You act as if this is your first election
You're dealing with ingrained human nature, to benefit oneself over that of another. Deception and unscrupulous behavior is a form of survival. — Outlander

Nope, Truman v. Dewey. Eisenhower v Stevenson the first when I had an opinion. Am I correct to understand your comment as your being unable to tell the difference between, in this case, American presidents?

I try to distinguish between kinds and levels of lying. At some degree, the lie becomes dangerously toxic. Trump in my opinion is about six or more standard deviations from any mean in terms of the danger and toxicity of his lies, and what they have caused and may well cause. His are no more "human nature" than are certain diseases and criminality. That is, by far most people do not have the disease of extreme mendacity. On the other hand, a lot of people are stupid, apparently more than half of American voters.

By "truth" I mean to refer to people who are honest and who value, care about, truth and honesty.
— tim wood
By "truth" you mean people who care about truth? — Leontiskos

Is that what I wrote? Try reading. If English is a challenge, get help.

You say you find Hegel impenetrable. How have you come to this conclusion? — Swanty

It's not "a conclusion." It's my observation about me and my experience. I have similar difficulty reading set theory proofs. In neither case do I suppose either badly written, only that I have trouble understanding them. The corollary being that if I worked at it, I'd more easily understand. But life is short and work is much, many, and long, so I make my choices. And I'm often contented that others do understand and understand better than I do.

But both could have explained their ideas far clearer and with more brevity. — Swanty

For you. I'm obliged to wonder whether, if you think their ideas are so easily compressible, you really understand them.

They are bad writers because they don't summarise their ideas with clarity, but waffle on for pages and pages. — Swanty

I think it's pretty clear where the problem is. As if their texts were like weights in a gym, heavier than most, and you complained, "My gosh but these are difficult - they should be lighter!" No. they're difficult because they're heavier. You just need to get stronger, but as you're young, keep at it and you'll get it.

B&N still stocks.... — Swanty

Because they sell. Period.

But basically they [Kant and Hegel] are bad writers! — Swanty

Tsk, tsk. A categorical statement. You have stated your case, now make it: show us; prove it.

Better in my opinion you had said you find some texts easier and some more difficult - and no disagreement possible. But you said they're bad. Nor am I defending either. I find Kant takes work, which as it happens made me a much stronger reader. And Hegel I find impenetrable. Kant was explicit: he wasn't writing either to me or for me, as @I like sushi observed. And a ready excuse for Hegel provided by one of his translators who explained (I paraphrase here) that Hegel's language was understood by his contemporaries then but not so much us now. And there is also the matter of the style of writing then current. Books written badly usually - always? - quickly disappear. But even now, still, even B&N has both Kant and Hegel on its shelves.

"Brace for impact." - Chesley Sullenberger.

No, these people deserve the sledge hammer of reality to the face. Maybe this time, when Trump policies aren't blocked by democrats in other sectors of the government; the people will actually, finally, open their fucking eyes. — Christoffer

The world needs to politically evolve into caring more for truth. Otherwise we will all live in the utter chaos of a fully post-truth society where nothing matters to people and no one knows where to even begin to find answers to what's actually going on. — Christoffer

:100: :100:

This from Wiki:

"Under Peisistratos of Athens, the Eleusinian Mysteries became pan-Hellenic, and pilgrims flocked from Greece and beyond to participate. Around 300 BC, the state took over control of the mysteries; they were controlled by two families, the Eumolpidae and the Kerykes. This led to a vast increase in the number of initiates. The only requirements for membership were freedom from "blood guilt",[46] meaning never having committed murder, and not being a "barbarian" (being unable to speak Greek). Men, women, and even slaves were allowed initiation."

Can you develop your point a little more? What matter whether Aristotle "went through" the ceremonies?

Question begging happens a lot. But, again, I can't think of an instance in public discourse.... As to complaints about formal logic, — TonesInDeepFreeze

Small point. Public discourse often (usually/always?) uses rhetorical logic - Rhetoric. Not ever to be confused with "formal" logic. Not because one better than the other, but because they're different tools for different purposes. And confusion can happen because in some ways they overlap.

