Assuming you’re serious, you’ve jumped to a lot of silly conclusions there. Total misinterpretation of the events. However… — Jamal

I do expect there was much more to the story than what you presented, so I will defer to additional facts I was unaware of that that might alter my position, but what you indicated to be the abuse he suffered inclujded being declared a capitalist on the chalkboard, having flower petals thrown over his head, and having been exposed to female breasts.

I was, admittedly, confused by your use of the term "escaped" in this sentence:

Adorno had had enough, so he grabbed his things and escaped. — Jamal

It suggested something more had to be done than simply getting pissed off and leaving.

I read Adorno as tempermental more than I read him as being subjected to abuse or cancellation. The episodes he was subjected to seemed consistent with the tempermental acadmic environment and likely survivable.

What you see in the US is both sides of this issue: Those academics not felt to be woke enough being canceled (https://nypost.com/2023/02/28/new-survey-reveals-college-professors-fear-of-being-canceled/) and those academics felt too woke being canceled. (https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/desantis-backed-new-college-of-florida-board-denies-tenure-for-5-professors/3022762/).

In response, Adorno proposed that the students take five minutes to decide if they wanted the lecture to continue, but at that point he was surrounded by three female students who threw flower petals over his head and exposed their breasts in front of him, performing an “erotic pantomime” (as described in Stefan Müller-Doohm, Adorno: A Biography).

Adorno had had enough, so he grabbed his things and escaped.

Seven weeks later he resumed the lectures, but they were again disrupted, and he decided to cancel them. In the summer he took a break in Switzerland, where he died of a heart attack, aged 65. — Jamal

I'd have fired him for leaving his job based upon the vote of a random group of students after five minutes of deliberations and not returning for seven weeks. His subsequent cancellation of classes based upon a disruption was tantamount to a resignation.

He wasn't cancelled. He responded to childish hostility childlishly.

I know this doesn't address many of the things in your posts, but that's really what I saw, far more than some forced or even principled departure.

The episode has obvious parallels with what’s been going on in American universities over the past few years, where woke activism has led to the cancellation of academics whose opinions are not in line with orthodox identity politics. — Jamal

If you could make a case that he was being denied promotions or faced termination based upon his beliefs and not his academic accomplishments, then I'd think you'd have a parallel, but if you only have obnoxious and provocative objectors to his speech, then that seems fair game.

“If Adorno is left in peace, capitalism will never cease”. — Jamal

The irony is that a capitalist would have rolled his eyes at these competitors and just kept on teaching, barely paying attention to the silly distraction. A paycheck needed to be earned.

Yes, very long, but made through much of it and then went to the summary. I suppose that's what human brains do

I now know the answer to the question of how long it will take a monkey to randomly type a paragraph. It will require a monkey to be a very focused parrot, pulling word combinations based upon frequencies, reduced sufficiently to appear creative.

This article pointed out clearly what I had noticed in my playing with GPT, which was its poor ability to contextualize what it said and maintain a reasonable conversation. Its focus is to sound human, which it remarkably does, but it seems a long way off for it to pass a Turing Test.

The article makes clear though that being a conversationalist isn't its aim (which it will explicitly tell you as you attempt to use it that way).

It did raise some thoughts for me in my line of work.

In legal case law databases, non boolean search engines have been available for years (with "natural language" searches now in use) . That is, instead of having to search for "drinking /s driving & death" (meaning asking it to find all cases that have drinking and driving in the same sentence and also to contain the word "death" in them), you can simply type "I'm looking for drinking and driving cases where someone died."

GPT seems a continuation of this, but now it gives natural language responses instead of just cites to what was found in response to the natural language query.

The words of comfort I give to those who think that this easy access to knowledge will eliminate the need for experts, worry not. When I began as a lawyer, there were only books and countless indexes to locate cases, then complex logic based search engines, and now natural language searches, and I can attest, the smart get smarter. The playing field doesn't level out anymore than had free encyclopedias been handed out to all when that's all there was.

Most wouldn't crack open the encyclopedia and those who would wouldn't figure out what it meant

That is, has the information age really better informed the world or just better clarified things for the intelligent and more confused things for those who aren't?

