Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle took Dante's Inferno and recast it, somewhat, I guess. Title = Inferno.

Hell is nothing if not interesting. There are tortures, interesting geography, and such. Bonito Mussolini plays a rather significant role, helping those who can admit their sinfulness to escape Hell into Purgatory.

Mussolini's role is taken up by a recent arrival (the narrator of the story).

Chuck Palahniuk's Damned is quite a funny story about Hell. It's about a 15 (or is it 13) year old girl sent to hell for some fumbling, sexual sin. Hell is filthy more than anything else. There is a lot of dirt; mountains of fingernail clippings and shed skin cells; an ocean of spilt seed and nocturnal emissions; etc. The floors in the prisons are sticky, and there are unwrapped popcorn balls and candy scattered about.

Satan owns a large telemarketing operation which calls people during meals (It's always mealtime somewhere.) Workers in Hell conduct highly detailed surveys of consumer habits, such as preferences in toothpicks. Interviews are excruciatingly detailed.

I thought it was an interesting take on heaven / hell, and the state of being damned. Various authors have posited a hell quite unlike the cartoon hell of boiling tar pits reserved for telemarketers. I think C. S. Lewis wrote a story in which hell was a rather dreary, dark, dusty city absent of any feeling. No warmly lit windows, no laughter, no greetings. Silence.

Hell is easier to imagine than a heaven of blessedness, for some reason.

Do you actually have anything meaningful to say about the difference between humans and computers such that we have reasons to believe that the one understands grief and the other doesn't? — Michael

The difference between a computer and a human is flesh. Flesh and computer metal are both matter, but flesh has the biological characteristics that produce the experience of grief (or any other emotion). What is that experience? Flesh experiences pain, for instance, and weakness, excitation in the diaphragm, swelling (a lump in one's throat), fatigue, and a whole set of emotional states and feelings we call grief (or happiness, excitement, remorse, anger, etc.). We experience them because they happen in our flesh (they aren't symbolic) and we have the capacity to experience and interpret our fleshly state. If you burn your hand, you feel intense and enduring pain. You can see that the skin on your hand has been severely damaged by heat, and you can feel it. Lots of animals can match this experience because they have flesh, nerves, and the capacity to feel pain.

Beings or devices which lack the means to experience their own flesh (insects, worms, wood ticks, etc. or computers which have no flesh at all, can not have feelings or experiences. "Experience" belongs uniquely to flesh and the ability to apprehend. That which is without flesh cannot have experiences. What a human experiences in their flesh isn't symbolic, numerical, computational, or algorithmical. It's biological.

If you built a suffering computer, it would consist of many biological features, and have the capacity to experience emotions and pain. Then a computer could suffer. Suffering begins in a kind of substance which machines (metal, gears, wires, transistors, semiconductors, quantum effects et al) don't have.

What you are arguing for, ↪Thorongil, is that actions precede a person's position, when it should be the opposite. A person's position (assuming they are not disingenuous) should precede their actions. — darthbarracuda

Perhaps, perhaps not. Actions sometimes (maybe quite frequently) and properly precede positions.

How could that possibly be?

You may have a very frightening experience. Perhaps you are rock climbing with a friend who is much better at it than you are. You are led upwards on a vertical climb which is not too difficult. When you are at the top, you suddenly see how difficult getting back down is going to be. After much frightening experience you are back on safe ground, and you establish a position (which you stick with for life) that you are NEVER GOING TO CLIMB ROCKS AGAIN. And you don't.

You start graduate school because you have a vague idea that a higher degree would be a good thing. Over the next two years you have one discouraging, depressing, unhappy experience after another. There are some good experiences, but on balance, it is pretty bad. Based on experience you arrive at the position that graduate school (like life itself for some people) sucks way too much to put up with.

If you always avoid homeless people and places where homeless people hang out because they smell bad and the smell makes you feel ill, (an experience) you may arrive at the position that homeless people are disgusting--not just in their odor, but in their very being. Same thing goes for any group of people who you systematically avoid because of some feeling you have about them (repugnance, fear, annoyance, whatever). You avoid them and the act of avoidance leads to building a position to justify the avoidance.

My guess is that a lot of arguments in philosophy are based on positions which would have benefitted by the opposing philosophers having had some actual experience prior to developing their positions.

Here's the addendum you all need:

The war of A-natalism vs. Anti-natalism was fought round and round the teapot, up the spout and dumped into a dozen demitasses. In the end, the tempest tossed combatants were all washed out to tea. And yet the war of unimportant terms about which no one sensibly cares greatly (including, no doubt, the soldiers in this fray) was finally inconclusive.

