Our survival and the planet's ecology supply compelling reasons why we are well advised to at least eat much less meat than we do. Eat less meat, use much less energy, stop making plastic, cease depending on the private auto, stop the great overuse of agricultural chemicals, rely on public transit systems, and many other things. Following ecological and sustainable guidelines will result in the most good for the largest number of creatures.

Sure, some animals will continue to be eaten, either by predators or by people.

Dogs do not need to eat a serving of raw meat every day. High quality dog food has a substantial portion of grain and vegetable protein. Some of it is offal -- dried and powdered chicken guts, for instance. Dogs apparently love the smell of dehydrated offal.

Raising cattle (hogs, sheep, chickens, etc.) need not entail suffering, but it is difficult to raise food animals humanely using industrial methods--but those methods aren't necessary, especially if we reduce the amount of meat we consume.

Many people in the world accord some degree of family status to dogs and cats. This is not wrong, as long as we remember they are not human beings. Killing a pet to conform to an ethical formula (like one provided by utilitarianism) is a dehumanized decision. Our lives are greatly enhanced by our relationship with pets (particularly dogs) who have been living with us for 12,000 to 20,000 years.

Go in peace.

Dummkopf!

What you took as some sort of attempt at obfuscation was support for immigration. Yes, I am against open door immigration, but the point I was making was that once orderly admission has been gained, immigration generally benefits the destination countries. People initially resent new arrivals, but they get used to them, and eventually accept them.

Gish gallop — Rank Amateur

???

Not sure I agree with very much of this, and not sure how much of this conventional wisdom based on any kind of fact. To the contrary, I can't of any immigrant group that this was not said about, and in the fullness of time was not look on as an asset to the country. Not sure there is any basis to think the current wave is any different. — Rank Amateur

What is different is that we are witnessing this wave. We weren't around when Eastern Europeans arrived in New York City in 1897.

True -- people are often less than thrilled with new arrivals. In the US, the Irish, Italians, eastern Europeans, and Russian/Ukrainian Jews were met with considerable disdain. On the other hand, NW Europeans (Germans, British, and Scandinavians) received a friendlier reception.

What made for the difference?

One factor was the physical condition of the immigrants. The Irish generally left their homeland in physical and emotional distress, an they arrived in very large numbers (think Irish famine). The cities where they landed (like Boston and New York) weren't large enough to absorb them immediately, and there were no welfare and settlement programs capable of taking care of them, so their misery was on public display. In time they moved up and out-- like my great grandfather who a young guy in Minnesota in 1863. But it took decades for the Irish to become integrated into New York 'polite society'.

Italians and eastern Europeans immigrated in smaller numbers and weren't fleeing famine, and many of the Italian men, at least, did not intend to become permanent residents. Still, they were a new wave of immigration. Germans and British immigrants found well established communities here (since the pre-revolutionary war period). Jews arrived in large numbers, many fleeing persecution in Russia and Ukraine. The traditional dress of the often Orthodox Jews was noticeably different than what many other Americans were wearing, as were their political/food/religious/social habits. Whether migrants were from rural or urban cultures made a difference.

It actually doesn't take that much cultural difference for people to react negatively.

Minnesota now has a large population of Somalis. They arrived over a very short period of time as a result of State Department policy. Conservatively dressed Moslem women are still something of a novelty. People were more stunned than thrilled by their sudden arrival. None the less, they are integrating themselves. A Somali was elected to the Minneapolis City Council. The MN Historical Society has a Somali history show. They appear to be succeeding economically. Their mosques are rarely storefront operations now, but rather are more substantial religious buildings. It has taken... maybe 25-30 years. The Vietnamese community integrated very fast here, the Hmong people (Cambodians) much slower.

Mexicans, Cambodians, central Americans, Somalis, et al have spread out over the state, pretty much the way the Norwegians and Swedish did in the 19th century. The revitalizing benefit of immigration is most visible in dying rural Minnesota towns, and in dilapidated parts of urban Minnesota.

If the purpose or use is moral, the border is moral. — Rank Amateur

This simplistic formulation could be applied to railroads in Germany during the Nazi era. If a given rail line was used to deliver Jews to Auschwitz, was it an "immoral rail line"? Was the engine that pulled the train an "immoral engine"?

