Fine. For you.

Should we even platform men (and women) who cheated on their spouses, no matter what good things they did? — RogueAI

We - whoever "we" are - should not platform anybody. People are imperfect; it's always a mistake to set some up as idols and heroes when you don't know them personally. Judge them for what they do and how they behave, according to your own set of standards.
OTOH, FDR's infidelity is different from JFK's is different again from DJT's - it is not entirely fair to throw them all in the same bag.

Personally, I try to keep personal lives (of which I know only gossip) separate from professional lives: a person may make terrible choices in matrimony, especially when young, and later go on to do important work. They can cave in to pressure to keep up a pretense of happy domesticity. Their spouses may not be perfect either. Sometimes the actual situation is quite different from the appearance. Whatever goes on in the home, they may be doing competent cardiac repairs or inventing buildings that withstand earthquake or passing beneficial legislation, and I'm not sure my moral repugnance is reason enough to deprive other people of those benefits.
I also keep in mind that if they had not become famous for their accomplishments, their private lives would not be laid open to public scrutiny and I would never know whether they were faithful to spouses, bullied their children or picked their dogs up by the ears.

We all judge other people all the time - but we ought to make some effort to do it fairly.

A bit more pungent. — jgill

Maybe so, but it still has a lot of holes. The fetus isn't famous or valued by anyone in the world - except perhaps as a poster child or slogan. Most of the people campaigning to ban abortion are unwilling to adopt and raise the unwanted babies they intend to "save". Nor will the dependent become a self-sufficient high earner after nine month: it will continue to be a burden of somebody for a considerable period.

(at least when sex is consensual), the mother bares some responsibility for the situation in which abortion is considered, — Michael

Certainly she does - only if the sex is consensual - but to whom? Who is to be healed by another's sacrifice? At the point when abortion is considered, there is no illness: it's a quite normal, healthy pregnancy. (If it's not, the whole question alters)
So - zoom out. The woman is not alone responsible for her condition. She had sex with a consenting male partner, who gets off with nothing worse than a notch on his bedpost. They both live in a society that provides a certain environment and culture and education and social service. How many ways should this responsibility be divided?

Although as for abortion, the very premise that the foetus has a right to life can also be questioned — Michael

Nobody has a right to life: we are all mortal. Nobody can be guaranteed any particular length of life; anyone can die for any reason at any time between age 0 and 125 (atm).
A society that considers it morally acceptable to kill its foreign enemies, along with any of their family that happens to be in the vicinity, and its own criminal elements, that considers it morally acceptable to let people and other species suffer for its own comfort and convenience, surely can't cavil at terminating its proto-human parasites.
OTOH, if the society truly looks upon the unborn as its children, it should be exerting all necessary effort to prevent unwanted pregnancies, protect girls and women from being impregnated against their will, supporting those who do become pregnant and taking care of the resultant infants, whether the mother is able and willing to or not.

I knowingly have COVID, but nonetheless attend a party. Someone else catches COVID from me. I fully recover but they are soon to die. They can be saved with a partial lung transplant but none will be available in time. Am I morally obligated to donate a part of my lung to save their life? — Michael

Yes. But nobody's all het up to write that into law and punish you for any attempt to evade your responsibility. Political zealots are far more interested in moral issues that involve sex, especially the regulation of female fertility.

Unspoiled wilderness = almost paradise. What's missing? — TheMadFool

nothing. It's what's present and should not be that poses a problem. The lion cannot lie down with the lamb: he is impelled by nature to tear the lamb asunder and devour it. We can't have heaven on earth, simply because evolution has engendered predation and parasitism in the life-cycles of this planet. As much as humankind has been able to insulate itself from nature, the insulation is permeable to microscopic enemies and mankind is still subject to the predatory and parasitic tendencies in its own nature. Heaven is imagined as the absence of these flaws in creation.

What's that to do with anything?

First, if there are infinite whole numbers, and there are infinite decimals between 0 and 1, and there are infinite decimals between 0.1 and 0.12, does that mean that infinity itself is infinitely infinite infinitely (etc.) ? — an-salad

Of course it is.

Also, will there be a manned mission to m87 by 2030? — an-salad

No.

What if u brought a talisman from Cambodia? — an-salad

not even

Also, Ive never left Chicago in my life. How is it different out there? — an-salad

It's better. Except in every other big cosmopolitan city, in many of which it's worse.

