The reason that neither side presents a tempered response to the climate issue is because neither side is terribly concerned with the truth (we live in a post-truth world after all). Each side is more interested in pushing forth their political agenda (which tends to break down into pro-corporate big business vs. anti-corporate big business) than in simply arriving at the academic truth. That is to say, if I am an oil company executive, I want there to be more drilling and higher profits, and if I can achieve that goal by making arguments that there is no climate change, then I'm likely going to make that argument. The other side, of course, will make more cataclysmic arguments in order to shut big oil down.

Your suggestion that what big oil ought to do is to concede certain points to the climate control group in order to gain credibility, but then to argue that a certain amount of global warming is tolerable in order to protect big oil's ability to continue drilling is a strategy decision that may or may not work. Sure, your approach shows a fidelity to truth, but the oil company isn't looking for integrity (and I'd submit that the other side to this debate isn't either); it's looking for an advancement of its interests however that might be best achieved.

Consider the used car lot scenario. The car's worth $10,000. The sticker says $15,000. I offer $5,000. If we're both equally good negotiators, we end up at $10,000. Sometimes the better negotiator gets a better deal. Regardless, when they said $15,000, they didn't think it was really worth that, and I didn't really think it was worth $5,000. Whether I should have just said $10,000 take it or leave it from the get go is a strategy question. Maybe it've worked, or maybe I'd have ended up paying $12,500.

Your friend has zero reasons to be confident in his economic predictions for 60-100 years hence. I know nothing about your friend; he might be a genius, but he still doesn't know what is going to happen economically in 100 years. Nobody else does either. I personally would not bank on such advice — Bitter Crank

If it's futile to try to predict the future and all we really can know is what will happen right now, then it seems the proper decision would be to ignore the possible negative distant future consequences of global warming and simply do what will right now result in positive consequences. That is, maybe ignoring global warming will result in a thriving 2116 economy, but, then again, maybe it will result in its collapse. We just don't know. On the other hand, we do know that a continuation of use of fossil fuels will continue to lead us to a predictably thriving economy in the near future, so let's do that.

I think the other part never mentioned is the damage to the economy brought about by increased regulation in an effort to save the environment. That is, I think it's perfectly acceptable to do a cost/ benefit analysis to determine how many people will suffer in exchange for the loss of X number of polar bears, for example.

Hidden in this dispute is the right's bias toward promoting humans above all else. I, for example, see value in a pristine forest, but only to the extent humans benefit from it. If, however, I were to find that pristine forest as having inherent value worth protecting regardless of human benefit, then I'd be inclined to ignore your article and do whatever were necessary to save it. That's where a dispute lies.

I guess the losers need to convince themselves they're smarter. Sure guys, your vote for Clinton was fucking brilliant. She was just what we all needed but we'll never know how great America could have been.

Oh, and where did you arrive at a correlation between education and critical reasoning skills? Maybe there's a correlation between formal education and liberal indoctrination. I certainly noticed that screamingly obvious fact while being schooled.

Descartes was at least important enough for Kant et al to respond to, wheras they wouldn't notice you even as you tried to pleasure them.

Meh. I'd say all of Western metaphysics is in trying to explain how Descartes must have gotten it wrong.

Sure, and you shouldn't take migraine meds but should just accept your headache and move on, and please don't be a judgmental prick while having a migraine. Just deal with it. Nature gave you this migraine for a good reason. Embrace it.

Depression seems to be a natural state that the body embraces when afflicted with continual stress. — Question

Maybe. Some people under great stress don't get depressed and some people seem to be depressed for no good reason. All things considered, I would think that not being depressed is better than being depressed even if it were caused by stress. For that reason, if we could flip the depression off, we should.

What's wrong with being depressed? — Question

What's wrong with a backache? It's just your body telling you that you're old and not smart enough to not lift boxes. It would seem, though, that if I could wake up without really bad back pain, I'd do that. And better than just stopping the symptoms (which might be protective against my stupidity), shouldn't I embrace a cure to the underlying problem if it were available? It just seems that if a chronically depressed patient could have his underlying basis for his funk erased, he should attempt it, just as a chronic back injured person should accept a bionic back if one were available.

