I've argued elsewhere against over-reliance on commencing with definition. it's often better to allow the definition to grow alongside the conversation. — Banno

One of the annoying features of god-talk is defining god (particularly the Abrahamic God) at the start, then getting tangled up in the barbed wire resulting from the definition, like "can an all-powerful god create a weight too heavy for him to lift?" Or "Is a god who [creates] [allows] evil to exist evil?"

Or, "Can an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omni-et cetera god do or not do such and such?" Hmmmm, one wants to ask, "How do you know that a god or God is any of those things, and how would we very finite creatures even think about being present in all times and in all places, knowing everything that there is to know, and being unlimited in any way?"

People make things up. That's fine as long as we remember the difference between what we made up and what actually exists without our help. Unfortunately, we tend to believe our own bullshit.

It was during that time, based on reading and many factors that I really began exploring and entering into a sort of limbo wilderness. — Jack Cummins

College often erodes religion, not so much because of what is taught in classes (though that may well have an effect) but more because of the social aspects of college -- especially if one lives on campus where everyone is trying out new roles for themselves.

Leaving home, working in new environments with varied people, establishing new social circles--all that can undermine old pieties (religious and political). Then having to establish a sex life (especially if one is gay, back when) further undermines one's homespun virtues.

Before long one has become a different person than the child our parents sent off.

This sort of stuff leads to the killing fields. — NOS4A2

I wasn't proposing that we sentence even one of them to a firing squad. I would divest them of their ill-gotten wealth. After that, they would have to get a job and work like everybody else does -- work appropriate to their skills, but not involving re-accumulation of their wealth.

I think losing their wealth and having to live like ordinary people do would be quite severe punishment.

What do you think your education was good for? Any of those things? I really don't, yet I still think it is the most significant thing I possess. I can think of no better way to say it than it allows people to live up to their full potential, to the object of their creation, whatever that might be. — Hanover

Yes, my education helped me achieve much more of my full potential than I would have without it. I shudder to think where I would be without it.

Giving people the means to achieve their potential is very good work, but I'm not at all sure what form of education will serve best--today and tomorrow. I was educated in the 1950s and 60s; but that world doesn't exist (literally and figuratively speaking).

I'm saying though that it seems reasonable to say that the living only truly know their own time — Gregory

Actually, one could argue that the living don't know their own time all that well. It's just damn hard to know what the hell is actually going on. Can you tell me where current events are leading us? We can guess, and we can project optimism or pessimism, but when the culmination arrives it is almost always a complete surprise. 9/11? Fukushima meltdown -- or Chernobyl? Hurricane Katrina? Covid-19?

I'm not saying someone can't have a certain type of certainty about the Bible or Shakespeare, but ones person's certainty is another person's doubt — Gregory

There is much more doubt about what the Anglo Saxons Chroniclers said than what Shakespeare wrote, or Chaucer 200 years earlier. As is the case with other ancient writings, people wrote histories using sources we no longer have access to. Did they make things up or did they copy earlier errors?

Shakespeare in particular contributed quite a bit to the shape of Modern English. There are much more recent writers that are a lot harder to understand than Shakespeare.

You brought up OT religious texts. What about the Greek and Roman philosophers, or poets and playwrights. How is it that Lysistrata is still an amusing play? Well, one reason is that a dildo is still a dildo (which Lysistrata called "her leather consolation"). How certain can we be about Plato? (Probably pretty sure.).

Before the Rosetta Stone and related scholarship, translating Egyptian hieroglyphs was just creative writing--free-association to figures of unknown meaning. Pre-Rosetta and post-Rosetta translations bear no resemblance. (Or so I've read)

I raise the question of how important it is to be right in relation to the whole personal, emotional relationship which we have with the ideas which we have. — Jack Cummins

How important it is "to be right in relation to ... the ideas we have" depends on how much tolerance one has for ambiguity, ambivalence, and dissonance. I have a very strong preference for consistency. Let me compare thinking to interior decoration: Replacing an incongruous lampshade is a small matter. Taking out walls and raising the ceiling is a very big deal.

