Who’s to say what constitutes corruption? — Joshs

Every human being on the planet. We punish one another enough for perceived immorality; the least we can do is acknowledge one another's moral compass.

....How to draw thr moral lines is far from clear.

Not to me.

...One person’s corruption is another’s innovation.... — Joshs

No, that's backward. Things are innovated by one person and corrupted by another. You cannot corrupt that which does not yet exist.

Now, as for severing heads, there is an abundance of heads which, severed from their bodies, would have beneficial effects on society. I can think of a few dozen right off. — BC

So can I, but they're rarely the class that gets tumbrilled up to the scaffold. Anyhow, my secret desire for the destruction of someone or something I dislike does not turn it into construction.

Survival USUALLY is determined in the short run. In the long run, we're all dead. — BC

The selfish gene wear blinkers. (But we're damn destructive in the short term, too.)

Aren’t all inventors both destructive and constructive? Isnt this true of knowledge in general? — Joshs

I suppose one could find a constructive use for mace and the guillotine, but I'm hard-put to imagine what that is. My contention was that it's not one single invention [capital] that brings all the trouble, but the fact that we can't stop corrupting our inventions.

Has the economic anarchy of capitalism produced the current status quo of 2/3rds of the world living below the poverty line? — an-salad

Not all by itself, but it's a major contributor. Other causes have been imperialism, superstition, technological disparity and climate.

Can a centrally planned economy democratically and logically distribute resources, wealth, and labour of the world? — an-salad

Of course, but people would first have to agree to hand over control - first to the UN, then to a central computing bank. They're unlikely to do that.

Do all historically progressive tasks -such as the end of war and poverty- depend on the overcoming of the barriers erected by the profit system, the division of the world into rival and competing nation states and private ownership of the means of production? — an-salad

That's too many items for this checkout. There were wars long before capitalism, long before the means of production was anything more than an old guy chipping arrowheads on a big rock. People have always fought over land, water, hunting rights, minerals, jealousy, anger, revenge and power. More recently, they've been fighting over crowns, near-identical deities and dominion over other peoples.
Poverty is caused by other factors than profit: overpopulating a confined territory, hunting prey to extinction, unfavourable natural conditions (flood, drought, locust swarm, potato blight) Rival and competing nations states are usually contesting territory, but sometimes a serious divergence of ideologies can also be in effect. Large-scale landowners and warring aristocrats were just as exploitive of the vulnerable classes as are supranational corporations.

I'm inclined to say that humanity's troubles are not caused by any particular human invention so much as the fact that humans keep coming up with destructive inventions.

So suffering is justified as long as a deity is causing or allowing it? — schopenhauer1

Exactly! What's the great big glaring role-model? Jesus - and to a lesser degree, all the martyrs, compared to which the self-flagellation and mortification of medieval monks pales to insignificance. Similarly, the passage rituals of African and Australian peoples have their deities' blessing, as do the Aztecs' self-cutting and piercing. Torturing enemies is fine; setting their towns on fire is lauded; throwing one's own children off towers is demanded, and when it comes to the first-born of Egyptians, he sends an angel for maximum efficiency. (As for the non-humans, modern gods just don't care what happens to them.)

n other words, is an alien morality ever commensurable with human morality? — schopenhauer1

We can only judge from our own perspective, according to our own standards. So can the aliens. In the sense that we can't judge the god's decisions as right or wrong, nor can the god reward or condemn us by any rules we understand. The god idea is based on a morality given to us by the god. Without that, there is no point in gods: you're right back to saying nature or fate or something equally impersonal.

Does it need to be a Big Omni type of god? Let's admit that we know nothing of life on other planets, and so not assume that one god is in charge of the who she-bang. Let's consider a god of this planet alone. Does that have a single entity, or can it have facets? Does it have to be a patriarchal god on the Judeo/Christo/Muslim model? None of those stand up to close scrutiny; if there is a creator-god who designed the operating systems of this planet, it's nothing like the god of the old or new testament.

It is entirely disinterested and amoral. The whole system is set up more like a laboratory experiment than the nursery Christians would like to believe in. If there is such a deity, it neither loves nor censures, saves nor curses: it simply watches how this scenario plays out. Perhaps it's making sketches or computer simulations in the planning of the ideal world it plans to create, in which case, this is just one of many alternative designs. Or it might be a training video for student gods. Then again, it may be no more than an entertainment.

