What if we're brains in vats? How do you know your not a brain in a vat, or hallucinating when you say "It is raining."? — Harry Hindu

If we were brains in a vat, what could we know and how could we know it? We experience life with our bodies and without them, we might record and regurgitate facts, but we would know not the meaning of them. Without a body what does time or rain mean?

Now you just need knowledge of this state-of-affairs called truth in order to make an accurate claim that knowledge entails truth. But you can't because it would require a level or perception that we can never attain - like being the thing you are making a claim about. — Harry Hindu

So what can know about string theory and how can we know that? :naughty:

Unless your hope is that this poor person is not sincerely trying to merely distract himself from death rather than bravely staring it in the face. — Pfhorrest

Oh, I thought you were going to say, "rather than bravely engaging in life". I think contemplation of death occurs, and reoccurs, at different periods of our lives, but it seems for most of my life I have been too busy resolving the challenges of life to give much time to thinking about death. Long ago my contemplation of death lead to learning everything I can before I die, just in case we live after death, or in another dimension, we remain conscious.

My biggest fear was meeting the important people of history at that big dining table in the sky. It would be so :yikes: embarrassing to be dining with them and totally ignorant of what they know.

All true to experience ... BUT it all depends on certain assumptions based on language I think. What is this individuality based on except the noise 'I'? Once accepted, the concept suggests all sorts of pain. — iolo

Are you speaking from the teachings of Buddha? Happiness is conditional on security and learning to be happy. After doing workshops on healthy living, it has been obvious being happy does not come naturally but is learned. Like I had to experience many people to conclude I was not the only one who had to learn how to be happy, and it is not just my family that needs to learn who to be happy. In general, humans struggle to be happy because they don't know how to be happy unless that came from their family.

What is really important other than a reality that meets the conditions of happiness, is our internal language, our self-talk. Our self-talk depends on our personal experience and also our culture and position in society. That is, if we are born into wealth, we are treated very differently than if we are born into poverty. And education promotes culture. We are now in cultural crisis because education is no longer focused the social goals. Hum, how do I say? Our humanness is about our relationships, not just our ego or individuality.

If you can watch the movie "Passengers" for a perspective on the importance of living with humans and not just robots. Or the British TV series Humans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sm23e0a5_w

:lol: Robots just don't fit into my fantasy of what is valuable. I am old and as far as I am concerned if humans do not thrive, nothing matters. I care as much about robots outsurviving humans as I care about my shoe existing a hundred years from now. :roll:

I will go with what Punshhh says about the importance of transmitting our knowledge to the young. I believe democracy is best for humanity and it is not defended unless it is defended in the classroom. We have not defended democracy in the classroom since 1958 when we replaced liberal education with education for the Military-Industrial Complex that makes people dependent on technology and authority instead of preparing us for liberty and the responsibility of democracy. Now we have humans who are happy to give up their liberty to live under the control of robots because they believe robots can be superior to humans. That is frightening! A machine can never be human. There are no fairies that can turn Pinocchio into a real boy.

Isn't death only a problem for those who accept the heavy promptings of language to believe intermittent and shifting consciousness 'is' 'an individual'? — iolo

Good grief, I associate death with loss. I suffered the loss of my mother when she died, and I don't even want to think of the loss of a son or daughter or one of their children. I am sure my life is of no value to people in this forum, but I think it has an important value to those I am close to. Growing up without a mother or father can be very painful. Losing a sibling can throw the whole family into grief and radically change the trajectory of one's life. Death is about being human and our relationships, and that is a little more just our individuality.

I have an attention disorder that lets my mind easily transition from subject to subject in thought when I'm thinking about something, whether it's an idea or object of objective existence. It's hard to explain but, in short, my mind can get confused in the middle of thinking of a productive statement (which I define as something that adds to the conversation in value to both peoples/peoples involved in an obvious manner.) I've always been fascinated with how plastic a mind can be, especially mine. The idea of confusion as I understand it is a simple one although I cannot find anything much on how to initiate confusion in different ways, or to initiate it easily. I'm not a very creative person and I have trouble coming up with my own ideas on things unless I get a tiny bit of inspiration from other places. — fullofnull

I am surprised you said you are not creative. Perhaps that is because you think you have an attention disorder, instead of thinking of this as a positive, in which case you should be very creative. :lol: We might say nature has an attention disorder because all new things are new combinations of what is.

You might enjoy learning Latin and Greek because our thinking begins in the past, and much of it was lost to us when Rome fell, however, the Renaissance was the resurrection of that consciousness and kick-started the scientific thinking of what we call the modern age.

You can get a feel of this by knowing the word "concept" is a relatively modern word, unknown to Christian Europe before there was literacy in Greek and Latin. Imagine talking about what we think without the word "concept". Everything we know of thinking today would not be possible without the vocabulary invented to talk about thinking. The word "concept' originated in 1550.

concept (n.)
"a general notion, the immediate object of a thought," 1550s, from Medieval Latin conceptum "draft, abstract," in classical Latin "(a thing) conceived," from concep-, past-participle stem of concipere "to take in and hold; become pregnant," from con-, here probably an intensive prefix (see con-), + combining form of capere "to take," from PIE root *kap- "to grasp." In some 16c. cases a refashioning of conceit (perhaps to avoid negative connotations that had begun to cling to that word).
https://www.etymonline.com/word/concept

I have to wonder if the negative connotations had something to do with the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit of knowledge and fear of Satan's lies in a society that was rapidly changing and therefore fearful because of literacy in Latin spreading and changing what, and how, people think. :lol: I suppose my difficulty with staying on topic could be called an attention disorder but I see it as an ability to see what others don't see. More of a big picture view than a narrow view.

Historically good times become bad times and bad times become good times. Civilizations fall because humans do not live sustainably, and eventually, their populations require more than their environments can sustain. Increasing our success by consuming from around the world, means we pull the whole world down, not just our own civilization. Even if the changing weather patterns did not lead to our doom, our refusal to live with the limits of our environments and the limits of the planet, will take us down. Just as every civilization before us fell, including the fall of Rome and South American civilizations. However, if a plague wipes out 1/3 or more of the population, those who survive, get to enjoy the good life.

And do you know how to keep a nuclear power plant from melting down? You may live so far from a nuclear power plant this is not an issue for you, but nuclear power plants must be properly maintained and this requires a constant water supply to prevent them from melting down and no amount of money will protect humans from this, because keeping a power plant operating and providing needs requires knowledge and labor. Who will keep the mines open and turn the ores into cars, batteries, cell phones, etc.? The richest people are dependent on the laborers to provide their needs. How are they going to protect their labor force and get essential resources from around the world?

I think you are correct to believe human behavior will not be congenial when the shit hits the fan. We can through studies of humans that mothers allowing passively allow their children to die when and abandon them when they can not feed them. We know of cases of humans eating humans when they are dealing with starvation. What makes us nice humans is full bellies and security. Take that away, some of them will give up and die, some of them become brutal to survive, the most capable and intelligent will work together for their mutual survival and protection of resources but such groups will necessarily be small when the environment can only support a small group of people, and we are no longer shipping meats, vegetables, and fruits to supermarkets year-round.