..

I now wonder which way of writing the truth table for MP is correct, 1 or 2?

1. ((p -> q) ^ p) -> q
or
2. ((p -> q) ^ p) ^ q

Makes a difference!

Modus ponendo ponens is the principle that, if a conditional holds and also its antecedent, then its consequent holds." (Beginning Logic - Lemmon)

Perhaps your argument is based on taking that to mean this?:

If a conditional holds and also its antecedent, then modus ponedo ponens is the principle that then its consequent holds. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Be good enough to make clear the difference between these two.

A is a formula.
~A is a formula.
Modus ponens is the principle that for any formulas P and Q, if P and P-> Q, then Q.
So, one instance of modus ponens is: if A and A -> ~A, then ~A. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Agreed. And earlier I posted per truth table, the argument is valid. But not to be confused (not ever) with the conclusion being true. And the "hold(s)" in your definition I take to be the qualification of being true. Thus the form, MP, will carry truth, but it requires truth for truth to be carried. Or in geek terms, GIGO.

I didn't see it, probably missed it; will someone be kind enough to refer me to where the significant terms in this thread are given even a tentative definition?

Intelligence fosters.... Beliefs provide.... Religion helps.... Religion mitigates. — ContextThinker

Sounds very theoretic to me, but the question was to the "comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics driving human belief systems." Assuming there are dynamics and they're complex, what is the comprehensive understanding provided?

Your Evolutionary Coping Mechanism Theory (ECMT) seems to me a pretty reasonable account of some distinctive phenomena; you nail its weak heel here:

While this theory remains speculative, — ContextThinker

I happen to buy the notion that science does not begin to kick in until c.1600, Galileo and Francis Bacon, the kick coming from, out of, the ascension of Nominalism over Scholastic Realism. (From a book, The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael A. Gillespie.) Much more said, here:
https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Origins-Modernity-Michael-Gillespie/dp/0226293467

By considering the interplay between cognitive, social, environmental, and cultural factors, this theory provides a comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics driving human belief systems. — ContextThinker

And that understanding is?

here is no cite, no source, no reference that says such a thing. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Except perhaps in your first citation above:

"if a conditional holds... — TonesInDeepFreeze

and (a->~a) doesn't "hold."

By truth table,
if A is true, then 1 is false. Then (1^2) is false, and ((1^2)=>3) is true.
If A is false, then 1 is true but 2 is false, and (1^2) is false, then ((1^2)=>3) is true.
Not to be confused with 3 being true.

But the description does not seem to be grounded in epistemological terms, hence my not seeing the observer involvement.
Perhaps tim wood would care to elaborate. — noAxioms

"Epistemological" is too big a word for me to wrap my head around. If it matters, can you trim it a bit? But maybe it doesn't matter. Informal descriptions/accounts can be efficacious within limits; I don't cavil at that utility. But the reification of elements of those descriptions is a problem. If a cause or a relation is a thing, then what/where/when is it? And the answer is that they're in the mind of the observer as ideas and nowhere else This isn't to deny any aspect of the phenomenon itself. Nor do I deny the convenience of the fiction.

Given an effect, E, and the question, "What cause C produced E?" No one gets out a shovel and goes digging in the back yard looking for a cause. Or, "What is the relation between C and E?" similarly does not send the scientist to the relation locker to find one that fits. It is a matter of language and not being confused by it, which isn't always easy!

I didn't define cause and effect in terms of observer. — MoK

Really?

Causation, Relation that holds... — MoK

What is, where is, the relation?

Maybe one of them or perhaps a combination. — MoK

A cause either is a cause or is not a cause.

What you apparently do not see is that "cause" is your invention - presupposition - defined in terms of parameters established by you. Useful in an informal and non-rigorous way, but not an exact account of anything.