No ground was lost.
No ground was gained.
No heights were scaled
No depths plumbed.

A good time was had by all. Such is philosophy.

Just an aside, priests and nuns vow not only to be celibate (not have sex with partners) but also, as I understand it, to be chaste, which means no masturbation either. One should observe, for instance, "chastity of the eyes" -- that is, if you see a voluptuous woman or a buffed man with lots of skin exposed (like wearing a bikini) look away. It isn't the fault of the religious that someone is walking around with almost nothing on, but it would be the fault of the chastity-vowed religious to follow that person with his or her gaze and attention. Just like it isn't your fault if people pass mean spirited and hurtful lies between them, but it would be your fault if you listened eagerly to them and passed them on.

Merely not having sex is relatively easy compared to the requirement that one not even think about sex for one's self while encouraging married couples to be fruitful and multiply (which I think is all about fucking and having babies, not some medieval fantasy).

I am functionally celibate -- having not had sex with anyone for about...6 years? At least for the last 7 years I have either had no desire nor opportunity. I could have, of course, tried to create the opportunity to have sex. But, without a desire, what would be the point? I'm certainly not "chaste" -- I think about sex fairly often, masturbate occasionally (at 70, less often than I might like) and enjoy fleshly sights and fantasies.

At 25 or 35, even at 55, celibacy would have been utterly out of the question. (Actually, the loss of desire is something of a relief at times.) I'm not a-natal or anti-natal. I'm pro-natal, with the caveat that we (humans) really need to strategically reduce our reproductivity for the sake of our future. But that by no means means not having children at all, or thinking that life is suffering, and all that Schopenhauerian1 depressing baloney. My celibacy carries no universal imperative: I'm not having sex at this point, but please don't let me stand in your way! Just do it with risk-reduction guidelines in mind and at hand.

I gather that with more deliberation than I have made, this is Thorongil's position.

No, for once again, these desires are not pent up but rather redirected towards other things or dissipated to such an extent that they no longer trouble one. — Thorongil

This is what Freud said -- everybody ignored my deeply penetrating insight in mentioning Freud, which makes me just that much more of a bitter crank. Anyway, yes, libidinous desires can be redirected and dissipated, or sublimated.

Indeed, sublimation can be described as the bedrock of civilization. Libidinous energies, which are initially scarcely harnessed drives and desires for fulfillments, can be channeled into all sorts of productive activity besides procreation. Sublimation doesn't generally entail celibacy, (it could) but rather the displacement of sexual activity as the most satisfying enterprise we engage in.

The activities which displace sex are in a phrase, civilization building.

There is another aspect to the sacrifice of literal sexual activity which celibacy can entail: Sublimation. In psychoanalytic theory sublimation is the diversion of libido into noninstinctual channels. People who are deeply committed to a cause often sublimate their sexual energies. They subconsciously divert their sexual energies into their art, their political campaigns, their business, their architectural practice, and so on.

You might say (per Freud) that civilization is powered by sublimated sexual energies. If we all pursued our most natural inclinations, we would still be hunter-gatherers living in caves and screwing our brains out. But, as it happens, we are not, have not been, and won't be.

There has been many a frustrated mate who found that having sex with their partner was just about impossible, because their mate's career (art, science, politics, law, the military, whatever...) always came first. When the mate finally got home from the office, the studio, the battle field, the store, whatever... they were too tired to make love. And when they were well rested they were reading about art, science, politics, law, the military, whatever... or they were on the phone all the time.

As Mahler said of Alma Mahler, "I'm writing Das Lied von der Erde, And she only wants to make love" for Christ's sake.

I have a problem -- I am pro-natalist, BUT in the light of global warming and over-population various species, including us, may require a lot fewer people in the next several generations in order to survive and thrive. There's an obvious contradiction for you.

It seems to be the case that a high level of prosperity seems to discourage parenthood. It probably takes too much effort for most people to both raise lots of children and achieve a high level of prosperity. Plus, the 1 or 2 children born to prosperous parents are likely to survive, whereas a high percentage of the children born to those in deep poverty are likely to die in childhood.

How do we reduce the rate (or even reverse the rate) of population growth while maintaining that sex and children are a good thing?

We don't have the means to instantly create prosperity everywhere so that parents have fewer children. We don't want to impose draconian birth rate measures or reversal policies which would be extremely dehumanizing to live under or enforce. We don't seem to be able to persuade ourselves or other people to forego immediate pleasures for long-term survival. We also have zero likelihood of convincing a supermajority of the world's human breeding pairs to stop having sex and/or stop having children.