I was raised to be a good Protestant and did not have major problems with God until I was in my late 30s. I found I didn't believe, and didn't want to be counted as a believer, and one day announced to myself that I was not a believer. This was a much bigger change than replacing the incongruous lampshade. This was changing the floor plan of my mental house. I wanted to live in a knowable world, and a world run by an unknowable God was causing way too much cognitive dissonance and emotional distress. (It is much easier to remodel ideas than remodel emotions.).

The upshot is that the ideas we have, and may wish to change, are supported by emotion (and/or instigated by emotion). Being right (consistent, clear, consonant, content) is very important. That's why discussions become heated. That's why we toss and turn in our beds trying to solve a conflict. That's why the intellectual merry-go-round keeps spinning.

Humans don't do well with a tangle of conflicting, unresolved questions squirming around in their brains like a can of worms. Either we get the worms straightened out and pinned down or we toss the whole thing out.

That's because you have a strong libertarian streak and view the government as your most probable enemy. Meanwhile, the capitalists are screwing you over left and right -- which you don't notice, apparently.

So you don't want to punish the whole class at once? That's fine; we can try and punish them one at a time, if that makes you happier. We'll start with the richest capitalists and most powerful members of the ruling class first, then work our way down to the bottom of the top 1%. Better? After that, we'll deal with your unfortunate case. Don't leave town.

I refuse to acknowledge the notion that “speech has consequences” beyond the immediate physical effects, for instance the movement of breath from the mouth or the application of ink to paper. Since no one but myself can control my motor cortex, I believe the activities you described are the consequence of other, more personal factors. But I can understand the folk psychology of the notion. — NOS4A2

You are taking an extreme position here, and of course you have company. It's a rare idea, indeed, that only one person holds it. A whole folk/pop-psychology school--holding that individuals are entirely responsible for their ideas, reactions, feelings, and so forth, and that no one can influence anyone else--agrees with you. You proclaim the sovereign individual.

We have to agree to disagree, because there is only a small patch of common ground. I hold that we are, in the end, social animals and are influenced by each other. You proclaim the sovereign individual.

Rather than "reparations" for past crimes committed against whole peoples (genocide, slavery, ruthless economic exploitation, etc.), we should defund the class -- the ruling class -- that perpetrated the wrongs in the first place (and they are still at it).

Defunding the ruling class (through expropriation and public ownership of their wealth) would allow for the kind of economic redistribution that could help.

Even if there were a revolution and the ruling class were economically neutered, there are huge cultural problems to over come, and I am confident that we do not know how to do that.

i oppose censoring speech (verbal/written/symbolic). At the same time it is plainly clear that speech has consequences, quite positive as well as quite negative consequences. I think free-speech advocates must acknowledge that speech has real power with real consequences.

Once acknowledged, we are able to manage the consequences. Take Trump's speech on January 6, 2020 and the immediate subsequent trashing of Congress as an example: had the Capitol security force been proactively alert to the potential for a forceful attack, appropriate measures could have / should have been taken to prevent what happened.

Shutting down free speech in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020 would not have been the appropriate response (referencing the riots that followed George Floyd's death). What would have been appropriate was a more forceful response to looting and arson. Instead, the police and fire departments withdrew from the area, ceding control to rioters.

A free society, where free speech is plentiful, will see political skirmishes in the streets because speech has consequences. Plentiful free speech doesn't mean that all consequences have to be tolerated.

There used to be a few blocks on Boston's downtown Washington St. called "the Combat Zone'. There were bars, strip joints, porn stores, pizza by the slice shops, whores, sailors, soldiers, gays, straights, all sorts. Sleazy in flagrante delicto. One of my coworkers at Boston State Hospital observed that "people need places like the combat zone to be human -- to get in touch with their basic humanity". That struck me as profoundly true. (This was back in the 1960s)

Nude beaches with their attendant sex-on-offer feature serve a similar function. They are places to get in touch with some basic human animal urges. Because gays have been outsiders, or outliers, in the past these venues have been primary. So do other places for other people -- like Mardi Gras, or Carnival, just for example.

