Having a family is just one of those choices and choosing not to or to be actively anti-natalist is fine a fantasy for a select few to entertain of their own free accord but if it were elevated to a statistically significant number this could imply far reaching economic, social, or cultural turmoil. In this sense people naturally choose the direction which usually creates benefits for our own economic growth and social stability — substantivalism

It is quite hard to understand what you're actually getting at in this para (the whole thing, not just not part). It seems you want to say that an anti-natalist view is somehow immoral as it would lead to X. But the former, you want to reject that possible framework?

Otherwise, a great post that does, ironically, stay quite neutral. Thanks mate

I’ve already stated my reasoning. The effects cannot be shown to reach as far as you say they do. The objects, structures, and energies responsible for such movements, responses, and actions are not the same as the ones you claim they are. There is no argument for censorship save for superstition and magical thinking. — NOS4A2

This is definitely you with fingers in your ears. No matter.. THe world will continue to turn.

No, probably not. But I do think any large-scale rioting of this kind should be quelled. Whos to do it?

Edit: Appeal court just halted the requirement to hand 'em back to Newsom. So, i guess they're going in? NG, that is.

I have to say I did not expect this.

yep. But they shade off into each other in a way that we can't really deal with in real time.

usually the level of violence depends on how law enforcement chooses to respond — Mr Bee

Good lord. If this is the type of stuff Republicans deal with socially, I am unsurprised by their stupid reactions.

100%.

Still, I rate cannabis as more consequential than cigarettes — BC

Negatively?

ven though I think safe drug use sites are a good idea, I wouldn't want to work or live next to one or have it next to a school; it would attract some disreputable people. — BC

Definitely.

I told you I wasn't aware of this. I'm not asking you to do anything.

Biden supported racial riots. I'm not really saying anything here - just that people are going to see things the way they see things. Trump, himself, certainly doesn't seem like 'a racist'. The administration definitely has racists among it.

Yes, obviously. This is not a serious discussion if you think otherwise.

A speechwriter for the Trump administration has been fired following reports that he spoke at a white nationalist conference in 2016. — RogueAI

Wow that sucks.

Does this indicate though that the administration perhaps isn't quite so gung-ho racist as purported? Unsure - but worth noting that this could cut both ways. Sitll, thanks for that. I wasn't aware.

Definitely. I was going to mention Jan 6. But more on point would be this:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/funeral-etiquette-trumps-blue-suit-133712946.html

You get quotes like this from a fucking legal expert:

"One guy shows up in a blue suit to the pope's funeral. You will never guess who" from Filipkowski.

All you need do is zoom out a little bit to know that this entire narrative is a complete an utter lie. Similar to "fine people on both sides". There is a rather extreme tendency to flagrantly misrepresent Trump to flare up social rage. The number of retracts The View has had to put out is embarrassing.

That isn't particularly reasonable. Personal opinion i guess. Just a way to make it look better.

I don't understand how looking at a few video clips and pictures makes anyone think they can judge the scope of the entire situation. — prothero

If we're aware of hte geography of the city, and have plenty of aerial photography I can't understand how you cannot. Statements from officials are so far removed from anything remotely approaching 'evidence' I just can't wrap my mind around how you're approaching this. Sorry if that's coming off insulting or anything. I'm somewhat incredulous, tbh.

Have you ever been to LA — prothero

Yes.

Do you always think those who disagree with you are not serious or worth having a discussion with? — prothero

Are you serious with this question? Because this is just further showing me that you are not seriously engaging a discussion - no good faith here, if this is a serious question.

(the extent of which could hardly be evaluated) — prothero

If you can't evaluate them against the objection facts of the extend of LA, the extent of downtown LA, the numbers involved and the levels of violence I am unsure what to say....
I'm unsure I have, since Jan 6, seen swathes of politically-motivated pundits deny what is before their eyes in my lifetime (particularly in reliance on biased and clearly politically motivated officals statements which contradict the video and image evidence - and hte evidence of those who are literally under attack). Victim blaming at its finest, I say.

This is more reliable than the police chief of L.A. , the mayor and the governor of the state. — prothero

Yes. Obviously. This is not a serious discussion if you think otherwise. This seals it:

Your are not striking me as trying to get a fair and balanced picture of the overall situation rather just confirming your preexisting bias — prothero

Oh brother.