As part of my pro-nativity program, I wish for humans and the other species to thrive long into the future. More wolves will keep the deer under control, more owls, hawks, and eagles will keep the smaller vermin under control, but what will keep us under control, top predators that we are. Should we breed super-wolves and unusually smart lions to prowl our cities and prairies to reduce the human population? Put some teeth into those old rhymes, "Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf" or "Lions, and tigers, and bears..." ("But grandma, what big teeth you have! The better to eat you with, my dear.")

Bears? Cute little teddy bears? An adult bear can disembowel the toughest human with one swipe of their very strong, very long-clawed paw. (Well, to be precise, the appendage to which the long-clawed paw is attached is very strong.) And snarf up a 5 year old as a mid-morning snack. The howls and growls of what's lurking out there in the dark, and might come crashing through a window or door at any moment, should unnerve people enough that they won't feel like having sex. Populations drop; world is saved; future generations worship wolves, lions, and bears as their saviors.

Just joking, of course. Obviously. Right?

The kerning of characters in the edit box (or composition box... whatever you call it) is slightly greater than in the posted area. The space between lines appears to be the same. For instance, when I retype your first sentence in the edit box and then drag it up to your post for comparison, the kerning is enough to put "to me." beyond the end of your posted sentence.

You are right that the appearance is not the same -- whether it is better or worse is an aesthetic judgement. It's like the debate over serif and sans serif fonts. Reading experts supposedly think serif fonts are easier to read (because the serifs give letters and words more distinctive shapes), but on large signs, sans serif fonts (like Helvetica) tend to look better -- again, this is an aesthetic judgement.

The interlining in the preview box is not the same as the edit box, but it appears to be the same as the posted area. I don't like the appearance of the preview.

I would be surprised if kerning and interlining were editable.

Appearance may differ depending on platform and monitor.

Anyway, it sounds like you're talking about a post-scarcity society where no human need work. — Marchesk

Maybe machines will calculate the ideal society and distribute accordingly. I'd like that. I fear that such a happy outcome will probably not occur. What worries me is that there will be no post scarcity society, only one of increasing scarcity of everything most people need and desire. We are already creating large numbers of "surplus people", people who are unneeded and unwanted in the existing economy. They do not work cheaply and fast enough, or they are not skilled enough, or they do not consume enough, to be useful.

There is no real reason for this tragic situation to occur, except that it might be the choice of the uber rich who might be prepared to endure the death of billions of people as a solution to the problem of maintaining their control over resources (all of a piece with the grimmest dystopias).

I'd appreciate your saying more about setting up a non-labor-exchange money system.

Do we, for instance, just give ourselves money to exchange for arbitrary value? I receive $1000 week in this new money with which to buy shelter, food, clothing, medical care, services, amusements, roses, books, etc. at arbitrary prices (produced in automated factories and farms) and all watched over by machines of loving grace?

I'd also point out that if your celibacy is the result of inability, then you may want to work on those issues as opposed to philosophizing them away and convincing yourself that you're advancing some higher objective. I have the sneaky suspicion that all this "I'm not interested in such matters" would get turned upside down if the right person came along. Own it and fix it. — Hanover

Hanover, your response would be appropriate if this were a therapy group. You're right -- people do sometimes disown what they can not do, can not get, can not have--the fox and the sour grapes bit.

However, this is ostensibly not a therapy group and when thoughtful, articulate posters claim certain ground on philosophical principles, their position should not be gainsaid.*** Maybe antinatalists have discovered they are sterile, but I would doubt any such explanation. I am a pro-natalist (in principle, a total flop in practice), though I think it is definitely a good idea to reduce the world's population. Celibacy is appropriate for some people; it was (is) inappropriate for me and thee.

***This is gainsay/gainsaid's debut here. Middle English, 'gain' from 'against'. Perhaps Germanic by way of Old French, gaigne (noun), gaignier.

So, we raise taxes to give benefits to those who can't earn them and we redistribute the wealth and further polarize the have and have nots. — Hanover

When the richest 62 people (in the world) have more wealth than 1/2 of the world's population, and when the richest 1% have more wealth than 90% of the people (in the world, not just in the United States) we are redistributing wealth, all right, but not in the direction you are suggesting. One doesn't have to be a Marxist to identify the gap between billions in poverty and a few hundred super-rich as the driving force behind polarization.

