Our concept of what is beautiful is in the eye of the beholder, and we all have unique tastes in what we consider to be beautiful. However, our sense of self is an illusion and everything that makes up any of our preferences is simply the outer world reflecting back into us. — MonfortS26

I agree with darthbarracuda: you want it both ways, but you can't have it. If the self is an illusion, then who is the beholder of beauty? If the outer world is reflecting back into us, who is us?

Beginning posts by dismissing the reality of the poster seems to be the result of bad digestion. Perhaps you are suffering from dyspepsia today; did you eat some spoiled fish?

The problem there is that there is no such "you". — apokrisis

As far as I know, I am. If you find that that the you who doesn't exist is a bundle of habits, the bundle will have have to manage the best it can. Good luck.

So how can you wear masks without getting confused? And what if you're already confused? Wouldn't any sense of self be a mask? — MonfortS26

We begin life, and many of us continue in life for decades, being confused, and we're lucky if we don't look like clowns.

I would get confused wearing masks, so I tend to follow the principle of 'what you see is what you get'.

When I was 24 I grew a beard to look more bohemian hippy (1970). When it got long enough to call it a beard, I recognized it as being ME, not a mask. I've kept the beard for 46 years. (It's now white, where it was then a nice brown.) It is still me.

Clothes are almost always a mask, and this is so whether we keep tuxedos on hand, or whether we are always seen in work boots, blue jeans, and a grey sweatshirt. A business suit or a dashiki, sandals or wing tips, bolo tie, four in hand, bow tie, or cravat, Harris Tweed or genuine Polyester from Walmart--clothes present an image. If the image is honest, and if it matches who we are, it looks right on us. If it is not honest, it doesn't.

As Henry David Thoreau said, "beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. ... If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes."

The emotion of love has to develop first on the basis of frequent contact with the object of one's love. Expressions of love do have some attractive force, true enough, but generally a profession of love without prior preparation will not get one very far. You can tell people you are sad, but that doesn't mean they will cheer you up. They might unload on you their own sadness.

Mostly, though, our emotions are vitally important parts of our private discourse among sensory input, memory, thought, and emotion. Further, emotions have been at the center of mental activity in our evolutionary predecessors for a very long time.

Wuliheron's point about speed is important. Our animal sense of smell needs no mediation -- it's plugged directly into the emotional switchboard. That's why smell evokes such strong emotions, and in animals that have really sharp senses of smell (more sensitive than ours) it's a vital early warning system (or an effective mating app).

c

these characters are representations of an entire sex. The developers made a choice — darthbarracuda

Human characters in a game, a novel, or a film are not representations of all humanity or an entire sex. Yes, if they are human characters they have to have some human characterizations, otherwise they would be aliens of some sort, but by no means are they representations of humankind. The plot has to make "human sense" or it might not seem like a plot at all.

There is always a danger of players, readers, or viewers taking the artifices of fiction literally. Young children who watch a horror movie may not be able to take the monsters as anything but literal fact, and are scared out of their wits by what might be in the dark closet, the dark attic or cellar, the dark forest, and so on. but as we mature we are supposed to be able to make the distinctions between fiction and fact.

When you "kill" a character in a game, or read of a character killed in a novel or read of a character killed in a novel, do you take that to mean that you should then kill real people? Or that the good or bad character represents all good or bad people? Most likely you do not.

A carefully written novel or well made film can depict people very subtly, accurately, and believably -- but the characters are not in fact real. That is why we can read novels in which characters are killed, murdered, tortured, raped, etc. without being incited to kill, murder, torture, rape, or even annoy greatly real people--persons in the flesh.

You suspend disbelief while you play the game, read, watch the movie--for the moment it seems very real. But when it is over, the voluntary suspension of disbelief ends.

OS is operating system, correct? But PX? — anonymous66

PX = Chi Rho = a symbol of Christ. Hence Christian Operating System.

How everyone else who can't paint to save their lives are supposed to live is beyond me. — darthbarracuda

They become critics.

This topic is a break off from a discussion in the technology thread involving Bitter Crank. (I thought it worthy of its own topic)

Just like "good work", "good relationships" are not guarantee in life.. Oddly enough, while relationships, and specifically good intimate relationships are on the top of people's lists of examples of what makes life meaningful, it is among the the least guaranteed and most fickle of phenomena we encounter. — schopenhauer1

It is true that good work, good relationships, good housing, good food, or a good death are not guaranteed in this life, and it is also true that nothing lasts. The Appalachian Mountains were once as rugged as the Rockies. Not any more.

