Comments

  • Coronavirus
    Here's a story from the UK, which is not in the US.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-52268841

    So 13 people have died out of 72 old folks in this one care home.

    I would invite you to consider the possibilities and give an opinion. It looks to me that either:--

    !. The stories that these people have had great treatment with adequate PPE and everything that could be done has been done are false.

    2. The virus is rather more dangerous than at least the optimists here think.

    or

    3. You are going to give a plausible explanation for an 18% death rate.

    And when I say 18% I mean 18% already, so far. It isn't over yet.
  • The Principle of Universal Perception
    You wonder if the perception is true or false, i.e. if the oasis is real or merely an hallucination — Samuel Lacrampe

    That's not what anyone sensible wonders in a desert. What they wonder is whether or not what they see is a mirage, which is a form of illusion, not a hallucination. Any number of people can see the same illusion, because to put it very shortly, an illusion is a trick of the light, whereas an hallucination is a trick of the mind. Specifically, what happens in the desert is that the differential expansion of different layers of air turn the atmosphere into a kind of lens that distorts images such that things can appear where they are not.

    Which rather undermines your principle, I'm happy to say. The idea that reality is to be decided by a vote is repugnant.
  • Culture Effect On Mind
    the term ‘Culture’ is a very diverse one. — I like sushi

    It's normally opposed to 'Nature'. Just as 'mind' is normally opposed to 'body' and 'delusion' to 'truth'.

    Or 'learned' is opposed to 'innate'.

    our brain is under pressure of culture delusion — handalf

    What can possibly be the source of this insight, but the very deluded brain under pressure in question?

    One who fully accepted this would be reduced to silence. And perhaps in the silence there would be no pressure and no delusion. Perhaps it is the sense that there is an escape from culture that is the delusion.
  • Culture Effect On Mind
    ↪handalf
    i am talking about isolating yourself from culture delusion. — handalf

    And I am saying it cannot be done because yourself is culture delusion.
  • Culture Effect On Mind
    Culture is mind; mind is culture.
    ... our mind. — handalf

    Remove from the individual the residue of culture - language, customs, education, social organisation, and all that would be left is a drooling idiot.
  • Coronavirus
    We're accusing them if putting money ahead if lives. So why did they allow the economy to shut down? — frank

    You need to look at the timing, because all you have to do to turn a crisis into a disaster is delay a little. It turns out that you cannot quite get away with saying you want a lot of old and frail people to die because it's good for the economy, so you have to act. But you delay acting enough to maximise the deaths, but not so much that even frank will realise you are deliberately letting people die.
  • Coronavirus
    ↪frank
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fema-report-warned-of-pandemic-vulnerability-months-before-covid-19/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exercise-cygnus-uncovered-pandemic-warnings-buried-government/

    for examples.


    Just to compete with the other analysts and predictors, here's my op from a whole 4 months ago.

    The end of work has been predicted before, and it hasn't happened yet. But what might be starting to happen is the devaluation of work, which means the devaluation of the human being.

    The value of a human being is the product of his labour; such has been the orthodoxy of economics, and it follows that an increase of productivity results in an increase in the value of labour, but the production singularity, whereby not only automation is automated but progress itself is mechanised, mean that already, manufacturing is taking second place to services. Unskilled labour is already valueless; the human body costs more in resources than it can produce.

    Economic logic therefore dictates the scrapping of this uneconomic unit. Your country no longer needs you. Fuck off and die. To object is to make an extinction rebellion.     — unenlightened
  • Coronavirus
    I'd be glad to blame 1%'s for thousands of deaths, I'm just not seeing it. — frank

    I can help you out there ol'buddy.

    Governments have whole great big departments devoted to something called 'security'. They spend a lot of time and money looking at all the possible disasters and difficulties that might come along and how they can be managed and minimised. It's what governments are for, organising our mutual security. And those departments have been predicting a covid pandemic specifically, and an infectious respiratory virus in general. Of course the fine details of the computer models do not match the actual events, but everything in general about this was predicted and all the possible responses pre-evaluated.

