Yeah, well regardless of how the Finns might evaluate it, if someone accused me of a rape I didn't commit and it was damaging to my reputation and family, I might say something other than "I'd prefer the fine gentlewoman from Maryland to refrain from her misstatements as they are quite distracting." To be sure, I'd expect a volatile reaction from a legitimate accuser if she should be attacked as a liar and should her past be brought before the world to evaluate. — Hanover

Perhaps in a similar situation Hanover the candidate for Supreme Court Justice would spring up from his chair and leap up to hit one of those slimy Democrat senators for damaging your repution and family and for the political hit job they have made? That would get judge Hanover quite a following, you know.

I think it is equally likely if he was calm and cool the narrative would be " see he did it, no one could take an allegation like that so calmly if he didn't do it " — Rank Amateur

You can deny false allegations and make a sincere, firm case that people will believe without loosing your temper. You can be credible and convincing without loosing it. As Boethius said, you do think that someone for the post of Supreme Court Justice would be able to respond in a different way.

And anyway, the display that we have gotten from Bart Kavanaugh simply shows that he is far more of a political hack than a lawyer. But that's obvious when you look at the guy's CV.

What is missing in political discourse? Respect for other views than your own. Or views that don't go by party lines. And basically the healthy critique of the side you actually support (as obviously those who are against you can use that critique to attack you).

Of course, the other side of the political aisle has lost it's marbles, so why respect them? :wink:

All this just makes me to think in a better light Trump's previous pick for SCOTUS. Don't remember such a show then.

What is the appropriate way for an honorable man to respond to outright lies alleging attempted rape, assuming that's the case? — Hanover

Not to loose your cool (or temper) just like Bret "Bart the beer-lover" Kavanaugh does.

There's an old Finnish saying: "That dog yelps, which (the) stick hits"

What was not modeled was the effect of say 2000-3000 nuclear blasts followed by massive firestorms throwing many, many tons of soot, combustion products, pulverized minerals (concrete, brick, etc.), and other matter very high into the atmosphere--much the way a big volcano eruption does. The amount of sun-reflecting matter would be enough to lower global temperatures for several years. It would NOT be a glaciating event. It would be several -- maybe 10 -- global, long winter seasons, followed by short frost filled springs, summers too short to grow much, leading into short frost filled autumns, and then back into "old fashioned winter".

The sudden cooling wouldn't kill people directly as much as it would starve billions. — Bitter Crank

Actually the "nuclear winter" theory is a bit controversial and somewhat disputed. Of course there are things like weapons targeting policies, fire standards in modern cities, nuclear warheads being nowdays smaller etc. but let's not get into those.

One very unlucky moment for the "nuclear winter" proponents was the Gulf War. Before the war they speculated that if Iraq would set ablaze the Kuwaiti oilfields, the effect would be global or at least a regional "nuclear winter" or "nuclear autumn" would happen. In the 1980's it was estimated by some scientists that that 100 oil refinery fires would be sufficient to bring about a small scale, but still globally deleterious nuclear winter. When the Gulf war was ongoing, Carl Sagan gave this kind of interview to the Baltimore Sun (on January 23rd 1991):

Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan says Saddam Hussein's orders to torch Kuwaiti oil wells, if carried far enough, could unleash smoke clouds that would disrupt agriculture across South Asia and darken skies around the world.

"You need a very small lowering of the average temperatures of the Northern Hemisphere to have serious consequences for agriculture," Sagan said.

Scientists in Maryland and Colorado say such a disaster would require fires at hundreds of wells burning for months, but they agreed the potential exists in Kuwait for a "very catastrophic" environmental event.

Sagan and UCLA scientist Richard Turco have compared the potential for disaster with the 1815 explosion of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia. That event sent enough ash and debris into the sky to make 1816 the "year without summer" in the United States and caused crop failures in other parts of the world.

And what happened? 600 oil wells were set ablaze and the fires continued to burn 8 months until the last was put out. And nothing of the sort that Sagan and others predicted happened. The oil fire hypothesis is crucial for the nuclear winter theory as oil smoke pluming into the stratosphere was thought to serve as a main contributor to the soot of a nuclear winter. This was the central idea of the early climatology papers on the hypothesis: they considered oil fires as a more possible contributor than smoke from cities, as the smoke from oil has a higher ratio of black soot, thus absorbing more sunlight.

Before you think I'm some kind of climate denier or some anti-science conspiracist, the simple phenomenon here is that to make the most dire forecasts about nuclear war being the end of civilization is socially most acceptable. Not agreeing with the most dire forecasts and theories sounds to like being perhaps a proponent of nuclear war. If it's not a mass extinction event, doesn't then this kind of talk get us closer to nuclear weapons being used? That's the logic of the discourse.

And coming back to the actual topic of this thread, such catastrophic predictions about the effects of a global monetary collapse follow similar thinking. Because if one estimates that if/when the US defaults on it's debt and we would have a dollar crisis and it wouldn't be a catastrophic event and likely would be over in a few years, doesn't that then make the Trump administration or any other administration to think "Hmm, that might not be a bad idea"? And of course it catches the interest of people in the net if the economic future is portrayed in the most dire light. That we aren't facing your average economic crises in the future, but a total collapse.