If not guaranteed absolutely, relationships are practically a certainty, though, and most of them are good. Every child must be parented and socialized in a community, and that entails a host of nurturing relationships. One has caring teachers, playmates, buddies, friends, and lovers. True, they do not all last and many are not meant to last.

In the related thread I mentioned the four different kinds of love -- agape, eros, filio, and storge.§ Eros is not 'elected' we are struck by it. But we decide in favor of universal love (agape), and can extend filio (brotherly love) to a wider circle. Extending our love to others engenders relationships. Is there disappointment, rejection, betrayal, suffering? Sometimes.

Like metal and glass, we are strengthened by tempering. Suffering is the medium in which we are tempered -- made strong. No, suffering need not be catastrophic, devastating, or severe, but without suffering we are weak and easily broken.

You do not make distinctions among sufferings. Life is suffering, suffering is a bad thing, and it is no kindness to bring children into this world.

§Storge—empathy bond. Storge (storgē, Greek: στοργή) is liking someone through the fondness of familiarity, family members or people who relate in familiar ways that have otherwise found themselves bonded by chance. An example is the natural love and affection of a parent for their child.

What do you mean by masks? How can we be anything other than who we are? — MonfortS26

That is the question about authenticity, isn't it.

A "mask" is a role or a style we adapt to suit--or discomfit--others. It is a false front (which people are of course entitled to present). I am who I am regardless--I can't really be anything else. But I can become confused about who I am (and who you are) the more often we put on and take off various masks--the more often we change roles.

Being masked does not mean "inauthenticity" until the masks begin to confuse the person who deploys them.

Authenticity is not evident to the casual observer; it may not be immediately evident to one's self either (though it can be with careful introspection). "Authenticity" is a term that should be used with caution, and so should the assumption that someone is wearing a mask. We have to know people well to know if they are being authentic or not. We have to know ourselves fairly well too to judge our authenticity.

IF in the real world you were to force a woman to appear naked or to expose various sexual parts in a dramatic production of some kind (like in a 30 minute XXX sex tape), you would have quite explicit criminal legal problems. On the other hand, if the same woman explicitly agrees to appear naked, or to expose various sexual parts -- and even to have sex with multiple partners -- in your dramatic production, your main legal problem would concern copyright and distribution rights.

We will presume that the sex tape viewers will entertain all sorts of lewd and lascivious thoughts about the dramatis personae appearing in your esteemed production. Their thoughts will affect neither the characters appearing in the sex tape, nor the actual artistes who performed the various sex acts. All the patriarchal objectification in the world will have zero effect.

If a man finishes your excellent sex tape, feels unsatisfied, and leaves his apartment and pounces on the first woman he meets, jerking off all over her face right in front of a Walmart, he will have lots of criminal legal problems to deal with. Patriarchal objectification will be the least of his worries. Had he gone into a Starbuck coffee shot, bought a latte, and mentally stripped, fondled, and screwed silly all of the females in the joint, he would be guilty of nothing more than patriarchal objectification IF, AND ONLY IF the Feminine Protection League could prove exactly what he was thinking.

I want to hear your thoughts on the morality of objectifying women in the media. — darthbarracuda

No digital character suffered in making or playing Witcher 3.

The claim that the game is a "realistic" medieval-era dark fantasy" is absurd. It most assuredly is not realistic. Want realistic? Go to the hardware store, buy a pitchfork, and then kill somebody with it. Then you will have had a somewhat realistic medieval experience. [This suggestion is void where prohibited by law; the suggested action may result in adverse consequences. Severe penalties may apply.]

1.) Am I making a mistake by purchasing a form of media that objectifies women? — darthbarracuda

Your mistake is thinking you can offend a digital female character in a game.

2.) Should the objectification of [actual] women be outlawed? — darthbarracuda

I say NO. First, because it isn't clear to me what does and does not constitutes objectification. Second, whatever objectification is, it is first a thought and I am not in favor of outlawing thoughts.

3.) Is this objectification the result of the oft-quoted "Patriarchy"? — darthbarracuda

Patriarchy is one of several bogeymen lurking with the intent under feminists' beds. Objectification is another one. How many bogeymen can lurk with the intent under a narrow, single bed?

4.) a) Are women alright with this objectification, and b) does this have any importance to the debate? — darthbarracuda

a) Nobody knows what women want, and b) none whatsoever.

arrogant, snobby — Terrapin Station

I am a friendly, talkative, philosophically minded, arrogant, enlightened snob.

I consider taking off one's masks a "key" to being authentic. Some people wear many masks, some wear only a few. Being authentic is being who we actually are (for better and for worse) without any disguise at all.