    But it turns out that the 1% are extremely sanguine about the death of mainly old and infirm people as a social cost-saving measure. So the preparations were not made and the planned responses were not implemented.
  • What are you listening to right now?
    Today I am feeling mainly ...

    ... righteous.

  • Pointer, please.
    some book indeed! — tim wood

    Yeah, its definitely interesting and apparently he used this stuff to design some switching circuits for railway signals that actually work and use the 'virtual' states that he talks about later, which is about where I lose the plot.

    Anyway I love the start: "Make a distinction. Call it the first distinction." This is the command mode of mathematics. 'Let x be a number...' It's the God mode - let there be light! Just do it, and see what logic tells you happens.
  • Pointer, please.
    It apparently was an evolutionary development made necessary by the bird's need to fly...which required less weight than would be obtained by gestation 'til complete. — Frank Apisa

    Which came first, the crocodile or the egg?

    I hope that I'm simply looking in the wrong places and asking the wrong people. — neophight

    If I'm understanding you, You are looking for a connection between logic, which in most variants is timeless and static with the dynamics of programming language. As a statement, X = X + 1 is a blatant contradiction, but as a command, it is perfectly understandable.

    Generally I think they are simply treated as separate domains, however G.Spencer-Brown manages to derive both time and memory from a very primitive pre-boolean logic. It's actually a bit above my pay grade, and you need to watch out for the psychonauts who are inclined to make a religion of it. But it might be just what you need.
  • Coronavirus
    https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/11/a-national-scandal-a-timeline-of-the-uk-governments-woeful-response-to-the-coronavirus-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR3DHK_OrBKw6z8KSxYPAi4EorwVeMgTRPeLxD_MwJyVMeJMOqiDw-DGoyc
  • Compliments of the season.
    Don't be so hard on yourself, I think we're all here willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're extremely apathetic. — boethius
  • Questions about immaterial minds
    I don't know the limits of this holism you're presenting. If the entity we're speaking of is "eight pawns in a row," such that we cannot say there is a definable separately existing row, then I'm not following how we can say there are separately existing pawns either, as the "pawn" is simply a description of the arrangement of the molecules. — Hanover

    Yes, if you want, you can talk about a pawn of molecules, a molecule of atoms, an atom of quarks. Take the holism or the atomism as far as you like according to convenience. What I seek to forbid is talk of a definably separately existent pawn in addition to, or district from, the molecules. Likewise with rows. the pawn is where the atoms are located and how they are arranged. It really isn't that onerous a stipulation, you just have to keep tabs on where the abstractions are abstracted from and put them back where they belong. As in physics class, you have to state your units, and not mix them up. If we are saying pawns are for this purpose the units of existence, then we can talk about lines or diamonds or whatever pattern of pawns, or we can have a different conversation about ducks and pawns of molecules. But don't have the both kinds of talk at once.
  • Coronavirus
    What's going on with France? — Benkei

    They don't like being told what to do, especially if they are being told to be all standoffish and British. Moi, j'ai un gilet jaune. C'est pour toi le recule.
  • Questions about immaterial minds
    A phenomenological state, on the other hand, is an actual perception of something that is separate from the duck and it's separate from the brain. — Hanover

    I'm sorry, that looks like a word salad. For a first step, can you give me maybe an example of a non actual perception of something? My understanding has always been that the whole business of speaking of phenomena and perceptions is to bracket off 'actuality' as something problematic. As in an oasis-perception that might be of an actual oasis or of a mirage, but is always an 'actual' perception that is separate from the oasis in the sense that there might not be an oasis. A 'phenomenological state' is also problematic, but in a more vague way ... a state of phenomena? A state that consists of phenomena -

    You see, when I get my ducks in a row, or my pawns if you like, I don't have to talk about phenomena or perceptions or brains, I don't see these things, I see a row of ducks. I think you are confusing yourself with all this terminology - you're certainly confusing me. I say my seeing a duck involves me and a duck.

