I'm trying to come up with an example of where an increase in knowledge causes harm, or more harm than good. Can you help? — Evola

Depends on how you define knowledge, I guess. It's more complex than it appears, particularly as it plays out in society and the world. An idea I've been batting around lately, is the idea of real internet ID - so everyone would have to be themselves online. It's an idea gaining ground in China for reasons I'm unaware of. I think it would create a more responsible virtual world, but there are potential implications for free speech and political organisation in the event of authoritarian government.

We would know more about who people were, but the potential negative implications for free speech would have to be weighed against the drugs, porn, child abuse, visa theft, bullying, piracy, prostitution, and screeching political opinion online anonymity allows for.

oops!

How do you suggest we sell this theory of yours to the scientific community, the politicians who fund them, and the public at large? I understand your theory to basically be saying, "if we were rational the problem is solved". How do you intend to make us rational? — Jake

My theory is not 'basically saying' that. It's not a basic theory. It's a very deep theory that's concerned with the nature of reality, the nature of life, and the nature of mind - as that applies to the philosophy, politics and economics of sustainability. My appeal is not to entirely rational motives. Take for instance, your masturbatory, I'm all right Jake disregard for the future of the species. I suspect that argument appeals to your ego.

Ok, "an irrational application of technology" seems accurate enough. But, neither you nor anybody else has any credible plan for how we make "application of technology responsible to scientific truth" thus it's a form of insanity to introduce ever more power at an ever faster pace in to the equation. The fact that these weapons exist, however that happened, is proof enough that we aren't ready for more and more power coming online at a faster and faster pace. — Jake

You demand a referee - and yet dismiss the only qualified candidate; that is, recognition of the authority of scientific truth over and above primitive ideologies. You refuse to acknowledge that science as you see it - is science conducted, and technology applied in pursuit of ideological wealth and power. Who would you elect referee? The Amish? Billions would starve. There's no return to the rural idyll for the vast majority. Our only hope is responsibility to science as truth.

It's the simplest thing Karl, once one escapes the group think. As example, do you believe that everyone should have access to any weapon they want? Or do you believe that such access should be limited in some manner or another? If you chose the later option, you already agree with me the power necessarily has to be limited. — Jake

You haven't escaped the groupthink. Your kind of anti-scientism is the prevailing paradigm, and exactly what I'm arguing against. It proceeds from the Church's response to Galileo, via Thomas Hobbes and others, and feeds straight into popular fiction via Mary Shelly. Every mad scientist dispatched by some God loving, flag waving hero follows in the course of this dynamic, and so do you.

oops!

When you say you're a philosopher, what do mean by that? What is it that you understand a philosopher to be? I'd add the further constraint that real philosophers get paid for their work in philosophy, but while that is indicative, it is not conclusive. — tim wood

Do you not know what the word philosopher means? You've got google - look it up! REAL philosophers get paid - do they? Okay then. Socrates wasn't a philosopher! Funnily enough, that's what the town elders thought - only, history doesn't record their names.

To say that quantum mechanic doesn't work or doesn't apply in the world of the big is simply to say you do not know what you're talking about. Real philosophers, it seems to me, attempt to know when they don't know, and as well not to talk nonsense. — tim wood

To quote Richard Feynman, if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics. I don't - but I do understand the philosophy of science, and I'm not willing to accept that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a relevant factor, or that it applies to macroscopic phenomena. This desperate latching onto quantum mechanics by every crackpot metaphysical hack makes my skin crawl.

Maybe you should take up the issue with Lee Smolen , who recognizes the dependence of physics on its own worldview(Heisenberg recognized this too), and argues that the presuppositions that have dominated the field concerning the understanding of time are holding it back.
His argument for giving time a core postilion in physics as it has has in evolutionary biology sounds a bit like Heidegger. — Joshs

Do you have any quotes, sources or examples? I'm unwilling to take your word for what someone else said. I can't really engage with that. I've heard of Smolen, but I can't place his work.

Heisenberg is a quantum physicist - and I have serious concerns about the entire field; particularly - I'm not at all confident that there's anything fundamental to be discovered at the sub atomic and quantum level - and downright dismissive of the notion that those mechanics, or lack thereof - can be imported into the macroscopic world we inhabit.