OMG Pfhorrest, I don't think I could feel more ignorant than I do at the moment! Like perhaps seriously brai

Pfhorrest
714
I don't know if I will understand what you said better in the morning? I have an idiot math IQ and as important as I think math is for defining truth, I am not good at it. However, because math is essential to defining truth, I want to develop my ability to think with math and communicate with it. I get from what you said, not only must our figures agree but so must our terms agree. At this point in time, we (all of us) do not have the communication system we need to understand anything about our economic reality and homelessness.
— Athena

I wouldn't quite say that, but the communication we need is nuanced and sometimes difficult to understand. There are a lot of similar but importantly different things we could be talking about, and keeping them properly differentiated is hard. Some of those things are:

What defines an economic class? Is it:
-Being in a certain percentile of incomes?
-...of wealth?
-Having sufficient income to meet certain goals?
...or sufficient wealth?
-etc

If relevant, what is an "average"?
- Mean? (Add together all the figures and divide them up evenly)
- Median? (Line all the figures up in order and pick the one halfway down the line)
- Mode? (Group all the figures into similar classes and then pick the biggest class)

And if we're averaging, what are we averaging?
- Household income?
- Personal income?
- Household wealth?
- Personal wealth?

What you usually hear people talk about is median household income. But even then, it's not consistent whether economic class is being defined by being in a certain percentile of household income (like the poverty line is usually defined), or by having sufficient household income to meet certain goals.

On top of that, I think that personal figures are more useful because household size can vary so those household figures might be divided over one person or six (on average it's about two, so household figures are usually about twice personal figures).

And I think mean and mode figures are just as important to be aware of as the median, if (as is the case) the mean is way above the median, and the mode is way below it, which means that wealth is really concentrated at the top, so the mode or "typical" person (one who falls into the biggest group) makes way less than the median, while the mean or "average" person (one who has an even-sized slice of the pie) makes way more than the median. In our case, the "typical" American makes about 30% of what the "average" American makes. That fact is lost when all we talk about is what the median two-person household makes.

And on top of all of that, I think it's way more useful to talk about wealth than income. That mode ("typical") income is about what I spent to live a quite comfortable life, and it's about what a full-time minimum-wage job would pay. But because I lack wealth (such as a home of my own) and so have to borrow (rent) it from others while also saving to buy my own so I can stop doing that some day, I'm working my ass off to bring in that mean ("average") income that's more than three times what I need to fund my comfortable level of consumption. Someone who inherited a house could be living a lifestyle better than mine on less than a third of my income, but if all we look at is income figures, I look fantastically rich compared to them, while they have already realized my lifelong goal that I'm not sure I will ever manage to realize.

What does your community look like?
— Athena

Rent Per Month
Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre 2,200.00 $
Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre 2,000.00 $
Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre 3,500.00 $
Apartment (3 bedrooms) Outside of Centre 2,800.00 $

Numbeo doesn't have figures for my town's income, but for the closest other one:
Average Monthly Net Salary (After Tax) 3,933.33 $

Preschool (or Kindergarten), Full Day, Private, Monthly for 1 Child 900.00 $

How can I copy a picture in my email and paste it here? Or send it from cell phone to the forum?
— Athena

Only subscribers can upload photos to the site directly, but if you upload the picture somewhere else (like http://www.imgur.com/ or such), you can put the URL to the picture inside of img tags, like this but without the spaces:

[ img ]https://i.imgur.com/ms2mozp.jpg[ /img ]

and it will show up like this:


7 hours ago
123
8 — Pfhorrest

n damaged. :lol: That is a little humbling considering I normally think of myself as a pretty well-informed person, but I can not wrap my head around what you said. This youtube is fun and helpful but it will take a while to sink into my thick skull https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=explaining+average%2C+meidum%2C+mode&page=&utm_source=opensearch If I had a magic wand I would make it possible for us all to think like this, because this is the first step to understanding our social problems and possible solutions. The way we are talking about "those homeless people, just isn't helpful. I think you are a real blessing to all of us because of what you know.

The stats for your community could give me a heart attack. My monthly income is $783. That is what people with Social Security and SSI get. :lol: That might give you an idea of what my rent problem is and why it is my intention to use my new cell phone to post on-line and hopefully inform people of our reality and what will be their reality if they work for low wages and can never afford the wealth of which you speak, or if they become disabled before making it to retirement. If they make it all the way to retirement on low wages, their reality won't be much better than mine. They might be able to afford nicer restaurants while they haul everything around in a shopping cart. :rofl: If you can help me talk math to make the point, that would be a real blessing! :heart: It is a terrible wrong to do city planning with those kinds of stat's I am sure that results in decisions that do not include all the low income and our economy depends on them. Wealth is made by paying the laborer the least wage possible and charging the renter the most the market will bear. We are creating a terrible problem and seem to blind to that fact while we pat ourselves on the back for being so wealthy. :joke: We are not getting- things do not add up right. Rows of homeless people camped on our streets is what happened in India, not the US.

I am trying to establish an account with http://www.imgur.com/ but that isn't going so well. I will keep trying.

How can I copy a picture in my email and paste it here? Or send it from cell phone to the forum?

Definitions of economic class vary and some are more useful than others. By some sources the poverty line is defined at the bottom quintile, so by definition 20% of people are always below it no matter what, which obviously isn’t very informative about social wealth distribution. I don’t know where your other figures, 50% middle class and 1-2% upper class, are from, so I can’t comment on them. I do know from memory that about 75% of people presently make an income below the national mean personal property income (i.e. GDP per capita, what you’d get if you added up all incomes and divided by population). The median personal income, which 50% of people are below by definition, is about half of that mean income: around $25k/yr as opposed to around $50k. The mode income, the group with the most people in it, is barely over half of that, at around $15k/yr.

As I would define them, lower class is anyone whose rent and interest expenses are higher than their income from the same, middle class is anyone where they’re equal (so their only expenses are their own consumption and all their income is earned), and the upper class is anyone whose income from rent and interest is higher than their expenses on same. By those definitions, almost everybody is lower class, and almost nobody is middle class, because it’s way easier to move from middle to upper class than it is from lower to middle. — Pfhorrest

I don't know if I will understand what you said better in the morning? I have an idiot math IQ and as important as I think math is for defining truth, I am not good at it. However, because math is essential to defining truth, I want to develop my ability to think with math and communicate with it. I get from what you said, not only must our figures agree but so must our terms agree. At this point in time, we (all of us) do not have the communication system we need to understand anything about our economic reality and homelessness.

How might we begin creating a dialog about homelessness that makes sense? In "Poverty and Riches" Scott Nearing, Ph.D. states the cost of living and then speaks of wages.

I am using information for my area from this site https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/

Rent Per Month

Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre 972.73 $ 800.00-1,150.00
Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre 821.78 $ 700.00-1,000.00
Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre 1,700.00 $ 1,600.00-1,800.00
Apartment (3 bedrooms) Outside of Centre 1,421.88 $ 1,200.00-1,600.00


Average Monthly Net Salary (After Tax) 2,574.85 $

The minimum wage is 11.25 so that is $1,800.00 for 40 hours work.

Childcare
Preschool (or Kindergarten), Full Day, Private, Monthly for 1 Child 936.00 $

So if a single parent pays the $972.73 for rent and $936.00 for child care, that leaves the parent $108.71 for everything else, if I did the math right. There is no problem with that is there? Unless the car breaks down.

What does your community look like?

