There is no war, but if there is, we’ll be important allies as we always have. It’s far better than appeasing a terrorist state with money and grovelling. Hopefully Boris will bring a spine back to what was once a powerful nation

Except it would be under duress, a kind of blackmail, nice.

Johnson would never have the support of, or mandate from the British people to go to war against Iran in these circumstances. If it were to happen, it would be under a cloak of deceit, like the way Tony Blair took us into Iraq.

You do realise, how Bush made Blair commit troops to Iraq, don't you?

Blair visited him on his ranch in the US, Bush invited him to pray with him in his private chapel and God told them to invade Iraq. After God said this and Bush nodded, Blair couldn't shake his head in denial, he had to nod too and the deal was done. Bush used God to hoodwink him into Iraq.

Then Blair hoodwinked parliament into Iraq with the dodgy dossier, which claimed that Saddam had WMD, which could be deployed directly against the UK in 45 minutes.

This time it will be blackmail.

The proof is actually all intelligent beings must be benevolent:

1. You are an evil person. You meet a good person. You are punished
2. You are an evil person. You meet a evil person. You are punished
3. You are an good person. You meet a evil person. You are punished
4. You are an good person. You meet a good person. You are rewarded

This sounds good, but has no basis in reality if one is attempting to prove anything about God. Even if you are defining God as an unknown limited entity, which you do here. It is an example of the thinking of a human intellect. It can only be relevant on the assumption that God is made in our image. Which is clearly naive, because by definition God made our universe, of which we are a small part.

To illustrate, God may be a being who does not think in a linear, or binary way like we do, but might have a consciousness which is all knowing and understanding simultaneously, with no reasoning going on. God might have real understanding, while we as primitive minds can only ever assemble a one, or two dimensional conception of an artificial construct(our world). So have no real understanding of anything.

There is a system of thought which is known in mysticism which is analogous to what you are suggesting, but works whatever the unknown entity or God is that one is proposing to encounter. One offers oneself up to any being who is at least as benevolent as ones self. The offer is not made to any being who is less benevolent than oneself. Therefore any being with whom one encounters, through mutual consent, is safe to encounter whatever form they take, because no harm will come of you, because you yourself is sufficiently benevolent, that you would do no harm to any being you encounter, even if they are less benevolent than yourself. Such a system of contemplation is a pre-requisite to any communion with an unknown advanced entity, or God.

Thanks for your clarification, which I agree with. I was thinking primarily of high Art. I have a bit of an axe to grind myself.

when does something start being art. For example what are your thoughts on conceptual art?

Art has had a difficult time ove the last century. The rise of modernism and conceptual art has ripped open what art was supposed to be and what constitutes contemporary art. This has resulted in various forms of retrograde art and a loss of direction. In some sense art is dead, although fortunately it is not up to the critics to define art. It is up to the artists and they are far to creative to sink into artistic depression.

Now we are in a new era of post post-modern art, where even conceptual and abstract art is seen as outdated, as a dead end.

They’ve been consistently breaching the deal.

They were never going to satisfy the hawks in Washington. There is no way to stop the war, because eventually the Iranians will get their nuclear bomb and the Yanks can't allow that. Trump has been hoodwinked into giving it the go ahead, he said repeatedly that he didn't want any more foreign interventions, but he is going to have the war because he's been told by his advisors that there's no other way to prevent the nuclear bomb and he's to weak to stand up to them.

The shame is that Johnson will be forced to support him and send British troops, because Johnson is now a lap dog to Trump. Unless the public opinion in the UK against the war becomes so great that it brings down the government.

I’ve been told it’s a guessing game - seems to be a recent trend on this site

Surely the subject is what is touched/touched on, by the mind.
The object is what is touched/encounted by the body.

My body encounters numerous things which my mind has no knowledge of.

Great minds think alike they say. I'm not saying we have minds as great as God, I speculating that all intelligent beings would have a similar thought of mind so that it would, in a limited sense, possible to read the mind of God.

