What are others views on such topic from experience!? Can this actually be fixed or improved within organizations in a way that is justifiable? How can it be done so that it is fair and corresponds with everyone? — Born2Insights

I have worked for corporate America, and I would refer to a business as ethical if it adheres to the ethical standards within the system. That is, does it offer protections against rascim, sexism and violence in the workplace? Are the benefits promised (like vacation time, daily work schedule) honored? Do you receive credit where due and are you now blamed for things you did not do? Are you treated with respect and given honest feedback? That it what an ethical environment is to me.

If you're asking whether capitalism is inherently unfair and whether only through a Marxist reorganization can we acheive an ethical work environment, then I don't understand the word "anymore" attached to the OP. That is, if you think capitalism is inherently ethically flawed, then it always has been. I do think capitlistic systems grow more ethical over time, making life in a 21st century factory a more ethical work environment than one built when the industrial revolution was first underway.

Chicken looks dry and the carrots unpeeled. I'm a huge opponent of boneless skinless chicken breasts because it loses what little moisture it had. It can only be saved by deep frying in the shape of dinosaurs for dino-bites and then doused with ketchup. Consider a side of fries and Kool Aid, and if you behave, a scoop of ice cream with gummy bears.

Here's my living room, offering a glimpse into the Hanoverian House of Curiosities. The artwork is a discounted Hopper reproduction.

Consider the wifi modem the perfect anachronistic touch.

This is different to me, although realism, it's more modern and hipper, with an older gay vibe.

Saatchi is asking $90,750 for the pool photo. — BC

I shall buy two then. One for my bayside parlor. The other for my conservatory.

Yes, something very Edward Hopper American Realism about the photograph.

No one here is talking about Fani Willis.

Trump is like 0-100 in the courts, but he's about to win a doozy. What was supposed to be a pre-election knock out is going the other way.

This is the greatest come back of all time. Ignore that it's not your team getting beaten and just appreciate the mastery.

I go to a reform synagogue. The cantor sings the songs with contemporary tunes. Last Friday night was Billy Joel/Elton John night, where every song was sung in one of their tunes. They also have a small band, with a guy on the bass, a piano, and drum. The bass guy thinks it's really funny, and he laughs the whole time.

They then read off the names of the people who they are going to pray for and the rabbi recites an ever growing list, many of whom I think recovered or died long ago. He has this little saying he says before the prayer and he ends it with the statement "some of whom may never recover." What kind of thing is that to say? I mean a little more self confidence would go a long way I think.

The rabbi is pretty shy one on one, so I try to get him to talk to me. He told me he needed to figure out a better way to talk about the biblical miracles because no one (including him) actually thinks they happened. The other day when he lamented the overturning of Roe v. Wade, my wife was like is this a religious service or some guy talking about current events? I think he was just talking about what he was thinking about.

There's this one song where at some point everyone says "woo!" and throws their kid in the air, each kid trying to grab more air than the next.

I get a kick out of the whole thing. It's a far way from the long beards and black hats of my youth. It's what religion should be. Part community, part entertainment, part spirituality, and part absurdity.

I belong to a Lutheran church. — BC

Which seat do you sit in?

I'd choose immediately behind the pole.

Not sure if you saw the movie The Lobster. It was disturbing and I didn't really like it.

It was a dystopian dark comedy where people who could not find mates within a certain period of time were removed from the human population and transformed into the animal of their choice, with the main character choosing to be a lobster because they lived so long.

Every complex member of the fauna is fundamentally a worm, consisting of mouth, stomach, gut, and anus. — unenlightened

Women defecate too? But they're so pretty.

I'm Jewish because my mother was.

Atheist problems.

There was the famous Sokol affair, where a postmodern journal published an article arguing that quantum gravity was a social construct.

Unbeknownst to the publishers it was satire, exposing the lack of scientific rigor of the postmodernist.

Not sure they've fully recovered from that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

I do think the pragmatists have laid to rest any concerns anyone should actually have over whether the dog really is there in a noumenal sense or whether it is just a pure expression of phenomena. I'm content to push on with the conversation regardless because I concede the point that the bulk of what I think about is ultimately irrelevant.

