capitalism as we see it today but still the relatively well working idea of a western social-liberal state where people are empowered and takes resposibility.

MLK probably did not have the vision of the rap/gangsta culture that has spread from the USA to the immigrant suburbs of European states. Higly unliked by the ”daytime workers” that do live close to the "no-go-zones". The situation in the US differs in a way from my Scandinavian home country since the gangstas can be traced back to the Slavery, people involountarily transported from Africa to work at the cotton fields in the south, while the gangstas in my home country mostly are children of people having been admitted as refugees. But still there is a similarity - its posh people that brought slaves to US (Englishmen stemming from british gentry), and it´s posh leftist people that heavily supports unrestricted immigration without making sure integration works. And those posh people also do have in common with the gangsta community the lack of Daytime job for daytime jobs sake.

I think this is the formula - Daytime job for everyone. Of course that requires a weaker capitalism to avoid unemployment, also good since capitalists(as well as a lot of academics) produces drone offspring, IE people that do not work with what they best serve mankind with.

The concept of "school" or "working in a bigger organization" is a very good concept. You do stuft that needs to be done, good for the community. If you do it good you get a good grade in school and you get a good raise working for an organisation. I think this should be the story for EVERYONE.

And when you do not work, you can pursue whatever art project, sport or whatever you like. But the discipline of getting your comfort from your own hard work is from every political point of view a good one.

Equal opportunity? Tax to make sure that opportunity is equal? Of course. But the standard you have is fair and personally earned.

Well-to-do mommys will of course have a challenge to adopt to this world view

Quite a few in my home country, Åsa Wikforss probably the most known outside the academies.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. I am interested in discussing prejudice and I don't consider my background as being 'snug' or'posh'. I would argue that that the striving to overcome prejudice goes beyond being a progressive idea and is central to any genuine concern about human beings. — Jack Cummins

It´s very easy for people from a academical, semi posh background to be theoretical "world savers", typically, not suffering from the consequences. While blue and white collar people gets heavily affected.

A locally famous Philosophy professor in my home country grew up in a not-so-good suburb, but her mother being from a posh background made it so she went to a posh school where no troubles were, coming into adolescense, and she florished in Wittgenstein and what not.

She and her daughters do now push hard for immigration to be expanded in a country that have allowed much more immigration than other neightboring countries. Our prime minister has admitted the immigration is not successful due to the large numbers of immigrants. There is an enormous lot of problems due to this immigration.

Those problems will not affect the professor and her daughters, but her classmates from her old school, the nerdy ones that took care of their studies, but cannot afford living in the academical parts of towns, their kids will face almost mandatory bullying by immigrant gangs in the schools of the not-so-good suburbs.

Its easy to be a Robin Hood when you do not take the consequences yourself. In other words : The acadademic that pushes for stuff like immigration should bloody well make sure that their kids are sent to the downtown high schools.