It shouldn't be surprising, it's not abnormal, etc. this is simply the character of Trump. It's who he is. — Maw

Trump is the most transparent politician ever. All the reporting, the books about him and his administration and also his actions, speeches and tweets paint a unified picture of this narcissistic, soft-skinned liar.

But that transparency doesn't mean a thing to his supporter who so much hate the leftist establishment. Doesn't matter that objectively he is a rather poor President: those who critisize Trump have to be pinko liberal Hillary voters swallowing everything that the fake news tells about him.

One thing you mentioned was that it was important to just get them to think of these issues and find themselves their own answers. Do you not believe that could cause harm to a student or give them a reason to not do justice if they are not guided? — Dexter

I personally don't think so. Socratic questioning can give that guidance. And usually children aren't so dissappointed or frustrated about reality that they would opt for immoral choices (at least when asked openly). And if a pupil gives a totally immoral,ethically bad answer, then you can disagree.

One has to be consistent with children. If one says that they can freely think about the issues, then one shouldn't push them for a correct answer. Smart children will notice if the teacher by his or her actions tells them "Speak freely about these issues... but I want you make the same conclusions I am advocating". The teacher can be an authority figure to the pupils, so one has to be careful with this. Many times children notice this and especially remember it later if some teacher has in a hidden way pushed (or is thought to have pushed) a political agenda what the pupils later as adults are against themselves.

I suppose the real question would be, is it most important to have them find their own answer or to help guide them to find the answer? — Dexter

Guidance is what school is for, yet in this case just to get the students thinking about these issues would be an objective in my view. Many simply won't care so much about philosophy or moral ethics. Good way is to take the examples from things the children are interested in and give guidance like "Philosopher X or philosophic school Y answered this problem this way, who would think the answer is good?". Everything depends a lot just how old the children are and how seriously they are taking school. But that quote from Plato is a great example and a topic.

And I actually don't expect any sort of grand social meltdown without a nuclear war--and if the nuclear war is thorough, we won't be around to worry about it afterwards. — Bitter Crank

Actually got into a heated debate about this issue in this Forum. Because the politically incorrect truth is that even a nuclear war likely wouldn't ruin everything as there would be parts of the World like Africa and South America that are extremely unlikely targets in any possible confrontation. Not even Russia and the US would be literally destroyed as pockets of smaller urban areas in the middle of nowhere would avoid being targeted. After all, in the US there are over 19 000 cities while Russia has bit over 4 000 nuclear weapons.

One really has to go for the mass extinction events the World has seen to disrupt or end human society globally. As nothing is as adaptable as humans.

As long as you buy low and sell high. — Bitter Crank

Not many do that, actually. Remember the cryptocurrency thread in this Forum? I put that to be the final indicator for the top and the bubble to burst as people interested in philosophy would start talking about investing in cryptocurrencies. Now when nobody's interested, well...

I should have been clearer. The situation I was thinking of was farther out than the collapse of currency. I was thinking more along apocalyptic lines, the demise of the central state, anarchy, survivalists, etc. — Bitter Crank

And just how realistic is the Mad Max -scenario? It's great for Hollywood, but I think the catastrophy-movies and zombie-movies aren't the most likely reality (although the movie Hotel Ruanda about the genocide in that country has some scenes right out from a zombie movie).

We have plentiful examples of nations collapsing to civil war and anarchy, yet what is noticeable is how the economy still works and how quickly the whole society can turn around afterwards. Ruanda is actually the perfect example. The whole survivalist thing is very American in that way it promotes the individual, yet what is totally dismissed is that even if the central state would "demise", there's the state and communal level that can quite well organize themselves. Survivalist ideology in the most extreme is silly fantasies and totally out of touch of reality, but perhaps the people get a kick out of it. They can pretend to be like some pioneers living on the American frontier again totally independent of the outside World somehow living what America truly is about. That you can endure a week long electricity shortage or prepare for natural disasters is something totally different, if that is called survivalism.

Survivalists don't buy my argument that gold, silver, and diamonds just won't be worth anything after this grand crash, because you can't eat them, keep warm with them, and so on. They have a belief that there is "essential value" in gold that transcends everything else. It doesn't, of course. — Bitter Crank

Gold as an investment is totally fine, but the survivalists (and some tea-party Republicans) give it an odd status. Yet to think that gold, silver and diamonds wouldn't have value is very strange. I think you underestimate the adaptability and durability of people, the society and commerce.

Isn't this the necessary support for MMT? Real business? — Bitter Crank

Sure. For the government to get tax income there has to be income that can be taxed. It's so simple.

The trouble with all schemes for surviving the collapse of money is that no representative commodity, be it gold, diamonds, silver, or any thing else, will survive the collapse. — Bitter Crank

I'm not so sure about that. Currencies might collapse, money in general to collapse is a peculiar idea. In fact, a currency crisis isn't at all an end of the World. Life, even economic life as we know it hasn't stopped in Argentina or even in Zimbabwe. After all, the international monetary system was indeed on the brink of collapse during the financial crisis. Had it collapsed, the consequences wouldn't have been actually so dire. The Fed could have secured the bank savings of the people and rearranged the whole US banking system as could have the ECB done. The US administration has the ability to intervene in the markets equivalent to declaring martial law. It just hasn't had to do it (and likely won't do as rich people control the US).

