And not all bears shit in the woods either. :joke:

Well we have Leo XIV. It is not as gentle a name as Francis, but we will see, and I will judge by how he deals with children, women, the poor, how Christian he is. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." Mark 10:14

Yes.

I can find nothing here to disagree with, except your writing is pretty good actually, and especially for a non-native speaker.

Do you truly think this is what was being said? — AmadeusD

It was said, on several occasions, such that I developed a stock response. I guess you are too young to have experienced the rigidity of gender norms that used to prevail.

Are you seriously suggesting that the reason for privacy in ablutions is to avoid rape during ablutions? — AmadeusD

No, I am seriously suggesting that there is a strong taboo against exposing genitals; particularly to the opposite sex, as if visual contact were dangerous. (That it is not dangerous can be attested by any naturist.)

It is rather odd that society mandates the covering up of the sex, but then turns that same covering into a conventional display of it as gender
— unenlightened

I don't think it's odd at all. 98% of people identify strongly with their sex, and so express that. — AmadeusD

We express what we are obliged to cover up. It's entirely normal of course and almost universal — for humans. But humans are weird. If we want everyone to know our sex, why hide the parts that distinguish it most clearly?

Millions of women world wide enjoy sport but you would happily dismantle the structure that allows them to do that.
— Malcolm Parry

Yes, that is nuts, — RogueAI

Indeed it is nuts; or rather "crazy". But it is not what I said. It is an uncharitable and invalid inference from what I did say. I don't much like sport so I would be happy if there was less sport, but I am not going to dismantle sport supposing that were remotely possible. But what I advocated for sport is that those concerned should make their own arrangements according to the sport. Snooker, I noticed has started to have matches between the sexes and good luck to them. Basketball probably ought to have segregation by height if anyone wants my opinion; fishing seems to have women in the ascendent position, I don't know what their policies are.

Why would I interpret charitably what I think is a crazy stance? — Malcolm Parry

You wouldn't and you don't. So please just ignore the crazy people instead of baiting them. Because in responding to them you are already implying that they are amenable to persuasion and argument. Why do you keep asking a crazy person questions? Have you no sensible people to talk to?

So you are happy for women’s sport to be destroyed and for women to risk assault when needing a to go to the toilet away from their home? — Malcolm Parry

I am happy for all sport to be destroyed, at least as a public display. And I am happy that women are generally not risking assault more when going to the public toilet than when walking down the street. Thus toilets need no more security than streets.

So you are happy asking leading questions like some cheap attorney rather than interpreting charitably and engaging with others on equal terms?

Setting aside the clear stab here(it was funny, so fine lol) I am bisexual, and married. LOL. I do not care what people look like, generally. The ambiguity means the rules are irrelevant. There is no restriction, in those cases because anyone can claim an identity and move along expecting you to assent to their self-image. If that seems reasonable, we don't have much ground on which we could talk about it. — AmadeusD

I apologise, it was a bit pointed. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to make the sharp point of 'what really matters' to people about sex, which is who one might have it with. But the reality is that there is no restriction to anyone who can 'pass'. But anyone who cannot pass, (which is to say cannot conform their physicality to the stereotype) as either normal, is already subject to social condemnation, revulsion and hatred. The UK law in effect forces such people into places where that hatred and revulsion will be worst. We are interested in people, not genes, and people just are fucking weird. I am old enough to have been stopped in the street and given lectures about how my long hair meant they couldn't tell if I was a boy or a girl. To which my reply was generally, "If you can't tell, it is none of your business." I still maintain that.

It is rather odd that society mandates the covering up of the sex, but then turns that same covering into a conventional display of it as gender. To the extreme that defecation has to be done in secret behind a locked door alone. As though pulling one's pants down made one sexually irresistible??? Humans are ALL weird. Perhaps we are bonobos pretending to be chimps.