My question wasn't about what Marx thought motivated everyone. My question was, "What happens to people who labor when machines take their place (when production is fully automated)?

I don't expect that we will soon see a dystopia where no one works, and all but a few are mired in wretched poverty. However, we are already seeing a displacement by machines of labor in various categories. Many of the displaced workers are finding themselves unnecessary in the existing economy. They are unneeded and unwanted.

I don't see any reason why the process of replacing labor by machines won't continue. Maybe the machines owe the unemployed financial support.

Analog is so old school. Is this hipster medicine? When is the digitally remastered version coming out? — Hanover

RCA Victor is having problems with the 78 rpm master of "Transcriptase Gets In Your Eyes" (it has to be played in reverse). When they do that the nukuler side explodes. What to do, what to do?

Automation involves a question to which I haven't heard a satisfactory answer. Marx maintained that "labor creates all wealth". Metals are dug up, refined, turned into products, distributed, and sold -- all by the hands of laborers. Same for crops and forest products -- raw materials turned into finished goods by people's labor.

Automation still requires labor to create the automated machines (the self-checkouts, the robot spot-welders, etc.) but it seems like the labor input of automating machines gradually vanishes over time, since this capital equipment lasts a long time. It's possible to imagine an automated factory that manufactures automating equipment that takes care of itself.

Can machines create wealth? If they can, it would seem that they do so with less cost than using human workers. Can capitalists (employers of the most self-sustaining machines) do away with workers? If workers can be disposed of, isn't that the end of economics? If there is no economy, can there be wealth?

What is the endgame of the machine?

Purple, Green, and Red. One of my favorite color combinations. What do the collar bars signify to you?

...but that doesn't excuse it from being criticized, and being analyzed to determine whether it is right or wrong. Same for promiscuous sex. — Agustino

So what might one say about the rightness or wrongness of promiscuous sex (abb. PS)?

PS is inappropriate for the actor IF the behavior arises from a compulsion and not from a decision that one will engage in sex promiscuously. Compulsions need to be dealt with, since they can result in very bad outcomes.

PS is wrong for the actor if the behavior is intended to harm someone, such as a relationship partner with whom one has had a fight. Harm can be psychological, physical, or both. "Reprisal sex" doesn't have to be promiscuous, of course, once would be too often -- think of the vindictive sex in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" by Albee.

Unprotected sex is risky for all actors who do not know (in detail) the health status of their partners. Most of the time we can not be absolutely sure of such matters (except for ourselves). However, people vary quite a bit in their risk aversion. Some people are willing to tolerate much more risk than others (and risks can be assumed only by one's self). If I am very risk averse and engage in unprotected sex, that is a risk I have assumed. If infection is the result, that is my fault more than the other person's. (No matter what he or she said, I am the only one who can risk my safety.) Of course, this view doesn't take into account trust which can be betrayed by dishonesty.

People who have AIDS can reduce their infectivity by faithfully taking the prescribed antiviral medicines. People who are HIV negative can reduce their vulnerability to HIV by taking Truvada*** as a prophylactic. Prophylactic Truvada is about 90% effective, but like condoms, is not 100% effective. There is little chance of a someone with AIDS who is taking antiretroviral drugs from transmitting the virus to someone who is taking Truvada, even without any barrier protection. It just isn't zero risk.

Engaging in PS and misleading one's partner(s) about one's promiscuity, is dishonest, deceptive, and therefore wrong for the actor. The actor's partners are well advised to decide for themselves how much risk the actor is worth, regardless of what the actor is saying.

Engaging in PS with partners who are also engaging in PS (or can be presumed from context to be so engaged) is right. People may choose how often and with whom they wish to have sex, and risk tolerant people can engage with many partners. There are contexts available for this kind of sexual behavior (gay bath houses, brothels, out-call services, parks, street prostitutes, etc.).

What this boils down to is this: IF people wish to engage in promiscuous sex, and they engage in promiscuous sex in settings where PS is expected, and the participants are risk tolerant, no one is being deceived, then PS is morally acceptable. No one could be harmed who was not aware that they were engaging in behavior that carried risks. PS is wrong where deception, deceit, or punitive intent is central.

***Truvada is an HIV nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor and prevents HIV from reproducing within target cells. There are no significant side-effects at low dosage.

I'm falling through a hole in the flag. from Hair

The official national flag is one of several public symbols that can be appropriated by multiple political tendencies for quite diverse and incompatible purposes. A Communist and a Tea Partier can wave the one national flag as ardently and/or with as much insincerity as the other. Flags unite and divide at the same time.

Liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels are all accustomed to wrapping themselves in THE FLAG. Its a fair decoy, at least for a little while.

Flag design is, no doubt, an interesting job. New Zealand is in the process of selecting a new flag. They will decide sometime this year on either the left or the right flag.



If you were designing a flag for your country, what would it look like?

It's not just "getting off".
— Bitter Crank
That's not what most sex addicts describe. They describe feeling quite empty after the act. — Agustino

Maybe they should find fellow addicts who are better at giving good vibrations along with the blow jobs.

This sounds more like a nymphomaniac than a normal, well-balanced person. You should perhaps be aware that nymphomania is classed as a psychological illness, which is to be treated - not something to be desired. Nymphomaniacs are addicted to sex as they get their sense of self-worth from it. — Agustino

Well of course, to someone who has ceased eating, a half sandwich and a small salad is going to seem like gluttony.

If nymphomaniacs are obsessive compulsive, then they are not getting their self worth from sex. They are getting symptom relief. Repetition is the name of of the game for OCD people.

Whether there is such a thing as "nymphomania" (a decidedly 19th century term), sex addiction, hypersexuality, or merely a cultural bias against exceptional sexual behavior isn't clear. I always enjoy coming across bona fide examples of DSM categories, like obsessive compulsives, Tourettzers,, paranoid schizophrenics, people with truly loony but not pathological ideation, parkinsonianism, and so forth. It's surprising that there aren't more of these people to meet on one's daily rounds. I have met some, though, and they were usually quite interesting, often pleasant people.

I've come across people with some quite odd preferences, people whose impulse control was somewhat deficient, criminal predators, petty crooks, hustlers, prostitutes, guys that spent too much time thinking about sex, people who spent way too much time in bars drinking, and so on -- but maybe only three hypersexuals since 1968. There just aren't that many people out there who have THAT MUCH sex. They wish, but no.

There are few avenues of validation more satisfying than the sexual. — Bitter Crank

This sounds quite neurotic. — Agustino

Really? It doesn't strike me as neurotic at all. (We seem not to look at the world in the same way.)

Life is much richer than mere sexual experience, and a man who has experienced sex and nothing else has missed a lot of life. — Agustino

Nothing is mere. But, that said, of course life is much richer than sexual experience, and I can't imagine how one would even exist and experience only sex and nothing else.

It isn't at all the case that sex is everything; but sex is definitely a part. How big a part depends on the particular model you have of the human mind. I think Freud was right to identify the sex drive, or life force, as a critical component in human thought and motivation.

Furthermore, sex should not be a means for validation and self-worth. At least it's not in a person who is well balanced. — Agustino

Sex should certainly not be the one and only means for validation and self worth, of course. There are a range of human experiences where from other people we receive encouragements, emotional strengthening, love, sex, praise, rewards, validation--all sorts of things, especially for well balanced people.

Why would any rational person seek validation in something that is, in the end, at the mercy of other people? — Agustino

Virus are "obligate intra-cellular parasites". It is in their nature to live within cells. They have no choice about it.

Humans are obligate interpersonal actors. We have no choice but to interact with others to survive, to be nurtured, to be taught, to learn, to explore, to give, receive, to love, to have sex that is more than masturbation. We are not complete isolates unto ourselves. We are porous, and into and out of us flows all the interactions that make up a life.

We are, like it or not, to some degree "at the mercy of other people". We are also, like it or not, the beneficiaries of other people, and they of us.

Rational people do not curl up into a snail shell.

One would have to be a fool - a perpetual slave to other people, in order to get what (s)he needs. — Agustino

One would be a fool to fail to recognize how much we depend on each other.

I wonder as I read these posts if there is some rationalization going on here. Do you guys really think that celibacy is the cure to your various physical and emotional challenges or is that just a comforting thing to tell yourself because you aren't getting laid? — Hanover

We would need a highly reliable and valid poll to answer this question.

Certainly, if one can't get laid, one could make a virtue out of current circumstances and declare one's self to be celibate--at least until one has the opportunity to get laid.

I think the Roman Catholic priesthood is a an excellent demonstration of how toxic celibacy can be, even for men who wish to be priests, even for men who have thought through the meaning of celibacy, and even within an institution that supports and upholds celibacy. I don't think that sex with children has anything to do with celibacy, but certainly the number of priests who have sexual relationships with other (and consenting) adults is related to celibacy, and so is the number of priests who are at least fairly unhappy in their priestly lives, and who have few good, close interpersonal relationships. When there were many more priests, there was more of a chance for priests to have supportive friendships and supervisory relationships with other priests to whom they could unburden themselves (none of this involving sex, of course). Those days are long gone and won't be back any time in the near future, if ever. Priests, in many ways, are in one of the worst of all possible worlds: Close relationships with parishioners are inappropriate (even if non-sexual), which leaves them the company of other unhappy, over-worked, and quite possibly fairly neurotic co-worker priests.

