This is the kind of analysis I would expect from Karoline Leavitt. — Mikie

Science doesn't dictate action. It provides data from which to decide what is valued. That's always the case. Let's remove the question from climate change and just ask if we should produce trains. If each train results in X deaths, then we know that by not producing Y number of trains, we'll have XY less deaths. Certainly if one of my family members is destined for a train death, I'd like for there not to be deathtrains out there.

Inspired by Kierkegaard's ideas:

Faith is neither knowledge nor conviction. It is a leap into the void, without guarantees. Faith is risk, trepidation, and loneliness. Оtherwise there would be no sacramental act, but simply conviction. Faith is not knowledge, for if a person simply knows, they have no doubt. Faith is, on the one hand, imperfect certainty, on the other, intention, and, on the third, a constant feeling of uncertainty. Any attempt to convey the content of the concept of "Faith," in my opinion, seems speculative, because it is a feeling that becomes a judgment when expressed in words . — Astorre

You provide a very Kierkegaardian and therefore Christian view of faith. To the extent you're an adherent of that and want to make sense of that, I can understand your OP. My only thought is that what you say of faith is not universally accepted as true within the Abrahamic traditions. In particular, faith is not a lonely, individualistic venture necessarily, but Judaism sees it as communal. Celibacy, isolation, living as a monk are all very counter to that tradition. A Jew needs a minyan to pray.

The idea that you have to have doubt in order to have faith is also not universally accepted as true. Trust in God and belief in God are different things and both can be absolute without jeoparizing their legitimacy.

The preacher sacrifices himself for others: He risks being misunderstood, rejected, despised he sacrifices himself, like Abraham. But Abraham's sacrifice isn't public. Abraham doesn't prove, explain, or teach. He simply acts contrary. — Astorre

This is the most bizzare part of the Kierkegaardian analysis, where the suggestion is that Abraham sacrificed himself. He didn't sacrifice himself, he attempted to sacrifice Isaac, meaning Isaac was the intended and almost victim. Zero consideration is placed upon what happened happened to Isaac. Kierkegaard then describes how Abraham then accepted Isaac back in love, when the text describes Abraham leaving with his two servants without Isaac and never speaking with Isaac again. The act wasn't private, it was in the presence of the two servants. The only indication that he loved Isaac was in a strange passage from before the attempted sacrifice. Genesis 12:2 states:

"Then God said, 'Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.'”

It's strange because Isaac wasn't Abraham's only son. Ishmael was his other son. And the text indicates he cared for Ishmael as well (prior to casting him off), " The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son [Ishmael]". Genesis 21:11. God told Abraham not be distressed because Ishmael would also be given a nation, which means that Abraham had to know that Isaac would not be killed because his anscestory was to be given a nation.

Thematic to the behavior of Abraham is his surrender of his children, first with Ishmael and second with Isaac who he attempts to sacrifice and then never communicates with again as far as the text suggests.

Thematic to the Hebrew bible generally is the covenental relationship between the Hebrews and God, where God promises them he will protect them and give them a nation great and strong if they adhere to his rules. When they do as he wishes, they get reward. When not, punishment. This is to say, "faith" in the context of the Hebrew bible is faith in the word of God, not in the existence of God. That is, when God says cross the Jordan and I will keep you safe, hesitation will be seen as distrust in the protection God says he will provide you, not in whether God actually exists. The complaints by the Hebrews in the desert were of the form "why did you free us from Egypt just to have us die of starvation?," not "I wonder if there really is a god." How could they have thought that? They saw the 10 plagues, the partiing of the sea, manna from heaven, water from rocks, etc. They didn't need faith. They had empirical evidence. As did Abraham. God told him that his 90 year old wife would give birth and that happened.

It's only through imposing an anachronistic definition of faith onto the biblical narrative that we can arrive at the absurdity of Abraham's actions.

I just don't see the binding of Isaac as saying what Kierkegaard needs it to say.

This project will kill over 400 Europeans. — Banno

Why limit your death analysis to climate change issues and not conduct it every time you build a car or road? People rarely die in open fields, but then you build a road and folks start get getting killed.

