I fully accept, for example, that gays have had a tough path historically in the US, but I don't think part of that struggle was in exclusion from universities, real estate markets, or employment. So why am I being asked to be on the lookout for them to be sure they get hired? — Hanover

As you say, [some] gays were not excluded from universities, real estate markets, or employment, they are ideal diversity candidates. Gays have the proper cultural credentials, in addition to their "disadvantaged" status. Gays that were excluded from universities and real estate markets (in terms of purchase, rather than rent) belong to the very large class of not-very-prosperous working class people who stay not-very-prosperous working class.

It was probably not intended as a means to divide and keep the working classes conquered, but affirmative action has been quite divisive. Hiring and admission ought to be based on the merit of meeting the stated expectations of the organization. In my case, I would have failed to meet the requirements of very good, never mind elite colleges. The same goes for high paying jobs -- I was generally not an attractive candidate.

I was not an attractive candidate for the Ivy League or the Fortune 500, because I wasn't interested in producing the kind of high achievement that would have made me an attractive candidate. Now, there are many people who had fewer opportunities to excel than I did. That's unfortunate, but if they aren't prepared to compete for very good and elite positions, then they are, like me, S.O.L.

Diversity is much sought after (in some circles) because it is thought to improve performance for everyone through some mysterious influence. I haven't witnessed such an effect in the work place, but I can imagine that diversity could make a contribution to collegiate life.

Many Americans suppose that some jiggering of the system can overcome disadvantages that are built into 'the system' from the foundation upwards. Jiggering won't work. A community whose systematic disadvantages are based on 5 or 10 generations of being on the bottom, won't be changed by affirmative action, It has to be rebuilt from new-borns on up.

All that said, when exceptional candidates whose cohort has been very underrepresented, present themselves, they ought to be admitted/hired because they have great merit, not because they are black or female. It is nonsense and frank discrimination to limit qualified Asian candidates, just as it was nonsense and frank discrimination to limit qualified Jewish candidates.

I am confused as to why Biden allows Trump to subvert our democracy. — Jackson

.

A) Trump was busy subverting democracy before Biden was elected.

B) Trump is not an isolated player; he has a substantial following with considerable political clout.

C) Some countries have traditions of liquidating inconvenient and overly annoying persons. We tend to put up with and ignore such types, unless they break laws that can be conveniently prosecuted.

Will time bring a rebound? Perhaps. — Banno

Probably, rather than perhaps, but it matters how long it takes. A lot of damage can be done while we wait for balance to return.

It has mattered, still does matter, what happens on the state level. Some states have a slovenly political culture than tends toward corruption. Others have a much firmer political culture which avoids corruption to a large degree. Unfortunately what has happened at the federal level can happen at the state level.

I am not altogether sanguine about this country's future--and not just because of some idiot bastard sons and daughter on the Supreme Court. Congress has been a captive of the plutocracy for a long time -- nothing new there. The plutocrats don't seemed to care what happens to the world, above and beyond their immediate self-interest. Time has run out, or will soon, for environmental common sense to take effect (here, there, everywhere).

We could, of course, revolt. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish A NEW Constitution for the United States, and hereby consign to the dustbin of history the pre-existent government and its parasitic class of rich people. May it rot in the depths of hell."

A revolution in the US is about as likely as the Second Coming, but it could come like a thief in the night and surprise us all. (Don't hold your breath,)

something is missing. Some form of illumination. — Banno

Like, a light unto the gentiles, so to speak?

How we got to where we have been for a long time is available in some (not all) history books. What one needs to do is follow the money, literally and figuratively. Any country's history is a mixed bag of progress and regress--not necessarily in balanced sequence. Look for historical accounts that do not gloss over the grave regressions.

You may well ask, "How will I know whether they are glossing over regressions?"

Look for deviant historical accounts. Some titles (These and similar books may not be your cup of tea at all -- I don't like some of them -- but they do cover American History from an angle quite different than the typical narrative):

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Nancy Isenberg youtube talk by the author

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (what Zinn thought about the other side of history from the more traditional "fundamental nationalist glorification of country)

A True History of the United States: Indigenous Genocide, Racialized Slavery, Hyper-Capitalism, Militarist Imperialism and Other Overlooked Aspects of American Exceptionalism by Daniel A. Sjursen

Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen

From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: An Illustrated History of Labor in the United States, Priscilla Murolo

Noam Chomsky has all sorts of things to say about American history, most of it unflattering,

And now the Supreme Court seems - without being asked - to be deciding on legally relevant but political issues. How is this fair to voters? — Tim3003

The Supreme Court was asked. How? In some court room, a few years ago, a judge made a decision and it was appealed to at the next higher court. Either the plaintiffs or the defense asked the court to reconsider. This process was repeated until the Supreme Court was asked to decide. It doesn't have to say yes -- it can say, "No -- there is no reason for us to review the case." Then the last higher court decision stands. It can also decide to settle the issue more broadly -- like it did a few years ago when it announced that gay marriage was a right in all states.