To make an example, let's assume that the US administration and Congress would f*ck up everything even worse than we have ever seen. Thus there would be a serious crisis in confidence on the US dollar and the US would default on it's debt (rather see too high levels of inflation). Now in that default the creditors of the US would take a haircut. And after that everything would be nice and shiny for the next US administration. Do you really think that the global money markets wouldn't give the US money after a default? They'd be back in a week. After all, it's been well over 40 years since the last time the US defaulted. So it's a pretty rare occasion.

Large financial crises are events where there happens a huge transfer of wealth from one pocket to another.

This system will eventually collapse because you can't go on inventing fictitious money forever. It's like adopting leaves as currency, eventually there will be so many leaves in circulation that they will become worthless. It is vital therefore that our wealth, large or small, is held in physical assets and not as a fictitious number in a computer system. Turn your "money" into gold, silver, housing or other valuable assets to protect yourself from the inevitable collapse. — Pilgrim

There's a discourse that promotes this view and the so-called "perma-bears" have told this for decades. I read a lot of these similar things in the start of this Milennia in the 2000's, but then I started thinking.

In economics usually every economist has some point. It's not as one school of economists are correct and others wrong. Believing in "one camp" and thinking that the other camp is nefarious or ludicrous doesn't get you far. Unfortunately some sell the story like this: watch out for the evil bankers! Similarly others think that investing in gold is silly.

One should actually ask just how fragile is the system. Sure, the bank creates part of the money from thin air when you take a loan. Yet is it so artificial? You have a job and you intend to pay it. People will pay taxes.

You also assume that morals cannot be established by non-religious people, which is a prejudice against any kind of moral system that doesn't rely on religious belief.

This is the usual "atheists are immoral" argument that fails over and over. — Christoffer

Quite an intrepretation! I truly don't have any grudge against atheists, but it seems you just assume that. I really don't know where you got the idea that I think atheists are immoral.

Anyway, I think you get my point when you agree that "philosophy is key to figuring out morals". Philosophy? Yes definately! Philosophical reasoning is very recommendable. It can be rational, perhaps even rigorously logical, but it's still philosophy. Science? Referring just to science in these matters can easily slide into scientism. To claim science as the only or primary source of human values, a traditional domain of ethics, is de facto scientism.

Perhaps my point can be confused when just thinking about religions from viewpoint of the various "Genesis" stories religions make and how science refutes that nonsense. This idea of God and deities being an invented answer to things in reality that we don't understand naturally has collided with scientific knowledge later.

However none of these has anything to do with god or religion, which claims moral truths without foundation for those claims. — Christoffer

Yet are the morals so totally different? The starting point is surely different, that we can agree. Is all religious moral thinking just plagiarized from common sense and earlier philosophy? Because should I point out that some religious thinkers have even been called philosophers. Just asking.

it only applies to a country with a fiat currency that there is confidence in - believe that is by definition — Rank Amateur

You mean MMT?

That's the problem: everything works fine until a loss of confidence. And I don't think the theory answers the problem of this confidence clearly.

I think there's a deep philosophical problem here: before people believed one way about money, now with fiat currency systems being universal we dismiss the older ideas (such like there being a link with money and precious metals) as nonsense. Everything is fine and nice... until or if our current system collapses. Then afterwards with the knowledge of hindsight of the (possible) collapse people of the future might dismiss us as being so wrong and naive about reality. Just as we do those who believed gold is money.

That's the Basic problem in economics: how the majority of people think, becomes the actual "law" in economics. Once those beliefs change, once the confidence is gone, so does economics change too.

I don't see any logic here? You are mixing subjective ethics into the argument about the existence for god? — Christoffer

Religions basically do give answers on how to live, what is good and what is bad. And religions rely on deities as the reason for this. Is this logic so difficult to understand?

You mean that neuroscience, psychology, socialogy and sciences that investigate current states does not find truths based in evidence of the present? — Christoffer

No. They try to find and do find objective truths. Not normative statements. (In philosophy, normative statements make claims about how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong.)

This year, I will not be teaching and am taking time off to design a program that will hopefully act as a "life simulator", placing the students in moral and ethical situations and having them think their way through these scenarios.

With that said, I am trying to narrow down the main ethical and moral values to emphasize throughout the story. I need help dissecting which values would be considered the most important, why, and in what aspect?

Please understand, I am not trying to "brainwash" the students by telling them what exactly is right and wrong. Not every scenario appears black or white, depending on the situation. Instead, I am trying to guide them to think for themselves and having them determine what is right and wrong based on the evidence provided. — Dexter

Then simply the best way is to put them to think themselves of the issues. Hopefully the "life Simulator" isn't a Computer program, as the best way is to make the students interact with each other.

