shoot the neighbours if they walk onto his lawn, set up a gun-nest and take out a few dozen people. Randomly or to a pattern. -- You can't find this much happiness in other countries — god must be atheist

Silly me! How did I fail to notice these splendid features?

Nuanced forms of socialism could be one way, the other is to accept capitalism as the best we have although not perfect. — Deus

Capitalism does not approach the low bar of "not perfect". There are several countries that are doing well with governmental / economic systems that include "socialistic" elements. (They are all capitalist, but have incorporated a reasonably robust social welfare system.) Accuulation of wealth at the expense of the working class is still the name of the game in these enlightened states (Norway, Germany, France, etc.), but at least th well being of the people as a whole has been given some consideration -- as opposed to the American system which is intensely capitalistic, and "drop dead if you can't hack it".

there could not be a form of government that embodies Marx’s system without resorting to some form of liberty denying authoritarianism — Deus

I disagree that a liberty-denying authoritarian system is unavoidable or inevitable -- while granting that often enough we have opted for, cooperated with, eagerly supported, or did little to prevent, tyranny. Nothing straight was ever built with the crooked timber of mankind, per E. Kant.

One form of marxism that has been proposed is 'industrial democracy'. It's DeLeon's American plan. DeLeon thought that democratic means should be employed to achieve socialism IF the appropriate institutions are available. He thought that they were available in the last quarter of the 19th, first quarter of the 20th centuries. The key piece is wide-spread organizing of industrial unions plus public education, political activity, and elections. A fully organized working class (which composing the workforce) would have the power to compel deep political and economic change -- backed up, of course, by the imposition of sit-down strikes (denial of labor, denial of production).

108 years on from DeLeon's death, we know that his plan was unsuccessful, but not for lack of a bloody revolution.

Why is this simpler than having workers have a few board seats? I think that’s at least less extreme. — Xtrix

You can give the workers a few board seats if you want to, I don't care.

The thing is, though, the drive for profit for the few--regardless of consequences--is leading (and has led) to fatal consequences for the many, Making money is the corporate raison d'être. There's no end-point to it.

There's no easy way to convert the system from manufacture for profit to manufacture for need.

I for one stand corrected.

The profits of corporations go to the shareholders (who own the company). The profits of private companies go to the owners--good, bad, or indifferent.

Per Agent Smith they go for various purposes.

What people do with their share of the profits depends on how big a share of the profits they get. Pension funds which own a lot of stock get a lot of profits which they distribute to pensioners. Very small stakeholders (like... $20,000 worth of stock total) could supplement whatever other income they have, but not by. lot. Insurance companies, which own a large share of stocks, use the profits they receive to defray payouts and to reinvest. Mutual funds, which own a lot of stocks, pay out benefits and reinvest.

Sometimes there are no profits.

People who get a lot of income from their investments tend to spend it on lavish living expenses. Cars, houses, travel, education, boats, planes, gambling, high quality drugs, expensive home furnishings, expensive clothing, etc. require substantial income.

If people have more money than they know what to do with, they can sock their excess money away in various instruments. They might give some of it away, though a lot of big gift-giving is in the name of a corpse.

The amount of money that the richest 1% (or 1/10th of 1%, or even 1/100th of 1%) have a lot of one which in itself keeps growing --earning profits. Thus, the rich keep getting richer.

Yet this strikes me as an essential stepping stone to changing the anti-democratic, plutocratic way we currently structure our economic system. — Xtrix

The simplest way to change the undemocratic, plutocratic system is to take their property away from them without compensation. (Well, let's say the compensation is that after we strip their assets, we don't shoot them.)

The city had laid out a huge network of bike rentals that were fairly cheap. Then for some reason allowed the elscooter companies to come in, leave their vehicles everywhere and did not charge a fee for us of public areas for their business. — Bylaw

Maybe some money was paid under the table? It's depressing.

It seems the real problem is that people when left to their own devices will tend toward satisfying their immediate desires with less regard for long range consequences. — Hanover

This is true, and in some non-existing workers utopia, people would also satisfy their immediate desires.

a more reasoned and deliberate populace. I'd agree with that, but not just so that I could have better transportation solutions, but so I can also have less crime, less unwanted pregnancy, less drug usage, and less of pretty much every other problem in our society. — Hanover

Absolutely. One way a more reasoned and deliberate populace effects its will is by electing people who form a reasoned and deliberate government which is capable of making reasonably enlightened decisions. (There aren't many of these around -- not even in Sweden, though they have been less crazy than some other governments.)