Let's stick to three events, A, B, and C. A causes B (B exists in the immediate future) at now. At the next moment, A ceases to exist, and B exists at now and causes C (C exists in the immediate future). Etc. — MoK

And this the bones of a probably useful story. But what exactly is an event? Does an event take up a certain amount of time? Or no time? And what exactly is a cause? How does something that exists cease to exist? And how does something that does not exist come into existence? Anything can happen in a story; that's among the charms of stories. But as any sort of exact or rigorous account it won't do.

Causation, Relation that holds between two temporally simultaneous or successive events when the first event (the cause) brings about the other (the effect). — MoK

Respectable effort. Cause and effect (CE) is a convenient fiction, very useful and convenient. But I don't think you're getting the point here. The problem is that you define CE in terms of the observer, in the eye of the beholder so to speak. But take away the observer and what exactly is left? Btw, what is "successive events"? You have to decide: CE a convenient fiction, or CE a something in itself. If a something in itself, what is it?

A familiar example from a book may help clarify. A car rolls over on the road, what caused it? "Bad road geometry," says the civil engineer. "Bad suspension," says the auto designer. "Speeding," says the policeman. Or another from the same source. A man uses dynamite to remove a tree stump. What caused the dynamite to explode? .

The cause and effect cannot lay at the same point of time — MoK

You're just getting tangled up in words. The effect is not some separate entity, it is the change. — T Clark

Agreed! And also, if they were at different times, then what's 'tween times?

"Cause" and "effect" are nothing words in themselves, and are used in different contexts to mean different things. If you, @MoK, think you can give context-free definitions, give it a try.

Start by reading. If nothing else reading will keep you quiet so that you do not immediately make a fool of yourself. A good start is A History of Western Philosophy, W. T. Jones, five volumes. Start with vol. 1. This is college Phil. 101 material and a very good place to start. Getting and reading all five volumes will take time, and should take time, but you will be learning the whole way. Try to find good used copies, and be patient.

A long time ago, I made an attempt to learn Ancient Greek.... What I learned was that even simple words, sentences and texts are challenging and difficult. — Amity

Lol! Amen! For my own purposes I remind myself that I have no interest in translating Greek but instead being able to read it. That means trying to "listen" and to hear/read/understand as would an ancient Greek. The best I do is sometimes discern a bit the alien nature of the language itself.

The Greeks wrote - obviously - but their language is essentially an aural experience. You may remember trying to learn rules for accenting - and who cares? - and the modern approach is to ignore them. But dawned on me something no textbook ever told: that the accents govern rhythm, thus the percussive quality itself of the language conveying and signaling meaning. Also, notwithstanding that they perfected forms of logic and reason, it is you and me, in English, who communicate largely in the ways of reason and logic. This is one of these and not one of those and therefore, and so forth. But the Greek seems to have talked more about and in terms of being and nature. I imagine they developed logic because their speaking did not-so-much incorporate it. And it's a quality that good English poetry tries to recover.

As to translations, I suppose most translators of Attic Greek aspire to a correct perfection. Richmond Lattimore's standard was this, from his intro. to his Iliad, 1953 : "I must try to avoid mistranslation, which would be caused by rating the word of my own choice ahead of the word which translates the Greek. Subject to such qualification, I must render Homer into the best English verse I can write; and this will be in my own 'poetical language', which is mostly the plain English of today."

But the same cannot be said for translators of the Koine (common) Greek of the New Testament. Pressures and agendas around that text, of divers kinds, causes mistranslations that are sometimes stunning, when seen in plain light.

I think care lies at the core. So, 'carelessness' seems to be negative. — Amity

Two cents' worth here. There are times when ancient Greek words cannot be correctly understood through what seem English equivalents. (And I suppose the same can be said for any two different languages.)

"Care" is a perfectly good English word. As a verb, it means having a certain kind of feeling. I find no equivalent word in the Greek. μέλω (melow) is translated as care, but isn't quite right. The lexicon has it as, "to be an object of care." Conjugated, "I am an object of care; you are an object of care; he, she, it is and object of care," etc. Not I care; you care; he, she, it cares.... To be a care to me (or you) requires an additional pronoun used to show possession, "is a care to me (or to you or him or them as the case may be).