The solution wouldn't be the elimination of roads and cars, but in increased safety measures. Life is a dangerous venture, so we create seat belts and airbags. If it gets too hot, maybe we need more air conditioners.

Are you commenting to me or Copernicus? I — T Clark

I'm talking to myself. Butt out.

Does anybody else want to vomit all over frank? This is the day for it. — frank

I mean you said my comments were ban worthy and when asked why you double downed but didn't clarify, and you wonder why no love? Anyway consider it hugged out, so now I can get back to my carrying on and on about social ontology, which is really all I'm trying to sort out.

Correct me if I'm wrong in your intent, but I think you're trying to convey that no matter the label of a man or woman society chooses, your existence doesn't change. There is no 'real man' as a definition apart from social construction, there is only the existence of an individual no matter what society labels them. — Philosophim

If I'm following, your approach is one of conventionalism, just trying to find the conventional use of the term without regard to the social implications attached because you think those implications ought be irrelevant. That is, there's an obvious difference between cis and trans men, so why blur that distinction with a single term of "man."? The answer you suggest for why people blur that distinction is for improper political purposes to advance an agenda, without regard to just objectively providing conventional use of words. It should just be about grammar you submit.

What I'm getting at is that social rules have ontological impact. Money isn't just paper due to the fact we (society) attribute meaning to it and that meaning attributed to it is real. A dollar bill is intrinsically different than a counterfeit due to what we make it.

The same holds true for all entities in a society. This means that society can (without violating a holy decree) ascribe the necessary requirements to a biological male and a biological female such that both are really, truly both men. That would require a different set of gender rules than what were traditionally used, but if we anchor gender in psychological belief and ground it in people who have that belief, then we have real men and women.

But as I said, I don't suggest society has changed its anchoring to the extent the left thinks it has, nor do I argue there's a particular need for it, nor do I concede there's an altruistic, non-agenda based reason for it, which I do think aligns with your comments. I remain skeptical in that regard because this appears as much a left/right power struggle as much as anything to me, particularly in light of the microscopic sized populations directly impacted.

If also add that if we change our anchoring of gender, we're not required to leave remnants, but the entirety of the entity can be recategorized. This means that just because we once allowed women as once defined to compete athletically with other women, that doesn't mean that social norm must remain immutable. We would simply have sport divided not upon gender, but upon biology, if that distinction is felt by society as needing to be preserved post definitional revolution.

But, to the point, a beaver pelt can be money if anchored by societal rules to make it so, and it literally changes what that beaver pelt is. And a Confederate dollar lost its meaning as currency once the Union prevailed. And from there draws the analogy.

EDIT: I think this tracks Searle's views on social constructs as well as Epstein's (the Ant Trap) more so with its claim of ontological realism arising from social designations. I point this out for those who might have a better understanding of me of that.

If transwomen are women or transmen are men just because of cultural or habitual identity, does carrying a gun or shooting down schools make a Norwegian an American, or does loving KFC chicken make a caucasian man an African American, regardless of ethnicity or nationality?
— Copernicus

Worst. Argument. Ever. — T Clark

Social realism holds that a social fact (like money) gains its meaning through social acceptance (referred to as "anchoring") and the existence of certain metaphysical facts (referred to as "grounding"). So money has value because it is anchored in laws, rules, beliefs, and other culturally relativistic ways and it is then anchored in an actual thing, like paper and ink.

What this means is that the entirety of that dollar bill's value and meaning is dependant upon social rules and then those rules are designated to an actual thing.

Your question asks "what anchors a man?" by pointing out it can be anything and then you provide absurd suggestions. You are correct in the sense that society could make "man" mean whatever we want, but not correct in the sense that social facts are anchored only in whim and in constant flux to eliminate any stable meaning at all. As with money, it's value and how it works could change, but society has imposed laws, customs, and other mechanisms to stabilize it. Money today can be expected to be money tomorrow, but not be unchanged forever.

