If divine forces don't exist, then trying to make them happy is obviously just stupid. — David

I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that God doesn't exist. No god, no gods. But... humans created god(s) in their own image. It would be stupid to believe in god IF there were no collateral benefits. As it happens, there are some advantages.

Common beliefs tie communities together. If instructions for good behavior are woven into those common beliefs, so much the better. Worship of the divine being(s) involves rituals which give rich meanings to individuals and communities. People also derive meaning and satisfactions from conforming to the ideas of proper behavior towards one another, one's self, and to the created godhead. All that is to the good.

Humans invested their god(s) and the associated religions with some of their negative human traits, like vindictiveness, jealousy, cruelty, and so forth -- the list of negative human traits is familiar to us all. With or without religion, humans can be appalling bastards.

I have problems with the Christian concept of god. God the all powerful, all knowing, all present... becomes a being that exceeds our capacity. The god who is infinitely present in all places and at all times, knows all, sees all, and is capable of intervening at any time is simply beyond our time/space-bound capacity to imagine. We can formulate such a god, but we can not know such a god.

My reading of the Bible, including the Gospels, tells me that I should be good to others for their sake, and not because there will be any eternal reward. We live and know only this world, and no other. Our reward for being good in this world is a better world. Our punishment for being bad in this world is a worse one.

If we can't know god, prove anything about god, or be certain of his existence, we can't finally disprove his existence either. There will be no final proof. Atheists can be confident in their disbelief, believers can be confident in their faith, and agnostics can be sure that their dithering will never stop. And whatever our beliefs or non-beliefs, we can behave well or badly as it suits us, and accept the consequences.

we've had thirty years of anti-depressants for instance based on quite a weak correlatio — mcdoodle

It's worse than weak correlation. Assuming a lab has a unique chemical, and not just a chemical different enough from other antidepressants to count as new, tests begin. First, chemical analysis. Then tests on animals to determine safety. Eventually we get around to human safety trials -- can the drug be swallowed safely, whether it works or not. Finally, the trials to see whether it works--does it reduce the symptoms of depression?

The number of subjects in the trial is often much smaller than you would think necessary: a few dozen, a couple hundred. Small numbers.

Maybe there will be another small trial or two, and the drug will receive FDA approval. Next, the advertising: "Ask your doctor for La-La-Zone™ for those free-floating feelings of hostility, barely controlled rage, and existential despair." A million people take it over the next two years, and eventually all the reports of adverse outcomes have trickled in, and it is found that LaLaZone™ can result in terroristic ideation in 1% of the cases, especially among people likely to vote for far-right wing candidates, in whatever country they happen to reside. Those are the people, of course, closest to acting on their free-floating hostilities, murderous rages, and existential agonies. Now we get a black box warning for the drug: Be careful of who you prescribe it too.

The drug is quite profitable, so marketing continues, black box warning and all, and lots of people keep taking the drug. Some are helped, some end up being shot during the expression of free-floating murderous rage, and some just stop taking the drug and the world keeps on spinning.

LaLaZone is a bit of an exaggeration, but not a wild exaggeration. Trial cohorts are small, and the people who buy the drug are the real lab rats. The neurochemistry of mood and modification isn't all that well understood, and Koch's Postulates don't work for mental distress. There's usually no "specific agent", no lesion, no intervention that can be precisely tracked.

"Science" has gotten much, much bigger than it used to be. First, more phenomena are being subjected to granular examination that previously. Second, the vaguely defined enterprise of "science" has gotten much bigger than previously (say, 50 years ago). Third, "scientific" as a positive adjective has been appropriated by many fields where it may, or may not be appropriate.

All this adds up to a lot more people engaged in real science on one end of the spectrum and outright fraud and deception at the other end. In between are sciency, researchy, and laboratoryish activities. It's not all that hard to put together a researchy, sciency report claiming that dogs don't like to be hugged. Get some stray dogs, wire them up, and sequentially squeeze them (which, from a dog's POV might look more like the preliminaries of some ghastly procedure) and presto, results. "Dogs don't like to be hugged."

Something that I didn't see mentioned in the three articles (full disclosure: I gave them a cursory read) was that a lot of publicly funded research doesn't get published at all. Researchers are loathe to report research that reveals no progress, or negative results. You treat 1000 patients with XYZ1234 drug and nothing happens. Why report it? Well, "no results" is a result. If all research that was publicly paid for had to be published (a lot of it isn't) we might find that we either paying for more bad science than we thought, some research grantors respond more to hype than to heft, or that there are more blind alleys than we thought. But we can't know any of this if researchers don't publish results.

it should be obvious to a scientist that its entirely irrelevant whether scientists believe there to be a crisis or not. — Hanover

Good point.

To understand Trump supporters it is only necessary to consider what it is to be envious, jealous and xenophobic. — Ciceronianus the White

No, that's too simple.

