The proles are doing really well in this economy, and Trump always speaks highly of the working man and woman, much more so than the Democrats. — NOS4A2

Well, real median household income is higher than in the end of the 20th Century. Whopee. Of course this rise started during the last Obama years, but still has gone up.

Will Trump’s GOP become the party of the worker? — NOS4A2

Workers aren't an unified class, weren't even during the last Century. Even if especially one political side thinks it represents the workers.

And I think the real divide goes more with race than even with education.

Talking in terms of "the elites" is fraught with misdirection.

Talking in terms of what's in the best interest of American citizens and what's not is much better. — creativesoul

Exactly.

The problem in populism is the juxtaposition of 'us against them'. To think that the so-called 'elite' is some unified group with a clear agenda and objectives is something that isn't actually true, just like it is absurd to think "the people" is one unified group. To be against the agenda of some political actors is basically ordinary politics. We do obviously disagree, but in a democracy that is not the reason to divide the people into two opposing camps that do not and cannot work together.

The lending institutions in '08 could have been saved by simply paying off the mortgages. It would have been a helluva lot cheaper, and caused a helluva lot less harm to average Americans. — creativesoul

You mean debt relief? Well, I think the trick was to stabilize the global monetary system, but NOT to get that trillion dollars into the real economy.

That hate of political party is not natural. It's learned... it's taught... it's fed... — creativesoul

I fully agree.

The two parties have to give the appearance that they are SO different. Yes, it's your obligation to vote for them as otherwise those evil lunatics from the other party will destroy America!

What counts as populism? — creativesoul

I would go with the more narrow definition of it being the juxtaposition of "the elites" being against, oppressing or forgetting "the people". And the populist is the one fighting for the people against "the elite".

Another similar definition is "a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups."

Which is what I have been saying. When the set of axioms lead to an inconsistency, it is the set is that is inconsistent. No one axiom is inconsistent, or false. Nor is any one axiom inconsistent with another. The set itself is inconsistent.

And I never compared two systems to each other. — JeffJo

Great, we both agree on something.

And you still have not demonstrated an inconsistency with Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, You have supposed it could be inconsistent, and blamed it on the Axiom of Infinity possibly being false. Which is preposterous. — JeffJo

And notice the word "could". Could doesn't have the same meaning as is. I've only said it could be a possibility that in the future it is shown to be inconsistent. You see, there was a purpose for ZF - set theory to be made: It was to avoid the Paradoxes. It was made to avoid the pitfall that Frege's naive set theory had fallen to. I don't blame the axiom, in my view Infinity (and hence an axiom for it) is an integral part of mathematics. All I've said that we haven't understood infinity well. Even if ZF doesn't directly answer Cantor's hierarchial system of ever larger infinities, it's still there. Yet how much has there been use for Aleph-2, for Aleph-3, or Aleph-4? Cantor, a very religious man, thought that there could be an Absolute Infinity, but that was only for God to know. All I'm saying is that there could be surprises and new insights in this issue.

So please understand my point of view: we have gotten new insights on mathematics in history and our understanding of math has greatly changed from what it was during Ancient times and what it is now. Hence what is preposterous is then to think that a) no new insights will be made in mathematics in the future and b) these new insights won't change our understanding from the one we currently have. In science we admit this and talk just about theorems.

Yes, you might argue in your formalism that then these new insights would be just are new axiomatic systems separate of others. But if something is shown to be inconsistent, some people would dare to say there's something wrong then, it's false. Some would even dare to say that it would change our understanding of math as ZF is commonly seen (at least by some) as part of the foundations of mathematics. I do understand your point if you disagree with this, but still argue that this is a philosophical disagreement we have here.

So the basic argument we have had has been about inconsistency and falsehood.

The problems in American government that led to Trump are solved by looking at America. Trump is a symptom. Americans need to learn that. The way was paved for Trump's rise. Reagan, Arnold, and Jesse were all similar candidates in that they appealed to voters who did not trust career politicians.

The problem now includes the governmental and political pundits' near complete disconnection from a very very large swathe of Americans.