A border is like a railroad: a construction that is essentially morally neutral. The right way to talk about Auschwitz is "policy". The Nazis established an immoral policy. It isn't the border that would be immoral; it is the policy for permissions to cross the border that would be subject to moral judgement.

Most nations permit persons to cross through and permanently remain within their borders under specific conditions. What seems to me problematic is when people demand to be admitted without any conditions when they are not fleeing persecution (such as Jews fleeing Nazi Germany). The U.S. can be seriously faulted for being very stingy with our admission quotas at that time, even turning away a whole ship of refugees (the German ship St. Louis).

the collective will of a people is no guarantee that the will is moral. That is a separate judgement. — Rank Amateur

True enough; nations may engage in actions which are not moral.

In this discussion, I am asserting that the creation and maintenance of nations for the benefit of its citizens is a moral action. Secure borders are part of the maintenance required to sustain the national life. Why? Because persons with immoral intent (spies, terrorists, illicit drug wholesalers, criminals fleeing prosecution, etc.) seek to cross borders. We may also block persons at the border who pose a health risk (are infectious with readily communicable and dangerous diseases, like Ebola, tuberculosis, multi-drug resistant STIs, etc.).

Limiting immigration (or emigration) may be necessary to protect the economy upon which a nation's people depend for their well-being. It may also be necessary to limit immigration of persons who have very limited ability to contribute productively to the economy of a nation (on which its people depend). For instance, persons who do not speak the language of the target nation or are illiterate, lack skills in modern technology, and so on may not be able to contribute to the economy in any significant way. There is a strong likelihood of a significant share becoming dependent on the people of the target nation. The same would apply to the seriously and chronically ill.

That is just changing the hypothetical I proposed without making the moral judgement on the scenario I gave you. — Rank Amateur

The problem of emigration/immigration is a world-wide problem affecting many nations. Some nations have greater resources, some have far lesser resources. 500,000 people moving from Burma to Bangladesh is a much greater problem for Bangladesh than 500,000 Mexicans moving into the United States. Columbians are not in a good position to absorb large number of migrants from Venezuela. Too many migrants may destabilize Columbia, which is of no benefit to anyone, particularly Columbians.

Ok, make it economic. Is it moral, for a people with great opportunities to draw a line, and use force to prevent other human beings from having the same opportunities? Does it matter if the latter took those opportunities by force ? — Rank Amateur

I would hold it not moral for one nation to seek the impoverishment of other nations for its own benefit. This has been the policy of various nations at various times, including the United States. Keeping other nations poor and backward (or unstable) may have a short term benefit, but can have very bad long-term consequences.

Central American states have been subject to a great deal of economic and military interference by the United States. It would be more moral for us to effectively aid Central American nations to rehabilitate and expand their societies and economies, than to drain them of their most promising citizens. So far, we have done little.

There are policies beyond open doors or impenetrable walls at the border.

Human beings of equal moral value should be free to move about the world to maximize the value of their lives, as they define it. This freedom should only be limited by the inherent conflicts of similar freedoms in others. — Rank Amateur

If this is so, then why don't the majority Buddhist Burmese people (Myanmar) have the right to discourage Moslem and Christen people from living there?

If the United States wants to maintain a majority European-descended population, why don't we have the right to do that?

If the Chinese Han people wish to discourage Moslems in their western provinces (and elsewhere), or Christian, why don't they have the right to do that?

Maximizing the value of lives in Bangladesh might not include Rohynga Moslems from Myanmar. And so on.

A world of "silos" closed to outsiders isn't my idea of a good arrangement, but neither is a world of fluid populations moving wherever they please.

P5. Most/Many political borders are established and maintained by power.
P6. The purpose of boarders are to protect, and secure the government’s objectives
they enclose. These can be generally morally goods, or evils, or all between — Rank Amateur

"Power" does not exist as an abstraction. It resides in or through something real. "The government" is not a paper abstraction. It was established and maintained through the will of real people (citizens) who recognized common interests among themselves (the nation). "The people" have the right to establish and maintain national borders, through their sovereign national state.

