Comments

  • The problem of dirty hands
    Walzer is a political realist. I think realists of any kind venture further philosophically that a pragmatist could stomach. — frank

    Sorry, but what is the difference between a political realist and a political pragmatist? They seem to overlap quite a bit.
  • The problem of dirty hands
    Leaders should recognize their own guilt and even seek punishment for the crimes they commit on behalf of their citizens. — frank

    Does Walzer really think that any leader would do that? Given the notion that power corrupts, it seems highly unlikely that any leader with sufficient chutzpah and power would voluntarily confess. At any level, leaders usually attempt to defend themselves and their leadership position. Confessions of wrongdoing are more likely to be a "Hail Mary pass" -- a last resort.

    Confessing wrongdoing that is otherwise undetectable takes a very strong moral code that results in a lot of cognitive dissonance. Ambitious people who become leaders generally have pretty good ambiguity tolerance that enables them to live with inconsistencies.
  • The problem of dirty hands
    ↪frank
    Theologians have talked about "dirty hands" too. The hands that perform works of mercy are often 'dirty' in the sense that they have performed wrongful acts, maybe even very bad acts. It's unavoidable. In a more secular society, dirty hands may well serve good ends.

    Back to Mach, the modern national chief executive might perform or order all sorts of underhanded, devious, or outright illegal acts to protect 'the interests of the state'. (Not thinking here of tax evasion, Watergate break-ins, claiming to have won the lost election, etc.)

    Very powerful leaders, acting in the interests of the state, will be held to a different standard than the typical citizen. How much impunity the executive has depends on how well he succeeds in both projecting and achieving success. If the depiction or performance falls too short, the lesser powers-that-be may turn on the executive, and what was previously excusable may become prosecutable,
  • Is there a wrong way to live?
    I'm narrowing the argument down to lifestyle — Jake Hen

    This approach will definitely not avoid moral reprehensibility. "Lifestyle" involves choices that affect others in material ways.

    I love a rich green lawn; I like tropical flowers massed in large well-watered beds. I like to swim outside in my own large pool. I live in an area subject to a severe long-term drought. The state, county, and city all are inforcing stringent water conservation. Lucky for me, there are three houses next door that are 3/4 completed and are sitting idle. Water service was provided. I'm using water from the three houses to keep my lawn and garden green and my pool full. Yeah, I know that some areas have been forced to depend on bottled water for drinking because their taps are dry. But... a lot of those people came from shit holes anyway, so I'm sure it's not that big a deal for them.

    This woman is living a plush and horribly grotesque lifestyle.
  • Is there a wrong way to live?
    I know I would consider multiple ways of living horrible and grotesque, but morally wrong? Probably not. — Jake Hen

    What sort of 'horrible and grotesque' ways of living are you thinking of that would not pose moral problems?

    Some people do live horrible and grotesque lifestyles, and there generally are consequences for other people. I'm not thinking of the comic Addams Family, more like The Godfather.

    Maybe there is a categorical imperative to NOT live horribly and grotesquely?
  • Political Polarization
    "system decay" is one of those nice media-friendly buzzwords that gets alot of airtime because it commits publications to nothing whatsoever, politically, while sounding vaguely diagnostic. — StreetlightX
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    I think it just boils down to people not being able to respond with nuance in real time whilst sharing the same space with each other and looking each other in the eye. I don't think there is much hope for reasonable discussions on sensitive topics (the most important topics) when both parties are physically distanced from each other. — I like sushi

    Stephen Marche (The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future) said that "'the reduction of empathic distress' the basic inhumanity that the facelessness of the internet permits" is a major piece of the problem.

    On any Internet forum, unless very tightly governed, some people will be disinhibited and will go for the slasher style of interaction.