People seem to dehumanize themselves for a variety of reasons and, yes, many will pay decades down the line for their technological addictions — Bylaw

All of the 19th century technologies--photography, telegraph, telephone, electricity, radio, recorded sound, and automobiles became products or services delivered by corporations eager to maximize its profitability. New technologies are consequently not merely offered, they are pushed--maybe 'rammed' is a more accurate verb--into the market. Cell phones are a good example but hardly unique.

Extracting maximum profit is the name of the game. That's what the industrial revolution has ben about.

On the one hand, capitalism and industrialism are dehumanizing because they reduce people to productive and consuming cogs, else they are deemed irrelevant. [chicken - egg aside: It doesn't matter much whether capitalism begat industrialism or visa versa.]. On the other hand, the capitalist's drive to find new things to sell leads to new products, some of which are actually good things. But good or bad isn't the issue. The important question is "Will it sell?"

Capitalists and industrialists are short-term operators. Long-term consequences are external issues for somebody else to worry about. A good, current, example of this is electric cars. There are about one billion gas-guzzling cars in the world. That's a problem. Solution? Replace them with one billion battery guzzling cars. That's the obvious profit-maximizing solution. Screw mass transit! Can't make much money on that.

give it a try — javi2541997

Sure. Just bear in mind that it was written concurrently with the script for the movie, so there is very little in one that is not in the other.

I read the Clark's book derived from the film before I saw it, so it made ore sense to me than it otherwise would have. I had also listened to the soundtrack about 100 times before seeing the film back in 1970.

It seems to me that Brandan Morris, one of my favorite sci fi writers, observed a batch of monoliths on Enceladus some years in our future, They weren't doing much, but they had rescued Frank Poole? the astronaut who HAL9000 had tossed into space--his mental being, anyway.

I thought the monoliths were perfect as aliens: strange, mysterious, other-worldly, potent, awesome (in the original meaning of the word), etc.

My personal ludite sympathies are from what I see as a deterioration in personal relationships and interaction, which presumably would exist in a technologically advanced Marxist economy as much as a capitalist one. — Hanover

The point I was aiming for was that "better" or "different" technology would have to be self-selected, or it would just be another imposition.

The technology we are submerged in is atomizing, isolating, and alienating. I guess I agree that submerging the workers' paradise in cell phones, tablets, facebook, Google, et al would have pretty much the same effect it has had on workers in this society.

The medium is the message, per McLuhan. Cell phones do something that landlines just didn't do--they intrude into every moment indiscriminately. Using the product is the priority. The internet isn't the same thing as a library. Google search is a mixed blessing, undermining memory (you can always look it up) and, of course, serving up results according to a formula. Social media is a battering ram.

Technology and social media are products which must be sold, bought, and consumed in order for profit to be made. it is, obviously, profit that matters, not the effect of the technology. Business is business, and the tech and social media business is not radically different than gadget and publication business of the past, but their products are in a different class.

Back in the days of Walkman, people lamented that walking around listening to music on earphones was anti-social. They were cutting themselves off from everyone else. (Well, yes. I find earphones and MP3 players to be salvation on public transit.)

Tech didn't inaugurate alienation, but it certainly amplifies it.

One, maybe 'THE' critical question is "In whose hands does control rest?" The looms which the Luddites rejected were imposed upon the hand weavers. High tech (automation, AI, etc.) is likewise imposed upon workers with a subsequent loss of autonomy. Technology also de-skills work, too.

Workers could select the technology they wanted were they in charge, but that's just not the case in this world. Therefore:

Alienation — 180 Proof

disempowerment — Paine

ruthless exploitation — unenlightened

Disenfranchisement — Banno

Anomie, unemployment, poverty, etc.

I also believe that at the core of Abrahamic religions and those moral codes I've heard about (Kantian ethics included) the idea of making humans different from animals was very important. This might be one explanation why Abraham saved Isaac, but not the ram. — Eros1982

Really, it's a horrible story. Abraham was being put to the test: would he obey the order to kill his son? He passed the test when he prepared to kill Isaac. The ram was made available at the last moment as the sacrificial alternative to Isaac (the proverbial 'ram in the thicket').