Xenophobia, racism, sexism, elitism, homophobia, and like terms may describe features of some people's thinking, emotional reactions, and behavior, but they have been emptied of most of their descriptive utility by intense over-use. The terms have become the means for dismissing the dissatisfactions of those who do not match the biases of the term-dispensing person.

To envious and jealous one might also add frightened, angry, disillusioned, disappointed, confused, misinformed, and so forth--which they, we, individually, might or might not be.

Trump's, Sanders', and Clinton's supporters, and all those who feel they have no real stake in the parties or the election are all, really, at the same difficult point: We all have got to come up with some good answers to what seem like insoluble problems, and soon: How are we going to actually redistribute concentrated wealth? Or even, should we? How are we going to reduce CO2 emissions a lot and soon without crashing the economies we all depend on? Or are we? How are we going to reduce individual and large scale violence in a world as well armed (pistols to ICBMs, bullets to hydrogen bombs) as this one is? Or, will we? Is there going to be anything left over for us, for me?

We've all been jacked around by the media, the politicians, the business interests, labor interests, an infinity of well-organized and narrow special interests, and so on. It's damned hard to know who to trust.

Labor is weakened, but it's not dead yet. — Saphsin

Man, how far from dead do you think it is? It hasn't shown much life, lately. (Granted, there have been a few twitches, suggesting that the soul and body have not yet parted.)

Excellent post.

I'm about to start reading "White Trash: The 400 year untold history of class in America. Nancy Isenberg. I don't know if it will be good; one reviewer said yes, one reviewer said no. It's not about early trailer parks; it's about how working class whites have been managed since Europeans started settling North America. It's apparently not a pretty picture, leading one to think not only America isn't great right now, for a lot more people than we thought, it was never great. A lot of the ancestors of todays Trump supporters were, of course, the kind of riff raff they'd probably rather not associate with. Mayflower type ancestors are one thing, indentured scullery wenches and wood choppers are something else.

to the extent that capital still needs labour at all — unenlightened

This is a perplexing problem from a couple of angles.

Clearly, massed labor is not needed in many places, though it is needed in some. Per-unit cost is much lower in regions where still-necessary labor is relatively inexpensive (Asia). Efficient transportation (big container ships) tie production and consumption together. Manufacture in the US still exists, but it tends to be in high-end areas like tool and die cutting, design, and the like. We also still mine, and farm--but with automation. Administration (bureaucratic functions) is abundant.

The US is a big economy, so is Japan, Europe, China, India (growing), and the rest. Increasingly, economies produce goods (and services more often) through computerized, automated, mechanized methods. A lot of people around the world are economically superfluous.

My dated understanding of economic functioning is that the foundation of an economy is production and consumption. If very large portions of the population are not involved in production, they cannot consume very much. "We haven't any money so there is nothing we can buy." (Candide the musical)

Where are we headed? It seems like we are already in a world of extravagantly wealthy and privileged world elites sitting on top of an extinct (or merely 'inactive') volcano of surplus people who have no function or power.

No, Trump supporters should not be ridiculed; neither should Clinton nor Sanders supporters. The objects of support, Trump, Clinton, Sanders, and every other politician, richly deserve ridicule, confrontation, and severe criticism for their campaigns of convenient silences, lies and misinformation.

The overarching cause of the economic malaise from which at least 75%*** of The People are suffering, now going on some 40 years, is the upward redistribution of economic resources. Workers are keeping less and less of the wealth they create, the top 5% is gaining more and more for themselves. Greedy behavior is to be expected and at various times Congress has restricted it's blatant operation somewhat. During those times, and when the economy was expanding, most people felt like they were getting a somewhat fairer share of reward for their labor.

When greed gets a green light (in the form of favorable tax law and loose financial supervision) and when the economy isn't expanding very much or is contracting, the average person loses even more of what little they have.

NAFTA and existing or proposed trade pacts do not exist for the benefit of most people. They are structured to benefit the wealth-owning classes. Indeed, a lot of the laws on the books are there to benefit the wealthy.

The average Joe may not have economic theory in his back pocket, but his personal experiences (personal event horizons or not) are real. Most people are not negatively affected by free movement of labor. Their jobs are not threatened. Those who fill jobs at the bottom of the job market, though, are immediately and negatively affected.

What affects more people above the lower layers of labor are automation, robotics, off-shoring production to areas of very cheap labor, and unfavorable restructuring of jobs. In the US, white and black guys who used to do roofing for a living were displaced by illegal immigrants who undercut the going wage. Automation displaces the factory worker. Outsourcing displaces the customer service worker or production line worker. Computerization eliminates white collar jobs. Selective hiring of skilled immigrants can reduce professional opportunities for citizens.

Those who have reasonably decent incomes can buy more stuff for less. Those who can't buy food don't benefit from ever cheaper cars, TVs, washing machines, or phones.