↪Athena I’m not contesting that humans are having a negative impact on nature or advocating that we just destroy nature to build hones willy-nilly. I love my hometown because it’s so close to nature. I’m just pointing out the human-caused problems that are independent of that. There are lots of empty homes up for sale in my town, but you have to be rich to be allowed to live in them, and the homeless or underhoused locals are obviously not rich. And nationally, there are more unoccupied houses than homeless people. Without doing any further development, we could house (and feed etc) everyone. But we don’t. So there being too many people isn’t the cause of poverty. We could fix poverty just with what we have built already. — Pfhorrest

Are you referring to our banking system creating an artificial economy? I think that is something we could look at. Oh wow, I just got a cell phone and if I could learn how to take pictures and put them on the internet I could post some very powerful pictures that are in a 1916 book "Poverty and Riches". This book speaks of $768 a year of earned wages, providing a decent living for a family of six. He uses numerals to make a point that 7/10 of the workers earn less than $750 and that these people do not have a decent wage. Today, not even a single person could live decently on $750 a month. Our rents are higher than that. Why in a little over 100 years has our money been so devalued?

However, 7/10 of people below the poverty level is 70% and that is huge compared to today with the states with the highest poverty percentage just below 20%. In the past, only 20% of the people were middle class, and 10% were wealthy. About 50% of our population is middle class. Another site says our upper class is 1% to 2%. That does not work. If 20% are below the poverty level, and 50% are Middle class and only 2 % are upper class we are missing 28%. Help can anyone explain that?

I think that says we are doing something right because those living below the poverty rate has decreased the middle class has increased. However- the relative deprivation is greater. To just function in today's society requires a substantial amount of money and that was not exactly so in the past. Check this graph below to see the growth in the cost of property, and consider people homesteaded in the west for free. Not only did they get large parcels of land free, and build homes with free trees, but they could live off the land in many places. Now they can't even find a free place to put a bedroll, they can not hunt year-round, and they can't even pee without being fined. Until the west was filled, people could escape the poverty of industrial cities and the plantation economy of the south. Now they have no place to go and if we are intelligent we will do something about this.

100-Year Housing Price Index Graph

100-year history of U.S. real estate/housing prices
U.S. Housing Price Index (1900 - 2012) — Observations

In short, I think what you said is that we must examine everything philosophically. Then it follows what is required for the philosophical examination of life?

I kind of want to get this thread back on the topic of the breakdown of social justice. While going through my books I found one explaining the mass migration from Europe to the US and how disruptive this is to people's lives. They are born in one culture and one position in an economic structure and must come to understand the needs of a different economy and what is required of them, and the new culture and what it demands of everyone. This is not really different from a civilization taking over a region that is occupied by indigenous people and forcing them into housing and a way of a life foreign to them. This is devastating to their identity and social ties and often leads to alcoholism. I am not sure that the huge problem we have with drug addiction is not the result of the same uprooting, only people haven 't moved but our culture and economy has changed so much they might as well have moved. I am very sure that for most homeless people there is no family to help them. Most of humanity has been ordered by family order and that is no longer true.

Hum, I am having trouble focusing, so participating in the forum is difficult. I am having trouble sleeping knowing I have to empty out my apartment. I am having trouble emptying out my apartment because I get so little done before the pain is so bad I have to sit down. I am trying to thin out my library and I am making some progress but I think I am trying to save too many books. Now to what you said.

I think the Bible has many great analogies and metaphors and if we all saw the analogies and metaphors for what they are, the Bible wouldn't be so bad. Thinking of a militarized government like a beast that devours resources is a great metaphor. Thinking a God literate made us from mud in the Garden of Eden is a terrible mistake. Going on your concern of division, dividing things between good and evil can be problematic, and thinking a God controls what is happening instead of natural forces and human choices is problematic.

This is a thinking problem. I think with proper education everyone would interpret the Bible abstractly instead of concretely. They would see the analogies and metaphors for what they are, instead of being superstitious. Holding that man can know the will of God, is a terrible, terrible thing that we must not tolerate because this belief can lead to evil.

We agree holding false beliefs can be a serious problem. How do you suggest we correct the problem without causing division?

↪Athena I’m not contesting that humans are having a negative impact on nature or advocating that we just destroy nature to build hones willy-nilly. I love my hometown because it’s so close to nature. I’m just pointing out the human-caused problems that are independent of that. There are lots of empty homes up for sale in my town, but you have to be rich to be allowed to live in them, and the homeless or underhoused locals are obviously not rich. And nationally, there are more unoccupied houses than homeless people. Without doing any further development, we could house (and feed etc) everyone. But we don’t. So there being too many people isn’t the cause of poverty. We could fix poverty just with what we have built already. — Pfhorrest

:heart: I like the forums best when we have agreement and can move forward from there. Now let's see if we can do some problem-solving.

Empty homes are not free. Someone invested in the home and that home can not be taken from that person without compensating the owner. If you sank 5 hundred thousand dollars into a home how would you turn it into a place for people who need housing? Or how could we turn that private land into public land? Who is going to pay and who is going to pay for maintaining the home? And by the way, where I live there is not a surplus of housing. Rentals are off the market a day after they are put on the market and $500,000 housing is gone in a couple of months. I do not see the land for new housing, and the city is pressured to build up, but as you said, people with private homes do not want apartments built next to them. They don't want the extra traffic and more children in the schools, all things that decrease their standard of living and increase their cost of living as growth demands more services and more taxes. I am afraid I am not saying this well, but we need to think about this mathematically. Let us stop agreeing over human values and simply make all this a mathematically understandable problem.

I have a bone to pick to with all cities. We know the price of real estate goes up and up and room to grow does not. We know, or should know, our economy depends on cheap labor. Nothing is affordable without cheap labor or robotic machines that don't pay taxes and who wants a robot waitress or waiter instead of a real human? So let us think of reality good for humans and the reality of needing cheap human labor (how many and amount of wages) and the fact that these human beings need affordable housing (where and how much can they pay). How sane is it to not set aside land for the future needs of low-income people? Some countries such as Mexico have set aside land for the indigenous people. In the US we have reservations for indigenous people. I have read Germany is doing a good job of providing affordable housing and keeping everyone employed. What in hell is wrong with the US? We need to wake up to our reality. We no longer have a wilderness to fill up with our growing population. What should do get people to wake to our changed reality and think mathematically about the problem?

Ouch, :broken: can you show me mathematically how the problem is not too many people and not enough resources?

Well, my sister is on her way. She has been on the warpath since I told her about my situation. She has been to our state capital every day since, arguing that something needs to be done. She is coming to get proof that the woman who denied me housing violated the HUD rules. It is a two-hour drive for her to get here and I better be ready when she arrives. When my sister is upset she is like an armed nuclear bomb. and I don't want to trigger an explosion by not being ready or by arguing with her about details. The two of us have independently fought these battles before and we win but we have avoided each other most of our lives. She is a little too intense for me, and I am a little too passive for her. I hope we get through this without killing each other. :lol: Had I know she would react as she is reacting, I would have never told her.

You might not have much choice in the matter. It might have to be either Heaven or Hell.

But as we achieve Godlike powers it is obvious that our ideas about God creating a Heaven and Hell to reward or punish us is very primitive concept cooked up by stone age people. — ovdtogt

Zeus feared once we learned the technology of fire we would learn all other technologies and rival the gods. He created the first woman and gave her to the first man, and he gave them a wedding gift. The man and woman were warned by another god, not to open the gift but when the woman was left alone curiosity got the best of her and she opened the gift. Out flew the miseries that Zeus gave them to slow down their progress for as long as possible. However, today we are technologically smart and without reverence for the gods, we lack the wisdom to use this technology wisely. :wink:

1.

