I think this is a very reasonable and socialist type of ideal for a society, that study itself is work, and people should be payed to payed to work instead of starving. This is also why university loans are such a big business: they know that students need living spaces, food, and time to study, so they figure that you can pay them back later (hah...) I personally had a lot of trouble late in university, and given the stress and challenges i put up with for my degree, it is a little baffling that i had to pay for it...even though I'm not mad about it.

However, the logical issue with doing this is that payment tends to be reserved for the fallowing two things:

a) favors that simply can't be done by the client

b) favors that nobody really wants to do

being a student is kinda a grey are; as you've expressed, you'd like to study, college life is an admirable and fairly idealistic type of experience. What the banks and customers want from you though...is for you to complete college, so that you can learn how to perform the a and b type of services i described...the a type of services (done by experts and specialists) are the kind that tend to pay a higher amount and require higher education or loads of previous professional experience.

it is a fairly vicous system, even though i wouldn't be surprised if there's already various schemes to directly pay students. There are certainly "front me my education" schemes beyond high interest loans.

Also please be kind to ProtagoranSocratist. He's new and feels a bit bothered by his own perceived personal attacks that have happened on these forums. He generally seems like a nice poster and we want him to feel welcome. I think we can all agree it got heated in here and let bygones be bygones for another thread. — Philosophim

Dude (or dudette, idfk) i appreciate your kindness, but this isn't very true...Bob has revealed that i am not a kind poster. But let me re-iterate why i still think he has serious mental health problems: he complains incessantly about how people treat him on here. He has also been trying to get me to forget about how he has said these two things:

-transgenderism is mental illness

-he wants to ban drag shows

These both would understandably offend a person who considers themselves trans, considers themselves to have a legit mental illness, and people who sympathize with transgender people. However, for the sake of polite argument, i did not lash out directly because of these claims.

No: i have lashed out because Bob Ross wants to be beyond reproach even though he keeps making false accusations and disrespectfully pulling me back into this duscussion. He's clearly an evangelist, i'm clearly a flamer, we should both be banned from the message board based on the rules. Me, for being cruel to a hypocritical piece of shit, him for using whining about persecution to evangelize his stupid fucking christianity.

I'm not following your ending here -- I'd note that there's nothing wrong with being trans or gay for the various reasons I've stated. And I don't think it's who says what with respect to this issue -- i.e. I don't think there is a morally or factually correct stance which states that trans or gay people should not be what they are. — Moliere

I agree with you that overall Bob Ross tries to be respectful, yet writing off homosexuality and transgenderism as mental illness or problematic is definetly what i would call bigotry. While i don't personally have an issue with letting bigots post on here (if Jamal could ban all bigots, the nobody would be able to post here), it defies logic that one can keep insisting that nobody should be able to challenge the many flaws in their posts.

For example, i'm personally ignoring everything Bob Ross says to me, as he has pulled me into this thread that i've been sick of for a while now. He has gone back on his tactic before, where he slanderously claims im not actually contending with his posts. This is worse than flaming, this is completely manipulative and narcissistic behavior. He has kept this thread afloat by obnoxiously complaining about how people are canceling him and providing absolutely no evidence to back it up. He has shown a command of how the notification system works on here, and that is the only reason why this thread is over 19 fucking pages long.

So if I express interest in banning Christian parades, then I am a Christianophobe? — Bob Ross

Yes.

Being a ________ phobe means simply that you are afraid of the category. If you wanted to ban a Nazi costume party, then you would be a naziphobe if it's on the basis of it being Nazi.

I wasn't intending to insult anything other than the opinions of people on here as nonsensical and delusional, kinda like how you say transgenderism is a mental illness, i think denying that fear of transgender people is a form of transphobia shows some sub-par logical reasoning...yet it's common for people to be able to be unable to relate in such matters.

If he's wrong, it should be easy to point out. Bigotry rarely has anything behind it than its own bias, so it should be simple to demonstrate that either Bob is flawed in his assessment of his Neo-Aristotelian approach, or that it is simple bias. — Philosophim

I'm beginning to feel like Sisyphus trying to argue with all these clearly delusional talking points people make on here...

This is a clear practice in reductionism: you're making all these judgments about complex phenomena, and trying to bend it to suit some sort of a simple narrative.

