There seems to be a confusion about "plans". In a game of chess, my plan is to win. To do that I implement an opening sequence of moves that is tried and trusted against any and every response. My plans never include planning for the opponent to make a blunder, but if they do, my plans will change. If they play well, I will have to adapt to the moves they make. I always hope for, but rarely expect, an easy win. by and large, once the opening moves are made, plans are developed and abandoned almost at every move until there is a simplification of the board that allows for the calculation of the end game.

Of course in a real war, even the definition of 'win' or 'stalemate' is flexible.

Ah I see. But you don't see the relevance of adoption?

It's evidence that emotional ties result from commitment, not the other way round. In your thought you treat biological paternity as necessarily connected with emotional ties; I have to tell you that there can be either one without the other, and quite commonly.

Do you believe this is really feasible? — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

Certainly. You have heard of adoption ?

In the old forum, back in the days when philosophers were ...

{10 pages later}

... and the button that here is labelled "Post Comment" was more accurately inscribed "Submit". You submit your ideas to the online community; and they put you straight!

The postal worker, bank teller, grocery store worker, and everybody else I rely on for bits and pieces of everyday life, have no authority over me, even though I rely on them. — Bitter Crank

So you don't have to pay for your groceries or buy stamps for your post? You pay whatever you like?

I just get annoyed when people think people always get depressed ‘for a reason’ when it is simply brain chemistry just going awry. — I like sushi

Ah, yes. I find my mood is like the weather, and just changes unconnected with what is going on around me. "Why are you sunny today?" is a silly question. Anyone who has spent time totally alone will probably notice that their mood changes from day to day, and even if there is an explanation, it is no more use asking me to account for my mood than it is asking a storm why it is angry. A man bitch-slaps his good buddy on public stage on probably one of the best days of his life, because... Freud knows.

It takes a village to raise a child. (African proverb).

Freedom does not come cheap. Children need stable loving care for a long time, and the social arrangements around sexual relations, property, and so on are what have in the past provided at least the stability. The industrial revolution, welfare state, and consumer society, have reduced the family to its current nuclear state. Formerly, families were extended through all the generations and across them so as to provide that stability when life even for adults was precarious; aunts or grandmothers might take over from mothers, and so on.

Lifelong fidelity to a single partner is not particularly natural or common for humans, we are tribal and promiscuous. But it has been made the ideal and norm, and the price of freedom from that norm is either paid by the adults making provision for the stable support of their children through a network of care, or it is paid by the child through inadequate care.

It is not simply about being beaten or abused. — I like sushi

If I gave the impression it was anything simple at all, it was unintentional.

I personally believe it is a lack of trauma that is more damaging to the psyche than individual instances in childhood amounting to little more than ‘growing up’ in a world that is not exactly safe. — I like sushi

In the literature, the term they use is "resilience", and a deal of study has been done. Resilience is the ability to recover from traumatic experience and it is developed in childhood with the support of primary carers. By dealing with minor trauma and stresses, one develops a psychological strength to resist and bounce back from events that would overwhelm one at first.

https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/resilience/according-experts/resilience-after-trauma-early-development

Stephen says he was beaten "a great deal" while attending prep school until the age of 13. "I think in my last year I was probably beaten every day, because I was a very bad boy.

"People think, 'No wonder Stephen Fry is such a completely screwed up individual!' I don't know whether that is true, as I am sure I would have been screwed up wherever I had been."

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/film-and-tv/stephen-frys-schooldays-1131692

A nice video, but says nothing at all against trauma theory. There is a complex genetic predisposing component as one would expect because genes build organs, and there is a spectrum as one would expect because brains are complex. And then one might look for environmental factors, and one might find, one does find, that childhood trauma is very overrepresented in the depressed cohort.

Interestingly to me, though it passed without comment by the great man himself, when he mentioned being sent to prison, something one might expect to be somewhat traumatic, he said that to him is was very little different from the two schools where his behaviour first manifested. One is expected to regard being sent to prep school at the age of 6 or 7 as a great privilege, but I think at least for some it is experienced as abandonment by one's family:-- to be suddenly institutionalised into something that, if it is like a prison is also like an orphanage.

My point was that people can suddenly be depression even though their life has been perfectly fine (including childhood). — I like sushi

And do you have evidence for this?
Bah, never mind, I agree; psychology is always vague and fuzzy because it generalises the uniqueness of personhood. But the correlations for trauma theory are unusually strong.

Sorry, I posted the same link twice instead of a link to my previous thread. I've edited it above, but here it is again: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5783/adverse-childhood-experiences/p1

there are some links in that op and more later in the thread, and there is a deal of research been done done. One link I like is this:
https://whatnow727.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/herman_trauma-and-recovery.pdf

What evidence? — I like sushi

Links are provided in the thread I linked to, if you are interested.