I'm not a physicist - I'm a philosopher, but I rather suspect that the seat of reality is the middle ground we inhabit, and quantum physics is looking at the frayed edge of reality - on the border between something and nothing. It's the very loss of existential properties like velocity or location that underlie indeterminacy in quantum physics, that lead me to posit this idea. I accept it occurs, I just don't accept it's fundamental indeterminacy. It's frayed edge indeterminacy.

With regard to Kant and Nietzsche - I think they're both ridiculous. Their work is unreadable, and that's an entirely deliberate mystification. I have a rule - if you invented a new word to explain what you mean, or indeed, are apt to lapse into Latin at the drop of a petasum then you favour obscurity over clarity, because you're wrong or you're lying.

"The theory of relativity in physics does not deal with what time is but deals only with how time, in the sense of a now-sequence, can be measured. [It asks] whether there is an absolute measurement of time, or whether all measurement is necessarily relative, that is, conditioned."

Heidegger is completely wrong abut relativity in general, and space time in particular. Spacetime is a physical reality that is distorted by gravity. This is evident on earth, where two atomic clocks run differently, where one is at sea level, and the other is in plane flying 30,000 feet above. This is called 'time dilation' - and it's a scientifically proven phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

It's a genuine shame a mind as fertile as Heidegger's could not accept the reality staring him in the face. Sadly, this is not an isolated example. This kind of attack on science has to end:

"In physics, a theory is proposed and then tested by experiments to see whether their results agree with the theory. The only thing demonstrated is the correspondence of the experimental results to the theory. It is not demonstrated that the theory is simply the knowledge of nature. The experiment and the result of the experiment do not extend beyond the framework of the theory. They remain within the area delineated by the theory. The experiment is not considered in regard to its correspondence to nature, — Joshs

The two atomic clocks do not differ because of the theory that they should, but because of the difference in altitude. It is the physical reality that is tested. Theory is a variable - upheld or destroyed by the experimental results. These pernicious, or perhaps merely self deluding metaphysical philosophers bring us within sight of our extinction. If we do not recognize the significance of scientific truth now - a sustainable future will soon be impossible.

Ok, good question. I'm not sure I have an answer to your "what to do" question, but I'm willing to explore it, here or in another thread of your choosing. "Nothing sticks" because so far, in years of discussing this in many places, not a single person has been able to explain how human beings will successfully manage ever more power delivered at an ever faster pace, which is what a "more is better" relationship with knowledge (and thus science) leads to, as proven by the history of the last 500 years. — Jake

Well first, you might want to acknowledge that science and technology are not applied for scientifically valid reasons. They're applied as dictated by religious/political/economic power structures - for power and profit, regardless of scientific advisability. Were we to correct that error - scientific truth would regulate the application of technology. There's your 'adult in the room' - missing from your approach.

I do grow testy sometimes, which is entirely my problem. I may be making some progress there as I'm close to giving up on trying to explain for the billionth time that being bored with the fact that we have thousands of hydrogen bombs aimed down our own throat is not very good evidence of a species that is ready for more and more power delivered at an ever accelerating pace. — Jake

If you cannot recognize 70,000 nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War as an ideologically driven, and irrational application of technology - as opposed to an application of technology responsible to scientific truth, then I'm done banging a brick wall against your head.

The testiness arises from extreme boredom, and a form of arrogance that assumes that I, Mr. Jake Poster, can have any impact at all on a historic process so much larger and deeper than any us. Perhaps I'm learning to be a bit more realistic about the situation we find ourselves in, or perhaps I'm just becoming more selfish in the realization that I'll be dead soon and so this is somebody else's problem. — Jake

Oh, right - because philosophy has never changed anything! If you don't care if there's a future for humankind, your existence was just one long masturbatory fantasy. You took all previous generations struggled to create, from nought but sticks and stones, and merely pleasured yourself with it. Well bravo - but no encore!

In any case, if I wish to lay claim to being a person of reason I have to listen to the evidence, and the evidence from years of discussing this is screaming that reason is not going to solve this problem of our relationship with knowledge, and so there is probably little to do other than wait for the lessons that pain will inevitably generously provide. — Jake

I'm inclined to agree. The overwhelming probability is that we will not address the problem of our relationship to scientific knowledge, and will die starving and sun-burnt en masse; but it's not inevitable - and it's not right. If science hasn't proven itself a profound truth that rightfully owns the highest authority, that's our mistake - not anything inherent to science.