So no. Don't ridicule the people who are earnestly searching for someone who will represent their real interests. Is Trump the One? Oh, maybe for some he will deliver a little. Clinton? She'll deliver a little here and there. The Republic and Democratic Party? Don't hope for much; they sleep in one single bed. They're busy fucking... you.

***If 25% in the US are doing OK, that's 80 million. 240 million are not doing so well.

My guess is that migration has had mixed consequences for Britain (and many other countries). Some of the consequences are beneficial, some are not. I don't see any reason why migration should be an all-or-nothing proposition. But to choose how to manage immigration means choosing how to manage the economy, and for whose benefit. In many cases, working people see that immigration (and the economy) are being managed for the benefit of the elite, at the cost of the working class.

There are areas in the US where there are not enough workers--at any price. Depopulated agricultural areas don't supply enough labor to run local agri-industrial operations like grain and alfalfa drying, for example, or meatpacking. Migration -- legal and otherwise -- solves the problem. (Besides, American workers don't want to work at wages which are attractive only by Mexican pay standards. Nor should they.)

On the other hand, immigrants can be used to bust unions and drop the prevailing wage and working conditions. At the low wages they make, migrants can't afford to live well at all, so they double, triple, and quadruple up in houses, creating a mini-tenement slum, which has a negative impact on neighborhoods. From the immigrant POV, they are still coming out ahead -- compared to where they are from.

I read statements to the effect that "American [or British] workers don't want to work on dairy farms, don't want to work in factories, don't want to work in meat packing, don't want to work in stores, don't want to do landscaping, etc. No, they don't want to work in these places at very SUB-standard wages, and they shouldn't. Neither should the immigrants.

Excellent post on leadership, Moliere.

One of the virtues of good leadership is knowing when to leave, and how. Any given leader is able to accomplish certain goals. They are able to bring their constituency along and help them to be successful. Then, they can help their constituency manage what they have achieved, find new goals, or become a royal pain in the ass.

It's difficult for both the leader and the constituency to spot the critical moment of timely leave-taking.

One boss I had did a great job starting an AIDS project back in the early 1980s. In 5 years he had found funding, hired very good staff, and formed an effective service/education organization. Had he left at that point, he would have been covered in laurel. Instead, he became a nuisance and annoyed the hell out of everybody. Eventually he was forced out amidst much sturm and drang. A couple of other people I have worked for achieved and left on time, after achieving what could be achieved. They were missed, of course, but they had done what could be done.

"Leadership" is damned hard to define, though.

The vacant isolated island became beautiful, sublime, awesome, and sacred -- in your mind as the mariner. Beauty, sublimity, awe, and sanctity are, as you observed, applied to the island. They aren't properties of the Island, its trees, its beach, or anything else. In reality, the fishermen lost their boat altogether, and everything with it. They were washed up on shore, marooned, naked, on the splendid place.

Being strong men, and true, they got themselves together fairly quickly and set off in search of the means for immediate survival. They found that oddly there were no fruit trees on the beautiful island, Just very tough, hard-wooded trees. One would need sharp tools to work the wood (theirs were now on the bottom of the ocean). Worse, they found there were no clams, muscles, crabs, or anything other than annoying insects living along the white sanded shore. And there were very few birds, no mammals, and little vegetation under the trees.

They quickly realized that far from being a beautiful, sublime, awesome, and sacred place, the island was a death trap. They were going to starve there.

Many of us grew up in places that were once beautiful in one way and are now beautiful in a different way. For instance, my hometown was once in a hardwood forest which occupied much of the land. I'm sure it was beautiful in the various seasons 200 years ago. It wasn't exactly pristine--the aboriginal people had been living across that region for at least 5,000 years. Much of the old forest is now gone, and what has replaced it are grassy river flats, pastures, fields, roads, and small villages. It is not always and everywhere beautiful, but it often is. It has been cultivated now for around 160 years.

People often grow fond of wherever they are. There are people who actually want to live around the Gowanus Canal in New York City. The Gowanus was long an industrial ditch, used to move freight short distances. It also served as a drain for all sorts of chemical companies. It's been disgusting for a long time; an industrial sewer. Now it's hot property. It is scheduled to be cleaned up, but time will tell whether this superfund site will actually ever get cleaned up or be clean. None the less, the land around it has become valuable. Developers are painting the filthy cloaca as "water front". Only in the drawings of their high rises are the rusting oil tanks and rotting warehouses gone. Readers of the brochure can not smell the cesspool.

(I've never seen there; I only know about it from the New York Times.)

You might lose the blues in Chicago, or about as likely, get shot while they are robbing you of your bottom dollar.

I readily grant that Romanians in England are hoping for a better life. So are the Poles and Pakistanis, Indians, and Bangladeshis, et al. However...