    The row is located at a2 through h2. — Hanover

    This is also a very confusing thing to suggest. I thought that was where the pawns were. A row of squares and a row of pawns - eight pawns in a row, not eight pawns and a row

    The row is not located because it is the location - of the pawns. Why do philosophers do this shit all the time - whenever the cat is on the mat, some philosopher will get all agitated looking for 'on'. How can the cat be on the mat unless there is an on? Where is it?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Words fail me.
    — tim wood

    Me too buddy, me too.     — Merkwurdichliebe

    Time for a song from the auld country, then.

  • Coronavirus
    simply Darwinism — Merkwurdichliebe

    Because a lot of humans are inferior to a virus. by the way one weeds because the crops one is growing are weaker than the weeds. Darwinism takes out the crops.
  • Questions about immaterial minds
    We contemplate all sorts of ways the world is not. — frank

    So the brain is in a relationship of denial with the world, or a relationship of what-if, or ... the mind is not - and this is the point - in the brain, any more than the world is in the brain. Any more than the row is in the ducks
  • Questions about immaterial minds
    I don't follow how an arrangement of physical matter is at all like a phenomenological state. — Hanover


    When you say "phenomenological state" it sounds like a thing, but it isn't a thing, it's a relationship. Specifically its the relationship of a life-form to it's environment, where its environment includes its own state. Just as "in a row" is the relationship of the ducks to each other.

    So when one hears, "...the mind is nothing more than the brain doing its thing, ..." it sounds wrong, and it is wrong, because it leaves out half of what the mind is - the mind is nothing less than the brain doing the world.
  • Coronavirus
    In times of crisis, we need philosopher-kings and not demagogues. — Christoffer

    I'll vote for that in any old time, but unfortunately we are particularly well endowed with demagogues just now. It is a time to value truth and honesty amid a constant stream of bullshit and lies. I think we can do a little bit of sieving here, but actually the populous has to be kept calm too, and for that governments need to earn some trust with some honesty, not keep pretending things that people would wish for. Oh for a politician who can say 'I changed my mind, because I think I was wrong before'. I think a lot of the populous could respect that.
  • Coronavirus
    We have to account for more factors — Christoffer

    Indeed. A very major factor is testing policy, and related hospitalising policy. If, like the UK, you make it a policy not to test people in care homes but only those in hospital, and also not to admit inmates of care homes to hospital, Your figures for both infection rate and death rate are going to look better than they are in reality. As long as tests are selective and rationed, figures are somewhat unreliable. They don't even want to test the hospital staff for fear of causing a panic...

    Anything else risks spreading misinformation and chaos. — Christoffer

    I think we have to take the risks though, because we need to do things even if they are not all the best things. Doing nothing, I am sure has a bad statistical outcome. It looks like Germany is doing a rather good job, so if you haven't a better idea, let's do what we can of what they do.
  • Coronavirus
    well apart from hand washing (Lady Macbeth). — Punshhh

    :rofl: Always a popular political ritual, and hand wringing too. Roman origins I believe.
  • What are you listening to right now?
    https://vimeo.com/89837165?fbclid=IwAR0wBa3OxMHplrFooCUuqIDUfaOshQINrIZ8xvapnaz5tzqzjVyai0IptVU

    Mr Coltrane does not wish to be embedded.
  • Coronavirus
    The issue of carehomes has just started showing up on the radar today after deaths in a carehome in Scotland. This might blow up into a storm for the government, but I expect they are confident that most homes are infected now, so they won't have to come to the rescue, just claim that they tried, or blame it on a delay in ppe provision or something. — Punshhh

    Not tested, and therefore not counted in the infection rates or the death rates. Old people don't count. When did you say that radical change of policy was again?