Yes, I agree, but not via the route of the intellect alone, but via the route of knowing yourself, on the assumption that in some way yourself is God. This knowing is of itself not an intellectual process, but rather a knowing of someone. The intellect would then be used to process and analyse this knowing.

A final argument: I believe that the universe is a creation, implying a creator(s). So putting our God shoes on for a moment

Your argument falls down here because we can't assume that any intellectual conclusions we make from our limited standpoint have any reality other than in that we have experience of them.

I don't want to close down this question, but rather contribute an appropriate level of humility to it. For example, perhaps any kind of physical reality as where we find ourselves, including any logic, or metaphysics, is an artificial construct for some unknown (to us) purpose, for an unknown entity.

Also God might be this unknown entity, which isn't the actual creator of the universe. So can we even address God, or the universe, or understand what they are, or if they are real.

But what about the billion or more people who live at, or slightly above sea level, will they come and join you, when you move uphill?
I have recently moved uphill, to 56m, hopefully the value of my property will hold up for the foreseeable.

I think a sense of proportion, judgment, and thoughtful weighing of the evidence and alternatives and choices to be made, is better than hysterical panic that labels everyone who disagrees a hater and a denier. Having that opinion makes me in some people's eyes a hater and denier. It's frustrating but that's the culture these days.

I agree with your approach, although I notice you didn't have in your list,
*in what ways are we polluting the planet and what are the likely consequences?

However there is a flaw in your argument. You appear to be working on the assumption that once you have concluded from the answers to these questions, or public opinion has so concluded, that we should be doing something about it, that the required action will follow. If that were the case I would be relaxed about the issue as you are, but that it is not the case that such action will naturally follow.

Far from it, there is a great deal of inertia in the system, there is short term political expediency, as evidenced by the wave of populism sweeping the world. There are powerful vested interests. There are fools in power playing war games. There are countries with no effective government, which are only going to change if the rest of the world is already changing. It is the awareness of such difficulties which exasperate the people who are shouting about climate change, level headed scientists included.

Boris would not win absolutely anything by supporting Trump with engaging the British military in the fight.

He might loose something, if he doesn't remember that he is about to go grovelling on his knees to Trump for his trade deal which is going to save our economy when he gets his high tariff, regulatory divergent trade deal with the EU.

Well "just say no" is going to go well with a hard Brexit, with the inevitable brinkmanship we are going to see towards the end of the year when Johnson starts to behave recklessly with the EU again. Whenever Johnson responds to questions about indyref2 from Scottish representatives, they become incensed as he rubs them up the wrong way, with his petulant arrogance.

Well, regarding the honeymoon period, he has already been overtaken by events. I expect he will support Trump in secret while, while pretending to stand up to him in the British media. Facing both ways as before the election. I expect he will not appear on the media much, basically hiding from any kind of exposure or accountability.

He means it when he says the word Brexit will be banned, we won't hear anything about the negotiations, it will all be done in secret, with a policy of encouraging the media and public to only discuss other issues. Nothing to see here.

If the US goes to war, it might become a bit tricky, again he will face both ways, deceiving the public, while sending British troops anyway.

I think we need to look at where infinity comes from. It is simply a product of a kind of human thinking. Human thought is a response to finding itself in a position of existing in a world with dimensions and duration. When the human mind thinks about this world, inevitably they encounter thoughts of endlessness. When this idea is contemplated ideas of infinity emerge.

None of this says anything about the world we find ourselves in, only our rational response to it. A peculiarity of our own mind. So I agree with the OP.

Anti-Trumpism leads one to reserve their finger-wagging for Trump while allowing them to remain silent on Iranian theocrats and terrorists. Trump is the Great Scapegoat of whatever happens next, so long as whatever happens makes things demonstrably worse.

I can't speak for Democrats, but all the anti Trump folk in the UK and they are in the majority, do not remain silent on the nutters in Tehran, they know all to well what the power brokers in the Middle East are like. We get to much focus from foreign correspondents in the media, it's like an obsession.

