It is emphatically not possible for a state to withdraw from the Union of states. That was settled during the Civil War - 1860-1865.

There are some who would like to split California into two or three states because some believe that northern California and southern California have quite separate interests. They may have quite different interests, but those differences are probably to California's advantage, in the same way that rural agricultural counties in a given state have little in common with large industrial cities. But states with combination rural agriculture/urban industrial economies tend to be financially more stable than all agricultural states, or all industrial states. The two different kinds of economy compliment each other.

There is no obvious road to splitting states either. A territory could be broken into several states, but there is no provision for states to divide or merge. If California really wanted to split, it would probably require a constitutional amendment which would need to be passed by congress and 3/4 of the states.

Were California to secede, everything else being the same, it would be the 6th largest economy. I think Hell would freeze over before California was allowed to leave. Not going to happen.

According to a book I have been reading, Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages, the Roman system of Pater Families began to be deconstructed by the Roman Emperors themselves. Step by step, marriage was redefined toward egalitarian arrangements where both partners had rights and protections, and where the man most definitely did not own the woman. But prior to these changes, the woman was officially under the control of either father or husband. Unofficially, of course, things were somewhat different. For one thing, many men ardently and faithfully loved their wives and children. Most Roman marriages were solid. (The rich and the royals... ugh, not so much.)

By the time Christianity was in a position to define marriage through the state, pagan change in the marriage had already accomplished a lot towards the kind of marriage we would inherit.

Big dicks have surprisingly not always been in fashion. The up-market classical Greeks who ordered and paid for great sculpture thought big penises belonged on donkeys and horses; a small penis was more appropriate for a marble statue. (Of course no man has control over whether he has a big, medium, small, or tragically tiny dick.) And, for a bit of insider information for you, not all men who have very large penises are happy with them. They are aware that other guys (Freud missed the boat on this one -- it is males who have penis envy, not females) stare at their crotch if their large organ is visible, and keeping it out of sight means tucking it uncomfortably out of sight. Further, in gay sex, at least, the owner of a big organ sometimes finds that their partner is more interested in their dick than their whole person. Now from the perspective of the partner, a very big dick can be just too big to deal with.

There is a inchoate relationship between sex and violence. They just happen to arise together from the kind of all-out arousal caused by battle, and is more frequent with the existence of honor systems and property values. Raping a woman renders her worthless to others who subscribe to intense honor systems. If the woman is also property, so much the better to destroy the property's value.

I'm pretty sure you are aware that the German barbarians were responsible for giving men trousers in place of togas. That worked out well. Then the Jews gave us 501 button fly blue denim Levis and Dupont gave us zippers. Life has been better ever since. High heels were also a male innovation; the high heel helped the foot maintain it's best position in a stirrup (an innovation of pre-historic Asian Steppe people). Men quickly realized that high heels complimented their calves (or is it calfs?). It seems to me it was in the 20th century that the high heel became common for women.

I'm not much a clothes horse; I like denim trousers, red or light gray sweat shirts, brightly colored button up shirts, open collar/no tie, and not-too-flashy running shoes, nice leather boots, or oxfords. I occasionally wear a suit, but prefer not. Traditional plaids and tweeds are my preferred patterns. 100% cotton broadcloth or flannel. Linen and seersucker are good in the summer. Lambswool sweaters for the fall and winter. A leather vest or jacket is good.

In my youth I was known to mix plaid, florals, stripes, and solids. Fortunately I got over that phase fairly soon.

Let us assume that all transexualism is a delusional state, the question would then be whether there is greater harm in allowing these folks to live out their delusions or in forcing them to accept that they are broken. — Hanover

I am quite content to let transexuals live out their delusions. I too live out some delusions; maybe you do too. Society itself may be something of a delusion, and it is at least worthwhile maintaining it in good condition.

Quite seriously, even the most hard-headed, fact-minded realists maintain delusions of various kinds. It's a necessity for beings of our kind. There are limits, however, to how far we need to go in accepting other peoples' delusions as facts. I liked Jack when he was Jack, and when he became Joanne she was still pretty much the same likable person. Or maybe Jack was a jerk, and so is Joanne. Either way, I'm not going to take Joanne's estrogen away from her.