Is the sky purple? — an-salad

On several planets, but they don't support human type life, so bring a space suit.

Are there dinosaurs? — an-salad

Yes. Only the small the ones are venomous, but some of the large ones are carnivorous and none too fastidious in their table manners.

Are there three large moons? — an-salad

Yes. However, they're all off-limits to civilians.

Such reps wouldn't be popularly elected, but the labor and MM reps would be elected by millions of workers across a huge swath of the population, so close enough. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Elected by the membership of their respective guilds/occupations? I could go for that idea! Just as justices are selected by their professional organization (in countries not hell-bent on politicizing and monetizing everything they can lay hands on)

To be honest, I don't think there is much value in representatives "representing" their constituents. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Then what should they represents, and why bother having elections at all?

and it's unclear if it would even be a good thing to have a state run "according to popular opinion." Direct democracy isn't just a bad idea because it would require too many elections. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So, you're against democracy? Assuming Lord Vetinari is unavailable, what form of governance makes a better alternative?

The big benefit of elections are that they keep leaders accountable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

To whom? By what means? Public opinion often turns against an incumbent, not because he's screwed up, but because he hasn't, and they're bored with uneventful governance and can be riled up to demand a change. Meanwhile, some slogans find so much approval among a noisy segment of the population, or an influential media platform, that whoever spouts them keeps getting support, even if he tells transparent lies, obtains large loans by false pretenses, cheats on his taxes, reneges on contracts, throws his friends under buses, stiffs his lawyers, gropes beauty contestants, threatens journalist and jurists, badmouths foreign leaders, betrays allies, intimidates election officials, pardons felons and incites a mob to storm the Capitol.

f my hypothetical fantasy nation could look like Denmark, but have its leaders picked by some technocratic processes — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd prefer a UN of small, tribal/regional units run by AI. But I doubt we can have either.

I definitely wouldn't mind just completely getting rid of the US Senate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The way it's set up now, I agree. Having an 'upper' or second house to check the work of the legislature is not necessarily a bad idea: it could point out aspects of a bill that had been overlooked, add safeguards, present long-term consequences that may not have been considered. It could perhaps represent regional interests and vulnerabilities - if it were not rigidly partisan. I can imagine a senate made up of retired government officials, civil servants and jurists who have experience in dealing with the practical fallout from legislation, who could maybe prevent future mistakes.

People can be smart, mobs are dumb. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Amen!

I'd say 18 is about as big as you'd want to go on a deliberative body. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hence committees. But 18 for 332 million is asking rather a lot of each representative. If you have small numbers in legislature, you have hopelessly huge numbers in each constituency. Changing it to a tiered system would mean representatives voting for representatives, etc., so the original voter is altogether lost in respective majority votes. I'd much rather have proportional representation at the constituency level and direct representation of each electoral district.
I'm pretty much okay with 435, or even more, if they each actually represented their district, rather than just the segment of it that - by whatever method - voted for the party that took the prize. Especially when there are only two parties to consider, and candidates get their marching orders from the party leadership rather from the voters.

I might also just clear house and get rid of local law enforcement and make it a state/national affair. It'd be worth it if only to abolish police unions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

On that subject, you could get a long, rather involved argument, but that would be a derailment.

I would emphasis the importance of history of a society here, which defines also government culture. — ssu

Ex-colonies have a different situation from long-established nations. New countries like the US, the Republic of Angola and Argentina can start their history from sort-of-scratch. that is, their past comes from the geography and native peoples of the region, plus the colonial power(s) that have taken control, plus the changes brought about by colonial rule, various conflicts, the means and method of achieving independence. On that palimpsest, whichever faction holds the power at the moment of declaring nationhood can write the prologue for that nation's history. None of those things - not the foregoing forms of government, nor the new constitution and legal code - determine the actual size and scope of the new governing structure.

Yet if "Vera Mont's land" would be recognized by the majority of other sovereign countries, your existence might be a pain in the ass for your former country. — ssu

:rofl: We actually designed and had a flag made. Our home business was called Montland.
I doubt it would have created any problems for Canada, since we did not actually secede and there are very few laws we would have refused to abide by - and three of those have been changed in the meanwhile. (I know it was intended as a hypothetical example; just revelling in the aptness of it.)