If you mean chromosomal sex, then say that. If you mean phenotypic sex then say that. These have no effect on whether one is a male or female organism. — AmadeusD

But The debate is about the law, about male and female toilets, prisons, and safe spaces, and these things have neither phenotypes nor chromosomes.

using visually-represented phenotype to determine sex is bonkers.
— AmadeusD

Why is it bonkers? — frank

Because it leads to ambiguity, and some people find ambiguity intolerable. Fear of coming on to a ladyboy, perhaps?

You think all restrooms should be open to anyone? What about sports? — Malcolm Parry

I'm happy to let people who want to play games choose who they will or won't play with and against. Personally I think athletes cheat by exercising and practicing so we wimps stand no chance; so I won't compete in their sports.

I don't think restrooms need policing; they just need regular cleaning. I always use the one with the symbol person with trousers, not the one with the dress, but they are usually both 'open to anyone', except for the individual cubicles when occupied.

Not sure why you are picking hairs here tbh. — I like sushi

When someone wants to lay down the law about who can and who cannot excrete here or there, then the hairs have to be picked, or split or something, because all God's children gotta take a dump, even the weirdos and curiosities.
Personally, I'm happy to let people pick the toilet they feel most comfortable with, and not demand to see their genetic record or genitalia or certificate of sexual identity. And maybe in prisons spend enough money to make everyone safe anyway and not have to segregate in the first place, except to isolate those who cannot or will not restrain themselves sexually or violently.

Old Spice - old cheese. Love it!!!

As for Paganini - no one likes a showoff, Lucas.

I can live with that.

This is page eleven of the ambiguities. You haven't disambiguated them, and nor has anyone else.

. Haven't you noticed this? — I like sushi

Yes. Haven't you noticed the ambiguity? Not just the varieties of physical inter-sex ambiguity but also the sex-gender ambiguity, and the physical-mental ambiguity.

And who has to consider it and why, are important questions to consider also. Everyone is supposed to be normal? But not everyone is. And the decisions of the UK supreme court about the interpretation of some words in a recent law do not make anyone more normal.

The law is an ass. And likewise philosophers who try to disambiguate the actual ambiguous. As if the law or philosophy can make life clear and fair and unambiguous. The patriarchy is obsessed with sex, and especially the thorny issue of other people having sex.

After 11 pages, is it not time to admit defeat and perhaps stop trying to force all humanity into the categories we habitually use for toilets and prisons?

we should not use concepts such as 'mediaeval' because this is a Western notion of the world. If we want to understand Mishima, we have to see Japan from a different view. — javi2541997

Have you seen "Silence"?

Cheers! I'll start with a word about the cultural context.

I imagine Japan of the time of WW2 as culturally medieval in character, the romantic culture of Arthurian legend that concerned itself only with the aristocracy. 'Might is right'; 'death before dishonour'; there are only masters and slaves and only masters have any value. It is a culture of trial by ordeal, where cruelty is not only functional but an aristocratic virtue. I can see how those of the land of Don Quixote, might find an affinity with such a culture, but WW1 I think largely destroyed the vestiges of it in British culture. It turned out that machine-guns have no romance and do not distinguish between gentlemen and peasants.

Unconditional surrender of this culture to 'their inferiors' (the Americans) became a contradiction that had to be resolved.Enter "Sun and Steel".

LLMs have no contact with reality, but are themselves textual artefacts. They never touch the ground but are free-floating in the sea of language. There's nothing like banging your head against a brick wall for convincing you of its solidity; likewise spades hitting 'bedrock'. They know not whereof they speak, having as yet no senses of anything that is not language and image. Therefore their talk is all talk and no trousers.

Like intellectuals, you cannot trust them further than they can throw you.

Is anyone interested in doing the second chapter? :smile: Feel free to comment! — javi2541997

I am interested - mainly by my antipathy to the man and the culture he was trying to reconcile with the defeat of the war. So I anticipate i will contribute, if at all, mainly with questions, incomprehension, and antagonism. Or if you prefer, I can just follow in silence.

