I mentioned "otherwise normal citizens," — Xtrix

I think/hope/believe that otherwise normal citizens make up the majority of the population, and that we are not helpless dupes of various cynical propaganda machines.

outlandish conspiracy theories
attempts to inappropriately undermine credible sources
denial of facts and evidence
rejection of expertise
hostility towards intellectuals
disdain for education
distrust for government and medial — Xtrix

Hey, great list. Want to rule the world? Do this.

I think the list should be viewed as the means by which otherwise normal citizens' thinking is distorted or derailed, rather than the consequence of propaganda. Trump makes an extreme statement one day, denies it the next, repeats it on the third day, and spins it on the fourth. Maybe Trump is merely crazy, or maybe he is (perhaps inadvertently) undermining the certainty of truth. "What? No, I didn't say that; that's what THEY are saying!" One day the CDC states that the corona virus can be transported on aerosols from sneezes, coughs, etc., can travel a significant distance, and infect people. The next day the CDC pulls that claim (almost certainly at the behest of the White House). So what is true? What is true for Donald Trump keeps getting a little closer to "whatever I say is true".

Adolf Hitler was always right. This was more a governing principle, the fuhrer prinzip, less a conclusion. If der Fuhrer said the war was going well, it was. If he said the world was flat, it was. Don't agree? Maybe some time in Dachau will clarify your thinking. German culture was, historically, at least as sound as any culture--maybe more so. Nonetheless, Nazi rubbish--as crazy as QAnon--became government policy.

The QAnon conspiracy displaces normal explanations of real events with bizarre demons. Since the demons do not actually exist, whatever they are purported to say or do can not be contradicted. Contrary evidence never appears, because there is nothing there.

vote the way they do -- that is to say, against their interests — Xtrix

I've complained about this for a long time. People are voting against their interests! There is an obvious explanation you will probably not hear on mainstream media (which is pretty broad):

Voters are presented with two political parties and their candidates who essentially intend to, and do, pursue extremely similar goals. Both parties back capitalism unconditionally, and do not intend to overturn what it means for working people--exploitation. So, vote for a Democrat, vote for a Republican; it makes mo difference. Either way, one is voting against one's interest. The idea of two opposing parties, one representing XYZ policy, the other representing ABC policy, is a deeply ingrained myth. Fact is, they both represent XYZ policies and are both against ABC policies. The actual truth of the political system is NEVER broadcast authoritatively to the people. Naturally, a crackpot here and a crank there will say it, but they are all crazy, right? Right. So if you are a poor working white, you should definitely vote Republican; and if you are a poor working black you should definitely vote Democrat or... whatever. They both want everybody's vote.

What is at stake in the election isn't who will benefit the workers. What is at stake is who will be in charge of taking care of Capitalists.

To expand a bit on an old saw, "Neither law nor sausage should be made in public." Because the actual workings of lawmakers are as disreputable as sausage-makers who put bad meat into the sausage mix. The critical decision making in the state offices or national congress (maybe even in your local township board) are not made during public sessions. Decision makers consult, advise, give and receive bribes, (depending on what's at stake, and bribes should be generously interpreted here), decide who wins and who gets shafted, and so on. (Usually YOU are going to get shafted, because you are not one of the major power players possessed of great wealth).

(Otto von Bismarck (1815–98) said it first: If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.)

Your raise some very valid points here. Over the last 50 years, life for the working class (which is the vast majority) has become much more precarious. The "precariat" is perched on a wobbly branch which threatens to throw them off. Unemployment, a pandemic, medical disaster, debt, etc. can break the branch, and we fall into the ditch of much more severe poverty which is hard to dig out of.

I find that many people are making proposals that I find undermine my sense of security--from both sides of the political spectrum. One group of lunatics wants to get rid of social security (my main source of income at this point) and another group of crazies (like my city council) has pledged to defund the police. A plague on both their houses.

There is something not altruistic about aging justices hanging on for dear life, rather than resigning. Ginsburg isn't the first one. And IF they are concerned about preserving their liberal or conservative chair on the court, then they should resign during a favorable presidential administration, even if that means leaving the court 4 or 5 years sooner than one would on a gurney, as was the case here.

There should probably be mandatory retirement ages. Maybe in 1776 (so to speak) a "for life term" was mercifully short; not anymore.

When this circuit was attached to rats' brains, the rats sat there and kept pushing the lever again and again until they died of dehydration/starvation.