If you believe that given outside circumstances and given inner mental states don’t fully determine a course of action, are you less likely to feel empathetic for a poor decision? If you believe one’s character is a choice, are you more or less likely to feel empathy for them than if you would believe that one is not metaphysically responsible for one’s character? — Noah Te Stroete

Lurking in this paragraph is an interesting question about whether we are responsible for our character. Good question. Character is almost by definition something people are responsible for, as the sum of all their various voluntary acts. So, people whose characters are suitable for liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels are as responsible as people who are candidates for beatification.

I wonder about that.

I wonder whether the brain structure we are born with, the childhood we are given by our families, the environment in which we live... and so on -- all factors over which we may have no control -- so character is not something we are responsible for. Or at least, totally responsible for.

I don't like that; I'd rather receive credit for my good character. I wouldn't like someone saying "You are a good person, but it's not to your credit; you were just lucky."

the history I’ve read holds both the ancient Greeks and Romans as unconfused about their, quite often bi/homosexual, sexuality. — javra

The ancients didn't have a concept for "homosexuality". Their ideas about proper male and female behavior were fairly straight forward. People behaved in various sexual ways without that being an "identity". We can safely assume that some people were homosexual or bisexual, but Greeks and Romans didn't think about "sexual orientation". People just did what they did.

That doesn't mean that the Romans were just fine with whatever somebody happened to do. There were social mores, rules of etiquette, and laws. Adultery, for instance, could get one in a lot of trouble, and the punishment was pretty unpleasant (sometimes involving "the radish" a small ball with hooks attached which was inserted into the anus. Removing it would tear the flesh.)

It's difficult sometimes for us to understand the ancients. For instance, in a bath house in Pompeii there is a depiction of one male goat screwing another male goat. What did that mean to the Romans? It wasn't an advert for homosexual behavior. It was either a joke or it was something else.

The Greeks particularly worshipped Priapus, a fertility God, whose symbol was an erect penis. These Priapic statues were very common inside and outside buildings. In one invasion, the soldiers snapped off all the stone erections they found -- a clear enough message. We won; you lost. We modern people who haven't worshipped fertility gods are not likely to get what the little dildo-ike sculptures meant to the ancient people.

"Homosexuality" was identified as a trait in the latter half of 19th century. Prior to that, people certainly engaged in what would later be called homosexual behavior, but that's not what they called it.

We tell children all the time that "You can be anything you want to be." and of course we have all sorts of ambiguity about sexuality, so it's hardly surprising that people started thinking that they could just switch genders. (Of course the facts are that 99% of people are not going to be anything they want to be. In any generation of 20 years, 5 people max are going to be president. The number of professional athletes that make it big is very, very small. Most little girls learning ballet are never going to be asked to dance for money. Most child-violinists are never going to get to Carnegie Hall, except as paying customers. So basically, forget about it.

Song from the 1920s about gender ambiguity

Right now I am bothered by what looks sexual confusion to me. So many people don't appear to know what they are and what they want to be. I am not opposed to homosexuality but really, some men trying to be women won't succeed any more than I can pass as a teenager. — Athena

I have taken what I view as a down right retrograde position: Transsexuals are suffering from a delusion and gender reassignment specialists are collecting rent on their castles in the sky. I too would enjoy being in my prime again--fit, svelte, and with what was once a robust sex drive. Dream on, Crank -- it ain't going to happen no how.

Granted, there are some people (a very small number) who really are born with ambiguous sexual organs, and some of those have abnormal genetic ambiguousness. Those are not the people driving the trans movement. Just because someone who is unambiguously male or female thinks they would like to be the opposite sex doesn't mean they can be or should be. I would like to be many different things. I would enjoy being the #1 star soprano at the Metropolitan Opera; I would like to be an eagle; I would like to be fluent in 10 languages; I would like to be a lady killer on the dance floor. I'd like to be a great long distance runner. These are just fantasies; pleasant, but not meriting fulfillment.