    I'm starting to question whether we should even bother? — I like sushi

    Yes, you should continue to bother. The effect you are looking/hoping for isn't going to come as a thunderclap. Positive effects will be subtle and gradual. And besides, in actual face-to-face encounters, people usually feel more "empathic distress" than they do on the internet.
  • What is intelligence? A.K.A. The definition of intelligence
    ↪Fooloso4
    Perhaps. But the point is, intelligence is primarily demonstrated through performance. Doing nothing distinguishes neither intelligence or a lack there of.
  • What is intelligence? A.K.A. The definition of intelligence
    a genius is generally someone who possesses exceptional skill or intelligence that they are able to put into practice in some endeavo — Tom Storm

    The ability to complete some task without being taught to do so,or solve a problem, or assess a situation and respond in an appropriate way (phronesis). — Fooloso4

    The ability to troubleshoot and fix a machine.The ability to assess a social or interpersonal situation and act accordingly. Acting prudentially to achieve a good outcome. — Fooloso4

    "the ability to work things out" — Down The Rabbit Hole

    So, intelligence is the ability to analyze a complex problem, create at a solution, and then perform the solution. Intelligence is analytical, creative, and performative at a high level.

    Intelligence is invisible if inactive. A sleeping genius and a sleeping moron are indistinguishable. It is in "doing" that the quality of intelligence is revealed.

    A very intelligent person can observe something and make more connections to other things they have observed. The person's reading will be enriched by associating and comparing plot, characters, word choices, writing style, etc. with other texts.

    Training is still required. Very intelligent people are not likely to mentally reinvent the wheel and everything that followed. Even if they could, it would take entirely too much time. A 19th century genius cannot open a 21st century computer and instantly make sense of it.
  • Changing Sex
    ↪Hanover
    Insightful observations about extraordinarily complex behaviors and mental processes.

    Good observational skills can be developed, but they also require that one be open to the flow of cues, signs, subtle behaviors, and so on. Sometimes I have 'closed the door' to the clues others are broadcasting for a sort of self-protection from too much information.
  • Changing Sex
    The most sensible persons I have known have all been homosexual men. — baker

    Yes, absolutely, Homosexual men are definitely the most sensible of men.

    A homosexual man told me that most homosexual men are macho types like heterosexual men. — baker

    Some gay men are even more macho than straight men, but maximum-machismo is sometimes more 'art' than 'nature'. That is, some gay men cultivate machismo (and so do some straight men). Lots of men and women find machismo attractive, though maybe not as a steady diet.

    the quickest way for a woman to find a good friend is among homosexual men. — baker

    Yes. Gay men can be close friends with women because they are not sexually interested in the women. They are 'safe'. Conversely, a woman may make a very good friend for a gay male because there is no sexual attraction. Gay men can, of course, be very close friends with each other, but there is often a sexual tension between gay men that also exists between straight women and straight men.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    ↪javi2541997
    Right. People generally don't shower marginalized groups with positive traits. Generally the opposite. But marginalized groups can shower positive traits on themselves, justified or not. (Or, marginalized groups can buy into their own negative reputations.). Marginalization, however a group of people arrived, is itself a cause of negative attributions. Highly privileged groups may have many negative traits, but privilege alone results in these negatives being overlooked.

    We live in a world where there are many layers of RELATIVE marginalization and privilege. This further complicates things. Where one stands in the hierarchy can be difficult to figure out, and people generally don't like this kind of ambiguity. One way to lessen the ambiguity is by arbitrarily imposing prejudicial evaluations on others.

    It's a can of worms.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    I won’t really be participating myself: — I like sushi

    Why the hell not?

    I would say anyone stating that oppressed minorities cannot be racist are deluded. — I like sushi

    I agree.

    It seems like "delusional" is our default state. There are convenient delusions, necessary delusions, harmful delusions, and so on. We can achieve rational thinking, but we have to work very hard to do it successfully. Of course, we may be deluded about how rational our thinking is.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    To judge someone just on color,race,ethnicity or even just because they are identified as a certain religion is racist and in the last case just bigoted. — Zenny

    So, a positive judgement based on color, race, ethnicity, or religion would be bigoted to?
  • Changing Sex
    ↪praxis
    No, there is ample, hard evidence that life sucks. Reality is a bitch and then you die. And the dead stay dead, nothing more. So in the meantime, gather ye roses while ye may. or whatever it is you like.
  • Changing Sex
    It seems that I have much more faith in the idea that we’re all deluded (cannot know reality) than you do. — praxis

    That's probably so, especially if you say it. Delusions are, as I said, our stock-in-trade. Why, if we can perceive reality, do we cling to delusions? Because reality is often harsh, cold, and in ever so many ways, unpleasant. We literally can not bear an unrelenting diet of harsh reality without some sort of comforting delusions. To what extent delusional thinking is a feature or a bug varies, depending.