First of all, in absolute terms, there is no "right and wrong". It's imagination only. You can't convince me otherwise. It's an attempt to universalize subjective "good and bad". Good and bad are also imaginary, but I find them much more relatable. I also find "correct and incorrect" to be more relatable, but when the subject matter veers into sheer nonsense and insanity (as in my opinion, this thread does) those become fully irrelevant.

Second of all, if bigotry rarely has anything behind it besides a "simple bias", then people would have stopped talking about the Nazis a long time ago, because the race hate, antisemitism, and nationalism would have been simple biases corrected by rationalists, and nobody would have died as a result.

Third of all, the assessments of his Neo-Aristotle approach have already came and went, but for whatever reason Bob Ross keeps complaining about the reception that his posts are getting. So no...there's a whole lot more going on here than "a simple bias". Bob Ross has also expressed associations between his Neo-Aristotle perspective and his Christianity, and Aristotle was not a Christian...people tend to associate Christianity with Plato's idealism due to the structure of his ideas alone, but both of these greek philosophers predated Christianity by a considerable degree. Aristotle was more of a humanist, because he put the rationality and reasoning above everything else in his worldview.

Perhaps this quote most perfectly describes the situation:

“Insanity — a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.”

The "moral purification" is referred to as "plot resolution" in cinema terms; it's clearly not promoting any of the destructive acts you describe in the show. The science in the show is bunk, and clearly this extreme performance would not actually happen...real life drug dealing is more of a slow-burn type of story.

ProtagoranSocratist, this is what I was referring to as the hatred, anti-free-speech, and lack of good faith by my opponents. I have been a member on here for over four years and never have ever had any issues with anyone: I try to be as charitable as I can be to other people's positions and learn something from them (although I fall short sometimes). Simply for providing a robust and sophisticated (albeit not necessarily true) position contrary to modern gender theory and sexuality ethics I have been dubbed a bigot, neo-Nazi, homophobe, prejudiced interlocutor, and widely considered banworthy. — Bob Ross

But Bob, the issue is that what you were expressing in this thread was in fact transphobic: you expressed interest in banning drag shows. So if what you are arguing is in fact bigoted, then why are you complaining about it when people point it out? This is something I see with a lot of modern day conservatism: you complain when people see your logic for what it is. So what exactly are you trying to accomplish with this performative whining? Are you trolling? Are you trying to guilt people into changing their minds and embracing your ideology? You've done this more than once.

I personally did not directly hurl insults at you (homophobe, transphobe, bigot, Nazi, etc.) because I do not like to argue like that, it doesn't bring light to a discussion. However, I don't sympathize with people who want to express bigotry but not be criticized for it. Believe it or not, I don't like it when leftists whine about "privileged white men", because it's hypocritical...wanting to express bigotry without being criticized for it is totally hypocritical. Remember how Jesus in the Gospels feels about hypocrites? He doesn't express positive sentiments about hypocrites...

We are all prejudiced, we can't help but be prejudiced because this is how the survival mechanisms in our brain have been wired overtime, for lack of a better explanation...but there are sayings that are both true:

What comes around, goes around.

You get what you give

If you don't like being called a bigot, then do not express dislike towards transgendered people. I also think it's totally ridiculous that you are still complaining even though you have not been banned. Clearly the moderators are letting you get away with a lot of stuff that's frowned upon within a modern progressive/liberal mindset. You've even clearly broken one of the rules, more than once, about evangelizing a particular point of view. From the rules:

Types of posters who are not welcome here:

Evangelists: Those who must convince everyone that their religion, ideology, political persuasion, or philosophical theory is the only one worth having.

There are a lot of places online where you can get away with expressing bigoted sentiments with impunity. For example, there's this one music service I was using that had a chat room. There was absolutely no moderation. As a result, there's some dude who has been living on there for years who almost constantly spews hatred towards jews.

I get that you are mad about the clear left/liberal bias of a lot of online places, but every single place you discuss everything online has a bias. The mods choose the left/liberal bias so that transgender people can post on here.

How does that contradict what I was saying about it? — boundless

It actually doesn't :) It's very much in line with what you were saying, "So what?" signals a form of emotive apathy.

The modding here is relaxed so other things may have weighed heavier. But for my part, I don’t see any great reason for the ban. — apokrisis

I banned Harry Hindu, partly for low quality, and partly for obnoxiousness.
I want people to know there's no room here for that kind of crap any more. — Jamal

All in all- and yeah it sounds like I'm being a "teachers pet" - you folks do a fine job moderating here. — Manuel

I kinda want to comment on all these things at once...as i think this site is pretty exceptional in terms of achieving what it's designed for: I understand a lot of the purpose of the site is to enable as many people as possible to participate in philosophical discussions. This site achieves it in the fallowing ways:

1. The way that "philosophy" is defined is not at all strict, discussions on politics are allowed, discussions on raw logic puzzles are allowed, discussions on religion are allowed...pretty much everything is allowed. This is super rare for any message board.