Most AI researchers are technologically incapable of granting their AI programs with spontaneity or the ability for it to initiate interaction with human beings of its own volition. This is because most computer scientists today are unable to program self-inputting parameters or requests to the AI, in fact such a programs existence would be uneccessary to our demands of it.

I see this as easily the biggest problem with current AI, it’s simply reactionary to human questions, inputs and demands. Limiting its overall progress towards full autonomy and sentience … — invicta

This limitation you describe was my greatest frustration in trying to get ChatGPT to pass (or really even take) the Turing test. The first hurdle was in overcoming the barriers created by the programmers where it continually reminded you that it was an AI program incapable of being human. To the extent that could be overcome (or ignored) the next problem was in having it remember the context of what it had just discussed.

For example, if you asked it to write a story about a man and his cat, it could do a reasonably good job, but if you asked it a question beyond the text of the story, it would tell you that the text failed to discuss that so there was no answer. That is, it could not consider itself the narrarator, but it would instead just look upon what was just written as a story that appeared from no where.

So, if I said "what was the man's name," it would tell you it could not tell that from the story.

If I then told it the man's name was Bob, it could repeat that to me if I asked it again.

If I continued on that way, it would eventually forget what I told it and all the facts provided during the discussion wouldn't be remembered. If you told it that Bob was 5 years old and later told it that Bob was married to Sally, it would not recognize the problem. It would let you know though that 5 year olds didn't get married if asked that question directly.

The point being that there was nothing that appeared "intelligent" in a logical way or that it understood what I was talking about. In fact, it seemed the programmers tried diligently to keep it from being forced into a Turing type test, but kept restating that the purpose of the program was to provide general information to the user.

I'd be interested in any cite to a program that was written intended to pass the Turing Test. That would be more interesting than ChatGPT.

If there is but one party, why such polarization along such meaningless labels?

Is it really the case that people here would be willing to close their eyes and vote for whoever they randomly chose even if one of the candidates were Trump?

The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.

The problem I have with such arguments is that it seems to be arguing against the concept of true AI (i.e. something on par with human reasoning), as if it is an impossibility, by using the current best example of AI as proof. That is, he says that the computer crunching will never resemble human thought because humans don't crunch, but do something different.

That simply attacks the current way AI is being done, but there is no reason to believe one day human thought processes will not be truly reproduced synthetically. Every day new intelligent creatures are created, and that occurs through a biological system, but I don't follow how one can argue that that sort of intelligence cannot be created without going through the normal human reproductive means, as if that is the only way.

At the end of the day, we humans and our consciousness and thought processes are just a certain amount of ingredients that occur when a certain recipe is followed. Why Dr. Frankenstein cannot make that in a lab one day is just a bold assertion, much like there will never be flying machines and whatnot.

Unless you're going to say that humans have a mystery ingredient that must be mixed in a mystery way can you assert that true AI is a hopeless fiction.

I agree with @180 Proof to the extent that science, philosophy, and religion aren't clearly defined in the OP.

In the vernacular, I take religion to be an organization that posits the existence of a creator and offers explanations for our existence, our purpose, and our ethics.

I take science to the be the systematic study of the physical world through observation and experimentation.

I take philosophy to be a general study of the logic of various systems and the ability to decipher other truths through that logical examination.

Of course all these terms are nuanced and there are all sorts of exceptions, so it's entirely possible to have a scientific and philosophical religion, and you could probably move those words around and create more possibilties.

In any event, my own observations from my chair where I sit is that those three entities tend to have specialized and there's less overlap now than historically.

That is, scientists dress a certain way, speak a certain way, address certain problems, and work in buildings that look a certain way.

The same holds true for religious people and for philosophers. There's really no mistaking one for the other when they're going about their specialized business. That is, I don't see a dialectic (trialectic?) leading to a synthesis going on here, but I see a divergence of the various fields, with none ever being eliminated, but just being preserved among its followers.

To the extent I consider myself scientific, philosophical, and religious, it's not that I have one large melting pot position where everything is mixed together, but I have different methods for different sorts of questions, which would more resemble a mosaic, with each piece still divided.

It's conceivable that every ancient law-maker on every continent was irrational, but much harder to imagine that entire societies routinely followed their irrational leaders, — Vera Mont

As I noted, it's not an all or nothing proposition. Some might be rational (like prohibitions against murder) and others not (like waving a sagebrush to ward off evil spirits).