How you feel about the court depends on whose ox was just gored. The court upheld the constitutionality of Obama Care and the conservatives twisted in pain. The court decided that abortion was unconstitutional, and pro-choice people howled (and will for some time).

I'm at least a progressive and I loathe the conservative majority on the court, but I can remember when the progressives held a strong majority (like the Warren Court under CJ Earl Warren) was loathed by the right wing. There were billboards demanding that Earl Warren be impeached.

The Founding Organizers of the US government and political system kept their thumb on the scale in favor of an elite -- even an elected elite. Some of the FOs were frankly suspicious of "the people".

The first use of a filibuster (whatever they called it) was observed on September 22, 1789, when Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay wrote in his diary that the “design of the Virginians . . . was to talk away the time, so that we could not get the bill passed.”

Don't worry about how. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Lots of people are justifiably upset over recent events — _db

I am upset over recent events, BUT, in the context of our history, all this can not be a complete surprise.

We have had several episodes of militant reaction against efforts designed to extend aspects of democracy.

a) Eleven states succeeded from the Union in response to efforts to limit the spread of slaveholding. A civil war followed.

b) Reconstruction (such as it was) resulted in terrorism against blacks via the KKK, Jim Crow laws, and suppression of voting rights (which enabled the 'solid south' to maintain a long-term hold on Congress.

c. Anti-labor violence began in the 1880s--referencing the Hay Market event in Chicago.

d. A 'Red Scare' set off concerted violence against blacks and labor leaders in 1919.

e. Women won suffrage, but only after a long struggle. Suffrage aided the institution of Prohibition, a 13 year disaster.

f. Extreme conservatives have been unhappy about New Deal programs ever since the 1930s.

g. Homosexuals and Communists (odd bedfellows in several respects) were persecuted during WWII and after. Reference Joe McCarthy's (Republican from Wisconsin) drive to dig out communists from government, Hollywood, and the Ladies Aid society.

h. Richard Nixon's subversion of government in the Watergate scandal.

i. Ronald Reagan ignored the AIDS epidemic.

j. The plutocracy kept wages steady during 40 years (some with high inflation) further impoverishing the working class while enriching themselves even more.

And so on.

The arc of the future may bend towards greater justice and greater freedom, but it regularly snaps back to fostering less justice and less freedom.

It means you put him out of our misery. And maybe his.

OK; so it was an act of mercy (no sarcasm intended).

Banned Streetlight for flaming, bigotry, general disruption, and ignoring warnings to stop. — Baden

et al

I had not noticed Streetlight's banning, because I generally avoided his posts. Yes, he was a very knowledgeable fellow and his posts were well written. He wasn't always corrosive. Still...

He seemed to be driven by an ill-willed animus toward the western establishment--which is understandable--but it had no bounds. Unbounded hostility has distorted my thinking at times, so I have some understanding of how it works. Unbounded hostility comes from neurosis or leads that way (probably both, in a tail-chasing circle). For one's own mental health, one does well to derail it.

He asked to be banned? Odd, but maybe that was a self-intervention he needed.

2. Since school funding is often problematic, which if any other school functions or classes should be subservient to classes in logical thinking, in terms of funding? — Elric

Maybe the football program could be subservient to classes in logical thinking.

When schools are operating with motivated students, competent teachers, and a sound program, they get good results. Could they get better results? Sure.

Lacking motivated students or competent teachers or a sound program, schools do not get good results. Would a course in logical thinking taught by mediocre teachers to unmotivated students help? No.

Some students are getting a good education, and many are not. The reasons are legion, and standing high among them is the fact that it isn't clear what the best function for schools can and should be.

So, @Elric, back to you: what do you think the schools should be doing for students and for society.

"In God we trust", all others pay cash, first appeared on a coin in 1864; on currency in 1957. It is the official motto of the US, replacing E Pluribus Unum. -- Wikipedia --

"In God we trust" strikes me as more of a deistic motto, though I doubt if deism was the prevailing religious mode of the congress and President Eisenhower when the motto was changed. "Jesus saves" would probably have passed, had somebody proposed it.