2. There's no pressure to understand any particular body of thought as it relates to philosophy. We are all coming from radically different directions in understanding.

3. the rules are so flexible that it allows the moderators to use discretion in cases where people members are consistently being a PITA, and they're clear enough they give you a good idea of what flies and what doesn't.

In philosophy, we should be able to argue with each other: and you absolutely can do that on this forum if you avoid descending into bland insults and you don't post with the intention of winning converts or besting someone in an argument. I've realized on here, the second one will absolutely get you banned, as it puts you in a frame of mind where you want to control the other users. Let the moderators do that. More than once, I had to accept that I had previously made a false assumption about what someone was arguing, and I believe that will save you if you want to stay a member here.

However, that being said, I still think internet discussion itself is kinda doomed to have poor quality overall. It's harder to empathize with the person you're talking to, and it's hard to understand what kind of response your post is going to get. It's like the whole thing is designed for flaming. I'm personally finding on here that I'm regularly talking past people, and this isn't entirely their fault...and it can't be entirely my fault either (especially if it isn't their fault...)

As for Harry Hindu, it did seem like he really needed to "win arguments", and i think this was the reason he went overboard and ended up getting on the bad side of the moderators. Sometimes I couldn't help but to feel very angry at him, so i'm not particularly mad about the decision. I personally did not try to push him into getting banned (probably the most effective way to do that is send the Mod a message, which i did not do), even though in our final toxic exchange, i did point out that he was trolling and insulting me directly to him. It really sucks arguing with someone who lavishly praises empiricism, but rarely backs up their posts with any kind of external evidence. I had a much more interesting talk with Philosophim about this subject (of objectivity and empiricism) in the same thread, and clearly Harry wasn't reading any of it or thinking about it.

So what? Police might have to exceed the speed limit in order to catch criminals. — boundless

That makes perfect sense if you have faith in the police, but otherwise, this excuse is much harder to support.

Good philosophy over the years evolved into the sciences we use today. — Philosophim

i think this is mostly true: the logical truths uncovered by primitive philosophers were used by researchers today to improve lab testing and engineering...and the mathematics has relevance for philosophy. I'm pretty sure Pythagoras studied in a philosophy school in ancient greece and invented western geometry. In turn, philosophers update their knowledge with the scientific discoveries. However, it's also just a personal form of entertainment and a form of thought exercise which for me personally has practical purposes. I think it was Bertrand Russel who said that philosophy is like plumbing, i interpret that as him saying that philosophy is a way to analyze and put the dirty gunk in your brain into perspective...

I don't know the Buddhist book about dating that you mentioned earlier, but from what you said, it seems to be a humorous approach to explaining Buddhist teachings. — baker

Nope, that's because you didn't read the book or look up information about it...

The buddha dating book isn't even remotely about buddhism, how to go on dates, or how the buddha would have dated anyone. In other words, the book is a scam, it's not buddhist humor unless you're referring to how the author was probably laughing all the way to the bank.

There are tons of books like that out there: the title is misleading and has completely different content. Here are some negative reviews of that book if you don't believe me:

"If the Gullible New Age 21st Century Person Dated"

The title is deceptive as it gives the impression of focusing on a Buddhist perspective or as main inspiration but that's not the main idea. This book contains a mish mash of pseudo science and new age talk like energy vibrations, asking the universe for manifestation, horoscopes, reiki, etc. It contains a small portion of buddhism and it is heard to stay interested with all the new age talk. While I have no doubt the author earned her Ph. D. It has always bothered me when such titles show up in the covers of books full pseudo science and new age unproven claims (yes, I'm looking at you Deepak Chopra). If you wanna read on some Buddhist or mindfulness related authors that touch on the subject I'd recommend Pema Chodron, Sharon Salzburg, Mark Epstein, Jack Kornfield, etc.
Avoid this book

I really tried. Seriously, I tried. But this book is simply horrible. I could only read a third of it. She hardly mentions Buddhism at all let alone its teachings. It was mainly this tarot-card-crystal-reading bullshit without any substance at all. She mainly says, "Pay attention to your inner feelings." "Be true to yourself." Thanks, I'll just save the money and go elsewhere.