Here's one example from a totally different field. A reservist instructor, who was by civilian profession a lawyer, was given 45 minutes to teach a full room of other reservists the laws of war. Arriving to the room he immediately ordered the people to form smaller groups (hence they had to do things with others) and gave them just one question to answer: what did they think laws of war were? After a brief interlude every group had to present their answer and within following discussion of the answers, the instructor could teach the basics of the law and got the chance to repeat the most important aspects several times.

So if you want the students to think themselves, the question which values should be considered the most important isn't perhaps something you need to have a correct answer like in mathematics. It's what the student should conclude themselves. In the "Simulator" there are obviously situations where you need to make an ethical or moral decision. Which one do they think is more important than another? Likely children will not have totally different ideas from adults. The most important thing is just to get them to think these issues and find themselves their own answers.

Other than that I think you missed the point I was giving; that atheism and the scientific process has more in common with each other — Christoffer

I think you have missed my point. Science is objective, it explains how the World is, not how it should be. Ethics is subjective. We can agree or disagree in ethics, and we can make our case by trying to reason it. This I understand totally. But when you make the argument that your reasoning is from a scientific basis, for me that is different. Too many times people have fallen into this trap: that they argue their subjective, normative views are somehow deductible from science and hence superior to others. How many times Darwinism or genetics has been abused to push some idea or agenda that has nothing to do with them?

Moral and ethics was not given to us through religion, religion gathered the basic morals and ethics that was invented by the necessity of survival by the group that evolved from apes. — Christoffer

Are our ethics indeed invented by the necessity of survival? Really?

Perhaps we had those basic morals and ethics for the survival of our family and clan, but typically not for anyone else. Typically animals and packs of animals have their owb territories and defend them out of necessity of survival. Our own species has been the most successfull in basically turning everythin in the World (except the deep oceans) to our own territory. And most likely our species wasn't at all benevolent and peaceful with all the other hominid relatives of ours that are now extinct. The idea of getting rid of your competitors is totally logical for survival. Science indeed can show this kind of behaviour even in other animals. Yet I see it far from being a basis for ethics.

History does not give religion validity in morals and ethics, it only speaks on how we ended up with the moral system and ethics of today. — Christoffer

Of course. And science basically does the similar thing on a broader level: it explains how everything has ended up as it as and as we can now observe from our surroundings. Similarly, it doesn't give validity to our normative ideas on what to do as reality is anything but simple.

MMT does the best job of explaining the current economic system IMO, and I truly wish everyone would become acquainted by it. Every time I hear about we are leaving this deficit to our grandchildren it is like nails on a chalkboard. The amount of political gain each side gets out of the economic ignorance of the public is astounding. — Rank Amateur

You are correct that it explains our current system, especially the US situation. I'm not sure how well it explains smaller countries or Third World countries, which even MMT followers admit are a bit different. Argentinians might trust a little less the stability and the long term purchasing power of their currency: an Argentinian of my age has seen 4 different monetary regimes of the Argentinian currency in his or her lifetime. Inflation is now in the +30% range in the country.

Yet the interest on the debt is something that does have an effect, especially if the interest rates rise from the all time historical lows as they have had. It works as long as... the crisis hits. And that monetary crisis can happen, not perhaps tomorrow, but someday.

In a sense, everything you do in science is in a form, atheistic or agnostic, but agnostics use the unknown factor as a way to accept the existence of a god by that fact, which means it's closer to cognitive bias. Atheistic viewpoints just deny anything that isn't proven, it's not about faith, it's about the process of proving. — Christoffer

Why put science into this? Anybody thinking that science can prove or disprove this question is in my view either naive or simply doesn't understand science. It would be like assuming science can prove what is moral or ethical. What with the scientific method you can do is only to find an answer that x amount people believe that something is morally or ethically good or bad. Science can make accurate models of how we think, but not answer the questions themselves as there isn't an objective answer.

It's as delirious to get science into this as it is for some religious person even to think that he might prove the existence of God. Not only would this be basically idolatry in the Abrahamic religions: as if there would be a true proof of God, why need the Bible, Koran or whatever anymore? This also goes against the fundamental character of religions: that they are based on faith, not reason. If Jesus tells us to find God in our heart, that truly isn't an order to have open heart surgery. And this is true also for attempts to disprove God by science.

Now I do agree that atheism, not having faith is simply what is said, not a faith. Yet this doesn't mean that one that has no religion would be then making the moral and ethical decisions (that basically religion has given us) on reason or based on science. This is a fallacy: moral ethics are subjective even if you don't use any religious viewpoints or answers.

Science simply isn't normative.

What do people think here of the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)?

To those who don't know the economic school of thought, here's a short introduction:

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT or Modern Money Theory) is a macroeconomic theory that describes and analyzes modern economies in which the national currency is fiat money, established and created by a sovereign government. The key assertion of MMT is that sovereign governments that are the sole supplier of national currency can issue currency of any denomination, and in physical or non-physical forms. Consequently, these governments have an unlimited ability to pay for the things they wish to purchase and to fulfill promised future payments. MMT claims that these governments also have an unlimited ability to provide funds to other sectors, and that because of this, it is not possible for a government that issues its own currency to be bankrupt.