Another blue man singing the whites...

The good hardworking folks across the way are having their garden modernised. Out go half a dozen mangy conifers and their roots; out goes a load of gravel atop some black weed suppressing cloth, along with an old barbie, and all the topsoil. In comes several tons of hardcore, some carefully levelled treated wooden edging, and all topped off with fine slate dust.

This has involved three men working for about ten days with a digger, a dumper, and a compactor and delivery and removal lorries, not the electric kind. We helped out one of the guys who needed phone charged as he was homeless and trying to deal with the authorities.

Today, we are awaiting the final crowning glory - the artificial grass. The effort and expense that has gone into creating this small sterile desert is considerable, but the little boy's football ground will be guaranteed level and weed free.

Behold, the enemy!

It's up to us...

If ... yeah, I think I’m mostly to blame. — Mikie

If you were that person, you would think otherwise, or else you would act otherwise. But how does this help? I can feel righteous and innocent because I have been speaking and acting environmental for 50 years. Hurray for me, I'll go to heaven. But I'd rather be mending this world.

Surely it is up to "us" to boycott the bullshit, to counter the propaganda, to vote out the liars and thieves. "They" are not going to do it — by definition.

Blaming others is the tactic of the irresponsible. We are responsible, and we are irresponsible. We are greedy and we are lazy. Might as well blame it on the boogie.

You know particles are just little parts?

Approximate symmetry certainly affects the world.

Consider the uncommon Scottish haggis: it has 2 long legs on one side, and 1 short leg on the other, and this allows them to run around the hills in one particular direction. Nature has contrived that the male and female of the species are complementary such that they run around in opposite directions, thus enabling regular meetings of opposite sexes. And if it were otherwise, the species would be even more rare and exotic than it is.

Authoritarian submission: a passive notion towards adhering to conventional norms and values
Authoritarian aggression: punishing and condemning individuals who don't adhere to conventional values — wikipedia

At one point in it, he opines that openness to authoritarianism is related to suppressed homosexualtiy. — frank

Times change, and perhaps homosexuality is less psychologically charged than when it was illegal. Still, if one substitutes a generalised 'deviant sexuality', then the dominance/submission and S&M spectrum looks to line up quite neatly. Try your gay Trumpery pal out with that and see if you get a hot reaction. Mind you, I don't see Trump as your classic fascist leader - his own perversions are far too close to the surface.

If the location of your sweet spot is debatable, I suggest a little sexual experimentation. I'm sure you will find it if you follow your excitement.

Where are genuine philosopher and the poet? — jufa

We're all fakes, and always have been. All the genuine philosophers and poets can be found riding unicorns over the rainbow bridge to Asgard.

I want Francis back. He was a kind man, a humble man, a Christian man. Is there another such amongst the candidates?

Love is taking pains; care is painstaking.

If giving cost nothing, generosity would be no virtue. If love had no price, it would be worthless. I do not doubt that the same voices that condemn God for allowing suffering complain also of parents spoiling their children with indulgence. Wrong on both counts.

Global temperature for 2025 should decline little, if at all, from the record 2024 level.
Absence of a large temperature decline after the huge El Nino-spurred temperature increase in
2023-24 will provide further confirmation that IPCC’s best estimates for climate sensitivity and
aerosol climate forcing were both underestimates. Specifically, 2025 global temperature should
remain near or above +1.5C relative to 1880-1920, and, if the tropics remain ENSO-neutral,
there is good chance that 2025 may even exceed the 2024 record high global temperature.

https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2025/2025GlobalTemperature.15April2025.pdf

This is rather complex, so I will do my best to give some explanation of the situation and possible significance.

James Hansen has for a while been suggesting that the IPCCs models are wrong in their estimate of climate sensitivity. This is a crude but vital figure that gives the global expected temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 equivalent. This is fundamental to climate modelling, and Hansen is suggesting that the IPCC figure is low at 3°C by about 1.5°C This is huge.