It's unfortunate that many straight folks have nothing similar--no place to serve as a place to get in touch with one's most basic urges, without strings attached.

Maybe such a thing not only does not, but can not exist for most people. Civilization depends on sublimating those basic human urges into productive activities.

In my opinion it’s a good thing that marginalized groups are depicted in high status positions, such as surgeons, because it may alter general perception to some degree — praxis

Sure. It's a good thing.

hot lesbian sex has wider appeal (and I confess to that myself). Years ago I remember being on a nude beach where a couple of hot... — praxis

I'll take your word for it's great appeal. I just hope they don't show up at my favorite all male nude beach.

there is no such thing as the right to free speech at work.
— Bitter Crank

That's different. You're getting paid. You represent the company - and they have a right to project an image, and protect that image from the expression of opinions that might damage business. — counterpunch

You are more accommodating to the interests of employers than I am.

Workers are paid to perform a service or produce a product. When it's convenient, under 'employment at will' law, an employer can fire a worker without explanation. In holy symmetry, a worker can quit without an explanation too. That makes it fair and square (sarcasm). My view is that IF employers want me to align my loyalty and interests with theirs, THEN they will have to align their loyalty and interests with mine. And hop to it!

Some organizations are engaged in genuine good works. It's advisable to speak well of organizations that are doing good work, provided they aren't also engaged in unfair labor practices. (Mother Teresa was a wretched boss.) For the huge remainder of organizations who are in business for no purpose ,ore august than making a profit for shareholders, unconditional positive regard is altogether misguided.

Maybe.
— Bitter Crank

Well, mostly. — Kenosha Kid

— Kenosha Kid

I'm cautiously pessimistic about this. True, most people no longer openly express crudely racist, sexist and anti-gay statements, which is progress. What is not very different now, than in the past, is that people still spend their money in ways which help keep past unjust and unfair discriminations in place.

For instance, most people buying houses tend to look for homogeneous neighborhoods that reflect themselves and their aspirations. For whites, the means pretty much white neighborhoods. Whites who buy houses in black neighborhoods are, more likely than not, looking for a good deal, with the expectation that eventually the blacks will be priced out of the neighborhood (gentrification).

Wage discrimination by sex is less severe, and less common than it was in the past. It hasn't disappeared, but it is better. (This applies to the US: what conditions apply in Britain, Europe, and other places, I don't know.)

In most of the G20 countries, anti-gay policies have apparently been mostly repealed, but that doesn't mean that nobody has strong negative feelings about homosexuality -- their own or others'.

Advertising Media in particular project images of the non-existent post racial America. Advertising images reveal a lot about where we are, and where we are not. TV shows like Grey's Anatomy have a high rate of POC in authority positions, and feature a lot of lesbian relationships. Gay men appear too in GA, but not in the hot sexual scenes that lesbians and straights appear in (which are tediously frequent). I can't think of a gay man who has been as central as lesbian characters or POC, or a gay couple that has done more than hold hands and kissed quickly. (I'm picking on Grey's Anatomy because it's the only TV show that I have watched much of, recently.)

It's just now society has moved on to not being pro-racist, pro-sexist, pro-homophobic. — Kenosha Kid

Maybe. But you are quite correct: when it comes to speech, there is no such thing as the right to free speech at work. One can speak as freely as one wishes, but then might be ushered out the front door.

regarding the film clip: I'm not sure how representatives are the brats in the film clip claiming that if they are offended, they have the right to silence the offender. I've read numerous accounts of this sort of behavior on Quillette and elsewhere. The worst of it seems to be located on certain college campuses, but even adults far removed from college children and their discontents can run into unwelcome informal policing of speech. I'm 75 -- I've seen other episodes of speech policing, but it does seem worse now than in the past.

As for science and philosophy, I don't read enough philosophy or theology to have a strong opinion on their death. It's probably exaggerated. I do more reading in the sciences than philosophy.

Finally people have evolved and proclaimed that even your opinions are dead. — Nikolas

Have people just recently "evolved" or "devolved"? As for opinions being dead... not so much.