Because there are more unoccupied homes than there are homeless people, and still tons and tons of undeveloped land. I live in a place with mixed suburbs, rural orchards and ranches, national forests and other nature preserves, and so on, and it's still ridiculously expensive to live out here on the edge of nowhere... and there's always lots of fabulous houses for sale, and lots of people living in trailers and sharing run-down slums because nobody from here (like me) can afford the real houses, it's just rich people from elsewhere who want to live close to nature and so jack up the prices and stall any further affordable development to keep their property values high. — Pfhorrest

:heart: My grandson was here yesterday to help me with the move. He made the same argument you made. I assume that is the popular story on the web.

How many people lived there a hundred years ago? I am quite sure you can find the history of your area and get an idea of the size of the population and the value of the property a hundred years ago.

Are you aware of Buckminster's books? I suspect you are too young to remember him?

Richard Buckminster Fuller (/ˈfʊlər/; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983)[1] was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist. Fuller published more than 30 books, coining or popularizing terms such as "Spaceship Earth".... — wikipedia

He, among others, warned us of overpopulation and it is devastating to know those educated since 1958 tend to be clueless of the overpopulation problem and seem to be living a fantasy about what technology can do for us and that we do not have respect limits. Here is a list of authors

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

Now to take another look at all the unused land. Do you think humanity can survive if we destroy nature? Do you have any concerns about protecting nature or about global warming? Do you like oxygen in your air? Do you think people are psychologically the same if they live in the inner city or rural area? Do you think you would like to live with the crowding of India or China?

2.

It's not a matter of there not being enough resources to support this many people, it's a matter of the resources being artificially restricted by systemic factors so that the people who control them gain more wealth and power, at the expense of a whole lot of other people that they couldn't care less about.

Ah, yes, I addressed that belief in the paragraph above. With technology we are limitless. :grimace: You don't know much about history and the rise and fall of civilizations do you? Again and again, overpopulation has destroyed civilizations. We can discuss this more if you like.

3.

Mind you, I do think that overpopulation exacerbates the problem, and in places where nobody wants to live (which are subsequently sparsely populated) you don't see these problems because there is so much unwanted excess. And there certainly is some point where the world can't support any more people. But we're not there yet.

:grin: There is hope we can come to agreements. At this point, I am think our disagreement is narrowed down to when we are at that point. And this is a good time for me to say our system of allocating who gets what could be improved. However, as I look at the new housing with almost no front or back yard, and see the teeny tiny apartments for low-income people and student housing used for family housing, I think we passed that crucial point 20 years ago. In California, it was more than 20 years ago. Do you know what California's demand for water is doing to the environment and the very real limits on the supply of water? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California Californians are like the frog that doesn't jump out of the pot on the stove. They are in much more serious trouble than they realize.

I am reminded of the story of Easter Island. Easter Island was a paradise with plenty of everything people needed, like Oregon was a 100 years ago. Each new generation saw the island as it was when they came of age, not as the generation before them saw the island. They did not see what was happening to the island, and they did not see the day coming when the island was deforested and their food supply was gone, and those who survived were reduced to cannibalism. Not only are we overpopulated already but all these people are going to have babies and overnight all that available land can be gone, the tick of the clock between we are not at our limit yet and we are over our limit, is the final tick of the clock. We needed to take overpopulation seriously when Buckminster was writing, the forces that prevented this and exasperated the problem with consumerism could cause our civilization to fall as those before us fell.

I am confused because you appear to be making the same arguments I make, only you seem to think the problem is non-Christians and I think the problem is Christianity. Excuse me if I am wrong about thinking about you are Christian who is saying non-Christians are the problem.

1.

The idea that microscopic germs exist and cause diseases used to be seen as a supernatural power, because we couldn’t see them and the idea seemed far-fetched at the time. Or the idea that continents drift. Or the idea that rogue waves exist. And many other examples. What we call supernatural is usually that which we believe does not exist, then when we come to believe it exists we stop calling it supernatural, when we come to see it or come to understand how it acts on what we see we stop calling it supernatural and start seeing it as natural, as really existing. Something we call supernatural now may not be seen as supernatural in the future. — leo

Are you arguing that there is a God? I have no problem with that. However, if you are arguing the Bible is anything but mythology, and that it is the word of God, then we have a disagreement.

2.

Now when I talk of evil I’m not asking anyone to believe that there are forces we can’t see and can’t explain that are responsible for all the conflicts and the suffering in the world, we can focus on what we do see. For instance we do see that there are some desires and beliefs that contribute to unite people, to protect life and spread happiness, whereas there are some other desires and beliefs that contribute to divide people, to destroy life and spread suffering. We can see these latter desires and beliefs as natural forces, and we can call them evil forces.

Then you are not asking us to believe in Satan and demons and power of curses and reason for why we are not living in Paradise and why we need to be saved?

3.

Now where do desires and beliefs come from? People who believe in materialism say that they are the results of chemical reactions in the brain, of particles moving according to laws of physics. Whereas people who believe differently say that desires and beliefs do not come from particles, that they may be influenced by physics but that they are also influenced by other things which we do not see with the eyes. The idea that desires and beliefs solely come from laws of physics is a supernatural explanation itself, because we don’t have evidence of that, that’s a pure belief. But regardless of what we believe on the matter, regardless of where desires and beliefs come from, when we talk of evil we can simply focus on some desires and beliefs without necessarily assuming that there are unseen entities who work to make us have these desires and beliefs.

I really can not think of feelings, thoughts, consciousness as matter. It can even be hard to believe in matter because everything is energy. However, I think you have argued yourself out of accepting the Bible as the word of God because without believing the story of Adam and Eve and the snake/Satan and the forbidden fruit, the whole Christian notion of being made different from all other animals and needing to be saved falls about.

4.

And I wouldn’t say that believing there are things we don’t see or don’t understand promotes ignorance, on the contrary it prevents us from believing we already know everything, it keeps us open-minded and keeps us thinking and looking. There are some people who like to remain ignorant by looking to explain nothing, and there are people who like to remain ignorant by believing we already see everything. But the idea that we don’t see or don’t understand some things in itself doesn’t promote ignorance.

"ignorance" means to ignore something. People who believe the story of Adam and Eve, have cause to fear Satan, and false information from a supernatural source, and forbidden knowledge. They tend to ignore science and the scientific method of judging truth. What you said is true and it is a good argument and to me, it explains what is wrong with Muslims and Christians. They can be holding a false belief and kill people believing it is God's will they kill the pagans and infidels or those Christians who have a different understanding of the Bible. Those who believe they can know the will of God, can be pretty dangerous people.

5.

And so I don’t see what’s wrong with identifying forces that contribute to divide people, destroy life and spread suffering, and what’s wrong with calling them evil. Some of these forces are some desires and beliefs. There are other evil forces we can identify, and there can be other such forces we are yet to identify and understand. If you don’t like the word ‘evil’ you could use another word for it, maybe you have suggestions. But the reason I call evil the elephant in the room is that if we keep ignoring these forces, we can’t explain why social systems always seem to break down no matter what we try.

Wants wrong with calling them evil? They are Christians and Muslims who think they are doing the will of God. Are you wanting to call these religious people evil? Do we want to think of disease as evil spirits and watch for demons to come out of evil people? Do we want to eat without washing our hands but with faith that Jesus is protecting us and if we are saved we are protected? Do we want to believe Bush jr., Obama and Trump are made good presidents because of God and our prayers? Do we want to believe we are better people because we know the word of God and those who do not agree with us do not have the right understanding of God's word so it is okay to use million-dollar bombs and destroy their most important cities? Killing people with weapons of mass destruction because their leader may be developing a weapon of mass destruction. We can do this but they can not?