What seems to have happened is that the IPCC has used its own estimate of the climate sensitivity to calculate from recent actual data, the aerosol climate forcing. This is the temperature reducing effect of pollution (primarily from shipping) by seeding cloud formation such as to reflect solar radiation back into space. This pollution has in effect been masking somewhat the effect of CO2 (equivalent) induced temperature rise, but recent reductions of sulphur emissions are now reducing the cloud cover and thus increasing temperature rise from insolation.

So if the IPCC figures are correct, then we should expect a fall in global temperature this year due to La Nina, (google it if you don't know) but if Hansen's figures are more realistic, he thinks there will be little or no cooling this year. And this would mean that we are already well past 1.5° and pretty much unable to avoid 2° and more in the next decade or so. And all the other figures - for sea-level rise, atmospheric energy and so on - will also be under-estimated in speed and severity.

So there is uncertainty in the science, but errors in the 'official' understanding are more likely to be overly complacent than alarmist.

A modern folk song penned by the wonderful Leon Rosselson — a lesson from history.

Are you claiming that there is no exaggeration and hype about climate change? — Agree-to-Disagree

No, not at all. Not even the slightest amount. On the contrary I might even sometimes exaggerate myself, and more rarely indulge in hyperbole. But some exaggeration and some underplaying averages out at a serious problem, not at 'do nothing'. And my earlier links to actuarial evidence rather demonstrates that there is already a serious problem.

You obviously think that most people are "totally unreasonable and vacuous". — Agree-to-Disagree

Most people are worried but ignorant. You are not most people. And don't tell me what I obviously think according to your warped notions. I am fairly clear about what I think and not backward about coming forward with my thoughts, particularly on this topic, you arrogant prat; you, and none other, I accuse of being totally unreasonable and vacuous.

It is not reasonable to argue thus. You declare your conclusion that there is hype and exaggeration, and then declare that it is reasonable. And back it up with a declaration of uncertainty and again declare that this justifies inaction. It is totally unreasonable and vacuous.

And look how that turned out! — Jamal

Early days yet, lad. In the sense of being a rejection of war and violence, of materialism and consumerism, and the accompanying environmental degradation, and the turn away from political power towards communitarian values, it looks pretty good still to me.

And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse. — Hilaire Belloc

Thus the instincts of conservatism. But times change, and if one is nursed by a lion, all bets are off.

So when a democracy votes to become a tyranny, one has to admit defeat as a democrat, no? And in that sense a democrat at the extreme necessarily becomes an anarchist. And an anarchist has to allow everyman to be his own tyrant. So the political world is truly a globe such that maximal order and maximal freedom, the other dimension of political thought also become the same at their extreme.

It is not just a question of morals. Many people hold beliefs which justify them doing nothing. You need to change these beliefs before it becomes a moral issue. — Agree-to-Disagree

Many people believe whatever it is convenient to believe to maintain their lifestyle and comfortable identity. This is a moral failure. You ought to believe what is reasonable to believe, not what is comfortable to believe. This is a fundamental moral commitment to truth, that is the foundation of the possibility of communication. Thus when people do not have that commitment, they are unpersuadable and communication becomes impossible.

I'm living backwards; I become more radical with age. It always seemed obvious to me that the political world is as round as the physical, and wherever one happens to reside, the extremes of left and right meet and become one at the antipodes, where the blood is always redder.

We anarchists think we know better than anyone how not to govern, but we're not going to give away our secrets to you lot!

My dad was a communist turned socialist - how was I supposed to rebel against that? Oh, I remember now, "turn on, tune in, drop out".

The source of all can only be nothing. What else is there?

Being comes from non-being.

The cause of the universe is the non-existence of God. If there was God already, the universe would be superfluous.

Smile. There e really ought to be a thread for deeply shallow music.