If a few pioneers had not gone to great lengths to find a surgeon to reupholster themselves in the 1950s (i.e., Christine Jorgensen) I think very few men and women, or boys and girls, would be announcing that they were actually wrongly gendered. They'd just be masculine women, feminine men (but heterosexual) or they'd be gay or lesbian, or they'd be confused. So tough! There was nothing in the original contract guaranteeing that nobody would ever be confused!

I'm quite sympathetic toward transsexuals, just as I am sympathetic, empathetic, towards people who have other kinds of mental problems. I've know a few quite well. I will acknowledge that they seem happier playing their opposite gender role. Are they the opposite gender? No, they are still the same gender, but wearing different clothes, doing their hair differently, and maybe using the toilet differently--most of which they could have done without claiming to have changed gender. Taking female or male hormones does not a man or a woman make. It's just deeper upholstery, and if stopped the process reverses.

We can, we do, and we ought to draw lines for ourselves, and for those for whom we are responsible. There is a lengthy list of things we do, and do not do, that we think are meet, right, and salutary or the opposite. Collectively, we have also drawn lines, visible in social mores, rules of etiquette, and the law. Most of the time our private and public line-drawing is more or less satisfactory.

There are some very personal areas where the rules imposed on others by the collective or a fragment of the collective that are quite problematic. While I don't believe we should be killing leopards for their fur, I don't see a problem of wearing fox, mink, or other furs that are commercially produced. PETA, on the other hand, is adamantly opposed to meat eating, fur clothing of any kind, and the use of rats in research. I don't think PETA is entitled to decide if I can wear a fringe of coyote fur on my parka, or wear a nice leather vest.

Vegans haven't become so militant yet that they are ready to free cows and chickens from captivity and throw pig shit at people who leave the supermarket with packages of eggs, milk, cheese, and meat. Earth Firsters are willing to drive spikes into trees to make it dangerous to cut down old-forests. Maybe all that will get out of hand tomorrow, but not quite yet.

perhaps the effect of these two is different? My concern is cheapening our humanness and playing to fantasies that are abusive, or believing hurtful acts are okay if that is what one wants to do. How art expressing intimacy can also bring out the best in us. — Athena

Sure, the effect of pornography and art is different. That won't make the headlines tomorrow. But if porn isn't usually mistaken for art, art is mistaken for either porn or trash fairly often, and sometimes sex has nothing to do with it.

Nobody I know has spoken out in favor of abusive sex acts. S&M or B&D are not something I am interested in, but some people are -- both the S and the M, the B and the D. I don't get it, but apparently a good time is had by all. Now, everybody agrees that subjecting an unwilling person to SMBD would be unambiguously wrong. A good many people would not interfere with SMBD, but definitely think that the participants might be at least somewhat screwed up.

There is a wideness in our humanness, and both pornography and art highlight our essential natures, just as a ball park hot dog and haute cuisine both express discerning taste as well as blunt hunger. I'm not content looking at fine art and eating haute cuisine all the time. Sometimes a hotdog, or some porn is just the thing. There are plenty of clear social mores, rules of etiquette, and laws to protect people from real harm, and there are many situations (having nothing to do with sex) where it is very difficult to protect people from their own intentions. Sometimes you just have to hope they don't kill themselves in the process of pursuing whatever harebrained goal they are seeking.

I just want there to be room for peoples' varied self-expression.

After 1000 years of annoying the French, what do the English expect?

I do not believe it is good for society to make intimate behavior public. I also am not at all in favor of freedom of expression. — Athena

Goodness gracious; she's not in favor of freedom of expression! My psychoanalytic theory is that there is a connection between believing intimate behavior on view is bad for society and being against freedom of expression.

@Hanover So, just how outsized is it?

Share of population using Facebook
North America 72.4%
Latin America / Caribbean 57.3%
Oceania / Australia 48.1%
Europe 41.7%

1 out of 7 people in the world uses Facebook.

I do not use Facebook; I do not have a Facebook account. I don't have to have an account to recognize its importance.