    Take happiness: Freud summed up our situation this way (paraphrasing): "Happiness just isn't in the cards." We long for happiness but it evades us. We respond with delusional thinking to cover over our serious disappointments and painful experiences. Delusions help many people carry on, doing what needs to be done.
  • Changing Sex
    This doesn’t really make sense, does it? — praxis

    Yes, it make sense. First, there is objective reality. Second there is us, the observers. We are both capable of observing objective reality (which is why we have science) and we can delude ourselves and others in various ways. Delusions are objectively observable in people. Donald Trump and a few million Republicans have "stolen election delusions". Most Republicans and Democrats are not affected by "stolen election delusions". They recognize that Trump lost the election.

    We name "delusion" for beliefs which have no objective support. A belief in an afterlife (hell or heaven) is delusional because there is zero evidence that such a thing exists. A belief in a 6 day creation is delusional because there is extensive evidence that the stars first shone 13 billion years, and so on.
  • Changing Sex
    ↪praxis
    A devout Christian can believe in his or her own salvation, know well the theology of their faith, perform worship and good works splendidly, and still be deluded. What they are deluded about is the truth of what they believe in. The delusion is invisible.

    Many Americans believe their country is the home of the brave, land of the free, the best place on earth -- by objective standards. That is a delusion (maybe one of those 'necessary delusions').

    find it extremely hard to believe that a transsexual doesn't realize what they are. I would think that they would tend to be keenly aware of themselves and their sexuality, much more so than ordinary folk at least, who have less of a reason to be self-conscious. — praxis

    Under ordinary circumstances, transsexuals are not deluded about how they feel, what they wish to accomplish trough therapy, the kind of sexual experiences they have. What they are deluded about is the idea that one can change one's sex from male to female or visa versa. What they can do is change their appearance, but not the underlying biology.

    A successful trans person is not deluded about their fully passing as a woman or man (or, unhappily, failing to pass). Other people provide the evidence that one is passing, or (possibly very cruelly) that one is not.

    Nor are they deluded about wanting to change from one sex to another. The delusion is thinking that one can change their biology.

    As I said above

    I believe there is an objective reality, but one important aspect of reality is that humans are delusional. My theory is that everybody is deluded to varying degrees. It is a question of "how much" and "about what". Delusions and illusions are the human stock-in-trade. — Bitter Crank
  • Changing Sex
    interesting and perhaps revealing that your description of gender mentions only who one is sexually attracted to, and nothing about what I would consider to be a more central aspect of gender for many in the gay community, which has to do with a global perceptual-affective style — Joshs

    I will have to plead guilty to your charge.

    When it comes to "being gay" which as you say involves a global perceptual-affective style, I find myself with a deficient vocabulary to adequately express what I experience. I meet men in ordinary social settings and we may immediately recognize each other as gay, but I find it difficult to pin down exactly what the signals are. This may be one reason I have always preferred to look for sexual partners in places where "pre-sorting" had taken place--bath houses, gay bars, night-time cruising areas in parks. Some people seem to be able to walk through a figurative Grand Central Station and reliably find prospective partners.

    These is something abut deportment, grooming, details of dress, speech patterns, interests, and so forth that together add up to a strong signal. It's like art -- I know it when I see it. Some people are better at this than others, and some people with sharp gaydar are actually pretty straight. An some very gay guys (part of the 2.5%) don't signal their gayness very strongly. And some straight people see gay, but are not. But, gay signals and gaydar work well enough most of the time.

    Gay men perhaps display a less guarded posture with perhaps more relaxed musculature; they seem a bit more carefully groomed; slightly better put together clothing -- regardless of what they are wearing; a more open sort of verbal expression. Perhaps one is more likely to find gay men at an art gallery than a used car auction, but I know people who contradict that. Gay men do seem to regard (see, evaluate) other men more carefully than straight men.
  • Changing Sex
    Some say homosexuality is a just a state of confusion — frank

    In some cases it is. As you know, only a small percentage of men are exclusively homosexual--about 2.5%. They are not confused. (One group that is confused about this is gay advocates who want to inflate the number of gay people as possible for political purposes.) A much larger share are exclusively heterosexual; they aren't confused either. Most men, though, are somewhere in the range described by Kinsey, varying in what they fantasize about and what they actually do. The confusion is a conflict between what they are doing and what they fantasize about. So married fathers may fantasize about sex with men, but perform sex with women. That (seems to be) much more common than men who have sex with men but fantasize about sex with women. A prison setting comes to mind.