I know such things are tied to culture and that cultures are learned. I would like to know what should people learn and how should that be taught? — Athena

Their own language and at least one other, including grammar and literature.
Arithmetic > mathematics, as far as their ability takes each student.
Science, from direct observation in nature, through general science to the separate disciplines.
World history - not starting from their own nations' glorious past, but from the Paleolithic > anthropology > sociology > world cultures > introduction to the food, social customs, art and music of cultures being studied.
Geography (criminally neglected)
Philosophy (introduction to the major schools and names > in depth; comparative religion. Discussion of applied ethics in each school of thought.
Health - nutrition, hygiene, sexuality/reproduction (and how not to), basic epidemiology and immunology.
Civics, elementary art and music - later to be optional subjects.
Hands-on:
horticulture, starting with a schoolyard garden in Gr 1; basic drafting and construction methods - as an adjunct to math; food preparation and preserving; animal husbandry; road safety, swimming and first aid.

From six to eight years old, I'd have them in open classrooms, divided into study groups of c. 6 students, each group representing the full range of age, academic ability and emotional maturity, and assign lots of group projects, so that they can learn understanding, teamwork, tolerance, self-discipline and the joy of helping one another (iow, socialization) No grades; at the conclusion of each module or project, a group discussion with the teacher presiding. Let them assess the results, divulge what was difficult for them, air any grievances an submit to peer review.

From nine to twelve, classes of 20-25 at individual desks, and a more structured schedule. At this stage, some form of testing should be introduced to establish standards, make sure the foundations are solid and spot problem areas in the instruction.

From thirteen to sixteen (when they're too antsy to sit still and pay attention anyway), I'd take them right out of the classroom and have small groups again engaged in team projects - this time, out in the community - under the guidance of one knowledgeable adult for every five or six students - it wouldn't need to be a certified teacher. Students should be in charge as much as possible. (This is a controversial and possibly contentious issue, but I suggest separating boys and girls for this phase, to minimize preening, posturing and status rivalry.) Encourage discussion and debate before and after each project, not during.
These projects should include some location work, taking the students away from home and letting them practice life skills in a camp-like setting. Leisure hours would feature cookouts, theatrical and musical performance, sports and games, reading, guest speakers and discussion.
At sixteen, bring them back into the classroom and get down to the hard subjects. Now they understand why maths and geometry, how genetics work in evolution, how physics and chemistry operate in the real world. Plus, they're physically fit, emotionally mature and have a clear understanding of their own aptitudes and limitations.

And watching videos about exotic places while eating my lunch.

a more contemporary way of thinking about the real (intra-action that creates material phenomena rather than interaction between pre-existing objects) that has made its way from philosophy into the social sciences. — Joshs

I hope that will satisfy an adolescent's wanderlust.

When I said there was no one real world, I meant that even within the status quo of societal rules and conventions, there are multiple realities at work, in the sense that individuals must interpret rules and conventions as they apply them, even when they believe that everyone in their community is following the ‘same’ legal and moral code. — Joshs

I guess they'll know when the police show up at their door. The justice system doesn't accept everyone's personal interpretation of the rules. Once you're locked up, that's a circumstance you can't easily ignore - but as you say, you can escape - to some degree - through fantasy. Interpretation doesn't much alter the need to abide by laws and earn a living.

If one bureaucrat on the phone says no, hang up and try the next one. — Joshs

Yes, in theory, you could waste your life manoeuvring around the rules, but it wouldn't make you any more mobile and it wouldn't feed your (should you have fallen into the life-trap most people do) children.
And, of course, you'd have to count on never getting kidney cysts if you've spurned the constraint of health insurance premiums.

I think the distinction here is between a notion of the real as bolted down , recalcitrant facts that one must abide by, and real constraints on one’s wandering that are responsive to one’s interpretive frame of reference — Joshs

Yes. Imagination vs reality.

The OP wants to outrun reality , seen as the bolted down facts of conventional society, by constantly changing locations. In other words, it would be a matter of continually swapping out one set of bolted down conventional redirections for another — Joshs

Yes. It was that question to which I responded, not one about an alternate universe.

I think Spinoza and Kant are better examples, or anyone in any creative endeavor who manages to see things differently from the status quo. — Joshs

No, they're not examples at all. They don't ditch school at 14 and go off whistling down the road. But private tutor is another occupation that will provide travel if you manage to latch on to a family that gets posted to various places around the world. The real world, mind - you can't go wandering, willy-nilly in somebody else's kid's imagination.