It has no effect on democracy, because democracy has no effect, because all aspects of power have gone from governments and are in the hands of corporations. — unenlightened

I think you are underestimating the power of the state, but I agree. Besides, the state has generally been on the side of the corporation. (Marx: "The state is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie.") The transnationality of corporations, and the enormous wealth lodged in the hands of a tiny fraction of the world's population (where, according to Oxfam, a handful of individuals possess more wealth than half the world's population) is a relatively new arrangement. There is a lot of hidden money sloshing around in tax havens which are outside of national revenue departments' reach.

I'm not sure what's driving the fact that we've been going backwards--it's surely a complex of factors, and one of them was surely the rise of AIDS, but one of the main controlling, "high-level" factors is that we've maneuvered to a society where (1) livelihoods can easily be trashed via moralizing social pressure, (2) People are more prone to moralizing, including bandwagon-moralizing than ever, (3) and we've fueled this via the ubiquity of social media, where a few crazy, squeaky wheels can have a bigger impact than ever. — Terrapin Station

One way to account for a backward drift is that large portions of the population never approved of liberalization of values in the first place. Gay marriage is now possible coast to coast; that doesn't mean that most people now approve of homosexuality. Large blocks of the population do now and have always disapproved. Numerous civil rights laws have been passed; that doesn't mean that most people are now color blind. "Bohemians" might establish interesting urban enclaves, but they tend to get "redeveloped" out of existence. Birth control and liberalized abortion helped make a "sexual revolution" possible, but again, large numbers of people never approved of the sexual revolution. Divorce rates notwithstanding, marriage is still the norm.

Political and sexual deviants like myself tend to associate with other political and sexual deviants. This can lead to a serious misapprehension about what the masses are thinking.

it would help if we had a different economic structure in place, so that social pressure from moralizers doesn't matter. — Terrapin Station

Indeed.

The right to free speech isn't the same as the right to use someone else's platform. — Michael

I wasn't demanding that any platform comply with my wishes. Verizon, Facebook, Apple, et al can set whatever rules they wish. However, their decisions are not above criticism and their policies may affect the body politic -- for instance, Facebooks's lax policing of political ads and posts before the 2016 election. Newspapers can publish whatever news they think fit to print; that doesn't mean their decisions are above the most excoriating criticism when they misrepresent reality.

As @unenlightened has noted, parts of the once public body politic have migrated to the corporation. Take as an example the problem of accessing citizens in public to collect signatures for a petition, leaflet for some cause -- peace, sympathy with a strike, a political candidate -- etc. The "public square" sphere has become largely corporate property. In the US, the places people go and congregate are mostly private spaces like shopping malls (which include the parking lots). The malls look like public spaces, but are not. Security people routinely eject anyone leafletting, petitioning, or quietly protesting -- let alone anything more assertive.

What about "public sidewalks"? They are public property and one can demonstrate, petition, or leaflet to one's heart's content. But if you want to go where the most people are, the public sidewalk will generally be outside of the parking lot perimeter and sometimes 300 feet (90 m) or more from the front door of the establishment.

Back to Tumblr and Facebook et al: To suppose that abrupt policy changes (some in place for a decade or two) are a matter of political indifference is shortsighted. We don't have the Great Fire Wall of China, but we have a (so far) softer system of thought suppression.

Maybe referenda are not such a good idea? Sometimes referenda begin as a way for the "popular will" to be expressed, but most often referenda are started and fueled by some particular interest. California is a good example: A now decades-past referendum on lowering property taxes has degraded California's once excellent public services which depends on property tax revenue. Real estate interests were the instigators and beneficiaries.

Who started Brexit? What was their expected benefit?

Some state/local governments in the US have adopted ranked choice voting -- first choice, second choice, third choice -- for state/local elections. This system has been implemented in too few places and too recently (last 10 years) to tell how much of a difference it would make if adopted nationwide. I'd welcome it as a possible break of the lock the Democrat/Republican parties have on power.

Brexit is a heist. It isn't going to benefit the average British people.

Why not? You might not feel your expression is limited in any way, but what about your neighbor who does feel limited by such bans?