    Bisexuality, which is perhaps the norm for a large number of people, has a "bad reputation" among both gays and straights, because they fail gay and straight individual's expectations (not in terms of performance but in terms of group identification). "B" was added to "GL" early on. That's probably less of an issue now than say, 40 years ago, because the "gay community" as such has become more vague and amorphous.

    Then there is polymorphous perversity, but that's difficult to pin down and analyze. I am not sure how, but I am absolutely sure that Donald Trump lives on many levels of polymorphous perversity.

    I don't have x-ray vision into people's souls so that I can sort out who's deluded and who's living their truth by the their lifestyle choices. Why do you think you do? — frank

    Well, fuck. You should have gotten the upgrade of Soul Vision when it was on sale! It will cost you an arm and a leg, now.

    I believe there is an objective reality, but one important aspect of reality is that humans are delusional. My theory is that everybody is deluded to varying degrees. It is a question of "how much" and "about what". Delusions and illusions are the human stock-in-trade. "Mental health" means having some awareness of how much distance there is between our de- and il-lusions (derived from ludere, play) and harsh reality (that 'reality' is soft, rose-tinted, and gauzy is a delusion). Merely knowing that we are deluded doesn't make the delusions go away.

    Freud thought that religion was one big fat delusion.
  • Changing Sex
    ↪praxis
    I would use her preferred pronoun because I am at least semi-civilized, and and would not want to make a scene. That doesn't mean I think she has changed her sex.

    I have know several transsexuals well, and I know that they go through a LOT of sturm and drang on their way to a satisfactory conclusion. A lot of homosexuals go through a lot of sturm and drang before they reach self-acceptance. Making any major change in life can be quite difficult.

    There are two questions here:

    a) Does the trans individual believe what they are saying about their sex/gender?
    b) Can one change one's sex/gender in fact?

    I think the adult transsexual believes what they are saying.

    I do not think that transsexuals can change their sex/gender, but they can, through 'art', appear to have done so, without close examination.

    Is transsexualism a delusion? Yes. That's not as dismissive as it sounds. Human beings maintain a variety of "necessary delusions" to get through life. Hard hearted/hard headed examination reveals delusions, but it doesn't make them less necessary.

    Example: I think I am an exceptionally good person--fair, honest, kind, etc. A closer examination will reveal instances of unfairness, dishonesty, cruelty, etc. A mentally healthy person can admit their serious flaws, at least in private, but they will want to give priority to the delusions which make them feel like they are decent human beings.

    My guess is that the delusion of trans people requires an unusually strong commitment to maintaining the delusion.

    People have equally strong commitments to political and religious positions Strong though their commitments may be, they may be altogether mistaken.
  • Changing Sex
    all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female — praxis

    Yes, that's the case, until the xx and xy chromosomes are activated and the pubic hump is differentiated into female or male body parts. The rest of the body is differentiated as well -- pelvic width, musculature, bone length, CNS, etc. This is true for mammalian development across the board (except for duckbilled platypuses (platypusi?). Nipples, likewise, again across the board. But men don't start lactating without a major hormonal push.

    Men are men, women are women. East is east, west is west, and never the twain shall meet. (Kipling. Not a serious quote)

    What have they given up — praxis

    Might-have-been history is always fun to write, if unreliable.

    "What was given up" probably won't be visible to younger gay people, let alone heterosexuals. Even old folks like myself are too young to remember some aspects of "gay liberation". But briefly:

    forming gay all-male communities
    outsider status
    an alternative set of values

    Stonewall, 1969, was not the beginning of gay liberation: It was a landmark that was latter mistaken for the beginning. Pieces of gay liberation had been happening for the previous 80 yers, here and there. Whitman's Calamus poems (1859) were about "the manly love of comrades"--eros, not agape or brotherly love. Gay men were around before then, of course, but mostly unacknowledged--which is what made it possible for them to exist (carefully) in plain sight.