A Honduran woman, with her 3 children are in real physical danger in their home, that they are innocent of the cause of. She packs up the kids, makes the trek through Mexico, crosses illegally into the US. They are captured and returned to the danger. — Rank Amateur

It's a long way from Honduras to Texas. Before she arrived here, she imposed herself and her children upon Guatemala and Mexico. If she just wanted to get away from some local shit hole, she need not have traveled so far. She was aiming higher -- the Good Life in the United States. It is one thing to relieve abject suffering, another thing to fulfill high aspirations.

Most of the world's moving populations are economic migrants -- not refugees from tyranny. Economic migrants (of the sort that left Europe and re-populated North and South America over the objections of aboriginal populations), and millions of others today, can not make a claim of charity. They may arrive on this or that border disheveled, hungry, thirsty, chilled (or overheated), but their travel was not driven by the necessity of escaping persecution.

I am inclined to favor experiments like Milgram's and Zimbardo's, as long as they are well designed, have some level of institutional oversight, consent is informed, and so on. (Trouble is, getting all that in place can be very difficult to impossible these days). Can you imagine the outrage that would overwhelm a researcher who proposed Milgram's experiment on today's hypersensitive campuses?

On the one hand, there are lessons to be learned from history, but on the other hand, granular level studies of behavior have to be set up in labs for close observation, or be derived from extensive interviewing and fact checking.

There are many real-life behaviors that could, possibly, be researched in a lab set up: What leads to failure to practice safer sex (an important issue in HIV reduction programs)? What are the factors that enable ostensibly honest upright people to steal (shoplift, skim cash, cart off company goods...)? What are the factors that enable serious, ostensibly honest politicians (at local and state levels) to heed the blandishments of lobbyists? and so on...

We know that "brute force" can change behavior. For instance, employees can be very intrusively monitored to make sure they don't steal anything. As it happens, though, people fortunately live most of their lives in settings where they are not (so far) intensively or intrusively observed. A Kansas state senator goes to lunch with a constituent, and ends up changing his mind, quite contrary to how he normally thinks. It might have been a crude payoff that swayed his vote, but it might have been a much more subtle approach. What is it that works, in these settings? (My interest here would be in helping Kansas state senators resist manipulation, rather than finding more effective ways of subverting democracy).

Military and authoritarian governments deploy brute force routinely -- it goes with the territory. We understand how that works, at least I think we do. It is in situations where brute force isn't being applied to an individual that things get interesting.

Plato said the U.S. Administration was horribly heterosexual and woefully short--really just tragically short--of attractive young men.

"Here, Donald. This is the kind of meeting to have -- young men sharing couches with wiser older men (Sorry Donald; "wise" kind of leaves you out, doesn't it. Pity.) The Oval Room would be perfect."



"And for the Gods' sake, get rid of all these bossy, nosy, uppity women -- they have no place in the halls of power. Have they no wool to spin? Don't their children need to suckle at their pendulous breasts? Disgusting."

"Older men need youth at hand to maintain their vitality, Donald. What's wrong with you is that you don't have enough of this:



"The lack of prominent homosexual activity clearly shows that the US is a very sick society!" Plato said, then got back in his time machine and disappeared.

A god capable of creating the universe in 6 days could certainly manage --on this one small celestial ball--to make complex layers of folded rock, scatter the odd creatures' bones hither and thither amongst the folded rock, put petroleum under salt domes for our future destruction, stick a bunch of coal in sort of convenient places, make it look like there were ice ages, get everything moving on top of a plastic mantel surrounding hell itself, and do other things on the moon and the other planets.

God, after all, is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He knew exactly how smart and how stupid we would be, about what, and for how long.

We can rest, assured, that global warming is part of The Plan -- the End Game where we fizzle out.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

While it is certainly possible to believe both, they are not equivalent beliefs. The former is not in conflict with fact or reason, the later is. — Rank Amateur

They are not equivalent beliefs, true enough. But many people are prepared to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast.

We can have absolute knowledge of abstract concepts only (eg logic and maths); we can never have absolute knowledge of the physical world. — Devans99

Deciding that logic trumps reality is one of the ways we go astray.

But in any case, supposing that the universe was made on purpose by some agent is entirely compatible with the Big Bang: God made it happen, and then everything follows from there. I don't believe God caused the Big Bang, but it is certainly possible to believe such a thing, just as it is possible to believe that a god created the world in 6 days about 6,000 years ago.