One issue could be that gay people can’t have biological children with same sex romantic partners. — praxis

Some gay people consider not being able to have children (two guys, no pregnancy), and generally not having children, to be one of the major advantages of homosexual relationships. No children, maybe no house with a picket fence to paint and grass to mow, and all that. Live in the city; spend one's extra no-child cash on culture or beer or whatever. These days some people probably think that childless homosexual relationships are an unhappy failure. Screw that.

Before gay advocates ran out of compelling civil rights issues and decided to normalize gay marriage, a lot of us weren't (and still are not) interested in marriage. It isn't that we don't want to, or can't make deep and lasting commitments; we do and we can. The idea was that the relationship would last because the couple just decided to keep it going, and nothing more than that was deemed necessary.

Is homosexuality a defect? Lots of people think it is. I accept that, and hold them free to think what they want as long as they don't "frighten the horses" -- e.g., cause a public uproar. (some grand dame in the early 20th century said she didn't care what homosexuals did as long as they didn't frighten the horses.)

My idea of a workable society is one which is tolerant enough to allow people to do stuff that scandalizes socially and morally brittle people, as long as they are reasonably discreet. So wife-swapping clubs are OK as long as the swapping is conducted tastefully behind closed doors. Prostitutes can ply their trade as long as they don't stop traffic, and conduct their business according to safer sex guidelines. Jehovah's Witnesses can knock on everybody's door and offer everyone the Watch Tower magazine as long as they don't do it more than once a month, and don't insist on a long conversation. Homosexuals can cruise the parks as long as they don't make a lot of noise and don't damage the bushes.

Amen.

You left out babysitting — Banno

No, that's covered by "regulating the labor pool". Back in the 60s, never mind which year, Edgar Z. Friedenburg described one of the functions of education as delaying entry into the labor pool for as many people as possible, and prolonging their role of passive consumers. He noted that the function had spread into graduate schools, maybe lasting as long as post doctorate programs. It all depended on the willingness of students to keep paying tuition--which they generally were; tuition was cheaper back then than now. College gave a lot of men a plausible claim to stay out of Vietnam, too. Plus there were chicks, and all that.

Friedenberg himself decamped to Canada to protest the behavior of the U S government (he wasn't evading the draft--he was in his late 40s when he left). He found that Canada had some significant defects in its government too. Surprise!

"He has been included among the "radical romantics" sociologists of education in the 1960s counterculture."

What makes some poorer families value education and others not? Does anyone study that — schopenhauer1

Success often depends on "belief in the efficacy of ... [whatever is being tested]. So, people who believe vaccination will protect their children get them vaccinated. People who believe that they can prevent themselves from getting HIV follow the standard advice. People who believe that education will give their children an advantage make sure their children believe that too.

Disbelief in efficacy results in much different results: unvaccinated children, people getting infected with HIV, and children with little interest in learning.

Early childhood experiences play a large part in later education success. The amount and kind of language that children are exposed to has good and bad consequences. Children in families that are positively and abundantly verbal perform up to standards in school. Children in families that are more negatively and sparsely verbal start with verbal deficits that are quite difficult to overcome. Poor primary school performance is the first result, which follows those children into middle school and up.

Some families are more widely culturally sophisticated (apart from wealth). Children in those families have more 'resources' to draw on in school.

Yes, people study this. But compensating for well understood deficits turns out to be a tough problem to solve. Handicapped families (whatever reason) tend to stay that way. Social expectations can contribute to a given child's failure. Changing social expectations is very hard.

Education is a mass program (and decentralized to boot) dealing with very large numbers, and good fixes are just plain hard to come by, whatever the problem is.

I've been thinking about education since I started teacher training back in the '60s. It's both an appealing and appalling field. I was self-deluded into think I could teach high school. I found my niche in adult education and community health education (did well for an English Major).

There are around 74,000,000 Americans below 18 years of age. Education is of necessity a 'mass program'. A good thing about our lumbering, clunky education system is that it often does a good job. Another good thing is that it is loose enough for at least some odd balls to make it through without being ground up. In general though, the larger and more highly varied population that presents its children for education, the less effectiveness mass education is becoming.