Authenticity can't be 'stage managed'. We can not dress in a certain way because "it looks authentic". Authenticity is like taking off one's clothes in public; clothes can not make the naked man.

Authentic isn't a particular mood; sad people are not inherently more authentic than happy person. The inquisitive explorer is not inherently more authentic than the timid man who stays at home. Authentic isn[t "one thing".

I want to broaden this a bit more to an existential level. Is technology a reason to use against the antinatalist? — schopenhauer1

No. If life is sufficiently unsatisfactory that it is better to not be born, technology does not rescue life. Life with technology is different than life without, but it doesn't overcome meaninglessness or pointlessness. (Indeed, it can make it worse.)

As you know, many "elite" or those who think themselves so in the middle class, or any class for that matter, will simply point to the fact that we "do" technology.. that we can innovate and discover and create new possibilities as the reason why bringing new people into the world is good. — schopenhauer1

I am not an antinatalist, but I do not think "doing technology", "consuming information", or "Liking" every pile of horse shit on Facebook in itself provides any reason whatsoever to bring more people into the world, or to continue living if one is tired of life. Facebook is not life (some people to the contrary).

Love makes life worth living, not technology, or nothing does. (And not "love" of one's new IPhone 7, either.) Agape, Eros, Filio, and Storge are what makes life worth living, and the object of these loves is other people.

We don't "do technology" because it makes life meaningful. We do technology because that is who we are. But, alas alas, "being who we are and being technological" doesn't make life meaningful all by itself. We are able to devise meaning, but that is a separate skill from "doing technology". We're fucked when we confuse "doing tech" with "making meaning" because we end up with all this meaningless crap.

The vendors - Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook - are all vested interests, they have their own agenda. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. The agenda is hidden from some, crystal clear to others. Why does Google provide such an invaluable service as SEARCH? What does Facebook get out of enabling all this 'communication'?

What Google gets is information which it sells to advertisers (among other things). Facebook IS NOT a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable institution. Neither is Twitter, YouTube, or Tumblr, et al. (Though how Tumblr made any money on all the porn blogs they had before they started to include advertising is beyond me.)

It might be helpful to take a longer-range view of technology than the last 150 years (1870 to the present) because we are very much in the middle of this unfolding process (Revolution? Maybe.) and it is much too soon to arrive at definite conclusions. A slightly longer-range view might start with Guttenberg's printing press around 575 years ago. Marshall McLuhan's Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962).

Or maybe less intellectual innovations might be considered: the horse shoe; the stirrup; better harnesses; the plow, the wagon. Consider the consequence of inventing several kinds of arches; the sail; glass blowing. Or much further back -- weaving. (Too far back? Well, 10,000 years later we are still busy weaving.)

Composing posts on a screen to a forum composed of people I will most likely never meet is not the same as typing a letter on a typewriter to a specific person who I either have met, or may meet in the future. Keyboard + screen is even further removed from an ink pen, cursive writing, and ruled paper. Typewriting (around 1870) was a significant innovation. It enabled people to produce "book-like" text on the fly.

Typing letters on paper commits us to what we have already written to a much greater extent than what we type on a screen. Typing was physically more demanding. Editing on paper was much more cumbersome. If I didn't know how to spell a word, I had to look it up in a large heavy book. If I needed to check a fact, I probably had to go to a library.

I can edit this post without having to start all over with a new piece of paper. I can express myself, therefore, more freely. I can take more "risks" -- I can try a phrase to see how it looks. If I don't like it, I can get rid of it without having to retype the whole thing. I can say more.

Software checks my spelling (more or less; sometimes it substitutes words that are absurd replacements). I can get the name of a book or an author in seconds from the internet. O HOLY GOOGLE. And so on. You get the picture.

The technological change from typewriter & paper to keyboard + mouse and screen has had an effect on our thinking. We can think more easily (because raw material is close at hand) and we can be more garrulous. (Speaking of which, I need to shut up now.)

most systems do promise to be therapeutic. I'm not sure I see that in existentialism. Existentialism seems to be more about giving up on systems, and just finding ways to enjoy life w/o a system. — anonymous66

Seems to me that giving up on systems and finding ways to enjoy life w/o a system might be highly therapeutic for some people.

My operating system is Christian, whether I like it or not, however much I might wish otherwise. I've pared down that PX OS, tried overriding it with new OSs, and all that, but it won't budge. Is the systemic part good or bad?

Some system is helpful; it provides pathways, symbols, models, useful tools, goals, etc. Can any system get out of hand? Systems tend to get out of hand, which is why we must pay attention: nip metastatic systems in the bud. Systems want to subvert our energy into following the rules and regs of the system, rather than living a full life.