    Sex and companionship were a key part of the early gay community, and its forms could develop outside of the mainstream culture because, again, it was scarcely acknowledged. To the extent that gay men violated norms on sex roles, race, class, and age, the less visibility to the outside world, the better.

    There were some high ideals in the Stonewall era too, but by the mid-1970s, gay activism was focused on opening the American military to gay men (Leonard Matlovich). Some of us never thought that that fight was worthwhile. BUT, high ideals had given way to across the board acceptance in everything from the military to marriage.

    Outsider status is a valuable element, in that those who have it are free to develop a culture as they see fit. Join the mainstream, and that's no longer possible. Gay men developed a sexual culture of having many partners with less emphasis on long-term commitments. The mainstream objections to gay culture were about morals, and how promiscuity was immoral. Later (1980s) the health risks of unprotected promiscuity were highlighted, and true enough, there were avoidable risks. But the upshot was, "settle down with one partner", which is the heterosexual solution.

    A major piece of public health effort was aimed at eliminated the locations where gay men met. Under cover of disease prevention, the key infrastructure of the gay male sexual community was lost.

    Grindr has had a less liberatory benefit than one might think. By individualizing / privatizing the search for a suitable sexual partner, social settings like gay bars have been seriously diminished.

    Marriage, children, and mortgages are a time-tested way of pacifying men. Once married, once having a mortgage, and maybe children, one takes on commitments that mean one had better comply, be compliant, else one may be fired, making the marriage/mortgage burden all that much heavier.
  • Changing Sex
    Every little thing comes down to money. Companies scramble to present a PC image so as to avoid losing their share of the market. That's why I, a healthcare worker, have been trained to be sensitive to trans issues.

    Sniff all you want. There's nothing you can do about it.     — frank

    Before retirement from social work, I occasionally provided services to trans persons. I treated them with respect and sensitivity, as expected, as trained. I've known a number of transsexual persons since... about 1974. I accepted them as part of the gay community (which early on was the only community they could belong to) just as I did fems, butches, fats, thins, drug users, hairy, hairless, straights, bisexuals, and so on. I've listened to trans people describe their situation, how it manifested itself in their lives, and have heard about and observed the difficulties they've had,

    So I get it. And, sniff: no, there is nothing I can do about it. I checked my last long range plan, and fixing trans people isn't on my TO DO list. Just so you know.

    Medical and social service workers should of course respect their clients. That doesn't mean believing everything they say, or accepting as truth everything they believe in. I don't believe everything that I have believed in the past, and some ancient truths now seem pretty crappy. So, I maybe buy half of what many trans people say about transsexualism / transgenderism.

    Hey, I don't believe everything that gay people say about being gay, either. Or, straight people, or young people, or old people, or anybody else. In fact, I don't even agree with everything I'VE said about being gay.
  • Changing Sex
    I think that's your take on what's happening. — frank

    Well, yes, not surprisingly. My "take" is that the overwhelming majority of H. sapiens are born as male or female. True, a small percentage are born with sexual anomalies. True, many are born with personality or mental traits that are conventionally associated with the opposite sex. True, some are born with or develop sexual object arousal that are unusual (fetishists). Most people are born and identify as straight, some are born and identify as gay.

    In fact, moray eels can change sex, people cannot. People can masquerade and pass as members of the opposite sex, as long as they are in costume. Moray eels cannot.

    Everybody else says "trans", to indicate how they self identify and how they want to be addressed.

    In America anyway, this is pretty mainstream, if still a little awkward sometimes.     — frank

    Fine, trans can call it whatever they want.

    Self-advocacy groups sometimes over-reach. In my opinion, the gay rights movement over-reached on marriage and family. "Marriage" with the prospect of children is essentially a heterosexual expectation. That doesn't mean that gay people should thus lead marginalized, lonely existences. Two men, two women can have meaningful and fulfilling relationships (or not--break-ups occur either way).

    Yes, I understand that two men, two women, or singles can raise a child. The question for 'gay liberation' is more a matter of what gay people have given up to gain acceptance and the 'normality' of heterosexual-type family life.