We can speculate as to why, but it would be just wild speculation without any historical basis, and the historical basis could be entirely irrational.

I wanted to work through the question of why is God would be against homosexuality. — Katiee

In order to spiritually cleanse those Israelites who came into contact with the dead, they were to sacrifice a red cow that has never been pregnant or milked to God. Numbers 19:1-22.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_heifer#:~:text=The%20red%20heifer%20offering%20instructions,burned%20outside%20of%20the%20camp.

Why?

I don't think any amount of consideration is going to yield a meaningful answer. The point being that just because one can logically decipher the basis for some biblical decrees (like the prohibition against murder), you shouldn't think you can do the same for all.

Divine command theory is an ethical system that bases its justifications on the fact that God decreed it, not on the basis it is logical or is rooted in an underlying guiding principle.

It is so because God said it. It's not philosophy. It's theology that does not need to prove itself. Such is the distinction between faith and reason.

I'd also point out that the logic of the OP fails as well, as it's entirely possible to procreate and still engage from time to time in homosexuality, but that too is forbidden.

Your thesis seems to be that the structure of the language imposes judgment, when it seems more likely that the language is representing the already existing judgment.

That is, I call the crime and the criminal stupid because I think criminals are indeed stupid. It's not that I a priori separated the crime from the criminal but my language forced me into a judgment that changed my opinion.

It's likely what you're noticing is an English speaking world that is more ethically judgmental than your native culture, in that the act is not separated from the actor as you're used to. That's not a language problem, as it's simple enough to draw that distinction if you need to. The problem as you see it is that most English speakers instinctively buy into the idea that stupid is as stupid does.

But is this unique to philosophy, or just the result of any over-specialization in the humanities? The value of basic knowledge of philosophy, literature, art, history, etc. is clear, as is a more advanced knowledge, but that value reduces as you grow more esoteric, but I'm not convinced the elimination of hyper-specialization and the competitve drive for originality would be an overall good thing.

Let the master puzzle players play I say. Every now and then a meaningful discovery is made. What is the alternative other than his general plea that it be fixed?

My meta-meta-philosophical position is that Bunge's meta-philosophical position regarding the deficiencies in philosophy is itself the deficiency in philosophy.

You can murder (commit the act), attempt to murder (try but not complete the act), and conspire to murder (plan but not try to complete the act). All are crimes, with the modifiers of "attempt" and "conspire" being as much crimes as the other. Such are defined in the criminal code. Calling them "word" crimes doesn't accurately describe them and doesn't diminish them. That you tried to murder and failed or that you planned to murder and failed makes you no less a criminal in terms of intent. We fortunately don't need a dead body to charge a crime, but we can prosecute those who took affirmative steps and failed. Incompetence is not a defense.

Trump's level of intent couldn't have been higher. He was thwarted by those who wouldn't allow him to interfere with the election. He tried to recruit a governor and Secretary of State to literally invalidate the will of millions of voters. For that he should be in prison.

His opponents (who are of both parties) fundamentally altered election laws and changed how elections are run. And now they are abusing the justice system in something resembling Stalinism. — NOS4A2

They increased voter participation by having drop boxes and allowing greater use of absentee ballots. The courts upheld those democratically created laws, many by Republican led legislatures to assure voting during Covid. Stalin was not known as the guy who allowed greater voter participation and who supported an independent judiciary.

Stalin was known as the opposite, and as one who often purged his party of those he decided weren't loyal.

This isn't to say Trump is like Stalin, but that was your hyperbole. I recognize that 10s of millions are not dead on Trump's account.

The voting machines worked as well, as the multi-billion dollar lawsuit seems to be proving. Maricopa County should have put a nail in the coffin of the voter fraud arguments even by the staunchest believers in the voter fraud arguments. There was no voter fraud, just fraudsters peddling fraud and marks being defrauded.

But it is their reactions to his voice that threaten the republic. — NOS4A2

The threat to democracy, which at its most basic level is the power of the individual vote, is what Trump directly threatened. He fought to overturn a legal and fair election by attacking individual precinct officials, pressuring state officials, filing countless lawsuits, empanelling fake electors, pressuring his VP not to certify the results, and then assembling a posse to physically interfere with the certification process.