Oh yes, we can explain why social systems break down. Civilizations are born and die and we know a lot about the cause and effect. And the best reason for opposing Christianity is these people hold false beliefs and do not look for the truth outside of their belief, just as you explained in paragraph 4.

I've been the starving guy who can't find a job and can barely afford to eat, and while that was awful, I at least had a free roof over my head at the time (barely... a tool shed, but it was something), and it doesn't hold a candle to the abject horror of the prospect of not even being able to sit and starve in peace one I lost that and had to constantly pay a huge chunk of my income just for the right to be somewhere. I've spent my entire life since then trying desperately to get back to a point where I don't have to be afraid of going temporarily broke, a point where there is some kind of rock bottom to hit and rest upon as I try to pick myself up again, and not just an infinite gaping void below me waiting to swallow me up if I slip up for a moment. That terror is what has made me chained to jobs and working myself to death (and avoiding every possible risk, and consequently opportunity, that could jeopardize that fragile stability) my whole life since, way worse than just having to skimp on food made me do. And the realization that it's probably going to take me my entire life just to get back to that point, and I'm doing better than 75% of Americans according to the statistics, is what made me turn to socialism from my more libertarian roots. — Pfhorrest

I've been the starving guy who can't find a job and can barely afford to eat, and while that was awful, I at least had a free roof over my head at the time (barely... a tool shed, but it was something), and it doesn't hold a candle to the abject horror of the prospect of not even being able to sit and starve in peace one I lost that and had to constantly pay a huge chunk of my income just for the right to be somewhere. I've spent my entire life since then trying desperately to get back to a point where I don't have to be afraid of going temporarily broke, a point where there is some kind of rock bottom to hit and rest upon as I try to pick myself up again, and not just an infinite gaping void below me waiting to swallow me up if I slip up for a moment. That terror is what has made me chained to jobs and working myself to death (and avoiding every possible risk, and consequently opportunity, that could jeopardize that fragile stability) my whole life since, way worse than just having to skimp on food made me do. And the realization that it's probably going to take me my entire life just to get back to that point, and I'm doing better than 75% of Americans according to the statistics, is what made me turn to socialism from my more libertarian roots. — Pfhorrest

Welcome to Nazi Germany. I think we are back to the OP. It dawned on me when I was denied HUD housing by a woman who resented the "special favors" it get such as special accommodation for a medical condition and not have to claim the $2.65 I earn as a Senior Companion as income because it is stipend, that what you wrote of is how Germany spun out of control. People who struggle as you did can become compassionate or resentful. The woman I had to do deal with was resentful and hell will freeze over before she is unfair by giving someone more than what everyone else gets. Because she had zero compassion, she saw me as a terrible person taking advantage of the system and she was not about to let that happen. Others are shocked that I was denied because I spoke up to get what I am allowed. A person without pain such as the pain I live with has less need of a bathtub to manage pain. I don't think doing my best to get an apartment with a bathtub is being unfair. When she responded in an ugly way, it became even harder for me to smile and kiss her ass as though she were a king who can rule on a whim. But the reality is, what she did is against the policy but she can get away with it because there are so many people on the waiting list who would kiss her feet to the get the apartment. Legal Aid may help me, but too late for me to avoid being homeless.

There is more to this, She has her job instead of a compassionate person because the private owners who own the HUD housing are concerned only with the money. She was not chosen to be compassionate but to enforce the policy and defend the monetary interest of the property owner. Now some people I deal with like the Section 8 caseworker are very compassionate! The social service providers are often there because they really care about the people, and their organizations are about helping people, not monetary interest. Occasionally the social service workers are not compassionate at all, depending on the culture in the community, but hopefully, the culture is compassionate and about caring for people, instead of a focus on money and power. However, when more and more of the people in positions of power are resentful and willing to do anything to keep the security of the their job, we have the condition of Nazi Germany and the number of needy is growing rapidly.

If a person managing storage sheds is compassionate this person will do the best s/he can to help someone get their stuff out before the storage shed is locked and everything in it is sold off. This person will feel really bad if s/he must follow the rules and take action which means the person who can't pay the bill can't even get personal photographs out of the storage shed. If this person is afraid of losing the job or displeasing the employer, like the Nazi victimizing Jews, s/he will coldly do the unpleasant and each time it will become easier and easier to do the unpleasant.

We all like to think of ourselves as nice people, but the conditions we find ourselves in can make us less nice than we would like to be. If most people are desperate, who is going to do the "right thing" instead of following orders? We can do the wrong thing more easily when we believe it is the right thing, and the victims are at fault for everything. We all know those homeless people made bad choices and brought the problem on themselves, obeying authority is the way to avoid their fate. Hail Hitler who makes us proud and strong and is finally doing something about "those people" who cause us a problem.

the poor tend to be more concerned about acquiring status items/symbols or material possessions or possibly being able to present as wealthy or at least owning X possession. I can't say I blame them given their background/upbringing. — BitconnectCarlos

I think you are wrong about the poor doing more status spending. We are just like the rest of the animals when it comes to status and survival. :lol: I assure you I will do my very, very best to not look like or act like a homeless person if I end up on the streets. I do not want to get thrown out of places because of having the status of a homeless person. This is as true for us as it is true for all social animals. If you look like and act like an important member of the group, you will be treated like an important member of the group. If you look like and act like the one who is at the bottom of the pecking order, you will be treated as one at the bottom of the pecking order. All social animals push the losers to perimeters where they are most likely to be dinner for the preditors. Survival is best for those in the inner circle and no one can stay in the inner circle without appearing as a member of the inner circle. That overpriced handbag and shoes a woman must have are her pass into the inner circle.

Yesterday a friend told a story of knowing she gave money to the wrong person because she later saw that woman in a fine restaurant enjoying a special coffee and pastry. Wrong ! You can bet your bippy if I do end up on the street I am going to treat myself very, very well because I know that will be essential to feeling like a decent human being. If I get consumed by the cold, pain and fear, and become as a frightened animal, my chance of survival is very poor. I must remember who I am, and I must treat myself very well if I going to get through this trial. A nice thing about not paying rent is having money to treat myself in a high-class hotel by the river. That will be more important to remembering who I am than it is now, when I can comfort myself in my own soft bed, in the safety of my home.

I don't know if I am explaining things well or not. What I am about to do will only be destructive if people are not agreeable to what I say.

Certainly overpopulation is problematic, however I think it would be wrong to see it as the root cause of the division and indifference you're mentioning. If the dynamic of the society isn't healthy at its core, then overpopulation only exacerbates the problem, but it would be misguided to think that if there were many less people we would suddenly all be nicer to each other. You can have a few people oppressed by a tyrant, it doesn't take many people to be divided. There are people who willfully hurt others, they aren't indifferent but they aren't nice either. — leo

Okay, I have to agree with you. Some of us are so fortunate to live in the US and know each tribe was different. Hopi are perhaps the most peaceful and Apaches were known for being aggressive warriors. The Mongols also were known for wiping out large cities and coming from a harsh region where survival depended on hunting made their culture very different from agrarian city people, and Genghis Khan told his people to never settle and never start accumulating possessions because he thought city people were very immoral! Mongols were committed to feeding and sheltering each other because their harsh ski god just assumes kill pathetic humans in blizzards and they thought the idea of a caring god was ridiculus. Okay, let's look at cities with a caring god, where life encouraged lying and stealing and made some rich and some poor. You are obviously right about the importance of the core of society. But I think we really need to take advantage of science in understanding humans and figuring out what encourages desirable behavior and what does not.