Part of the problem, observed for at least the last 60 years by various observers, is that we collectively aren't even sure what education is supposed to be doing. Sorting the good boats out for lifting by the next high tide, and sinking the low quality ones? Regulating the labor pool? Conducting an enlightenment factory? Training people for dead end jobs? Educating people for a society that ceased to exist a long time ago? Giving people basic skills (to do what?)

I want to start a small school to create a small community of kids in an affluent area where they just may have the resources necessary to band together and make some substantial world changes. — Megolomania

Isn't that what various incarnations of the private school are doing? I get it -- you would like to run your own school. It's a very exciting prospect. I've day dreamed about that for 5 decades, at least (and was never going to happen in my case). Good luck in your efforts. But there's no great accomplishment in educating children who already have a good amount of social capital and increasing it. Nothing wrong with that, of course. That's one of the ways the well off get better off.

But it is a greater challenge to educate students who start with much less social capital and increase their social capitalization (like the skills needed to acquire and use knowledge to their best advantage along with social connections). Of course, minority children get screwed out of good educations pretty often, but the "surprising" fact is that white children do too. And anyone who is poorer than average is likely to get a poorer than average education.

True enough, Britain ended slavery before the US did. To what extent were the terms of the Factory Act honored in the breach, and how much in their observance? Nine hour days for 9-13 year olds; how many Humanitarian of the Year awards did parliament earn for that?

I'm aware that child labor was routine and customary pretty much everywhere for a long time. The US wasn't any different.

Of course I don't know what you posted that merited deletion and a banning threat. Try not to gratuitously antagonize anyone. I understand (from personal experience) how satisfying landing a gratuitous rhetorical punch can be. Unfortunately there can be consequences.

can't speak for the US, but it does seem they didn't handle ending slavery very well. If only the colonies had been returned to rightful rule of Her Majesty - all this could have been avoided! Still, now - it's not being handled very well by progressives either. — counterpunch

Possibly could have been avoided. Had the colonies been a British possession during and after the Industrial Revolution, and given British mills' very strong demand for American slave-cultivated and picked cotton, slavery might not have ended any sooner than it did. Machines to replace human labor in cotton growing weren't available until well after the period of the American Civil War.

It's quite possible that had Queen Victoria and Parliament ended slavery in... 1875, say, the British land-owning subjects living in the cotton growing colonies would have spawned black hatred of the sort that the descendants of British colonists spawned (manifested in Jim Crow laws.)

No, it's not being handled very well by progressives, middle of the roaders, or reactionaries. The most progressive administration--Roosevelt's,1932-1945--did very little to help black people. A solid argument can be made that it was the southern Democrats that prevented FDR from doing more, but it would have been surprising if a brahmin like Roosevelt had championed black people.

who I must know are now watching every word I say — Todd Martin

There's only one owner of The Philosophy Forum and that's Jamalrob. The several moderators are all volunteers and do not have time to watch every word you say, let alone all the other people who may or may not be saying something objectionable. Like me, for example.

If you are lucky, other members will read your posts. If they happen to consider your comments out of order, they might flag your post. That's the extent of the panopticon.

Did you read the case of David Reimer? Circumcision gone wrong; so they surgically turned him into a girl, and raised him as a girl in ignorance - and his maleness re-asserted itself in later life. — counterpunch

I have known about Reimer's case for quite some time. It's pretty bad. According to Wikipedia: "Recent academic studies have criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regard to his involvement with the involuntary sex-reassignment of the child David Reimer,[3] his forcing this child and his brother to simulate sex acts which Money photographed[4] and the adult suicides of both brothers."

John Money (b. 1921, New Zealand, d. 2006, U.S.) was Reimer's psychologist. Money was at Johns Hopkins University from 1951 till retirement. He established the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic in 1965. Money was the co-editor of a 1969 book "Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment", which helped bring more acceptance to sexual reassignment surgery and transgender individuals.

Google can find several lists of possible genders, all bullshit. Here's 5 examples.

Novigender

A gender identity used by people who experience having a gender that can’t be described using existing language due to its complex and unique nature.