The principle that populations on the move must be allowed to migrate to wherever they wish, and no population already in place may object is problematic. The ethnically, economically, culturally, and racially mixed US has practiced this principle for 240 years, and it has had mixed success.

We were not only able to easily absorb many millions of migrants, the elite needed migrants to come to populate a continent targeted for manifest destiny. The railroad barons had trains to fill and lands to settle. Manufacturing and agriculture needed really cheap labor (a half-notch above slave labor) in areas where black slavery wasn't culturally preferred. The formerly slave populations became a generally unwanted group.

Many groups were, and/or are now, unwelcome. The Irish, Jews, Italians, Norwegians, Chinese, Greeks, Mexicans, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Japanese, Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Swedes, Estonians, Ukrainians, Indians, Finns, Cubans, Dominicans, Negroes, etc. were all at various times unwelcome as new community members. It took some European migrants generations to become accepted. Poles didn't get the Welcome Wagon treatment in Chicago. Jews gave Norwegians the creeps in Minneapolis. The American Japanese on the west coast got prison camps in WWII.

The elite was reasonably happy to receive the black Great Migration from the south to the north in the 30s and 40s to fill up the low end of the labor pool, but: stay in your ghetto, or else. When the blacks attempted to move out of their ghettos into nicer white neighborhoods, the boundaries of the ghetto moved with them and the whites left.

SO: Why should Europeans be any different? In the US settled populations (who were once newly arrived riff raff and Euro white trash) now want to hold on to whatever security and stability they have in suburban and exurban rings around core cities. The elites, who determine policy, pass laws, and direct enforcement, live well beyond the reach of the best of the white petite bourgeoisie, let alone the riff raff trash. I imagine that applies to Great Britain and Europe, as well.

What is at stake for the losers in population mobility is reduced autonomy. They come to realize that if they are not useful to the elite, for what ever reason, they can and will be at least diluted, if not replaced.

The latest would-be arrivistes are doing what the earlier would-be arrivistes did--try to climb and mostly not make it to the top of the tree. To the elite, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp" is a sentiment which keeps the riff raff working hard, and divided.

In Foreign Policy: It's Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses — jamalrob

Must one assume that The Elites are of one mind and so are the "Ignorant Masses"? That it's either the elite's way or the highway? Is the choice between the corporate and institutional elite and fascism? James Straub, author of the linked article, seems to think so.

There are, of course, some people who have xenophobic, neophobic, racist, sexist, nativist, reactionary, know-nothing, climate change denying, fascist, creationist, and various other unwholesome opinions. The elites are not entirely free of such views. On the other hand, there are people who are disenfranchised, marginalized, and impoverished who just don't share the same interests of the affluent, successful, and dominant elite classes.

When marginalized citizens object to a rapid influx of people whose arrival seems to be the result of an elite's policy, they are dismissed as xenophobic. If they don't celebrate every new swirl of distant populations into their communities, often the result of some elite policy, they are racist or nativist. After they are forced to accept a reduced standard of income, fewer resources and services, diminished quality of life, poor education options, less health care, and so on (conditions they definitely didn't vote for) they are deemed economically irrelevant by the elite.

Sometimes elite policy blows up in the faces of elites, but generally the elites are able to arrange the circumstances of their lives. If they want to experience diversity, they can go to an ethnic neighborhood festival for the afternoon, or tour the inter-ethnic cocktail party circuit. If they are interested in other cultures, they can travel and study them in their homelands. If they don't happen to like where they are living, their employment, their house, their car, their school... they can move - leave; do their own little Brexit, or Deutschexit, Francexit, Indiexiit, Chinexit, or USexit.

Most of us are stuck, having to put up with whatever the global elite sends down the pike.

Which we, non-gullible intellectual types who are in the know, none-the-less buy.

I understand how it works, I know better, but sometimes I want it, and am willing to part with a piece of gold to get it. And sometimes, even, am happy with it now that I have got it.

Here's a charming article by some hopeful psychologists who think we may be able to counter misinformation... — mcdoodle

There is a great deal of intentional misinformation, unintentional misinformation, and fairly serious misunderstanding for many topics.

Take nutritional supplements:

Contrary to the assertion of a 'science writer' in a respectable newspaper, we do know all, or at least, most of the nutrients required for normal health. (She maintained we don't.) What we don't know is whether extra amounts of any given nutrient (like C, A, Zinc...) are beneficial or harmful. There are tons of anecdotal information available, pro and con--mostly pro-supplement, and lots of research--mostly inconclusive in the final analysis.

Still, doctors, dietitians, public health professionals, pharmacists, and so on pass on information about nutrition which they do not know to be true, and/or which they may know to be unsettled. A large study showed that taking large doses of Vitamin A increased the incidence of lung cancer. Not good. Other studies had showed benefit. WTF?