Buddha, who is assumed to be totally selfless... — boundless

I think you are getting at something that typically bothers me about religions in general: if this is indeed a supposition for buddhists, then it is not an atheist religion as some claim, because the buddha must be a God if he is indeed selfless, as there is not a single selfless person on earth.

So, your premise here is simply questionable. — boundless

How? This is questionable, because you're not elaborating.

I was only arguing that your simplistic examples justifying punishments of children and punishments for speeding aren't adding enough information for us to come up with a reasonable punishment. If you drive, then you'll see how unhelpful that is: the police regularly exceed the speed limit. It's not only about "enforcing good behavior", it's about collecting revenue and scaring people into safer driving habits. This opens up more questions, and doesnt clarify morals.

Not sure what your point is. In any case, I believe that fines are an example of a necessity. They aren't perfect because, after all, rich people aren't as affected by fines as poor people, but without traffic fines many people would neglect the rules. — boundless

The police do more than enforce necessary rules, if you can't come to that conclusion, there's no sense in me trying to re-iterate my original extortion comment.

Do you expect us to work out the details for each of those possible categories? — baker

No, you're elaborating on what you said, but i didn't ask you or anyone to perform this task. I wasn't satisfied with your comment implying that i'm only a "would be" philosopher.

This is a questionable statement IMO. You seem to assume that it is simply impossible to punish without any selfish end. — boundless

What a rediculous statement, i have to stop here: how can one possibly commit "an unselfish act"? I think you attempt to answer this, but ill have to address that later.

My objections to objectivity aren't that it's an "view from nowhere", as you have said about it, but a realization that everything in philosophy is a subjective position based on logic rather than concrete evidence (even though any of us can use the latter). Even the objective evidence is created subjectively in every single case. You and Philosophim seem to (seem to...this is not putting words in your mouth) be putting forth an argument that what matters is mounting valid evidence to support your arguments, yet this diminishes the role that perspective plays in the whole thing.

I personally don't want to be right, I want to be able to enjoy multiple perspectives, and come to my own conclusions, and sometimes not come to a conclusion at all. If I ever decide I have the right point of view, then this is my opinion, it's not objectively correct because such a way of describing an argument makes no sense to me.

All ideologies are intent on gaining political power unless they just exist in their "armchair activism" form, in other words, they are just a collection of talking points until they get ambitions.

I personally agree with your first assumption, that "ideological evil" is superficial (or as you put it, "somewhat specious"). Ideologies do not exist outside of the historical framework where they are created, the ideologies by themselves are inert artifacts, not necessarily doing harm to anyone or behaving in a violent manner...because I would assume that your judgements about "evil" are mostly concerned with both the ambitions and actual completions of some sort of violence?

So by this set of assumptions I'm laying out, you can be a Nazi or Jihadist, but both are just ideas until groups of people start putting plans together to achieve the ends of Nazism or Jihadism.

I think your tiers are bunk: various ideologies influence "the nexi of power", none are inherently more or less powerful. Just using islamic fundamentalism as an example (a broader term for the ideology that motivates jihadies), there are already muslim governments, examples being saudi arabia, oman, and Iran. I'd bet you there are people who associate with jihadist movements in or closely associated with those governments, the connection between jihadist militancy and iran being fairly obvious, yet also not something the Iranian government, Hezbollah, or Hamas would speak openly about. However, it would be impossible to have a government dedicated purely to one ideology, without associating with some of the others.

While I agree that philosophy can be entertaining, emotional, and subjective, what I was referencing is objective philosophy. This philosophy is not intended to be entertaining or play on the reader's imagination. It is a logic puzzle. A carefully crafted set of definitions that build into what the author will claim is a certain conclusion. — Philosophim

ah: if that's what you're going for, you might want to read about this particular school of philosophy...

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Megarian-school

...and take some time to explore the conundrums they present.

You keep bringing up being "objective", but that's more in line with the realm of research science and mathematics. I think this is an important distinction, because philosophers rarely cite statistics to back up their claims, or use objective evidence in this manner. They use citations, and this is good, but the purpose is usually not to prove anything, philosophy citations are normally used to reference other written works as a courtesy to the reader (or not use citations at all, as is the case with tons of writers).

Logic puzzles aren't objective, it's just you presenting a made up logic because you find it to be pleasurable or interesting. A good paradox is among my favorites...