It's very difficult for priests to be the kinds of shepherds that their flocks need -- they are just too close to being undone by the circumstances of celibacy.

There are few avenues of validation more satisfying than the sexual. Good sex, whether in a long term relationship or with a stranger whose first name one knows not, and whom one will probably never see again, is affirming to one's sense of personal self-worth. It's not just "getting off". It's deeper than that, and yes, it is possible without being married.

Marriage usually provides the surest route to regular validation and affirmation, and it also provides the opportunity for one to give that gift to one's partner.

I think most lone wolves who decide to be celibate are deceiving themselves. I would think celibacy would work best in the corporate setting of a monastery, a priesthood, an order, or a calling in which other share. Celibacy is something one gives to a higher cause -- god, the church, the order, the shelter -- whatever it is to which one is so singularly devoted.

But just going about an ordinaryl life, but deciding to practice celibacy, just doesn't make sense to me. What would an accountant working for General motors and living in suburban Detroit, who doesn't belong to any organizations except GM, get out of deciding to never have sex again? A promotion? I don't see why that would happen. New friends? I guess the celibacy support group might be a friend-finding opportunity.

It's like someone who has one beer once a year without any untoward consequences swearing off alcohol forever. You could do that, buy why would you?

It just doesn't balance out, in accountant lingo.

It's not suggesting that, it's suggesting that people should work on improving themselves so that most marriages stop being disastrous (50% divorce rate in US, don't forget ;) ). — Agustino

The divorce rate is not actually 50%.

The 50% rate is a projected rate, using past divorce trends, and applying those trends to current marriages. It's not a "fact" it's a trend line. It doesn't apply to actual people.

*the 'age adjusted crude divorce rate' is 13 per 1000. This isn't a very useful figure since it includes single people who can't get divorced (since they are not married).
*the 'percent ever divorced' is about 22% for women, 21% for men.
*the 'refined divorce rate' is the rate of divorce per 1000 divided by 10; the refined divorce rate is 1.9, meaning 1.9% of marriages ended this year.

What seems to improve one's success in marriage?

* not living together before marriage
* marrying after the age of 18
* similar age, both college educated
* having a an annual household income of more than $50,000
* Having children (in the marriage) when both parents want children
* having similar convictions about marriage being a life-long commitment
* smokers (both couples) get divorced more often than non-smokers (both couples).

So, some people get married and divorced several times, some never marry, and many who marry don't get divorced. A small fraction will get divorced each year. There are identifiable factors that lead to higher rates of divorce, it isn't just "people who don't know how to have a relationship". Being too young, uneducated, poor, a pregnancy which only one partner is happy about, discordant views about marriage, and not being serious enough about marriage to wait for a license before bedding each other for an extended period of time.

The statistics indicate that there are problems in the way marriages are formed and conducted. ON the other hand, I can think of good reasons why some marriages should definitely be ended -- namely, a given marriage is neither in the best interests of that particular couple, nor in the best interests of society either. I am not in favor, either, of people having children without partners.

As a gay man, I am 100% in favor of straight marriage. Straight marriages produce gay men, so keep up the good work!

After the revolution you will no doubt find yourself in an automated automation crimes trial. You'll have plenty of company, and you'll automatically all hang together on the automated gallows.

I've had some temporary jobs that I would have joyfully turned over to a machine: data entry, clerk - typist, that sort of thing. Most of it was extremely tedious and the social aspects were often demeaning. On the other hand, had the machines taken that job already, I'd have been shit out of luck.

The Machine and Automation can not deliver to mankind the promised blessing of leisure in which to pursue self-fulfillment because we have no idea how to distribute the benefits of automation. The machines are owned by corporate entities of various kinds, and the owners generally accept no obligations to the permanently displaced or never-hired-in-the-first-place victims, whether it is Apple, Exxon, or your Alma Mater. Labor is a cost with a solution: Get rid of it. Problem is, most people belong with labor and not with management or owners.

On the flip side, displaced labor becomes economically irrelevant, having no value as employees (too expensive) and little value as consumers (too poor). The problem of displacement is not yet critical, because there are enough people still employed to keep the world economy going. How all this will resolve itself is unclear to me. It probably won't be good.