So here's the best I've got:

You've got a dog running about in the noumena but he does so outside of space and time because space and time are human constructs. So this dog is no where at no time, which might lead some to think he doesn't exist because existence requires that you be somewhere at some time.

But such is my human error. The fact that I think the noumenal dog doesn't exist is because I'm a person and people can't comprehend without space and time, and so I can't say existence is dependent upon space and time. I can just say comprehension is dependent upon space and time.

What this means is that there is a dog in the spaceless timeless but I have no earthly (literally) idea what that dog is. I might say that the noumenal dog "out there" caused the phenomenal dog "in here" once doggy dog gets a heaping helping of space and time in my head, but that would assume the noumenal dog is a causative agent of phenomenal dogs.

If we can say that the noumenal dog is the causative agent of the phenomenal dog, that would be phenomenal (as in wonderful), but can we say that? If that be true, then maybe the dog is just an impluse, like what zippedy zaps throgh the computer to put a blip or blap on my screen. This is to suggest that the reduction of phenomena to predecessor noumenal impulses means the dog might just be my brain waves that precede my internal perception. If such be that, then how isn't that idealism, pray tell?

To your initial point, I need know none of this to feed my dog, pet my dog, and remind my dog that he is such a good boy, but I do need to know what a dog is when he's in the woods and he falls and no one sees him.

I just named my dog Phenomenomenomenomana. The word is best said sung. He used to be called Fred.

I think it's fairly common that parents buy their kids Valentine's Day's candy and cards and women might exchange gifts or go out to dinner with one another. I think they call it galentines. Kids buy their moms candy and gifts as well.

I don't think Valentine's Day is all that serious a holiday or that it gets celebrated in a specific way by everyone.

I think the upshot is that I was wrong to respond to Hanover by saying that according to Kant, the human understanding, like human perception, is not the only one possible: human understanding is the only knowledge-generating mechanism possible (although it might not be only human; rational extra-terrestrials could have the same understanding), but it could apply to different kinds of perception.

The picture we're left with is something like this: whatever kind of subjective perspective rational creatures might have on things, their understanding allows them to achieve the same knowledge of those things, which are thereby the very same things, even though they are "for us". — Jamal

This is the way out of subjectivity, but I don't know that it works. If you claim there are all sorts of ways to perceive that are ideosyncratic to the organism, but all these variations are rectified by the human mind's ability to assimilate and assess the information received, then you are eliminating the subjectivity with this divine power we have. That is, we all understand that the dog we see is a mere shadow of a dog, but since we can transcend that simple experience (and, as you say, think about our thinking about the phenomenal state of the dog) and realize its limitations and thereby understand the dog in a real way, we are no longer in a state of subjective knowledge.

If our perceptions are ideosyncratic to our human composition and do not necessarily provide consistent representations of the noumena, as in a bat might see things differently from us, but we clear up the evil genius' deceptions with the clarity of our reasoning, then we're neither deceived about reality nor are our subjective limitations ultimately limiting.

This seems fraught with the problem that sometimes my reasoning does in fact prove invalid and that it does in fact vary from other people's. This is the same reason I don't accept that human perception is an exact representation of the noumena. If we just want to posit accuracy in final understanding of an object, why the whole rigamarole distinguishing between reasoning and perception and why not just say WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get, and our perceptions are somehow magically and divinely true facsimiles of reality?

By “universal” he means it holds for all rational creatures, and it's based on a priori structures of knowledge that are independent of experience (though they only produce knowledge when applied to experience). — Jamal

What do you take to be the a priori structures of knowledge?

This paper (https://philarchive.org/archive/MARIKT-2#:~:text=With%20epistemic%20conditions%20of%20understanding,such%2C%20bring%20about%20experiential%20knowledge.) in reference to a paper by Strawson, states it is two things: (1) the receptive faculty and (2) the active faculty. The first references space and time (which is how we receive information) and the second references how we understand the information through concepts.

So, (1) we must receive all knowledge under the constraints of space and time in order for it to be at all intelligible to us, and (2) we must then do something in our minds to create concepts from the information we receive.

#1 are the basic intututions and #2 is the transcendental unity of apperception that holds our thoughts together as thoughts.