For example, consider this statement: "I am a liar". Let's say, i'm telling the truth, that i make a habit of lying, but then this would automatically reveal the statement as a lie as well, canceling it out because for once i've told the truth. But then let's say this isn't true, and i actually am an honest person...so then the statement I made about me being a liar is a lie, which confirms that i'm not honest, and the logic circle repeats again.

That's a greek paradox, but i personally think the Zeno tortoise-and-stadium example is stupid and makes weird assumptions right from the start, but that is just my opinion, and Zeno himself clearly disagreed.

I see that you want to build figurative structures based on ideas, and this is the case for all writing. The difference for each type of writing is the intent. For example, a novelist doesn't care about presenting an argument or house of ideas, they just want to please the imagination of the reader, and keep them flipping pages till the end of the story. A poet's individual poems aren't necessarily connected in the structure of their book, but each poem is a miniature structure of their own, them wanting to say as much as possible with only a few words...

I still think this is an excellent list of guidelines, and you shouldn't change this original draft as it's very well written, and doesn't appear to have any grammar mistakes that can confuse readers.

However, it's definitely not perfect: @Jamal already pointed out potential issues with totally separating arguments from the person speaking, but here's a couple of other things I think should be scrutinized as well:

Try to nail the definitions down as soon as possible. — Philosophim

This is actually poor form in a lot of contexts; all writers of books other than dictionaries and text books know that they rely on the readers to have a partially-shared understanding of the words used in the book already. The meanings/understandings that the readers already possess are just as valuable as your desire to create meaning or coin new terms.

One thing I realized in the process of writing my first book was that writing is about a lot more than the word choices: it's also about structure and psychology. You structure your ideas to get your ideas across effectively (at least this is how you look at it for a non-fiction genre like philosophy), without the confusion...and minimized misinterpretation (but you can't get rid of this entirely, as some of the best writers are misinterpreted), and the psychology is needed for trying to figure out how people will respond to your text before you hit the "send" button.

However, the psychology aspect is probably the least important part of my narrative, because part of the joy of writing is in testing how publishers and casual readers of your work will receive it.

Do not waste time on philosophical reading that has poor language, definitions, or easily disproven premises. I am amazed at the amount of people who will spend hours analyzing a piece of work that is invalidated within the first opening chapter of the discussion. — Philosophim

Sure, there are some sources you should not trust for information based on snap judgements, but the way you phrase it doesn't work as a guideline...at least not for me. For example, who can really agree on examples of "poor language"? It seems rather loaded...sometimes people understand statements spoken with bad grammar better than they understand statements made with good grammar. In colloquial speech, people tend to use poor grammar and break the teacher's rules all the time. If you break the official rules of language in a clever way, sometimes people commend the creativity. Coining terms and violating grammar rules are both a process of creating new meanings. If you can't create your own meaning, then I feel sorry for you, because this is the best power that spoken words and writing can have.

Also, "proof" tends to be over-rated, and proving superiority to others doesn't have any value within itself besides the thrill of winning. Superiority doesn't hold any water in the long run, because if you do manage to impress someone so that they stick around, then in the future they'll figure out some way to best/humiliate you in front of others as well. The "easily disproven" premise is too subjective to really illuminate problems with a text. For example, me and @javra discussed books which are written for the sole intent of making money, and mostly do not have lasting philosophical teachings. One example they gave was a self-help book called "If the Buddha Dated: A Handbook for Finding Love on a Spiritual Path".

When i finally found a free copy of the book to download, I read through the introductory material: it was regurgitated nonsense on "having compassion", and i thought it was boring and uninteresting. I asked myself why she would be writing buddhist romantic advice when "the Buddha" was an ascetic, and probably wouldn't have dated anyone anyways, and as I flipped through trying to find out what a "buddha date" look like, I got my previous suspicions thrown back at me from the writer herself:

Of course, the Buddha didn’t date. No one really dated in his
time. In that culture, as in many others, it would have been
considered barbarian to have young men and women chase
after each other, left completely on their own to find mates.

But is this proof that "the Buddha" never went on a date? Is it even proof that people from that period thought about dating in a different way? Absolutely not. No, nothing has been proven here, but it doesn't even matter, as the purpose of self-help books seems to be similar to the purpose of scams. Self-help books are all about making vague promises to the reader and not making good on the promise, whereas scams tend to be about making specific promises to the mark, but still not making good on the promise.