An α- prefix to a Greek work is often privative. Examples in English would be moral/amoral, theist/atheist.

Λήθη (leithei) is "a forgetting, forgetfulness." ἀλήθεια (a-leitheia) in the lexicon is just "truth," but also "frank, honest; of things, real, actual." Not quite the same as English truth.

ἀμέλητος (a-meleitos), an adjective, is given a passive definition, "not cared for, unworthy of care." Not careless or heedless, except in the sense of being without.

This doesn't solve any problems. At best it relocates the problem from to make sense of English translations to trying to understand the Greek itself. As if trying to decide which path to take at a fork in the woods. One path seeming easy and open and clear, the English translation(s); the other narrow, overgrown, somewhat hidden and difficult. The easy way eventually leading to error, the hard way being the right way. The trouble with the hard way being that it can be hard, and maybe a person doesn't make it to the end.

Saith him wanting to be logical. I'm looking for a discussion with clarity on a serious problem. You just want to play. It's too bad you do not know how to do either.

I am curious, have you revised your position that goodness or "this is good" is just a way of saying "I approve of this," and that morality is just personal preference derived from social norms? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If there's any solid ground to my ideas of morality, it's mostly in the way of being deontological - and in small ways I actually meet that standard.

Like Jewish refugees in Palestine? Or Palestinians in Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Lebanon, etc.? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Fair enough. People do not always live up to their own highest cultural standards. Good on them for having them, bad for scanting them.

Lets engage in philosophy, the logic of it all. — Philosophim

Last things first: philosophy is not logic. — tim wood

I highly disagree Tim. Without logic.... — Philosophim

It's annoying to deal with someone who is so apparently uncaring about clarity of language, and so careless in reading. You want to engage in 'the logic of it all." I observe that "it" isn't logic. And you jump to "without logic." And further, in this context I have no idea what you mean by "logic."

You are assuming things that I don't think are true here. — Philosophim

I'm just going ("near as I can tell") on what you write. If what you write isn't connected to what you mean, that's a problem.

It's those crossing the border without permission that generate much of the anger in America. — Philosophim

A lot of people in America are angry about a lot of things, and in some cases, some even justified. For most the anger is just a sign of disorder, like road-rage. And there are those who play the angry like a violin, in manipulative and ultimately immature and disgusting ways.

I don't care about politics, and I like to think of the subjects from a stable base that builds a compelling argument. — Philosophim

Just so, the "logic of the thing." Sorry, the problems of immigration are not soluble in solicitate of logic - it's not a math or a logic problem.

If you need a logic, more suitable would be rhetoric. Do you know the difference? The person crossing legally could be a bad person. The one crossing in contravention of US immigration law could be a good person. So far your "logic" appears blind to the possibility of that distinction. And if that's the extent of your interest, then yours just a game - and the subject a serious one.

Then please explain how it can be moral....
This is a lot of assuming.... Can you note when you think it is moral to illegally immigrate somewhere, and why it is moral for a country to allow that illegal immigrant to be there? This is not an emotional issue for me or a "Its obvious" question. Lets engage in philosophy, the logic of it all. — Philosophim

Last things first: philosophy is not logic. Morality is not an emotional issue. The morality of the immigration does not correspond to the laws of the place he or she is immigrating to. They, the laws, may well apply, and even properly apply. But there is also a moral component if the immigrant is also a supplicant. And the matter of refugees who arguably have no choice even a separate matter. Your views (near as I can tell) are reductionist, legalistic, amoral, and inhuman. Which to be sure the law in part has to be. But not entirely.