You're sort of asking why we should fight our God given natural state because, after all, an all good god wouldn't have given us something for no good reason. End your depression for the same reason you shave down your ugly nose. It makes you happy.

Speaking of evolution, why did we evolve in such a way that we can be 'depressed'? — Bitter Crank

I suppose because the god of evolution was imperfect and some of our attributes are not at all beneficial, whether that be depression, schizophrenia, pancreatic cancer, diabetes, a propensity for ingrown toenails, or general ugliness. Some of us are just more destined to the Darwinian dust bin than others.

Spell check changed it to ruminate from defecate. Same opinion?

Sometimes, when perfectfully good words are assembled into a sentence of bullshit, the sum of the parts is worth less than the individual, seperate parts. That happened to me once.

Stare at the ceiling and ruminate upon those critical lifetime decisions and ask yourself what might have been had you only done otherwise. Finally drift off into a timid slumber of regret and awake to an overcast day of lethargy. Lather, rinse, repeat.

You're referencing show tunes. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.

And then it just dawned to me, why shouldnt someone use such a device for himself and then ask the question: "do I have free will now ? Whose free will is it now ? " — Nicky665

The paradox of free will is its ultimate incoherence, but also its necessity in making the world coherent. It is incoherent because it seems not to be refuted simply by determinism, but by causation more generally, meaning that indeterminism offers no solution. That is, if I choose to shoot Michael in the face (damn, should have said gonads because that's funnier), it seems I bear as little responsibility for my act whether it was determined by the eternal predictable chain of causation or whether it was caused by a sudden spontaneous indeterminate cause.

We generally hold that those who are most responsible are those who are best guided by reason, and those who lack the ability to reason, lack free will. This idea postulates some sort of being who can choose the rational guidance presented to him or who can reject it. That is, the external forces at play might sway our decisions, but they don't control it, leaving the final decision to the supposedly autonomous decision maker. So, in the OP's example, I don't see how abandoning a resort to reason to determine the best course of action somehow would result in an exercise of free will.

I'd also point out that the OP's example is overly confusing in its introduction of a quantum random number generator. It would make no difference whether we used that or whether we used the toss of coin or whether we used the daily average outside temperature to make our decision. In each instance, we're just letting our decision be made by something other than our own reason. That is to say, our decisions are being based on something arbitrary, and it's irrelevant whether that arbitrary event is randomly generated.

Uhh, really? The reason that livers don't decide to give up but people do is because livers lack the ability to decide.

What I just said.

Hanover.

Humans are a part of nature and therefore zoos are natural, which is just my roundabout way of saying we all live in a fucking zoo.

Thank you for the link.

I want a thread about stuff I should read.

Can philosophers at least find the emotion to get successfully trolled? I mean some guy just said we're all a monumental waste of time and all he could elicit was a "Yeah? Prove it."

I don't like the video. What I like is when people write stuff. It's sort of like when I go to a news site and I have to watch the newscaster tell me what's going on instead of being able to read it. I don't like that. That's sort of a comparison, maybe you'd think it an analogy, I don't really know. In any event, if people start posting their stuff in video format, that'll be just one more annoying thing I'll have to deal with.

You ask two questions: (1) Should we always forego all pleasantries and just get down to business, and (2) should you have just kissed her? The answers are (1) no and (2) yes.

Your uncertainty and delay was understandable but ultimately awkward and far less memorable and impressive had you just kissed her. You're feeling that now, and so you're asking your question, seeking some validation that our system is flawed as opposed to owning the error of your hesitation. Had you properly moved in for your kiss without requesting permission and she had not wanted you to, you'd have detected that and would've backed off before stealing your kiss.

Your question is actually endearing in an innocent sort of way.