I think one cannot name himself tolerant, because it's not black and white. — Linda

There is a black and a white, but in social affairs those extreme states are separated by many standard deviations of subtle grayscale.

For instance, I would consider myself not very tolerant - meaning that my "borders" or "line in the sand" will be crossed earlier than the one of my friend. But until that border is crossed I am tolerant and after crossing I'll be intolerant. — Linda

"Personal boundaries" would be a less provocative term than "line in the sand" and is as effective. You might be extremely intolerant -- I don't know -- OR it might just be that your personal boundaries have not been crossed recently.

We can all be tolerant of non-threatening and distant people. I can be very tolerant of Ultra Orthodox Jews in Israel because they are very distant and the details of their meshuganah do not concern me. The wicked practices of minor apparatchiks in the Chinese Communist Party are even easier subjects of toleration.

Some people may have their border at gay marriage and some will have it at transgender rights. — Linda

True enough, but an interesting question is "Why there" -- wherever "there" happens to be.

Because the media coverage of certain topics is so ubiquitous, we may feel like our personal boundaries are being threatened when they are actually not.

For instance, transgendered adults comprise about 1/2 of 1% of the US population -- a little over a million people -- out of about 320 million people in the US. In the last year there have been a handful of cases where schools have been sued over toilet arrangements for transgendered students. Judging by the coverage and the uproar, one would think that the population of transgender juveniles must be in the millions. It isn't --not even close.

Some newspapers provide serious coverage of transgender people, and focus on instances where there is evidence of resistance, and intolerance. Advocacy positions might be taken within the story or in editorial commentary. School boards or employers, or religious spokespeople might be referenced as "intolerant, homophobic, insensitive, xenophobic, or hateful in quoted statements.

The deliberate or inadvertent message is that transgender people should definitely be accepted. If you don't, you are an intolerant and hateful.

In fact, you may have had neither the opportunity nor the motivation to be tolerant or intolerant of transsexuality. But if you have a reaction to the news story that places you in the column of "intolerant" you might think you had been, when you actually had not been intolerant.

When I first read the thread title, I thought maybe yet another philosophy graduate had returned to selling used cars or Amway products... Glad that's not the case here. As unenlightened said, "Welcome home."

"‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’"

Well, that's what Bob Frost said. But welcome, welcome. We're Number 1 now.

I think a person wants to enjoy what they are doing, to see their work as productive, as an integral part of their lives. — Cavacava

Indeed people do want to enjoy what they are doing, to see themselves a productive, and to find that their work is an integral part of their lives. But there is a persistent and strong undertow that prevents this happy solidarity of life and work: Alienation.

Alienation (in the Marxist sense) means that our work does not belong to us. We do not own our work place, we do not own the product or service we create, and we do not control the conditions of our work. The company (or agency) owns, controls, and disposes of our work as it sees fit. (It doesn't matter whether one is a machine operator or a service worker in a charitable non-profit.)

Some employers make an effort to lessen the alienation of their workers by softening the alienation of work, but in the final analysis (when push comes to shove) the company is in charge. Some employers identify lock, stock, and barrel with their employers and are total company men and women. This lessens alienation too, and if they aren't sacked despite being company tools, it may work out for them.

But whether one works in a "humanized" work place or is married to the company, alienation is still a fact of life. And it extends beyond the work place into many aspects of life, where we find ourselves serving corporate purposes. Certainly this happens every time we go through the line at the cash register. We buy necessities, optional purchases, and luxuries from for-profit operations which are alienated work places. The wonderful new Apple, Samsung, or WTF phone I have in my pocket and am pleased to own was made in hundreds of shithole workplaces where the conditions of alienation were not disguised. Same goes for the food I eat, the clothes I wear--pretty much everything.

Most people do not feel alienated, but alienation here isn't a "feeling". It's an economic condition that either subtly or crudely robs the worker of autonomy. One can "feel" just fine about one's job, one's life, while being robbed blind.

The synthesis of these is obligation: the worker to perform the work outlined by the employer, and the employer to enable and pay the worker for his labor. — Cavacava

Obligation?

For most of the history of capitalist society, this mutual 'obligation' has amounted to wage slavery. ("Slavery" references the imbalance between the very small power of the worker vis a vis the extensive power of employers to control hiring, firing, working conditions, wages, etc.) If a worker doesn't accept the employer-group's norms, he will be reduced to abject poverty, and an early death.

Only in industries, which are heavily unionized or face a major shortage of workers is there any brake on the power of the employer. Needless to say, employers strive to eliminate unionization and worker shortages.