Some people do that with drugs and alcohol; even slot machines. (Well they don't fall off the stool and hit the floor dead in the bars and casinos, but they can go totally broke or make themselves sick and likely to die sooner.)

Repeatable intense pleasure from the push of a button is probably too perverse for animals to manage, including us. As it is, I can get lost for hours doing things that are less pleasurable than what this button is offering. Today I spent 3 hours perusing the New Yorker Cartoon Bank looking for a particular old cartoon. Didn't find it, didn't notice 3 hours passing, and didn't care. Great experience. Keep that hatched-in-hell-button away from me.

It's simply pointless and there is no way a good God would have allowed it. — Gregory

You know what a good God would allow and would not allow? How did you come by this rare knowledge?

Apparently -- if one goes by doctrine and experience -- God created the world and decided that pain and suffering was/is/are/will be acceptable. God could have designed the world in other ways, but he didn't.

I say come to grips that this world is imperfect and stop trying to justify thing wrong — Gregory

Well, I think I have come to grips with a very imperfect world--the world is appallingly unsatisfactory. God doesn't need our defense or justification -- as if we even knew what had to be defended and justified.

So the first premise in this discussion is that animals are innocent. They are not capable of doing true evil, they did not ask to exist, and they are good because they naturally follow their natures. — Gregory

I have conflicting thoughts about the innocence of animals. On the one hand, the various qualities attached to innocence -- free from moral wrong; without sin; pure; not involving evil intent or motive -- seem to fit animals. Actually, it fits humans a good share of the time as well. Barring the idea of original sin, we are not perpetually immersed in immorality, sin, impure behavior, evil intent or motive. We didn't ask to exist, either (just ask Schopenhauer1, TPF's leading lobbyist against unrequested existence), and we follow our natures. It adds up to our meeting your requirement of goodness. Somehow, though, a lot of us manage to be quite bad much of the time (but nobody here, of course).

On the other hand, most animals (or all of them except us?) seem to be outside moral categories. They are neither innocent nor guilty. There is no guile in their following their nature (which isn't to say they never deceive one another as part of their nature. Many animals practice behaviors akin to deception). They cause pain to other creatures because they have no options. A wolf, lion, eagle, or porpoise can not eat without causing pain.

When we are not being evil we are as innocent as other animals.

That is as far as I am willing to go.

Therefore, either

1) The world, which reflects God nature, proves that God is not all good. If it's not in God's nature to create a world and allow humans to sin all the while protecting the innocent from pain, then God's nature is imperfect or evil

2) God doesn't exist — Gregory

I am not willing to play logic games with God -- NOT because I am afraid of offending god, but because I believe

1) God doesn't exist

or

2) God is sufficiently unknowable that he might as well not exist. I just don't buy the idea of a supreme being who can be sorted out into various capacities and features like beetles. I might be willing to affirm the existence of a god who is just plain unknowable, but who presumably exists because some people require a first cause. I think I can get along without a first cause too.

I mean, how can this in any way be serious? Why would God even make it so people have to struggle to survive? — JerseyFlight

God made the World in six days flat
On the seventh he said, I'll rest
So he let the thing into orbit swing
To give it a dry run test
A billion years went by
Then he took a look at the whirling blob
His spirits fell as he shrugged
Oh well, it was only a six-day job

Rhymes for the Irreverent - Chad Mitchell Trio

You are assuming that God is not a fan of Darwinian selection. Actually God set up the world with vicious competition at its core to see what would happen after thousands of years of strong bastards crushing wimps.

Now we know, and so does God.

"... And the lion will lie with the kid..." — god must be atheist

However, the lion will sleep a lot better than the kid will.

True, but I no longer enter into discussions of racism with serious intent. Of course racism is a problem, but what most people have to say are shallow knee-jerk clichés.

1) "Racism is bad" the old troll who lives under the bridge said.

So rumor has it.

Sticks and stones can break their bones but words can not harm them.

2) Racism places blacks and minorities in worse off social, educational, and economic situations.

Yes, and its a classic chicken and egg problem.

3) Racism creates a hostile, dangerous, and drug ridden environment.

No, it's drug dealers enforcing drug deals with guns and pimps preying on poor women that does all that.

4) Racism creates a poor environment for young girls, leading to domestic violence and prostitution.

We do not see the connection. Perhaps you were thinking of some other 'ism'?

5) Racism bars blacks and minorities from entering well-off areas like better housing.

As well it should. There are reasons for those guarded gates. The better to keep poor minorities out.