I'm not vetoing further discussion on the matter, for I did of course just write a post on it myself. But I'll admit to not being hopeful we can take the conversation anywhere we haven't already been, and by "we" I don't mean just you and I, but this philosophy forum, all philosophy forums, our culture at large. — Jake

Well I think I am saying something different, and hopeful, and true. I think you people can't see it because it requires you look beyond your ideological identities - and that scares you. You can't look reality in the eye, and assert the worth of humankind. Reality is a threat to you - as is evident in your entire approach, just as it's a threat to religion, politics and economics. Only it's not. Not if you accept it. From my point of view - nothing looks more like the word of God than science. Politics is merely the business of knowing what's true, and doing what's right in terms of what's true. And the economic opportunities that follow from accepting scientific truth, and applying technology accordingly - are vast, and potentially infinite.

Hey Jake. I have a problem. I don't want to let your post pass without protesting it, but at the same time, it's all chewed meat. Maybe stating this question suffices to note my objection, to what you repeat endlessly - despite the overwhelming problems with your 'more is better' denunciation of science having been described to you - repeatedly, and at great length. I don't want to go over it all again, because nothing sticks - and like Eldorado above, you're inclined to get testy when challenged. So, what to do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu7EYbMFOY8

The very first words out of Nigel Farage's mouth are a lie. David Cameron had wanted a referendum since he wrote the 2005 Tory manifesto for Micheal Howard. He again pushed for a referendum in the 2010 Tory manifesto, and finally made it a manifesto commitment in 2015 - that could not be blocked by Parliament or amended by the Lords.

UKIP were nowhere in 2005. They didn't make significant electoral gains until the 2013 EU elections, and 2014 Local government elections. That was after Cameron's 2010, absurd tens of thousands immigration pledge, and after Cameron had promised a referendum in January 2013. At the height of their powers, UKIP had one MP. They were never a threat to Cameron.

Cameron raised expectations on immigration with his tens of thousands pledge - adding, "or vote me out" - while Theresa May as Home Secretary spectacularly failed to deliver. Nonetheless, May remained in post as Home Secretary for six years - longest tenure in living memory; while Cameron provided for the referendum he had wanted for a long time. (See the youtube video on Cameron, Lisbon Treaty, 2009, below.) May allowed 660,000 migrants into Britain in 2015, and published those figures during the referendum campaign, and Cameron put himself on the wrong side of that manufactured failure as champion of Remain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNoJr0rqq54

Thank you for the psychoanalysis, but if I want counseling, I will consult a professional. — Echarmion

You're welcome.

bogdan9310
12
↪Harry Hindu ↪karl stone
Having different observers, we could be looking at the same thing, and have 10 different observations. Observation is not reliable. Check out this article: https://exposingtheothers.com/the-problems-with-science/ — bogdan9310

If reality is observer dependent, explain traffic lights. No-one has ever gone to court and successfully argued - "The light I observed was green, Your Honour." If reality were observer dependent, traffic lights could not exist. Rather, there's an objective reality that we observe in a subjective fashion - subject to greater or lesser degrees of accuracy. Science employs repeated observation by independent observers to test its claims - and the incentives are to disprove other scientist's claims, not confirm them.

These are a lot of words to say "I think you're wrong". It would help if you explained to me what exactly I get wrong about hypotheses and agnosticism. — Echarmion

If that's all I were saying - that's what I would have said. I've explained why your claim that scientific understanding can only apply to ideas laid out in physics is wrong. It's because science is several things:

it's an epistemology: a philosophy of knowledge.
it's a method: the scientific method of testing hypotheses with reference to evidence.
it's a practice: conducting scientific experiments.
and it's a conception of reality: an increasingly valid and coherent worldview.

You argue that the last, 'an increasing valid and coherent worldview" is not science - but metaphysics. That follows from the mistake of suppressing science as an understanding of reality for 400 years. If you take the sum total of scientific knowledge - the broad picture it paints, then there's sufficient justification for a God hypothesis - but not proof, either for or against. Hence, agnosticism with regard to the God hypothesis.