It may be bias on my part, but I believe the concepts of guest and stranger are the most highly developed in Arab lands. That is, both the guest and the stranger are treated with respect and courtesy, in ways that do not exist in most western countries. And partner with that is the expectation that the guest and the stranger will themselves meet certain standards of behavior. I would like to see something like that employed at the US Southern border: respect, courtesy, concern and care, and the possibility of entry on meeting certain conditions.

personally interested but clueless smile — kazan

Forget Godel in this context. He has nothing to do with it. The question of Pv.NP is about, basically, how long it takes a computer to solve a problem, and how much longer it takes as the problem has more inputs. "The travelling salesman" is a well-known example of the kind of problem considered. A salesman has to visit several cities: what is the best routing for him (quickest, shortest, cheapest, whatever)? If it's four cities, not too hard to figure out. If a lot of cities, then it takes a long time to figure it out. Time in this case meaning computer steps.

There is usually a formula that gives the number of steps as a function of the inputs. That is, as the number of inputs increases, the number of steps needed to solve the problem also increases. With n as the variable number of inputs, such a formula might look like this: f(n) = n^3 + n^2 - 15n +26. And this of course is just a polynomial function. As you can see, as n increases, the value of f(n) increases: the computer time increases. But because it's a polynomial, the rate of increase in most cases is felt to be manageable; it doesn't increase "too fast."

But for some problems the rate of increase in time needed as inputs increase is exponential, wa-ay too fast. Such a formula might look like this: g(n) = 4^n + 2^n + 21n+ 15. So, if the first is a polynomial time increase, this is an exponential increase, also called a non-polynomial increase. And other non-polynomial functions can increase even faster.

You might feel justified in thinking that Pv.NP stood for polynomial v. non-polynomial. But it does not. Instead it stands for polynomial (time) v. non-deterministic polynomial (time). And this introduces another wrinkle.

By assumption (not always true) while the solution to a problem might take months, years, decades or more to generate, verifying that it is the solution would be a very much quicker process (polynomial time). The idea is that you have a magic computer that guesses the right solution, or in other words does not operate deterministically, and given that solution, it can be verified in P time.

NP, then, stands for problems that at the moment seem to require an exponential or greater increase in time to solve (as the number of their inputs increases) but whose solutions can (presumably) be verified in P time. The question, then - and fame and fortune to him or her who answers - is if NP turns out to be the same as P, or if NP and P are different.

If NP is P, that will mean that someone has discovered an efficient way to solve a whole lot of difficult problems, mostly a good thing. It will mean, for example, that if your salesman has to visit one hundred cities, you could pretty quickly set his schedule at absolute maximum efficiency - which at the moment cannot be done. (Give it a try.)

Now watch a couple of Youtube videos on P v. NP.


.

So the categorical statement that "asbestos causes disease" is categorically false. And this, really, isn't about asbestos or any thing else. It is about the usage and understanding of language and the traps and rabbit holes that people can fall into or walk into eyes wide shut.

This is just sophistry and bad faith lol — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, but yours evidence that you neither understand words nor their meanings nor much care about usage. As evidence, I direct your attention to the usages of the two words "categorical" and "categorically." Eyes wide shut indeed!

why exactly are some stories more useful than others? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Utility in the eye of the beholder.

I would not say that airliners crashing into the Twin Towers is what caused them to fall had I not seen airliners crash into the Twin Towers — Count Timothy von Icarus

Apparently - please correct if I'm mistaken - you say that the airlines crashing into the WTC towers is what caused them to collapse. And no one as a practical matter would disagree. Unless he or she was a person actually interested in what made them fall. Because it is blindingly obvious that the airlines crashing into the WTC did not cause them to fall: they stood after the crashes for quite a while. And that's why yours a convenient descriptive fiction true in the context of the "story" being told. But beyond that, not true.

And just for the sake of triangulation on the idea, it's a commonplace that the RMS Titanic sank because it hit an iceberg. And completely true within the limits of that "story." But it sank because it took on too much water. It took on too much water as a result of striking the iceberg because the metallurgy of the day did not know about the effects of very cold water on the steel that was used to make the hull. Basically, the cold made it brittle, and it shattered. For people who want(ed) to know what caused the Titanic to sink, that's the story, the cause, that is the cause.