At least many health people are relatively honest. People who sell a wide range of nutritional supplements really can't be honest, unless they answered "I don't know" or "No one knows" to most questions about the stuff they sell. Obviously, "Who the hell knows?" is not a response which will drive sales. What it will do is drive customers out of the store.

""Nutritional" supplement" sales are generally healthy. It's a business that rests on outright lies, unintended misinformation, and wishful thinking.

Well, the point I am trying to make is that there are liars for sure, but there are also very gullible buyers who believe outlandish claims on the basis of rhetoric rather than evidence.

But they are usually exposed as lacking integrity, credibility, reliability, decency, honesty, probity, sincerity, honorableness and scruples.

True enough: you could get up before a court and lie, misdirect, mislead, omit, and so on. You can do this in front of a Rotary Club, a government committee, your boss, your mother, your lover, your children, your cleaning lady and get away with it as long as no attention is paid to what you said. But, as soon as your audience starts thinking about what you said today, yesterday, last week, last year... your lies will be found out. Inconsistencies, improbabilities, contradictions, suspiciously convenient coincidences, and so on will be revealed. Worst of all, your partners in deceit are likely to turn you in for their own reasons.

Why not turn you in? People who lack integrity, credibility, reliability, decency, honesty, sincerity, honorableness and scruples are unlikely to think they owe you anything. Look what happened to President Richard M. Nixon: He had some good points in his favor, but he was also running some very sleazy operations, and there was a slip up. After the slip up there was the cover-up, and round and round it twirled until the whole story unfurled, in excruciating detail, and Tricky Dick had to resign in disgrace.

Nonsense!

There are several reasons to speak honestly or not: Speak to amuse, speak to inform, speak to persuade, speak to spur to action...

Speaking to amuse requires careful structure, but it doesn't require honest information, as long as everyone understands that a joke is in progress.
Speaking to inform absolutely requires honest information, as true as you can get it; otherwise, you are arguing to misinform, to mislead. That is done, of course -- rather regularly.
One can speak to persuade and spur to action, but IF false argument results in action (like voting to exit the EU) THEN the ill consequences can be laid on the doorstep of the speakers who used falsehoods.

Success in speaking depends on the structure of the arguments being effective and the information being true.

If one can "win" by using falsehoods, then how do you hope to maintain a civil society?

Lies and misinformation are part of any lively democratic campaign. — mcdoodle

Lies and misinformation end up in democratic campaigns, for sure, but I would hope that they aren't expected to be part of any lively debate! I don't know how any serious debate can take place if lies and misinformation are assumed. Can't anybody argue using honest information???

I forget by how much, but the £350 million a week being sent to the EU was a rather large exaggeration -- and didn't, for instance, account for the x£ million being sent to the UK.

In the US, same thing: Dollars flow back and forth between the states and the federal government -- in as taxes, back out as programs, and some states donate more than they get back -- because their economies are doing well.

Maybe the converse applies to Obama: that he isn't dirty enough to achieve what was hoped of him. — mcdoodle

LBJ was in Congress for a long time before he became president. He was in Congress from 1937 to 1961, and he was Senate Majority Whip. He had been there long enough to have favors that he could call in (which he did to get Medicare and the civil rights bills passed). Like as not, he also knew the dirt on everybody -- something sometimes as useful to dangle in front of a recalcitrant Rep or Senator, as favors owed. He also had a lot of inside expertise about how the House and Senate operated--something Obama doesn't have.

"Good and decent man" does have something of the diminutive about it, because "real men" know how to get things done one way or another, some not so good or decent.

Good and decent men can, of course, be leaders, and can know how to get things done. They can not, generally, walk on water; cast evil spirits out of the body politic; or calm storms on their say-so. They can't hold back the tides (or raise them either) and the Brexit vote seems to have had some tidal force behind it. It's sort of like the knee-jerk blame that Obama gets whenever things go haywire.

On the other hand, the chattering classes have been dithering a lot about a dreadful populism this summer. Apparently The People are getting out of line again, not behaving the way they are supposed to. I always thought progressive populism, at least, was a good thing and the pro-Brexit people are not Fascists, after all. I think they are wrong, on balance, even if they have legitimate complaints.

Drawing the plumbing diagram of how taste, aesthetics, or "class", or opinion, or some paradigm gets promulgated, by whom, and how it is altered--all that--would be ridiculously complicated. It's like trying to diagram the flow of energy in a forest, accounting for everything from the energy transformations of bacteria, fluid flows, activity of plants, insects, animals, the sun, wind, etc. It all gets out of hand pretty quickly.

Take the font of the New Yorker or the New York Times. People who specialize in typography think that fonts are critical. They probably are. "The New York Times" rendered in Bradley Hand would be just stupid. See?



And the New York Times's font is just one small piece of the ecology of taste making. The New Yorkers's columns, covers, font, glossy paper, cartoons, advertising format, the weight of the magazine -- all that plus the actual content -- go into it. (I haven't explained anything -- I just listed a few elements in the ecology.)