Also, ask yourself this: so if "the Buddha" really lived in a time period where people couldn't chase after each other or find mates, then why did he comment so much on the passions, and proper/improper sexual conduct? Even modern buddhists tend to discuss sexuality in moral terms, so if people had absolutely no sexual agency in this time period, as the writer seems to imply, then how could her assertion about history have any truth to it? I don't need any proof to understand this as a statement not worth considering, just a little bit of logical deduction and firsthand experience with human sexual behavior and biases. It seems obvious that people speaking in sanskrit and pali did not use the word "date" as those languages are radically different from english, ill giver her that much...but it's still possible that ancient culture had some version of courtship described with different words.

Anyways, i digress: the truth is that proof in philosophy doesn't have much relevance, it has more relevance in science, mathematics, and the court system. It's even over-rated in the court system: sometimes the police make their own evidence by threatening suspects into making incriminating statements or confessing..."proof" is completely subject to fabrication and denial.

Do you think her feeling violated isn't a human right over his claimed human right to enter the female locker room? If this was your mother, wife, daughter, or sister, would you tell them that being upset about it is wrong, and that their feelings of being violated are transphobic and discriminatory? — Philosophim

If i may butt in...

This is what i tried to explain earlier in the thread: rights themselves are vague and delusional, it's a means of saying "i am entitled to such-and-such", but they only have practical application in legalism. Otherwise, i could say "i have a right to your ass", and get away with violating you...

Rights aren't just some pie-in-the-sky idea we can use to justify any behavior...but without a strict institutional framework backing them up, they might as well be that.

Conversely, the more exhibited truths light the way in places of darkness (i.e., bring understanding into places previously replete with unknowns and thus filled with displeasing uncertainties), the more important these truths become. — javra

if i am ever to write philosophy, with my real name on the cover, that's exactly what i would like to do, even though it might never happen just because i have so many interests...

So I guess pop philosophy something that an academic would not call philosophy, like political rhetoric and self-help? I'm a little disappointed as I was hoping that you would maybe come up with something you regard as shallow and sophistic in formal, modern day philosophy...but this an issue inherent to wanting to separate true philosophy from false philosophy, more or less.

Hahahaha...changing the framing like that would passing an accounting class utterly impossible...i wouldn't discount the wisdom of a class like that so easily.

The amount of evidence that supports it. — Harry Hindu

well that can be arranged ;) Especially when everyone has billions of talking points and facts at their fingertips...

It is obsolete (sexist) language-use - use that does not reflect Western societies progress in breaking down these gendered barriers and treating each other not as women and men, but as human beings — Harry Hindu

i personally see absolutely no evidence of this "progress" though: through progressive ideology, people cite things like the end of slavery in the way it existed in colonial times, but there many current forms of slavery, some of them being almost identical to the outlawed chattel slavery that is no longer practiced. You also bring up the right to vote as it pertains to women...but the progress made is questionable as well: the political right tends to point out problems with "fraud and abuse" (which is hard to understand without looking at the issue firsthand, but real voting experts tend to discount as a wild exaggeration). The political left points out unfair access issues that keep poor and less educated people from voting. Either way, republicans are wanting to minimize easy of access at the voting booth, democrats want to expand ease of access at the voting booth, and all these arguments are made specifically to control who gets elected and who doesn't.

Again, i'm not "cherrypicking", I just value being able to point out specific false claims made by people on here, this claim about western society progress is dubious if not entirely false...i'm much less concerned about the ideology and motive of the people putting forth these claims, as i don't have easy access to that.

Trans ideology has been so effective because it has set itself as a moral one without truly justifying that it is actually moral. It scooped up society with its first to market insistence, backed by a top down push from businesses and government that 'it was so'. But of course to enforce any ideology that does not wish to be questioned, you must silence speech over it. For a while you could not say, "Trans gender women are not women" without being banned, cancelled, or fired. Anyone who has studied rights realizes that this is abjectly immoral. And yet because of the top down push, people were pressured into excusing this abuse of free speech by claiming "Its moral to do so". Legislated and forced moral assertations are the tools of people who want to fight against actual moral outcomes and assert control.