I am not condoning rioting, assault or destruction of property — prothero

To be fully clear, i don't expect anyone here does (except maybe Mikie and probably not him even). I do expect people to be incapable of seeing the truth, for their prior commitments though. I don't actually have any. They're all shitheads to me.

this gorgeous Masterpiece. Unfortunately, they have no other songs I'm even remotely moved by.

That's a racist action, though.

Your point isn't lost, hence my only real conclusion being:

it isn't that hard to see why people are going to equivocate. — AmadeusD

When the sorts of racism I'm picking up are overtly defended I have no problem with acting as if (though, this is wrong) its on the same level of some of Trumps statements. but again, i don't think either is actually racist. These sorts of moves (i.e "No, this form of racism is fine. In fact, we will re-define racism so it doesn't capture these clearly racially-motivated policies which detriment, or lift up specific racial groups for opportunity") are precisely hte kind of moves an authoritarian would make prior to something like "whites need to stay at home".

Oh wait. That's also happened, in some areas (though, no govt. backed at all - sidenote, and definitely glib).

Oh.. fwiw: I think Trump is a worse speaker than Biden by some considerable margin (last 36 months or so notwithstanding). He will make more mistakes than any other official, and seems to be doing so. He just doubles down, which is imbecilic when he could clarify that he sucks at it but his ego wont let him). So, I actually give Trump a bit more margin for error in this sense - he's mostly talking shit. A bigger problem, in a different way.

Yes. Actual videos and pictures of the riots across multiple areas, which include vandalism, looting and various forms of assault.

I am unsure why you would trust an official over that. Particularly one's who aren't excatly bastions of truth and light.

Does that happen in a non racist administration? — RogueAI

"If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black!" - Joe Biden

It seems perhaps so. We could put this down to Biden making a gaffe, but that's cop out material. Given that his administration put forward at least a few overtly racist policies or guidelines (COVID recovery, ARP, COVID mortgage relief guidelines etc..) it isn't that hard to see why people are going to equivocate.

Its hard to think Trump or Biden are actually racist - they both played to their audience. Does this mean everyone is racist? Probably all the loud people, yes.

Are we really wanting to play that game? AI is literally designed to not report accurately on politically charged issues. It tells us as much, in many cases. We have seen the videos. We have seen the pictures. We have eyes - we don't need an AI to trawl the internet for reports written by other humans. We can see the riots ourselves.

This was also said of BLM, with buildings burning and assaults occurring at the time.

past major riots. — prothero

Give it time. BLM riots lasted months. I'm not pretending this riot is somehow as big or bad as some previous ones at this moment. But "mostly peaceful" simply ignores the non-peaceful aspects - which are the point.

BLM was "mostly peaceful" but 19 people died and $1-$2bil in damages occurred having achieved nothing, and was based on a lie (two, actually). So its probably best not to use terms designed to prevaricate and have been shown to be disingenuous.

I think this entirely depends on the individual and the vice. I've been at the mercy of several vices through my life, and am pretty strong-willed generally (eg: I quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey 0o 25 March 2020 and have never looked back once).

When I was heroin addict it was because I sought out heroin (though, tbf, the situation in which i encountered it finally was lets say lucky). I pulled it to me, in some sense, because I was 13 and entirely taken with the romantic view of heroin as an accessory to the tortured artist (or some such.. can't quite remember, as you can imagine).

When I was an alcohol addict, it was because drinking curtailed (significantly) heroin withdrawal when I quit heroin and it was readily available (I had a full beard and ass-length hair by 15 when I quit). Push?

When I was a sex addict, I was both approached, and sought sex. Both?

Hard to know - I think it's more interesting to think of something like social media which is 100% pushed. Its a much more subtle "push" that Curtis Mayfield would want. But I don't think that changes it.

Enjoy the thread - Can't add much more than Wayfarer has said.

Perhaps I would add that that account doesn't seem to engage literal suffering, as laid out here. That seems to be something that, to avoid, would be to dismiss some of one's humanity.

Yeah, i'd agree, but I don't rush to immediately condemn it.