It's a nicer motto than "God hates fags and commies", don't you think? π=3.141592 could have been used; it still could be. I don't think any country has used it. It would help people remember π when they have to calculate areas and volumes of round things.

you are old enough to remember the "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards. (youth: Earl Warren was a liberal Chief Justice long long ago.)

Maybe the coach was cursing God because they lost.

There a very good reason from a religious POV to maintain a very clear church/state separation.

Religious people do not want the state to interfere with their theology, organization, practice, rituals, and membership.

The religious and secular do not want religious people influencing the state, either. The threat of the state to the religious is clear enough. Example: Non-religious people, mainline Protestants, and liberal Catholics do not like the Roe vs. Wade decision that is much more about about the politics of religion than it is about the law.

There is a lot of history showing what happens when the state decides to get involved in religious affairs, and visa versa.

Conservatives may be happy about Roe Vs. Wade today, but suppose a future court (and/or legislature) decrees that evolution WILL BE TAUGHT and so called Intelligent Design WILL NOT BE TAUGHT?

As one expects, it depends on whose ox is getting gored by whom.

By "ancient" I mean Paleolithic -- of the Stone Age, hunter-gatherers; very small scattered groupings of people. In conventional terms, the "ancient world" begins with Sumer or Egypt, very early writing, early use of metal (copper). By that time, " those in charge of organizing and coordinating religious activities were in a position where they can easily manipulate people for personal gain" as you say.

There is no evidence of organized religion, or organized civil society, before around 8,000 years ago when the first cities were built, after early agriculture developed. There are cave paintings of unknown meanings, and a few carvings of what we suppose are fertility figures from around 20,000 years ago. Before that, the most we have is almost nothing.

You might like the book AGAINST THE GRAIN, A deep history of the earliest states 2017 by James C. Scott. He argues that people were coaxed into agricultural labor and early village life by a nascent elite that saw opportunity in settled society to cultivate their own power and wealth. Religion would certainly have played a role in this scheme (if it is true).

The urge or need to create sacred activities might be a feature of our evolution and are still seen in individual non-communal private acts.

I'm just proposing an explanation in the spirit of Ockham' Razor. — enqramot

Occam liked nice efficient explanations, but he also liked explanations that accounted for reality.

The world's religions have very deep roots, going back to very ancient times. Any contemporary religious operation may seem (and actually be) corrupt, but I think it is safe to say that religions didn't begin as a scam.

Humans need some kind of explanation for the world they live in. They need some way to give meaning to their existence, replete with joys and sorrows. If rationality is plentiful, we use rationality, If poetry, myth making, story telling, and ritual are plentiful, that's what we use.

The roots of religion began in pre-rational very ancient milieus. Rationality would come, but not yet. Tree gods, river gods, animal spirits, mountain spirits, and so on likely came first. Sky gods, earth gods, storm gods, fertility gods, and so on came later, but didn't replace the earlier worship.

We are very familiar with sky gods: Zeus, for instance, and his various relatives. Christianity descended from the monotheism of the Jewish sky god.

The sky gods tended to be strongly associated with the power elite of the society in which they were worshipped--more so than animal spirits and tree gods. Think of the Roman state and its official pantheon. Eventually, the humble Jesus was adapted to the needs of the Empire, and the Church and Empire became fellow travelers. Bad business.

So, may I suggest you really look at the roots of religion, rather than this year's crops of wormy produce.

Absolutely -- waiting-for-death is not a suitable approach for people who are not old yet -- whatever one thinks of as "old" for themselves. My approach isn't "resignation from the game" altogether, because I, of course, don't know how long I may live yet. I still "engage".

Good point. The drop in crime that began in the late 1980s was (at least in part) a result of R vs. W. The unwanted children who were not born did not become problem youth.

Excellent! Do it immediately. This would, of course, require all the necessary actors having enough balls to do it. 2 & 3 will require a few more progressives in the Senate. Memo to progressive voters: You'd better vote. It would help to have a batch of the paleoconservative troglodytes subject to post-natal abortions.

The Universe doesn't hand out meaningfulness. It just is, and we are part of it. Though considerable effort over time I have come to the conclusion that life is meaningless, but that isn't a terrible thing, It means that we can provide a measure of meaning in our own lives--by doing meaningful, as Banno said.

We are here for a short time; some as little as 15 minutes, others as many as 115 years. As we age and get smarter, there is less time left to exist. Time is shorter. At 75, I figure the end of my life is maybe just around this or the next corner.