But (big but), when it does change it's anchoring, expect massive social fallout during the transition (pun intended).

The debate then becomes what do we ground "manness" to? Do we ground it only upon biological entities of certain makeup, or do we ground it upon certain entities of psychological makeup? That is the debate, but keep in mind that it is your anchoring that determines your grounding, but no one suggests the grounded entity metaphysically changes based upon what it is anchored to it.

Where this differs from a pure social constructivism is that it holds gender real. That is, a man isn't just a social construct or linguistic tool, but a real thing under certain conditions.

It also denies essentialism, that man is a natural fixed entity.

But don't misunderstand any of this to suggest a winner in the transsexual debate because this is purely abstract philosophizing. If you hold that what is a man is socially anchored in the ability to impregnate a woman, having certain legal documents, and having certain genitalia
and you ground those traits to only XY humans, then you have a real man only under those criteria.

By the same token, you have a real female if your anchoring relies only upon psychological belief of the person. However, for that anchoring to count, social acceptance of that anchor must exist (which is absent in your counter examples). But, should being an American one day be socially determined by gun ownership, then that will one day be so.

So, the question becomes whether gender anchoring is changing, and the answer is that it is for some but not others. That is a social battle, with lines on both sides, seen as a matter of civil rights by some (comparing it to a time when all ethnicities weren't thought fully "human") and by others as a clear, obvious historical designation being altered only to satisfy personal psychological issues.

But, to the point of social realism, whatever the anchors and whatever the grounding, the man or woman is a real man or real woman at the conclusion.

Heh, we used to have a moderator who warned he would ban anyone who said what you just said, as if that was hate speech or something. I guess times have changed. — frank

I think you're just misreading my comment and not keeping it contextualized. My comment was responsive to yours, which started off with the word "really" as if to imply you were offering a moment of true objectivity. I pointed out your comment included certain assumptions, namely of a third gender, which was specifically the topic of debate.

I offered no opinion on the subject other than to say that you offered an opinion on the subject, which may or may not itself be correct, which means your use of the word "really" did nothing other than to assert you could see it more clearly where others couldn't.

Then you suggested we've banned people for such commentary, resulting in whatever just followed, which really is not helpful, considering it incorrectly asserts inconsistency on the mod team and sends the message to others, to the extent they listen to you, that we will not tolerate any opinion that even subtly questions mainstream liberal progressive views on trassexual speech or categories.

Perhaps we'd need to redefine the word. — Copernicus

We have a perfectly useful word. Acts from kindness are referred to as "selfless," and it is not a prerequisite that an act to be moral that it not offer any benefit to the one who does it.

If you need a word to describe an act that offers no benefit to an actor, maybe "unintentional", "accident", or "mistake" will work.

In a way, you could frame the OP as a simple critique of the modern mammalian brain. — Outlander

No, that would still suggest the OP said something about the world, which it doesn't. It just asserts an incorrect definition.

Give me a hypothetical example of a selfless act. That you can't clarifies you're saying nothing about the world. If nothing qualifies due to logical impossibility, you're saying nothing about the world.

The best example might be that I trip over a carpet and accidentally fall on a guy and stop him from shooting an innocent guy I didn't care about. That is, unintentional accidents might qualify under this strained definition, but no one uses the term selfless to describe unintentional accidents.

Really, a transwoman is a transwoman. — frank

To be fully objective, it's a biological man who identifies and presents as a biologucal woman. Your definition suggests a third gender. Mine is silent to that because that is disputed.

And what we actually do is use the word "man" to refer also to transmen. — Michael

Well, that's the debate. 'We" don't use it consistently. Some don't call transmen "men," but some do. We speak different languages in that regard. Then the question becomes who's right, which changes the debate into one of prescriptive and not descriptive language, moving from allowing varying usages to requiring certain usages.

Should someone call a trasman a woman or a transman, the objection isn't simply one of misuse (like if I called a spider an insect and not an arachnid), but it's one of ethical impropriety.