Perhaps I'd resort to something like Max Weber and say if the citizens are happy with the control, then it's OK. — ssu

Unfortunately, 'the citizens' of most nations are not all of one mind. They tend to divide into factions, some of which are unhappy with whatever the current arrangement happens to be, and those divisions are far too easy for disruptive or self-interested entities to exploit.

No, it's not an easy issue to resolve!

if the delay involves missing important deadlines. — HardWorker

If.
This does not apply to self-imposed time limits on self-chosen goals, which is what the OP implied.

For sure. Especially as presidents have the least direct control of what wording, what particular details of constraint, what modifications and exceptions are contained in a bill as it's eventually passed.
The public rarely has the patience to consider such nuances, and journalist these days do very little to help the public understand them. It is thus with all political policy. We hear a candidate pronounce some slogan or platitude and many of us assume, without further consideration, that that is what that politician actually causes to happen. It usually isn't.

The problem is when outside forces sometimes make you take longer. — HardWorker

So what? Why make a problem of something taking longer than you planned? Unless the delay causes cost overruns, or missing important deadlines, what does it matter?

So my point is simply that one needs to judge policy and ots impact, not simplistically blame or praise for the current state of the economy. — Relativist

A policy enacted today may not show effects on the ground until two or three years in the future. The fallout from bad policies may not be felt for several years. Other, uncontrollable circumstances alter the course of planned operation. Policies, circumstances and unplanned events interact along the way, setting up cross-currents that are impossible either to predict in advance or trace in hindsight.
You can attribute some outcomes to a specific policy, but most economic situations are just that: situational.

None of the other realms really exist, but that's very much beside the point.
Heaven, Earth and Hell are a descriptive analogy to the compartments of the human psyche: the mundane part which lives its day-to-day commnon-sense life on Earth; the moral, altruistic, co-operative conscience (sometimes called our 'better angel') and the dark, rapacious, evil part (sometimes reffered to as our 'demons')
We have been aware of this since the beginning of introspection. The ancient myth-makers of every culture had some ways of characterizing these aspects of human nature, whether personalizing them as animal totems, spirits or deities; poets and bards have sung about them in metaphor. Organized religions have located them as a vertical arrangement: the house of their chief god in the sky, this vale of tears, or land of opportunity on Earth; the dark, firelit underworld below. Modern psychologists have named them as superego, ego and id, or iceberg or archetypes.
The only difference is, the modern psychologists deny the good and evil in humans, so they attribute the good to correct nurturing and socializing and the evil to our primal, animal impulses.
That's true, as far as it goes, but not quite accurate. those primal impulses are turned to evil by the uniquely human compound of reasoning intelligence, imagination and capacity for self-delusion.

Why it's easier to describe hell than heaven: religions use hell as a threat for everyone equally. A threat has more teeth if it's specific, and we all experience pain and humiliation in a similar way, from similar sources. The promise of eternal happiness, however, doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, so it's best left to the individual imagination - just so it motivates each one to the good behaviour prescribed by his society.
When people lose confidence in the cohesion and values of their society, the psychological threats and bribes lose their effectiveness; people behave according to their own lights, some destroying all that stands in their way, while others strive to save things from destruction.

If you genuinely think that characterisation is accurate, you are not on top of things. I found it fairly funny tbh.. — AmadeusD

Hm

Cannot grasp what conversation you think we're having — AmadeusD

Really? It's not that complicated. I express an opinion based of what I have heard and seen and you keep telling me it's ridiculous because I've been selectively misinformed about the "real" state of affairs.

I don't think its accurate, basically. — AmadeusD

What difference does that make? Lots of people have lots of opinions that have no effect whatever on the outcome.

you are not on top of things — AmadeusD

Who wants to sit on a ticking bomb? Unfortunately, I live just north of it, so 'on top' is not an altogether inapt description.