I tend to just look at what's happening in each case - BLM, I was on board with until I realised it based on a lie (disproportionate death of unarmed black men in Police encounters - absolute nonsense) and subsequently meant it was very, very close to what i'd consider a terrorist insurrection.

In this case, I see things like that the rioters are protesting deporting but flying flags of the countries they refuse to return to. Totally unserious and it looks like an excuse for the normal, social-media-enraged Youth to feel historically important and self-righteous by way of "morally permissible" violence. Again, totally unserious in my view.

eDefinitely worthwhile, even if only in a wider sense!

I'm unsure that's right, but I understand the point and I think its an interesting, if not even illuminating way of thinking about it.

This is clearly not BLM levels of dickheadery, but its the same shit. Businesses looted, cars destroyed, highways blocked:

"Police reported people were shooting fireworks at officers. Rocks, scooters and cinder blocks were thrown at police cars. People attempted to set police cruisers on fire. Protesters also threw cinder blocks at police officers and at other people.[100] Five Waymo driverless cars were vandalized, set alight, and destroyed. LAPD officials warned that burning lithium-ion batteries releases toxic gasses."

"The LAPD reported that looting had occurred at stores in the area of 6th Street and Broadway (downtown Los Angeles),[106][107] as well as near 8th Street and Broadway.[108] Several fires were also reported to have been set in dumpsters and trash bins. Numerous buildings, including the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, the United States Courthouse, and the old Los Angeles Times Building, were tagged with graffiti. At least one store had windows shattered by alleged looters.[109] Multiple windows at the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters were also broken.[109]"

"Mayor Bass declared a local state of emergency ..."

This "mostly peaceful" shit has got to stop. By numbers? Maybe. That isn't the point.

The vast majority of protestors are peaceful. — prothero

Clear horseshit. These are views of entire blocks and full stretches of highway - multiple cities, multiple neighbourhoods. This is just having blinkers on, at this stage.

Entirely reasonable people have serious objections to the methods and process being used by Trump. — prothero

Agreed.

The rest of your post tells me nothing, really. If people are here illegally, they should be deported. If people are rioting over that, sleep in their own beds. They are rioting, so they can sleep in their own beds.

This, again, acknowledging that Trump is absolutelyultra vires here (for the most part). That said, ICE agents being doxxed with families being threatened for enforcing laws and following their lawful commands (i.e chain of command instruction) is reason enough to protect their identities in lieu of ignoring immigration laws.

Once again, for complete clarity: Some of the methods are obviously overstep. Riots are too. Being here illegally isn't in any way ambiguous, or a 'humanitarian' issue. Its a legal issue with a clear and obvious response required.

Police is an entirely different system of justice than what existed in feudal times and emerges out of colonialization as an occupation army needing to pacify the local population. — boethius

This seems completely untrue, to my understanding. The first modern police force was Louis' in the 17th C in France.

The earliest American Systems were jus formalized watchmen systems utilizing local enforcers and militias. Municipal police is a different story, but still seems to not have a lot to do with anything colonial, per se. It was a density issue being dealt with by formalizing overwhelmed informed policing systems as above.

Of course the main evil of police is the whole justice system of essentially disappearing citizens from the community and imprisoning them without possibility of work, generally in a process without any effective rights for the poor. — boethius

This is an utterly bizarre way of characterizing protecting wider society from the ills of people who cannot conform to the social contract. Exile is less humane, but more on-point. Would we want that?

Police are not members of the community with duties to and interest in the community but a garrison force imposed on the local population to serve the interests of a distant power. — boethius

Pure nonsense.

That leapfrogs the issue I've put forward, though. Which is that there aren't many people who are reasonable on that side of this (this, of course, being a total generalization but it is based on far more than my experience personally).

The agents are masked for extremely good reason. The optics are noted, nevertheless. As I noted, Trump's policies are wild. I am not defending them. But that doesn't mean the responses is any better. "no one is illegal" and "look how violent I can be" don't work, and never have.

I've been using Gemini - it's much much better.
Yeah, but that's not quite the case, is it? It's only people in the US since a certain time. 18 years, it seems. Given that current immigration is the problem (across the last 9 years, anyway) this wont be relevant to much of the discussion.
Your point is taken.