Speaking of beer: You chose to get pale ale. I grew up in the midwest; there never used to be ale around here. It was beer, beer, beer. I encountered it in the late 1960s in Boston -- Ballantine Ale, I think it was. There was no ale around here in the 1970s, either -- as far as I can remember. It appeared in the 1980s and 90s. Now you can't walk into a liquor store without tripping over stacks of all kinds of ale.

Something -- someone -- some force altered the ecology of brewing and consumption. Christ; the Lutheran church across the street has a brewing club (it's a drinking church) -- they make ale and darker beers. Lighter, darker, stronger, weaker, hoppier, etc. Here's an e-mail message from yesterday:

Boy it has been a crazy whirlwind of a summer for all of us. Our Schwarzbier is now in the keg finishing up fermentation and will be final kegged/pressurized in a week or two.

This Sunday 6/26/16, Marcus and I will be brewing a small extract kit so that we have something for people who may not prefer a dark beer at Pastor Voight's going away party. Speaking of, that will be our next big event! We'll be serving the two brews at the going-away party in August...

Paul Fussell wrote an amusing book, Class (1992). Among other things, he notes that the higher one's class, the darker one's wooden floors. The Newly Arrived want floors that look new, fresh. So the house is full of shiny bright maple floors. Up the class scale, closer to the top, dark floors are preferred. They might have been shiny bright maple floors once upon a time, maybe back in great grandmother's day, but now they are dark. Old dirt darkens the floors, gives it a patina. New Persian rugs are out of order on these old dark floors: one wants an old Persian rug, a bit worse for wear, but still very Persian. One doesn't want any mid-century modern furniture or Danish Design in most of the upper class rooms, either. Old furniture, leather; comfortable, broken in. Dark.

Then there is us working class who cover the ugly sub flooring with foam rubber and monotone plastic fiber carpet. Stain resistant, easily cleaned, holds up pretty well --20 years, maybe longer. 360 shades of beige. (Or bright shag, god forbid, for total white trash.)

Like I said, aesthetics are as complicated as natural ecology.

Oh, sure. I get what you're talking about. Dramatic advertising is never too much to sell a counterfeit ideology. Be heavy on the image; the lighting, cool effects, and background environments are just as important as the product itself. It enhances the product greatly. The viewer’s eye must not be allowed to rest. Pack as much content as you can into the aesthetic.

More is more. Technology does not fix everything, but high end technology does. Reality should not hold back your need to project an image. Practical aesthetics alters reality to suit your vision, this practical aesthetic is powered by MeituPic's Smog Auto-correct, which has been freshly released for consumption. Let smog removal give you back your blue sky.

Reality is not efficient enough, but your smart APPs are.

So, what brand of beer did you buy at what brand of convenience store? 3.2 Beer? Really! It's not worth the calories, but there is still the brand on the can. At least that is 200 proof.

It is helpful to not think of these topics as new. They are old, but the jazzy jargon is different now that it was 15 minutes ago, or 50, 500, 2000, 5,000 years ago. Each of us is a POV, never too sure whether anybody else shares our keyhole view. The only way we can be slightly reassured that we are not alone is opening our membranes and flowing into each other (symbolically, one hopes -- certainly more tasteful than used neurotransmitter fluids oozing out all over the place).

Culture, hierarchy, symbols, language, storytelling around the fire, painting in deep caves: these are the membranes we open and reach through, hoping to test what might be reality.

Good article about this. — csalisbury

This was a very lucid piece.

A quip I saw on a Tumblr porn blog: You could smack a random Brit in the face, with a 52% chance of them deserving it.

I expect Scotland will call another vote on disunion and will pass it.

The entropic heat death will also erase 99.999999% of the evidence that we ever existed. Somewhere a few contraptions launched from earth might still exist, and our last electromagnetic signals will continue radiating out into the universe, until they too cease.

Such ends have likely and will have occurred to other civilizations -- obliterated beyond recall or detection.

But eventually Earth will be destroyed as the Sun loses hydrogen and helium to fuse and begins to expand and contract in a fluctuating process before it slowly simmers out. If humans haven't moved on from Earth, all of our progress will have been destroyed. The "bubble" will have been popped. — darthbarracuda

It won't be necessary to wait that long. By any stretch of the imagination, the 'bubble' will have burst long before then.

For instance, in another million years of evolution, we are likely to have changed considerably--whether for better or worse can't be known. In 10,000 years we might well be extinct. If we play our cards right, we could be extinct in 100 years. Hell, we could be out of here by this weekend if we fired off every A & H bomb we all have in reserve.