What are you doing for improve your better attention or better learning? — MorningStar

Not much anymore. Things I used to find useful:
- to divide the task into manageable sections, so that I could tackle part 1, then, having reached an interim goal, take a recess and do something different (eat, converse with family, take a walk, play a game) before tackling the next part.
- to write down, as soon as possible after hearing or reading something, what I gleaned from it, whether that's synopsis of the text itself, or a particular piece of information, or an insight
- to take on only one difficult assignment at a time and give it maximum attention
- not to stop living while I was studying - take enough time out to cultivate relationships and other interests
- take care of the body so the mind could work at peak efficiency

Trump is an AI, complete with hologram form, created by the deep state, or the deep fake, or maybe the deep Putin, who knows? — Metaphysician Undercover

Naw, he's just a fleshy manifestation of the American Nightmare.

Never mind, the replies I read have nothing to do with education or culture. It can go in the garbage. I am done with it. — Athena

Is that a quote from the DT's? Pretty much what he's said about the constitution, the DoJ, international policy, the education system and civil liberties.

Was this is at least partial jest? — AmadeusD

Nope. There is nothing funny anymore about what's happening to the US and the world.

Is Trump's education policy likely to make things better or worse? — Athena

It doesn't matter. If T***p gets back in the oval office, no education or any other "policy" will be implemented. The entire regime will be focused on purging his opponents.

you also should not take any more time than you have to when it comes to achieving goals because time is precious, and its important to reach your goal within the time you hope to reach it because that is part of the goal himself. — HardWorker

Why?
What's wrong with being distracted by a chance meeting, or going off on a side-track in pursuit of an incidental discovery, or finding some aspect of working toward a goal more interesting than the original goal? What's wrong with smelling the odd rose along the way?

I don't disagree with the part about a self-imposed time limit being part of a self-imposed goal - that's true. I just don't think either the goal or the time limit are necessarily important.
I mean, if there are puppies trapped under a collapsed building, by all means, get them out as fast and as safely as you possibly can. If you want to be a doctor, by all means buckle down to your studies, pass exams on the first try and qualify as soon as you can so you can get practicing medicine.

But if you're setting goals for their own sake, for some sense of accomplishment, no. Ticking random boxes, marking artificial milestones, amassing arbitrary credits is just filling up time.
What makes time precious is our ability to live in it - to appreciate our environment and other people, to laugh and be creative, to make connections and attachments, to help and nurture others, to observe and learn, to collect memories - to enjoy the journey.

When I was a kid, we sometimes bought it in a block wrapped in cellophane. It was pretty cheap compared to chocolate bars and lasted longer. We would hit the brick with a hammer and suck the shards slowly, letting the sugar melt in our mouth while my brother and I watched Saturday afternoon cowboy and horror movies.
There is no possible way I could recall any of that as being awful.

Not the point. — AmadeusD

Of course not!

Not to humans, for whom the distinction is somewhat useless — AmadeusD

Who else would waste any time on this question?

The appearances are what you’re talking about — AmadeusD

I see. Very useful to know, as it makes all the difference.

It just requires that we have zero access to them and cannot gain access to them. — AmadeusD

That could be inconvenient when shopping for groceries or calling 911.

think that, at that point, an infinite number of come up, waiting for us to explore them. — Angelo Cannata

So, it seems, not so much an infinite number of questions, perspectives, horizons and hypotheses, so much a tail-chasing exercise.
Harmless enough....

I can't imagine. But, as long as someone can, by all means, carry on!

Now you can see that there isn’t inconsistency anymore, because we have clearly separated the two perspectives. We don’t say “Reality cannot be reached”, but “What you call reality cannot be reached”. — Angelo Cannata

And there discussion ends. Forever.

That's how I see it: indivisible. But then, I'm a simple-minded biped, not a philosopher.

We are biological entities, engendered and evolved in a physical environment, governed by and dependent for survival on the same physical laws as are all the inanimate and animate entities in that 'outside world'. Being delimited by a thin layer of dermis and epithelium does not truly divide us from the physical world of which we are a product and in which we live.

Before we evolved to the point of being able to perceive and reason, we received sensory input and nourishment from that same physical outside; we responded to it, interacted with it, injected waste products into it, manipulated and altered it.

Why should be we not be able to say how we experience it, now that we can enhance, measure and articulate our sensory input?

I will describe in brief my moral system. — Brendan Golledge

to whom?

But the stamina to type so many words must count for something.

Just substitute a middle-aged white woman in a suit... It would still be a nothing joke, but nobody would make a fuss over it.