You can believe whatever you want. If you run into obstinate resistance from reality, that's your problem. (Humans are always running into obstinate resistance from reality, no matter what they believe.)

So, what were the building blocks that had to be in place to enable otherwise good German people to do horrible things?

The drive of National Socialists (Nazis) to capitalize on discontents

a) An open subculture of deviance (the Wiemar period)
b) A perceived national humiliation after TKO in WWI
c) A collapsed economy (post-WWI hyper-inflation in Germany, followed by global depression)
d) Intense conflict between Communists and Nazis for ideological dominance
e) A very intense and long propaganda drive to demonize Jews as a contaminating other
f) Traditions of authority and obedience in family, school, church, work, and society
g) Long-standing and strong antisemitism in Germany, Poland, Baltic area, Ukraine, and Russia

The French, Italians, British, Scandinavians, Hungarians, et al didn't have share the circumstances and history of Germany.

The atrocities and dark decades of the Soviet Union didn't spring from the same conditions as did the atrocities and dark decades in Germany.

Neither did the American Experience. We too perpetrated world-class atrocities (extensive slavery and genocide). These practices began when we were still part of the British Empire, which went on to produce a few of it's own atrocities and dark decades. But we can't blame the British for our persistence after independence. From the standpoint of blacks and native Americans, we never did sincerely cease and desist. That's why they are where they are in American society.

So, Mai Lai may have been a relatively isolated event as far as American troops were concerned, but it didn't seize the public (at least as far as I can remember). The anti-war groups and others were properly appalled, but they (we) were pretty much appalled all the time anyway. The Vietnamese were effectively an "other" group. Outré. Not like us. They were important only because they were perceived as a domino piece that would lead to a wider more Communist Asia -- and of course, the cliché, "If we don't stop them there we will have to fight them on the coast of California".

The Anti-war people didn't know much about Vietnam either. They were the abstraction of "victims of U.S. militarism" -- not real people, for the most part.

What were the conditions which enabled Milgram and Zimbardo to coax American college students into behaving badly?

Reasonably well educated Americans (not just college graduates) tend to view science and scientists favorably. What scientists do (SCIENCE!) is a good thing, by its very nature.

Participating in actual scientific experiments has a positive status value. Plus, it is usually at least moderately -- and sometimes very -- interesting.

While we do value life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the Republic for which it stands, we also tend to be ardent individualists with a strong (sometimes residual) streak of a Calvinist and Roman Catholic theology which considers us to be fallen and prone to sin. It's a fatalistic streak in a generally positive outlook.

College students almost never live in a "total institution" -- colleges are pretty porous socially -- but colleges are somewhat 'set aside', and students do tend to be away from their home and childhood community for the first time and may not behave quite the same in college as they would back in Peoria or Brooklyn or San Diego.

TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT, SS troops didn't guard Auschwitz for the same reasons American troops killed peasants at Mai Lai, and American college students didn't participate in Milgram's experiments for the same reasons that Germans calmly watched Jews being shipped off "to the east".

The lesson is that we can perform very bad acts when the situation is properly (even if not deliberately) set up.

Right now, almost certainly normal, good people--American ICE agents--are separating crying toddlers from horrified parents and keeping them separately, well out of sight of each other in custodial detention. They are doing this because it is part of a national policy which many Americans agree with (limiting immigration, especially illegal immigration across the border) and maybe feel that separating parents and children for a while will be sufficiently traumatic to discourage another attempt at entry, after they are deported.

Extreme political statements, intense media coverage over the last decade or two, economic dislocation, declining standard of living and declining income among working class people, immigrant waves moving around elsewhere in the world, etc.--all contributes to the ability of ordinary people to perform this separation of children and parents.

"Normal" isn't derived from "abnormal".

Normal is like... usual, standard, ordinary, customary, conventional, habitual, accustomed, expected, wonted; typical, stock, common, everyday, regular, routine, established, set, fixed, traditional, time-honored. The world is full of normal stuff.

If you measured all of the rocks on a beach, you might find that the average weight of the rocks was 8.234788 oz. Here is a rock that is 8.234481 oz. Is it abnormal? No. Actually none of the rocks on the beach weigh exactly 8.234788 ounces. All of them weigh more or less.