We know that the whole region is a tinder box just waiting for someone to strike a match. We also know that Trump is a bumbling fool with his finger on the big red button. He is so bumbling that as he is trying to take the match out of the box, he just keeps fumbling and dropping them all on the floor. He'll have to get one of his hawks with their fingers in war trade investments to do it for him.

He doesn't even realise that all he needs to do to start the conflagration in the Middle East is to tweet some anti Islamic insults.

Oh, wait a minute he has tweeted Islamic insults. What a great US statesman (not), oh how the mighty US has fallen.

The pole is in reference to the most important problem facing humanity. There are many problems, it's more about what is the most important of them for the race as a whole.

I know there are many people struggling to find food and water in a chaotic world, but this is not an important problem for the survival of humanity as a whole, whereas there are other problems which could jeopardise the survival of humanity.

I would say climate change is the most urgent problem we face currently, but it's certainly connected to overpopulation and political corruption. Again, my biggest surprise is only one vote (so far) for nuclear weapons

Yes, if the issue of urgency is key in this vote, it is obviously climate change, because it is existential and the scientists say we need to tackle it now, to avert this existential crisis.

The other options are not urgent, or existential.

Yes, I agree with everything you say here. I think that not only is there inertia in many of the areas which do require rapid change. But there is also an insurmountable problem in large populations. In cities for example with many millions of inhabitants, the resources individuals require are transported en mass into that city continually. It is like a finely tuned watch, all it needs is a spanner thrown in the works for it to descend into chaos. Such populations are heavily exposed to disruption, or catastrophes of numerous kinds. Many of which are being considered likely should further impacts of climate change develop.

Large populations are also vulnerable to sea level rise, as many are at sea level. Problems will arise from large numbers of people having to move out of cities which are becoming uninhabitable due to sea level rise. Inhabitants of the areas they wish to move to will not want to let them in because their resources will already be stretched etc etc.

Some people say that these things won't be a problem because large numbers of people will die due to famine or disease. These will bring further problems of disease and unrest, destabilising adjascent populations causing famine and disease and conflict to spread in unknown ways.

So you are describing a fraternity, a social group following a prescribed lifestyle which works on a local scale across borders. Great I live in a similar social grouping, more informal and not following anything prescribed other than a cultural norm. Unfortunately when it comes to the health of the country as a whole, there are many problems, one being a media fuelled political bias towards a free market capitalism, which has not weathered globalisation well and which has not worked well for the nation, it has for example resulted in Brexit.

From what you say about Cambodia, it sounds like there is not much governance going on and you don't mention how capitalism is affecting the people.

In my country there is a war of ideas, which does seem to be engaging people and may be good for the health of the country, if it does not become entrenched as it has in the US.

I'm surprised at the choices, isn't it obvious that climate change is the most pressing, after all with our current population and with many governments with high levels of transparency and integrity(although I accept this count is currently falling), we are still producing so much pollution that we will soon die out from the pollution of our environment. All the other problems will be solved or reset soon anyway by this.

If somehow we can pull together and mitigate the worst excesses of climate change, we may begin to see the way forward, or at least have another go.

More importantly, if we don't address it now, we may be reduced to a primitive Stone Age way of life setting us back over 10,000 years from our 21st Century level of development. Or worse, become extinct, leaving the batton of civilisation to some other animal which survives us.

Well Johnson will be back from his champagne fuelled celebrations on the Island of Mustique with his billionaire friends tomorrow.

Presumably he will have been doing some thinking. Will he now put any effort into preventing Scotland leaving the UK? I doubt he will want to be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and go down as the PM who presided over the break up of the Union.

But how will he achieve this? Surely the only way is to deliver a soft Brexit, but he has sold a hard Brexit. So what does he do?

Or perhaps he doesn't give two hoots about Scotland.