Metaphysics is an insult. Any valid philosophy begins with epistemology - either explicitly, or implicitly. Heidegger's random obsession with the concept of 'being' for example, is metaphysics, and there's no systematic method to that madness. He adduces observations at random intervals - about hammers and bicycles, to support an equally random line of reasoning - toward a prejudiced conclusion.

Your atheism is similar. You cannot know that "God does not exist as a physical entity." It's 'the problem of induction' described by Karl Popper. You cannot prove the negative. Your epistemology is wrong. You have faith God does not exist - and I cannot truly understand why you would want to believe that. Maybe you're disenchanted - you were taught religion as a child, only to reject it in adulthood, and are left feeling bitter about it. Push past it. Religion is not God. Religion is primitive political philosophy - that occurred in the course of human evolutionary development, at the point where hunter gatherer tribes joined together. They adopted God as an objective authority for social and political values that applied equally to all, regardless of tribal affiliation.

We can know this precisely because religion suppressed science as an understanding of reality. They didn't want to know the truth. They wanted a justification for political power. But if there is a God, and I think it entirely reasonable to hope there is - the path to God is surely to accept true knowledge of reality, and act responsibly in relation to that knowledge. It's certainly the path to a sustainable future for humankind.

Perhaps we have different ideas in mind when we hear (or read) science. I was speaking strictly about science as an empirical method for making predictions about the world. Pure physics, nothing else. That is a form of "understanding" the universe, but it's not the only form. — Echarmion

Perhaps you don't understand the term 'hypothesis' - or how that relates to agnosticism. There are hypotheses that can be ruled out. Geocentrism - for example. It's the theory based on simple observations that the earth is stationary, and the entire universe revolves around us. This idea persisted for a very long time, but was eventually falsified by Galileo, who made the first formal statement of scientific method. The Church arrested Galileo, and tried him for heresy - forced him to recant his claims, and prohibited his works.

This had the effect of divorcing science as a tool, from science as an understanding of reality. Subsequently, science was used to drive the industrial revolution, but to achieve ends described by the understanding of reality constituted by religious and political ideology - rather than, in a manner responsible to a scientific understanding of reality. This was a mistake, and it explains why, now - science can destroy the world but cannot save it. To my mind, you - and indeed, the entire cannon of western philosophy follows in the course of this mistake.

The theories you listed belong, from my point of view, to the realm of metaphysics. They do not describe what we observe, they interpret it. There is grounds for metaphysical agnosticism (though I think the "first cause" dilemma has been solved neatly by Kant and the "fine tuning" argument is utter nonsense). But in purely physical terms, only what is part of a theory can be said to exist. The concept of God does not describe any part of the observable universe, nor does it make any predictions. Hence, physically there is no such thing. — Echarmion

Dismissing first cause and fine tuning by saying "Kant and utter nonsense" is both a redundant repetition and an unwarranted claim to authority. As stated above, science is many things - so saying, 'in purely physical terms' is to seek to put science in a box defined by scientific method, thus to allow free range to all kinds of unscientific ideas. We have suppressed science as a general understanding of reality in favour of religious and political ideology for 400 years, and it's a mistake. Do nation states 'exist'? Is money 'a real thing'? No, yet it's in relation these ideas we apply science and technology. So it's not metaphysics to have a general scientific understanding of reality, or at least, it shouldn't be.

Anyhow, my dinner is ready. And afterward, I'm likely to suffer from postprandial somnolence. So, take you time. Think about your reply!

If we are taking about empirical science then I think the scientifically correct position on God is atheism. God is not part of any scientific theory of the universe, so it doesn't exist. — Echarmion

I disagree. Given a scientific understanding of the universe - there's sufficient reason to form a God hypothesis. Logically, there's first cause, and physically, there's the fine tuning argument - neither of which constitute proof, but are certainly sufficient to support a God hypothesis. If you would entertain ideas like multiple universes, or the universe as a computer simulation - ruling out the idea of an intelligent, intentional cause is a double standard.

The fact is we don't know. No-one knows if God exists or not. Admitting what we do and do not know is important, because the really interesting thing that follows from such an admission is that, if there is a God - then science is effectively the word of God made manifest in Creation, and through discovering and being responsible to scientific truth, we can secure a sustainable future, and survive in the universe - maybe long enough to find out.