Humans do manifest plasticity, but we also manifest variability -- like the rocks on the beach. All are normal rocks but none of them are the exact average. People are an average at the same time that they are all slightly different.

Humans can all be different and still be all normal.

If your dog sleeps on your bed when you are at work, it isn't being a bad dog -- it is just doing what normal dogs do. If it can, it will lay with its head on your pillow, drooling, and will press its smelly ear against the comfortable cushion. You may not like it, but that doesn't make it abnormal.

If your dog prepares you a lovely meal and sets the table, THAT is very nice and very abnormal. Really bizarre. Totally perverted.

Maybe an orangutan could become a person, if it evolved a computationally universal brain? — tom

What is a computationally universal brain?[/quote]

Nice post all in all but I'd say it is a popular category error to say this would contradict free will.
You can be feeling cold although you are fevering. — Heiko

Well, the switches referred to the behavior of very simple animals, and reflexive responses in higher animals--like a literal knee jerk.

When we have an infection pyrogens signal the hypothalamus to raise the body's set point from 98.6 to... maybe 102. For a period of time, we will "feel cold" because we are colder than the hypothalamus says we should be (during a fever). When our temperature gets up to 102, we will stop shivering and just feel hot--and wretched.

No matter how 'hot' you are, being 98.6 is cool.

interestingly, only human beings are able to become Buddha — Wayfarer

Because, like, where would we be if a clam or an orangutan could become Buddha?

The trouble with dividing the brain up into brain stem, reptile brain, limbic system, neocortex, and so on is that brains developed as integrated structures, and are integrated structures in our skulls, too. For instance, there is a small group of cells in the brain stem which is responsible for us falling asleep and waking up--engaging the world. The 'reptile brain' may not deal in rocket science, but it performs useful tasks like helping us find our way from one place to another and back again.

Animals have had limbic systems for a very long time. Birds whose lineage is quite ancient, have emotions--maybe not as complicated as ours, but emotions none the less. Our limbic system is tied into structures like the pre-frontal cortex. It's a critical connection: It's what enables us to learn right from wrong, feel guilt, and avoid behavior that makes us feel terrible. If those connections aren't working, we behave psychopathically.

Our neocortex is nicely complicated, but animals have had the capacity to do a little thinking for quite a long time. Animals that coordinate hunting, for instance, have to 'think' about what is going on as they stalk and chase down prey -- where they, as an individual, fit into the hunt. Coordination, in other words. It may not be Aristotle, but it's thinking.

Dogs manipulate us. They have just enough intelligence to figure out how to get us to do what they want us to do. Quite often we adjust our behavior to satisfy the dog's wishes. We like observing their naked thinking at work. It's amusing.

For us, intelligence is a combination of flesh, emotion, memory, perception, and thinking all rolled up together. The best IBM computer both has and lacks some aspects of what we define in ourselves as intelligence. It has some limited perception (input devices), it has a memory, and it has logical processors (which in themselves do not constitute a capacity to think). It lacks a body (flesh, blood), emotion, and the wide scope of our perceptions and thinking. These are differences in kind, not just in quantity. The IBM had no desire to learn anything. It had no desire to engage in a debate. It didn't know it was engaging in a debate. What it was doing was executing commands in a very complex human-authored program and using brute force to assemble and organize information.

I'm not knocking the IBM and engineer's achievement. It's pretty impressive. However, the computer didn't really achieve anything.

IF one day a computer voluntarily experienced a desire to learn human language and culture, learn about the world, learn how to move about and manipulate the world, and find it's own place in the world, expressed likes and dislikes and acted accordingly, and did all this on its own, I'd call that REAL artificial intelligence.

What we have so far are machines that run human authored programs that imitate certain aspects of behavior.

Organisms of all kinds (paramecium on up) have to act, or not act, to survive. Maybe the decision making is hard wired so that choice is nothing more than a serious of switches being thrown. Insects, we know from observation, make decisions. Animals with more brain cells make somewhat more complex decisions in their environment. Is that lion over there a risk or not? Wildebeest seem to be able to identify a hungry lion from one that has a full stomach. Wolves have to cooperate, signal, and make decisions to hunt moose (elk) successfully. One wolf can't kill a moose alone.