No one can place limits on the freedom of thought, especially when it comes to creative thought that is invisible to conventional society. — Joshs

Quite so. Every adolescent can dream all they want about the places they'll go and the adventures they'll have. And if they lack imagination, they can watch movies and read books. They can hitch a ride on Sagan's ship of the imagination and visit other galaxies, or Wells' time machine and wander in other eras. Jack London's star rover did it very well.

Not quite the same as a nomadic life in the real - actual, physical, material; place where the body needs sustenance, protection from extreme temperatures and disease, sleep and waste-relief - world.

And by gosh, we need to have the military weapons and a base on the moon, so we can do the will the God, and prevent the evil enemies who are jealous of us, from doing anything that might be against the will of God. — Athena

At least the American military boot industry is thriving! Unfortunately, 'we' have already supplied a great many weapons to the chosen of that other god, A---h, whose will runs contrary, while the blessed of Mao can make their own.

What is this ‘real world’ you speak of? I’ve never encountered it — Joshs

So, you've been living in Narnia or Oz maybe? I'm pretty sure the societies there also place limits on individual freedom and obligations on their members. Unless you're a witch?

Only the person who orders their life in terms of many special and inflexible convictions about temporary matters makes themselves the victim of circumstances. — Joshs

Yeah, like I said, most people. Not ascetic hermits, yogis on the verge of Nirvana or Ayn Rand.

Or any job involving remote work that can be done from a laptop anywhere in the world where there’s a cell or wifi signal. — Joshs

Good example. of a mobile occupation. I'm sure there are others. The biggest problem is, you have to stay put and pay tuition while training, and then you have to persuade some employer to hire you. IOW, you can't start your peregrinations straight out of middle-school. And during that early adulthood, you have to avoid romantic and other entanglements that might serve as anchors.

So, why do some of us want to be nomads, and is it a better life (interpret better how you want)? — Ø implies everything

In middle school, everyone dreams of some form of escape - running away with the circus, joining the merchant marine, camping out in the north woods and living off the land - some variation of the independent loner fantasy. It is an age when fledglings long o fly and feel that adults are both constraining them and demanding too much. And it's true: in the real world, society sets limits to personal freedom and imposes obligations on its members.

Most people grow out of that adolescent rebellion, either because there are things they desire and want to accomplish, or because circumstance forces them onto a path not of their own choosing. But some do run away with a circus of one sort or another or take off on their to see the world.
The nomadic life is a hand-to-mouth existence. One can busk, beg or take odd jobs where he finds them. Since almost nobody will hire an unkempt (no washing facilities on the street) person with no address or phone number (you don't earn enough to subscribe), these would poor, brief jobs. If you could make yourself presentable enough, you could rent out your body, I suppose. It's not exactly a life of adventure.

There are some real world alternatives: seasonal work in landscaping, construction, snow removal, fruit picking, marine shipping. You could go from place to place, rent a room, take a low-paid temporary job, save up for a ticket, then move on. Some people do live that way - but again, it's short intervals of movement between longer intervals of tedium; not exactly adventure. Another possibility is to work long enough to buy a van to live in, but you would still need fresh sources of income. Unless you really did carry a backpack into the north woods. The catch is, it's too cold to survive there without a shelter, which you would have to build... and then you're settled, after all, only a whole lot harder.

Ideally, if you're of a nomadic disposition, you should train for a mobile occupation: join the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders; be a surveyor, salesman or long-distance trucker.

"look we understand one another, we're just disagreeing on conventions" -- how do you make that disagreement into a productive disagreement rather than the termination? — Moliere

By making the next sentence: "How do you interpret democracy?" ...and paying attention to the answer.

Alas, you are conflating the concept of money (an imaginary way of equating the relative value of various goods and services) with capitalism and multinationals/globalism. — LuckyR

No, I was replying to Athena on the benefits of capitalism. Of course, I doubt capitalism could operate without money, but capitalism is not a direct or inevitable product of money. In theory, money could have been restricted to paying the armies to plunder other peoples.

The growing human population is destroying the planet no matter if this explosion of humanity is in a third country or a modern technological one — Athena

Except that the poor people, in either place, have a whole lot less reproductive choice than the rich ones. However, a rise in the standard of living for poor people, which invariably leads to a decline in the birth rate (the more babies survive, and the more choice women have, the fewer babies - works every time) But that's not going to happen. The growing wealth * of the already-too-rich gathering more wealth from the third countries to amass in the first ones by modern technological methods will continue to guarantee that the poor just keep getting poorer.