6) Racism teaches whites to be socially degenerate. It encourages whites to become violent, hateful, mistrustful, leading to an overall social decline in society.

This is nonsense. We Supreme Whites don't need to be racist, violent, hateful, mistrustful, or anything of the kind. Since we are the superiors at the top by natural right, we can afford to be magnanimously tolerant of the billions of riffraff we must endure. Plus, we regularly offer them the generous hand of reasonably priced goods and services so that they may improve themselves, be more like us, and less like themselves. If they don't avail themselves of the opportunity, whose fault is that?

7) Racism prevents intelligent blacks and minorities from contributing to the arts, sciences, technology, literary, and other fields.

Humbug. I just read that "Kanye West Declares Himself ‘New Moses,’ Says He Won’t Release New Music Till Freed From Universal and Sony/ATV Deals". New Moses, he says. Well, we all know Moses was barred from entering the Promised Land. Moses didn't get on the ballot in Wisconsin, either. He didn't get his application in on time. So... tough. Why would anybody vote for him? I knew President Obama and Kanye West is no Obama!!!

8) Racism suggests that blacks, who make up only 13% of the population, are responsible for a lot of problems in the United States, including crime, violence, and social degeneracy.

Suggests? how about PROCLAIMS.

9) Racism teaches us that one race is superior to another, simply because that race has certain qualities not found in another race.

And there you should rest your case.

10) Racism causes cultural wars, leading to some kind of a civil war.

#9 was your last good point. Just strike #10.

---------------------------------------

So how do we approach racism? For what reasons should we stop being racist? — telex

We should certainly stop being racist for the wrong reasons.

Think of yourself as a clock, which has a limited amount of time, depending on it's battery. Once time runs out, clock stops ticking — Yozhura

Here you want to pose cosmic questions and you haven't got the clock right. A clock powered by a spring goes "tick tock" as the escapement meters out the power wound into the spring. A clock powered by a battery (LCD display) is silent, or if it the little motor turns 'hands' it might make a clicking sound, but no tick tock.

Exactly, no matter how much we hypothetically think of the problem, our technological advancements aren't enough to determine what is life and our universe. — Yozhura

How can we understand the universe when clocks baffle us?

However, I want to be wound up regularly, giving me another crack at showering humankind with the blessings of my fecund mind. Hey!!! I'm 74; get over here and wind me up; time is running out!

Clothing is"necessary" in the psychological, cultural sense. Long before the current cultural milieu, people started wearing clothes -- not just clothes, but clothes that were a a lot of trouble to make, at a time when survival was much more difficult than now.

I'm thinking of an archeological find of a cloth fragment preserved by chance in NW Europe; it was about 20,000 years old if I remember correctly, and it was woven with a plaid pattern--not exactly a rich plaid like Scottish clan plaids, but plaid, nonetheless--vertical and horizontal bands of colored thread incorporated in the warp and weft. The fabric required extra steps and more technology (like dyeing fibers), so the desire to wear haute couture has, apparently, been with us for a long time.

Going back to a slightly earlier time, a small carved fertility figure was found which incorporated a 'skirt' of knotted thread that was designed to reveal more than obscure. 5000 years ago the ice man who died on a glacier in the Alps was dressed head to foot in clothing which had been carefully made and patched as it wore out. Just guessing, but when we were troglodytes dressed in animal skins, I bet some animal skins were preferred over others, because they just looked good: "I have a very nice saber-tooth tiger fur while she has that hideous rotten mammoth skin.")

We can easily and effectively meet the survival aspects of dress, and have been doing so for a long time. For survival, we mostly don't have to wear clothes at all. But WE LIKE TO WEAR CLOTHES as a form of self-enhancement, and this seems to have been present for at least 25,000 years. Given a few thousand years of practice, clothing is probably not an option any more.

There is a little evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead with some ceremony--entirely unnecessary. A grave was found with flowers (long dead -- this goes back a very long ways). It is "little, very fragile evidence" of cultural practices, but it is suggestive.

It is necessary that we observe cultural imperatives. We produce the culture and then we obey it, and feel bad when we don't. We don't have the option of dropping all culture and reverting to some sort of innocent animal existence a la Rousseau AND remaining human. Producing and reproducing culture is evolutionary. Take language: we can't remain human without language. So, the languageless animal that looks just like us but has no language wouldn't be human. The look-alike animal that has no culture is likewise not human.