    But they're really going to start testing health workers quite soon, as soon as possible, really quite a lot of them - maybe even 10 % a day, eventually, and then they might start testing carers, and then possibly providing them with PPE. - well some sort of mask anyway. Really, as soon as possible. Working their little socks off they are, even getting the queen to gee us up and remind us how we won the war.
  • Coronavirus
    ↪Punshhh
    “If you follow a herd immunity strategy, why would you not build treatment and testing capacity? That’s what puzzles me,” asked Devi Sridhar, professor of global health at Edinburgh University.

    https://www.ft.com/content/c4155982-3b8b-4a26-887d-169db6fe4244?shareType=nongift&fbclid=IwAR1EOiZDX_SK-tXIbcfgcbnrH6kTUJ_xw4tYVzexg888Itdhk5bBxJxMx9o

    Because you are aiming at a genocide of the elderly and disabled, obviously.
  • Coronavirus
    It seems to me that the way the virus spreads is through social relations, and the way it can be prevented from spreading is through social isolation.

    So one might expect that socialism would make it worse, and individualism would make it better. But the opposite seems to be the case. My suspicion is that individualism and libertarianism are not what it says on the tin, that they are merely anti-socialism which is as social as socialism, but more disorganised and unpleasant - like a Mafia is a disorganised and unpleasant government..

    One thing has become apparent; that lack of trust makes it harder to make the social arrangements that are necessary to control things. We know that with proper self-isolation backed up with proper protective equipment and testing, the virus can be stopped completely. But governments are still lying and no one believes what they say, and will therefore not cooperate. And individuals can do nothing...
  • A question about certain sensitive threads.
    Just determined on a whim by the admins? — Nobeernolife

    Just determined by the admins and their moderate minions. did you think it was a free site? There's no such thing as a free site.

    As to the whimsicality, I think they broadly follow a line of 'political correctness' as you would call it or 'common sense and decency' as I would call it, along with a certain bias towards being connected with the title of the site - ie Philosophy. Thus when a topic is both controversial and non-philosophical, it's best to get rid before rabies breaks out.
  • If women had been equals
    End women's liberation that does not liberate women but makes being feminine taboo and forces us all to conform to the male standard. An evil plot that does not make men any better than they have been. :lol: — Athena


    I'll vote for that. Votes for women, orgasms for women, equal pay for women, and there you go, now you're just like men. We even monetised childcare and professionalised it. What more do you want?

    God, you want men to change? That's a step too far!

    If I were to suggest that we live in a patriarchy because that's the way women prefer to organise it, would you bite my head off? The trouble is, we cannot start from a state of nature, we start from men in a patriarchy and women in a patriarchy critiquing the patriarchy. Their critiques are not to be relied on, but that's all we have.

    And thank you for suggesting it is okay for me to be a woman and to rely on a man to do what men do best. — Athena

    Mrs un relies on me to open her fizzy water bottles, and other feats of strength, but she is an old-fashioned lady. But I am a thoroughly modern man, I and know my place.
  • Coronavirus
    https://bylinetimes.com/2020/03/23/covid-19-special-investigation-part-one-the-politicised-science-that-nudged-the-johnson-government-to-safeguard-the-economy-over-british-lives/

    https://bylinetimes.com/2020/03/23/covid-19-special-investigation-part-two-government-documents-reveal-concern-for-economic-and-business-impacts-prevented-early-action/

    https://bylinetimes.com/2020/03/31/behind-closed-doors-johnson-and-his-cabinet-do-not-applaud-the-nhs-they-ideologically-oppose-it/?fbclid=IwAR0Ya1alIzgZVvYJ0NYnxNT5MkbVn4Qh2EM-1PxAof7F3NyiGA77F04IihU
  • Coronavirus
    ↪Punshhh
    Yesterday, they announced 600 emergency hospital beds in the local uni and the local conference centre. Today they announced 30 new ventilators for the whole country. I would be looking the other way too, if I could find another way to look.

    I wonder where the staff for those ventilator less beds will come from?
  • Coronavirus
    ↪frank
    There is no if. Wake the fuck up! They're not trying to kill me, they are trying to kill a million sick and dependent people to save some money because they are totally depraved and amoral.
  • Coronavirus
    ↪frank
    Do you have any evidence of that?