And is metallurgy and chemistry and cold - or heat for the WTC towers - the end stories? Nope. They continue down into the subatomic. Which brings us back to cause, and exactly what "cause" means. And a first step is to recognize that "cause," like truth, is an abstract collective term whose meaning is entirely dependent upon and derivative from its applications in stories, and nothing else. Thus a mistake to look for cause as a thing-in-itself.

Nonetheless, smoking is responsible.... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Responsibility and cause are different words....

and I see no broader moral issue here. In any case, I see no moral justification for illegal immigration. — Philosophim

No moral issue? Another categorical statement? Well, maybe not for you. No moral justification for illegal immigration? What does that even mean? Think! If they're not here, they're not illegal immigrants. If they're here illegally, then they're here illegally. Assuming they have a good reason for being here, likely necessity, there is nothing immoral about it - the necessity being instead grounds for a moral claim.

if a people or a nation elect not to try to meet a moral claim, that's a choice they an make. But the claim does not stop being a claim for being rejected, any more than a starving person stops being starving being refused sustenance.

Incumbent on immigrants, imo, is that they commit to becoming good citizens of their new country. In particular they commit to leaving their bad behind and adopting and adapting to the good of the new.

All right. To cases: what is a cause? Above, third from the top, I used an example of a use of dynamite and then asked what caused the result. Not a rhetorical question. Maybe you'll try an answer?

Nor do I disqualify the use or deny the usefulness of the term in appropriate usage and understanding. Nor, finally, are you even right. I worked with asbestos so many years ago that if it caused diseases, I'd have had them. And I don't. So the categorical statement that "asbestos causes disease" is categorically false. And this, really, isn't about asbestos or any thing else. It is about the usage and understanding of language and the traps and rabbit holes that people can fall into or walk into eyes wide shut.

Btw, never saw "nescience" before; a good word to know (ty) and now there's seven of us.

Truth exists though no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does it? Truth is a noun, by assumption a person, place, or thing. The only "thing" it can be is an abstract noun. That is, truth as a genus, its species being true statements, the only thing them having in common being truth. So, no. Truth (itself) not an existing thing.

Here is my position: it is useful to believe.... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Bingo! And if informally you want to say "cause," not a problem (for me). But if formally you want to assert that the cause exists, then it's a fair question to ask what, where, when, why, and how it exists. And that a difficult - and I think ultimately impossible - set of questions to answer.

Judicial uses of "cause" is another topic, but I will observe that judicial usage does indeed take cause as a useful fiction in the story being told. That is, for the purposes of the story, tobacco and asbestos do cause diseases. At this point I can only conclude that you are using words with less care than the OP requires. He asks about causes without troubling, apparently, to even think about what a cause is, much less to say what he thinks it is. But you can do that, or if I've missed it, be good enough to point me back to it.

What's wrong with a democratic nation deciding how much immigration it wants to let in? If you believe that a democratic nation can make a wrong choice in its immigration policy, what is it, why? If there is a problem, what would fix it? — Philosophim

You're implying (again), and here with respect to immigration policies, that "a democratic nation," in establishing its immigration policies, can do no wrong. If that's so, please so state. If on the other hand you believe there can be wrong immigration policies, then there can be a discussion. But not if you hold there cannot be, there being then nothing to discuss.

Or to be simpler, if you believe nations cannot do wrong or be wrong, then what is there to discuss?

Asbestos only causes disease within the context of a fiction? — Count Timothy von Icarus

You're missing my point. One way for you to see it is to try to explain exactly how asbestos causes illness. And you will see that asbestos never did and never will cause any illness.

The idea is that "cause" is an informal, convenient shorthand for complicated events that with respect to the events themselves is almost or entirely irrelevant, a fiction - while in terms of its usage, of course being true. Or another way: what exactly is a cause? I don't think there is any such thing as a cause - except, again of course, as convenient descriptive fiction. And as I said above, people get to mistaking the useful fiction for a reality in its own right.