Assuming I got all that right, my next question is whether your comment that "By 'universal' he means it holds for all rational creatures," is itself a priori true or a posteriori true, meaning must #1 and #2 logically exist for a creature to be rational or does it just happen to be the case that rational creatures on planet earth have #1 and #2 and that makes them rational, but one could be rational with other a priori structures?

I ask this because if Kant can say that these faculties we have are the only faculties that can yield rational results, then he could possibly escape idealism because he'd be saying we have that which we must have in order to have true knowledge.

I don't like that solution. It feels like Descartes' injection of God into the mix by just declaring that there's no way we'd see things in a wrong way and that the way we see things must be right.

Objectivity is not transcendent, but immanent... It might be fair to interpret Kant as establishing objectivity only by downgrading it to a feature of the subjective. — Jamal

Saying "objectivity is immanent" is tantamount to saying it is subjective isn't it? Doesn't immanent mean to be something that comes from within the perceiver?

Real objects, objects we can know, are objects in space that are given to us in perception; these phenomena are beings of sense, whereas noumena are beings merely of understanding. — Jamal

I don't follow this. What would be an example of a noumenal being of the understanding? It would not be something we could sense for sure, but what is something just in my understanding? This almost sound like Plato's forms.

I posted a long response to you on the old forum, attacking your notion of distortion and attempting to show that it was incoherent. Looking back, it might have been badly written--you never did reply--but I'd still want to make the same point. — Jamal

I'd like to think you've been checking back daily for a response for the past decade like a spurned lover only to feel the relief now of a reply.

Only a signal can be distorted. That is, only one's perception is subject to distortion. The object perceived cannot itself be distorted by its perception.* The noumenon is the concept of a purported thing beyond possible experience, and as such cannot be distorted.

That is to say, there is nothing there to be filtered or distorted. Simply to be an object of knowledge is for a thing to be known via the senses and understanding. If there is no possible disembodied, unperspectival way of apprehending a thing, then the idea of distortion has no meaning. — Jamal

Going back to the article I cited above, where it describes the information (and I don't know a better term for this because I think I'm describing the noumena) brought in through the senses that is then registered as being in space and time and then it is formed into a concept of my understanding and then I have what we call "phenomena."

Is it not correct to describe the phenomenal state as a modification of whatever that primordial mass was that that preceded the formation of the phenomena? I use modification and distortion interchangably here, unless you think that's not a fair move for some reason.

(we can know things objectively). — Jamal

To think about objects transcendentally is to think about our thinking about them, to investigate the conditions of our knowledge. — Jamal

What does "objectively" mean as you use it?

If we concede there are conditions for our knowledge and our knowledge is subject to those conditions and if those conditions are peculiar to the perceiver, how is our knowledge of anything objective?

The transcendental perspective does not mean the true perspective, such that the empirical perspective is false, illusory, defective or distorted, since in science we have no interest in noumena—mere objects of thought—anyway. — Jamal

If upon transcendental contemplation we determine X,Y, and Z are the conditions for our knowledge, doesn't X,Y and Z become the lens upon which we view the noumenal and what we then actually perceive we refer to as the phenomenal?

I get that science will only concern itself with the phenomenal, but I don't see how you reject the suggestion that the phenomenal is a distortion of the noumenal. Isn't the phenomenal just the noumenal filtered through X,Y, and Z as you described it?

Your description of the transcendental was most helpful, but with Kant I'm always stuck with the meaning, purpose, and relevance of the noumenal and the difficulty in saving him from idealism.

As a time-traveler, you should not be visible even in 1 second past time. The present moment is very short, and if you are not in it, you do not exist in the present. — BC

To the extent the rules of time travel are as you say they are, I just went back in time and changed them. I can now stalk myself like I was talking about.

Keep up this chastising and I might go back and take you out of existence.

If you could go, would you go? — BC

I'd go 1 second back so I could follow myself closely one step behind myself. When I talked, there'd be an annoying feedback echo.

It'd freak out the people around mes. That's me with an "s" because I'm plural.

The thread was supposed to be about how we thought we appeared to others, sort of a test of self awareness, but it's instead become an assessment of others thread.

In the Hillary-Trump debate, the moderater asked Hillary and Trump to say something nice about each other, which I thought was the only interesting question.

Compliments are more challenging, not because we can't think of things, but because it takes us out of our comfort zones to be nice.