I don't think the Abraham/Isaac story has anything to do with the subject at hand. A better source would be the Genesis passage about humans having dominion.

Clearly humans are different in the same way that dogs are different than donkeys or whales are different than wallabies. Different, but related.

Can we agree that monogamy among humans is imposed rather than natural? Geese are pretty much monogamous because it is in their evolved nature to be monogamous. Primates are not evolved to be monogamous. Monogamy is imposed by institutions of our own creation to manage fertility and control potentially disruptive behavior. Because we have more freedom of choice than geese, we can elect to be monogamous. Sometimes choosing monogamy doesn't make us a monogamous species.

Depicting something as "the ideal" is bait to make it more attractive than it would otherwise be. We don't depict chocolate as "ideal" because it doesn't need any enhancement. Self-sacrifice in war is offered as an ideal because soldiers generally prefer to survive war.

The more you search world literature the more you find animal names used with offensive meaning for human behavior. — Eros1982

Bird brain?

But birds do so much with their brains!

I don't know how they feel about sex... — Eros1982

Apparently they like it; it has kept them going for 150,000,000 years.

My guess is that a lot of the sturm und drang swirling around sexuality, gender, and diversity is absent from most people's lives. The sturm und drang is self-inflicted suffering which some of us bring upon ourselves by following the news closely. It's a feature of modern life: There are multiple channels for every viewpoint on every topic. The plethora of sources leads to hyperawareness of every split-hair opinion and how they conflict or compliment each other.

This isn't to say the issues aren't real -- just that we can be over-exposed to them.

Example: Above I wrote "sexuality, gender, and diversity" employing the Oxford comma. The head of the NHS in the UK has ordered people to avoid the Oxford comma. Uproar followed. Most people don't give a rat's ass one way or the other, but I find the Oxford comma essential to my mental health.

I have a grand nephew who is either gay or trans -- it isn't clear to me which. He recently moved to NYC to attend a fashion school. Sometimes it seems like being "trans" is just a more complicated way of being "gay". This isn't new, of course. For some, being gay has always been pretty simple. For others, it has always been more complex. So, some gays are just guys, but some gays like to play far more complex roles.

We aspire to be many things. Generally our options are limited by numerous constraints -- insufficient economic resources; historical and geographical limitations; insufficient talent; lack of nerve, and so on. We would like to have been [fill in the blank] but we didn't know how to make it happen, or we were shot down.

Most of the people I know who have transitioned from one gender to the other were happier for having done so. They came closer to being the person they aspired to be. Their transition might or might not have involved surgery and hormones. What is critical is that they were able to approximate the person they aspired to be.

Any of us might "transition" from the sort of person we have been to the sort of person we aspire to be.

I'm an essentialist, so I don't think that sexuality is constructed. However, what is possible in terms of expression is determined by society's established norms and limits.

So, people are born male and female. They aren't "assigned" a sex, their sex is identified. They are born with a variable sexual orientation ranging between entirely homosexual and entirely heterosexual. Orientation isn't constructed either.

For most people, the available and approved sexual roles match the individual reasonably well. Most men and women are heterosexual, and heterosexuality is the norm. How one lives out one's heterosexual life will vary from society to society. Homosexuality has generally not been a readily accepted norm, and how one lives as a homosexual will depend on what society tolerates.

It has become technically possible to build a movement based on ideas about non-binary gender roles, and so it exists. My personal view of the non-binary gender movement is that a lot of what is said is baloney. But then, I'm 75 and this was never my issue.

Sapolsky refers to humans as ‘the confused ape’ — I like sushi

Man, nailed that one!

Does it need to be that way always? — Eros1982

Societies tend to reproduce themselves and they do that through civil, social, religious, educational, and financial institutions. UK, Germany, France, Italy, et al have a core power elite. Wealth tends to be the foundation of power -- not always, but often enough. The reason the US more resembles a democracy than is one in actual fact is because our power elite is in control, and democracy is of little use to elites.