It doesn't matter how many people can conceive of a thing or how smart they must be. All that matters is that some mind, somewhere, sometime, and somehow can conceive of that thing.

I don't understand your question then. If you're hypothesizing that there can be a mind that has infinite comprehension, then it's logically entailed that such a mind be able to conceive anything that is possible.

If your question is, though, whether the actual most complex event can be comprehended by the actual most complex mind, then the answer is empirical, and it seems to be the answer is no because there are all sorts of things that are not currently comprehended.

Well yes, hence my original question. I am looking for a proof or serious argument that would give me a good reason to believe that "the universe is more strange than we are even able to comprehend". — maplestreet

Since it seems obvious that a five year old cannot comprehend the simplest of things (like how a light bulb works) and many fairly intelligent people cannot comprehend complex things (like how a car engine works) and even other very intelligent people cannot comprehend very complex things (like how quantum mechanics works), it seems finally very obvious that the most intelligent people cannot comprehend the most complicated things.

Asking what the meaning of life is asks what its ultimate purpose is, and the answer will be difficult to accept if one denies the existence of any higher power that created a purpose for our existence. If you are of the mindset that nothing we do matters outside of our own fixed bubble of interpretation, but that some just more vigorously push the rock up the hill than others just to watch it roll back down, then, sure, life has no meaning. We're just a random energy form resulting from billions of years of random collisions that now consumes and then exudes for no particular reason. If one day these random collisions result in our complete demise, what could be said of the past billions of years other than it was a cool yet protracted array of cosmic nonsense?

Trying to explain purpose to the godless seems a wasted exercise. None of this is to say that I know the meaning of it all, but if you limit yourself to causative explanations for everything, you necessarily foreclose the possibility of purpose.

There's a great big world filled with suffering, sadness, pain, and need, and you sit idly by connected to a cold machine pushing a Sisyphus button with fervor.

I didn't pay attention to which forum you posted in, but if this is the standardless section, I get to post whatever I want too. BAM!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience! You've gone through a lot! Real knowledge doesn't require degrees or books, but just a careful understanding of your own experiences. — Agustino

The problem with this thread is your attempt to impose standards inconsistent with this forum, namely that you're to ignore all prior academic efforts to answer your questions but are instead to just share your experiences and offer your conclusions based upon those experiences. It's by definition anecdotal, and it's not a terribly rigorous way to go about answering any meaningful question.

I actually do believe that alcohol has had a significant evolutionary impact on human behavior. Considering it (all joking aside) does make people less inhibited and more openly sexual, you should expect that the genes of the more socially reserved get passed on more successfully in alcohol fueled societies.

When one looks at alcohol free social groups, they're notable for having very strict marriage and mating rituals, which I'd argue is necessary to accommodate the sizable number of men and women who are socially unable to intimately interact without being chemically altered.

In other words, plying the ladies with alcohol is not just some neat trick teenagers have stumbled upon, but it's actually an evolutionary tool in place for human survival. When a society removes it (often because of its other deleterious effects), it must offer a replacement for it.

"Eugenics" as a term has been used to describe societally enforced gene pools as well as things as simple as prenatal care. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics . I think if we work with your definition (forced breeding practices and the like), this is a simple question, with NAZI Germany offering sufficient empirical evidence of its horrors.

You pick the design, from hair color, to sexual preference, to intelligence level, to shoe size.

Your objections apply to forced eugenics, but are you allowing for the right to personally choose the characteristics of your own designer baby?

Such a tired old plot, played out countless times in novel after novel. Man survives genocide, man stabs wife's mom's boyfriend, man avoids alimony payments, man transitions into woman. Formulaic nonsense.

Umm Hanover, are you still taking that Prednisone? 8-) — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I am, but it only has immune system suppressant properties and not the hallucinogenic properties needed to motivate my post.

I most certainly have my aches and pains, but they remind me of what matters and of the sacred, as opposed to you godless ones who only gripe of the bitterness and then forsake the holy dark night by numbing yourself to it.