Side Note: Minneapolis is still (slowly) undoing restrictive laws on liquor sales put in place after prohibition ended. Loosening the grip of restrictive morality can take a long time.

Apple removed Tumblr's app from their store; they claimed the removal was in response to child pornography being found on the site. It may be that child porn was displayed on some accounts. I don't know -- what you see on Tumblr depends entirely on what you ask to see (by following accounts). But even if there was child pornography being shared on the site, it would make more sense to root out such material rather than purging the entire site of the many millions of photos which are perfectly legal.

One word used in two ways; denote means to use a word for factual communication. In the sentence, "I have ten marbles." "marbles" denotes small round glass objects that are used in games. In this sentence, "She has lost her marbles." marble connotes the sanity or good sense that she has lost. "He still has all his marbles." connotes that he is still high functioning.

If I say "The right wing of the bird is crooked." I am using "crooked" to objectively describe a broken wing. If, on the other hand, I say "The right wing of the Republican party is crooked." I am making a value judgement, I am connoting wickedness. Some would say that I am denoting wickedness because it is a plain fact that the right wing of the Republican party is wicked. So the difference between denote and connote is a bit fuzzy. But the Republican right wing is definitely crooked, no matter how you slice it.

our collective consciousness — Wallows

I have consciousness; you have consciousness; we do not have consciousness. Not as far as I know, anyway.

Walpurgisnacht doesn't have many connotations; mostly just denotations (the night of April 30). St. Walpurgis specialized in protecting people from pestilence, rabies and whooping cough, as well as witchcraft. She has been oozing oil from her bones for... 800 years or so. Actually the oil is water, but... even so... Apparently she is still i business; she died in 777.

Christmas on the other hand is so loaded with connotations one can't even get close to what it denotes. (denote = factual attachments; connote = affective attachments)

Here's a nice song about memory by Ysaye M. Barnwell sung by Cantus, a Minneapolis male choir, one of my favorites, both choir and song.

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
To see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.

You said you'd rock me in the cradle of your arms.
You said you'd hold me ‘til the storms of life were gone.
You said you'd comfort me in times like these and now I need you.
Now I need you...
And you are -
gone.

I can summon two particular scent memories which "Christmas" stimulates: the odor of musty newspaper in which Christmas tree decorations were wrapped (and stored in a damp basement). The penetrating odor of volatile chemicals in the shellac we used in grade school to finish horrid art projects which we were supposed to force on parents as Christmas gifts.

Do these scent memories refer to anything beyond a mental experience? Only more mental experiences: the dimly lit and unpleasant cellar; the pine tree on which the ornaments were hung; the elementary school building and its classrooms...

My memories--your memories--anyone's memories--are the same: impressions from sensory input one step removed from a supposedly concrete world. What can the refer to but the now vanished sensory input?

Suppose we have a memory of something.

Ontologically speaking, where does that memory refer to? — Wallows

Because we don't have direct contact with reality--we only have sensory input which we develop into more or less consistent images, sounds, odors, textures, flavors--memory can only be an experience of images derived from the senses.

Let's pay a visit to our underground ontology lab. First we fasten you to an immovable chair with duct tape in front of a screen. Then we leave the dark room and lock the door. You are instructed to report whatever you are remember. The following word appear on the screen:

Christmas

Tell us what are you remembering, Wallows! (we have ways of making you talk...)

Images of Christmas trees? the smell of cinnamon and apples? decorated urban streets? boxes wrapped in colorful paper? gingerbread cookies? sweetness? Saint Nicholas? incense at Midnight Mass? Shopping at Target? Angry people trying to get out of the parking lot? Screaming children? cursing adults? The feeling of overwhelming dread? ...

What could your memories be but reactivated sensory input. Perhaps some of your memories are from A Nightmare Before Christmas. Is any reference made at all?

Donald Trump

Robert Mueller

...