This is reflected by the commonly held belief that all politicians are "in it" to line their own pockets. That none of them could be trusted to do what they promised. That all of them have some ulterior motive. That all of them are monetarily corrupt. That all of them sided with those whose interests were in direct opposition to the average American voters' best interest. — creativesoul

Creativesoul, you have just aptly defined the landscape where populist movements and basically populism, be it from the right (or the left, in some other cases), cherishes and where populist fervor can get a stranglehold on politics.

Yet this is no wonder in a country where the political power is firmly in the hands of just two political parties, which enjoy such a total dominance over communal, state and national politics, that other political parties seem to be a joke for the majority of the people. Hardly surprising that such entrenched and firm power devolves into corruption, distrust of politicians in general and simply apathy.

Hence, Trumps claims to drain the swamp, played off of these beliefs.

Trump tapped into that... as well as other common beliefs. — creativesoul

Trump was surprised how "the drain the swamp" thing echoed, but anyone else that understood the political landscape it's no wonder. To fight corruption is an issue that both left-wing and right-wing activists would happily agree on. Naturally they hate each other so much, that they don't even notice this.

Biden is just another Democrat who has been monetarily corrupted by major multinational corporate interests. In the most important ways, there is little to no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have enacted legislation that caused demonstrable financial harm to workers and everyday citizens. Both parties have bailed out the financial and business sectors by virtue of increasing the tax burden of the workers and everyday citizens. Both parties have taken drastic measures to end public assistance programs. Both parties have failed the American people. — creativesoul

Then the issue would be to have TOTALLY DIFFERENT PARTIES. Period. No matter how much any candidate is "outside" the system, as the candidate of the two parties there simply won't be any change. Voting Trump hasn't changed anything. And voting Bernie won't either.

But because the vast majority of Americans (perhaps) think that God has given them these two parties and they have to make a choice between them and voting a third party is equivalent of throwing away your vote, the will vote for the two parties and the two parties will remain in power.

Capitalism with a human face doesn't require democracy. There's no meaningful difference voting for a centrist or republican where it concerns the slow but certain erosion of people's agency. — Benkei

Yet the erosion of people's agency is seldom solved by those with extremist views. In my view the cure is good governance and solutions that work, not populist rhetoric or idealist views.

I mean, the last time every government across the world agreed on something it was an economic crisis. Trillions were spent, not for a clear goal, but to improve people's trust in the financial system at the expense of taxpayers for the benefit of the rich capitalist. No vested power offers an alternative to that sort of injustice. Risks have been socialised but profit is still private. Under the guise of capitalism we have a really fucked up form of socialism. — Benkei

A bit off the topic, but I cannot restrain from commenting this...

The 'socialism for the rich' was indeed one of the most ugliest outcomes of the financial crisis, however that bankers would go to jail and that the governments would wield the power they have isn't at all far fetched. With the 80's Savings & Loans bankruptcy the US did exactly what the authorities ought to have done and back then bankers did go to jail, but of course now you had an ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs as the acting Secretary of Treasury, so Wall Street banks had firm control of power. The Nordic banking crisis of the 1990's is also a good example were the governments didn't choose just to bail the rich out, but did reform the banks and the worst actors went out of business. And then there is the best example of Iceland: they bit the bullet, the stock market lost 90% of it's value, the GDP dropped 10% and the crisis lasted until 2011. And that was the end. After that Iceland has enjoyed economic growth. This is what basically happens when the market mechanism is let to handle the bursting of a speculative bubble. It's hard, but quick. Iceland shows what happens, when the government takes the right choices. Yet when you have 'socialism for the rich', then you prevent the market mechanism to solve problem.

Several have jumped on me before for saying this, but I still believe Democrats' chances are best by nominating a centrist like Biden. At any rate, that's who I'm planning to vote for in the Texas primary. — Relativist

But it's the Party, all those superdelegates etc, that make the decision. So let's see what happens. Biden the "boring" might indeed just what only you need to win Trump.

What's the point of voting for a centrist knowing nothing will change then? Might as well vote Republican then... Same difference. — Benkei

You and I don't have much to do with this, of course, yet the topic is interesting.