I ate dinner at a Mormon's home, and his 5 kids took turns before dinner telling each other what they admired about one another. That was not an event that ever happened at the House of Hanover.

Anyway, I throw down the gauntlet. Only compliments.

A for example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_detecting_exoplanets

But that is all speculation, even if you think they are good guesses, still you're guessing.

That the earth is changing is clear. That we'll not adapt isn't. We're resilient because that's how Darwin made us.

We've got to admit to our biases (myself included) in constructing our narrative that fills in the blanks of what we don't know. If we start with the notion that we're a parasitic species ravaging a gentle planet, particularly barbaric in our economic and social methods of controlling resources, a coming apocalypse comes as welcome news because it can be used as argument to preemptively and radically change our society immediately. That is, the capitalistic party was fun, but it's over. Time for rehab.

My approach is to deal with the fall out when it falls out, but not because I'm reckless, but because I think your speculation is pure speculation and most likely wrong, so your solutions will be ineffective and more destructive than the disease.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

All of it, or just your tribe's? — baker

Everyone but you.

Billions will die. The human population will crash. We are in overshoot, and the planet cannot sustain us in our current numbers or lifestyle. — unenlightened

This is not what the science shows. There are no meaningful models that predict the human response to the climate change as it occurs, as if to suggest you can know what mitigating responses will be available. That would be like predicting in the 1800s that we would one day run out of horse food due to the ever increasing need for transportation. The fact that we can sustain billions of people on the planet would have been unfathomable a few hundred years ago.

Here's where I think we disagree (among other things): I find no virtue in protecting the planet for the planet's sake. I don't care if we lose thousands of polar bears if it means the promotion of human life, the continued promotion of the capitalistic system, and the continued centralization of power in the hands of the United States. I don't believe in equality.

I don't think you can avoid the class system. Someone is going to have to do brain surgery, oncology, anesthesia, etc. and if they only make the same as a farmer makes, not enough people will go into those fields. — RogueAI

I was being sarcastic. Pol Pot killed 10s of millions of people in his attempt make Cambodia an agrarian society. That is to say, I agree with your comment. Equality is not a virtuous objective.

1. Global temperatures are rising as the result of human activity.
2. Humans ought to modify their activity in order to lower global temperatures.

#2 is a non-sequiter.

#1 is an empirical statement.
#2 is a moral statement.

This is a form of the naturalistic fallacy.

We cannot say that because something is naturally in state X that it ought be in state X.

This is to say the question over the science isn't where the philosophy is. Either the scientific modeling is correct or it isn't. If it says the tides will rise, then they will. That does not mean we can't allow them to rise and deal with the consequences as opposed to stopping the rise.

The statement "We ought let the tides rise if it means preservation of our current capitalistic economic models and structures" is the moral claim. To deny that claim is to take an anti-capitalistic stance. This is where the debate actually lies. It's a battle over economic policy, not over science.

Make no mistake, if it were up to me, I would populate the entire planet with plants, re-create natural environments as they were prior to humans. — baker

If we could remove the people from the cities and recreate an agrarian society, we could get back to our natural roots, and we'd eliminate the class system that has been put in place and get us closer to a utopian society as opposed to our gradual move away from it.

Where is Pol Pot when you need him?

The morality of anti-humanism requires some tough love, but it's well worth it. Just think of all the trees that will grow in the killing fields.

But really… Are you saying you don’t like Bob Hope??? :brow: — Baden

I largely blame him for our loss in Vietnam. If he's going to take credit for World War 2, he's going to have to admit to his strategic mistakes in Vietnam. I question the entirety of his strategy. His handling of the draft was a debacle, only exasperating issues of domestic inequality.

You've bought into the narrative that he's a grandfatherly Uncle Sam offering comfort and safety in a dangerous world. I know him for what he is: a gin infused hollowed out shell of a man who directs bombs into foreign lands like he's playing a video game.

Fuck Bob Hope.

Hang on a sec... Maybe I got the wrong guy. I need to do some Googling, but for now, the condemnation stands. Fuck Bob Hope.

You are one of a kind and God and the world need you.

Fuck Bob Hope though.