Didn't you say you were a leftist of some sort? You can pretty much assume that those with the most wealth are calling the shots, and generally call the shots in their own favor. Why would they do otherwise? '

I don't like it, but that seems to be the way things work.

let me make it clear here that I do not take existent countries to be models of democracy. I don't know what country you were active, but in the USA it is useless to speak about democratic politics (in my view). — Eros1982

I've always lived in the US -- the upper midwest.

An argument can be (has been) made that democracy (in the US) was never intended to be very democratic. It's ideal presentation represented an advance, but the democratic ideal was never instituted from the beginning. (Athenian democracy wasn't everything it was cracked up to be, either.).

However, there are some democratic-style procedures that work fairly well, at least on some levels of government. True enough, the US is pluralistic and the illusion of, if not the fact of democracy helps us get along together without too much conflict.

Referendum and initiative are used in some states here too. California is a good example of its mixed results.

This is why you have all this angry people here. — Eros1982

My theory about why there are so many angry runs along these lines: 80% of the population is working class, in therms of their work, income, and lifestyle. In the last 50 years (since around 1973) there has been a continuous decline in jobs, income, benefits, and security. Wages stagnated on one side and inflation further eroded purchasing power on the other side. Where one person could once support a family reasonably well, two people working more than 1 job apiece can not maintain a similar lifestyle. Those are the successful families--overworked, stressed out, but still afloat.

A lot of families have come apart, and suicide among once stalwart working class men has risen dramatically. Jobs and a familiar role in life disappeared.

It is quite apparent that a small share of the population has benefitted from the misery of the majority. It makes them angry.

Bernie Sanders speaks about the American people, Donald Trump speaks about the American people, Hillary Clinton speaks about the American people, Mitch Mcconnel the same. — Eros1982

Right, well clearly they are not all speaking on behalf of the same Americans or the same interests of Americans. Pluralism, remember.

If they are not able to do that, they shouldn't be surprised seeing their country to change in ways they will not like at all. — Eros1982

Given the uncertainty of the future, it might not be possible to get what they reasonably want for their children. In the face of global warming, I think it likely that there will be many disappointed people.

power and money are dominating politics — Eros1982

So... What's new?

A thing many people do not get nowadays (thanks to the liberal cult of the individual) is: if you want to be accepted, you have to accept also. — Eros1982

That's a thing many people have never gotten.

we accept your mutilation of your own genitals — Eros1982

Are you talking about female genital mutilation? Not a gay thing.

we accept your renouncing of parenthood — Eros1982

Who? Gay men? Hey, as a gay man I approve of heterosexual marriage and family. You are aware, of course, that the cause of population decline is heterosexuals opting to not have children. Gay couples have never reproduced so we can make no change in the birthrate.

Insofar as we believe in democracy and in human rights — Eros1982

Yes, "insofar as you believe in democracy and human rights". the reason for lobbying and protesting is that prior to the gay movement, human rights for gay people were severely abridged. It was illegal, if you remember, and it was also considered a mental illness and a sin. Sin it still is in some quarters; mental illness was dropped in 1972; the legal status of gay people has been changed over the last 50 years through persistent lobbying and protesting,

As for

in order to become an example to many others — Eros1982

No one ever became a homosexual by example. It may not be understood precisely how sexual orientation is established, but it is clearly established before birth. No one ever became a heterosexual by example, either.

Gay youth are kicked out of their homes fairly often by parents who do not accept them. As you might expect, they are vulnerable to victimization and abuse.

I don't know why the politics of identity are as intense in the US as they seem to be. Nor do I know how many people in the US give a rat's ass about identity politics. If one reads certain books and periodicals, attends certain colleges, follows certain blogs, and relies on certain media, it will seem like it is the #1 issue.

I'm not at all sure how many Americans are interested in or follow identity politics. My guess is that the number is much smaller than its fans.

I am part of identity politics, having been involved in the gay community since the late 1960s. What was once a simple enough claim to some core civil rights spread out to include much more. The inclusion of transexuals in the 1970s was a signifiant redirection.

It has always seemed to me that the "T" part of the GLBT formulation was a separate issue. Gay men and lesbians generally are clear about their identity. (As for the B... don't know.)