So Benkei: If then the democratic party chooses someone else than a centrist, won't that be a similar move as the Labour party made in 2015 with chosing Corbyn and not going with a Blairite or others (Burnham, Cooper, Kendall)?

But if the buyer/consumer really had that much effect on the market then we probably wouldn’t be in the situation we are in now, that is the general cost of living versus wages versus a consumerism that seems to be insatiable. — Brett

First, there's a great difference between an individual consumer and aggregate demand. And all those finished goods and services demanded in an economy aren't used just by 'us' as consumers. The demand side has within itself also producers and companies too as buyers. Add into the equation Global demand, the demand from other countries that make the exports of a country, which naturally are of huge importance to export oriented countries.

Hence even if the demand side is as important as the supply side, it is far more difficult to understand and especially far more difficult to influence. Hence the supply side is more often the one which is focused on. The narrative there is about companies and corporations trying to lower the production prices (through technology, outsourcing etc.), which basically falls to being the job of the leadership of those companies. Far easier to understand and handle.

Secondly, cost of living versus wages is a more complex issue (obviously).

By talking about incentives, I mean exactly making sure that the market price accurately reflects the real price. If non-renewables are causing a public harm, then that cost needs to be factored into the market cost of them (by making the producers and/or users of them bear that cost -- which is a matter of politics, since this is a tragedy of the commons situation) so that there will be appropriate market pressures to transfer away from them. — Pfhorrest

Yes. Taxes and wealth transfers have been invented. But how you calculate 'public harm' is quite difficult when you think of it.

In my country one of the most heavily taxed issues are cars and fuel. About 75% of the price of gasoline is simply taxes... 25% goes to the producers, importers, retailers and to transport costs. Since the 70's the car has been the cash cow for the government. Yet for example in the US gas prices are far lower.

Same thing with subsidies, actually.

Let me tell a story from real life. I thought of investing in a private venture that was building wind farms in Finland in the 2000's. I remember the "roadshow" for investors which I participated in. The analyst from the venture talk NEARLY ONLY about subsidies, the implemented laws and the contributions and stances that the government had taken. Their basic message was that the investors will get a good return on investment before the government subsidies run out. They briefly mentioned also geography and where it was best to construct the farms... and that the military didn't like wind farms to be built on the eastern border because they would give radar blind spots (an issue they were happy to abide with).

So my point is that the "final nail in the coffin" is that renewables are cheaper than non-renewables. Then there's no turning back anywhere. That has to be the real objective.

Very simple, maybe a bit too simple. Who will own future energy? What will they charge, what will their bottom line business practice be? — Brett

Remember that the market isn't made just from the producers/suppliers/industry owners. That's just one side of the coin. There's also the aggregate demand, the buyers, consumers etc. Is as important.

Science tells us what solutions are possible, engineers have to actually make those solutions happen, entrepreneurs have to fund those engineers in order for them to be able to do so, and politics has to create the proper systemic incentives (some combination of carrots and sticks) to make it more obviously in those entrepreneurs best interests to pay the engineers to use the science to fix the damn problem already. — Pfhorrest

You are forgetting the most important way that proper systemic incentives are created (and to forget this is typical for our time). That is the markets and the market mechanism. Once renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, there is no turning back anymore to them.

Usually people see the market mechanism as the evil cause of everything bad, yet it isn't so. Truly viable and sustainable choices are only firmly implemented once the market mechanism favors these choices. And that is totally possible, actually something that is already happening.

(A most simple chart)

I don't "do" any quantity of whatever it is you are implying with them. — JeffJo

Right. So you don't do anything with them. Well, neither do I.

And that was my point. But from the following it's obvious you don't get it.

I also don't suppose that they could be inconsistent because they contradict a "universal truth" that I want to others to accept as blindly as you do, and dismiss an individual Axiom in the set solely on the basis of that unsupported supposition. Which is exactly what you are doing. — JeffJo

No, the set of axioms are inconsistent when they aren't consistent with each other. You don't compare two different axiomatic systems to each other.

But perhaps for you even to mention that there is the law of non-contradiction is too much like an "universal truth", which you oppose.