Philosophy has long divided human action into the “selfish” and the “selfless.”
Yet such a distinction may be more linguistic than real. Every deliberate human act is born from an internal desire — whether that desire seeks pleasure, avoids pain, fulfills duty, or maintains identity. — Copernicus

Philosophy didn't create the distinction you're referencing. . You're attempting to use philosophy to eliminate a distinction.

If all acts are selfish in all possible worlds, you've created a definitional truth, which means you needn't go through an empirical analysis of various acts to determine which are selfish and which aren't. You've just created a tautology.

The point here is that we call acts from empathy selfless and those that result in gain but injure others selfish. The terms mean very different things. If you have arrived at a definition that collapses the distinction, you've not arrived at a new profound truth (i.e. that there is personal benefit in kindness to others so such kindness is selfush), but instead you've just mis-defined a term.

Everyone knows there can be personal benefit when you benefit others. That doesn't make it selfish.

Had Zizek posted that here without us knowing it him, he'd be ridiculed relentlessly.

What is your suggestion on that?

If we leave theistic views aside, I'd say it's a complex process that we're too early to understand. The same way the universe came into being or formed planets and oceans and lives. — Copernicus

If you only provide two options: physicalist and theistic and you jettison theism, then physicalism by necessity.

From the first single-celled organisms, life has evolved mechanisms to process information about its surroundings. Bacteria move toward nutrients (chemotaxis) and away from toxins; while simple, these are proto-cognitive behaviors—rudimentary information processing loops. — Copernicus

None of this explains abiogenesis, which is how chemicals turned into living entities. Evolution describes how life transforms over time, but not how life begins. While there is evidence suggestive of chemicals moving toward biological systems, there is no direct empirical observation (lab created, fossil evidence, or otherwise) of chemistry becoming biology. The origin of biological entities of all types (from bacteria to humans) is not the Big Bang, but something well after it, where for some reason chemicals yielded life, and, and for some reason, it did it once and never again.

If you want to discuss pre-biological "evolution," you're not going to be looking at how biological systems moved from bacteria to complex beings, but how chemicals interacted over time to change into biology, but that's not what we call "evolution" and it creates a host of issues that cannot be answered through looking at the fossil record.

I think we can say there's most likely a physical explanation that can be given for the origin of life, but that's really speculation, as we've never seen examples of chemicals turning into life forms.

This game looks over.

This reminds me a bit of the canard "There's no such thing as the supernatural; if it exists, it's natural" — Mijin

Yes, if you can't give a hypothetical example of a supernatural event (i.e. it exists in no possible world), then it owes it non-existence to it being a logical contradiction and not just an empirical absence. That is, it's analytically true, but synthetically true.

Rupture and Reconstruction, the transformation of modern orthodoxy by Haym Soloveitchik.

It tracks how Orthodox Judaism has changed dramatically over that past few decades, pushing towards a rigorous text based culture from one that was mimetic previously, largely gathering cultural values and norms from observations of one's family and community's practice.

Not of general interest I suppose, but it did (IMO) offer insight into whether American ideological divisions occur based upon mimetic/text based distinctions, with conservatives leaning heavily upon textual interpretation (either statutory, Constitutional, or even Scriptural) as opposed to learning values by observation, mimicry and reevaluation of norms over time. This seems a reasonable suggestion given the conservative's brittleness to change, demand for textual support for authentication of truth, and skepticism over responsive modification of values based upon evolving social issues.

"Unbinding Isaac" by Aaron Koller. The better part of the book critiques Kierkegaard, which I've not gotten to, but he does present an interesting take on the parable. The sacrifice of Isaac symbolizes parental obligations forced upon children, burdening them with the parental failings, and the ram symbolizing pride, which ought be sacrificed instead.

The Vietnam War as an example (mine).. Kids sacrificed for a false belief, when what ought have been sacrificed is the belief. The kids were sacrificed, but the ram of pride survived, violating the lesson of the Akedah.