Personally, to me the apparent great divide between theism and atheism is mostly a form of mythology. I see a bigger divide between the adamant people on both sides, and the calm reasonable people on both sides. — Jake

Good observation. There are greater differences between conservative Catholics and liberal Catholics than there are between the average Catholic and the average Lutheran. Conservative Baptists are vigourously opposed to ritual, liturgical seasons, and "catholic" in any form, and most other churches aren't much better than heathens.

From what I have seen, atheists are as likely to be as quarrelsome as religious partisans. Bertrand Russell noted that the kind of atheism people espouse is similar in warmth to the kind of religion they rejected. So, your average ex-Baptist atheist or liturgically particular ex-Anglican will be different kinds of atheists. Ex-wishy-washy religious probably make easy-to-live-with wishy-washy atheists.

I find religious behavior a useful area of study, and Marx was correct in his assessment: The whole quote is: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people". Religion has its source in an oppressive, heartless, soulless world -- one in which a dose of opium every now and then is pretty welcome.

THEREFORE religion is an appropriate topic in The Philosophy Forum. Sectarian bickering is not -- for example, heated discussions of how often one should make the sign of the cross, for instance, or whether the world is 6,022 or 5,157 years old, and how old Noah was when he died (assuming he was ever born) are NOT appropriate topics. They belong in church.

If you are physically attacked, the rules of civil society allow you to protest and defend yourself. For instance, if someone menaces you, and you are able, warn them off; if they strike you, you might strike back, or flee. (You are not obligated to display defensive behaviors if you can flee.)

You aren't required to be nice to the attacker, or stand there without a defensive effort. On the other hand, there are limits to how much physical response you can make. In some places, you would not be out of line if you pulled out your gun and shot them to protect your "honor". In other places, you would be subject to arrest for manslaughter or murder if you killed someone for insulting you.

Where I come from, the minimum necessary response is in order. If you are insulted, no response is required. If you are threatened or attacked physically, no more physical response that is necessary to protect yourself is proper. Deadly violence would be proper ONLY if you were threatened with deadly violence (like with a gun, a baseball bat, a knife...) and you could not flee.

Welcome to Philosophy Forum.

Oh, StreetlightX, that's sooo cute, you used a quote from "Guess How Much I Love You" by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram. Did your caretaker read it to you when you were still just a small bulb on the corner?

"I love you up to the moon," said Little Nutbrown Hare.

"Oh, that's far," said Big Nutbrown Hare. "That is very, very far." Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves.

He leaned over and kissed him goodnight. Then he lay down close by and whispered with a smile, "I love you to the moon and back."

Note how the Big Hare is modeling good male parenting behaviors, as well as raising astro-engineering problems.

Philosophy is everywhere.

Don't sneer too much -- they've sold 28,000,000 copies of the book.

6.1k
Does the following sentence...:

"I love you more than words can say."

... express its meaning? — Wallows

If you really loved me more than words could say, you would say nothing, would you not? Since you attempted to quantify your love for me, I have to assume that you do not love with more than words can say. And after all I've done for you!

"I love you" is meaningful, "I will love you until the day I die" is meaningful. "I will love you as long as you are beautiful; after that, forget it" is meaningful. A bit too frank and honest, but meaningful. "I will love you forever" is highly doubtful, because you are not going to live forever, and even if you did, I don't expect to be around forever to check up on whether you are fulfilling your claim. Jesus can get away with saying "I am with you till the end of time" but he is a special case, since he exists in all times.

Sentences don't literally "express meaning," you assign meaning to them. — Terrapin Station

Terrapin, edible turtle, I am not altogether happy about your view that sentences don't literally "express meaning". Granted, we are reading abstract symbols grouped into words into sentences, and the symbols just sit there waiting for a reader, hearer, or clairvoyant. But the author picked particular words grouped into unique sentences. The author expressed something, and that something is carried in the sentence. Arbitrarily assigning meaning gets us... where?

So true, so true.

The dead fish should be grateful that there is still enough water in the river for there to be a flow worth going with.

The tedious tweet smelling of dead fish was, no doubt, twatted by some twee twit who thinks he or she is one of the few, the brave, the independent, the unique... who are in a position to judge everybody else as subservient sheeple.

Off with their head! Then throw it in the muck with the dead fish.