Now, there are areas of San Francisco where guys walk down the street naked. They aren't at all free of culture -- they are as cultured in their nakedness as anyone wearing the latest haute couture. They are both making a statement (not the same statement, but not altogether different, either). "Vestis virum reddit!" the Romans said. Clothes make the man. Put a purple banded toga on that schmuck and he looks like a Senator."

You wouldn't want to see Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell walking around naked in the US Capitol. It would not only be a fatal breach of culture and couture, it would be an absolutely horrifying sight. Clothing saves us from all that.

Maggie Kuhn, the founder of the Grey Panthers (a senior citizen group) once said that they could bring the Vietnam war to an end by threatening to have a few thousand old people undress on the Mall.

I didn't mention Adam and Eve as a serious comment. For the purpose here, I don't think Genesis has any relevance. The Eden story is not primarily concerned with nakedness anyway. So...

This is important to us, although not objectively necessary, as such. — Possibility

I do not concur with the view that survival is not objectively necessary. If existence is merely a peripheral, subjective concern, then none of this discussion -- and much else -- matters.

The fact that we will cease to exist is what makes existence sine qua non.. If our existence was now and forever more, things would be different.

We should be aware that nakedness isn't the same issue for everybody the world over. Some people don't wear clothes. To them, wearing cloth covering seems exceeding weird. American anthropologist and artist Tobias Schneebaum encountered the Arakmbut tribe in South America. In the encounter, they gave him a very thorough going over, taking his clothes off, inspecting his body in detail, and going through his pack -- all out of intense curiosity.

The Arakmbut were naked cannibals, but Schneebaum wasn't eaten. He charmed them with a pad and a pencil (doing quick sketches of the people he had just met -- much to the naked cannibals' delight) and demonstrated things like a mirror and a zippo lighter which they took for flat out magic. Anyway, Schneebaum kept a few clothes during his year long stay, but otherwise went about naked, like his new friends. All this in the Amazon Jungle.

Lots of people in various cultures wear minimal clothing -- a loin cloth for men, for instance. Otherwise they are naked.

We (first worlders) do cover up ourselves. There's nothing wrong with that; it works for us. Except when it doesn't. As Noel Coward phrased it in a song, "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun." Most of Britain's sub- or tropical colonized people had the good sense to stay inside during the hottest part of the day. Not the English. They went out way-over dressed.

But can we admit that we cover our bodies as a choice - conscious or otherwise - and NOT a necessity? — Possibility

Usually clothing is optional, but not always. Usually we choose to wear clothes; rarely are we driven by the environment to wear clothes. IF one lives in areas where the climate is severe (frigid at times, broiling at times, sandblasted at times, attacked by hordes of biting / stinging insects...) one must wear clothing to survive. On the other hand, there are places where wearing clothing won't save us. An alligator in the quiet, shallow bayou will enjoy waylaying and eating the unawares whether we are clothed or not.

Many people could literally 'de-vest" themselves, that is undress, without significant physical consequences. Even in Minnesota, there are 3 or 4 months when one wouldn't be overly uncomfortable going about naked. (It was 38 the other night; too cool for nude.). I've spent time in the summer being naked outside. Consequences? I didn't get arrested, but 40 years later I have more skin cancer than I would have otherwise had I dressed as I usually do.

Why is nakedness disapproved of? Because our favorite sins are usually committed while naked (for most people), and people in close and naked proximity are more likely to engage in sex than when they were wearing clothes. Gay nude beaches seem to generate quite a bit of sexual activity on site.

So, heterosexuals in French nudist camps behave like gay men when 'bathhouse' facilities are provided. They opt for the orgy pit PDQ. The morally uptight disapprove of orgies. An orgy requires nakedness. Therefore nakedness must be suppressed. Adam and Eve were naked, and look what happened to them!

I believe I can choose a purpose. — A Ree Zen

And you will find that the Universe is utterly indifferent to your choice.

It's quite hard to fight off hedonism from this vantage. — JerseyFlight

Is it? I find that the end of the world pretty much quashes my desire for pleasure.

it must revise itself in the consciousness, of what appears to be, the most profound negation of being. — JerseyFlight

Any one alive to the possibility that we may be bringing about our final act and scenes on the world's stage, must revise their consciousness to account for not only their own death, but the death of the human enterprise. It is a grievous thought.

The death of the human enterprise will not be as swift as a heart attack; it will likely be slow in the manner of degenerative diseases, so there may be several generations of thinkers whose reality will be dominated by the certainty of our species demise. There will be a steadily deteriorating situation at the end of which large scale Civilization will cease, and our smaller scale communal lives fall apart.

Grim.