    In my opinion, trans people (that better?) have over-reached as well.
  • Changing Sex
    It's literally scientifically impossible to change sex. Sewing a sausage dick on isn't going to change that. Such a thing is delusional and we should treat it as such. — emancipate

    The BBC World Service has a story about a woman who was taking testosterone and had had her breasts removed who decided (as a "man") that "he" had always wanted to have children. She still had ovaries, a uterus, and the other parts. So "he" stopped taking testosterone and eventually resumed menses. "He" was artificially inseminated and bore a child. The BBC host for this story was very excited that "a man could bear a child."

    Extreme bullshit, of course. The "man" in this case was a woman pretending to be a man, and taking male hormones to get a beard and slightly different musculature. What she was doing was elaborate transvestitism.

    Men take estrogen, develop breasts, lose their male sex drive, and so on, and dress like women. Parts can be chopped off. In the case of women wanting to look like men, parts can be chopped off, hormones taken, and sausages sewed on. They remain the men or women that they were born as, just more chopped up.

    Transsexualism and transvestitism is an elaborate sexual masquerade--and certainly not the only sexual and non-sexual masquerade which humans perform. But let's stay honest: A man wearing a dress (even if an artificial vagina has been created) is still a masquerading man. A woman wearing a beard and a suit (even if an artificial penis has been created) is still a masquerading woman.

    I don't have any objection to people masquerading, as long as they--and society--are clear and honest about what they are doing.
  • Can literature finish religion?
    "encouraging people into culture and books could get them away from all forms of religion" — javi2541997

    Although many religious people can give damning evidence about the failures of their religion (I can), it may not be a good idea to get all 'the religious' away from their religion. For many, religion is the key to their making sense of the world, and how they orient themselves in the world. They would need something pretty good to replace the function of religion. There ARE such replacements, but they may not be be assimilated easily or readily, and not all the replacements are especially good.

    You may be familiar with Christian fundamentalism. If not, it's a movement that takes the Bible literally -- creation took place on 7 days, for instance. (That's the first thing in the Bible they take literally -- there are another 1000 things that are also taken literally and as fact.).

    Christian fundamentalism was a reaction to the scholarship and culture of the 19th century that produced textual criticism of the Bible, and undermined the previous framework of understanding about how the Bible was written, edited, and developed. Science also caused the reaction -- particularly Darwin's books about evolution--they were a bombshell that a lot of people still haven't gotten over.

    Christian fundamentalism, like Islamic fundamentalism, is reactionary -- a reaction to the very culture that might lure them away. (You are correct here: secular culture is pretty attractive to many religious people and they are lured away. Like me, for instance.)
  • Can literature finish religion?
    javi2541997 — javi2541997

    Glad your back!
  • Can literature finish religion?
    ↪javi2541997
    Religion, ritual, beliefs; poetry, novels, prose; film, drama; music; plastic arts; painting; dance; opera: ALL of this is human culture. The media (plural of medium) which people use to find meaning will vary from time to time, but they are in play all the time. Not all for everyone, of course, but something for everyone. [Then there is science, math, and technology--another cultural activity of a different sort than religion and literature, but with great power.]

    So, will the novel or opera or film finish off religion? Of course not. No more than religion has finished off any form of literature or music. Every component of culture is changed from year to year, reinvented, reinvested, refurbished, replaced, et cetera.

    IF we are still here a thousand years from now, we will still engage in multiple forms of culture, including belief systems (religion) and cultural expression (the arts). We will still have science, math, and technology. (If we don't, go to the final chapter, "Totally Screwed" for further information.)
  • Can this art work even be defaced?
    Here is a piece of commercial art that I think could be defaced. It was put up in the Dayton's building, the former site of the Dayton's Department Store in downtown Minneapolis. Dayton's sold its department store operation to Macy's, and changed it's name to Target, which had long since become the largest part of the Dayton's company.

    Macy's also gave up on this downtown site. A developer converted the large 12 floors to high end office space and small shop retail. So far, the retail part has not gotten off the ground (thanks to Covid-19).

    I doubt this commercial graphic was spontaneously created by artists, because it does not seem spontaneous to me. Were someone to spray paint two straight lines on the surface, it would look like a defacement. I don't think the 'piece' is beautiful or attractive. Rather, it looks "commercial" which is anything but spontaneously.