Polygender

This gender identity term describes the experience of having multiple gender identities, simultaneously or over time.

This term indicates the number of gender identities someone experiences, but doesn’t necessarily indicate which genders are included in the given person’s polygender identity.

Social dysphoria

A specific type of gender dysphoria that manifests as distress and discomfort that results from way society or other people perceive, label, refer to, or interact with someone’s gender or body.

Soft butch

Both a gender identity and term used to describe the nonconforming gender expression of someone who has some masculine or butch traits, but doesn’t fully fit the stereotypes associated with masculine or butch cisgender lesbians.

Stone butch

Both a gender identity and term used to describe the nonconforming gender expression of someone who embodies traits associated with female butchness or stereotypes associated with traditional masculinity.

Reds under the bed! — counterpunch

As you know, politics make for odd under-the-bed fellows. The vaguely defined left and right share some similar cognitive defects. The arbitrary gender people and the anti-evolution or intelligent design (sic) people kind of think the same way.

Interesting that you import sexuality into this discussion. I didn't raise it, but now you have - I wonder to what degree the assumption of socially constructed gender is really an excuse for submissive gay men, to play the female role - without experiencing the psychological implications of submission? — counterpunch

One of the cheats in the gender discussion is the construction "gender assigned at birth". 999 times out of a 1000 gender is identified by glancing at the external genitals. The number of situations where sex organs are so ambiguous that a doctor would need to arbitrarily "assign" a sex is very small. Use of the verb "assigned" is a clever way of asserting that gender is arbitrary.

There is some validity to your observation. It could be extended to say "socially constructed gender" is a justification for men and women whose sexual orientation falls in the middle of the Kinsey scale to experiment with cross dressing, cross-role playing, changing pronouns, etc. Some males (no idea how many) may just find the female gender role more attractive (whether or not they are gay). (Sexual orientation is different than gender confusion.)

I presume you are using "female role" and "submission" in the sexual sense.

The problem I have with that part of your observation is that a large share of gay men perform both roles in the same encounter with equal competence and satisfaction. Maybe once upon a past--pre gay lib--time men thought in terms of female roles and submission (pitcher/catcher, active/passive, dominant/submissive). Certainly the old psychiatric literature (pre 1972) used that terminology.

At least from my (fairly extensive) experience most gay men are actively involved in sexual encounters--period. Maybe in "rough trade sex" (sexual encounters with roughish, working class heterosexual men) the old terminology would still be relevant -- but even then, gay men who like rough trade pursue it. (Full disclosure: my few encounters with rough trade didn't end well.)

There are some specialty areas, like bondage and discipline which involve pretty much exclusive master/slave, top/bottom roles--and this would be true in heterosexual B&D. Or so I gather, anyway. I find the B&D/S&M scene sort of interesting, the same way I find fascist gangs interesting.

In 1962, in his book “Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible”, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated his famous Three Laws, of which the third law is the best-known and most widely cited: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.

Back in the 1980s, Apple published several more-or-less plain language books explaining how the various parts of the Macintosh computer worked. I could understand it. I loved my Mac Plus computer. It came without a hard drive (most people bought one as an accessory--20 megabytes; seemed big at the time); there were two 3.5" floppy drives. I used it a lot.

Even with the explanatory books, there was / is something magical about computers (as long as they are working properly; they become a cursed burden when they are not).

Sometime back in the late 80s or early 90s someone published a study on how composition changes when written by hand, typed, or written on a computer screen. I can attest that there are, as the study found, differences. The ease of editing on screen (rather than paper) helps a great deal with the flow of ideas. (However, almost all of the world's great literature was written by hand.) Add to the screen the ability to look things up in a flash (like the quote from Clark -- which I couldn't remember verbatim) helps too.

I have read writers on the left and the right who are not lunatics, but sometimes it seems like the same toxicon (Latin poison) has addled the brains of people across the political spectrum. I can't quite put a finger on what the toxic stuff is that rewires the brains of people on the left and the right, so that they both inhabit separate but equally distorted realities.