I assumed he was the preacher at a southern baptist church, and from what I remember some of them do need to be more pacific. — Sir2u

It doesn't show. He seems already half asleep in the first frame. Any more pacific than that is comatose>dead>absent>forgotten. The cartoon would be funnier if it dissolved into a typical South Pacific cyclone.

That's not the point though? A realistic infant is needed to be able to tell a story. I don't understand this argument? It sounds more like you don't like seeing infants in movies? — Christoffer

I have already said I don't like kiddie stories very much, let alone baby ones, and all the seemingly obligatory childbirth scenes are just sick-making.
There is no argument. What I meant by the cabbage patch remark was that I don't care whether there are realistic infants in a picture or not.
I conceded your point about their excellent kid-glove treatment - twice.

Sometimes it's also possible to just digitally replace the head of a parent holding a child, to that of the actor. — Christoffer

That's not what I usually see on the screen. I was talking about unconvincing small children. The actor is talking to the toddler, and the toddler is staring off into nowhere, utterly indifferent. Once in a while, you can tell that there is a connection; most of the time, little kids just look daft. After about four or five years old, they begin to act as if they were actually in the scene.

I see the amount of incompetent parents as a bigger reason for traumatic childhoods. — Christoffer

Sure - didn't I just say that? Plus lousy social services, poverty, ignorance, high levels of stress and anxiety, insufficient health care, poor nutrition... Or else too much affluence, overindulgence, sense of entitlement, pressure to excel, to be popular, etc., etc.

A digital baby that's supposed to be viewed in close ups can cost many millions of dollars to make, without any guarantee of it actually looking more convincing than a real infant. — Christoffer

So what? They're not that much fun to look at in real life. Use a Cabbage Patch Kid and it won't bother me - cheaper and less waiting, too.

But that's true for all situations an infant are in, and why it's the responsibility of the parent or caregiver. — Christoffer

Yes. Except that this is a commercial situation, one in which the child's image will be recorded for some foreseeable future and available for commercial use to who knows what entities. Same with photographs. They can be a source of pleasure and nostalgia or shame or exploitation. The subject has no control over the product. The subject, and source of income, is treated as the property of the caregiver.

Parents are usually right next to the camera. — Christoffer

Yes. That's where the kid is looking - not at the actor who is supposed to be their parent in the movie. That's why they're unconvincing in the scene.

Set's aren't mechanical brutal machineries, they're usually boring slow and a lot of waiting. — Christoffer

Yes, I got that from your earlier post. I've already yielded on that score.
If you need them and the parents or guardians are on board, fine. If the kids' lives get ruined, well, that happens a lot more without any cinematic intervention, just through unfortunate circumstances.

Whenever infants are present there's a deep respect among the team members not to cause any stress and there are regulations and rules to follow for shoots involving children and animals. — Christoffer

I'm very glad to know that. Changes the whole perspective. Thanks. No need for ab asurdum comparisons.
Though I still cavil at lack of informed consent. I don't see that infants are necessary, and very small children tend to be unconvincing anyway: they don't make eye contact and rarely respond to the people who are supposed to matter to them in the scene itself - their caregiver is obviously somewhere off-stage. I also admit to a personal prejudice against child-centered story lines.

The reason why many child actors in Hollywood have gone down that route is because many parents and caretakers of these children are forcing their children into fame as an extension for themselves becoming famous. — Christoffer

Agreed. It happens to juvenile athletes, too, and precociously bright children.

Another problem as I see it is that there's an extreme obsession with protecting children today in a way that becomes destructive. — Christoffer

Yes, that is a hallmark of American society. The iconization of innocence. And keeping the young dependent, consuming on their parents' credit cards, out of the work-force, as long as possible.

The overprotection of children systematically makes the children, when later grown up, more susceptible to anxiety — Christoffer

It also keeps them somewhat infantile and self-indulgent well into adulthood, which is another boon to the debt-driven economy.
I found it very interesting to compare the visual images, as well as the biographical information of my European father's cohort (c. 1920-25) at age 18 or 20 to the modern North American men of my own generation. And, for that matter, my childhood to my grandchildren's. I think I was happier - certainly more free. But then, the social environment changed considerably.

I met him once, way back in the early 80's, when they were doing a show on forensic pathology. He was utterly preoccupied with his new glare-free glasses and showed little interest in anything else. Did not make a great impression on the lab staff. But I liked the program and I like his books.