Adhering to the faith that there is a God, the human species is doomed - for faith undermines reason, denies a scientific conception of reality its rightful authority, and sets one faith group against another. As a tool of pre-scientific, religious and political ideology, science gives us the power to destroy the world, but denies us the reason to save it.

I don't want to take down science, and I am an atheist. Just pointing out some of its obvious flaws. People treat science like a religion nowadays, and use it in arguments to back them up, even if they don't know why. — bogdan9310

Science is several things:

it's an epistemology: a philosophy of knowledge.
it's a method: the scientific method of testing hypotheses with reference to evidence.
It's a practice: conducting scientific experiments.
and it's a conception of reality: an increasingly valid and coherent worldview.

So everything you said in your opening post is wrong - so much so that you come across as a religious person seeking to undermine science to maintain religious belief, and not at all like someone who understands science such that they could point out its "obvious flaws."

Here's an obvious flaw with what you've said. Atheism is not a scientific conclusion. The scientifically correct position on the God hypothesis is agnosticism, not atheism. It's 'I don't know.' There's insufficient reliable evidence to test the hypothesis. The questions 'what are we able to know?' and 'how are we able to know it?' are what epistemology is all about - and scientific method is the world's best answer to those questions.

Computers are built, right? Science works in the same way, knowledge keeps building up, and you build a structure. And it will make sense to you, and it will work, because that's how structures work. Unless it's a poor one. I'm not saying all science is bad, just that people treat it more like a religion. The problem is the way it's applied. — bogdan9310

But science isn't "just built up." Science proceeds by tearing down what's proven wrong, to rebuild what's right. It's a method of doubt, as opposed - I suspect, to your method of faith. You're taking pot shots at science for God, are you not?

Interesting post. Thanks for sharing. So if you had died, and were required to store your accumulated knowledge in 12 lockers exactly, would the label on the locker read 'Why I'm a Buddhist.' Or were you just looking for a random thread to get all this off your chest? You don't ask any questions. Do you want my opinion - because, I have opinions on several things you've said. But I'm quite happy to just say, interesting post, thanks! And leave it at that!

You tell me. You said:

My point is that we mostly make up knowledge, — bogdan9310

...using the computer that science derived from mathematical reason, and built using ever more sophisticated engineering techniques. Is your computer imaginary? Does it work on ideas that are just made up? Or must there be a truth relation between scientific knowledge and reality - because technology based on scientific understanding works?

Science works because it's true, right? So it's not just made up, is it? So why would you say that? I'm just asking you to be honest about where you're coming from on this.

In the UK Houses of Parliament they have a register of member's interests - such that any potential biases MP's bring to the debate are known to others. Perhaps that might be a good practice for philosophers.

Told you so!

There aren't any evolutionary skeptics.

Yeah, well, some thought experiments were intentionally constructed to exemplify a theoretically impossible situation.

And, if I’m putting my knowledge in a locker, fercrissake.....let’s just make it an isolated system, forego all that entropy stuff.

But it was fun to play with, while it lasted. — Mww

This is a thought experiment for adults. People who have some knowledge and life experience to store. I'm guessing from your tone you're about 14 - going through that dismissive phase. We've all been there - don't worry about it, you won't come across as a wanker forever.

Re labels, it would just be "family," "friends" etc. If you were looking for dividing up knowledge into categories, that would be different than focusing on influences. — Terrapin Station

For me, one of my labels would certainly read 'the need to know what's true' - but in that locker, would be hidden a difficult childhood, in a troubled family in which I was the youngest child - and my parents and elder sister made great sport from constantly lying to me, and fooling me to make an idiot out of me. Without going into too much more detail it gave me a desperate 'need to know what's true.' So that's how I'd label that locker.

But that's just me. It could be anything. Song lyrics, nature walks, Mr Phillips my amazing math teacher - anything! It could be your first three lockers were labelled Plato, Aristotle, Socrates - suggesting you were heavily influenced by the development of Greek philosophy, or those three labels could read Greek philosophy, Christianity, science - which describes in overview, the European mindset. I honestly cannot tell you what I'm looking for up front. But the more people participate the better the meta analysis.