There's a primer of these thoughts by one of the founders of the school here, which is quite readable even for the layman and non-economist.

From this primer we get the school's answer (by one of the founders) to the obvious problem of money printing:

Government can always “afford” to spend more (in the sense that it can issue more currency), but if it cannot enforce and collect taxes it will not find sufficient willingness to accept its domestic currency in sales to government.

Put simply, the population will find it does not need additional domestic currency if it has already met the tax liability the government is able to enforce (plus some accumulation of currency for contingency purposes). In that case, raising taxes would increase demand for government’s currency (to pay the taxes), which would create more sellers to government for its currency.

Until government can impose and collect more taxes, its spending will be constrained by the population’s willingness to sell for domestic currency. And that, in turn, is caused by a preference for use of foreign currency for domestic purposes other than paying taxes. While this is not a big problem in developed countries, it can be a serious problem in developing nations.

Thoughts? I still think there's something fishy in this economic school of thought.

What is it about pieces of paper that make them valuable? I can think of a few reasons. — Purple Pond

And let's not forget that money is also legal tender, backed up by law. This makes it different from example the so-called crypto-currencies and other debt issuance. And as governments have the ability to tax people, we believe that they can uphold the value of the money (and not going into a money printing frenzy).

This is the headline Fox News decided to go with:

Late night comics celebrate UN countries mocking Trump, United States

Brietbart is even worse:

Establishment Media Sides with Countries Laughing at America at U.N.

They were laughing at Trump, obviously. — praxis

Well, President's do tend to personify a bit the country they lead, you know.

I'd say the Trump administration is a tragicomedy: you really don't know if to laugh or cry. The various books about the administration paint such a painstakingly similar picture. In fact when I think of it now, to a foreigner Trump supporters are a tragicomic bunch too.

sadly - I think we have moved past the point now where what actually happened matters anymore. The accusations have done enough damage that the dems will be successful in delaying confirmation until the mid terms - or force the GOP to push a questionable vote through. It is all just about the politics now. Political payback for Merrick Garland, Pelosi holds the info until the 11th hour. Now they will have an issue with the Thursday plan - add an aggressive fame seeking lawyer. Watch the Dems win the midterm - and we will have an 8 person SCOTUS for 2 years, since no Trump nominee will ever get through a Dem house. What a mess — Rank Amateur

Ah yes, just like the old good times when Obama was President and had his candidates for SCOTUS and the GOP had Capitol Hill.

I think the following story that I heard personally from a Finnish WW2 veteran fits this topic very well:

The veteran, who served as a reserve officer (meaning he had been a civilian before the war) was in charge of an anti-aircraft artillery battalion in the summer of 1944 on the Karelian front (next to Leningrad). One of his batteries got a soldier to the unit who was literally very stupid. As the soldier's intellectual disability made him incapable of serving in an AA-gun team, they put the soldier into kitchen duty. He was told to stay put if the Russians attacked. Yet when the first time a Russian artillery barrage hit the unit's positions, the soldier simply ran away into the forest in panic. He came back to the unit some time later apologizing for his behaviour.

The officer (and the storyteller of this story) understood what would happen: as the soldier had left his post basically under combat, the protocol or procedure would be that he, as the commanding officer, would send him to be court martialed. During those fragile times in 1944, the soldier would be extremely likely executed. He also understood that the man was indeed a moron. So when the soldier was brought up to him, he tried to be as angry and menacing as he could be as a battalion commander and asked him with all the gravity he could muster: "Will you promise, on your honour, never to do that again?" The soldier promised not to do that again and he never did. The battalion commander left the whole issue to be and never reported the incident up the chain. I didn't ask him if the soldier survived the war or not, perhaps he did.

The veteran wanted to emphasize the importance of humaneness especially in war, never to forget basic humanity even in such terrible institutionalized carnage. The graveness and how the issue touched himself when telling this story (and about the treatment of Russian POWs) made a quite an impact on me, then a young reserve officer someone who had and has lived only in tranquil peacetime. WW2 veterans typically didn't tell much of their painfull stories. I understood that he as an old man wanted to share this before his death as he felt the urge to tell to another generation something that he had learned and held important, even if my generation is extremely unlikely to be in any kind of similar situation (and anyway, this happened in the 90's so I'm not so young anymore). And by no means was he some kind of closet pacifist as he had risen through the Winter War and the Continuation War to a position that only a few reservists held during wartime.

Now the OP focus on religion, but can we generalize the problem even to basic laws, things that are indeed accepted generally by the vast majority? That are to us ordinary, normal and totally acceptable even in our so permissive and understanding society? Earlier people were simply more religious and believed far more in the Bible. Did that make the people surrender their moral responsibility? And are we better than them if we aren't religious? We can easily jugde the nazis at Nuremberg or the Spanish Inquisition as their World, their World view and their moral views differ so much from ours. It's an easy thing for us to do. Far more difficult is to judge things from our time and challenge the views the majority or the intellectual elite view as our moral responsibility today.