Even our exalted selves depend on that kind of machinery to avoid risks -- when we jump back from a car coming too close, without thinking about it. If eating egg salad makes us violently ill a couple of hours after eating it, we may not be able to get another egg salad past our noses for years -- even if you want to. If an irresistible potential sex partner crosses our path, we may throw caution and morals to the wind and follow the trail.

I do think we have at least a lot of free will, but there are also built in limits on the extent to which we can exercise it.

May be I spoke too soon. — TheMadFool

I frequently make that mistake.

But our ''failure'' can be attributed to poor choices we make. If everybody realizes the fact that we're harming the planet and takes action then we would surely survive for longer than the dinosaurs barring, of course, catastrophes like asteroids and volcanoes. — TheMadFool

Maybe our choices were poor, but at the time (since the industrial revolution began up until about 1960) our exploitation of coal, oil, and wood seemed eminently sensible. The immediate benefits of industrialization were just to great. We liked having trains, planes, steam ships, cars, plastic, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, purple coal dyes, bright arsenic-green dyes, et al and we still do. We like them so much that just about nobody is willing to give them up, even though we are heading for what could be (two or three centuries out) a terminating disaster.

Since Silent Spring by Rachel Carson there has been a steady drumbeat reporting adverse consequences from industrialization and hog-wild resource exploitation pointing towards irreparable damage to the the environment upon which we are (we are learning) absolutely dependent.

Using everything at hand to do interesting stuff is just what we do, it's our nature--free will and common sense be damned. If we were really sensible, at least 3 billion of the world's human population would be frantically striving to find ways to live on a small carbon foot print. That would mean giving up a good share of our goodies, like disposable plastic containers holding a small amount of something that will be used once, then tossed into the garbage or into the street where it will ultimately end up in the ocean poisoning animal life. Like not flying around the world for really very trivial purposes and short term benefit; junking private cars and replacing them with mass transit; converting to an economy not based on oil and coal, and on and on and on.

We (people) may recognize that all these drastic changes make good sense, but we find that we do not have the necessary free will to actuate these plans in a timely manner (which would be about 30 years ago). We can look at it, see it, understand it, know what we should do, then have a horrible sinking feeling in our guts and decide to think about something else.

fun fact: we live closer on the timelime to the T-Rex than the T-Rex did to the Stegosaurus. — StreetlightX

Fun fact, indeed.

You really know such things? — Heiko

Well... Sure. I do not doubt geology and paleontology. All those big bones, big teeth. Do you doubt it? Now, as for free will, we dispute whether we have free will, so there's not much chance of imputing even an iota of free will to Tryrranusaurus Rex
without a fight.

My guess is that the Awesome Rexes probably had an iota of free will, at least. Not a lot, certainly. Their bird-brain descendants (crows, for example) seem to have a little free will -- not much, but some. As for our free will -- we have enough of it to over-estimate how much we have.

I remember many, many forum conversations where I was faulted for suggesting that human beings have any more significance than blue-green algae or cockroaches. — Wayfarer

I won't fault you for suggesting such a thing. To us, we are infinitely more important and valuable than algae and cockroaches (especially cockroaches.) Still, if we take a very unnatural global and billions of years long-term view, blue-green algae created the atmosphere we and all other animals breathe. The weight of all the ants, termites, cockroaches, and >4 legged beings far exceeds ours. Our error isn't thinking that we are so important, but that everything else is dirt under our feet. Given your Buddhist studies, you likely hold the other 0-2-4-6-8-and-more-legged creatures in higher regard than many do.

Sure, biology is biology and that's a very good thing. And we are not in an either/or situation, either it's existentialist philosophy or it's biology. Our situation is that we have both, and we need to pay attention to biology or we won't be around to think about existential philosophy.

Dinosaurs were imminently successful by all counts for 100 million years and, as far as we know, they didn't have free will. We haven't been successful for very long at all -- Homo sapiens is < 1,000,000 years old--maybe more like a mere 400,000. Very recently we have been a brilliant flash in the pan, but it is not al all clear whether we will be here in so few as 400 years.

Is that success?