    I came across a couple of other commercial pieces very much like this one yesterday, but for different locations, under different management. My guess is that they were created in the same shop.

    4be017cfac34c7eaf61da136f63f9cc5148c2762.jpg
  • Youth for longevity.
    Perhaps realizing what doesn't kill me simply didn't try hard enough — Mayor of Simpleton

    What doesn't kill us the first time practices and works out at the death camp, then returns to try again.

    Hey, glad you're still kicking and kicking competitively at that! Carry on.
  • Youth for longevity.
    ↪TiredThinker
    On the one hand, blessings on you for caring for your mother. On the other hand, your OP makes more sense now. You have been burdened from an age when most of us are on our own.

    No, life and death do not make sense. My partner died of cancer at 66 after living a very health life. My father smoked (didn't drink), had heart disease and COPD and lived to be 102, lucid until the end. My mother was worn out when she was my age (now), and died a decade later, and wasn't lucid until the end.

    As a gay man, accustomed to being poor with relatively low material expectations, no children, no car, no house payment, no debt, I was pretty free to live the way I wanted to, and did, sort of (less happily than I had hoped, but still...). I wasn't living close to home when my parents needed help, and I had 4 sisters who did live nearby. By no means did they split up the care evenly -- one sister carried a heavier burden than the other 3, and received no thanks for it.

    Seeing your latest post... yeah, I don't get how osteoarthritis works out to be any sort of advantage either. I find it a major pain in the knee bone connected to the hip bone, connected to the back bone, connected to the neck bone, connected to the shoulder bone, and so on.
  • An Objection to the Teleological Argument
    your bitter pessimism — Gnomon

    Wait wait. On the topic of evolution I'm not at all bitter or pessimistic. After all, our esteemed selves, the paragon of animals and the crowns of creation, are the result of evolution. You know, we are pretty smart. It just when we start playing God, as we often do--one way or another--we land in deep shit pretty quick.

    God, being all omniscient about everything, knew in advance how plan A, Plan B, Plan C, on down to Plan ZZZ, would turn out. So, whatever he chose to do, he knew how it would turn out through to the end of time. We, on the other hand, can't start frying an egg with certain knowledge of how it will turn out. Genetic engineering with the attention span and predictive capacity that results in burnt fried eggs? God help us all.
  • An Objection to the Teleological Argument
    ↪Gnomon
    I was in joke-mode, so don't take what I said as an argument.

    However: I do not think evolution is upward-bound. Evolution takes place whenever two animals or plants mate. The life around us is the consequences of trillions and trillions of matings. Meiosis and mitosis ad infinitum.

    The results "appear progressive", maybe even "designed" in some way, because what we see is a system that works. The system that worked before blue-green algae poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen was much different than the one that worked for blue-green algae, and there were successive systems that worked up until the next major extinction event came along, and then they didn't work anymore. Evolution didn't "start over" or "try again" it just kept on going, working with whatever was left over at the time.

    Lots of matings don't work either. Something goes wrong in the post fertilization development and you end up with a dead or unproductive offspring, end of the line. Love is blind and so is random mating. Evolution isn't a process that occurs over millions of years. It occurs in vanishingly brief moments of biological union. True, there are limits imposed. A frog and a grasshopper can not mate. Neither can a carrot and a pineapple. Carrots have to stick to its own kind, as do pineapples, frogs, and grasshoppers.

    I understand how 'teleology' can be read onto evolution, history, spirituality, and so on. It isn't evil or harmful, but it does seem (to me) to be a mistaken notion. It places us, and other species, on a metaphorical conveyor belt to the stars. WE can progress, but by dint of very hard work during our own lifetimes, and the successive life times of others. That seems to me to be the only progress we can make.

    Even if a teleological process existed (in evolution) we are not going to live to see it, or document it. "we" are the result of one mating, then we live for decades. We mate and another batch of decades goes by. Evolution is slow. Hundreds of generations will have passed before any differences develop. We will be the ancient pre-history of the generation that notices an improvement, if they notice at all.