Is my condition actually an illness, or is it an adaptation, really? — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

The current psychobabble rather agrees with you, that depression is an adaptation to traumatic experiences. This is actually in line with physical illnesses to a large extent, in the sense that symptoms are very often adaptations to pathogens - coughing, raised temperature, and so on.

The classic case is childhood trauma at the hands of one's primary carer. There is no escape from the neglect or abuse, and so the mind shuts down or turns down the sensitivity.

Here is a link about adverse childhood experiences: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/riskprotectivefactors.html

And here is an old discussion on this very site where we talk about them: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5783/adverse-childhood-experiences/p1

Adverse adult experiences can have the same effects, and PTSD often includes depression.

men escape the burden of pregnancy, and the risks and pains of childbirth. — _db

That's a fact and always has been, but whether it is women who are imposed upon or men who are deprived and dependent, is decided otherwise than as a matter of fact. My inclination is to suggest that procreation is desired by most people who are not alienated from their own bodies. And in that case it is a privilege and advantage for women, who always know that their children are theirs. Indeed that is the exact reason that patriarchy needs to control female sexuality.

Ok, I don't have the book to hand, so I'm going to use some of the wikipedia material and quotes. If there is other stuff you want to look at put the quotes or links up if you can.

The first women are fleeing the massacre, and, shaking and tottering, are beginning to find each other. ... This is painful: no matter how many levels of consciousness one reaches, the problem always goes deeper. It is everywhere. ... feminists have to question, not just all of Western culture, but the organization of culture itself, and further, even the very organization of nature. — Firestone

So I am old enough to remember the times from which she speaks, when the rigidity of gender conformity was such that the Beatles caused outrage by growing their hair so long it covered their ears. homosexuality was illegal and depraved, and lesbians didn't exist, because nobody cares what women like or don't like. Abortion was illegal, and having a child out of wedlock was 1, shameful, and 2, economically ruinous. The culture was not quite Taliban, but it was closer to Taliban gender politics than to the modern West.

So it is understandable that women felt that their very biological nature betrayed them, but I think they, and she, was wrong about that. So all the stuff about liberation from childbirth, I simply reject.

There were no ancient matriarchies (societies ruled by women), and the apparently superior status of women in matrilineal cultures is due only to the relative weakness of men. Whatever the lineage system, women's vulnerability during pregnancy and the long period of human infancy necessitate the protective and hence dominant role of the male.

This dependence of the female and the child on the male causes "psychosexual distortions in the human personality", distortions that were described by Sigmund Freud. — Wiki

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5321759/

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/ancient-cultures-matriarchal-society-0011588

The science and archeology has moved on, or rather back; the reality of ancient matriarchies is back in vogue. The evidence is that a matrilineal descent when accompanied by matrilineal property inheritance results in a more equal society, precisely because it does those things that I suggested in the op, it removes the necessity for the control of sex, and divorces power from physical strength. The methodology of matriarchal rule is thus more cooperative based and less violence based.

While I'm here, I'll also just mention that the incest Taboo is more regarded as a social amplification of the Westermarck Effect. Again this post-dates the Firestone text.

1. Mr Normal's winning the lottery is very improbable if caused by chance.
2. Mr Normal's winning the lottery is very probable if God causes him to win.
3. As before.
4.That someone normal often wins the lottery is strong evidence that God exists.

I think the pungent essence of weasel lies in the proviso: "single-universe". For that, there is no evidence or justification. And allow a multi universe and there is no improbability at all, that we find ourselves in one of the ones that we could exist in.

More important, what to do about it? — EugeneW

Carbon fibre and non-biodegradable plastics to replace steel and aluminium wherever possible, ie cars planes etc.

Insulate buildings until they are energy neutral. Less steel, glass, concrete, brick, and tile for new build, more wood, plastic, slate, stone, mud, straw, wool, etc.

Get busy with the obvious power sources, tidal, wind, geothermal and heat pumps for heating, solar, etc.

Reduce meat consumption and plant trees and peat bogs as appropriate. reduce fertiliser use by rebuilding soil fertility.

Just slow the fuck down a bit; travel by internet more and aeroplane less. More public transport and bicycles, less cars and private jets. More communal facilities in general - we don't need a washing machine each, we can share.

Less rocket science, more brain surgery.

It's the beginning of insight. Don't go looking for a new pair of rose tinted spectacles, instead look through the gloom of self for the jewel of life.

man's fullest realization of himself; he goes from worshiping Nature through women to conquering it.

The declaration of conquest of nature seems a little premature to say the very least. 'Man' is part of nature, entirely dependent on nature as 'other' for his existence. His conquest of nature thus turns out to be the sawing off of the branch on which he sits. The rape of mother nature is a Freudian fantasy whose realisation is the global catastrophe of man-made climate change.