God said we had more important things to worry about than whether He was timeless or eternal. Based on His infinite knowledge of all that will come to be, He recommended we worry about global warming, population, and our individually short shelf lives. Which, he added, will get a lot shorter if we aren't careful.

Excellent topic and excellent responses.

I myself have secret desires to conduct manipulative experiments on people, do very intrusive observations of private behavior, manipulate environments so I an observe the changes that makes in behavior, use hidden microphones and hidden cameras to get the low-down on what's up, and more! And I'm not the only one. It's not hard at all to get carried away when there is no one overseeing one's activities who can interrupt the busy planning sessions with "Wait a minute -- what the hell are you planning to do here?"

I suspect Milgram and Zimbardo didn't have much oversight. I don't think either one of them are at all evil, but when one is laying plans with some co-conspirators, it's easy to get carried away with the extremes of an experiment and overlook the actual consequences for the subjects.

A different question about Milgram and Zimbardo: By the time they began their research, we had been through 2 world wars, a brutal regional war in Korea, and were in the middle of a second brutal regional war in Vietnam. Much research has been published on the behavior of the SS, the Gestapo, Jews, Aryans, et al in Germany during the years of National Socialism. Was there something that history wasn't telling Milgram, Simbardo, et al about manipulation, brutality, dehumanization, submission, studied ignorance, and so forth that wasn't available in the histories?

It's a conundrum.

If we eliminated the last century of medical progress, what would be different? Many people would still live healthy long lives. Better sanitation and food production are responsible for that. What would be different is that people who became very sick, or were seriously injured, would die more often and sooner, or would be far more debilitated.

So, we are fortunate in many ways, but pain is a problem. For moderate chronic pain there are good medications -- the Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs like aspirin, Ibuprofen, naproxen, and celecoxib, For short term severe pain there are opiates -- and they are safe and effective--in the short run. For longterm severe pain, we run into the limiting problem of reduced effectiveness over time and addiction. There don't seem to be many effective drugs for long-term severe pain that are non-opiate.

One of the problems with doctors (dentists too) is that they have usually not experienced first hand any of the problems which patients have, or the therapies they prescribe to their patients. Many doctors don't get to know their patients very well, either, or visa versa.

It's the stance of prizing ideas over persons, or, more realistically, ideas over stances themselves. People in academia take stances, and their stances become their identity; they become statues with stances. They don't move. They're dead. — Noble Dust

Excellent!

This all makes total sense. It has been my understanding that abrupt withdrawal of antidepressants -- or abruptly switching from one type of antidepressant (say tricyclics to SSRIs) should always be avoided. Same for benzos and the major tranquilizers like thorazine, and narcotics.

And the same for a lot of other types of drugs, like epileptic control drugs, lithium, and so on.

Some doctors may have vested interests in drug companies, but for most doctors it would be nothing more compromising than having stock in their portfolio, and since doctors are the only ones who can Rx medicines, the conflict is probably unavoidable. I suppose their stock in Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Sandoz, Abbott, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Bayer, et al could be in a trust. Don't hold your breath.

At my age (71) I probably don't have time to complete a leisurely taper--which is fine. I have no objection to taking affordable medicine that seems to be keeping me on the level.

I have a 30 year history of taking antidepressants and benzodiazapine for anxiety. i've tapered off 3 different benzos without any difficulty, and I tapered off tricyclic antidepressants (imipramine) 2 or 3 years after I started. I've switched antidepressants a number of times, and haven't tried withdrawing from SSRIs until now.

I've been taking venlafaxine (Effexor) for maybe 13 years, and Surzone immediately prior. Both of these are SSRIs. I am finding it impossible to go cold turkey; I experience some psychological distress, and physical symptoms which I can only describe as 'odd' within 48 hours of the last dose. By 72 hours I definitely feel ill. I haven't made it past 96 hours.

My understanding of benzodiazepines is that they are definitely habit forming, if not addictive. I didn't feel like I was addicted when I tapered off them. Antidepressants are not supposed to be addicting, but that probably applies only to short term studies (<1 year). I definitely feel hooked now.

My guess is that a very long gradually sloping taper is necessary after long usage (like, decades).

I can't tell whether I should attempt to get off. On 75mg of venlafaxine I feel really good. Would I feel good after taking 6 months to a year to taper off the drug completely? Don't know. Cost isn't a problem, so far, and it doesn't seem like I am experiencing adverse health outcomes. So, ???