That said, present consumer confidence is a predictor for a Trump win. — frank

As typical, voters vote basically on the economy, which actually hasn't so much to do with the Presidency, but has to do with the business cycle.

Completely different situation. Sanders is very popular and polls better against Trump than most other candidates. Corbyn ended up being very unpopular, largely because he was caught in the Brexit vice not because he was progressive.

(I could see Warren turning off independents and white rural voters though, especially as she'll be portrayed both as an elitist and a commie.) — Baden

What democrat wouldn't be portrayed both as an elitist and a commie btw.

Well, to take an example from US history, democrat candidate George McGovern was very popular with liberals and students.

Here's a question I even thought to start a new thread, but this one comes so close I chose to ask it here:

Can the Democrats learn from the UK elections or will they mimic the path of Labour and leave the World with four more years of Trump?

Will they choose some American version of Jeremy Corbyn and go with let's say Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, or the other way around, a Warren/Sanders ticket? I would suspect that many progressives would be happy with those two candidates. Meaning a lot of vocal supporters would be fine with them. But how about the whole field of Democrat leaning voters, which likely is quite heterogenous bunch. Even if a lot of Democrats simply hate Trump, could the "woke progressivism", either real or imagined, turn off enough voters to choose either voting for a third candidate/party, opting to stay home or even... voting Trump?

Now I know that the UK and US are two totally different political animals, however I've noticed that they do partially mimic each other. Thanks perhaps to the shared language and shared social media environment. And naturally there's a huge difference between Johnson and Trump for starters.

Opinions?

That's the first thing you've gotten right. And the fact that you will disagree is why you won't ever understand what I am saying. — JeffJo

At least I'm trying to understand your point. (Which you think is impossible, I guess)

There are three different fields that use contradictory Parallel Axioms (hyperbolic, elliptic, and Euclidean geometry), yet the way we think about them in math is the same. — JeffJo

That geometry is different in two dimensions and more dimensions is evident yes. Yet we do speak of Geometry, even when there is Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry.

Qualities a *****SET***** of Axioms can have include "consistent" and "inconsistent," but not "true" or "false." — JeffJo

Fine. So in this case we will you just the definitions of "consistent" and "inconsistent".

So how much do you do with "inconsistent" axiomatic systems, or as you wrote, "a *****SET***** of Axioms" that is inconsistent?

Here's a game about the philosophy of mathematics.

Players take turns to add rules.

Your turn. — Banno

I add that there exists Absolute Infinity.

Is then Ω absolute infinity or not?

(I like Banno's game :up: )

I imagine this to be a huge clash of cultures and those workers caught caught in the middle and didn’t have the skills to adapt. That doesn’t exonerate the company but I can’t think of two more diametrically opposed attitudes about work. — Brett

It isn't about the skills of the employess or adaption to new organizations and work.

It's more about a serious cultural issue.

Some French person working for the state of FRANCE, be it in the military, or be it in various ministries or be it in the post office (I assume they were then civil servants) is really, REALLY, different than to work at McDonalds. Sorry, but the nation state hasn't been yet killed and buried.

That's the huge problem here.

You have to understand that someone employed as a civil servant or someone working for your country is genuinely different from the ordinary business transaction that one makes when working for a private firm.

Search yourself, not this forum, for the answers to your political / ethical questions, and don't bother posting your answers because they will only be applicable to you. — Harry Hindu

Oh to just me?

And you have the correc / true subjective point of view or what?

Or moral ethics isn't worth a debate in PF? That your line?

YES!

Oh Brother, you have seen the light!

Merry Christmas! :halo: :up: :sparkle:

It's hard to argue with that. :chin: — John Gill

And I know that I may not be the sharpest razors here when it comes to math and hence I'm happy if I am shown to be wrong.

Yet I think there still is important things to be discovered in math. Just a hunch...

This part of the the article says it all:

The roots of the case date back about two decades, to a period when the company, then known by the name France Télécom, was still part of the government's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Once a state-run monopoly, the company sold off most of its shares and underwent a process of privatization in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

That process left its employees in an uncomfortable situation: still enjoying the strong employment protections of civil servants, but working for a management structure newly constrained by the marketplace and looking to shed costs to compete.