That is not to say that some aspects of transgender ideology are not actually moral. Any good measure of control and manipulation understands that there should be some truth to what one is pushing. Should an adult have the bodily autonomy and right to transition? Absolutely. Just like there are usually good things taken in isolation in any ideology. But what is important is to analyze what an ideology is saying rationally as much as possible without appeal to emotions to be free from the manipulative and prosthelytizing pressures that ideologies put forth. — Philosophim

You see, this is ultimately what bothers me about trans-genderism from a surgical and medical perspective. There have been a lot of medical advancements, and a lot more is understood about the human body, but I think the proposition of changing someone's sex should be looked at with extreme caution, since modern doctors are not these all-powerful geniuses like they often want you to think about them. Without clear biological tests to determine if someone needs hormone therapy etc., transgender treatments risk becoming an infinite money-grabbing loop.

However, the double bind is obvious, if you look at the whole thing from a transgendered perspective: there's generally a two way moralization going on, there's a pushback from people who don't want trans ideas to become normalized or accepted ("you're not trans, you're just confused, you need to see a therapist"), and pushback from people who think it's a moral issue if you question transgender identity at all ("you're a transaphobe, you're ignorant, you're intolerant").

Either way, it's a pretty dangerous scenario for the transgender person, it can't be fixed with simplistic logic...but perhaps a total upheaval of modern day ethics, morality, and scientific standards....

So you are now advancing the claim that, "Schizophrenia is a mental illness" is not a substantive claim, but, "Schizophrenia is not a mental illness" is a substantive claim. It seems that all you mean by "substantive" is, "contrary to the current widespread view." — Leontiskos

Like gender, mental illness is also a social construction; for example, as someone who previously went to therapists and thought of myself as mentally ill, I eventually arrived at the conclusion that all forms of "mental illness" and "disorders" aren't anything but a vague collection of symptoms that are often temporary. If you think i'm wrong, look into how often the usage of mental health diagnosis changes.

For example, even with something "serious like schizophrenia", the professionals themselves apply the label fairly liberally, even when the patient isn't describing any sort of major life-altering problem. People have hallucinations for many different reasons, sometimes it's just temporary, sometimes it's related to sleep deprivation or drugs. However, if you go to a professional and mention hallucinations, they will respond by telling you that you are schizophrenic and that you need to take drugs to fix it, most likely...

In the context of fame of either the individual or the ideas they were promoting, the thing I'm analyzing is what unites the timeless philosophers, for lack of a better term.

For example, you mention this interesting issue:

A proposal I don’t yet think is possible to debunk: philosophy either aims at exhibiting deeper truths or else it is utter sophistic BS purporting to do the same but with ulterior egotistic motives. — javra

If I had to guess, philosophers who really took the content they were writing very seriously (like Plato) are the ones who have lasting fame. I'm thinking about how to tell the difference between the sophistic BS and the "deeper truth" philosophers, I'd appreciate if you elaborated because I don't know what you mean entirely. I think some deeper truths tend to get brushed aside either because people don't want to hear them or don't understand their importance. What makes a truth more important than another truth?

It is true that a lot of writers in general acquire fame through lying and sophistry, and while they're using guaranteed money-making formulas, much of the content those people write will be forgotten by people who take ideas seriously centuries (or even decades) later. The figurative torch, whether it's phrased as "the torch" or "your/my torch" is what's important to the writer. If only money is important to the writer, then the ideas themselves may not have the lasting interest, even if they can be identified as rhetorical tools.

I can easily think of political writers who were only trying to make money, but what are recent examples of pop philosophers who are merely using rhetorical tricks to gain attention and make a quick profit? IMO, the original greek sophists are a little more interesting (like Protagoras), because they were more explicit in talking about using speech or writing as a smoke-in-mirrors project, and going for effect instead of trying to question how we think of things or improve moral reasoning.

the networking that then goes hand in hand with it. — javra

this is really the only thing that matters in all of this, making the connections needed so that other people "carry your torch" so to speak. In some ways fame is pretty insignificant and not worth it, but those who come up with ideas they want to share usually want a little bit of recognition for it, even if it's just in the form of having some conversations with people who read their book. The mechanics behind all this are what interested me in making this discussion.

the OP in general, which is a study invitation on Parmenides and Zeno. I'll comment on it if i think there's anything worth saying.

It lines up with my current desire to keep studying the Greeks for entertainment; i just started reading the introductory material of an old version i have laying around of The Republic.

you've illustrated how labor intensive studying ancient philosophy can be: i just wanted to add that one part of this could be studying the poem parmenides wrote himself, which i've done recently, and it's small enough to make a re-read simple.