But that is a rather misleading quote from a radical feminist Marxist, who is interesting but very controversial in her interpretation of psychology and biology. We could go into it a bit more if you are interested, but her views are not mine by any means.

Everyone will lose on both sides, because that's what a war of attrition is, the last man standing takes possession of the smoking ruins.
— unenlightened

The problem is this is simply not true. — boethius

It's not quite true; the winners will be those far away and not involved - China and the US maybe, and S. America and Australia. But Russia can gain all their objectives and still lose. Lose a generation of young men, trade with the world, the intangible 'social capital' that they are already very short of, and of course military materiel and reputation. Kind of like the UK won a couple of wars last century, and lost an empire.

Your narcissism surpasses your contributions as a subject of interest by some margin. — Isaac

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a mental disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive craving for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathize with others' feelings. Narcissistic personality disorder is one of the eleven sub-types of the broader category known as personality disorders

It makes a change from 'mad' and 'idiotic', but it's not an improvement. When I was in primary school the insult of choice was 'spastic'. Ah, the good old days.

As to propaganda: the idea that anyone will win is propaganda. Everyone will lose on both sides, because that's what a war of attrition is, the last man standing takes possession of the smoking ruins.

You're all spastics!

Trolls to the left of them, idiots to the right of them,
Volleyed and thundered.
But all joined in the hymn of the new world order: and you can too ...

Why is lineage an either/or deal? — Agent Smith

For example, if you took both names, then after a dozen generations you'd have 4096 names. One has anyway to be in one tribe or the other. There was a hippy movement in the UK to reject surnames along with the possessive implications thereof, but to comply with the law at the time, such revolutionary offspring were all surnamed 'Wild'.

However, it seems to still be about an either/or arrangement. Patriarchy v Matriarchy.
I don't think this is helpful. Indeed, doesn't it play into the fear of males that women are taking control and being less than subservient? Women have their roles to play; the main one being a mother? — Amity

If you look around, there are quite a few inbetweeny cultures of various complexions, but I'm not remotely wanting to take account of the fears of unfulfilled patriarchs. That is why I took myself off to another thread, and wrote a long op with lots of links. :wink:

Here are some inbetweeny oddities for you:
https://www.ssozinha.com/post/5-african-traditions-where-gender-roles-are-reversed

In one instance the mother’s brother had more of a role in bringing up the child than the father - who was more of an uncle weirdly. — I like sushi

Yes, that seems quite natural to me in a matrilineal society. A man's children are those born to his sister, rather than to his lover. His lovers children will not inherit from him, but from their mother's family. The mere facts of life are unimportant in comparison to the social constructs of life.

Sometimes the men stay with their birth family, and sometimes with their spousal family, and that obviously affects which children they are more close to.

To keep on track with the topic how do roles differ between older men and women? Is there less difference? — I like sushi

I don't think it's possible to answer. One is dealing with 'old-fashioned' - shall I say? - tribal groups that cannot be compared with youth obsessed modern urban culture. Elders are generally respected in stable societies, but modernism rejects stability in favour of progress.

It just may be that women that excel at being women suit positions that differ from men that excel at being men … the question is then more about what exactly we could possibly mean by saying ‘excel’ here and this inevitably cannot be disentangled from cultural factors above mere physiological processes. — I like sushi

The question that I'm asking myself about this is what you could possibly mean by "women that excel at being women". The only sense that immediately occurs to me is that it means "women that excel at performing the role of being a woman", but that is the thing that we can only measure the excellence of, relative to the society that assigns and defines that role. The role that we are talking about the transformation of. Am I tying myself in knots here?

The history of Iceland brings this into question. To this day girls inherit their mother’s name and boys inherit their father’s name. Women also used to fight, control ships and lead others. — I like sushi

I stand corrected. Twice.

You have not presented any kind of argument here. — I like sushi

That's right, we are speculating and imagining. The global prevalence of patriarchy makes the evidence thin to the point where it is almost impossible to disentangle social nature from social nurture. That's why I am as interested in the fiction as much as the anthropology. There is a thread within patriarchy, of virtual nostalgia for matriarchy.

The notion of ‘societal control’ would be replaced by that of collaboration, rendering ‘loyalty’ less of an issue overall. — Possibility

Yes, except that collaboration is controlled. Not all control is coercive. I'm trying to imagine, without being totally utopian, how a a post-industrial matriarchy would function. Big institutions, national government would probably become less dominant, in favour of regional and tribal administration.

Mothers are loyal to their offspring. It kind of sounds wrong - too obvious to mention - I want to suggest, that the matriarch, in general, in a matriarchy, as opposed to the patriarchal matriarch one sees, is not an entirely separated self, identifying with an abstract body (oxymoron) as head, but as the birthed birthing of the extended family - I am the ancestors-and-inheritors ...* There is something radically different in the psychodrama of matrilineality.