Yes, I've misunderstood the framework.

It seems, though, if you haven't lived it 18 years, you can't get this status, no?
That's an incredibly high barrier and butters no bread for the current issues, I'd think.

Yes, sorry, that was silly wording.

My point was just to show that it is very circumscribed, and there are several limits on it. These people aren't granted the right to stay in the US based on some time spend - they must meet the criteria and continue to do so (aging out, eventually - so, there is no continuing safety in the program, it seems) while renewing actively their status every two years or so. That said, I have nothing against this - I'm just saying there is no way for a person to simply stay in the US for a certain period and be granted the right to continue staying.

I'd also posit this is a privilege, rather than right, but that could be nitpicking here.

Weinstein will now likely die in prison.

Good.

That is in pursuit of the normal process of citizenship gaining though, right? It's not going to be indefinite and it doesn't actually grant people anything but a stay.

Ah, i see what you're getting at. I guess I disagree about your concepts of man and woman. I do agree they are something to do with sex, but only as an indicator/director. I don't find any real 'connection'. Sort of like something being "red". Sometimes obvious, sometimes quite a muddled thing (yellow? orange? Salmon?). This is why I also accept "non-binary". I just find the types of people who claim that ID are already insufferably self-absorbed.

Is being the discrete, solid thing that it appears to us to be a feature of "things as they are", which we have only to note and make true statements about?

Rather, isn't it the case that our particular needs and capacities as humans allow us to perceive and group items in the world according to categories like "discrete" and "solid"? — J

1. Yes. It is a fact about the world; true without humans (is my view);
2. Yes. That does not mean they do not exist otherwise.

My point is that we don't approach the world as a collection of neutral phenomena which hold still for us as we go on to discover what is true about them. — J

I think we do. I think that is the intuition of 99+% of people and, as far as I can tell, the basis for why anything we do actually works.

We have a large role to play in constituting the phenomena we then say true things about. — J

I have been over this position a few times (in various forms - a semi-popular one in phil). I don't buy it. I don't think we have anything to do with the actual things which are out there that we are describing. We constitute our own concepts, and overlay these onto those things - thus, potentially creating daylight between the 'real world' and ourselves (i'm an anti-realist about perception, anyways just not objects). But I do not buy, and can't see any reason to think this affects the world around us, rather htan our internal (collectively internal?) world.

It means that "things as they are" should probably be reserved for a particular reductive conception of physics, and even there viewed with some doub — J

Hmmm. I can still buy this, due to the (now) bolded above. That said, I do not think anything at all is going amiss when we do this outside of those fields. It seems to be hte case - we're just inadequately clear when we want to make that distinction, i'd say.

Also, if you wanted to confine "things as they are" to terms of intersubjectivity — J

That certainly could be done.. No real issue.

No, because you've conditioned out the context in which that is a crime. Disparaging is also a little weak to reach any kind of a legal benchmark.

He certainly could. But I highly doubt anyone would entertain that argument from someone running for President. But, as I understand the law, yes, he could absolutely sue several outlets and untold individuals for defamation. Musk could do the same. But why would they?

I think it is entirely just and appropriate to remove any undocumented immigrants who aren't facing genuine crisis (i.e are at the start of their illegal tenure and can reasonably be expected to comply with some onerous process of getting citizenship) and, like Obama wanted/did, they go to the back of the line.

Trump's policies are wild(bad, immoral, unfortunate, only semi-helpful to his goal), but the point of them is absolutely spot-on. The riots are an excuse for angry, ideological people to do damage to their own communities while flying flags of countries they refuse to return to.

I haven't had a single reasonable conversation with someone who supports the riots yet. They just lie about it being peaceful and pretend it has something to do with "No one is illegal". Yes they fucking are.

I think of gender as a socially organised way to order sexual behaviour through our daily praxis. — Dawnstorm

Ahh ok, that's fair. A slightly stronger version that I would use is all. Fully makes sense of what you're saying though, thank you.

ou talk about exceptions for a rule. — Dawnstorm

Not quite - I don't think gender and sex are rule-bound. They vary almost interdependently but this is no rule - a mere observation. Does that resolve that tension?