Plutocrats can withdraw to various valhallas and let the lumpen proles starve, so don't look to the uber rich for solutions. Personally, I don't want to smash all the machines. I like the piece of automation sitting on my table that enables me to gather my own information and compose my own screeds without having to turn to the services of a secretary. I prefer the self-check out because I can then control the speed at which I have to bag my groceries and I sort of like the technology. Automated dishwashers do a better job than dish washers standing at a sink who are indifferent to the results of their labor, however honest and dignified it might be. Automated tellers are fine by me for most transactions.

The key to unlock the problem of plutocrat-owned automation vs. labor is, unfortunately for the plutocrats and their fellows, their demise. They don't have to be executed, but they do have to be divested rather thoroughly of their wealth and power. Theoretically, the fruits of labor to the laborers is do-able. Societies can decide what, and how much, when, and how work should be automated and what, how much, and when should remain for people to do. The producers and consumers can decide distribution of the proceeds.

Lots of work has been taken over by machines, and in some cases, most workers would say the machines are welcome to it. Like, for instance, automated barn cleaning equipment that removes tons of cow manure every day from large dairy barns. Shoveling up wet, heavy cow manure on a hot humid day is not a joy (and it has to be done whether it is hot or not).

I recommend that we exercise a preferential option for workers over machines as a starting point.

I'm neither an anti-natalist nor a non-natalist nor a-natalist, and I would never have been successful as a celibate or an ascetic. You do a good job laying out a case for your position though, and if it works for you, that is what is important.

This guy — Thorongil

I probably won't be a regular there, but his rant on cell phones struck a chord.

too much of a good thing — darthbarracuda

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful. Mae West

The article indicated that formal standards do not exist because, to a large extent, the problem has not been openly acknowledged among staff and administrators, let alone with patients. Also, these are generally temporary situations. One month it might be one drug, next month a different one altogether. One rule would not fit everyone in all times and places.

In addition to the problem of devising a rule, there is the problem of the new patient with unanticipated problems needing a drug that happens not to be available. It's midnight. The patient is very sick. The doctor can't convene an ethics committee to provide guidance.

For anesthesia medications, one interviewed doctor said, "the patient isn't awake and the family isn't there, so why bring up the fact that a chemical normally used isn't available? Not having the drug is tolerable, but not optimal. Why cause a great deal of consternation in the patient by telling him or her the night before surgery, "By the way, we're out of one of the drugs for your anesthesia. You'll probably be just fine!"

If you have only 6 ounces of potent cancer chemo compound that will treat 2 children or one average sized adult, what standard should one use to choose the children or the adult? What if the patient weighs 300 lbs. and is just a bit too heavy for the amount of drug available. Skip the 300 pounder for the two 75 pounders? Someone will suffer either way.

What principle should tip the scale toward the children or the adult?

Does the question of "being" depend on the being in question finding all, most, or at least some of the terms of existence satisfactory? Gay people, disabled people, white people, black people, immigrants legal and not, etc. are not denied "being" by unsatisfactory arrangements or by perfectly satisfactory arrangements either. One "is" under the terms of existence, whatever those happen to be at the moment, until one "is no more" -- aka, dead.

That doesn't suggest that amelioration of discrimination isn't worthwhile. It is. I didn't exist less before the state sodomy law was repealed, and I didn't exist more after repeal. I liked having those laws repealed, but it didn't alter my 'being' or 'existence'.

People are not actually "erased" or "rendered invisible" or turned into non-beings by people saying nasty things about them, or worse, not discussing them at all. They are being ignored, not being turned into non-beings.

What force is working on you at this point???

the immigrants uphold an "ancestral" culture alongside the American culture, keep old traditions and do not invent new culture — ssu

Like Norwegians, lutefisk, and lefsa. I doubt very much if people in Norway would eat either of these foods -- they are both low-grade peasant survival items. Blacks eat pork guts (chitlins) because it is a tradition from the slave days, not because they are particularly appetizing -- slimy, smelling like offal, even when cooked in tomato sauce. Sort of like the bitter herbs and unleavened bread of passover.

Darth, I thought you were going to give it a rest for your mental health. No? (For my sake, I'm relieved you haven't taken your mental health break yet.)

Because the Dalai Lama is an astrologist / snake oil selling theocrat. — The Great Whatever

That may be, but as astrological snake oil salesmen selling theocracy go, he's not that bad.