I was really just referring to cause and purpose in the context of human life. Humans haven’t always existed, and nor did we spontaneously and without cause come into existence at some point in the past. — Michael

This identifies the Principle of Sufficient Reason problem. We look for an explanation for everything in existence, and if we make an assertion that the thing always existed, then we're asserting it's just a brute fact (which is how some identify God). That is, if we say the universe has always existed, first consisting of primordial matter and later of more organized formations like humans, we are asserting a brute fact (the universe has just always been), but then you're disallowing that to apply to humans because you instinctively understand a human can't just suddenly occur from nowhere and that it cannot have always existed either. You are saying we need a sufficient reason to explain human existence but we don't need the same of the universe as a whole.

The problem is that what you say of humans in terms of that they must have come from something, you must also say of the universe. You can no more declare that humans are contingent upon causes due to something you identify as particular in humans that you are not also required to consistently apply to the universe wholly. If there is, you must identify what that is, but it cannot be the complexity of humans versus the complexity of the universe, as the laws of the universe as they must have existed in their primordial form arguably are significantly more complex than humans.

A way to resolve the PSR problem is to give a sufficient reason for the existence of humans and the universe, and there is nothing to require that the reason be a cause. The reason could be a purpose, meaning it makes as much sense logically to declare a first cause as the reason for our existence as it does a final purpose for our existence. That we have no way of knowing what the purpose is (or what the first cause was) is obvious, and both suffer an incoherence problem in trying to transcend the universe to explain the universe (i.e. looking for something outside the universe that caused the first cause or looking outside the universe for what gave the universe purpose). But these challenges are equal for either a teleological or a causal model.

“Cause” and “purpose” mean different things. There must be a cause but there might not be a purpose. — Michael

I think that crystalizes the position well, but problems remain:

It doesn't remedy your problem of wanting control over your life because that would require something interfering with the causal chain.

It eliminates any way to explain the origin of the matter that existed at the time of the Big Bang because "origin" references a first cause which cannot be if "there must be a cause" for everything.

And, probably most importantly, your comment is a statement of a worldview, which might just be a foundational disagreement. I think many do believe the opposite, as in "There must be a purpose, but there might not be a cause." This is consistent with a theological position, arguing from positions of eternity, creation ex nihlio, and ultimate purpose.

We're passengers and crew on a great, ancient ship tossed about in an endless storm. — 180 Proof

Yeah, but you don't ask how we got upon the ship. It's a reasonable question with no reasonable answer. Either it's not just an ancient ship, but an eternal one, or else some fucker put us here. So, pick your poison: you believe in eternal ships tossing about at sea that never got here but were always here or you believe in a shipbuilder.

What matters most, it seems to me, is deciding how we choose to spend whatever time we have. — 180 Proof

Yep, and we choose to spend it right here.

Purpose is an intended outcome. Asking for the "purpose" of life is asking for the outcome that the existence of life is intended to achieve. That requires that someone or something with intentions created and/or is using life to achieve that outcome, e.g. one or more gods perhaps.

Personally, I'd prefer it if my life wasn't being used by someone or something else as pawn in whatever game they're playing. I decide for myself what to do with my time here. — Michael

Your preference then is that you have a preference, which is no more or less difficult to acheive whether you accept a teleological model or a causal one.

That is, the flip side of the coin of "asking for the "purpose" of life is asking for the outcome that the existence of life is intended to achieve" is "asking for the "cause" of life is asking for the origin that the existence of life is supposed to have originated from."

The reason it might matter to know the origin under a causal model is to know where you're going to end up given the chain of causes that will follow, just as we might want to know our final destination so that we can know what events will lead up to the final teleos under a teleological model.

In either event the determinism or fatalism is disrupted by free will. So, what you want is preference (i.e. free will), regardless of whether our existence is owed to random causes or a purposeful god.

I have a problem and look to you for a solution. — Outlander

As you should.

Surely you can forgive me. — Outlander

You must work harder for atonement than simply asking for forgiveness.

Let's start over. If one was non-sighted (I.E. blind), that person would never know the beauty of a sunset, nor that it is different from an otherwise beautiful arrangement of words or rulings. — Outlander

I think you're likely right that a blind person would not know the beauty of sight, much like a non-thinking person would suffer from being unable to appreciate the beauty of thought.