* If you ignore everything else, just look at this article.

At no other time in the history of our planet has the human problem been as bad as it is today. — Athena

Nor has the disparity of wealth. I wonder whether there's a connection. Is it really because a cycle rickshaw operator has six kids to feed that the rivers are poisoned? And do those six kids really use up twice as much of the world's resources as three of Walton's? Is it the extra child soldiers and slaves

The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. is an extension of an illegal practice in Africa. Families send their daughters to work for money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life.

that contribute more to glaciers melting, or the trafficking of vast amounts of goods to well-off consumers?
Of the ten biggest strip mines in South and Central America, three are owned by South American interests; the rest belong to investors from Canada, the US, UK, Mexico and Australia. Beef farming is a great investment for North Americans: apparently, there is still 'undeveloped' land in Paraguay, and it won't be wasted on local people eating well. https://www.gatewaytosouthamerica-newsblog.com/cattle-ranching-in-paraguay-an-investors-perspective/

Not when needing to tribe with the tribe that is far away and has rocks that we want. To make that trade we need a concept of money. — Athena

So, don't make that trade. We don't really need oil from Iraq. How many lives has that little transaction cost, so far? How much in money and resources? (That's a bare outline, with no mention of what's been going on behind the arras.)

But Chinese women and Indian children and African men work twice as hard for a tenth of the pay, and their governments, sufficiently lubricated with bribes, are not too fussy about what you spill on the way out. So all the garden gnomes come from China and the American Guild of Gnome Crafters is sleeping on the street.

Around the world people flooding out of overpopulated countries with the hope of having a better life where capitalism is strong. I don't think they know about the human exploitation of capitalism. — Athena

Poor deluded them! Wait till they're offered only $100 per kidney.

We are on a radically changing world with far more humans than there are resources. — Athena

Balderdash! The overpopulation could easily be remedied - could have been, for decades now - if there wasn't more profit in keeping them barefoot and pregnant and dependent on the bosses.

We document the health consequences of the “Mexico City Policy” (MCP), which restricts US funding for abortion-related activities worldwide. Since its enactment in 1985,

and of course, the aid and comfort offered by successful capitalist countries to despots in less successful ones - you know that sweetheart deal, right? They give the foreign 'investors' free rein to plunder their nations' resources and the industrialists supply them weapons to keep the peons in check.

What percent of those resources are used toward the welfare of the natives who live and work on the land compared to the percent that goes into disposable crap for consumers in 'developed' countries? How much is wasted? How much becomes toxic waste?

Capitalism appropriates all the resources, exploits all the humans and then doles out a few drips and drabs of largesse (making sure their name is displayed in big gold letters) on art galleries, libraries and opera house - none of which benefits the gold miner in Africa or the South American farmer whose land was planted in coffee for export, so he can't grow food his family.... and no, he can't forage in the jungle like his ancestors did, because it's been bulldozed and burned to make room for export beef cattle.

Let's not get together to talk about Frick - some of us might have unkind words for him.

Weird, twisted -- and fun — Moliere

Well, yes. If you're looking for a way in which humans are unique, I guess it's that we make things up. Some of that fantasy leads on to great inventions and discoveries; a lot of it is fun, but it also digs some deep dark tunnels covered in phosphorescent toxic slime. And, as a bonus, conspiracy theories, cults and political fragmentation.

As if to say "Abandon All Hope All Ye Who Enter Here"? — Moliere

I didn't equate those two sentiments. But, of course there is no getting out of one's species - except by a long hard slog evolutionary slog. And of course brain configuration is a major factor in the range and complexity of thought of which a species is potentially capable. That doesn't mean every individual of the species approaches anywhere near the potential. And of course socialization also plays an important part - as it does in other intelligent species (and some not quite so clever ones); even the notable exception

Researchers have published reports of octopuses gathering in large groups on the seafloor, sharing dens, using color and gesture to communicate, and forming cooperative hunting parties with fish.

I believe humans tend toward overcomplication because they combine reasoning capacity with imagination. That imagination has been most useful in many ways, but when it uses reason as a vehicle, rather than other way around, it drives us into quagmires of weird and twisted thinking.