I agree, I was pointing out that plastic is a stable form of carbon and so can be laid down in seams like seams of coal and burnt, or whatever, at a later date when the technology is more advanced and carbon emissions have been stabilised at a sustainable level. I agree that packaging is a problem, but it is imperative that we focus on large scale reduction of Greenhouse gass emissions as a priority, why spend money building incinerators to burn plastics with the issues of scrubbing the harmful chemicals out of its emissions and continue to emit carbon, when you can continue to bury the plastic as before and spend the money on renewable energy production, as a replacement for that carbon emission.

The difficulty seems to be that governments are dominated by capitalists, and capitalism demands short-term profits NOW, at what ever cost.

I agree, this why it is important that we in the UK root out the endemic anti socialist ideology in the media and the people who take it as read that socialism is a disaster.

I find myself in almost total agreement with Bitter Crank politically, which in itself is remarkable as we live in different worlds on different continents. I would mirror his comments on the reality that in a society there are always those who are selfish and exploitative, regardless of the religion, or lack of it. I am happy for you and the society you describe, whereabouts in South East Asia do you live? I am aware that there are some societies in that part of the world which function well, I am not well acquainted with the Islamic ones.

I have spent some time in Egypt and it has an Islamic society which does not function well, corruption is widespread, torture in prisons and jails is commonplace. There is ruthless exploitation and lack of support for the poor in many areas and little equality for women. I observe that the worst excesses of capitalism have not infected Islamic societies as many others, but I fully expect it to do so in the future, as I expect it to be corrosive for the religion of a society due to its use of the human emotion of greed and control to propagate.

I think plastics can be stored in landfill and processed later, although it is an important issue, it is not contributing a lot directly to climate change and alternatives could turn out to be more damaging in terms of emissions.

I agree that governance is going to be key, as things starts to get worse and government becomes less stable, many countries could fall into chaos as constitutions fail, resulting in no coordinated infrastructure change and civil unreast leading to mass starvation etc.

Yes, investors are just dipping their toes in so far. Some corporations have gone further. But there is a worry amongst start up companies that government incentives and regulations change like the wind, which has certainly happened in the UK, with political developments.
I certainly sense a head of steam developing, but even with that many of the technologies are not tried and tested, or roll out has not been ironed out. People won't want to change their lifestyles much on mass, unless forced and politicians are notoriously averse to unpopular actions, it can bring down their political career overnight. So reticence is going to be a big stumbling block and will surely result in a few years of dither and delay, even when it all becomes a no brainer.

I hadn't really been considering an unliveable hot house scenario, can you give any idea of how likely that would be, or what tipping point would precipitate it?

I think we should factor in the rapid greening up of an area in which humanity were extinguished, provided plant life can survive. For example, if we imagined humanity disappeared overnight, most of the landmass of the globe would be reforrested in around 50-100 years. Provided that plant life could survive. There are plans around to plant billions of trees, but how do we know what to plant and where. Also I expect that there will be continuing swings in climate conditions from place to place making human efforts to farm a great struggle, resulting in more famine etc.

Regarding Tsunami, I hadn't thought of glaciers causing them, but rather landslides and seismic activity due to changing sea levels, glacial rebound and changes in climactic conditions, like increases in rainfall. The example drawn to mind is the unstable ridge along the Island of La Palma, which could go, causing a mega tsunami affecting the eastern sea board of the Americas and to a lesser extent Europe and Africa. Also, there could be numerous other examples which haven't been identified as yet, probably below sea level.

Is it that because leaders represent the people, it's actually a good and just thing when a soldier dies in a pointless war? That the politicians cannot be blamed?

You seem to be missing the point. Soldiers are duty bound to obey orders, it's what they're for; I'm telling your the orders themselves can be stupid, for which the commander in chief can be directly blamed.

No you're missing the point (apparently), in a war it's actually the solder on the ground who does the killing and perpetuating the conflict. The cowards who sit at home and give the orders are just trying to stop them, to stop and prevent war. If it weren't for those pesky solders volunteering and going and killing other solders, we would all be living in peace and harmony, war would never happen.