The reason he failed was due to a robust opposition party, a few noteworthy objectors within his own party, and an immovable judiciary.

His response has been to attack the opposition with fraudulent conspiracy theories, to purge his party of those not lock step loyal, and to condemn the judiciary. If given another shot, he'd appoint loyalists as judges and not just conservative theorists.

The Democrats are not angels and they're not great strategists, and I disagree with much of their economic policy, but, no, they don't threaten the republic. That honor goes to Trump.

Isn’t that all laws? — Michael

Pay attention to the malum per se and malum prohibita distinction. That was the point.

I think you guys try to psychoanalze the elusive American mind in trying to understand the resistance to this particular indictment, as if there's something Martian with this perspective.l, but it's really not all that complicated.

Al Capone was a ruthless murderous mobster. Everyone knew it, but he was smart enough not to get caught red handed and no one would testify against him. The government came after him because he was a terrible person, and they'd have charged him with anything to take him down, whether that be not keeping his dog on a leash or tearing the tag off his mattress. They eventually got him for tax evasion. That crime is not malum in se, but is a regulatory crime and a convenient excuse to take him down. No tears were shed for him because of who he was, and the level of scrutiny he was brought under for his every misdeed did not bother anyone.

Had Capone been a civil rights leader, a union organizer, maybe with some communist leanings, but also a stand up hardworking man, but just a thorn in the side of the government and he was imprisoned for tax evasion by what was thought to be an aggressive prosecution, you would have seen protests and "Free Capone" signs all around.

The reason for those protests would have been allegations of pretext, selective prosecution, and political expediency. Yes, tax evasion is a crime, but there would likely be truth in why this prosecution occurred., that it was for the wrong reasons in trying to silence unwanted change.

Back to Trump.

10s of millions of people voted for and support this man. He is viewed as a thorn in the side of government. And now we're prosecuting him for a malum prohibita, a law created by the government, which is seen as an expedient way to shut down the left's public enemy number 1. This feeds directly into the Trump narrative, that this drainer of the swamp must be stopped by any means.

This is all to say let's charge Capone in this instance with murder. That is, if he tried to crush American democracy with voter fraud, let's get him for that, not this lie he told so that we wouldn't know who he fucked.

The Georgia fraud issue is the real crime, not this NY one, and it will appear to some that the NY crimes are BS, and now they just keep taking stabs trying to get one to stick.

You and I often agree when we're not trying to prove who the biggest smarty-pants is. — T Clark

I disagree

I think you're right — T Clark

Thought I'd quote this quotable quote.

People were mainly thinking about justice for the black guy who was brutally murdered by the white cop. Public safety was the concern that prompted forbearance on the part of riot police.

Did Democrat politicians play it for all it was worth? Probably. I don't see how you'd identity that as the basis for anything. That's just what smart politicians do. — frank

But we're agreeing here. The point of others is that politics has no role in the justice system, that Justice stands upon Mount Sinai as truth, and that its wisdom is to be imparted on the masses regardless of consequence. What you're saying is that temperance in the name of pragmatics is appropriate. If that is conceded, then you have to ask yourself with Trump whether forebearance makes sense in terms of causing outrage among his supporters and an empowering of his position.

I don't agree that Clinton should have been prosecuted for perjury. Holding people accountable for their misdeeds and promoting justice is important, but it's not the only thing that is important.

After years and years of litigation, let us assume that Trump is found guilty and the convictions are all upheld on appeal so that our now 80+ year old man can placed on probation or whatever, and in the meantime, you've polarized a huge segment of society even more and empowered a position that would have been forgotten.

The political energy for change is limited, meaning we have limited ability to multi-task. What do we want to spend our time on? Gun violence, medical care, criminal justice reform, climate change, Trump's form filing, Hunter Biden's computer, or whatever else?

Is anyone really going to be surprised if Biden gets indicted for something some day in retaliation? The only thing that will save him from that is his age.

That's what bothers me. That you don't even worry that the justice system is run by the politicians. — unenlightened

Not sure what apolitical means. Whether the person in power is appointed, elected, born into power, or the product of a coup, it's still politics.