I'm happier now than I have ever been. I'm busy, I'm reading a lot of history. I listen to great music on the radio and internet. There's the small house and weedy lawn to look after.

Death, like an over-flowing stream
Sweeps us away; our life is but a dream,
an empty tale, a morning flower
cut down and withered in an hour.

Do older people have a harder time dealing with heat? Just wondering. — Tate

In general, yes. We don't respond as quickly to sudden changes in temperature as younger people. Medicines and medical conditions may make it more difficult for agéd bodies to lose heat. Cognitive decline can interfere with an individual's taking care of themselves, so that they may not be able to execute a cooling strategy.

A fan in a hot apartment won't cool a person very much. If humidity and temperature are high enough, (90º - 95º F, with very high humidity) sweating no longer works as a cooling mechanism and heat stroke and death may follow. (This is true for everyone, not just old people)

Yes, people have gotten along without air conditioning in very hot conditions. This is especially true where temperatures are high while humidity is low. Sweating in hot - arid environments works quite well. Urban environments present extra problems. Apartment buildings without AC can turn into solar ovens, and the surrounding paved environment aggravates the problem.

Minnesota had a severe hot drought in the summer of 1988. During some nights the temperature remained in the upper 90s. Because of the drought, the hot air was very dry and thus the heat was much more tolerable. I was doing street outreach in Minneapolis at that time, and spent a lot of time on bicycle, without suffering. The nights, on the other hand, were wonderful -- warm, dry, bug free, clear skies. It was hell for agriculture but great for some of us.

During the 2003 heatwave in Europe, nearly 70,000 people died from heat, many of them elderly Many of the elderly's families were away on vacation, and no one was doing wellness checks on the old folks. Most of the dead lived in apartments without AC. American cities have also seen spikes in heat related deaths.

The solution isn't to put AC in every apartment. Most heat-waves are of relatively short duration. Rather, the solution is to make sure vulnerable people have a way of getting to cooling centers so their core temperatures don't reach fatal levels.

I'm probably not as ancient as your old woman, but when I was growing up (memories from the early 1950s) we did not have air conditioning or even window fans. We were not wretched from heat. Maybe it wasn't as hot back then. There were lots of shade trees in the small town.

We went swimming in a meandering stream which was shared by cattle. Not very clean. We didn't get sick.

Humans don't have to eat everyday — Tate

They don't have to eat every day, but I bet we have preferred to eat every day for a very long time.

No doubt about it, though, most people in the industrialized world are eating too much of the wrong kind of food. A supermarket is a smorgasbord of not very healthy food. Why? Because food manufacturers are not public health agencies. Besides, a lot of people like the crap that is on offer. The crap also comes in interesting novel forms which people also like. There are one or two items of crap that I like to eat--crunchy, chewy, salty, spicy, greasy, sweet creations from the laboratories of Conagra and Multifoods. Carrots and cabbage are healthier than Doritos and Hagen Daz, but one can stand only so much whole grain, NGO, organic, high-fructose-free minimally processed whole earth clunky goodness. .

Imagine thinking that American fascism is the work of "a few bad actors" and not a deliberate, systemic outcome of tens of millions of Americans who simply like fascism and despise women. This is not "a few bad actors". This is who and what the US is, and it will only continue to get worse. — Streetlight

The anti-abortion agitation began in earnest when Roe vs. Wade was passed, 50 years ago. It was primarily conservative Roman Catholic for at least 30 years, but then came to include very conservative Protestants. (Conservative catholics and conservative protestants have more politics in common than liberals and conservatives within dominations.)

I'm never quite sure where conservatism fades into fascism, but rolling back abortion is another significant retrograde movement.

The anti-abortion movement has demonstrated exemplary consistent persistence--not doubt with the help of conservative Catholic hierarchy. It has been implacable.

The Court isn't finished with its agenda. Barring an outbreak of plague on the bench during liberal presidencies, we can expect to see other rulings overturned. It is quite possible that the legality of homosexual activity and gay marriage (at the federal level) will be repealed. Rulings in favor of the environment (over commerce) are also likely to be overturned. And more.

A core of conservatives have never reconciled themselves with New Deal programs, and if social security is offensive (they would like to privatize it) not much else is safe. (And it isn't just the SCOTUS we have to worry about.)

when I'm creating a work, I'm not examining — Noble Dust

The 'flow' of creativity is best not interrupted.