Certainly overpopulation is problematic, however I think it would be wrong to see it as the root cause of the division and indifference you're mentioning. If the dynamic of the society isn't healthy at its core, then overpopulation only exacerbates the problem, but it would be misguided to think that if there were many less people we would suddenly all be nicer to each other. You can have a few people oppressed by a tyrant, it doesn't take many people to be divided. There are people who willfully hurt others, they aren't indifferent but they aren't nice either. — leo

Obviously we also have a disagreement. Only when we have the right facts is there a chance of resolving our problems. Labeling some of the effects of city life as evil is totally different from the religious understanding of evil. You see with science we can see the reality of evil and the cause of it so we can effectively overcome that evil. With religion, evil is a supernatural power and the only help is another supernatural power. The religious belief burns witches instead of making sure the water is not polluted, and to this day religious belief prevents people from having the right facts and taking the right steps to overcome evil. Please consider the word "evil" is tied to supernatural powers, and therefore, the word can be problematic.

I agree that religions have been used as a tool for evil purposes by some people, but pretty much anything can be and has been used as a tool for evil purposes. — leo

Can we adjust that to a supernatural belief in good and evil supernatural powers is problematic because it promotes ignorance and results in well-meaning people doing the wrong thing? I think this is a much greater problem today because we dropped education for good moral judgment and left moral training to the church, resulting in an explosion of superstition and a very serious and harmful cultural and political crisis! We no longer have agreement that moral is a matter of cause and effect but think morals are about the church and religion. That is extremely harmful to understanding democracy and what morals have to do with being a democracy. That is both a social and a political problem.

I'm not sure if you got the idea that I'm a Christian, I do not follow any organized religion in particular, and I wouldn't say that all Christians only spread love and kindness, it seems to me you yourself spread more of it than the people you mention. — leo

There is an important difference between following the teachings of Jesus and being superstitious. If you believe evil is a supernatural power and we must be saved by another supernatural power, Jesus, that is superstition, a belief in supernatural powers. It is also believing Satan is as real as God, and boy oh boy, has the belief in Satan caused a lot of trouble! Satanism depends on believing the Christian mythology. The cure to superstition is science.

Quakers have done a better job of living with the teachings of Jesus than other branches of Protestantism. They ignore the old testament. But unfortunately at the time the Bible was written the region had absorbed the demonology of the East and this got mixed up the stories of Jesus. Like let's get real, back in the day, people were trying to figure truth and want is good or bad, exactly the same as we do today, only they didn't have science. A god was not giving anyone special information. Thinking the Bible is somehow the word of God instead of stories told by humans, is just wrong. The teachings of Jesus are great, as long as they are not tied to superstition, but Christianity ties his teachings to superstition by claiming demons come out of people, and we must be saved by the supernatural power of Jesus. All humans know only what humans know. And we all can have spiritual experiences. We are equal in that way. No one at any time was special to a God who could do special favors for them if He was pleased, or He could destroy them if He was displeased. Earthquakes and the such are natural forces. Bottom line, we can follow the words of Jesus without being superstitious, but I think the people who claim to be Christians associate his words with superstition and wear silver crosses to defend themselves against demons and the power of Satan. Unfortunately, that silver cross doesn't work as well as washing hands, and keeping your pit for human waste far away from your water supply. The people of India and Hebrews got the cleanliness thing right, but Christians rebelled and got it wrong.

I think I understand a little what you are saying? We say the cause of boil water is the heat, but if there is no oxygen in the water will it boil? I suppose water with no oxygen wouldn't even be water, but I am getting to, things can not happen if the condition for the happening is not right and we do not have grounds for claiming this happened before that happened. Is that anywhere close to right?

Totally fascinating! Unfortunately, I am not comprehending what you said. I noticed my brain was trying to find a picture of what you spoke of and could find no picture. It can see a triangle, but not something to the side. This is totally off topic but I think my difficulty relating to what you said, is associated with my lack of a sense of direction. That is my inability to turn in the correct direction or find my way out of a maze. The thought conveyed by your words went into a black hole when you shifted everything to the side.

However, that triangle is thrilling! "The triad is the form of the completion of all things". Nichomachus of Gerasa (c,100, Greek neo-Pythagorean philosopher and mathematician.) The Triad has a special beauty and fairness beyond all numbers, primarily because it is the very first to make actual the potentialities of the Monad." Iamblichus (c. 250-c. 330, Greek Neoplatonic philosopher.) Helium, the second atom to manifest, the first element composed of three different "charges."

"The Mayan Factor" 3. The pulsation-Ray of Rhythm 13. The Pulsation Ray of Universal Movement.
"13 represents the dynamic of movement present in everything and by which everything is ever-changing and at the same time vivified by the universal force of Hunab Ku". "Hunab Ku. The One Giver of Movement and Measure. The principle of intelligent energy that pervades the entire universe, animate or inanimate."

What do you think?

I like sushi — leo

Whoo! I think we need to avoid a belief in the supernatural and the mythology of God of Abraham religions if we are doing to resolve problems. We most certainly need to avoid violence. We absolute need to return to education for democracy and stop leaving moral training to the church!!!

So many of my friends are Christian and this hurts me deeply because Christianity is not compatible with democracy and it has been the root of our evils, as ignorance is the root of evil. In 1958 we replace education for good moral judgment with education for technology and left moral training to the church. This was a huge mistake. A huge mistake!

PS even in the most primitive tribe people live with coercion. Another term for coercion is "social pressure". All social animals including dogs, apes, and humans must minute by minute decide to put others first or to put self first. Those who can not put self first are most apt to die, and those who do not put others first are apt to be killed, severely wounded or just driven away. Humans are social animals like dogs and apes, and that means learning to get along with others.

The sooner we can replace religion with science the better.

We can not be ignorant of human nature and that we are violating the laws of nature, and save everyone. The rich know things must be as they are or they would be no better off than the lowest people. Let us put this fact of life in a more manageable way.

Islam and the Quran have much to say about protecting women. However, they also put men above and women and it is a tradition for the men to eat first. This practice is based on a survival need when it is essential for men to provide for and defend the family. That reality becomes a belief that men are more important than women, and this is true of all our patriarchal societies. Okay, let's say the family has 6 children and has only enough food for 4 people. Who is going to get that food and who will not eat that night?

If we do not have rich people who can invest in our capitalist system, we sure as blazes will not have a high standard of living with all our technology and wonderful hospitals. Undeveloped Muslim countries see the immorality of our capitalism. Ever since the beginning of the industrial age, those with the most money are the men who provide and protect us. I don't mean the gender of being male, but the social position of being male. How to say? The family in less developed societies is not safe and can not be well fed without a strong male. We can not have a high standard of living without the rich. They must be fed first. We can not distribute the food evenly because that would make everyone weak. And there is absolutely no way, this mass of humanity can return to the land and live in harmony with human nature and environmental nature.

I fight so that we might do better, and we can not do better unless our knowledge is all the knowledge we need. Our way of life depends on the wealth of a few and the poverty of the dirty masses who work for low wages and create the wealth of the few. This is what made the growing middle class possible and it has lifted far more people out of poverty than ever before. We depend on those with financial strength as in simpler times we depended on strong males. Socialism may offer a better reality than laize fair capitalism? I am not sure?