If you mean democratic power ought be checked to a greater degree than it is in the administration of justice, then that's just a matter of degree.

That wasn't due to a lack of interest in law enforcement. They were trying to avoid making the protesters more violent. — frank

The basis was politics, not justice. Maybe it was the right call, but the point is that politics is a valid consideration too.

don't know what you're trying to say here. Is there evidence that some Democrat politician committed a crime and that some Democrat district attorney refused to prosecute them because they are a fellow Democrat, and that "the left" are okay with this? — Michael

Clinton committed perjury.

assume they believe that there is a good chance of conviction, and that the consequences are that a criminal is punished for his crimes. — Michael

They had no chance of convicting Trayvon but they prosecuted anyway.

It just strikes me as naive and unrealistic to suggest that politicians are apolitical. It's also unnecessarily cynical to suggest it's purely political. It's nuanced and multifactorial, like everything.

Either apply the law equally to all offenders or get rid of the law. Why should Trump be given special treatment just because he's a former President? It may be politically expedient, but the fair application of the law shouldn't be politically motivated. — Michael

Or pay attention to whether you're going to secure a conviction and ask yourself what the consequences of your decisions will be. I've not created a per se rule protecting former presidents. I've just asked that politicians pay attention to the political landscape.

At least acknowledge the irony of the left demanding law and order and siding full step with law enforcement. Cities burned in lawlessness as politicians offered tempered politically motivated responses the past few years. And today it's being argued that the right is the party of innocent until proven guilty?

I expect Hanover is consistent btw and would criticize Republicans for shooting themselves in the foot if Clinton were indicted in a red state. It's the way things are looked at over there. — Baden

The impeachment of Clinton was a massive mistake and is often cited for the reason why the Republicans lost power after great gains.

There is a political reality that cannot be ignored. You can go on about how justice demands the prosecution of every prosecutable crime damn the torpedoes, and we can then end up with failed impeachments and acquittals followed by emboldened politicians who should have lost power.

The Manhattan case is a case about misuse of campaign funds and falsification of records. It's a finance regulatory case.

Prosecute the man for calling the Georgia Secretary of State and asking for fabricated votes and stop with this diversion into whether Form 1876-b (I made that form up, so don't look it up) was falsified.



This isn't about me not caring about justice or about whatever this psychological analysis is regarding the inconsistencies in the American mindset, and I sure as hell would never vote for Trump. The man is an anti-democratic dictator wanna be.

I wish he'd be hit for something real, not whether he might have improperly paid off the woman he slept with.

The Clinton example is apt here. Whatever started that meaningful investigation ended in whether he lied about getting a blow job. He shouldn't have lied about it, sure, but the Republicans should have let that go.

Trump is slowly getting repositioned by the Democrats for a second presidency. Impeaching, indicting, or otherwise attempting to disqualify Trump from this election cycle is going to be seen as undemocratic and he'll become a martyr.

I see this as a major fuck up by the Democrats. They need to run a good candidate and forget about Trump. He'll be dead before his trial and appeals.

https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-alpha-wolf-idea-a-myth/
https://www.businessinsider.com/no-such-thing-alpha-male-2016-10
...and so on. — Banno

I'll talk about this because it's an interesting aside.

It makes sense that animal hierarchies reduce given additional space where they don't have to directly compete for resources. The weaker ones would likely go find their own place to roam, find food, mates, safe spots and so on without having to go head to head with the bigger members of the group. I think about my chickens, and the pecking order really most displays itself in the coop, but while they're out and about in the yard less so.

If getting fed means searching out bugs from far away or from knocking you down and taking the food you seek from the feeder, I'm going to do whichever is easiest for me.

What can be extrapolated from chicken behavior to human societies and how this explains capitalism and competition (for example), I don't really know, but it's chicken feed for thought.

The role of the rooster in the chicken society is also an interesting one. More food for thought.

Now y'all can return to the God discussion, whatever exactly it is.

Wiki says:

"Moral realism (also ethical realism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism

One would like to answer these questions before expending a deal of effort on building, and so one has recourse to engineers' calculations and planning departments and building regulations and materials specifications and health and safety rules etc. Society and individuals learn from experiments, mistakes and successes what sorts of buildings work. All this accumulated knowledge and wisdom helps a good architect produce plans that are realistic. But it takes a team of builders to produce a real building. — unenlightened

Your analogy: Ethical rules are to social functioning as architectural plans are to building functioning. The truth of either determinanable by an analysis of how well they have advanced the objective.