And I think the problem is socially re-inforced complacency: it's not our problem. Unless we're trans. — Dawnstorm

I think this is entirely true, on every level. It simply isn't our problem when others gender and sex vary independently. That's fine. I'm unsure that the preceding comments apply in that light, thought I understand their purpose. I just don't think we're looking for rules (though, i assume TRAs are in order to justify enforcing their identities on others social worlds).

If there are no biological markers somewhere around sex that regulate those exceptions... how can we tell? If there are, listening to trans people and what they're paying attention to should be interesting. — Dawnstorm

I agree - and i find it entirely uninteresting to speak with trans people about this specific issue. It is a mess, and rarely comes coherent or in a to-be-taken-seriously form, I think. The only claim is that trans people have the brain of the opposite sex. I note this is untrue, and usually only trotted out to support trans women which goes directly to my fundamental scepticism in the area (not about people's ID - but about people's motivations and what that means for society).

since the combination of biological differences and living together in groups will always lead to some sort of gender distinction. — Dawnstorm

This says to me you want to conclude that gender is analogous to sex? I understand that's not what you're saying but it seems so intensely difficult to accept that there's some biological connection without equating the two. What could apply to one, and vary independently in the other?

"Adult" is usually connected with both age and behaviour. An adult can behave childishly without being a child, but an adult can "fail to grow up". — Dawnstorm

This speaks to the, what I think is, false narrative around trans stuff. The above doesn't change anything about a strict delineation between child and adult, which we have along two metrics:

1. Age of majority;
2. Having experienced puberty.

Both are objective measures of an adult. The subsequent behaviours and presentations don't alter that. Does this make sense? If so, read across to sex. If Gender has an objective standard, it would need to be to clearly assessable. Gender is not. In fact, gender can be claimed as the opposite to behaviour and presentation (as well as sex). It seems its a category unrelated to either, on the TRA version.

But being wrong about something that's in flux — Dawnstorm

This is definitely true, and is probably why "gender transition" is such a totally incoherent concept in practice. Not that there's a moral value there - just that no one can make sense of what's happening in a transition unless they refer to an objective standard which is not in flux.

If you're really trans — Dawnstorm

I think this is an unfortunate way to proceed. I want to know what that is, before assessing it in situ of another discussion (I realise you've resiled from that, and do not hold you to it - just being clear about any comments that might betray this)

The problem here is this: it's hard, and maybe (currently?) impossible to tell the difference from the outside, when all you have is what they do and say. — Dawnstorm

But surely, Gender can only be assessed on those terms, anyway? If its tied to sex, trans people don't have room to make claims they cannot support to others.

"safety issue" seems to be secondary to the general discourse around this (especially, since the safety of trans people is usually secondary for people who argue safety — Dawnstorm

I think this is backwards. The safety of trans people (in bathrooms, lets say) is secondary. They are requesting access to a protected space - being the target of the protective measure (i.e male, in this argument anyway). My wife's safety comes before males who want to piss in the same room as she (for she, and I). It is rare for people to put theoretical safety of others above themselves. It might even be a bad move to do so.

I'd not be surprised if trans people allowed into "their" bathrooms still choose to avoid public bathrooms, as these places aren't seen as safe. — Dawnstorm

It seems to be something somewhat opposite: trans people are determined to access the bathroom they claim, regardless of any safety considerations. Its an affirmation issue. In that light, it seems more likely to be an ignorance of safety on their part, in service of their identity, than much else.

Ah, i see. Fair enough - certainly an easier way to do things.

Would this be a kind of "explanations stop somewhere" type of thing? No issues with that. I just have personal interest in understanding per se lol

Instead truths become available within human discourse—not arbitrarily, not as illusions, but as intelligible articulations of a world we are always already in relation with. — Banno

I can't quite tell is this is part of hte false dilemma, for you. The above seems to me to be the case wrt truth. Things are as they are, and our existence only changes that insofar as our existence includes considerations of truth. Whether these can be 'moral' truths being another question, though, to be clear.

Forgive if this seems a bit of a leap-frog,

It seems there's no discussion of what constitutes an understanding here, and just what one could, as a third party, perceive as an output correlated with understanding. Is that right?