Proper socialization into capitalist society involves suppressing the harsh economic realities underlying the workplace. How are these realities kept suppressed? By propaganda, largely, and the experiences of a minority of workers who happen to be in sufficiently high demand that they can afford to tell the employer to go fuck himself. Their testimony supports ideas about the power of labor to obtain better deals. Most workers can't really afford the risks of quitting. They stay at their jobs, and work away faithfully, because they don't see too much option. In any given year, most workers do not discover how flimsy the "safety net" is, or how close to the concrete it is positioned.

Self employment is an option for some people, and if you can make it work for you, great.

1.) The responsibility to work with the established group norms, institutions, and settings are foisted upon the individual, and thus, one has been forced into the situation. Though one may feel a personal obligation out of enculturated habits and personal preferences it is not anything more than an individual preference or habit of thinking.

2.) The responsibility to work with the established group norms, institutions, and settings are foisted upon the individual, and thus, even if one is forced into the situation, since the group shaped/shapes the individual, and the group, by-and-large, is also part of the reason the individual can survive and thrive, the person should feel a sense of duty to the established group. — schopenhauer1

We have extensive choices in all of this ONLY if we happen to have been born into great wealth. Otherwise, group norms and obligations apply with force. For 99% of us, there are personal preferences, but there is little choice. We are assembled, bent, shaped, molded, machined, and packaged to become more-or-less effective units of production and/or consumption (both are essential). There is a certain "looseness" in our construction which allows for preferences and choices.

If we are unlucky, we are given, find, or develop the illusion that we have many choices and are largely free of all of these obligations, and uncultured habits. Unlucky because these ideas of freedom are essentially incompatible with the facts of life, and anyone holding these illusions is going to crash into a great deal of cognitive dissonance, flak, resistance, friction, and control measures.

Agape or (among other definitions) "unconditional love" does not require reciprocation in the way that eros does. It does not seek reciprocation in a quid pro quo manner. If it is the highest love, it may also be the most difficult to perform, partly because it does not seek reciprocation, partly because it may be roundly insulted and rejected, or ignored.

One does not "fall into agape love" the way one falls into erotic love. One has to strive to experience it. Certainly it requires engagement with others; any sort of love without engagement is just so much mental masturbation. People who play at having agape without engagement with others are very disappointing.

A Christian would probably claim that agape was a grace from god. A non-believer might consider it a grace without a source. One should seek to find one's way to agape. It has a central place in spiritual discipline, and it doesn't take the place of other kinds of love -- filio, eros, or storge (to use the Greek terms) and it isn't incompatible either. One can be engaged in filio and eros without abandoning or compromising agape.

"Bad is Stronger Than Good" — darthbarracuda

is a dubious proposition. When conditioning an animal (like, when you are training your children to behave properly) it is well known that positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement. Most effective is a variable rate of positive enforcement.

How does that mesh with bad being stronger than good?

There is not very good, kind of bad, bad, very bad, horrible, and unbearable. There is OK, good, very good, splendid, wonderful, and heavenly. So, you go to bar #1 and is bad, but bar #2 is good. What sort of comparison is that when there are 12 gradations? When sex is great it's terrific, but when sex is bad it's still sort of OK. So, how are you comparing things?

You've heard of the Anna Karenina principle? The novel opens with the sentence...

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Wikipedia says... In other words: in order to be happy, a family must be successful on each and every one of a range of criteria e.g: sexual attraction, money issues, parenting, religion, in-laws. Failure on only one of these counts leads to unhappiness. Thus there are more ways for a family to be unhappy than happy.

That isn't the way I understood it. I thought Tolstoy meant that "happiness" is a singular trait. People who are happy are alike. I didn't think it made all that much difference why they were happy. Unhappiness is multivariate: each unhappy feature is unique and different. Social disgrace, a broken ankle, and losing one's wallet are all uniquely and differently unpleasant.

We seem to have guidelines that guarantee hubris will happen. Donald Trump as businessman is probably no more hubristic than any other tycoon type. As a presidential candidate he's clearly engaging in hubristic bragging, such as claiming that he is the only one who can protect people's guns, or some damn thing like that. (In fact, his ability to "protect people's guns" is rather limited.) Saying he will make Mexico pay for the wall is hubris too.

IN running for the presidency, Trump is reaching way beyond his grasp. Trump is of course not the first candidate to reach farther than his or her grasp.

What is wrong with hubris? — MonfortS26

Hubris is excessive over-reaching--not just mere pride, but really grandiose ambition. Hubris (serious over-reaching) is a moral flaw because the proud, long reach is into territory where harms to others are not evident or consequences are not visible.