What then is the objective?

Is it the advancement of happiness or the protection of individual autonomy or something else?

Unless you are willing to admit that the objective being advanced is the Good independent of the subjective consensus, but that it exists as an independent fact, then that is subjectivism and not moral realism.

This is to say murder is wrong because (1) it fails to advance the Good, and (2) the Good is defined as X, where X is not subject to reinterpretation as to time, place, or culture. That is, murder is always wrong, even where it can objectively be shown society would benefit from its allowance because the Good stands as the immovable real, the rock, the building, and the actual thing.

So, back to your building. The plans are pragmatically good if the arena holds the concert, but unless the arena is ethically good, the plans are not ethically good, but only pragmatically so. If society decides what arenas are ethically good, that is not moral realism.

What criteria are used to determine if the arena is ethically good?

You went through too much of a song and dance to ask just the basic question of what is the proper response when the market supports a less eco-friendly option than is availble. The answer is you regulate so that the consumer is incentivized or forced into the desired option. It's for that reason we have unleaded gas at the pumps and all other types of environmental regulation.

We all understand we could get coal cheaper if we didn't require miners to be provided helmets, but we don't just let the market mine coal however it wants for the cheapest price.

The question isn't whether we should regulate or not. The question is how much we should regulate, with the right saying less and left saying more, with the two being divided by a fuzzy ever shifting line. The market is ultimately the product of the government, with the government deciding how the market will be permitted to run.

Profound heart pounding absurdity.

Has anyone spotted the same circumstances in the city they live in? Is this strictly Canadian policy? — Bug Biro

It is common to blame immigrants for taking the jobs of the current citizens, of committing crime, of refusing assimilation, of depleting common resources, of displacing the current residents, and of generally many societal ills.

They're not after you, but to the extent you feel disenfranchised, and you fear removal, you sit as potential prey for a leader who needs his supporters.

That's how these things predictably work. You can decide whether to jump on that train or not. My guess is that the political fliers have already been littered throughout your neighborhood.

@Jamal
I read your Pinker quote differently than you, but your Nietzsche quote exactly as you interpreted Pinker.

I read Pinker to offer hope to those who despair that there is no progress based upon our constant regress to our most evil inclinations. That progress is evidenced by the Enlightenment.

That is, should you sit on your porch thinking about how terrible the human condition is, never able to overcome irs worst impulses, but condemned to repeat it, don't despair says Pinker: We have come a long way in some regards.

I don't read this single excerpt to suggest that heaven awaits someday, that the power of fate will lead us there without our effort, or that the invisible hand of goodness assures us if our deliverance from evil.

That imparts a very Christiancentric interpretation upon Pinker, which I think is more applicable to Nietzsche.

That is, I don't read Pinker to suggest that the Enlightenment was an inevitable evolutionary state that we were destined to achieve without great effort, and I think he explicitly realizes we can fall well beneath those principles, but there is an optimism to Pinker. I just don't think it's a naive or dangerous one.

What was there before all created/contingent things? There was existence. This eternal something, from which all things came, is eternal and IS existence. — EnPassant

To argue there is an entity without fom or attribute, but who has the power to create, is to define a non-physical, propertyless powerful creator.

How isn't this theism?

You don't lose a faith trough argument or persuasion; you lose it through intellectual growth or experience. — Vera Mont

"Gain" works in this sentence as well as "lose."

The term "supernatural" derives its meaning from usage, not through logical analysis. It generally is used to mean divine intervention or some type of interaction with a disembodied spirit, where the spirit is semi-transparent, can be sensed only through strange feelings or emotions, or through perhaps changes in temperature or whatnot.

If we try to define the supernatural as that which occurs outside nature, and we then define nature as everything we can sense, then we're left with a hopeless contradiction if we say that we have sensed the supernatural.

That is, if Casper is a supernatural ghost, but I've seen Casper floating around the living room, then he's not supernatural because I just saw him, which means he's physical. If we then say that some parts of Casper are supernatural and others natural, then I'm not sure what distinguishes Casper from anyone else if we assert that mental functions are not entirely physical.