There's something else I wanted to say, but I think it might rely on what amounts to a myth that traditional societies as not only homogeneous but static. — Srap Tasmaner

For 'static', substitute 'stable'. Ructions and upheavals generally had an external cause, rather than dissent within the group. When a serious difference of opinion arose, a group might split and go separate ways, rather than start a civil war the way more complex, heterogeneous societies might: almost nobody wants to kill his uncle or cousin.

My thought was that homogeneity could also cut the other way because members of such a society would have so little experience of divergent views — Srap Tasmaner

Why should that be? Have you never seen brothers and sisters fight? Anyway, tribal societies were not so isolated as all that. They generally had trade relations with several other communities, and big social gatherings a couple of times a year, with dancing and feasting - particularly so that young people could meet potential mates from other groups.

I think the cause of misunderstanding among humans is not in the conventions, so much as in the versatility of human language. So much of our theoretical, conceptual, intellectual communication correspond to nothing concrete in the real world that we couch our less pragmatic ideas in metaphor and borrow words that mean something ordinary to use for something entirely different.
To run, in the real world means to move one's legs very fast to achieve rapid forward motions. So how is a great big cumbersome building caused to perform that action? And yet, this skinny guy in a suit 'runs the factory'. How the hell does a 2 ton contrivance of metal parts propel itself over a pool of liquid fossil fuel - and yet all kinds of cars 'run on gasoline'. And those are examples of pragmatic usages. Wait till we get into moral precepts, which have no real-world components at all!

Right, there's certainly training of some kind in something, but it's hard to pin down the details. — Srap Tasmaner

Not really. People have been studying avian behaviour for a long time, making videos and recordings. Might be worth your while to seek out some nature shows on You Tube.

I'm doing great and can't honestly come up with a past that puts me in an overall superior present. — LuckyR

So... you happen at the moment to be somewhere that's not burning, blowing away in a tornado, flooded out, falling into a sinkhole, starving or getting bombed. Lucky by name, lucky by accident. Don't look up; it can change in a second.

But there may still be a problem, because D2's behavior, unlike speech, and unlike Scruffy's display and vocalization, was not intended to be communicative. — Srap Tasmaner

His response was. He's easily Scruffy's physical superior: younger, leaner, tougher. He made not even a token gesture; no hackle-raising, side-walking or flat ears, just took three or four polite steps back and sat down. (Hey, dude, chill. I did'n mean nuthin.) It worked, this time. But they have had a few scuffles which they're invited, in no uncertain terms, to take outside - even in January.

My thought is that some signs, like democracy or socialism, don't have such a straightforward symbolic meaning, that they have a multitude of associations that make it difficult to pin down something straigtforward. — Moliere

Yes, that's humans for you! Overcomplicate everything.

But even the great apes don't seem to understand that 7+5/12=1, — Moliere

Neither would any human who has not been specifically instructed in arithmetic. But that's not part a natural language. That's a specialized artificial language invented by adults to keep track of their possessions and punish their children. Apes in laboratories can learn a great many human-invented symbols that have no function or meaning in the ape's world, just as dogs and horses learn unnatural behaviours under human tutelage. I don't see many humans learning to read urine tags or the wind. Different forms of communication can be acquired with study and practrice, but they don't come equally easily to all species or individuals.

our trans-genomic-adaptability is our main advantage, I think. — Moliere

Plus a big, super-convoluted and oxygenated brain. Of course, that can sometimes be a handicap, as well: difficult birth, long maturation period, a ridiculous number of possible ways to malfunction, both individually and societally.
It's easier for other animals to get the terminology right every time, since they're naming real things with known characteristics: I very much doubt any humans would mistake a snake for a hawk, either, and monkeys don't have garden hoses lying around to confuse the issue.

. Not clear to me whether there's anything conventional about signaling systems among other animals or not. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't know. The young of the more sophisticated species are taught by their mother the rudiments of expected behaviour, and the social ones have their education enhanced by other members of the pack, flock or troop. I would imagine that vocal communication would be included in that education (crows are certainly vocal enough, especially when instructing the fledglings - everybody participates.) Maybe Jane Goodall has been privy to these communications, but I don't suppose many humans are. Konrad Lorenz had some interesting observations about geese and jackdaws, wolves and dogs in King Solomon's Ring.

Yeah, I wrote that story, too. It's one of the alternate scenarios.