Gay people have always existed, idiot. It’s a fact of life and not some kind of modern ‘liberal’ invention. — praxis

Of course I agree that gay people have always existed, but it's also the case that gay people have existed in the form that their society allows and makes possible. Just for example, whether one lived in a subsistence rural or wealthy urban environment would matter a great deal. Some societies are oppressive (for everyone) and some are less so. Some are more rigid than others.

I'm not arguing that homosexual is constructed. Rather, gay people (like everybody else) have to work with the cultural materials at hand.

Maybe Eros1982 holds the leftist view that sexuality IS constructed (rather than an essential feature), so that models produce whatever result that comes about -- male/female/gay/straight...

By the way, nice ceramic (but not a good model at all, the boy seems much younger than his molester). — Eros1982

The relationship referenced in the ceramic doesn't have a contemporary equivalent. The younger male in the relationship was post-pubescent, when puberty generally occurred around age 14. The relationship was public, common, and normalized, with social benefits for the younger male. It was time-limited to when the younger man reached adulthood.

Eroticism and family life in Greece and Rome do not closely resemble contemporary (last few hundred years) western patterns, and it's safe to say that very few modern people would be happy actually living in the ancient world. It was socially a much harsher world.

A lot of people have a pretty neurotic reaction to any sexual relationship where there is an age differential. That said, taking ceramic pot decorations as a model for contemporary behavior is obviously not sensible. The specific scene might be appealing, but the illustrations are a piece of a much larger whole, and even the most committed homophile would not want to transplant the social structure of Ancient Greece to the modern world.

The last 30 years some leftists seem to be arguing that humans have been very wrong in the last 40.000 years for exposing fertility in women and strength in men. Okay, history will show who is wrong and who is right. — Eros1982

Yeah, well... as some sort of leftist gay guy, I find that "some leftists" seem to be in a competition for the most extreme possible position on all sorts of topics. The lunatic left bends to meet the lunatic right.

Hence, again (like 25 centuries ago) emotions seem to play one of the major functions in democracy. — Eros1982

It's always a big mistake to suppose that emotions won't play a major role. We are not altogether rational animals.

It is hard to see how a liberal society can promote models nowadays when the first thing every politician should worry about is the representation of his voters wishes, his fear that none should be excluded so that no vote is lost in the next ballot. — Eros1982

To some extent (% varies from estimate to estimate) electoral politics are and always have been a sham. Liberal societies (like all other societies) strive to stay in business, so whatever supports continuity from election to election will be employed. Still, no system is perfect so every now and then 'the people' manage to actually improve things through voting.

All societies handle conflict. — I like sushi

In the broadest definition, sure. But there are large differences in the means employed and the desired end.

External conflict may be used to achieve internal cohesion; a good war can unify the population. Conflict may be used to reduce unwanted diversity by stoking internal conflict between groups (like the Nazis did). Internal conflict may be used to weaken opposition to colonization. Etc.

An ostensibly liberal society like the United States (which is hardly the only example) may employ quite illiberal methods of. As you noted, "We are most certainly NOT all equal". It takes a lot of manipulation and misinformation to keep a lid on our potential social conflict.

Are manipulation and misinformation tools of liberal management???

I'm not sure what the thrust of your discussion is. It's a bit incoherent. Liberal schmiberal. There is no rock-solid definition of what a liberal or a conservative is or must be.

There are all sorts of movements in a culture over time and in different locations, Nothing exceptional here. There are, of course, role models ranging from very good to very bad.

One goal in "liberal" societies is to manage conflict. Better that than stoking conflict. A lot of what people call "political correctness" are just blandishments aimed at conflict reduction, and the illusion--if not the fact--that since we are all equal, there is no need for conflict.

That said, it can be very difficult to figure out the latest wrinkles in political usage. Why for example, has the phrase "pregnant women" been replaced by 'pregnant people"? The last time I looked it up, men do not get pregnant.

Is this the difference between knowledge and wisdom? — Christopher

I wasn't aiming that high. Just this: In school students learn 'how to learn' and start accumulating knowledge about the world. Given curiosity about the world, lifelong learning continues all the way to the grave. (Wisdom isn't one of my favorite words.). Many people aren't all that curious, and/or do not have good knowledge acquisition skills. It's not a fault if you didn't have the chance, but shame on college graduates who stop reading widely once they graduate. We can become stupid if we are not careful.