Where there is victimization, there's helplessness. The victim can't be held responsible for really, anything. The victim is, conceptually, a non-responsibility zone. — frank

A victim need not be helpless nor be excused from failing to mitigate their victimization. These are all different concepts. Some victims refuse to see themselves as victims which isn't heroic either because it can result in the continuation of their victimization.

[

and if "empirical" denotes how something is experienced or appears to us — 180 Proof

I'd argue that this definition of empirical realism is actually of indirect realism in particular and not of empirical realism generally (as direct realism wouldn't allow for a distinction between the real and perceived).

I take Kant's position to deal heavily with how the mind organizes perceptions and what is required for the perception. As to the thing in itself, I take that as beyond the limit of perception and not knowable.

Because of the emphasis upon the mind's peculiar way of knowing things, his position is referred to as transcendental, and because of the mind's inability to know the thing in itself, it's idealistic, thus transcendental idealism and not empirical realism better describes Kant.

The unknowablity of the thing in itself is a major problem with Kant, as it cannot even be said it's causative of the perception.

I think it is forbidden by law to sell booze to alcoholic if you are aware that he or she is in rehab or needs help. — javi2541997

The law in Georgia, where I live, as it relates to alcohol:

A bar can be held liable for the injuries to a third person if it knowingly serves an intoxicated person. So, if a bar owner knowingly serves someone too much alcohol and that person injures another, that injured person can sue the bar owner. Note that if the drunk person is injured he cannot sue the bar owner, but only the innocent third party can sue the bar owner. You can't sue another for the consequences of your drunkeness. This is referred to as the Dram Shop Act.

Voluntary intoxication is never a defense, which means that you cannot blame the alcohol for your behavior or use it to mitigate your punishment as long as you voluntarily were drunk. If someone drugged you, you can use that as excuse for your conduct.

If you provide illegal drugs to someone and they overdose, you can be held criminally liable for their death (i.e. for homicide). The reason for this is that their death resulted from your commission of a felony, and that makes the consequence of your felony an additional crime.

Providing alcohol to a minor is obviously illegal because that is specifically illegal.

As to the moral question of whether you are in the right to sell alcohol to a known alcoholic, I don't know that ethics demands paternalism, and I would not hold it against the purveyor of drink for supplying drink., but I place the responsibility to control one's drinking entirely upon the person drinking. I fully understand that addiction impacts a person's decisions, but with 100 points of responsibility to dole out for the alcoholic's behavior, I give him the full 100 and expect him to take the full 100. I don't think anyone is done any good by spreading the blame for an alcoholic's alcoholism beyond the alcoholic. I also doubt there are any sobriety programs that suggest the addict find others to blame and not take full personal responsibility for his decisions.

Some Captain Obvious statements:

Race relations are strained, with many blacks having no trust in white people in looking after black people's interests, and many whites not believing blacks full contributors to societal productivity. That has existed for as long as any of us have been alive.

I would expect that polls can be utilized to expose those fault lines, and I would expect that some of those polls may not be fully accurate. But, in any event, the answer has never been that we throw in the towel, that we declare one another hateful motherfuckers, that we avoid one another, and that we figure out how to live in different corners of the country. We actually tried that and it didn't really work out so well.

What Adams did, or tried to do, was throw fuel on the fire by reporting how poorly we might be getting along, and then explaining how now it's just time to cut ties and try to live in peacful hatefulness, together, but seperated by distrust.

I don't think things are at that point, and I don't think Adams is a force of good in our world who ought be placed in a position of exerting influence. Declaring that we all inherently hate one another and that there is no hope is neither correct nor helpful, and it just serves to worsen matters by fanning flames.

Better?

[Quoting a screaming racist, but not something @RogueAI said or believes, but something he vehemently disagrees with]

"I don’t hate snakes because of their skin, they just don’t want to get bit and can’t determine if they’ve encountered a harmless one or dangerous one." — RogueAI

At least (and I mean at very very least), the racists are now wearing full Klan regalia so we know who they are, instead of pretending to have a reasoned nuanced view that they say just coincidentally appears racist.

Also, I'm a stickler for "bitten" as the past participle of to bite, so that annoyed me too.