I’m not making fun of the OP, honest; I just don’t have a clue how I would accomplish what it wants. I suppose, though, if the negation is so much easier than the affirmation, there’s something wrong with the exercise to begin with. — Mww

Oh boy, is that a mistake! Reality is subject to entropy - which means the easy road leads ever downward unto stagnation and death. Everything good is uphill, and going uphill requires effort. We need to expend energy just to stand still - or we fall apart. It's an absolute physical law.

As for this exercise, it's a thought experiment. Einstein didn't actually throw a guy off a roof when thinking about gravity, and similarly, you're not actually dead. It's a hypothetical scenario that creates the objective distance from your knowledge - that you can categorize it. A thought experiment.

, if I could have understood what your main influences are -
— karl stone

If you want to know that, it's probably better to just ask it in a straightforward manner, and then you could request that we keep our answers to 10 categories or whatever.

It's not the easiest thing to list, because there's so much overlap or so much of a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but for me, I'd probably say (as a top 10, with some effort to order them, though that kind of fell apart in the middle):

(1) family, especially parents, maternal grandfather, sisters, a couple particular uncles and aunts, as well as wives
(2) closest friends
(3) teachers, especially high school and university as well as private music instructors (and also the music teacher at my elementary school)
(4) general work experience, including doing the work itself, reaction to the work, interaction with colleagues, etc.
(5) philosophy in general
(6) the sciences in general
(7) views of artists, including people I've worked with (I've mostly worked in arts & entertainment)
(8) the arts from a consumer perspective--films, music, novels, video games etc.
(9) leisure experience/travel etc.
(10) media more broadly, including Internet interaction — Terrapin Station

Thanks for trying this. I appreciate it's not easy to condense the sum of your knowledge into 12, or 10 categories - and there is no right answer. But I was looking for the labels on the locker door, not the contents of each locker.

How you go about labeling the lockers is one of the interesting things. Still, from your list, I see that you had a lot of influential people in your early life, or I somewhat prejudiced your selections by the things I suggested in my earlier post. That's something I was trying to avoid. I think you must have had a good life though, that's pretty clear. And it's that kind of thing that can be deduced as meta analysis. That's what I'm trying for. Thanks again for being the first person to take this at all seriously.

That's interesting - thanks everyone. I'm reminded of a realization from the early years of my philosophical journey; which was that I was searching for a trap door, a back door, an escape hatch, a trick, the secret code - or whatever, as a quick and easy way to knowledge and power. Maybe it comes from the Adam and Eve story - they eat the apple, and kerching! knowledge of good and evil!

What I found instead was that knowledge is a never ending climb - with plateaus now and then, that offer new and increasingly extraordinary vistas. Early on - there was a tendency to imagine, that each plateau was the summit, but I soon realized that people always think they're right. Even when they apologize for being wrong "I'm sorry, but I didn't know that x, y, z and therefore..." Yeah, you were wrong, but would have been right if reality were different. Everyone always thinks they're right - and are willing to deny reality to maintain that belief, while searching for the magic apple.

It would have been useful to me, if I could have understood what your main influences are - how you would categorize and describe your knowledge. Things like: my mother, religion, school stuff, TV, science - those kind of broad headings. I don't want to invade your privacy, but instead what I got is a load of smart-arse remarks, which is just as telling in its own way.

1. It's the listening part where you learn.
3. Possibly a translation thing but I always interpreted "speaking up" as taking a (verbal) stance against injustice and unfairness — Benkei

1. If you're going to be pedantic, it's the thinking part where you learn.
2. What happened to 2?
3. And for motherhood and apple pie?

I can make do with the following three points I'm confident enough to impart as wisdom you can live by:

1. Nobody ever got smarter by talking
2. Oefening baart kunst it's similar to "practice makes perfect" but with the important distinction that "kunst" doesn't mean perfect but "art" or "craftmanship"
3. Speaking up is golden, silence is oppression — Benkei

1. Socratic dialogue?
2. Catchy!
3. Inane chatter being the happy medium, I suppose?

Is the idea here that all my knowledge is interconnected, and I therefore have no way to label the lockers, other than simply label them all "knowledge"? — Echarmion

Looks like there's going to be a queue!

That's a dodecalemma ;)

Anyway, what use is my knowledge to me if I have died? — SophistiCat

Must a dilemma have only two possible outcomes? Maybe the dilemma is do as instructed, or don't. Now you don't move on. Humans!