PS however, we should demand replacing the autocratic model of industry with the democratic model, and that our education does not prepare us for the democratic model of industry could be considered a conspiracy or perhaps a problem with Christian control of our nation and false beliefs based on the Bible.

Gosh, I love what you have said, and I will stick to the problem of overpopulation because of what this does to how we behave and experience life. In small numbers, everything is managed on a personal level, The rules are informal and 100% managed with social pressure. The word civilization means city life and that is a large number of people organized by formal laws. In the city and with laws, life is impersonal. We can look away from the starving mother and child, and go about our lives as though they don't exist. The rich have a reality totally different from the dirty masses, and they come to believe their difference means they are superior and they are more deserving. I am sorry to say, but Christianity reinforced this division of people and slavery. Jesus would be so hurt by today's reality and how good Christians believe they are doing very well, but "those people", the dirty masses are unworthy.

Oh my, I am a Senior Companion. That means for $2.65 an hour, I pick up an older person and take this person shopping or to doctor appointments, or to a nutrition site for lunch. The idea is to keep them engaged with the larger community, independent and happy. It is very difficult for me when these very sweet people, often Christians, point at the homeless people we pass and say unpleasant things about "those people". I tried to get them to stop that or to see it differently without offending them. Well, it will be interesting to see how they react to me being homeless. I am not sure how well I will be able to be "professional" when I no longer have a home to come to and feel like a human being, instead of like a wounded animal in danger. :wink:

↪Athena I am not convinced that it is overpopulation at fault but you are definitely right about the skyrocketing cost of living and I’m more concerned to express my sympathies for your situation than to argue about the causes of it. I’m in California where I make more than twice the median personal income for the US generally and still can’t afford to live better than a tiny trailer in a run down trailer park. My mom is on social security too and has been on and off the verge of homelessness for the past five years, and basically her entire check goes to renting a shitty bedroom in an overcrowded house in the slums and then food stamps have to cover the rest. I really hope you can find some way to manage your hardships, and more than that, that somehow we all can do something to make sure nobody like you has to anymore. — Pfhorrest

People like you are making this a wonderful experience! That is pretty easy to say as I sit in my heated library protecting from the elements with absolutely no fear of a police officer telling me to move or arresting me for sleeping in an undesignated sleeping area.

I grew up in California and I thank God I do not live there. How can you live there and doubt the problem is overpopulation? When my parents divorced my mother moved us to Hollywood because want to be in the movies and loved being on stage and entertaining people. Hollywood was like an old lady with too much makeup. We could take the trolly to the beach. I have such fond memories of Hollywood and I witnessed the degrading of Hollywood.

We moved to the Valley when it was still mostly orange orchards, and I witnessed this beautiful valley become mountain to mountain blacktop and concrete. Not realizing the problem is overpopulation is to me like living on Easter Island when it was forested and not realizing what deforestation was doing to the island, finally driving the people to cannibalism.

:lol: I am feeling pretty bruised and scared and I sure am not into arguing, but I have to fight for people's lives and that means knowing the truths so there is a chance of resolving some problems. This is not the first time in history mankind has dealt with overpopulation. With technology, we have been able to increase our population more than humans could in the past, and need we to learn from history. I forget the title of the book that explains why good times become bad times and bad times become good times. If a plague reduced the population of California by 1/3, wages would go up and the cost of property would go down and humans would start being a whole lot nicer to each other. My life has been extremely good since retiring and living an apartment for people over 55 and going to the senior center often. My life is full of caring people and in general, we are very caring of each other. I have not lived the dog eat dog reality for many years. My life is nothing like your mother's because we are still surrounded by nature and we can walk along a beautiful river. My life has been so good. :lol: Stepping into homelessness is a huge shock and I am not sure how well I do. But for sure, I am going to record it with a cell phone and put it on the Internet. I pray I maintain my humanity and do not become like a feral cat as so many people do when they are homeless. The cold and the pain I will experience may reduce me to the manner of a frightened animal. This old body is not going to do well.

↪Athena It is widely accepted that Nazi Germany was a result of German people’s fear of loss being exploited by right-wing populists all too eager to give them a list of Others to scapegoat for all of their problems. And only slightly less accepted that something similar is happening in America today. Something similar was almost happening in America back then: the War Department even produced a video warning the public of the dangers of demagogues stirring up ethnic hatred, directly comparing the version of that happening in America at the time to what brought Hitler to power. — Pfhorrest

Thank you Pfhorrest. I see in the warning of which you speak, normal human behavior. Biologically our brains are far more limited than we seem to think. We need groups small enough for everyone to know everyone and to know who is related to whom. We are lucky to remember the names of 500 people and some identifying facts about them. We do this interesting thing that other animals don't do. We can imagine a Christian is one of us, or a White Texan is one of us, or those who are Black like me are one of us, or that people of the American Medical Association are one of us if we are one of them, and that is accepting far more than 500 people are one of us. This is tribal thinking that has been civilized, making a stranger, one of us even though the stranger is not actually known. We assume because he is one of us we share agreements about how to behave and what to value. That is, we have adjusted to living with large numbers of strangers in civilizations that until recently in the US met the needs of the masses pretty well, except during temporary periods of economic collapse.

Now I want to say that adjustment to social agreements, making it possible to identify with complete strangers, as one of us, is breaking down. This is the point that took Germany down. This makes what is happening in the US today like Germany and different from how we managed human needs during the Great Depression. We are not in a period of economic collapse right now, but overpopulation has caused the cost of living to skyrocket, as inflation in Germany caused the cost of living to skyrocket. That is resulting in skyrocketing the number of homeless people. I am talking about this because short of a miracle I will be homeless in three weeks so I want people to know what I am learning about the problem we have today. In 3 weeks I will no longer be one of you, but one of "them" and this is part of how this happens.... Oregon has made it law that rents can increase by only 7% . In 2017 the Social Security cost of living increase was 2.8%. Obviously the Social Security increase is not keeping pace with the cost of living. Those of us who have below poverty level Social Security incomes are going down. How in heavens name is a 2.8% cost of living increase going to keep people in housing when the cost of housing is going up faster? And from my point of view, people are living with a false sense of security because they don't see this happening to them and the people they care about unless they are one of "them" and see this from the bottom looking up.

I think I need to use a cell phone to video my large library and relative nice home before I lose it and then begin posting my experience on the internet. I want everyone to know, some of "us" can become one of "them", through no fault of their own and to understand this the beginning of the problem of overpopulation. This is not an economic collapse but a period of skyrocketing cost of living that is hurting people as badly as an economic collapse. I want people to be aware of this and hopefully, figure out a way of stopping the destruction. Please, correct me if you think I am wrong about what is happening and why it is happening.

You seem to think that fallibility helps you defend JTB from the objection that it fails as a definition of knowledge. I've tried to explain why fallibility cannot help you defend JTB from the objections we're making against it. The one point of disagreement which we have to settle is that you think that the man doesn't have epistemic justification in the Russell example, but I think (as does Bartricks) that he does have justification. Although I believe Bartricks thinks he does because he thinks the broken clock lends epistemic justification. Nevertheless, the man in the Russell example satisfied the JTB definition. If you disagree with that point, then we too are going to talk past each other. — fiveredapples

What god or part of nature made the clock in the first place? Without a clock, how can anyone justify the argument that it is 3 o'clock? Time is intangible and we are treating it as tangible when we agree it is 3 o'clock without realizing it is only our agreement that is 3 o'clock that makes it 3 o'clock. If we are on daylight savings time it is not 3 o'clock at 3 o'clock because everyone agrees it is 2 o'clock.