Technology will continue to "progress" that is, change become more effective, more efficient. But that doesn't result in any fundamental change in us. Progress for human beings would, at this point, be a change in existential circumstances. Our state of being would need to change. Can it? Well, probably, but not over-night. Will evolution deliver us to a state of 'higher consciousness of our being'? I don't know -- presumably it would have to improve our capacity to survive over the long run.

If we can't make "progress" the alternative is not despair. We can improve our individual existential states, our consciousness of our being. Individual progress isn't immediately progress for the species.

From the perspective of many gay men, women are sexually irrelevant, and can be considered as real people--likable, funny, annoying, boring, whatever. From the perspective of observing some of the relationships where straight men and women are interacting, I think The Great Whatever has a point.

There is a lot of low-grade conflict. There is this expectation of service, for instance. Men are supposed to take care of women, while at the same time the women maintain they are fully equal and capable. It's a no win situation for either party. A lot of young women seem to want husbands (or partners) who are like their mature fathers. Except of course, their parents are 20 to 30 years older, and have had time to work out roles with each other. The boys and girls are not mature yet, and won't be for quite some time (sometimes never), so it is another no-win situation.

In the US, women who can manage it are attending college in ever larger numbers--the ratio is roughly 55/45 to 60/40, with women in the majority. The ratio used to be reversed, and was much more extreme, with relatively few women attending college. Are women driving out the men, or are men opting out on their own? Most men are, I think, opting out, and some feel like education has become a women's enterprise. It's a big mistake for men to devalue their own education, of course, but some think they get an early start in business of some sort and beat the curve. A few might, most will not.

The effect of many more women in the work place, as supervisors and professional co-workers, isn't always an agreeable experience for men. Women are socialized differently then men, and largely male environments work differently than largely female environments do.

So, make a long story short, in certain circumstances there is fairly regular conflict, and I don't find a lot of women's complaints--as grievances unique to women--justified.

None of this has all that much to do with "feminism" per se -- it has more to do with economic and social changes which are only somewhat related to feminism with respect to employment equality.

TGW, there's a vast difference between the chattering class feminist (educated, economically stable, and socially privileged) and the uneducated, impoverished, and socially disadvantaged woman who has never read so much as a feminist pamphlet in her life. Likewise with men: There's a lot of distance between the well educated, well employed, and economically stable man and the guy whose job prospects relocated to Sri Lanka, is disconnected from society, and is broke.

A lot of what privileged feminists talk about is irrelevant to anyone outside their social class, if not to themselves.

What are psycho-social relations like between the sexes in the non-privileged layers of society? Well, under the stress of not nearly enough money to go around, numerous and continuous frustrations, and family histories loaded with difficulties... NOT TOO GOOD. This isn't a result of "feminism" or "feminist theory". It's a result of economic flat-lining for many people. Economically, they're dead meat. Neither men nor women hold up well under these circumstances.

There are social-sexual female roles in society that are deserving of severe criticism. But... you've got to tease out bad behavior that is frivolously voluntary and bad behavior which is the result of really bad circumstances.

If progress is "forward or onward movement toward a destination" and if we are not headed anywhere in particular, then "making progress" isn't happening, and can't happen.

Being a "successful species" isn't the same as "making progress". We're successful, no doubt about that. We've filled up every conceivable ecological niche to overflowing, and we are on track to wrecking the whole planetary ecosystem, such a successful species are we.

At this point, "progress" might mean becoming "less successful".

"Progress" is a very pleasant myth, certainly. Even though we have not even a vague idea of what the future holds, we can pretend that there is some teleological signal which we are homing in on. There's a transmitter in Tomorrow Land that beckons us. We'll all be equal, diverse, peaceable, happily degendered; free of sickness, crime, violence; well fed, healthy, and prosperous. Every one. [Pure BS]

We have achieved remarkable things. The Cassini mission to Saturn and the New Horizons mission to Pluto are sublime technological achievements. As glorious as these, and other achievements in many fields are, they do not reveal a future towards which we can progress. We still remain anchored here, not so much "here on earth" but "here in our existential situation".

at 11:45 p.m., local time, 5:45 a.m. in London, it's 52% to 48%, in favor of leaving. There's a 1,121,000 majority, with 19 voting jurisdictions yet to report.

Well... we'll see what happens next, and next, and next. Best of luck to you all.

What else do women think men are good for? — The Great Whatever

Why? If I think that the democratic decision is wrong then I'm going to want it undermined. If we voted for slavery then I'm going to want it undermined. If we voted for a decision that would lead to a recession then I'm going to want it undermined. — Michael

I agree with you.

The democratic process is open-ended, after all. "The People" never speak once and for all time. Take prohibition in the United States. Prohibition was passed with the support of a particular demographic -- rural, native, midwestern, anti-alcohol voters. The anti-prohibition demographic (rural, Northeastern, immigrant, and pro-alcohol) was not sufficiently mobilized. 13 years later, the ill effects of prohibition, and the dissatisfactions of the pro-alcohol demographic, were sufficient to result in overturning an earlier popular decision.