Civil servants cannot be fired the same way as ordinary employees. That's the problem.

Companies and corporations are just these bullshit contracts how we make otherwise normal transactions of services to be these awful employer/employee relations.

There is no objective morality. What is right or wrong for you isn't necessarily the same for me. Any ethical standards we might agree on will be based on us being members of the same species and or culture. — Harry Hindu

Oh I agree totally with you, Harry.

Yet we have to answer questions about ethics. Even if we cannot escape our subjectivity, the questions are many times very important and leaving them unanswered is a choice that can have serious consequences. Many times we have to answer political (and ethical) questions even if we wouldn't want to.

When NOS4A2 talks about political correctness, we cannot avoid the political aspect of it. That's my point.

No, we have not. We may have changed the Axioms. — JeffJo

So changing the axioms isn't changing the way think about math?

A ****SET***** of axioms can be inconsistent, which only means that at least one of them disagrees with one or more of the others. Not that any of them is "false." And claiming otherwise is claiming that a universal truth exists. — JeffJo

Right. So are against something the idea that if something is inconsistent (in math/logic), it is false, because that would be a 'universal truth'. I guess you oppose talking about "The Law of excluded middle" because for you it's just one axiomatic system.

All you have to do is come up with an example showing this to be the case, rather than argue in an abstract way about it. Maybe you have, as I haven't read all the posts. Good luck. — John Gill

Feel free to think that there is nothing that we could understand better in mathematics any time ever. All I said that what one could easily see even from this forum is that we do not understand infinity yet.

Since mathematical logic consists only of the constructive activity of rule-following, the idea that mathematical logic can capture the non-constructive notion of "non-computability" is a contradiction in terms. — sime

Do you understand Turing's answer to the Halting problem? Just as Cantor's diagonal argument shows that not every infinite set of numbers can be put into 1-to-1 correspondence with the Natural numbers, so do the various undecidability results, starting from Church-Turing thesis, show that indeed there are mathematical objects that cannot computed. Not everything can be calculated/computed by a Turing Machine.

Abuse of power is what got us here in the first place. You can call it a "political process" like Mitch McConnell et al., but in reality when he turns around and says "I'm not an impartial juror, and I will take cues from the president's defense lawyers", it unambiguously undermines the whole separation of powers line that republicans love to flout. — VagabondSpectre

Very nicely put.

Republicans do know where they have to stand. During Nixon's time, they were far more confident where they stood. They could throw away Nixon and be confident that they would have enough popular support in election (even if the Dems got Carter later). Now they aren't so confident about themselves anymore, hence they will defend to the last man Trump, even if they hate the guy privately.

Now that's a strawman argument. You need the AoI before you can even try to understand this thing you want to call "infinity." — JeffJo

Quite circular reasoning you have there, Jeffjo.

You have also said that the AoI could be "wrong" and that we need to discuss whether it is. — JeffJo

The axiom of infinity could be wrong in the way that it is inconsistent with the other axioms of ZF, for example. It is you that is making the case of some eternal truth as you don't take into consideration at all that the now used axiomatic systems could be inconsistent. I'm really not making the case for some universal truth here either. My point is that from the historical perspective we have thought about math one way and because of new theorems or observations we have changed our way of thinking about math. Why would you assume that now at this it wouldn't be so as earlier?

Not ultimately false, or absolutely false, but some other kind of "false"? What kind? — JeffJo

You tell me. All I understand is that if something is inconsistent, we can say it's false.

There is ethics, you know. Science doesn't anything about what would be ethically right or wrong.

Science also doesn't answer normative questions. Objectivity isn't a cure for everything.

There are a bunch of areas in computer science on computability and such, e.g. ...

Computational Complexity Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Computational complexity theory, Computational complexity (Wikipedia)
NP-completeness, NP (complexity), P versus NP problem (Wikipedia)

Within some limits you can write code to handle infinite sets.
Nowhere near what mathematicians routinely do, but some things are possible. — jorndoe

True jorndoe, in my view it's a field we likely could find something new. The Church-Turing thesis is quite vague in my view. I think the most important issue here in the most simple format is Cantor's diagonalization. It seems with logic has a lot of peculiar things happening.