I think I’m mostly perceived as an asshole and a punk, — Mikie

At least you're self-aware.

jk

Why do you have five glasses of wine and three glasses of water? Slow it down there buddy.

When you tell someone their work is below par, that should mean it's good because you want to be under par. Birdies and eagles are good.

If you sleep like a baby, that should mean you get up every two hours really pissed off.

Guys, 100% a joke about mocking ebonics as a sign of lack of education and intelligence.

Not a question. Hang that in my break-room at work, and you have no job tomorrow.

If you read it differently, you're from far far away.

All you need is a Zoom link. It'll take 3 seconds to create.

I like this thread because it went from asking whether a 50 year old transsexual MtF should swim with young women to whether men dressed as women as a ruse so they could get into young womens' locker room and catch a glimpse of their young nakedness.

As to the first question, a 50 year old person, born as a man, with all genetic coding consistent with being a male, is at a distinct advantage physically in that sort of competition.

Policy does not dictate science and science does not dictate policy.

By comparison, the fact that climate change might cause environmental change that cannot be changed without affecting the economy does not mean we can just deny the science away so that can maintain the status quo. The policy we want cannot change the science we have.

By the same token, science does not tell us that we can't let the environment change and it does not tell us how we ought to react. That is, the science can be as it is, but we can still decide to maintain the status quo, but we just have to decide that's the policy we wish to advance, taking into consideration all the pros and cons of what we want to acheive.

Moving back to the transsexual question:

That we want transsexual MtF women to be physically the same as CIS women doesn't make the science mean that they are. They aren't, so let's stop (just as the climate change deniers need to stop) pretending the science is different from what it is.

By the same token, science does not dictate policy. That is, just because MtF women are distinct in important ways when it comes to competing physically, science cannot demand policy. That is, if you want to say that MtF women get to compete with CIS women, you can, but just realize the impact of what that policy will be.

That is, if I'd rather maintain the economy as it is and let the tides rise, then that's my judgment call. If I want to let MtF transsexuals compete against CIS women and let the winners and losers be as they are, then that's my judgment call.

All of this is to say, admit what your goal is and stop trying to proclaim what science requires us to do. It requires nothing of us, but just informs us so we can decide what we want to do.

As to the second question, sure, in a world of billions of people there are no doubt a handful of nutjobs that would put on a dress to catch a glimpse of something otherwise off limits to them. But that's too uncommon an exception to build a policy around and is a ridiculous red herring that gets everyone running around.

My opinion is that MtF women should not compete with CIS women and that's my vote. It's my vote because I want to preserve CIS female sports so that CIS women can continue to win. Allowing in MtF women won't do that. If that doesn't bother you, vote the other way.

But why is political ideology something to be debated, but Philosophical Pessimism is something you just choose, like a favorite band or some such? Why is Realism or Idealism a debate bit not Philosophical Pessimism? — schopenhauer1

How do you propose it be done? Is it a moral argument, as in, the greater good comes from being negative in perspective? That would be odd, considering happiness is often posited as the goal of the good.

Is it an epistemological goal, as in truth is found by being negative?

Present your thesis. Pessimism is a correct perspective because it does what better than optimism?

I also don't think we debate political ideology here. We argue current events, choosing our facts and conclusions to fit our narrative. Political debate would argue the nuances of a political theory without the personal commentary. It's rare to see capitalism or Marxism argued from a emotionally neutral perspective. It's why the Trump and Israel threads are dumpster fires.

Again, why can Philosophical Pessimism be dismissed as temperament based, but any other axiological debates like ethics and politics are fair game? — schopenhauer1

Pessimism is a choice, and I think, for you, the right one. You are exactly as you should be, right where you're needed.

That is what optimism sounds like.

I don't think it's all about disposition. You can be a pessimist or an optimist. That's just how great the world is. Freedom.

I'd be in favor of it. It's always good to put names with faces.

If you set it up, try to accommodate US Eastern time so it'll be easiest for me.

The issue here is that Hanover (and others) seem to think that using an undefined term poses no problems — Leontiskos

My position isn't that words have no meaning. My position is that the have no essences. If my position was that words have no meaning, why would I be arguing with words?

Your criticism here has nothing in particular to do with moral terms, but it has to do with all terms. That is, you're not just saying I can't define good and bad, but I can't define anything, including "define."