But an apprenticeship could help. — jgill

Absolutely. The solitary writer can develop numerous bad habits. Polish comes from having our rough spots scraped off by other writers. It's not a process we like, but after a time one's writing is much better.

think the problem with the humanities is the incessant push to say something new, something novel, something different. This leads, in most cases, to saying less and less about things that are of concern to human being and human life. — Fooloso4

Some people think that the humanities progress with research adding more and more knowledge. There are marginal gains, but the content has been available for analysis for a long time, and there is little ground that has not been plowed deeply and in every direction.

It is not a problem that the humanities are a plateau.

I’ve met numerous people who have a degree and cannot write a paragraph. Writing, like reading, is an extremely difficult skill to master. For some reason too many people think education stops once you leave school without realising that ‘schooling’ is simply the first step on the never ending road of learning to teach yourself. — I like sushi

Wise words.

Formal education prepares one for life-long learning, IF one is willing to practice it.

“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”

― Flannery O'Connor

My brother's comment was obviously futile. Is that to suggest, however, that all inebriated ideas are baseless? Or any other substance that alters cognition, for that matter? — Christopher

Inebriated people, me among them, have ideas and they might be quite good ideas. The problem is in working out the details, expressing them clearly, and (often enough) remembering them in the morning.

So, why are you quoting drunks as useful sources, even if he's your brother? — Bitter Crank

Throw away line. Sorry about that. It seems like the fewer cognitive altering substances we are currently using the clearer our cognition is. That said, who wants to be sober all the time?

But would there be less need as technology progresses exponentially, rendering many jobs in the tech field obsolete? — Christopher

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

I don't know what the consequences of more complex technology will be on the tech sector. Some work can be de-skilled, certainly. Creativity, on the other hand, isn't a strong-point of AI. I've seen a lot of technological change in the last 50 years and I don't see the end-point. (That doesn't mean that techno-development won't stall-out at some point.)

It would be very difficult to pick a field with a guaranteed future. What seems to be a good plan is to be as flexible as possible, both in one's work and in one's consumption habits. One hopes that flexibility will be a voluntary option, and not forced.

So, good luck and best wishes.

I like the sewer analogy, nice! — Agent Smith

Credit goes to mathematician Tom Lehrer of Harvard who turned 94 this year. He wrote satirical songs in the 1960s. The quote in question is from a survival hymn about nuclear war -- "We Will All Go Together When We go". Part of the prologue to the song:

One particular bit of advice which I recall
Which is the reason I bring up this whole dreary story
Is something he said once before they took him away
To the Massachusetts state home for the bewildered
He said, "Life is like a sewer
What you get out of it depends on what you put into it"
It's always seems to me that this is precisely
The sort of dynamic, positive thinking
That we so desperately need today
In these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha

The 'real question' isn't whether the humanities and social sciences have a useful place in academia, it's whether your brother has a good reason to go back to college, and a good plan to succeed.

The answer to the question isn't always "Yes, of course he should finish college." It depends on what he wants to accomplish, and whether a college degree will further the plan. It might not. Then there is the cost/benefit question.

What is your brother's goal?

It's an academic joke.

He drunkenly stated, "Humanities and social sciences are no longer useful in academia." — Christopher

So, why are you quoting drunks as useful sources, even if he's your brother?

I have no regrets studying literature and social sciences. Academia is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

My opinion is that we are rapidly closing in on the point of no return — _db

An active topic of debate is whether we have closed in on the point of no return or whether we have a few more weeks to screw around. I suspect that if we have not closed in on our doomsday yet, we are probably too close to back away. I find no satisfaction in that, please note.

Why is that man snickering?

Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same. — Buddha (The parable of the poisoned arrow)

Nice.

“This isn’t going to stop,” Mr. Allen said. “Art is dead, dude. It’s over. A.I. won. Humans lost.”

What makes the new breed of A.I. tools different, some critics believe, is not just that they’re capable of producing beautiful works of art with minimal effort. It’s how they work. Apps like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney are built by scraping millions of images from the open web, then teaching algorithms to recognize patterns and relationships in those images and generate new ones in the same style. That means that artists who upload their works to the internet may be unwittingly helping to train their algorithmic competitors. (NYT)