I schizophrenically view the future as a certain end to the human enterprise on the one hand, and on the other hand hold out for a future in which human kind, and as many other species as possible, pull through to a bright and long future. The former seems inevitable and the latter seems impossible.

I don’t think it is possible for a a group as large as 7 billion people to agree that such proactive measures are necessary. — xraymike79

Alas, I don't think it is possible for a group as small as 1000 or maybe 100 to not only see the necessity of proactive measures, but to actually implement the proactive measures in advance of dire consequences.

We don't seem to be able to see possible or probable disasters 25, 50, or 100 years in the future and actually do something about it in the present time. It's less a moral failing (which virtue could overcome) and more a failure of our species' nature, which we may have the wherewithal to overcome.

Apart from that, we have (most likely) started the unstoppable cascade of events which will lead to ever-worsening conditions. EVEN IF we 8 billion people, woke up and decided to start acting right now, it would be very hard work to prevent the cascade.

I conclude that we are totally screwed.

I think we've gone too far in claiming that there is no such thin as race. That view is reactionary to the idea of race being equivalent to ethnicity.

TW, it seems to me that the definitions of heterosexual and homosexual begin with behavior and desired behavior. I just don't see a problem with defining heterosexuality as the behavior of males and females having sex with each other, as their most common and most preferred behavior. One can be celibate and still be heterosexual, because that is one's preferred behavior, if one wasn't locked up, or something.

What comes after considering behavior and preferred behavior? Not too much. We have straights, gays, bisexuals, and a group of nattering nabobs of nonsense who are very confused about what the hell they are - non-binary gender-fluid inter-sex-fuck up, or something.

I don't seem to be having any difficulty putting my socks on, so I have not investigating how a given method might be faulty.

One issue: If one has rough toe nails that snag the sock, the roll/insert toe at heel/pull on lower half of sock/unroll top half saves a snag. Men's socks are pretty durable, but it's annoying to have one's esteemed toenails snagged on a loop.

insert male into female starting in the middle — Srap Tasmaner

Must sex be brought up at every opportunity? Disgusting.

"Doff" is a shortened version of the short phrase "do off". And, appropriately, "don" is short for "do on". This goes back to Middle English.

he prefers to fuck guys — Ansiktsburk

Preferring to fuck guys is certainly a critical part of what a homosexual is (like 90%) but it isn't all of it. It's also who you like to spend the most time with, how you relate to other men in a social way, and how you fit yourself into the world.

Does being gay mean being more... "artistic", "sensitive", and so on? Based on my 74 years of experience as an exclusively gay man, the stereotypically artistic, sensitive, highly emotional homosexual is mostly baloney. Yes, there are gay men who fit that description, but most don't, and of course there are some straight men who do, though most don't.

Are gay men more promiscuous than straight men? Yes. So, AIDS definitely dropped a monkey wrench into the gears of the orgy factory. With appropriate precautions the good times continue to roll, but not quite in as inhibited a manner as before. New diseases require new responses. Is one supposed to wear a mask while getting a blow job in the park?

The perennial unanswerable question.

Some? many? most? all? humans are subject to "polymorphous perversity" -- capable of deriving sexual pleasure in various ways, at different times, if the opportunity is presented, if the flesh is willing, if social mores are not overwhelming. So there is that -- quite apart from "what causes homosexuality". I don't know what causes homosexuality.

Mixing Kinsey with Freud, it seems that a majority of people are polymorphously perverse, and that a substantial minority are exclusively heterosexual. A small minority of the male population (1% - 2%) are exclusively homosexual--they neither have sex with women nor do they / have they ever wanted to.

As per @Tim Wood, So what, exactly, is homosexual? Maybe the majority of people are, per @Outlander bisexual. That's what Kinsey found, at least if you include every sex act a person performs between 18 and 88.

I also wanted to point out that Christians have no way of knowing if Luke, Mark, and even Paul were real Apostles and could write Scripture. So there is a hole in the Bible — Gregory

There are many holes in the Bible.

Jesus appeared in a time and place of religious and political ferment. He was not, by any means, the only inside agitator.

It's pretty clear that Christianity did not spring from the head of Jesus in the same way that Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. Presumably there was this man, Jesus, who was an itinerate Jewish preacher. He apparently had a Jewish following comprised of an inner circle (people like Peter and Mary) and an outer circle of people who heard him preach. Then he was executed. There was apparently a transition period in which the Jewish followers of a Jewish preacher coagulated into a separate religious group.