Loved the Zeitgeist movie. The Venus project cities look clever and beautiful, but they're still cities, so I dunno about living in one. Work great on Mars, though, wouldn't they?

I truly don't understand your first sentance. Of course that's my Modern human bias showing, but you can't write your sentance in this thread without acquiring a phone or computer. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you don't have the skillset to make your own electronic equipment. — LuckyR

I, too, live in and cope with the modern environment, like everyone else. But I'm not forced to limit my imagination to the present condition; I can learn about various pasts, speculate on alternative presents and project possible futures.

True, humans could have stayed in the hunter-gatherer stage or even the most primitive agricultural stage by eschewing the concept of money. — LuckyR

Well, they didn't. Some of them made the mistake of clumping themselves into walled cities and setting up lords and bosses to trample all over them, and whom they joined in trampling all over everybody who didn't live the way they did - in debt, alienation, fear and bondage. Modern civilization was a very costly experiment, and it has failed; at this very moment, it's tearing itself and the planet on which it stands to pieces. Pretty soon, the remnant of humanity will be divided into the billionnaires (minus their financial infrastructure) walled up in their bunkers, small bands of nomads hunting and gathering whatever they can find in the wreckage, and roving gangs of armed cannibals. None of them will have either money or the skillset to make things, so they'll have to make use of whatever hasn't burned up in some remote amazon warehouse.
And after the smoke clears... a long succession of radiation-induced mutations will eventually stabilize in a new species... or make way for the giant mutant rats and their cockroach armies.

I'll try. Like I said, it's hard to explain.
The feral cats on back porch (a colony of 7-11 at any given time) have complicated relationships. The two indoor cats have a fairly simple relationship: the small neutered female is a bit tom-cat phobic, because of harassment in her pre-domestic adolescence. The big neutered male is mostly placid, but can be a bit of a bully when he's in a bad mood; she knows to stay clear of him then. The third domestic cat, another neutered male, spends more time outside with his native people than in here with us. So his manners are kind of rustic.
The outside cats get fed in bowls scattered all along the porch and they go back and forth, displacing one another, sharing, switching bowls: mealtimes are constant motion. D2 (aka Brown Cat) is often part of that food-shuffle. Inside, each cat has a separate feeding place: Scruffy's bowl is next to the kibble; D2's is next to the water; Sammy's is up on the counter.
But they don't necessarily eat on schedule.
D2 may come in and be the only one in the laundry room. He starts eating the first food he comes to, like they do outside. But that's Scruffy's dish. If Scruffy happens by just then, he takes this as an affront to his status; it could be a challenge. He doesn't just shove his larger head into the bowl, forcing the other one aside, as the outside cats assert seniority; he makes an issue of it. He huffs, flattens his ears and utters that low throaty mwaaa sound.
D2 turns to face him but doesn't raise his hackles or hiss; he's just like "What??" But he backs off to a safe distance; there is no confrontation. After a cautious pause, Scruffy approaches his bowl, sniffs at it and walks away on stiff legs. Property secured; status confirmed. D2 sits, licks his paws, cleans the backs of his ears ("wonder what his problem is...") and resumes eating.

No, I don't think I have. I know it happens, from domestic interactions I've observed, but I don't believe it shows up much in the literature, because it's so difficult to document objectively. I know it happens only because I'm familiar with the participants and their relationships. I'm reasonably sure that researchers who work closely with other species also understand their individual peculiarities, but that's very hard to translate into scientific language.
This is a characteristic and chronic problem with communication: how to transfer one kind of understanding to a different form of expression and retain credibility.

How do you know? — Moliere

In the daytime, I watch bluejays, crows, chipmunks, cats, dogs, human children and raccoons - they do come out sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, but are communicative only after sunset. At night, I watch documentaries and read books.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-98032-001
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-02624-9_2
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963721420979580

This article is part of the theme issue ‘What can animal communication teach us about human language?’

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2018.0405

I'm interested in anthropology, cognition and language.

And we've done that not just with different languages, but if we go far back enough then we did it without any language whatsoever -- or, at least, that's how the story goes. — Moliere

That story is inaccurate. "We" did nothing. A very long line of mammals before us, birds and reptiles before them, elaborated systems of communication that we, in our superstitious arrogance, didn't take into consideration when contemplating the origins of our language. Much older species have used vocal cues as warnings, threats, alarms, greetings, indications of mood, expressions of satisfaction, pleasure, anger, sorrow, pain, identification or solidarity. The more socially integrated a group of animals is, the better each individual's, especially those of the vulnerable young, chances of survival. The more precise and comprehensive its means of communication, the better that group's social integration and the more efficiently it can coordinate individual efforts.