The idea of a "difference" is obvious, no different than one drink being flavored citrus and another being flavored non-citrus, but my question is, regardless of whether one is able to detect such flavoring or not, is inability of such truly defining of the overall experience? — Outlander

Ah, yes, the age old question of trying to decipher the difference between essays and sunsets that has troubled mankind since the cave dwellers. Let's see, a sunset is natural, an essay man-made. A sunset is sensory, yet an essay intellectual. A sunset might be temporary and fleeting, yet an essay enduring. An essay requires some cultivation, the product of learning and culture, yet a sunset fairly universal (unless you're blind or perhaps wearing a sleeping mask). One is linguitic, doubtfully appreciated by dogs, cats, and mice, but it's potentially possible they would enjoy a lovely sunset. My cat does enjoy the hottest spot in the room, typically within the sun's rays. But is my cat's appreciation of a carefree day at all like my appreciation? It's hard to know what Gumbo thinks.

The question then is what does an essay and sunset have in common that might allow us to call them both "beautiful." This question, I did not realize when first posed, was deeply insulting to the blind (i.e. non-sighted), so I reask it with much trepidation. But that, all along, was the question.

Yes, I know your type. Of course, not with other people around. — Outlander

You're ridiculous.

. A poem or "legal ruling" can be beautiful. But you insist "not like a sunset." — Outlander

The reason I said that the beauty of a sunset and a legal ruling are different is because they are. You think that's because I hate blind people and that you're going to expose that hatred regardless of my efforts to conceal it. I'm somewhere between appreciating your schtick if it's intended as nonsense and wondering whether you can think straight.

In any event, I've grown tired of the nonsense, but do enjoy the rest of your day.

My "need" or rather point expressed is that, as a sighted, non-blind person, you don't know the world they experience. I thought that was the whole point of idea of philosophy in regards to qualia. — Outlander

I'm sort of wondering why you're discussing qualia about right now, with it not having to do with anything we were talking about. I don't have a problem with tangents or even distant associations of one concept with the other, but this is entirely unrelated, like you just wanted to start arguing that the blind people are missing certain qualitative states that non-blind people are. But I'll agree, to the extent qualia exist, I would agree blind people would be missing the qualia of non-blind people, namely the stuff of seeing.

we look at them as some sort of pariah or outcast, — Outlander

Now we're flying over the cuckoo's nest. No one is telling blind people they are pariahs, but if you know someone who is, you ought tell them to stop bullying the blind.

Also, as a fellow lawyer-in-practice let's not ignore the fact it was you who first intended to isolate visual art with your statement "a legal argument could be beautiful, but not like a sunset". — Outlander

My objective, which is not that hard to decipher, was to point out the varying ways "beautiful" might be defined, which isn't terribly controversial because it forms the better part of aesthetics, which is to define beauty.

I don't know what it is you're trying to do, but you're not doing it very well. Which is out of character for you — Outlander

I will try to better do what you don't know what I'm trying to do so that I can do it the way you have come to expect.

You first claim "art" is a form of language. Meaning it can be fully, or at least sufficiently experienced by those who are limited to such (say, the blind). Yet, people who can see enjoy art and visual experiences, they consider this a staple of the human experience. Do you disagree? — Outlander

What I mean is that all language is a form of poetry to the extent it is an abstraction of reality highly influenced by perspective and comparitive evaluation (i.e. metaphor). Along with this expansive view of language, I accept art as language, as being a form of communication formed through symbolism to communicative thought.

Your need to isolate visual art as being of some special category of art that needs to be discussed is elusive as is your need to protect the blind from what you envision are attacks on their limitations.

It's just an alien concept exclusive to those who have perfect or otherwise functional vision — Outlander

I don't see how you derived that from what I said. The blind can have feelings of beauty, but obviously not from what they see. The question was what was consistent within the term "beauty" that makes it apply across all uses of the term beauty (which could include written essays, sunsets, music, or whatever).