Or how about this, if we were primitive people without the counting system we have, making it possible to have an agreement that a day is 24 hours and that a day is divided between day and night, there would not be clock time to argue about. Is it a bit insane to treat time as a tangible reality? How about arguing socialism is good or bad? Is that a tangible reality or intangible? We can not agree on many things we argue about because of our arguments about intangible beliefs and we are not practicing awareness of what is tangible and what is intangible. Knowing socialism is bad, is like knowing God is good. This "knowing" can not lead to rational thinking.

But people use the term, "know", to refer things that aren't so. They don't know that they don't know. They think they do, which is why they use the word. We used to know that the Earth was flat until we learned that it wasn't. We can only know that we didn't know after the fact of saying that we did. So how people use the word isn't always about what is so. Knowing is only the belief that you have the proper information to form a conclusion, when you might not. — Harry Hindu

I think we need to take a look at how our brains work. We are slow thinkers and fast thinkers. I have argued that animals don't have language and that goes with understanding fast and slow thinking. We share fast thinking with all animals but other animals do not share slow with us. An animal is not going to argue "They don't know that they don't know." An animal is not going to argue A can not be B. I hope people will watch this video about fast and slow thinking and reflect on what "knowing" means.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqXVAo7dVRU

I think you are feeling frustrated and we need to agree to disagree. Maybe someday you will realize there is a difference between animals communicating and language but obviously will not be this day.

If we were not prepared to know what we know today, we would not know it, no matter how much we stared at a mountain and its rocks, we would not know much about the mountain without some knowledge of geology to help us understand what we see.

Much of the information today requires knowledge of math and our schools are totally failing to convey what math has to do with understanding our world and universe. Students are graduating from high schools without even a basic understanding of maths and sciences and think they know everything they need to know. They really do not understand why some people get big bucks for their careers and they are lucky to get a job delivering pizzas. Our young are entering life totally unprepared for our technological society that is no longer labor-intense and is not willing to give them a liveable wage for low skilled work. They can not have available knowledge because they were not prepared to receive it.

For everyone, I want to point out the stories of the Bible are not equal to the explanations of quantum physics. If the Bible is the word of God, it is limited to what it is easy for us to understand but is not the truth of the universe, nor even good advice on how to be healthy and happy and avoid war however an effort was made to promote our health and help us get along with each other. That is what all mythology and folklore does. Unfortunately, the Bible begins with causing us to fear knowledge and believing we are going against God if we even desire knowledge. We have associated knowledge with the devil. As the Chinese, after leading the world in technology, became afraid of change and associated it with danger, and tradition was associated with good order and safety.

Knowledge requires a different order of thinking than being able to understand stories written for humans. The most important knowledge if one wants to understand the universe, is dependent on the language of math. We can understand basic laws of physics without math, but the knowledge that is beyond storytelling requires some understanding of math and some knowledge of cause and effect. This knowledge is not explained in the Bible and one should not think the Bible is the only important book to read and study. If we do not prepare ourselves to understand knowledge, we can read the books and watch the videos and attend college lectures, and not understand them.

Ovdtogt, that was very interesting but why do you think that reaction qualifies as language? When something irritates our nose we sneeze, and everyone around us may be very distressed if we do not properly control the spray of the sneeze because of understanding germs can be carried in that spray and that could lead to them being sick. If it is more than a sneeze and is a gut-wrenching cough, people may flee the room because that signals the cause of the cough is more serious than a cold. Effectively a sneeze communicates something, but it is not language. Two different sounds and with possible different meanings but not language. Those sounds are not abstract and language is abstract.

↪Athena Thanks Athena! I am afraid I'm not much of a physicist and photons are a mighty mysterious particle, but below are my thoughts.

I understand that photons are tiny packets of energy that are emitted by energised atoms when an election in a high energy orbit falls back into a normal orbit. This happens during various sorts of reactions (chemical, nuclear, etc).

A photon is a massless particle so is not effected by gravity according to Newton. Einstein's work however indicates that gravity is actually due to distortions in spacetime and as such photons are effected by gravity as well. This is why a black hole is possible, the curvature of spacetime is so extreme that not even photons can escape. But under less extreme scenarios, photons appear to be unaffected by gravity and travel in straight lines.

Photons are strange because they travel at the speed of light because they have no mass and so do not experience the passage of time. They also experience another relativistic effect call length contraction - at the speed of light distances are compressed down to zero. Photons appear to have motion from our perspective but if it were possible to see things from a photon's perspective, it might seem as if it can travel anywhere in the universe in no time whilst covering no distance.

The prime mover argument is all about massive objects so how do photons fit in? Well they do have some momentum so they can interact with massive objects to cause their motion. And their production is caused some sort of reaction involving matter. Einstein says E=mc^2 so energy is equivalent to matter, so maybe we could think of the prime mover argument as being about matter and energy rather than just matter only and being about momentum rather than movement.

So maybe the prime mover argument could be restated so as to include photons:

We look around us, we see matter/energy with momentum, but matter/energy must have a source of its momentum and the source must itself have another source of its momentum. But these chains of sources cannot proceed out to infinity else there would be no first/ultimate source of momentum in the universe and all would be still, so there must be a prime momentum that is the ultimate cause of all momentum in the universe.

The Big Bang obviously is a candidate for this ‘prime momentum’. — Devans99

:nerd: I think actually understood most of what you said. However, as we experience three-dimensional reality, comprehending "Photons are strange because they travel at the speed of light because they have no mass and so do not experience the passage of time. They also experience another relativistic effect call length contraction - at the speed of light distances are compressed down to zero. Photons appear to have motion from our perspective but if it were possible to see things from a photon's perspective, it might seem as if it can travel anywhere in the universe in no time whilst covering no distance." seems impossible.

How can it travel and be here and there at the same time? I know you explained that but my brain is being very stubborn and says "don't go there, because if you grasp that explanation you will be insane". :lol: It might feel a whole lot safer to understand it through math, but I have not developed the ability to do that. How is it known that a photon "experiences the effect call length contraction"? Yeah, perhaps knowing how scientists come up with that notion, will help me comprehend it? Grasping "at the speed of light distances are compressed down to zero" is not comprehensible to me. :chin: Zero is before the big bang? Oh my, back to the question of prime mover. :worry: If the prime mover ran out of energy it would slow down and everywhere there was nothing, everywhere there would be something.

Language is anything that vocalizes information. — ovdtogt

Okay, how do you figure that?

Yes crying is a form of communication and may be considered a primitive language. — ovdtogt

Why do you insist on calling crying language? Language is the talk that goes on in our heads, and without it, we could not organize ourselves in such a way to have civilizations and develop technology. Language is abstract. That is, language expresses a quality apart from an object and that is what makes man godlike. Animals are not going to discuss how to build a bridge or why we should love our neighbors and have laws. Animals react to the world around them as a matter of instinct. It is totally reactionary, not a matter of reasoning. The Athenians focused on our ability to reason making as the gods. Without language, there can not be knowledge passed on from generation to generation so there is no way to build on what is known to new knowledge.

Our language is what separates us from God. — ovdtogt

Yes, I said it wrong and thank you for saying it right.