As well you should. That most of Greek and Roman literature has been lost is the judgement of classics scholars, not mine.

What we do have is a much larger body of what we call art, what they called craft - sculpture, friezes, mosaics, painting (Pompeii, for instance). The dining room wall decoration from a Pompeii house is likely to end up in an art museum, but we'd likely agree -- this is craft, not art. It's decor, like wallpaper. It is thought that Greco-Roman sculpture was painted--shocking! What? The Winged Victory of Samothrace a painted lady! Much of what survives are copies--very good copies, but still.

As far as the unexamined life goes, our good fortune is that Hogarth found the lives of louts worth examining in pencil and paint.
'

What are your thoughts on the Woody Guthrie video? — Clarky

Guthrie sang the homespun virtues of the common folk. "He captured the heart of hard economic times and war while struggling with poverty and personal demons." He wasn't famous for his voice not in the way that Pete Seeger was. Malvina Reynolds wrote some memorable songs -- among them "Little Boxes" Her voice is even less attractive than Woody Guthrie. Reynolds was a PhD in English / Communist / protest song composer / wife / mother.

One of her songs was used for a charming Kodak commercial back in the 60s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKOPwEk6m4w

Expert artists and connoisseurs are not the only or the primary audiences for most art. — Clarky

Quite so. But they have expert music teachers (for musical performance).

Technically perfect art without vision and feeling are sterile. — Clarky

I'm not sure what "technically perfect art" looks or sounds like. Or that perfection leads to blind sterility. Here's a demo of Isaac Stern teaching students in China (1979) how to get vision and feeling from their violins.

To make good art, you have to have an experience worth conveying. — Clarky

The unexamined life isn't worth painting.

Skeptical — Clarky

For what it's worth, Collingwood was a philosopher as well as a practicing historian and archeologist. Skeptical or not, I think what he says is worth listening to. — Clarky

Quite so. It's not Collinwood's fault that the Greeks and Romans used media that rotted in dampness instead of baked clay tablets. Our civilization's output will vanish in the entropy of magnetic storage, as well as from our libraries turning into fungal farms. Who will save a fragment of our thought? The Mall of America's hulking big boxiness will remain, but without the great art it inspired (he said sarcastically).

Good thread!

It takes a lot of practice, practice, practice to get to Carnegie Hall--to perfect one's artistic performance to a level where expert musicians and connoisseurs will say, "Well done!" What is true for music is true for other arts; no great novel is a first draft; no great painting is the first sketch; one's home videos will never make it to Cannes or the Oscars.

A professional pianist commented that Haydn's piano scores are more polished than Mozart's. Of course: Haydn had tenure in the Esterhazy court; Mozart had to get out and hustle to maintain an income stream. Plus, Haydn died at 77; Mozart died at 35. I'd be hard pressed to say which one made a bigger splash.

In the first place, there is talent. I could practice till doomsday and would not be asked to perform on so much as a kazoo.

I hear about "fast fashion" (fast turnaround clothing design); It's not haute couture, not that I know much about that either, other than a lot of it looks like ready-made trash. Art might help fashion, but fashion doesn't help art so much.

As for this Collinwood ("the best known neglected thinker of our time"), I tend to be suspicious of statements like "The Greeks and Romans had no conception of what we call art as something different from craft." Perhaps, but what the Greeks valued as "craft" was pretty damn great. Collingwood is to classics the very opposite of what I am to quantum mechanics [zero] but still, there are not many extended texts from the classical era. Generalizations tend to be supported on slim pillars. Besides, we go round and round trying to decide what we will call art.

Thanks for the Animal House snippet.

Mine was a zinger. Your response was just sour grapes.

Focus on my argument — Bartricks

Reading your arguments, such as they are, entails suffering we do not deserve.

But you just made a fact-based argument for AN, no? — schopenhauer1

Yes. In response to Bartricks response to my post.

I am supposing that unpleasant pain is a fact of life, not a personal judgement. The innocence of children (as a matter of Grace) and infants not deserving punishment is a personal judgement -- one to which I have no objection. As I said, I don't believe people (many at least) become antinatalist on the basis of logic. This being the kind of place it is, logic assumes a bigger role than it actually has in matters of belief.

One can toss logic into the air till the cows come home (at milking time, late afternoon - early evening), but chances are strong that whatever one believes, logic didn't lead one to it. Are apples better than oranges? Logic doesn't help.

Who is being tedious?