In Greek drama, the hero's hubris -- vaulting ambition -- was punished by Nemesis, a divinity. You've heard "pride comes before a fall"? It was Nemesis who made sure there was a fall.

Nobody thinks we are playing God when we look for cancer treatments and new antibiotics
— Bitter Crank

Nobody? I think you'll find that a long way from the truth! — Barry Etheridge

Figuratively, nobody. Even fundamentalist evangelicals (like strict Baptists sects) readily avail themselves of medical treatment, though they are likely praying quite fervently. Christian Scientists try very hard not to use medicine, but there are only 85,000 of them world wide.

Where God-acting comes in most critically is genetic research on animals, plants, bacteria, viruses, fungi, et al (including our esteemed selves) that may reverberate far beyond the vision of the researchers involved.
— Bitter Crank

I fear that as the first recorded example of genetic engineering occurs in the Old Testament this is rather shutting the gate long after the horse has bolted. As for mono-cropping the idea that this is somehow linked to advances in genetic engineering is surely unsupportable. It's been happening for as long as there has been agriculture, it's most obvious 'disaster' being the desertification of most of Northern Africa! — Barry Etheridge

They were putting fish genes in strawberries to manage damage from frost in the OT? They were engineering Roundup resistance in corn plants in the OT? Right.

No, I don't think mono cropping of the sort I am referencing here has been going on for the last 10,000 years, give or take a few. The Mono cropping of which I speak has these features;

• Millions of acres are planted with one crop (like corn, soybeans).
• The gene lines of the seeds have been narrowed to produce seed with very specific characteristics. The plant leaves and or roots may contain genetically engineered poisons to kill insect pests.
• Along with very specific crop characteristics comes very specific disease resistance.
• If 70% of Iowa is growing 1 strain of corn, and when (not if) some disease attacks one field of the crop, the disease will sweep across the state, wiping out most of the crop--and cross state boundaries too. The same is true of other food crops like rice and wheat.

A more natural example illustrates this: Commercial banana plants are all clones. They have to be, because the bananas don't produce seeds. The bananas grown up until the 1960s went extinct as the result of a fungal disease which wiped out the plants (and still wipes them out). The Cavendish Banana which is successor world standard, is also under threat from a new fungal disease.

Bananas won't disappear -- there are many other varieties. But most varieties tend to not taste as good, ripen as predictably, ship as well, or have other features that makes them less desirable, like being more difficult to grow. (Most of them have seeds.)

The solution isn't very complicated: Plant variant strains of crops, or different crops altogether, on adjacent fields. (That farmers don't do this is largely economic, and not a result of genetic engineering.) But the narrow range of strains is still a very real threat.

Another feature of "green revolution" plant breeding is that the plants usually require substantial fertilization. That feature raises the cost of growing the crop, increases the amount of agricultural pollution, and so on.

My favorite response to this charge was made by Craig Venter (or one of his associates): "We're not playing." — Arkady

True enough, they are not. But science is driven by more than the curiosity of inquisitive scientists. It is also driven by funders who have a variety of interests, but which generally boil down to making money, it is driven by governments (which have a variety of interests), by citizens' concerns which run in various directions, advocacy groups, and so on. And I don't think that most of the research is bad. Nobody thinks we are playing God when we look for cancer treatments and new antibiotics, or study the structure of the brain. (Not that none of it has unintended consequences.)

Where God-acting comes in most critically is genetic research on animals, plants, bacteria, viruses, fungi, et al (including our esteemed selves) that may reverberate far beyond the vision of the researchers involved. There is no reason to grant a level of trust to geneticists or other specialists that we don't grant to anyone else.

GMO crops designed to kill some pest directly, or indirectly by tolerating herbicides/pesticides, may not be any threat at all to whichever animal (including us) that consumes the GMO produce. But GMO crops may result (have, actually, resulted) in changes in production that affect food production ecology adversely. Mono cropping and very, very large fields has eliminated a great deal of bee foraging food (blossoming plants) which adversely affects bees. A reduced population of bees (not only the familiar honey bee, but various wild pollinators) has a negative consequence for insect-pollinated crops. No pollinators, no apples, plums, pears, berries, cherries, oranges, grapefruit, peaches, melons, squash, and so on -- a good share of our diet.

There are other consequences of mono cropping, like a world-wide vulnerability to some disease agent that might drop corn or bean yields through the floor. Like water pollution from intensive fertilization, and so on and on.

Two greek words: hubris and nemesis. Hubris, the excessive pride, Nemesis, the punishment.

Trump: bump, clump, crump, dump, frump, grump, hump, jump, lump, pump, rump, thump, slump, sump, ump.