So how far is too far? There seems to be a weighing required of the value of an orderly society as against the cost imposed on others in terms of justice. Sometimes the law is an ass, but perhaps one can follow it and live with one's conscience, and sometimes the law is a monster and one cannot, or rather one all too often can, but ought not. Because when was the last time a judge said 'this law is so wrong, I refuse to administer it'? — unenlightened

Perhaps a good guideline is what the now deceased veteran told: just never forget basic humanity...in any situation. Hence the judge doesn't have to declare the law wrong in public, he gives just a light sentence or no punishment at all. And likely that's the way many 'wrong' laws wither away.

Having children who live near by (especially daughters) is strongly correlated with quality of aged life. Isolated people usually die sooner, and more often of neglect. Without sufficient wealth to pay for assisted living facilities, one's future can be bleak, if one isn't healthy in one's old age. And it doesn't take all that much to shift from hail and hardy (or is it hearty?) to frail and failing. One bad fall on the ice can be the critical event. — Bitter Crank

Seems like my point also works in the affluent US example, not just in the Third World.

What standards should a nominee to any high office meet to be approved by the Senate? — Bitter Crank

What standards should the whole nomination process follow?

parents are consenting that, yes, they like society and feel it is their right to continue it forward with a new person to experience that society and continue the existence of that society. Hence, it is a political act, if not overtly. — schopenhauer1

In many places people have children so that there is someone to help you and especially to take care of you when you are old. If you don't have a family and those children to take care of you when you aren't able to work anymore, you will be at worst a hungry beggar on the streets.

(This example is just to point out that the OP is quite narrowed to a very affluent and individualistic Western society, mainly the US.)

I've allways thought that animals are logical. Hence it's no surprise that the species which develops a highly advanced complex system to communicate called language, which is capable of using formal definitions and a much greater range of expressions than any known system of animal communication, can then develop formal languages. Above all, push that logic to a higher level into a formal system, basically into mathematics.

Yet the question is are these the two, gesture and math, opposites of the spectrum? The reason why I ask is that animals can count. And if it's not mathematics, a counting system of "none, one, two, three, many..." it still counting and counting is part of mathematics. Now the vast majority of species don't use these terms in their language (which typically limits to "Danger!" and "This is my territory!"). I wouldn't be surprised if some advanced hunters like Orcas would have terms for counting prey in their communication system (at least "many" and "few") or even something more advanced. Perhaps the other extreme from gesture could be some postmodern meta-analysis of language itself and not mathematics. Or basically philosophical study of language. That would feel very remote from the languages that animals use or even can comprehend.

I understand that maths has tried to build a consistent logical structure around the logical fallacy of the Actually Infinite and has failed. The numerous paradoxes attest to that. — Devans99

Actually no. Cantor's set theory is totally rigorous and logical. It doesn't fall into the paradoxes. And ZF-logic, basically developed in response to the paradoxes, is also sound. It has as an axiom of infinity.

OK, so you make a distinction between something you call "Absolute" infinity and any other sort of infinity. I don't know what that difference is, and it doesn't look like you have a very definite idea either. — SophistiCat

Ah, you didn't know the issue. It's basically about what Georg Cantor proposed. See here.

As example, there's little deep thinking in my posts above. — Jake

I think that many have noticed that.

All I've done in my comments above is apply simple, straightforward, common sense to the reality that our culture has a gun in it's mouth, and we are largely ignoring this remarkably huge fact. That doesn't require deep thinking, or specialized knowledge, or a PhD. — Jake

Or actual knowledge about nuclear war either. What you've just done is to get fixated with the nuclear war scare and with the exaggerations of the imminent doom of civilization so typical 30 years ago. And we know why the discourse was and is still so apocalyptic. If the effects of nuclear weapons have been greatly exaggerated, there is a very good reason: since these weapons are indeed extremely dangerous, any posturing and exaggeration which intensifies our fear of them makes us less likely to use them. From this logic also follows then that any discussion where nuclear weapons and war wouldn't be described as being so catastrophic to humanity would (somehow) get us closer to using them. This was very typical during the Cold War.

Yet then you make then the quite odd conclusion that if philosophers haven't constantly written about this, they are not rational, they have to be morons, basically insane, because of the imminent threat to humanity. This shows your ideological zeal about the issue, which can be seen also in that you simply don't take into account any other views on the subject.

You don't need any hunches in order to believe that a mathematical entity exists: all you need is a mathematical theory that says that such and such entity is infinite - and such mathematics exists, there is no question about that. — SophistiCat

Is there a theory of Absolute infinity? Please tell me if there is!!!

Cantors' system of larger and larger infinities, his transfinite set theory, where by using Cantor's theorem one can generate an infinite sequence of infinite sets whose infinite sizes are larger and larger infinities basically collides with the notion of Absolute infinity. Now Cantor didn't know how to deal with it, so I guess he left it to God to know.

With Absoluty Infinity we have right in our face basically Russel's Paradox, the 'set of all sets', or Cantor's Paradox or Burali-Forti Paradox, you name it. I think the problem here is that we start mathematics from counting. For a theory of the Absolute to exist you need to show just how you cannot have anything larger or basically the paradoxes of the infinity aren't something to be solved, but answers to be understood. Or something like that (and hence the talk of hunches).