Get this point straight: The Axiom of Infinity cannot be proven to be true, or false, outside of some set of Axioms. — JeffJo

This is a straw-man argument. Just like we cannot escape theories in other fields, we cannot escape axiomatic systems. What my point was that as we have things like CH, we don't understand Infinity yet clearly. Hence there is the possibility that for example the axioms of a axiomatic system that we think is consistent might be proven inconsistent. Just as the fate of naive set theory. I don't understand why you won't believe our understanding of math could continue to change as it has changed in history.

And you would be wrong to do so. All it shows is that the set is inconsistent. — JeffJo

No, the axioms are inconsistent to each other in the defined axiomatic system.

I believe your words were that that his discussion should establish whether the AoI is self-evidently true. Nothing is further from the point if this discussion. — JeffJo

Wrong. As I said: "I'm not looking for some ultimate truth. The question is if a set of axioms, an axiomatic system, is simply consistent. I just happen to be such a logicist that I think that something that is inconsistent in math is in other words false.

re you really that concerned with non-computable functions or non-measurable sets? Material like that in math is referred to as "pathological" frequently. — John Gill

We ought to treat the existence of non-computability and incommeasurability much more seriously than we do. Yet mathematicians push them aside and think somehow that they are 'negative' or something that ought to be avoided.

I personally think that absolutely everything is mathematical or can be described mathematically. Huge part is just non-computable. When we would understand just what is non-computable, we would avoid banging our heads into the wall with assuming that everything would be computable.

It seems to me that you have politicized his OP. — Harry Hindu

So political correctness isn't political or what? I'm not sure what you mean.

So, you foresee alienation from society via unemployment as an undesirable consequence of mechanization. — TheMadFool

It has already happened and continues to happen in the West. Just visit the rust-belt in the US. You have few hubs where the economy has centered and otherwise the country is "Fly-over-country". Those areas that pin their hopes in politicians like Trump.

This image of the future of man and machine existing in harmony is very appealing to me. — TheMadFool

In the 60's people believed that the Space Age would be right behind the corner. The makers of the 1968 classic "2001 - A Space Odyssey" genuinely thought that they made a very realistic portrayal on what life would be in 2001. And why wouldn't they believe it? If you looked at what had happened in 33 years from 1968 from the year 1935, Space Age by 2001 looked quite possible. How long has it now been since man has left low Earth Orbit? I think 47 years. In few years it will be 50 years. And all that talk about going to Mars with internet billionaires wanting to go there are just one stock market crash from being fairy tales.

How, in your opinion, would we make the necessary transition if complete mechanization becomes a reality and I'm thinking of true general AI here. Humans would become obsolete in the truest sense of the word and assuming such general AI wouldn't opt to exterminate humans, what would be our role in such a world? — TheMadFool

Even if I'm no socialist, the real societal problem is the division of income and if there emerges a new class of povetry, those who aren't as poor as earlier, but idle and sustain an adequate, but meager lifestyle by wealth transfers. This can create a situation where the society lacks cohesion and anything unifying. Coming from a Nordic welfare state, it might be sound strange to Americans, but welfare state does create it's own problems, even if I would choose those problems rather than absolute povetry or crime. The biggest problem is alienation from the society. Imagine if not only you hadn't ever worked, but your parents and your grandparents had never worked. Unemployment carries a huge stigma and truly makes people fall into apathy as being unemployed is seen as a personal fault: there's still that job at McDonalds open.

Even if the economy can sustain this, thanks to cheap robot labour, it does create a lot of social problems.

I think I understand your point. Perhaps my answer to JeffJo above will make my point more clear. It's better to think of axioms as part of axiomatic systems. Yet when it comes to mathematics, is every axiomatic system as useful as the other? We tend to use some systems more than others, at least.

More importantly, if axioms were a matter of self-evident truths, then there would be just the one mathematics — SophistiCat

What would be so terrible if it would be so? Now it isn't, I agree with that wholeheartedly, but just making a hypothesis here. Could there be an universal foundation for Mathematics?