He's a banker

Touché

Essentially yes, given the hot house scenario described by Boethius. It might be more like a late Bronze Age, or a medieval level of technology, depending primarily on the extent population. This really is an interesting subject, there has been a lot of thought given to it including interesting films dramas etc. Exploring the extent to which a civilisation would fall given a catastrophe. Perhaps that's for another thread.

But as a starter, let's say that the population were less than 1% the current levels (I was suggesting only a few thousand). Let's pretend there aren't ravaging bandits everywhere, but it is quite peaceful in terms of human conflict. Do you think we would be able to maintain an electrical supply and run electrical appliances, vehicles, with gazolene? How easy, or not, would it be to feed the population, what about healthcare?

Now take your answers and think how things would be after say 500 years, 20 generations. I suggest that the answer to these questions depends almost entirely on the numbers in the population.

On the point regarding capital moving from fossil fuels to renewables. I was only conveying what Mark Carney said the other day. I would suggest he knows what he's talking about. Don't shoot the messenger.

There is evidence that capital has seen the light. Mark Carney the out going head of the Bank of England, soon to become the UN special envoy for climate change, spoke on the BBC a few days ago. That, in no uncertain terms, that investments and infrastructure developed for the exploitation of fossil fuels will become worthless in a few years and that capital should look to invest in investments and infrastructure designed to replace them with renewable sources of energy and the emerging green economy (my wording, but this is the jist of what he was saying).

I presume the planet experienced a hot house state before, which was liveable . Presumably it is the rapid transition to this state which you are suggesting is unliveable? In which case I agree, however I do expect a small colony of humanity to survive and rebuild. Whether they manage to take any knowledge with them, is the worry. Otherwise we may go back to square one again, and start all over again, as we have done before.

The climatic conditions change from day to day, season to season, year to year. What would you mean by "not too dissimilar to what we have now"?

I was referring to general world climate as we have had for the last few hundred years. Anyway I was asking in the same paragraph what you meant by "for many of us there is no such thing as ok"?

The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago, and there was a "Little Ice Age" in medieval times, so I don't know where you get the idea that the climatic conditions have been "remarkably stable" for the last few thousand years.

You missed the word "relatively" ( at the end of my sentence) I think. My point was that the climate can become far more unstable and severe than what we experience now. I did say that I think, I don't think you have accepted it. Even the mini ice age was small beer.

Also, are you saying that we have not passed the tipping point and could still have another ice age soon?

That's not what I was trying to say. I was saying something more along the lines of "for many of us there is no such thing as ok".

I would think that conditions not to dissimilar to what we have now would be the closest we could come to ok (or are you saying that this is also not ok?). Once large, or rapid global changes start to happen ( I'm not saying they will necessarily), we will, I expect, discover that the climactic conditions we have been used to for the last few thousand years were remarkably stable and settled and that they would rapidly become unstable and extreme, relatively.

Where did you hear this? I don't know whether that's possible or not, and if so, how severe the seismic activity would be. But then, pumping water out of aquifers or pumping fracking crap into rocks has caused seismic activity -- not terrible yet, but still... I don't quite see a connection between ocean currents and volcanic activity. How would that work?

I didn't hear it anywhere in particular, I just thought it obvious. When I've looked into it, there is acknowledgement that changes in climate might affect seismic activity, but there isn't any research which gives any indication. There doesn't seem to be any understanding yet about most of the day to day activity in the earths crust.

In regard to ocean currents, I was thinking of a rapid change in ocean temperature in certain areas for example the Humbolt current, or the Gulf Stream. The Humbolt current is adjacent to a subduction zone.

Volcanic activity can put a huge amount of ash into the atmosphere, lowering the atmosperic temperature significantly. Maybe the "balance" has not yet been lost and we've yet to see the swing back the other way.