Nature has caused us to always want more, which motivates us to constantly expand. This is decidedly a better strategy than seeking homeostasis because homeostatic societies are less robust in the long run. The change and adaptation that growth allows and entails (its value to our survival and prosperity) seems to outweigh the risk of creating novel problems (else I reckon greed would not be so ubiquitous of a human imperative). — VagabondSpectre

You might be on to something.

Let's make a thought experiment: Let's assume that a similar economic boom that has happened in Asia would also happen finally in Africa. This growth would lead to the global eradication of absolute povetry and this would cause the fertility rate drop everywhere to 2 or lower. This would mean that we would be facing quite soon 'Peak population' and then the global population would start decreasing. Some estimates put this happen even in this Century as early as 2055, other estimates put it to happen in the 2100s. The peak is estimated to be from 8+ to 11 billion people. Now, once that happens an homeostasis (or I would call an economic equilibrium) is in itself an objective. We would basically need that growth strategy by other means as the global population is getting older and smaller. It's simple math: just to produce the similar amount of GDP with a decreasing population, the per capita GDP growth has to increase. A problem for our great grandchildren and later generations.

When you can... Dumb it down. — Lif3r

After studying a masters degree in the university, have to confess that many academic people won't do this.

They limit or accept the 'dumbing down' principle only for the popularization of science or philosophy, which they see as important method to communicate to the masses... but nothing else. Using difficult terms that open only to people educated in the field is actually a social way to create your own academic niche and promote yourself (and your peers that use the jargon) to be 'experts' on the field. So if you don't understand the term da sein, tough luck! Few philosophers will dare try to describe Heidegger's term in their words (and we assume that is his term, not just the ordinary word in German). Perhaps they'll refer to a book by Heidegger to you. After all, any serious philosophy student understands the fundamental concept of Heidegger's existentialist thinking.

This doesn't only concern philosophy and philosophers. Economists, sociologists and even historians fall to this vice. I'll give an example. When working in the Academy of Finland as a junior researcher, I remember one historian in the project who had wanted to make one of her books as accessible to the general public and wrote her book in the most readable way as she could make it. She explained all the difficult historical jargon and the historical terms used in the book (as old terms from agriculture are usually totally unknown to people nowdays). What was the result? She was viciously attacked by her peers of writing a book that was totally unacademic nonsense. It nearly went to ad hominem attacks.

I myself believe Absolute Infinity as an mathematical entity exists. It's just a personal hunch that it is so.

Cantor reserved the knowledge of Absolute Infinity to God. As a deeply religious person this sidenote shouldn't be overlooked as Cantor obviously viewed it as something very important. I think it's the cornerstone that is simply yet missing from our basic knowledge of mathematics.

The reason why it would be so:

a) mathematicians have yet to solve the Continuum Hypothesis. Hence our understanding of infinity is still lacking.
b) Usually if some mathematics is useful in physics, the math is right. I don't know of applications in physics of using the cascading system of larger and larger infinities.
c) All the discussions we have of infinity.

But there are two things that might be reasons to expect it to get better. One is that the European Union is in terms of a governing body still very young. These things need time to iron things out and traditions to be built up. And two, with new data technology the larger scale might not be such a big problem in the future.

Anyway, though I'm conflicted about this, I just can't really see the nation states as the solution for the future. — ChatteringMonkey

You raised good points, ChatteringMonkey.

The problem is how to make nation states act as a team and be a functioning part of a federation. And as you said, that may be problematical. From the US states only Texas (I guess) was Independent for a brief time before joining the Federation. People usually have learned to be a part of a nation state as citizens and this bond the nation states have nurtured more or less successfully. The bond between the EU and it's citizens is, well, nearly non-existent. The EU has just been marketed as a way to improve our economy. And the idea that without the EU the European countries would start fighting each other seems quite remote today.

The real paradox is that perhaps for the EU to integrate and truly become a federation like the US, one would need unifier-politicians like Bismarck...or Napoleon. And that is a nightmarish thought. But let's not forget that the US had it's Civil War.

No Jake, it has been a custom in PF that if someone presents a thesis and relies on facts or data, it ought to be corrected if there is something wrong with the statement. It's not about 'failing' or 'winning' a debate at all, that is simply a very naive way to think about discussions in PF. Getting different views and questions just improves your own thinking.

Furthermore, S already answered to you in a very eloquent way, which I can totally agree with:

Defining those who don't see things your way, or who have other priorities, as irrational or literally insane, ironically, does not strike me as motivated by reason, but rather by ideology. — S

(And this was an answer to your opinions in the first page)

To the actual question in the OP of Andrew4Handel about philosophy and intelligence, even this sub-topic represents an answer: one has to be educated about the subject one discusses. Especially one that raises so much fears and where one can easily go with the crowd. (And actually here the crowd goes in your direction, even if you don't think it goes.) As BitterCrank put it, a good education is important and one also needs critical thinking skills. Ignorance of facts leads to personal opinions and feelings taking over. Yet "the love of wisdom" isn't about feelings. Perhaps the answer is that one has to have some intelligence to overall use critical thinking skills a get to educated.