A better question would be why, evolutionary speaking, happiness is even a thing at all.
— darthbarracuda

It's not, it was made up by toothpaste commercials — The Great Whatever

You're both nuts.

Another factor in the US is an enormous amount of mobility -- not just currently, but practically from the beginning. My ancestors came from England and Ireland; others' in this area came from Germany and Northwestern Europe -- including Finland. Almost no one landed, settled, and stayed put. They moved west, mostly, and when they reached some area which they liked, the upper midwest here, they still moved around a lot. There were a lot of economic failures; crop disasters, price collapses, the animals froze to death, insect plagues, wheat rust, spouses died, the barn burned down, one damned thing after another. Eventually people settled -- generally by the first third of the 20th century. Most families have stayed put, but still a substantial portion of the population moves to some other state--generally in search of employment opportunities or a better social environment. like gay guys moving out of the midwest to the coasts.

Wish I had done that, though if I had I'd probably have gotten ground up in the AIDS epidemic and then sic transit gloria mundi.

So, even the European emigrants to the US were getting continuously stirred and mixed. The population mixmaster also creates space for new people.

There is a Finnish community in Minneapolis. The run a Saturday Finnstyle culture club for their children at the church across the street (designed by two of your emigrant countrymen, Eliel and Eero Saarinen). The Kulture Klub Volk seem to be pretty affluent, kind of standoffish, snobbish. The Finns are sort of a hobby for the German/Norwegian heritage Lutheran congregation that built the building. I have found their "traditional festive pastries" to be appallingly dull, like the small soft-rye bread circles filled with potato and butter and not even salted. You'd think they could maybe put a piece of pickled herring on it, or something. It seemed more suitable for a Lenten act of contrition than a piece of yuletide festivity. Even a Vietnamese bean cake (which looks something like a deep fat fried tennis ball) is better. Give me krumkake, pastrami on a Kaiser roll, or several slices of stollen any day.

Here's what the Saarinens wrought:

Yes, the fiestas and the folkmusic is different, but the actual lifestyle is quite the same. — ssu

This is true, pretty much. Latin Americans fit. It is remarkable how well people from various places fit here. When a large number of Somalis were settled in Minneapolis, it didn't take long before they began working in all sorts of jobs. A second generation Somali was elected to the Minneapolis city council a couple of years ago. And to a remarkable extent, I think, Americans (Minnesotans, anyway) have accepted Somalis.

Vietnamese, Cambodians, Russians, Indians, West Africans, etc. have also found places to fit. I wouldn't say that everything is just perfect, but it's at least satisfactory.

"They will be assimilated; resistance is futile." the Borg

More proof. If you were omniscient, you would have known that you would want to delete all this. You would just not have posted it in the first place. Does an omniscient being even need to actually do anything? if you know x is going to happen, then x must happen, otherwise you are not omniscient. Does being omniscient make you the acting agent that makes things happen?

I was thinking higher up the ladder than the speed with which DMV clerks are processing transactions. Yes, it is maddening to wait in line and watch civil servants at work. But in fairness, retail can present exactly the same problem. For instance, both Wells Fargo and US Bank have (apparently) established a policy that requires the tellers to engage in happy chat with each customer. Hey, just give me a receipt and shut up! I don't want to discuss what I am planning for the weekend. At US Bank I wanted to open a simple second account and the officer was hell bent on making her presentation of their account options last at least 20 minutes. I finally told her she was taking too long and left.

In Flint, for instance, the MI governor's office didn't seem to engage with the gravity of the water problem. Certainly, the court appointed manager of Flint wasn't engaging with it. I don't think it was just because Flint is broke or the residents mostly black.

In the case of Porter Ranch, 90,000 metric tons of methane have gushed out of a broken pipe in a gas storage field (old gas wells) in the last 3 months. The adjacent affluent town of Porter Ranch has been partly depopulated by people who were getting sick, and the city is getting coated with a brownish residue. Old wells, old pipes, rust... leaks are bound to happen, especially if inspections don't keep the owners of the field focused on necessary maintenance.

Infrastructure decay, just one kind of problem, are endemic from coast to coast. How do citizens get their representatives to pay attention before the bridge collapses, the gas storage blows up, the water poisons the whole town?

Yes, Fred senior.

It seems to me that something is missing from the stats on CO2. I find it difficult to believe that CO2 from petroleum isn't higher. BUT...

The amount of CO2 that the Koch brothers are responsible for isn't a critical issue. In any case, they are not responsible for most of it. It's what they do and did with their money POLITICALLY that is significant.