I do not see any equivalence between the most vocal people on the left and right; the gender extremists (left) and Proud Boys (right) for example are made of different stuff. But there is something similar in the way they both formed around extreme granule positions.

Extremism isn't new, of course. I just find it perplexing that I can not detect what, exactly, is driving the current extremes.

A different extremism is that of the leftists and tender-hearted American liberals who would like to open the borders to the entire oppressed population everywhere. Yes, we could do that, but the open-border advocates have not reckoned with the effect that would have on the 320,000,000 citizens.

I wish I could answer more precisely, but it's all still very preliminary. — counterpunch

That's precise enough -- close enough for government work, as the saying goes.

So, many small bore holes rather than a few big ones.

Another geothermal approach which is being used (to a small extent) in Minnesota (and other places) involves the differential temperature of soil about 6 to 10 feet below the surface. In the winter buried pipes extract heat and in the summer dissipate heat. The soils are generally around 50-55º F all year round, depending a bit on soil type and rainfall. This approach is good for homes and small buildings. Either trenches can be dug to bury the pipes, (or pipes can be tunneled) or bore holes can be used.

This approach works in temperate zones. In very hot areas subsoil temperatures tend to be too warm for cooling.

Little know fact, maybe. The pre-refrigerator ice industry was started in New England in the early 1800s, taking ice out of lakes in January and February. The ice cubes (big ones) were packed in sawdust and would last into the summer. The first big market was in the Caribbean and the American south. Soon, however, ice was being shipped to England and the ice industry spread across the northern states. An apartment I lived in in 1971 in St. Paul had previously had ice boxes in the kitchens. There were doors in the hallways for icemen to deliver the chunks of ice directly into the ice box. The doors were still there in '71; the ice boxes (made of wood) were converted to cupboards.

Householders had to empty a pan under the ice box which caught the melting water.

Of course people used the ice to cool drinks, too.

I'm wondering about heat transference. what is the medium between the hot magma and the pipes in the chamber containing the water that is to be turned into steam? How big a bore hole are we talking about? How much heat transfer surface will be needed to absorb the heat necessary to superheat the water in the pipes? How much heat will be lost from the steam between the bottom of the well and the turbine? Is the amount of heat loss significant?

One of the technical difficulties I see is getting enough piping into the bottom of the well, pumping water down, and getting high pressure steam back up at the top. I'm not an engineer, so I don't have any tables to consult here. But suppose a pipe breaks at the bottom of the well--either a cold water supply or a steam return. How would it get fixed? Will the operators be able to pull the everything out of the hole quickly enough so that too much generating time isn't lost?

District heating distributes steam for several miles, but building-heating steam is neither superheated nor under very high pressure.

a political party that recognises science as truth" is not necessarily a party of scientists. It's a party of people who think science is true - and the best guide to a prosperous and sustainable future. — counterpunch

I was never a scientist. I have spent a lot of energy and time overcoming a mainline Protestant religious upbringing and its world view. Some time back I made a commitment to a scientific understanding of the world. (Of course I made a commitment. I'm a religious atheist--sacred vows get made.) The world view of science is that the world is understandable--not obviously understandable, but with systematic study what is not understood can be made known. The project is not complete, of course.

A Science Party? Good idea. Something to counter the "Know Nothing" organization, and the 3D party of Deny, Deflect, & Deceive. The whole corporate-political mafia of liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels.

So, there are already people who would happily join the Science Party. Just be aware that while rational people (including scientists) do their best, we are driven by the same ir-rational drives as everyone else. You make an excellent case for cheap abundant electricity and hydrogen fuel produced by tapping geothermal energy. I've read your extensive research which has been vetted by numerous academic peer groups. You have discovered the solution. So what's the problem?

The trouble is, I just don't like it. I want to like it, but I can't. I'm in love with solar. The sun is the way! And I'll do everything in my power to make sure that your project is torpedoed at the earliest possible opportunity. Solar IS the way forward. The preceding bold/italicized text was for RHETORICAL PURPOSES ONLY.

That's one of the things that can go wrong with science based politics: Even the best scientists have egos; have vested interests; get emotional; can be treacherous. Highly rational science-politicians have the same batch of emotional drives as the average orangutang. We all do. Our limbic system is our Achilles heel.