Emotion may temper our perceptions. Person A, who feels very angry, aggressive, hostile... -- which some people do a good share of the time -- is going to see ordinary events quite differently than Person B, who is characteristically calm, relaxed, and friendly. "A" will see more threat in otherwise neutral situations because emotions are going to color the interpretation of visual/auditory information. "B", viewing the same neutral events, will likely see nothing about them that would suggest alarm.

In a real sense, "believing is seeing" because we want to be internally consistent. If we believe that pit bulls are intrinsically dangerous dogs, we will see whatever a pit bull does as threatening. If we believe that golden retrievers are inherently sociable, we are likely to view every gold retriever as anxious to be friends. "Some golden retrievers do bite people, and some pit bulls make good pets." This statement is, I believe, objectively true BUT it leaves a lot of room for ambiguity about retrievers and pit bulls. Most of prefer less ambiguity and more certainty.

Emotions and beliefs are heavy hitters in the mind games that go on in our brains. It is sometimes not possible to tell whether we are being objective or not BECAUSE our perceptions and thinking can be colored so easily.

Reason helps a great deal but it usually doesn't get the last word. [Which, by the way, doesn't mean that we are all stark raving mad. It's just that we aren't quite as 'rational' as we would like to think... rationally.

And whose fault is that?

the National Parks, who would rather see illegal aliens dying than the rapid decline of bears. — John

Sound ecology. Actually, if the bears would eat more illegal aliens, the bears would flourish. And, BTW, bear-eaten-illegal-aliens would not be available to be counted, so less office work. Win, win, win.

All eight terms are collectivities (like, all the understandings of physics, all the incidences of bear attacks, all the aliens occupying high office in human governments, and the like).

I have always thought that the idea of never dying was horrible. I'm 70; and am planning on living another 15 years (based on parental longevity and current state of health) but were I to find out that I was going to be dead in 6 months, that would be mostly an inconvenience, not a tragedy. It would be inconvenient because I would have to wrap up all the details quickly, and I hate detail work.

I'm not in any hurry to die, but by 70 the juiciest part of life is pretty much over. On the other hand, I finally have some intellectual depth (IMHO) and a perspective that took a long time to achieve. My brain feels like it is working better now than it has in a long time, for some odd reason -- possibly an early sign of on-coming dementia.

People who only live to be 100 have outlived most of the people that were ever important to them -- friends, lovers, spouses, siblings, parents, children, even grandchildren. If one lived forever in perfect, vigorous health and sound mind, one would never be young again, and putting up with people who are more and more unlike yourself might be quite difficult. One would live to see all the horrors of our species decline, and certainly lots of other species' demises. At the end of our species, the person living forever would be alone.

Utopia.

There have been some utopian efforts that worked out pretty well, at least for a while --10, 20, 100, even 200 years. 1600 years if you count monasteries. However, the vast majority of utopian experiments are neither nasty nor brutish, but they are very short.

The utopian socialist community at New Lanark in Scotland, SE of Glasgow, was established by Robert Owens, the 'founder' of utopian socialism. New Lenark lasted from 1788 to 1968. It was a better place to live than most towns dominated by the industrial revolution, but a communist utopia (self liberated and self governing it was not. (New Lanark is now a World Heritage Site.)

Shaker communities were religiously inspired utopian communities and there were a number of them that existed for 100-200 years in the United States. Shakers were inventive, as well as communitarian (but celibate) and among their inventions are The flat broom, the circular saw blade, the spring clothespin, a rocking chair, buttons, and the paper seed envelope. Their design innovations in construction of domestic spaces are numerous and very significant (think cabinets built into walls).

Benedictine communities, religiously inspired, have existed since the 7th century. Benedictines are a voluntary community, sort of communitarian, but very much governed by rules of the Church. If I remember correctly, Benedictines elect their abbots (CEOs). Monasteries are, for the most part, spiritual enterprises, are utopian in a sense, but Benedictines have long been involved in the world, operating universities, for instance.

What these institutions reveal is that is possible for a select group of volunteers to come together and fulfill ideals in long-enduring communities. New Lanark, and other utopian socialist communities, self-sustained their populations by the usual biological method. The religious utopian communities are usually celibate, so need to operate outreach efforts to continue--sort of like The Philosophy Forum -- it isn't expected that your children will replace you as a poster when you finally(!) drop dead.

I understand. I have been in a totally, unreasonably, wonderful mood for maybe 5 years, but for a couple of decades I was pretty much in one long foul, judgmental, murderous, population cleansing bad mood. The kind where earthquakes, hurricanes, and mere tornadoes wouldn't get rid of a satisfactorily large number of people -- thermonuclear options were needed.