For some reason in this thread I have this post of yours quoted, so I'll include surely it only ages to show my point. For shame! — Outlander

I really don't follow how I've been incosistent is arguing that all language offers some degree of metaphor and then in my asking for a definition of beauty that allows it to apply across diverse experiences. I might generously read in that you're suggesting if art is omnipresent in communication than beauty must also be (which might be true if all art must contain beauty), but that hardly is contradicted by my asking for a definition of art.

But seriously, don’t you ever read a legal argument or decision that you think is beautiful, wonderful. I do. — T Clark

As if all you have to say is "but seriously" and that will somehow keep me on task?

But seriously, I think you're using the term "beautiful" here in a pretty broad way, so maybe a legal argument could be beautiful, but not like a sunset. This issue isn't a small one because the definition of "beauty" is obviously central to aesthetics and this whole conversation.

So, define "beauty" so that the term makes sense in claiming a legal brief is beautiful in some way as is a sunset beautiful so that the term can be applied to both. I would think the similarity would rest somewhere in the feeling evoked from both, but I'm not really sure.

What saith Collingswood on it?

So here's a fairly comprehensive article on the issue, drawing the distinction between market restrictions on free speech and governmental ones. The latter receive First Amendment protections and it's what made Carr's comments so troubling. https://reason.com/2025/09/18/brendan-carr-flagrantly-abused-his-powers-to-cancel-jimmy-kimmel/

This is from Reason, a libertarian, anti-regulatory organization.

I saw Ben Shapiro arguing the validity of Kimmel's cancelation, trying to argue it was organic, arising over outrage over Kimmel's comments and spiraling ratings, but that argument can't be made with any credibility, considering Carr's mafioso comments ("we can do this the easy way or hard way").

The NYT I believe has now been told it must receive approval from the Pentagon before publishing DOD articles, but it has refused.

While I understand this id just more of an expression of Trump's need for complete control, it's counter to basic conservative principles and wholly unnecessary. Trumpians ignore any outlet critical of him, so silencing Kimmel was nothing but a petty win against someone who had no effect on Trump.

But the president and government agencies threatening to revoke their critics’ licenses is a different matter entirely. — Michael

Yeah, there's a huge difference between the two.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ted-cruz-fcc-brendan-carr-jimmy-kimmel-goodfellas-trump/

For what it’s worth, I’ve also found beauty in well thought out and well written legal decisions. — T Clark

I just wrote what I consider a most beautiful work of art. It argued that the condominium covenants did not bind the association to protect against water heater leaks from individual units, but that obligation rested entirely with the individual unit owners. It was a work so maginficent, it made the Sistine Chapel look like a steaming pile of cat shit.

I don't live under any illusions. Anti-semitism, racism, bigotry, various brands of phobias exist all too frequently, and we remain suspicious of those unlike us. This isn't to offer an excuse, but it's just the reality that one has to accept to get along in the world. Everyone is Archie Bunker. Lovable and not so lovable given the right day.

But Jews are a diverse group. There are a thousand miles of difference between Hannah Einbinder (look her up), Netanhyahu, and Menachem Schneerson (look him up) and many others. There were in fact many openly communist Jews and many are very liberal, but many like Hanover (look him up), not so much.

If your objective it to make me remove Kirk from the Saint list, I never put him there, but if it's to have some understanding for those who felt a fleeting sense of joy at his having been shot in the neck, you'll be wasting your time. Sympathy for the devil is one of the highest sins.

I have made the argument that there is beauty in a set of construction specifications. — T Clark

I find beauty in the diversity of personalities, including those so boring they find beauty in blueprints.

My view is that the way to deal with people like Kirk is to engage them reasonably. — Baden

But of course, and while I appreciate you have other things you'd like to do, you might want to listen to Kirk a bit (if you haven't) to really see where he stood. He was not a firebrand and he really didn't spew hatred in the sense that I think some on the left think he did. He represented, to be sure, a distateful element for the left, but he was pretty much a rank and file devout Christian who spoke the tenants of his faith. He did not suggest anyone should kill or hate. That was not his message. And this isn't me defending his Christian views because I don't hold them.