Don't feel any guilt though. Watching your failing is one of those divine pains I'm blessed to feel, rising me up to an even more lofted comprehension of the sacred.

Eat that bitch.

No, I don't have lupus. That's a chick disease. I suffer from cockus gigantus and I need the meds to fit into my fabulous sleak spandex unitard bitch.

Yeah, when a normal (what I call myself) hears about transstuff I think of a hacked up goober. That's not weird, that's normal. That's what transfolks do. I seen the movie.

If you smoke the weed, you are the fuckus upus. I live under the bright sober light of reality 24/7. Know why? Cuz I can deal with whatever shit the good Lord throws at me without needing to sedate. It's red blooded bad assery, something your Canadian ass don't undercomprehend.

Maybe you're a lesbian. Have you thought of that? I mean with all this fluidity, it would seem terribly discriminatory to prohibit lesbianism from anyone.

In other news, I've got to take prednisone for a couple of weeks for a condition that is none of your God damned business (so stop fucking prying). It's like making me sweat and get a little hyped up, sort of like after drinking a bunch of coffee but without the runs. Having no real vices, having this weird buzz is kind of cool, and I can now see why people get hooked on meth. Yep, just a little anti-inflammatory meds and I'm talking about meth.

The point of this is that I now get how people might want to change their reality, either through meds or through the knife. And by "through the knife," I'm talking about having one's gonads lopped off, just so there's no confusion.

I think I'm going to take this energy surge to the gym to get huuuuuuuge.

Let me add something to this conversation other than to share the platitude that everyone should do that which makes him/her happy and we should butt out of other's lives if it's only to make them less happy. I mean if a guy is happier dressing as a woman and carving up his body to look like a woman, why should I really care? So, hear hear to that sentiment.

What I will add is that there is some value in looking into whether transsexuals become happier when they transition. My understanding of the data is that they don't. That is, if we look at transgenders as those having a mismatch between their biological sex and their mentally perceived sex, then it would make sense to correct that problem by (1) changing their bodies (2) changing their minds or (3) having them simply accept the imbalance. If we choose to change their bodies and we end up with someone with all sorts of hormonal imbalances, depression, urological problems, and social interaction problems, it is important to ask ourselves whether our proposed cure is worse than the disease. That is to say, altering a human body in all sorts of ways to make it look like you want in the mirror may not be the way to go if your objective was to reduce the depression and suicidal tendencies. Sure, you have a really interesting looking body, but does it house a happier mind?

I also want to point out that not all transsexuals were born that way. The narrative we all hear of the little boy who always wanted to wear little girls' clothes, to play little girls' games, and to kiss the little boys is the rare exception to the transgender personality. Most transgenders acted like and felt like little boys and then as men up through their 20s, 30s, and even 40s. There is a very significant difference between gay transsexuals and hetero transsexuals, with the latter being considered a fetish because they are sexually aroused at the thought of being a female. That group comprises by far the largest category of transsexual men. In fact, if one looks at the stats, the numbers of M to F and F to M transsexuals are about the same if one discounts heterosexual transsexuals from the mix. Once those are added in, the M to F tremendously outnumbers the F to M. The point here being that transexualism among men cannot just be viewed as a gender identity issue, but it also needs to be looked at as something that is sought by men for sexual arousal. And there is a very dark side to that equation as well, with the feminization process being part of a masochistic expression.

And that's what I wish to add to this discussion. The idea that transsexuals are just women in men's bodies that need to be freed by surgery isn't a terribly accurate statement. The truth is that most transsexuals are men who find sexual arousal by acting and thinking of themselves as women, and the surgery to free them to do this is far from freeing.

Let's take a second then to not just celebrate every difference, but instead to realize the human sexuality is extremely complex and often its expression is evidence of all sorts of deep seated issues. It is possible that there are some transsexuals who are perfectly normal in every way other than their anatomy, but I fear that is the exception.

That response actually guilted me.