    I have some evidence of them not buying ventilators that they were offered, not testing carers and health workers or providing any protection. My daughter, for example, is an OT in a major hospital dealing with the old and disabled extensively with, count it, zero protective equipment and zero testing.

    You make it personal, but I am not afraid at all for myself. Snap out of your complacency and condescension; I am not a conspiracy theorist by nature, and generally prefer cock-up theories. But in this case, there are too many consistent cockups, backed up by the words of chief adviser Dominic Cummings to the effect that this is the government policy.
  • Coronavirus
    ↪Benkei
    No, I think genocide is appropriate. They got themselves elected - they cannot be that incompetent, so it must be deliberate not negligent.
  • Coronavirus
    Yes, this is the hidden policy of the UK government. — Punshhh

    It seems rather strange to be accusing my government of genocide.
  • Coronavirus
    The worldometer is where I get all my data — Baden

    Have an insincere apology with your data. Mix it with the news that care homes can only test 5 people (Most carers move between homes) and only when someone has symptoms, and old folks are being encouraged to sign non-resussitation forms and not to expect to be taken to hospital, andI wonder if you are drawn to the conclusion I have reached, that government policy is to spread the virus amongst the old and not treat them.

    https://www.irishnews.com/coronavirus/2020/03/29/news/michael-gove-apologises-to-company-that-offered-to-procure-25-000-ventilators-for-the-nhs-but-got-no-reply-1882862/?fbclid=IwAR3JJVffnGiv-cm8TBqbt6-F4iYr_O3gq-nJsSUMrcmoT7IsKSxC8Ff9v84
  • Is there anything worth going to hell for? Hedonism
    even if the actual pleasure temporally succeeds the plan, the anticipation of it is the plan's maternity ward. — TheMadFool

    I think auto-correct is eating your brain. :cry:

    So an architect imagines a building and draws plans from his imagination. And one day, planners permitting, and client's finances permitting, some builders realise his plan. And possibly it is a hospital, with a maternity ward. These things happen. And this, for all concerned, is all about pleasure, anticipated and experienced? What makes you think that? Why don't they all smoke crack instead?
  • Is there anything worth going to hell for? Hedonism
    However, her imagination lets her know that you will find it pleasurable to drink tea. I guess this is what you refer to by imagined pleasure. — TheMadFool

    Have we established at last that it is not pleasure that causes tea-making, but the imagination? If so, then it might be clear that there is a difference between Mrs un imagining herself drinking tea, and Mrs un imagining me drinking tea, but it is not a matter of one tasting good and the other not tasting at all. Rather it is a matter of identification.

    One identifies with an imagined future self. As one identifies with a remembered past self. Mrs un remembers drinking tea with pleasure, and projects that into the future, and that dual identification makes up the desire for tea that impels her to put the kettle on to make tea for herself.

    But when she imagines me drinking tea, there is no identification, but empathising. Empathy is a commonplace thing that makes folks wince when they see someone cut their finger or take pleasure in a baby's smile. but it is very like identification in the way it motivates action.

    Identification is selfish, empathy is otherish.
  • Cultural Sensitivity vs. Public Health
    So we are living in an age of multiculturalism. — schopenhauer1

    No we ain't. We're no more living in an age of multiculturalism than we are living in an age of veganism.

    It might be trending on twitter, but it doesn't impact politics, just rhetoric.
  • Is there anything worth going to hell for? Hedonism
    And now my question. Why do y'all want to deny that one can be unselfish so determinedly? What is at stake for you? — unenlightened

    No one can answer, because the answer is too simple. So I will answer and you will deny.

    One wants every act to be equally hedonistic because it absolves one of moral responsibility. The kind act is as selfish as the unkind, abstemiousness is as self-indulgent as greed, and thus there is no need to make any moral effort at all, or take any responsibility.
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