. I didn't really get into it or anything until the new atheist movement, which I found attractive. — Wosret

That's interesting. Do you still identify with new atheists?

I vaguely remember Barney Frank. I didn't have a TV at the time.

That's cool. Hand the phone to your cat.

For my friend, I think it's probably just a little late. If it had been possible for him in the 1980's.. I could definitely see him as a congressman or senator. But now his history is just invested elsewhere.

Considering that you saw a lot of that change, how did you experience it? Did it mean anything to you when you started to see those doors opening? In terms of how you saw yourself? Or not?

So this is how stupid I am: I knew this gay dude who's an enthusiastic Republican. I asked him once why he didn't get involved in politics considering how much thought and energy he seemed to devote to it. He told me it was because he's gay. For a second I just stared at him.. like... so? And then I realized.. oh shit.. you can't become a politician in the US if you're gay! This was a few years back so maybe things have changed, but could you comment on what that's like? Or has it never been of significance to you? Or what?

Don't you have some oblique statement to make about sexual harassment?

So what views have you developed?

So you must have been thinking along philosophical lines before that. Do you remember anything in particular (pre-11 years old, I mean.)

When would you say you first noticed your brain was philosophy oriented?

Those are his own actions after all. Surely we can all agree that if Hitler had never been vocal about his hatred of Jews (but Goebbels was), the existence of concentration camps might have been a clue! — Benkei

True. When the US government starts building concentration camps, we'll take out the president and whoever else we need to. If we don't do that... if we just go ahead and have a Holocaust, trust me.. it won't be because of Trump, Bannon, or whoever else. It will be because we lost our minds.

And there won't be anything you can do about it.. so why worry?

I love philosophy, — Terrapin Station

Why?

The need to alleviate boredom. — Thorongil

But... you could have picked rock climbing... or hunting arrow-heads. Why philosophy?

I'm in the gray zone where you could say I arrived at the tail end of the Baby Boom generation or at the beginning of Generation X. I wouldn't say that I'm old. (Of course, some punk-ass kids who need to get the hell offa my lawn might say otherwise, but that's another story.) — Terrapin Station

I'm also too young to be Baby Boomer and a little old for GenX, but the music and general vibe of GenX is definitely me. So.. same question: what brought you to a philosophy forum?

Oh... shit... sorry about that. I said some anti-American sentiments... solely directed at, and in passive-aggressive response to Trump supporters, and with the intent to be obnoxious, and annoying. Everyone else in the world besides those couple of people are collateral damage.

I apologize, and don't have anything seriously against Americans, I was just being a dick on purpose because I was annoyed at Trump victory gloating. I'll refrain in the future. — Wosret

Don't be sorry! I just thought if I was going to interview Thorongil, I should say some things about myself... otherwise it would be like a weird police interview or something. That was just something that came to mind.

How would you answer the question, btw? How did you end up on a philosophy forum? What brought you to it?

You're the piler-onner I recently accused of being Thorongil. If that's who you really are.. then sure. Answer the question.

Dude. I don't know you. How am I supposed to know if you want an explanation or not?

How about we do a Thorongil interview?

Don't understand it, but you don't ask for an explanation. Well... there you have it.

That you felt the need to express your apathy in the way you did betrays that you are apathetic to the degree that you implied. The truly apathetic person wouldn't respond like that and probably not even respond at all. — Thorongil

I don't know you very well, but I note that you don't ask questions very often. It's just.. dictate dictate dictate. Maybe as if no one around you knows anything you need to ask about.. or maybe it's a touch of solipsism?

This is something I'm not apathetic about... why are you like that? For my part.. it was just cracking me up.. the image of a person who goes around telling everybody that they're boring. I'm still laughing about it actually.

I was expressing apathy, but I don't think it was to you. Unless it's just one jerk with a bunch of sock puppets... Possible, I guess. Boring.

but that doesn't imply that someone is a white nationalist when they use a phrase like "law and order." — Terrapin Station

True. You have to look at who's saying it and in what context. They're taking advantage of the fact that the vast majority of us are complete morons.

White nationalists talk to each other in code when in public. "Law and Order" has been code for racism since the Nixon administration. That's why my jaw dropped when Trump used that terminology in one of the debates.

You may deny that he was courting white supremacists with that language.. I think you might be right. However David Duke seems to have taken it that way.

Don't get all huffy with me though.. 'cause I reeeeaaallly don't give a fuck.

Well, we have Newt Gingrich's view: "Arf. Arrrrr... Rhaaafff rhafff rhaff arf arf grrrrr.. Arf!"