We're all better now. All cases closed. All death sentences commuted. All imaginary executions reversed. All the dungeons in my mind emptied (I converted them to luxury condos). I took my place on the great Mandala as it moves through my brief moment of time.

Does anyone here think that its possible for humanity to reach a point where there is a unified view of what is best for us? — MonfortS26

Oh, I think that it's quite possible, but lets all just hope that it never happens. — Wosret

I doubt that it is possible, but I also hope that it never happens. The "perfect society" must, of necessity, be a dead end, and a likely rigid, oppressive one. There can be no further change in a perfect society, no individuality, no novelty, no innovation. It would be a static hell, all watched over by machines of loving grace.

Still, it might be very fruitful to think and read about utopia, as long as we don't make "perfection" the enemy of "the best we can do at the time".

Thanks for these.

Tolkien's Middle Earth was a thoroughly sacralized place until the end of the Third Age, with the final defeat of a particular Evil, and then magic and the sacred departed, not to return again, in the Fourth Age of Man's kingship. (Tolkien managed to stuff quite a bit into his non-existent world.)

While 'the world' has been desacralized, there are recurrent, scattered, and on-going efforts to smuggle the sacred back in, to re-sacralize 'the world'. (But the world is what the world is, whether it is sacralized, secularized, or sodomized.) In some future century we may find that the world is sacred again, that gods are again worshipped on high places, inhabit mountains, oozing landfills, collapsed glowing nuclear reactors, et al.

Come what may, I don't think we will succeed in re-establishing the sacred. There are too many forces arrayed against such an outcome, and it isn't just the obvious secular devils of science, bureaucracy, technology, commerce, and so on. The dominant religion on earth (the Abrahamic trinity from Judaism to Christianity and Islam) are theologically complicit.

The local gods are all pretty much gone, and were defeated long before anybody started worrying about secularization. The Celtic religion, for instance, was suppressed many centuries ago by Christian teaching, and the same thing happened elsewhere under Christian and Islamic teaching.

Many do, and we all ought to have mixed feelings about this process. Secularization and desacralization have allowed us to pillage the only shelter we have in the cosmos (10,000 science fiction novels to the contrary). I wouldn't reverse secularization even if I could, but there is no doubt it is a mixed blessing--and it is, in part, a blesséd thing.

Perhaps secularization contains some seeds for its own destruction, or at least its minimization. I tried venturing a guess as to how that might be, but everything I thought of sounded too corny or flimsy.

How do "innate ideas" get into the brain? Genes? Genes organize the brain and with that organization we can learn language. Likewise certain rules about the world, like when you drop things they fall to the floor -- they don't rise to the ceiling, Babies seems to manifest possession of some of those rules -- let go of a regular balloon, it falls to the floor, baby is amused or curious. Let go of a helium filled balloon, it rises to the ceiling, and the baby is shocked! "What the fuck!" the baby says.

If we have innate ideas, presumably we would all have them, why don't they just manifest themselves in adulthood? I seem to have to work for whatever ideas I have, they don't just pop up, Ideas occur to the prepared mind.

John Tuzo Wilson, a geologist, proposed that the Hawaiian Islands were the result of the floor of the Pacific Ocean sliding over a volcanic hot spot (as were other island chains in the Pacific). The idea didn't occur to him out of the blue, like some innate idea suddenly floating to the surface. He and other geologists were trying to explain how earthquakes could slide blocks of landscape hundreds of miles--the way the San Andreas Fault (and other faults) have in California. At the time (in the 1940s) it was still believed that earthquakes only moved land up and down and what powered earthquakes was still a mystery. His theory was initially rejected, then denounced. In the late 1950s the research coming out of the International Geophysical Year (18 months, to be precise) revealed that the ocean floors were expanding, and that the floor moved away from the central rifts out of which new floor was produced.

In short order, this led to the theory of continental drift (first, in the 1960s) and then plate tectonics in the 1970s. Was plate tectonics an innate idea? No, it was not. It was hard won theory based on a tremendous amount of field work and mapping over decades which eventually provided enough information to make sense of what was in plain site.

Maybe some "innate kernels of ideas" are present -- like simple fairness, or simple physics -- things fall down, they don't fall up.

Forget about the hidden realm beyond time and thought. What is sacred, if anything is sacred (and I hope something can still be sacred) it is in this world, our time, and our thought.

My guess is that Benjamin Dovano thought he was merely emphasizing the specialness of the sacred by putting it beyond time and thought. In so doing, he made it so special it's the same thing as non-existent.

The sacred doesn't even have to be that special. The slightly secluded thicket where you first made love might be sacred to you but entirely ordinary otherwise,