*There is something of this in our (UK) current queen, even within the heart of patriarchy, dedicated to a lifetime of service as an almost religious duty. So old fashioned! So subtly different with the typical male identification of self with state that we call 'loyalty'.

Plains Indians weren't exactly matrilineal — frank

With matrilineal descent and matrilocal residences, motherhood, not fatherhood, was central to Navajo culture. The earth, agricultural fields, and sacred mountains were all called mother, as were corn and sheep. Motherhood was thus defined in terms of reproduction and the ability to sustain life. Mothers were responsible for passing along Navajo religion and traditions to their young children and sustaining them through love and care. Three of their most central mythological characters were the maternal figures Changing Woman, Spider Woman, and Salt Woman.

https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1106&context=historical-perspectives

Those not willing to do so are usually the ones more likely to actually carry out such acts — I like sushi

Yeah, that makes complete sense, probably.

1. Everything must have some explanation (PE).
2. Reality in total cannot have an explanation (PU). — lish

What's the difference between everything and reality in total?

It's a classic example of a cunning arrangement of words that a philosopher thinks can oblige reality to be or not be. I call it "magical thinking". Recite the magic formula, and the the world will do your bidding.

Why do you want to contrive a scenario that might justify torturing a baby, or any one?

If the bad man is doing bad things, the good man will try to stop him. If the good man can only stop him by becoming a bad man, then he cannot stop him at all. This is perfectly universal, that bad men are hard to stop because they will do things that good men will not. The scum always floats to the top, and the gold always sinks to the bottom. God made it this way so that bad men will not be bribed or frightened into being good. The FBI man wants to succeed at any cost, therefore he is bad, not good.

...

Fairy dust is like dark matter. The only evidence that it exists is that all our theories will be wrong unless it does. — T Clark

Well the theory that all our theories are wrong, must be wrong, because if it were right then not all our theories would be wrong. Therefore fairy dust necessarily exists.

It's a question about how fairy dust works.

So that's a 'no'.

The mind looks to the future in anticipation, and the senses look rearward at the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no light coming from the future, only from the past. You say 'looks' but it is not observation but imagination. The trick to anticipation is to make one's imagining realistic and realisable.

... if fairy dust were involved. — T Clark

A stone and some shards of glass leap up from the floor; the shards form into a whole pane of window glass, and the stone leaps from its centre arcing to land in the outstretched hand of a boy who pulls his hand back and lays the stone down on the ground.

How did he know to stretch out his hand just at that moment?

Propaganda, advertising, special pleading, rhetoric;

Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented.[1] Propaganda can be found in news and journalism, government, advertising, entertainment, education, and activism[2] and is often associated with material which is prepared by governments as part of war efforts, political campaigns, health campaigns, revolutionaries, big businesses, ultra-religious organizations, the media, and certain individuals such as soapboxers.

Wiki.

I certainly don't want to shut down the discussion, but point out merely that it is not limited to governments and nation states. There has long been an argument between those who claim that patriotism is a virtue and those who see it as a vice. I favour the latter view, but want to emphasise that it applies also to religions, races, genders, and any other identified and distinguished groups.

My country right or wrong.

https://www.thoughtco.com/my-country-right-or-wrong-2831839

We know at the extreme that the patriotic member of a Nazi governed country is a supporter of horrors unless she is a traitor to her government. Is there a middle ground of critical patriotism?

I'm half watching a news report of a football mach between a Saudi royal owned British club and a Russian oligarch owned British club. Fortunately for me, I have no interest in football. But I am not turning off the central heating either. There is no clean money, and no clean oil or gas. Is there clean patriotism? I say not, but only a naively innocent patriotism, that does not see its own dirt.

So Ukraine's win will result in a 'free society'? How has that in any way sidestepped the "balance of probabilities over some guesswork as to long-term consequences"? — Isaac

Well this is my understanding of a non-consequential morality. One does what is right with the understanding that it will usually fail; that no good deed ever goes unpunished. This is why what is right is different from what is expedient. Ukraine fights and probably loses, because 'better dead than red'. Or perhaps, better to die in the gas chamber than to operate the gas chamber.

Such justification needs a little more than a balance of probabilities over some guesswork as to long-term consequences. — Isaac

'Good luck with that.' he ironises. Perhaps a (non-consequential) moral principle is what you need, lacking omniscient foresight? Perhaps a free society is worth dying for, worth risking nuclear war for?

I am simple minded; I define 'forwards' as the way I am facing, my eyes being at, in, or on my face. I cannot see where I am going in time, but only where I have come from. Therefore the future is behind me and the past in front of me, and I progress backwards. "At or in?" I give not a fig. "on", why not?

M'kay. :mask:

Eyes in the back of your head is it?

Time does move backwards; or rather we move backwards through time. You can tell because we can see where we've been, but not where we're going.