"Cause," then, properly regarded, is like "truth." We can certainly talk about them, and usefully, but it's a big mistake to think they exist in themselves. In the case of "cause," people supposing there are such things look for or posit first causes or "uncaused" causes as being actual, often to ground a theology that they can represent as real. And of course having such a flaw deep in the foundations of any belief system can have explosively destructive consequences.

If it is the will of the people of that state, I do. Why would you disagree with this? — Philosophim

How do you feel about slavery? Do you think the Taliban are doing a good and admirable job of governing Afghanistan? How abut Iran? How about if the will of the American public is to deliver all of its "illegal" immigrants to England. Why should the English object? Or if the US state of Texas (et al) criminalizes abortion, well done them, yes?

We know that an individual can do wrong. Your proposition amounts to saying that in a group constituted in any of a particular set of ways, those people so constituted can do no wrong, or at least nothing you could object to. Which I think is ridiculous and absurd. Are you that? Or have you just misspoke?

The laws should be whatever the citizens desire in a democratic nation. Do you disagree? — Philosophim

The only fair way to judge is to let the society as a whole decide. If you are fairly letting people decide through democratic and representative processes, then that is what works for that society. — Philosophim

Then you are content with whatever any country decides to do within its borders - without qualification? I doubt you mean that, but it's what you seem to be saying.

My question is this: How do you decide who to let in and who to deny entry? — Samlw

It's not clear to me that anyone here has understood the question. I read it as applying only to people who have presented themselves as candidates for entry. The gatekeeper consults his rulebook and on that basis admits or rejects the applicant.

It is silent on those who have not applied and it is silent on those already here. To the extent or degree those are a problem, they are a separate problem.

To my way of thinking, every person has basic rights, "unalienable" rights. When a government violates those rights such that its citizens are compelled to go elsewhere, that government is responsible and should be accountable and held to account.

As to rules for entry, they would depend on available resources, but not just local resources. Rather instead, for the US, national resources, and for Europe, European resources. And if immigration is a problem or a threat, it would be appropriate to deal with the problem/threat at its source, that which is causing the immigration in the first place.

As to what people like and do not like, indulgence of that is properly regarded a luxury sometimes afforded by the forces and imperatives of history, which themselves may grind fast or slow, but in any case grind.

The laws should be whatever the citizens desire in a democratic nation. Do you disagree? — Philosophim

Can't let this pass. Care to qualify this in some way that will move it from nonsense to sense?

There are numerous Youtube videos on P v. N-P. Best are from MIT. That's the place to start. A quick test: do you, gentle reader, know what N-P stands for?

The question before us is whether buying gold to hold passively for eventual resale is an investment or speculation. From a little bit of searching, I'm satisfied - and surprised - that the words themselves are so loosely defined and used that no argument over just the words can prosper either side although the words retain some descriptive value.

To me, an investment is the placement of an asset, most often money, for such uses as will add value/profit for the investor, realized as revenue or at resale (or both). Speculation, on the other hand, is as you say, buying something simply to hold in the hope that someone will buy it for more, later. And at least a couple of distinctions hidden here. Investment is about the use of assets to create income, value, and profit. Speculation is about money and the hope for more money.

Land may be a helpful example. A developer, seeing land he thinks is not being put to highest and best use, may buy it and develop it and profit from his investment. Another fellow seeing the same land might buy it and do nothing with it, in the hope that someone will buy it from him at a higher price. And this latter person is usually called a speculator.

And the trick is value. All else being equal, how does speculation add or produce value? And the answer is that it does not. And in terms of both land and gold and most other speculations, the speculator buys retail, sells at wholesale, pays a variety of costs, and then pays taxes on proceeds. Thus speculation usually such a poor investment it is no longer called an investment, but instead speculation.

And to be sure, occasionally people win at speculating, just as sometimes people win at a casino. But the "game" is so stacked against them that it doesn't happen very often, and luck plays a large part.

In sum, "speculation" and "investment" are used sometimes without clear distinctions between them. In the details, they're very different.