"Stressed out by Brexit? I have a mindfulness exercise for you, one guaranteed to bring calm. Instead of imagining a deep, cool lake or a beach of bone-white sand, comfort yourself by imagining the day, several years from now, when a Chilcot-style inquiry probes the epic policy disaster that was Brexit. As you take deep breaths, and with your eyes closed, picture the squirming testimony of an aged David Cameron under sustained interrogation. Look on as Boris Johnson is at last called to account for the serial fictions of the 2016 campaign. Or perhaps contemplate the moment the panel delivers its damning, final report, concluding that this was a collective, systemic failure of the entire British political class."

Let's fund the NHS instead!

How low can they stoop! The Guardian is reduced to cribbing my forum posts for its headlines. — unenlightened

Here's the headline,

MPs have voted for a fantasy. It’s an indictment of our entire political class
Jonathan Freedland

but the byline is more interesting:

History will damn the architects of Brexit – and the politicians on both sides whose delusions are leading us to disaster

If they can identify them!

Cameron hid his part in stoking anti-immigrant rhetoric and pushing for a referendum from 2005 - behind fake advocacy of Remain, and May obliged him by cancelling the EU ID card scheme in 2010, sacking the long term head of the borders agency Brodie Clark, screeching from the Home Office about the Human Rights Act as it relates to immigration, anti-immigrant billboard vans driving round the streets, while doing nothing to fulfill Cameron's unbelievable tens of thousands pledge on immigration - allowing 660,000 immigrants into the UK in 2015, and publishing those figures during the 2016 referendum campaign period, in which both Cameron and May declared themselves Remainers.

So now, the Tories can blame the whole thing on EU intransigence and "the will of the people" - while their money is taking a tax break in Panama, the economy crashes and they come back relatively richer, and with an excuse for further deregulation and austerity forever after!

Those are the facts - and they are entirely absent from the UK media.

Two things. One: nihilism neither contains nor upholds any value that requires one accept nihilism. When you realize this, you can just reject it.

Two: we know the purpose of a thing from its nature. So we must ask, fundamentally, what is our nature? Human beings are evolving from ignorance into knowledge over time. We inherit the benefits of past struggles to survive, and to know, in order to breed, and pass on that information. And therein lies our purpose - to live, to know to live. To take what has been handed down to us and use it to the best of our ability to provide for the future.

On paper, the prognosis is good.
— karl stone

Without a global coalition to do it? Are you thinking that China will do it unilaterally? I mean, notice how vehemently Euros hate Americans and it's the same culture. How could a global coalition come into being? — frank

I do not suggest a globalist approach. I suggest regionalism. Regional trade blocs are emerging all across the world, EU, AU, ASEAN, and so on. These do not suffer, to the same extent global government would suffer, from the problem of perceived legitimacy. Regional government has a natural interest in promoting internal markets - which promote human welfare, in turn necessary to slow the growth of human population. Further, because nations tend to trade most with their immediate and close neighbours - the cost of regulations applied across a region like the EU, with 28 countries, are mitigated, because a cost that applies equally to direct economic competitors is not a competitive disadvantage. So regional government can afford to have higher regulatory standards, and the market is too large to be threatened by big companies wanting a race to the bottom for profit.

My great-grandfather saved bits of string and aluminum foil and passed them down. I inherited them and use them to filter out alien broadcasts and lies from Donald Trump.

You meanwhile go on and on about aluminum production costs while completely unprotected. You do the math. — frank

Is that a threat? I understand the things I'm talking about are sensitive - but given the little I have to lose, and the possibly infinite opportunity cost for humankind, I cannot in good conscience concede to any such threat. I seek to fulfill what I see as a naturally occurring obligation, to take what has been built from sticks and stones by the struggles of all previous generations, to secure the future for humankind. It is technologically possible to support a large human population sustainably. The difficulties are ideological - and I'm trying to deal with those questions honestly and sensitively. On paper, the prognosis is good. We are actually very well placed to achieve sustainable markets, providing for high standards of human welfare, leveling off at around 11 billion people by 2100. But not if we stick our head in the sand.