    Maybe we can genetically engineer our way as a fast track to the future? What could possibly go wrong with that?
  • An Objection to the Teleological Argument
    Philosophers, through the ages have mostly agreed that our world appears to be designed, and tried to guess the intentions of the designer. Their conjectures may prove wrong in the details, but agree on the general direction : upward. — Gnomon

    IF our world was designed, then it wasn't designed very well. Consider all of the screwy things that can happen to healthy bodies. Rabbits, for instance, are forced to re-chew some of their pelletized feces to extract their required nutrition. Coprophagy is cosmically undignified. How would you feel about the designated designer if you had to pick through your feces every day to find the ones that needed further mastication?

    Volcanos are a good thing--when they happened a long time ago. What did the Pompeiians do to deserve being flash-fried? Nothing. Tonga? Ditto.

    Upward? Upward? Surely you must be joking, Mr. Gnomon. Our species reached it's most pleasant plateau about 150,000 years ago, back when we hunted stags and gathered berries on the Elysian Fields. It's been downhill ever since, and getting steeper by the day.

    The cosmos APPEARED to be designed because it was already 13 billion years old when we cosmic arrivistes started out with tails, swinging from branch to branch.
  • Youth for longevity.
    I just hate the idea of cardiovascular and cancer risks increasing exponentially with age. — TiredThinker

    Yes, that would be bad -- but the risks do not rise exponentially. They rise linearly; eventually they reach 100% and nobody gets out of here alive. If you are healthy at 65 (don't have serious heart disease, cancer, or circulatory illness) don't drink heavily, don't smoke, etc. the chances of living to 85 are quite good--not guaranteed by any stretch, but... good. If you have major health problems at 65, then you probably don't have to worry about living to 85

    Living an at least reasonably healthy life style maintains good health and longevity better than an unhealthy life style. Again, no guarantees.

    What were you doing in your late 20s and early thirties that lead to burn out (whatever that is) at 32, how old are you now, and how are you doing now?

    Lots of people have periods of "sturm and drang" which can make life worse than it usually is. Many of my 75 years were NOT particularly good, but life went on anyway and then it got better.
  • Youth for longevity.
    ↪TiredThinker
    Death at 50? No, no. I didn't really get going until 25, and the years between 40 and 50 were pretty good, in terms of youthful vigor and health. Looking back, the early 40s were peak years for energy and enthusiasm. The last 10 years, 65 to 75, have also been good, emotionally and intellectually. True, aged bodies do tend to start failing in the 60s and 70s, but it's not an "all-at-once" collapse. And a 75 year old educated brain, free of Alzheimers and other dementias, emotionally stable and curious, is a better brain than I ever had in the past. (I could REALLY have used this brain early on. Alas. No chance of that.
  • Jesus Freaks
    I'm ashamed to admit I thought, for a very brief but delightful moment, you were referring to "Doris Day." — Ciceronianus

    Dorothy enters the shabby dining room of the Catholic Worker House of Hospitality in a full-skirted pastel dress with cuffed short sleeves singing Que Sera Sera.
  • Jesus Freaks
    ↪universeness
    That's because the New Testament was written in Koine Greek and then translated into Latin. Didn't Jesus speak Aramaic? He might have known Koine Greek, but probably not. The oldest version of the OT is in Greek too (a more formal dialect).
  • Jesus Freaks
    I'm not an atheist — Noble Dust

    I need a term that means less than "atheist" and more than "not a believer". "Agnostic" isn't it. "Atheism" is too loaded. "Agnostic" is too wishy-washy. "Not a believer" could mean 'not yet', 'not now', or 'not interested'. I am interested, and I was a believer, but I am not now. I have not achieved closure, which is a frequent annoyance. I don't like "spiritual", which sounds lame. (It's lame the way some people use the term, announcing that "we are not into church, we are spiritual". "Spiritual", unlike 'atheism' which is too loaded, isn't loaded enough.

    "Church people" are all over the place, one finds. (Surveys have found this too.). Some active church members are devout creedal believers. Some active church members don't check all of the boxes as they say the creed. Some check only a few--maybe "God the Father". Some, a few, don't check any of the boxes--and are still active church members--just not creedal believers. Decreeded? Creedless Believers?
  • (why we shouldn't have) Android Spouses
    God. Android spouses -- as if keeping the batteries in the mouse, bicycle lights, iPod, iPad, iPhone, smoke alarm, vibrating dildo, pacemaker, the car, and everything else wasn't trouble enough!
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