That being said, I will gladly read this to the best of my abilities when i get around to it:

https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/parmenides.html

Then such is the predicament of the would-be philosopher. — baker

But you're not really engaging with main thing i'm wondering. You're bringing up status and philosophy as a carreer as having influence over the writing and fame making: how do those effect the attention given to a text? Which philosophers gain recognition without university assistance? Sometimes I conclude "none", but this is just an assumption.

lmfao, i was referring to a chuang tzu passage in my first comment in this thread, only to discover you literally just posted the while story i was referring to....

Oh i'm not hispanic, I'm from the U.S. and am a white person, but i have learned to speak spanish fairly well from traveling and personal study. I also want to learn more languages, but finding the time and place to practice them is difficult.

If you skip these questions, you're implying some universalizing, generalizing, absolutizing theme to your argument that might actually run counter to the argument you're explicitly making. — baker

not if i'm also just trying to learn about the subject matter myself; i never meant to imply that writing something for others is an emergency, even though i do have vague interest in it. Part of the issue is that the audience is much more vague as someone without a university position or who isn't a student. I don't like twitter/x and social media culture in general.

Neitzsche was someone who broke the mould in some ways, but sadly I think too many recently have tried to mimic his approach instead of doing how he instructed--to rise above and discover yourself beyond yourself. — I like sushi

that's an interesting way to look at what he was calling for, because it usually gets simplified into "self-overcoming", which re-inforces the self-help mentality of changing yourself to fit the logic of success and productivity, but that's not really what Nietzsche was getting at...i think getting to know yourself better has more relevance to what Nietzsche was actually promoting. For me, he's probably the philosopher i've had the most fun exploring so far, I intend to eventually read english translations of everything [available] that he wrote...and even reading it all again...

On the contrary, the conservative way of doing philosophy is to follow what seems obvious to you, such that you think you don't need to refer to the work that's been done on the topic (whatever it might be). — Jamal

I think what philosophim is getting at is the inherently academic structure to your approach (these are the thinkers, they have directed the history of thought), while they are trying to do it entirely themselves with no restraints or references to celebrities. This is part of the reason why i tend to avoid the "liberal" and "conservative" dichotomies unless I'm referring to ideas in politics, otherwise i feel either one of the terms is confusing. There's also "liberal usage" and "conservative usage", but i rarely use those terms when talking to other people.

I'm not arguing in favor of either of your approaches, as i agree with both of them in spirit; I appreciate the formal philosophy of the university to the extent that it gives me some reference, and i also appreciate free-wheeling creativity if it's not pissing me off or trying to sell me some lies.

Sí. No se permite publicar en español. A excepción de una categoría reservada para ello que puedes consultar aquí — javi2541997

But this is not a particular forum section, verdad? It's only limited to those threads?

I sympathize with the rule that we've gotta speak english here as it helps with simplicity and clarity, and doesn't give too much hope to people who prefer no to speak english. I like speaking foreign languages though, siento como otra persona...jajaja...

Ah, that's how I know the name! — Jamal

and now I think you can grasp my frustrations with the nature of internet knowledge...

I'm familiar with Max Stirner himself, and in a shallow sense, the Stirner fan rejections of "The German Ideology", but I have little to no understanding (so far) of the broader, massive content related to historical philosophy. I'd prefer to take the very long walk consisting of years, that I will never fully complete, through historical philosophy (starting with the greeks) than just become a specialist in a particular school of knowledge (like epistemology, Hegelian dialectics, Stirner reddit fandom, etc...).

He was a contemporary of Marx, and Marx considered him to be an enemy, for lack of better terms. He criticized Stirner's points of view in "The German Ideology", but I would recommend reading Stirner's "The Unique and Its Property" instead since you are already familiar with the Hegelian dialectic, and you can make what you want of the primary source. There are free versions online along with the paperback, it's an improvement on the old translation "The Ego and Its Own" (still a decent work, but Stirner said nothing about "the ego" in the german he was using at the time)

Let's try something else: I personally don't need to put "words in anyone's mouth" as I can just pull up exactly what they said as a quote on here. I don't like it when people put words in my mouth either, but that implies someone literally saying I said something when I didn't. Let's start over, i'll summarize what seems to be implied from your points of view I've read here and the other transgender discussion we participated in...the goal is for you to correct my impression if it's wrong with as few words as possible:

My summary of your ideas

You seem to be arguing that transgenderism is a logical fallacy, and that it makes no sense to talk about gender as something separate from sex. You have also hinted that transgenderism is a mental illness, and not a valid condition on its own, on the basis of what the transgendered say about it.

Speak now or forever hold your peace.