Like the Deccan traps for example, which has been considered as a possible cause for the demise of the dinosaurs.

You are displaying your naivety here (or perhaps humour). Firstly to generate such a large effect it would require a large caldera to go off, like Yellow Stone for example, which would likely accelerate any climate change considerably with signifant pollution, not to mention large amounts of greenhouse gasses. The sun probably wouldn't shine for a decade. Secondly this would almost certainly result in the rapid acidification of the oceans to the extent that all ocean ecosystems would collapse. The acidification already caused by human pollution is reaching worrying levels. There would be mass ecosystem collapse on land as well and humanity would be at each other's throats.

Nice try at saying everything will be ok after all.

Ditto.

Quite, philosophy etc is peripheral in our world. All that counts in terms of the direction we go forward in is capitalist profit (and by extension control) and political success (meaning the ability to get into office for a term). There is the small matter of public opinion and demand, but that is a slow burn and can be controlled and redirected by the other two forces.

Nor did the alternative spirituality of new wave religions offer any long term or obvious benefits.

Perhaps you didn't delve all that deeply into New Age philosophy. It is considered that the long term role of humanity is to be custodians of the planet and therefore the biosphere. As a mystic I go further, such issues are the only viable purpose of humanity.

Yes, there is an important circulation in the North Atlantic called the Gulf Stream, or North Atlantic Drift. It's quite possible that this could stop circulating with quite drastic consequences for the climate of the whole area. When this is considered alongside the rapid warming of the Arctic, we are in for a rollercoaster ride over in Europe. Such developments are on the cards all around the globe and we could see a shutting down of circulation which delivers warmth to areas further away from the equator. Resulting in more extreme and fixed temperature zones, with a band around the equatorial regions which is uninhabitable for humans. The consequences can not be predicted at the moment, we are just along for the ride, who knows where we will end up.

Also such developments could affect the temperature conditions of the earths crust resulting in seismic and volcanic activity.

I am not sure from your English if they have approved the use of nuclear power or they just have the power (political power) to approve it or not. Please report back to me what you meant.

Both, they have the power to approve it, to subsidise it, to negotiate with investors and constructors. To insure it, take responsibility for decommissioning. Also they do currently approve of it, two new stations are being commissioned right now. Although they have dithered for the last 15 years or so, but now there is a serious energy gap looming and they have little choice if they are going to keep the lights on.

Interestingly fracking has been halted due to seismic activity, I doubt it will resume now. I expect a big expansion of offshore wind now, an industry doing very well for us.

I agree about fusion, there is a lab in the UK which has achieved it, but on a tiny scale. To scale up and catch the energy in a reliable way is as yet inconceivable from what I've heard.
I agree with your overall assessment, I think optimists are thinking in terms of the best of humanity acting in the best interests of the population etc. I fear this is naivety, sure there will be many good people working on solutions for our best interests, but in a unstable geopolitical atmosphere with failing economies, moral decline, rising nationalism and populism, capitalism exposed for the inhuman force it is, a darker route is looking more likely. With human frailty, our Achilles heal.

So why the interview, then, if the war is won? If the intellectual war is won everything else should follow. After all the science is in.

This reminds me of your faith in the adaptability of humanity. I don't have such faith, faith in highly populous civilisations to make systemic change rapidly. In the UK, the government is the primary agent in social and industrial change. Our current government repeatedly makes hollow claims and promises about action on carbon reductions. Once they are in power complacency reigns, even while they claim that the goals are being achieved, there is inaction.

The only way to get systemic change in our system, and I expect it is the same in most countries is by force, force of public opinion, public demand, public action. This is now finally beginning to happen.
Greta said in the interview that such complacency had resulted in the recent talks in Madrid failing to make progress and that we must focus on making a success of COP26 in the UK next year.

Do you know that a UK representative at the Madrid talks reported that there were 150 US representatives going around trying to impede the talks and they may have succeeded. I wonder who told them, or their superiors to do that?