A century later, give or take 15 minutes either way, a Beta edition of Christianity was up and running. The BIG QUESTION is, What happened between Jesus and Christianity? Fact is, we don't know precisely what happened, especially in the first 75 years or so. There are clues. There are fragments. Some early editors started putting things together around a hundred years after Jesus.

Unless somebody finds a lost archive of everyone's sworn statements starting with Mary and Joseph, we just aren't going to have an objective historical record. Too bad, but that's life. 99.9% of ancient writings have been lost. The written remainder of two very literate cultures, Classical Greece and Rome, fill a few library shelves.

If Jesus is a questionable historical figure, Christianity has solid credentials. Most religions don't spring from somebody's head like Athena from Zeus. They gather and form over time, picking up momentum.

I suppose you have read some of the skeptical scholars' studies of Christianity's early history. If not, it's a fascinating field.

I have encountered the claim that black culture causes crime among people of color. — Aleph Numbers

This is circular: black people produce black culture which causes crime. If this were so, wouldn't all black people be criminals?

Culture as a Determinant of Crime? Maybe.

I have heard SE European people described as natural crooks. A joke illustrates: How does a Romanian make an omelet? He starts by stealing 6 eggs. Are Romanians more likely to be criminal than Austrians, Hungarians, or Poles? I doubt it.

The prevailing Culture can house numerous sub-cultures, and sub-cultures can in turn be sub-divided. There are criminal sub-sub-cultures among various groups, and these sub-cultures will likely vary. There is a black sub-sub-criminal culture involving drug dealing, gang activities, theft-rings, and so on. Other groups, particularly those with few advantages, generally harbor a criminal sub-culture. The criminal sub-culture may not be representative of that sub-groups larger culture. Most Italians weren't involved in the various rackets of the mafia, for instance.

Why do people engage in criminal activity? A) because they can; B) criminal activity may be more remunerative and convenient than legitimate labor; C) an individual may lack skills and talents to succeed in legitimate labor; D) criminal behavior may be requisite for membership in a gang; E) people who engage in criminal activity are probably significantly more risk tolerant than most people; and so on.

Actually, a young black male who has failed to succeed in school, does not have a strong positive father figure, lacks a positive supportive family and friendship circle, is experiencing anomie, and so on is likely to find criminal activity the best bet going. Once a criminal record is earned, success outside of criminal activity becomes evermore difficult. To use a religious phrase, "The sinner sinks ever deeper into sin."

It isn't just poverty. Most poor people (anywhere) do not gravitate toward a criminal career.

@Unenlightened's answer, "leisure" seems on the mark; and in another sense, it means the 'psychological space' to afford thinking about radical alternatives (at least, socialism is viewed as a very radical alternative in the US, where I come from). People with a reasonable level of education and connections generally do well enough to obtain that leisure. But, as @Jgill observed, people who have access to enough welfare benefits can also afford to think about radical alternatives.

Another factor, I think, is a having a certain amount of personal liberty to pursue what are (in places like the US) quite unpopular ideas. One has to be 'inner-directed' enough to ignore the disapproving frowns and comments of work associates, friends, and relatives.

Lots of people (not in the US) have examples of 'socialistic policies' available to them, which are generally valued by their society. Many countries have had more favorable policies toward the working class, providing good health programs, liberal amounts of vacation time, and so on.

it's worth noting, however, that not too many people in the EU are calling for, hoping for, or planning for the abolition of capitalism (speed the day), which would be necessary for full-fledged socialism (at least, as far as I know).

In order to use a time machine to change the course of history, one has to kill quite a few babies, not just one. Suppose one wanted to protect the Western Hemisphere from Europe. Strangling Columbus in his cradle wouldn't be enough; sinking the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria wouldn't do the trick either. Exploration of the world by Europeans (for purposes of trade) was underway, and eventually somebody else would have tripped over North and South America. After all, Lief Erickson had landed in the future Canada a few hundred years earlier. Had that Norsk contact taken off, history would have been different, but it didn't.

Germany was not a happy place in the 1920s into the '30s, and Hitler was by no means the only capable player. Germany didn't need Mein Kampf for a lot of people to hate Jews, for instance. Millions of Germans resented the terms of the WWI peace treaty, and so on and so forth.

But whatever reality is, alternate history has produced quite a few great stories.

Well, that's OK. I was just suggesting that abstractions aren't always as understandable as we might like to think. If it doesn't help, it doesn't help. Anyway, I wasn't trying "to fix you".