Am I doing this right..? — Heister Eggcart

Yep. You're doing great. Keep going.

Yes, yes, my mistake. The Chinese simply came with their silk, gave it all away, then left again. — Heister Eggcart

Most historians are convinced that the Chinese never traveled the so-called silk road.

Everybody loves left-over Jews.

It is? Awesome. Then you should be able to tell us what the Chinese received in exchange for the silk. Otherwise, you're just speculating that it was trade (you piler-onner.) X-)

No it didn't. Global trade has been around for a long time, going back to ancient times. Ever heard of the silk road? . — Thorongil

Yes. I have. By virtue of those routes Chinese silk was in Egypt around 1000 BC. I guess you could call that global trade. Boring.

Boiling point varies with the pressure of the air. Most people would assume you meant normal atmospheric pressure.

I am not in favor of de-globalization. — Bitter Crank

I guess I am (not in favor). Global trade actually started with the Atlantic slave trade and that event demonstrates one of the insidious aspects of globalization. The Portuguese and British (the two main participants) ended up supporting and benefiting from the Triangular Trade, but most citizens of those countries didn't understand what was happening in the New World.

The recent rash of police shootings in the US shows how proximity facilitates awareness. Where the wrong-doing is on another continent, the villains are a little more protected. Without a global government, it's really a pretty lawless world.

I'd put the emergence of a global government at a pretty low probability. Maybe if a new global religion sprouted.. maybe.

It's kind of like asking whether one can walk across a golf course in spite of Zeno's Paradox.

Some would say rigid designators are the tool for handling stuff like that. But I've recently come to the conclusion that that's just an elaborate game. Explaining our confidence in contiguity past to future requires getting a little Kantian. I don't think there's any way around it.

Sure. Such scholarship abounds. A lot of it is by topic, not religion. So for instance, Bernard McGinn edits a collection of essays on apocalypticism. Islam is definitely in there. If you're looking for history, Richard Foltz, but again.. the overall topic is the history of Central Asia with a particular focus on religion.

If it's something more current you're looking for, we're too close to it for a full-bodies analysis. I think that's true going back at least 100 years. Too much has happened to Islam for scholars to do much digestion. But there's plenty of info out there.

All that said, my opinion is that Christianity is the most ideologically complex of the global religions. That's kind of like saying cheetahs are the fastest cats, though. So what?

The requirements for being recognized as a Muslim scholar are pretty extensive. That's a position within the global Muslim community.

Critical scholarship? I'm curious.. what sorts of writings are you thinking of there? Just religion studies?

It looks like that essay is focused on the motivations behind the creation of an Islamic state... which can be beautiful. No more beautiful than the vision behind liberal democracy, though. In both cases the reality is screwed up.

He needs to read more British dystopian novels. It's technology he's complaining about, not liberal democracy.

You're both right. The distinct features of white Europeans and black Africans have been recognized for millennia. The changing fortunes of Europeans over that time period rules out the possibility that the distinction only serves to identify European superiority.

The definitions of "white" and "black" Marchesk is using appear to be specifically related to New World slavery or S. African apartheid. And yea.. All sorts of dark skinned people would qualify as black. S. Africans identified the Chinese as black and the Japanese as white. Go figure.

On the other hand, as we climb into the 21st Century and note that the Ottoman Empire favored European slaves, we may say: "Those slaves were white". Anyone who has difficulty understanding what that means has a rigid outlook which probably causes perpetual confusion.

What if we construe "cause" as an event(s) or set of contingencies, without which, a subsequent event we call the "effect" would not have occured, and with which, the effect reliably occurs? — Brainglitch

Answering the question why? means identifying a relationship, right? Maybe it's not always between two different things. Maybe it's.. how does this car of the train relate to the whole train? Is it the caboose? The engine?

It feels to me as if 'the moment' may be a use of language that befuddles such languages, for it forces a micro view of a non-micro phenomenon. — mcdoodle

Could you expand on that?

But language use takes place in time, doesn't it? Propositions aren't linguistic entities exactly. Their expression is linguistic.

Or we can label x a cause and wonder what the effects will be, or claim that Pascal's Demon already knows.

But I think you're saying what I don't know if we can escape: that causality is a relation between propositions.. like between P1: The ball flew though the air, and P2: The window is busted. You know what I mean? It's not a relation between the toaster and the toast. Or maybe it is.

Depends on your ontological commitments?

Um. It was on my pandora Hans Zimmer station. All hail Fuckface von Clownstick. Yay!