If your goal was achieving a behavior change from carnivory to vegetarianism you would describe a program for achieving it.

People change their behavior when there is a concrete advantage to making a particular change. Most people quit smoking because of cost, negative consequences of smoking, and better health from not smoking. Peer pressure has some effect, but peers have influence because there is a significant relationship.

I repeat: If you want to change behavior, come up with a plan that has a chance of producing concrete results. Otherwise, you are merely another voice howling in the wilderness heard by no ears that care.

No one will demand that you personally execute the plan you come up with, so be creative.

It is very common in socialist circles to dismiss everything short of revolution (and just the right kind of revolution at that) as "reformism", "improving the servitude of wage slaves", "helping the ruling class stay in power", and so on. Most socialists aver that it's either revolution or nothing.

There is a large advantage in the all or nothing approach: Since actual revolution is extraordinarily difficult to impossible (in the industrialized western countries), one can safely call for revolution without having to actually do anything except repeat stale (even if 'correct') rhetoric. Everybody knows it isn't going to happen in the near future.

So too activists like you who want a revolution in diet: They can safely take the all-or-nothing approach because "reform" or incremental change, or slow change (which still takes a lot of work to achieve) leaves one, some, or many animals still being used for meat production, which is totally morally unacceptable in your thinking. Reducing animal suffering by 3% a year just isn't worth doing.

Changing diet is essentially a public health project. What I suggested above (making vegetarian food available and convenient) is an "environmental intervention". Environmental interventions are a standard approach, that works better than all or nothing arguments.

For example, in the AIDS epidemic, messaging evolved from avoidance, to safe sex, to harm reduction to effective chemical prevention. "Harm reduction" acknowledges that some people (quite a few, actually) will have anonymous or promiscuous sex, will have unprotected sex, will use recreational drugs, and so on. So, what can be done within the framework of what people actually do? Well, we first made condoms ubiquitous. We gave them away by the millions. The product (the condom) is a message: sex can be safer. We distributed clean needles and bleach kits to drug users, then we started to exchange new needles for old needles. More recently we started advising people to take a daily low dose of Truvada, a combination of two dissimilar anti-HIV medications, which practically eliminates the risk of transmission or new infection when taken daily without interruption.

These messages and interventions evolved over a 25 year period, and have made a significant difference. While they have significantly reduced, they have not eliminated HIV transmission. Elimination of HIV transmission will require an effective vaccine, something we have not, so far, been able to develop.

I submit that most of the people who are not already vegetarians will ignore your guilt trip rhetoric. If you want to change people's behavior (and not just convince them that you are right and they are wrong) you will have to come up with a strategy that makes a vegetarian diet convenient, attractive, and even "trendy".

So shut up with the guilt tripping and come up with something that will actually WORK.

I feel like it is possible for our core morality to stem from natural selection and adaptive drives. However, if that were really the case, why isn't the dog-eat-dog morality one of our morals? If we are so determined to survive and overpower the strong, why is murder or even just hurting someone not one of our core morals? — Play-doh

Left to our own devices (such as in the science fiction post apocalyptic scenario) we would probably find dog-eat-dog morality rising to the surface pretty quickly. So, what is it that suppresses this natural behavior in ordinary, non-apocalyptic situations?

According to Stephen Pinker, it is the State (in some form) that suppresses violence. The state is the expression of common interests, and constant violence (hyena-eat-jackal-eat-wildebeest...) is contrary to ordinary individual security. One might add that constant ad hoc violence is also not in the interest of the state. "State" here means centralized authority; king, city state, powerful priesthood, town council, parliament, politburo, mafia, or what-have-you).

So, continuing with Pinker (The Better Angels of our Nature) a reduction in interpersonal violence is very recent in human history--maybe as recent as during the last 10,000 years. 10K years marks the rise of city and the city state, a more tightly organized form of existence then the hunter-gatherers who characterized the previous millennia.

I would submit that evolution is not all about violence. Lions don't selectively cull out the best wildebeests, they tend to cull the old, sick, or injured wildebeest, because those are the easiest to kill. Wildebeest can graze safely near a recently fed pride of lions.