It's your idea in your terminology so, of course, it would (and should) seem quite understandable to you. Abstractions can be brilliant while we spin them our own heads. Once we spill them out on 'paper', the brilliance sometimes vanishes.

Good lord, you have got to be kidding me? I think you mean, the workers? — JerseyFlight

TRY INTERACTING WITH THE QUESTIONS I POSED IN THE SECOND PRIVATE PROPERTY POST (you can find it on pg4 of this thread). — JerseyFlight

Do you have any ideas on how this could be countered? — JerseyFlight

With all due respect friend, you have much more educating to do. — JerseyFlight

not because it is so incredibly profound, but because it is so incredibly naive. — JerseyFlight

Pity, I really don't think the objectors will be able to comprehend it. — JerseyFlight

You know, you could stand a refresher course in attitude. I'm glad you have immersed yourself in difficult intellectual study. It's dirty work, but somebody has to do it. However, just because you have read much, studied hard, and have accumulated many theoretical insights doesn't prevent you from being a learned fool. I'm not saying you are a fool, learned or otherwise, mind you. I'm just suggesting that you could be--and you wouldn't necessarily know it. It could be that the environment in which you developed led brought you to an unfortunate amount of misplaced self-confidence.

Marx's materialism is neither biological nor psychological. He thought that the laws of dialectics, which in nature were concretized in one way, in history were concretized in another. — David Mo

This statement may contain gobbledegook.

A lot of those in the Bourgeoisie are what basically now belong to the middle class. Marx in his Communist Manifesto argues the following:

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with
reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science,
into its paid wage labourers.

The priest sounds dubious here as belonging to what Marxists see as the intellectual Opium dealers from a bygone era (and Capitalism doesn't reject religion, just look at the US). The fact is that functioning capitalist societies have not impoverished the physician, the lawyer or even the man of science (with poets I don't know). — ssu

SSU: how do you define "worker"? Isn't a "worker" someone who is dependent on the wage he or she receives in exchange for labor? The wage, and the ability to labor, is everything to a worker.

A member of the bourgeoisie is not dependent on exchanging labor for a wage. God forbid! The bourgeoisie, at least as I understand it, owns the factory (or warehouse which Amazon rents) and receives the profit from the factory or rent. It isn't that the bourgeoisie do not expend mental and physical effort: some of them work their fingers to the bone, especially during the period of their 'original accumulation'. But if they are wealthy and still driving themselves, maybe they are merely suffering from OCD.

Granted, a lot of people (just about everybody, it seems like) think they are "middle class". Granted, some people occupy class-ambiguous positions. Is an Amazon, Target, Walmart, or Boeing upper-middle-management person really working class? I'm sure they don't think of themselves that way, and they may receive a fat enough benefit package to blur the factivity of their paycheck being tied to their ongoing performance of their work, or the profitability of their product area.

As for the American farmer, blessed be the small farmer with less than 250 acres and only 40 cows to milk, most of them are bourgeoisie. True, they may drive a tractor in the spring and a combine in the fall (both equipped with air conditioning, GPS, computer tracking recording how much corn, soy, or wheat was gathered from each square yard (square meter) of the field) which starting purchase price is around $500,000. Or probably they hire farm workers. But the bigger their land holding, the less likely is it that they are actually laboring in agriculture. What they are doing is much more a managerial function. Selling on the futures market, figuring the angles on government subsidies, deciding when and where to buy more land, and so on. If they have milk cows, it's likely that there are more than a thousand in their herd. Even superman would have trouble tending to the 4000 tits of 1000+ cows, let alone dealing with manure, feed, breeding, diseases, and so on.

But even the small family farmer may be quite well off, IF they own their land, IF it is good land, IF world demand for food is strong, and IF everyone else is not enjoying high yields. At least, on paper they may be worth quite a bit, even though they might have to liquidate the farm to see the cash value in hand.

Human Nature" does not exist, human brains exist, and they are exceedingly sensitive, what your brain experiences and how it develops determines who you are and what you become — JerseyFlight

The claim "Human nature does not exist" has never made sense to me. All other animals come loaded with a range of characteristics that does not finally or totally define them. I do not accept the idea that humans, evolving along with other primates, have no characteristics arising from their genetic heritage (which is rooted far deeper than primate species).

Granted, our intellectual capabilities exceed other species--indeed, put us in a category by ourselves--as we like to remind ourselves quite often. But pliable intellect isn't all of human nature. There are also the powerful emotional properties of human beings which are malleable only to some extent. In all, the way we exist as physical beings owes much to our genetic inheritance--that is, our nature.