The secular "religious" view holds the protection of homosexual and transsexual rights in very high regard and it also places a very high priority on things like climate change. I can respect these views, as I can of any other highly prioritized view among a group, but those holding these secular views have to reflect upon the fact that a war for their cause is no different than any other holy war one might want to declare. What also has to be remembered is that the views I've itemized are not the views of your grandparents and maybe not your parents, meaning they are extremely new in terms of what we typically accept as societal norms. Villifying someone who hasn't adopted the morality du jour, even if it should one day prove itself worthy of eternal acceptance, is not a realistic response to someone not being as receptive to change as you might be.

My point here is just that I see nothing but unmitigated tragedy in Kirk's death, unreduced an iota that he might have held views conflicting with my own. The world is a worse place for his death. Period. This view is a largely held one, and it's why those who hold otherwise are being cast aside daily as unfit for civil discourse. Whether that is the proper response or not might be a question, but condemning them is not.

Language itself or how language is used? Do you have a favourite aesthetic experience out of poetry, painting, architecture or nature? — Tom Storm

That's right, there was some ambiguity there. My position was that language is any form of communication and that all forms of communication are representative, metaphoric, non-specific, and infused with personal perspective. That is, the line between what we designate as poetic and literal is arbitrary and that all is poetic at some level.

That's what I meant.

Maybe that's what @t clark meant as well, although he could just be saying that certain linguistic forms (but not all) are artistic, like poetry, music or the like.

But to your question asking whether one might have a favorite aesthetic experience, I think that's a valid question, but I would go as far as to say that everything provides an aesthtetic experience. Of course, this theory of mine isn't entirely developed and it could make no sense at some level, but that's my instinctive response.

I did find these quotes from Wittgenstein, where he apparently disagrees with my analysis:

"Do not forget that a poem, although it is composed in the language of information, is not used in the language-game of giving information."

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel

"Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry. (Philosophie dürfte man eigentlich nur dichten.)"

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

This suggests a poem, in being for a different purpose, is a different sort of language game. I can accept that different sentences might be for different purposes, but I can't see where the poetic game must be different than the literal game in all instances. That is, a poem can be used to give information, and I don't know how to work through what counts as "information" and what doesn't.

That is, there can be more beauty in an analytical essay than a limerick.

Perhaps your point is more about the misuse of an expression rather than an argument that it not be used at all. — Banno

Possibly, but the bigger point being advanced here seems to be that the term "hate speech" is a lab created neologism designed for the purpose of denigrating one's opponent's political positions as being evil or shameful.

That is, under this description, if someone condemns transsexualsim, referring to that as "hate speech" is just a politically expedient way of shutting down the coversation as off limits in civil society.

The argument would therefore be that "hate speech" is not an otherwise useful term being misused, but that it's a term designed for misuse, a special tool to shut down one's opponents, especially as applied to values advanced by liberal progressives but disputed by conservatives.

While the UN might have a definition that limits the term in a way that should reduce its misuse, that doesn't impact how the term is typically used in the vernacular which is, of course, how it is commonly used, which is therefore what it commonly means.

Being told therefore that I might be engaging in hate speech might mean something serious or it might just mean my opinion is being vetoed as non-compliant with certain community standards.

Well I totally wasn't fishing for compliments, but I expect you are, so - the feeling is entirely mutual. Nothing wrong with our mirrors, eh? Like a little echo chamber of love and admiration, we are. — unenlightened

No, really I wasn't. I was just maintaining my view of the infinite worth of all people, even those who might deny it. Just because the assessment might be of yourself doesn't mean you can question the inherent value of any human.

God's little children have value even if they think they don't and even if driven to such beliefs by humility.

Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. — The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

What scientific study does he cite for this empirical claim? If my dog goes and gets a ball when I say "go get your ball," even new balls not previously seen, have I disproved his claim by showing the dog's understanding of categories? If not, what evidence disproves his claim?