Ok, thank you for engaging, but you're clearly not qualified to participate in this conversation, at least not to a level that can hold my interest. See you in some other thread. — Jake

So when I counter your argument of "if you want to make comparisons, you should be talking about civilization crushing threats like incoming giant asteroids" by stating how totally different event these are, your answer is to say I'm not clearly qualified in this conversion?

Seems like anything that doesn't support your conclusion aren't in your interest.

Economics, however, has defined rationality to be a form of psychological egoism. — Posty McPostface

It's actually not egoism. Altruism and unselfish behavior can surely be what a person see's as his or her utility and is totally rational behaviour in economics. It could be argued that Mother Theresa maximized her 'Utility function' with her work. A bit different from the usual, but economics starts from the fact that people have different motives (utility functions) and hence this is totally in line with economic theory.

There is no meaningful difference between 2,000 nukes landing on a country and 20,000 nukes landing on a country. — Jake

There definately is a difference. Ten times of a difference.

Even a handful of nukes on key transportation hubs would disrupt the human food supply chain leading to social and political chaos in short order. How many days of food do you have in your house right now? How many days? Complacency depends entirely on the blind faith that we'll always be able to reliably replenish those supplies. Once that faith is broken, chaos begins to flourish. — Jake

Now you are talking about a country that is attacked by nuclear weapons. But how about South America? There's no nukes pointed there. Or other countries that aren't belligerents? A lot of countries are and could be self sufficient in their food supply, rationing works. Globalization surely will take a hit, but just how permanent would the disaster be in the end? You see, if we compare nuclear war to an asteroid hitting the Earth, we truly have to take the scale into consideration: the Chicxulub impactor delivered an estimated energy of 10 billion Hiroshima A-bombs. That is way much more than all the nuclear bombs in the World combined. Comparing our man made nuclear war to an asteroid hitting the Earth isn't simply in the same category.

A single small nuke in Washington DC would wipe out the heart of the US national government, paving the way for geo-political instability all over the world. — Jake

While belonging to "the world" (hence I don't live in the US), I may have to disagree a bit with that. Not everything revolves around you and everything wouldn't collapse without the US. And I do you think you underestimate the capabilities of the US states to organize an emergency transitional government, have elections, have the Capital moved to somewhere else during the time Washington DC is rebuilt.

We've always overcome these problems because civilization remained in tact. As example, WWII was a massive calamity but we recovered from it because enough of civilization (primarily the Western Hemisphere) remained up and running. — Jake

Perhaps you live in the Western Hemisphere and hence it's difficult for you to understand, but Europe and even Japan were quite up and running in a short time afterwards and their culture and civilization remained even if WW2 killed 61 million from 2,3 billion people (equivalent to our times would be over 200 million killed).

If we then got over WW2, nuclear weapons would be in your view the equivalent of an incoming asteroid hitting Earth that threats civilization itself. With this I assume you are referring to a similar event that happened with the dinosaurs. As bad as a nuclear war might be, would it really be the end of humanity and civilization?

What you don't understand is that just with US and Russia, the 'all-out' nuclear war looks dramatically different than during the Cold War. And how about the whole Southern Hemisphere, South America, Africa? How would the people there all die and the civilization there would collapse too? Of radiation fallout? Nuclear winter? The Chernobyl accident release radiation the equivalent of 500 nuclear detonations, a similar amount of all atmospheric tests done in the World (and this is an estimate on the higher side). And that radiation cloud after turning in Sweden (that got higher radiation than us) came here too. And what was the result? I remember it: the local radiation authority here said that the radiation levels were up from normal, but not so high that protective measures should be started. I think that they cautioned later of excessive eating of berries and mushroom (or something) and there was debate about the radiation levels in reindeer (who roam around in the wild and eat hundreds of different plants). And what is the result in Ukraine and Belarus? An unintended wildlife sanctuary where we can see what happens when humans are taken out of the equation. It's one thing to say that a nuclear war brings death and destruction, it's another to say that our civilization would collapse.

My understanding is that when it comes to nuclear war, people are happy just assuming the worst and latch onto this hype of utter doom and truly don't think what the actual reality would be. It fits so perfectly to a simple humane view of the World. In fact, many oppose anything else than a catastrophic end to humanity itself as a result of a nuclear war (which btw allways ends up in an all-out exchange) as something else not so dire would just "bring us closer to nuclear war".

I would anticipate that in the presence of increases economic, climate, and agricultural stress, groups will seek to solidly their cohesive identities, as well as their material needs.

The best way to avoid a trampling and crushing of minorities as the majorities rush for the exits, so to speak, is to try avoid as much economic, climate, and agricultural stress as possible. Otherwise, prepare for interesting times. — Bitter Crank

It is all about economics.

In an affluent society where people have work and a full stomach there's no need to find the culprit for your problems in the local minorities. There can be the ordinary rambling, but people aren't going to start a civil war or the government won't feel so threatened that it starts persecuting the minorities.
If a nation state is young and the idea of the state isn't yet fully acknowledged in the people, then it can be problematic for minorities, but that is a special case. And in Europe the last tumultous time when the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia collapsed and new states gained independence (or got independence again) is already history to young people.