I am not against antinatalism. From a practical POV, it would help our environmental problems a great deal if far fewer people had been born in decades past. But arguing the merits of antinatalism is a bit like arguing the merits of homosexuality. One IS a homosexual or one is not. Logic has nothing to do with it. One IS an antinatalist or one is not. I do not believe people embrace antinatalism because of compelling argument. They embrace antinatalism because of compelling experience.

The logic of antinatalism has to begin with some assertion that life is too unsatisfactory to bring more people into the world. Yes, I do think that life is unsatisfactory in many ways, which a personal judgement. "Too unsatisfactory to bear children" is a also a personal judgement call and the logic follows from there.

Shouldn't logic begin with a fact rather than a personal judgement? Unpleasant Pain is a necessary part of life. Existence means painful unpleasant experiences. Not bearing children prevents more humans from painful unpleasant experiences.

What is more compelling: One's nightmare experiences in childhood and adolescence that led one to decide to not parent a child, or a logical argument?

To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent. — Bartricks

You are simply declaring that a procreated person is "innocent"; perhaps, perhaps not. One does not need to be a Christian (or of any religion) to recognize the possibility that a procreated person may be capable of great wrong-doing, even if they do not actually wreak havoc.

An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved. — Bartricks

You are again declaring that the innocent procreated person deserves no harm. This hinges on your definition of innocence (which is a kind of religious concept, as well as a legal concept). "No harm whatsoever" is a sweeping generalization.

Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life. — Bartricks

How do you (or anyone else) know what a happy life is, and why the arbitrarily defined innocent person deserves it?

It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person — Bartricks

I think you began with "It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person" and then built the support.

There is no outside agent that defines innocence, or what a person--innocent or otherwise--deserves. There is no agency that guarantees a happy life to anyone. All of which makes your new approach unsuccessful.

The world is, in fact, a fairly harsh arrangement which guarantees a certain amount of pretty rough experience (for all creatures, great and small), while at the same time allowing for a measure of delight. Antinatalism comes down to one preferring to not have children for various reasons, from personal inconvenience (children are inconvenient) to an imbalance of suffering and delight -- like the universe had ever suggested one would get a a fair share.

Logic can't solve the problem.

LSD, Psilocybin, Mescaline, Cannabis. MDMA; all have yielded insight — Janus

Philosophical insights are a fine thing, but did the drugs help you get laid as often as and by whomever you wanted? If not, perhaps they provided a satisfactory substitute?

When Churchill stayed at the White House for a long conference with Roosevelt, the staff was given a schedule to provide his preferred drinks from morning to night. I don't know whether he qualified as an alcoholic. I don't care if he was. Some people can be productive and drink. Count me out of that group; 2 beers and I become jolly and sociable. 2 more, a bit sloshed; 2 more and I fall off the bar stool.

The guys in MAD MEN and everyone on Apple TV's FOR ALL MANKIND drink a lot--beer, of course, but many shots of bourbon, whisky, vodka, etc. They drink a lot without falling off the bar stool. The astronauts also smoked a lot -- how they maintained fitness is beyond me.

Freud was said to be a regular cocaine user. — Jackson

In the 1880s some thought it a miracle drug -- something that would give one an extra big bounce in one's step. It was legal to use. Wasn't he addicted to an opioid as well? He had cancer of the jaw for which he had 30 surgeries, suffered from excruciating pain, and from which he died. He smoked a lot of cigars. Would that addicts could all be as productive as Freud!

a frame of mind which is conducive to insight — hypericin

- Recreational drugs, including gin and tonic, may produce a frame of wind which is "conducive to insight" but so might other things.

- Religious rituals that are part of your personal culture (as opposed to grabbing any old ritual).
- Great art (drama, film, music...) might lead one to new and significant insights.
- Falling in love (deeply -- more that a passing infatuation. Nothing wrong with passing infatuations, but... they pass too soon.
- Great sex? Probably. At the very least, insight into what makes great sex great.
- Intense positive interaction with other people.
- Thinking, for sure. Reading and writing help one think.

Unfortunately, all the things that have produced insights have also produced heaps of straw.

The world's allowable number of deep insights is fixed. So, if you have never had so much as a feeble lightbulb moment, rejoice and be exceeding glad. Your doltish brain has granted a brighter bulb the opportunity to have one or several insights, for the good of mankind.

I did not remember the project name: it's the Jesus Seminar. Thanks to @wayfarer

Whether you "could debauch and murder through life and get to an eternal paradise via deathbed conversion" is not something one can attribute to Jesus. This is more the approach of a corrupt bureaucracy (aka holy mother church).