That seems to miss the point to me, in the sense outlined by my bringing in deceit as a spanner. You might get everything you've ever wished for in terms of your audience's behavioural outputs, but be none-the-wiser as to where they understand you.

It seems a bit pointless to me to talk about the (essentially) optics, rather than some connection between actual understanding leading to certain behavioural outputs, and our (the 3p) interpreting them. Without taking something to be understanding which would give us certain outputs, aren't we just pissing about hte place and then calling it what we want?

Yep, roughly. The idea that there is no mind in which a 'lie' can actually arise would mean that they're just wanting us to see deceit as an illusion of of a set of dispositional actions.
They still seem to think conditioning leads to the tendency to lie, though, which is a weird position to me.

Was about to come post something similar. There seems to be pretty credible discussions around Russia attacking Nato in the next half-decade. A ramp up to WWIII seems imminent, from some perspectives.

The one spanner I see is people dishonestly enacting what they know to be behaviours which would tell you they apprehend you - but they don't. That's a tricky one. Hijacking implicatures is a problem for all speech really.

Biography would be the only real factor I think could lead to an assumption of this kind.
My experience with each friend would inform me of two things:

1. The likelihood they would understand; and
2. Their behaviour in such a scenario.

It may be that A (your One) doesn't get it at all, and is simply entertained by my nerdiness. B might get it, and understand some implication that has pulled him away from the conversation.

I would look for already-known signs that someone is expressing their understanding to me.

Money based systems simply do not allow for healthy society. — Vera Mont

I suggest there's a reason you are unable to make reasonable responses to critiques. Lines like this make it obvious you are operating on bullshit personal beliefs and not doing any reasoning at all. A good example is this:

I suggested organizing society in such a way that everyone has the opportunity to participate and nobody needs charity. — Vera Mont

There is no way to read this, other than that you cannot grasp reality. Everyone does have the opportunity to participate (unless physically unable, which you or I couldn't account for anyway). Charity is required in a just society because plenty of people are unable to participate. This take ignores almost everything important about discussions around social welfare. Not surprising, but something its probably time to front up to if you want to make some sense.

If you are not yet familiar with the Venus Project, this may interest you. There are several movies, (That one was fun; your library may have it.) too, and I think, a documentary on You Tube. — Vera Mont

I missed this. The Venus Project is utterly bereft of anything realistic or moral. Jacques Fresco was an absolute asshole (I met him multiple times) who did not give a flying fuck about anything but being a Jesus character to his followers. Unfortunately, several friends saw hiim this way, sunk their lives into his project and got left in the dirt. There's a reason this project has been going on for nearly 30 years and has gone absolutely nowhere - particularly after being associated with the absolute fucking trainwreck Zeitgeist. This explains a lot about how you're viewing hte world - totally unrealistic and ignorant.

Here is the example: — Leontiskos

I reworked this, twice - to be to do with being asleep, and to do with a driver. I do want to engage over you misrepresenting a rather long, arduous conversation over the particular verison you wish to critique. My responses are my responses. I would prefer you either drop this, or engage with the full conversation rather than your chosen issues to crtique (in this case, misleadingly).

You've literally lied about the example given — Leontiskos

Nope. Not, at all. You can just go back and see that you're cherry-picking. Not my issue. I explained the relevance of being conscious to the issue, and at that stage I pulled you up on that being the difference. So, yeah, I acknowledged this and responded in my terms. Nothing wrong with that. You can be upset if you like. I cannot understand many of your responses, as I've said all along - you clearly don't understand what's being said. Yet claim you do...

ore nonsense: — Leontiskos

I require every judgment to be a judgment, and I gave my definition of judgment <here> by following the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. — Leontiskos

The link isn't a definition. Its a discussion that gives us nothing.

You said you require every choice to be a judgement. That is tautological. It means every mental act is a judgement, because it is not possible to carry out a mental act without choice to do so. You have said as much, in trying to critique my account. Either cop to that, or don't. Not my issue, again.

you have no good arguments — Leontiskos

Is this like.... an actual joke?

ou have resorted to — Leontiskos

Nope. That is entirely fucking false to the point that you have finally actually upset me. Wont respond again unless you stop being an asshole.