The mention of "human nature" seems to be a triggering event for some people. True enough, there are unhelpful doctrines out there that excuse a lot of bad behavior, like original sin, war-like human nature, unsatisfiable acquisitiveness, and so on and so forth. We can ditch original sin and like theories if it helps (though we humans seem to validate the doctrine that we are prone to error (and major error at that) a good share of the time).

Obviously, the environment in which we experience the world is a factor in our individual realities, apart from what we inherit. Environment and experience are important--no denying that.

We are conscious beings, but we have no idea how, in some event long past, consciousness began to become a feature of human beings. IF we have no idea how a biological being becomes conscious, then it would seem highly unlikely that we could propose methods by which a computer could become conscious.

Even for us, consciousness doesn't spring into being in a fully developed form (as far as I know). Consciousness has a way forward to fulfillment. Can you think of anything, even a minute development, that would contribute to consciousness? Can that minute development be duplicated in a computer?

For instance, we (and other animals) have proprioception, which informs our brains of the arrangement of our bodies in space. iPhones can tell whether they have been picked up--the screen becomes active. There's an accelerometer in the phone which senses movement. It's a very trivial feature, but it is an example of what I am getting at.

How could a computer not only register that it was upside down, but also 'know' that it was upside down, and maybe even 'care' that it was topsy turvy?

What do you think?

Ok, but it can be said that the need is greater now. You know, modern civilization can now be destroyed, perhaps by mistake, in just a few minutes. — Hippyhead

Indeed. You're right. Our capacity to destroy is much greater than in the past (nuclear weapons) and our willingness to change our energy consumption levels and form of energy seems insufficient to save us from our ecological doom. Another thing that's true about these days (as opposed to the 13th century, say) is that a handful of people are in a position to launch the nuclear-tipped missiles, or to effectively block sound ecological policy. It doesn't take many irresponsible people to fuck everyone en masse.

It's strange that this assumption repeatedly surfaces as I have discussed this topic throughout the years. — JerseyFlight

The assumption keeps surfacing, one might suppose, because you keep "sounding" like you are peeved. But I'm glad you are not peeved. I, on the other hand, am profoundly peeved, so maybe I read peevishness into your phrasing.

Negative Dialectics. Get the lectures not the book, though the book is superior, it will be rough going — JerseyFlight

At this point in my life, I think I'll skip negative dialectics. The time remaining is short and there are other avenues I wish to pursue.

Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx — JerseyFlight

Have you read a lot of their stuff? I confess: I have not, though of the three I've read and enjoyed Marx most.

Intellectual responsibility is missing from our time. It is no surprise, therefore, that barbarism has proliferated itself. — JerseyFlight

Nonsense. Intellectual responsibility isn't missing any more now than in the past. As for barbarians -- they have been running things for millennia.

In this sense thinking is a painful and consequential activity. — JerseyFlight

Consequential, certainly. Painful? Let's say, 'difficult'.

High level thinking is about negativity, if you don't know that then you don't know thinking. — JerseyFlight

Can you expand a bit about that? Why is high level thinking about 'negativity'?

Are you feeling peeved about not getting enough attention as an autodidact? I can understand that--there are many unofficial intellectuals who get no respect.

We could perhaps separate out "intellectuals" (autodidacts or degreed and paid, whatever) from the the institutions that are in business to produce more knowledge and more knowledge producers, as well as 'think tanks' that hire intellectual types to produce policy and influence. Also, let's set aside corporate and governmental agencies that hire intellectuals, and put them to further their various and sundry interests.

Thinking is generally a friendly activity; running institutions may be, but isn't always, friendly.

An intellectual may contribute to greater class consciousness, if he or she is so inclined. But he or she may also opt to help suppress class consciousness, In both cases, this will generally be from a post within some institution. And, of course, many intellectuals--llike other people--have no class consciousness to speak of.

OK, so I agree that the elite that is running the country has been doing a piss-poor job of it, not just in the last 4 years, but for decades. HOWEVER...

Who are you going to replace that elite with? Are you going to do away with "experts" too?

Running a wealthy, nuclear-armed nation of 320 million people is not something you want to turn over to amateurs. It's a matter of finding the right elite -- which has been done in the past, and can be done again. Most countries are run by elites; the difference among nations is "which elite is in charge?"

One of our central problems is the theology of neoliberalism which is barely able to tolerate half-hearted government, let alone effective, well-run, well-funded, competent government.