What seems to happen in human society when the control of the state recedes (such as during natural disaster, riot, revolution, war...) is that opportunism rises to the surface. A riot presents an opportunity to acquire goods for free. Looting isn't violence as much as it is opportunism. Rape, wanton killing, brutality, and all that is a marker for severe social breakdown, and it seems to take a lot of breakdown to get really uninhibited violence.

it's referentially empty and only fills a function. — Dawnstorm

"It" from above, 3. used in the normal subject position in statements about time, distance, or weather.
"it's half past five" or 5. used to emphasize a following part of a sentence.

Again, on my view, re semantics, terms mean, terms refer to whatever individuals consider them to mean/refer to. In other words, meaning is subjective. Contra Putnam, it is "just in the head." — Terrapin Station

This makes me nervous. But it has good literary ancestry:

“I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all.”
― Lewis Carroll

Let's go back to Proto Indo European (PIE)

it (pron.)
Old English hit, neuter nominative and accusative of third person singular pronoun, from Proto-Germanic demonstrative base *khi- (source also of Old Frisian hit, Dutch het, Gothic hita "it"), from PIE *ko- "this" (see he). Used in place of any neuter noun, hence, as gender faded in Middle English, it took on the meaning "thing or animal spoken about before."
The h- was lost due to being in an unemphasized position, as in modern speech the h- in "give it to him," "ask her," is heard only "in the careful speech of the partially educated" [Weekley]. It "the sex act" is from 1610s; meaning "sex appeal (especially in a woman)" first attested 1904 in works of Rudyard Kipling, popularized 1927 as title of a book by Elinor Glyn, and by application of It Girl to silent-film star Clara Bow (1905-1965). In children's games, the meaning "the one who must tag or catch the others" is attested from 1842.
From Old English as nominative of an impersonal verb or statement when the thing for which it stands is implied (it rains, it pleases me). After an intransitive verb, used transitively for the action denoted, from 1540s (originally in fight it out). That's it "there is no more" is from 1966; this is it "the anticipated or dreaded moment has arrived" is from 1942.

According to the dictionary, it means

1. used to refer to a thing previously mentioned or easily identified.
"a room with two beds in it"
referring to an animal or child of unspecified sex.
"she was holding the baby, cradling it and smiling into its face"
referring to a fact or situation previously mentioned, known, or happening.
"stop it, you're hurting me"
2. used to identify a person.
"it's me"
3. used in the normal subject position in statements about time, distance, or weather.
"it's half past five"
4. used in the normal subject or object position when a more specific subject or object is given later in the sentence.
"it is impossible to assess the problem"
5. used to emphasize a following part of a sentence.
"it is the child who is the victim"
6. the situation or circumstances; things in general.
"no one can stay here—it's too dangerous now"
7. exactly what is needed or desired.
"they thought they were it"
8. INFORMAL
sex appeal.
"he's still got “it.”"
sexual intercourse.
9. INFORMAL
denoting a person or thing that is exceptionally fashionable, popular, or successful at a particular time.
"they were Hollywood's It couple"
10. (in children's games) the player who has to catch the others.

It is NOT raining, so shut up about it already.

Effective communication may be expressed grammatically or not. The advantage of grammatical utterances is that communication is more reliable expressed and received. However, animal communication (which we also use) employs facial expression, posture, gross physical movement, gestures (like hand waving), audible but not articulate utterances, and so on.

Simple but important expression and interpretation occurred long before humans developed language, grammar, and philosophy.

The subject is the pronoun "it" and whatever that pronoun is representing. In this case "it" stands in for the atmosphere, or the weather, or the clouds, or... whatever is reasonable. The moon isn't raining, and neither is the petunia.

Does every sentence have to have a subject? — Banno

Every sentence has a subject (explicitly stated or 'understood') and a verb and often more -- much more. Utterances don't have to be sentences, of course. "Fuck you." makes perfect sense, but it lacks a subject. Same for "Shit" - which is an ejaculation (saying "amen" in church is an 'ejaculation').