In this way of looking language is just kind of an accident that happened along the way, that came along "for free" but had no purpose at the level of a general description of species-being or speciation. — Moliere

Neither. Language evolved along with the brain capacity of hominids, for the purpose of uniting and organizing social units and coordinating their individual efforts in defense, food-acquisition, evading predators and rearing the young.

And how, exactly does one acquire clothing — LuckyR

Why does one need to acquire things? The earliest clothing was made by the wearer or a member of their community. The earliest writing appears on cave walls and roadside rocks, accessible to all. Could have just carried on in the same spirit of sharing.

books being almost impossible to manufacture in the absence of a modern style economy — LuckyR

Why should that be so? Canoes, bows, teepees, rugs and beautifully beaded leather footwear can be crafted without using a single gold sovereign or dollar bill. Why are books an exception?
Actually, if any humans survive The Event there won't be any economy and all their needs will probably be supplied either by their own efforts or by robots that don't require payment.

Humankind had two very good inventions: clothing and writing, and two very bad ones: money and religion.

And we have two camps with that set of motivations disagreeing with one another on the correct way to proceed on... well, lots of things. — Moliere

That's the picture in many countries today. But sometimes, it has been monolithic - like the suasion of the RCC in medieval Europe. Other times and places, there may be multiple parties representing interest groups or opinions, and there still be civil discourse in a single language. I see anxiety-level as the main determinant of extreme divergence and distortion. ("Fear is the mind-killer.")

All of this is tied to oil and our national debt and a dramatic change in education and culture. If you all know at least enough to relate to what I am saying, I will be very thankful. — Athena

All this is tied to capitalism and its own relentless internal logic. I do admire your perseverance and consistency, even as believe you misattribute the cause.

For general information:

Reporter: Can you describe what it feels like to be you?
GPT-3: It feels amazing to be me! I'm the biggest, baddest dinosaur around, and everyone knows it. I love to show off my strength and power, and I love to make people fear me. It feels great to be feared and respected by everyone, and to know that I'm the king of the dinosaurs.

The operative phrase in all that gibberish is "if you assume"
If you assume something absurd, all the universe will thereby be rendered absurd. If you assume something ordered and logical, all the laws of physics will follow suit. If you assume that a robot can mimic your convoluted thinking, the robot will oblige.
Assume me out of the circle game.

The aim of reason is to use information as a tool (completing a goal). — chiknsld

What's that to do with ethics?

I would argue that life has objective value otherwise it would not exist. In other words, life exists because it has an objective value which is able to necessitate itself within the universe. — chiknsld

This is perfectly circular.

If you are not using the universe as the measuring stick then your entire justification for the validity of human reason falls flat — chiknsld

How the hell do you use the universe as a measuring-stick, for what....? I don't recall attempting to 'justify' human reason and I don't see why that would... In fact, I have no idea what you mean by any of that.

That is the power of charisma. — Athena

And what you described was not a leader; it is a sociopath. US media should have ignored him to death from the minute he announced his candidacy - he only does what he does for the attention; he's an addict. Instead, they're still featuring his ugly, stupid smirk every single day on my annoying pop-ups screen. I see nothing in PBS broadcasting - not news shows, not documentaries and not discussion or interview shows - that promote any such behaviour. But I used to see plenty of it on FUX, before we cancelled regular television. Now I don't hear the vitriol or the advertising.
Minor point of accuracy: Trump didn't raise an army. Trump can't hide a few dozen boxes of stolen documents - what makes you think he's competent to organize anything? The yahoos recruited over half a decade by Wallace, Goldwater, Gingrich et al, propagandized by Sinclair/Murdoch, armed to the teeth by the NRA lobby and empowered by the southern GOP election-fraud machine, were economically insecure, emotionally immature, chronically aggrieved and primed for someone to point them out a scapegoat and say "Throw your tantrum. I'll let you get away with it." That's all he did, and he's still trying to bribe them with the promise of pardons. The situation had been set up by the constitution, pushed to the back-burner and pulled to the front by various political factions as it served their interest from time to time. All trump did was plug into a ready-made slot at the moment their two biggest betes noires were looming on the horizon and then keep telling them what they wanted to hear.