I happen to be an expert on both aluminum and clarifying shampoo. This is me: — frank

So how much energy does it take to produce aluminium? It's a lot, right! You could use renewable energy to create hydrogen fuel, and burn that to power these energy intensive industrial processes. I understand, the entire world's current energy demand could be met from a square of solar panels 450 miles to each side. That's over 200,000 square miles - but we cut down 170,000 square miles of rain-forest every year! And it wouldn't have to be one 450x450 mile square. The best place for such installations, I would argue - is at sea, because there's water that can be transformed into both hydrogen fuel and fresh water - piped inland, to burn in traditional power stations, and do things like irrigate wastelands for agriculture - rather than clear cutting and burning the forests.

It would probably be less environmentally damaging just to spray a whole can of hairspray on my head everyday
— karl stone

There is a hair-care product better than aluminum foil or hair spray. I recommend SUAVE DAILY CLARIFYING SHAMPOO.

Daily Clarifying Shampoo is loaded with nanoparticles and neurotransmitters that burrow through the scull, right into that tangle of confused neurons and synapses. Daily Clarifying Suave dispels the fog of bad information, misapprehensions, mistaken notions, confusions, vague anxieties, unjustified biases, wrong ideology, and politically abhorrent memes. Through regular application of this fine product you may progress from being a complete idiot to a much sought-after guru. (Results will vary.)

Bring out the sparkle in whatever mind you have left! That's DAILY CLARIFYING shampoo.

It's fixes your head, if not your hair. — Bitter Crank

Those are some big claims for a shampoo. They copied that right off the label of "Lilly the Pink's medicinal compound" - but at least had the decency to add the disclaimer, 'results may vary' rather than the bogus claim to be 'efficacious in every case.' Pardon me if I don't buy it.

I dunno... I claim no detailed knowledge of Rand or Objectivism, so this is more of an instinct reaction.

First, for any philosopher selling any philosophy, we might tune out the analytical mind for a bit and just observe the person most invested in the philosophy. Are we drawn to that person? Do we want to be with them? Do we want to be like them? What kind of atmosphere has their philosophy created on their face?

Personally, I'm most drawn to those philosophers who mostly just sit there sharing a deep sincere smile, and who have no compelling need to sell you their ideas. I'm obviously not like that myself, but such a philosopher seems a worthy goal to shoot for, imho.

Capitalism? Again, I dunno. I'm wary of all "one true way" economic theories. Personally I favor capitalism in the middle of the income range (most people) and socialism at the extremes, with the goal to create a middle class society. My sense is that Rand is too dogmatic to accept such compromises. I'd be equally wary of anyone being dogmatic from the other direction. Neither pure capitalism or socialism has been shown to work. — Jake

I "dunno" - who you're responding to there Jake - maybe me? I haven't read Atlas Shrugged either. I have read this thread, and responded - in my usual fashion, to 'objectivism' as it is presented here. It seems to me that it's about the objective self - as opposed to the objective truth; and I find that false and reprehensible, and I said so. I do that. I don't much care what kind of atmosphere it creates - particularly when Alcopops would use this philosophy to dismiss any responsibility for polluting the actual atmosphere.

There is a role for objective knowledge that benefits humankind, but it's not personal and social philosophy. Let me provide an example to explain. Every time I put clothes in the tumble dryer I say, out loud "It could be renewable energy. It's not, but it could be!" And that illustrates the problem. I have a need that I must meet - and no ability to do so in a manner that's responsible to the objective truth. It's possible that need might be met responsibly - but only if government and industry are responsible to objective truth. But they're not.

My philosophy argues they should be - and describes means in which that can be achieved while maintaining economic, political and social stability, and promoting high levels of human welfare. That so, it saddens me somewhat that Rand saw fit to take a giant dump and call it objectivism. At least, so far as I can tell from reading this thread.

I think you're stuck in the president's reality distortion field. Do you have any aluminum foil? — frank

It takes vast amounts of energy to produce aluminium. It would probably be less environmentally damaging just to spray a whole can of hairspray on my head everyday - like President Evil does! Unless it were renewable energy - then it wouldn't matter so much if I had a tin foil hat! But it's not renewable energy, is it? So it's not me in the tin foil hat - it's anyone who thinks they can simply ignore reality - and use a can of hairspray everyday, and keep combing it over until there's nothing left.