Were drinkers wrong in persisting in their use of alcohol during prohibition? Legally, yes. The People had spoken; prohibition was the law of the land.

The problem with prohibition is that the will of only one (minority) set of voters was adequately expressed. For many native-born Americans and immigrant communities alcohol was an important component of conviviality and socializing. Catholics and Lutherans both used wine in worship, for instance. Most Protestants didn't (and still don't).

The decision on EU participation is likely to be determined by which demographic gets to the polls. If a larger portion of older voters opts for Brexit, and the usual lesser number of younger voters is not at the polls to pass Stay, then you'll be out. Is that fair? Technically, yes: Majority rule. On the other hand, it isn't fair for older people (for whatever reason) to cut off what the younger generation sees as a necessary component of their future.

So yes: legislative decisions and popular referenda are open to challenge. Only if the new law is clearly immoral (like extending slavery to new territories, or requiring people in free states to facilitate slave recapture) is open defiance acceptable. Many people considered prohibition an intolerable imposition and disobeyed it. At various times and in various places, immoral laws have been openly flouted while efforts were made to change the law.

When should one accept law one doesn't like? When it isn't clearly immoral, or illegal. When it is passed with a large enough majority to be incapable of overturning. The courts decided that referenda results and laws passed denying gay people marriage were illegal, even if they were passed by huge majorities. So, over many an unwilling voter, gay marriage is now law, like it or not. Is this now carved in stone? Well, probably not. A different court and differently worded law could change things. Before 1973, abortion was a settled -- and usually illegal -- question. After Roe Vs. Wade ('73), abortion was resettled on the side of being legal everywhere, like it or not. 40 odd years later, the issue is becoming unsettled -- with moves toward illegality, again, like it or not.

Which feminism are you talking about: First Wave (1830’s – early 1900’s--Suffrage), Second Wave (1960’s-1980’s--workplace issues, sexuality, etc.), or Third Wave (contemporary--fractured)?

In general, feminism is “the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.”

Can you verify these para-quotes, or are you just making this stuff up? — Hogrider

Me? Make stuff up?

It is tempting to make stuff up, and if done with sufficient boldness, confidence, and brio there is a good chance one's lies will be accepted as gospel truth.

In this case, I didn't make it up. You'll have to ask Mayor of Simpleton whether he made it up, since I was quoting him. It's been a long time since I read anything by Rand. I'm pretty sure MOS's points are partly a projection of what he thinks Rand represents, and partly a report of what Rand does represent.

“I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.” Flannery O'Connor

"The government has never invented anything or done any good for anyone."

More stupid ideas from Ayn Swine Rand.

Aside from maintaining the legal infrastructure upon which wealth is gained and reliably secured, the United States Government did the following good things for Americans (but not at the same time for the recipients of government attention, in some cases):

The US Government bought, conquered, seized, liberated "cleared" and organized 3,119,884.69 square miles (8,080,464.3 km2) of land upon which fortunes could be built.

The US Government defended American Interests in several wars, most notably WWII. Whether Randians consider protecting the USA from Fascist forces was a good thing or a nuisance, don't know.

The US Government invented the Atomic Bomb, the Hydrogen Bomb, and with some help from Nazi engineers like Werner von Braun, the ICBMs to deliver them COD.

The US Government developed the technology of digital photography (used in satellites long before it showed up at Walmart);

The US Government's space program (NASA) developed the ultimate blessing to Humanity, Teflon, which allows us to fry eggs without the eggs sticking to the pans. Never before or since have so many owed so much to so few.

Not to mention the Interstate Highway System; Rural Electrification; the Internet; and so on. Governments also run schools; hospitals; snow plowing operations; ports, rivers, and canals maintenance; operates the Centers for Disease Control; the National Cancer (and other) Institutes; the Library of Congress; and the National Park System (just to scratch the surface).

Some of the Randian principles that Mayor cites are ridiculous: (Rand, not Mayor, is ridiculous)

"Any and all natural resources are limitless" is true only in the most abstracted theoretical way. True, the resources of earth, the moon, asteroids, and other planets (from their atmospheres to their cores) might be "limitless" but our capacity to exploit, and survive the exploitation, are most certainly very limited. We have neither tapped out all of the oil nor dug up all of the coal and already the liberated CO2, stored up in the Carboniferous Period (359 to 299 million years ago) is sending the earth into a warming feedback loop that won't be easily reversed.

Trillions of tons of iron--to pick just one element--remain in the earth. That doesn't mean it is accessible. The easily reached valuable minerals haven't all been dug up, but what remains accessible is by no stretch of the term "unlimited", and the consequences of getting it might be intolerable. And so what if the earth has a solid core of iron? Ayn Rand herself isn't cold enough to dig her way to the core and come back without being incinerated several times over.