Still, you have the right idea. Just don't expect totally smooth sailing.

or else, overcome this fascination and write it off as inappropriate. — baker

It's also a way for envious people to cut large figures down to size. "AH HA!!! Lewis Carroll might be famous for this supposedly great story, but he was a pervert, so he's just one less dead white European male making me feel inferior!

One of my literature professors said that happy people don't produce great works of art. — baker

I've heard that too. It might have some truth to it, and it might also be bullshit or wishful thinking. Maybe I haven't produced anything great because I am just not unhappy enough? "The tortured, anguished artist valiantly overcoming his misery to produce the great work" is more likely a work of fiction by someone who was neither tortured or anguished, at least when writing the book.

My own experience has been that serious unhappiness is not a productive condition.

Why is so much fiction about unhappy people? Because unhappy people are more interesting. As Tolstoy says in the first sentence of Anna Karenina, "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." It's a more satisfying experience I suppose to produce works of art about unhappy people than find something interesting in boring, monotonously happy people. Happiness, success, predictability, pastel prettiness, etc. make for a very dull story. A good story needs some grit, failure, dark color, misery... to contrast against the sunshine.

All that said, sure: some miserable people have turned out great art. We just shouldn't count on it.

Not that it's much related to the discussion, but just to say this is a really important point that is often overlooked in discussions about this, understandably, very sensitive topic. — Isaac

Your insightful comments about

How is a young adult supposed to have a healthy sex life after the age of consent (in their particular country) if, prior to that age, they have it rammed down their throats that being thought of as a sexual person is so manifestly evil that it should be punished with widespread contempt... — Isaac

helps explain the problem raised by @FrankGSterleJr's OP. Despite the several 'sexual revolutions' that have happened, a lot of people are very conflicted about sex and sexuality. People who were screwed up in childhood 60 or 70 years ago have not necessarily become 'unscrewed' over the years. It took me a long time. And despite everything, young people are still getting screwed up.

All that makes it difficult for many intelligent, educated people to think calmly about matters such as Lewis Carroll (Dodgson) photographing nude girls. Lolita, anyone? The middle aged literature professor Humbert Humbert was obsessed with a 12 year old girl, his stepchild, no less. I'm sure there are people who would like Nabokov dug up and posthumously burnt at the stake! I suppose Stanley Kubrick, who produced the 1962 film version of the Lolita should join Nabokov in the fire.

Distinguishing the artist from his art is a basic skill. As KK observed (hyperbolically) most of his art heroes turned out to be monsters. I hope he can still enjoy the assholes' works.

I'm so used to my male heroes in the arts turning out to be assholes and monsters that it would shock me if anyone I admired artistically turned out to be a decent man — Kenosha Kid

A lot of art (all categories) has been produced by people who were/are known to be happy, pleasant, normal, decent people. And a lot of great art has been produced by people who were/are known to be screwed up, unhappy, abrasive, abusive people.

Sometimes knowing the biography of the artist helps one understand and appreciate a work, sometimes it doesn't. Some people want to prosecute the artist for any moral deficiencies they can find, and other people are content to not turn over every rock, looking for shock value.

So basically softcore child porn is fine: it's just the hard stuff that's wrong? What if drugs are used so that the child doesn't remember being molested? What if the photographed child becomes traumatised at a later age? Does it suddenly become immoral, say, 12 years after the event? — Kenosha Kid

There were Victorians producing what we can confidently label "pornography" for sale. It was an up-market trade. Some of it was soft -- from gauzy soft to harder material. What Dodgson was doing might make later observers nervous and squeamish, but it wasn't porn.

The Victorians also liked to make headless photographs. Victorian snuff? More likely they did it because they discovered they could.

How about Wilhelm von Gloeden and his photos of naked Italian boys and young men, or Thomas Eakins' American realist paintings? Was Eakins doing porn or merely realistically painting nude males swimming?

Point is, if we can't keep our categories clear, then any discussion of art, artists, personal preferences, personal practices, and so on ends up in a meaningless muddle.