And you still haven't grasped the very simple fact that no field of mathematics claims to be "correct", or that another is not. Only that no statement is can be shown to be true without first assuming a set of unsupported Axiom, and proving theorems within that framework.

And it is quite clear that you have no interest in any formalism but your own. — JeffJo

Perhaps you didn't understand my point.

I'm not looking for some ultimate truth. The question is if a set of axioms, an axiomatic system, is simply consistent. If they aren't consistent, I would in my mind declare then an axiom or axioms to be false, if we can pinpoint the reason for the inconsistency. This kind of "formalism" I do accept. So the question of the possibility of "an axiom being false" would perhaps be better understood from your viewpoint as that "an axiomatic system is inconsistent".

Could that be possible? Let's take the example of the axioms of ZF set theory. Consider the reason just why Zermelo and Fraenkel made those axioms: it was because of Russell's Paradox, which had made Frege's naive set theory, well...."naive". There was a reason why to do it. Yet perhaps the Paradoxes aren't at all an obstacle to be eradicated, but simply part of an answer we haven't fully understood. Because we don't understand infinity clearly, there's still CH you know, our understanding of these issues can change. Then axioms denying Paradoxes (assuming if they would be a part a reductio ad absurdum proof) would be, well, some might say false, others would say that the system wouldn't be consistent.

You might argue that fine, that doesn't matter, lets just form a new Set Theory and leave ZF as it is. But if so, are you OK with an axiomatic system where 0=1? In that system you can prove truly whatever you want! I might argue that the 0=1 is false, but I do understand your formalist point of view. Perhaps you would get angry at me saying that, because for you it's just an axiomatic system as anything else. If you hate the true/false dichotomy and juxtaposition, how about useful / useless then? If we have one axiomatic system, which is very useful to us, we can model extremely many things with it and another that cannot be used in any way, is there something to be said about the axioms.

I think that these questions go to the core of the philosophy of Mathematics.

One key determinant in this imbalance between jobs available and job-seeking people is mechanization. Machines are more efficient and cheaper than a human workforce: to find employment in such an environment is nearly impossible. Also, machines seem to occupy the employment sector that requires the least of skills, their only advantage being their efficiency and cost. This ultimately means that humans can find employment in areas where machines haven't entered the scene and such jobs require a level of training and skill that is both beyond the reach of many and also highly competitive. — TheMadFool

Do note that mechanization is a phenomenon that has been with us since the industrial revolution. Industry, but also agriculture has transformed dramatically with machines doing the work. This has created huge transformations in the workforce and in our societies, yet it hasn't created roaming hordes of poor people.

This is because new generations acquire then new jobs: your parents might have been farmers or factory workers, yet your may not be in the same job at all. What can happen is that many people lose their jobs and especially rural areas can die, yes. But people can change their work and acquire new skills. And there is the simple law of supply and demand: if everybody would lose their because of automation and AI taking over everything, the aggregate demand side of the system would dramatically fall meaning that the economy would go bust and nobody would make investments in any machinery. People often forget that there are two sides to the market.

That's a poor view of charities and again reflects a deep flaw in the economic system that prevents us from giving real assistance to the poor and allows us actions that keep the poor poor. — TheMadFool

And unemployed doesn't need alms, he or she needs a job.

There is a role for charity and charity can be effective and important, but it isn't the key to prosperity, unfortunately.

Science cannot flourish in such a culture. — NOS4A2

Yet this is something that isn't contained to science. In other workplaces similar events can happen. Being a comedian is especially difficult in these times.

Sure but the seriousness of compromised research does not lessen the seriousness of the politically correct bullying of scientists. — NOS4A2

Are scientist somehow a special case in this era of cyberbullying? I don't think so.

Well, you argued that I gave an incorrect definition, SophistryCat.

Besides, one shouldn't assume that one school of Mathematical philosophy is correct and another is not. I gather that JeffJo thinks on the line of mathematical formalism when it comes to axioms (I assume, of course I could be wrong) while you've just said that I ought to know better...besides being an idiot.