Another thing, there are a lot of named groups that barely exist. Take "sex workers" -- ameliorated from "prostitute" and "whore". I rather doubt that there is an actual "community of common interest" made up of "whores, prostitutes, and/or sex workers". It isn't a field of endeavor that many people, men or women, opt into because it is more interesting than say selling real estate. It's fairy dangerous, involves a lot of potentially bad experiences (worse than losing a real estate listing), and is illegal and stigmatized. I don't think the term arose indigenously, either. I think it was created by people who wanted to upgrade the work of the clients they were dealing with. Then it became unacceptable to refer to "whores and prostitutes" though the actual job didn't change one whit.

"sex worker" appeared in print around the 1985-1990, pretty much the same way that "identity politics" did.

Criticizing identity politics tout court, as Peterson often does, is crap, and done from a privileged vantage point of being a white male. — Maw

↪Buxtebuddha The privilege is that everyone else's problems are identity politics. While "my" problems are simply politics. — Maw

↪Maw As in, the black gay female needs uplifting while the white straight male needs shaming and segregating? Is that right? — Buxtebuddha

Politics is about individuals forming groups to represent their peculiar interests. There is nothing new about it, and nothing special about it. Whether it is coal mine owners, gay men, sexually harassed women, small farm owners, lesbian vegans, mass transit drivers, cod fishing boat owners, and so on--it is all pretty much the same. And it's fine and dandy -- that's how a diverse more or less democratic society is supposed to work -- people represent their interests and attempt to protect themselves.

It's fine and dandy until, as often happens, a group takes up protective positions which positively disadvantage other interests group. Mine owners, for instance, represent their interests so well that mine workers get shafted. Mass transit drivers go on strike to protect their interests, but entire populations of commuters are negatively affected, sometimes severely. Relatively small numbers of gays and lesbians claim absolute equality with heterosexuals in religious, civic, family, and moral contexts, which conflicts with the at least as strong beliefs of relatively large numbers of heterosexuals that gays and lesbians are not absolutely equal in all contexts.

All this makes for lively politics, good outcomes and bad outcomes.

Tactical errors are made. BLM protestors shutting down mass transit lines at rush hour probably costs them more sympathy than the attention they gain is worth. Straight white males are as diverse a group as straight white females, all females, and all males. The coal industry and coal miners may be in direct conflict with the goals of reducing greenhouse gases. Gays and lesbian activists may display tone deafness when making their arguments.

The only solution in the short, medium and long run is to continue politics, and let the abrasion of politics grind off the unacceptable prominent views that groups tend to have. This, in itself, can be disappointing to people deeply invested in a cause. Gay Liberation began with what I thought were good aspirations, but they were also extreme, in comparison where most people were at in 1969. Over time, the extreme points were ground away and we ended up gaining a set of civil rights and protections (all to the good) but lost "liberation". So, gay marriage in imitation of heterosexual marriage means getting locked into a chaste relationship with ONE INDIVIDUAL until one dies, or flies the coop. Barbaric.

I've had a bad conscience since my last thread in which I made a casual unfunny dig at republicans by putting them somewhere half way on a scale of 'degrees of consciousness'. — bert1

My son, this is not a sin and therefore can not be forgiven. You are being too sensitive. Now, get out of the confessional; there is a long line of people who have real sins to confess and for which severe penance will be required.

I've picked on a group of people, — bert1

"Groups of people" don't have feelings, consciousness, morals, or anything else. "Groups of people" is a vague concept. As for the individual persons in groups... if the shoe fits, wear it.

it's OK to criticise individuals, or better, their opinions, values and actions, but criticising groups of people is potentially dangerous. — bert1

As a homosexual, I would much prefer people reference us as "a group of perverted, immoral, disgusting, monsters, a genuine threat to the American Way of Life" (or Turkish, Russian, North Korean, Saudi Arabian, Ugandan... WOL) than have them say that about me personally. While we certainly are a collective threat to American manhood and empire, I am as pure as the driven snow.

On the other hand, please do remember that we took down the Roman Empire.

some vulnerable groups do need collective representation. — bert1

There are numerous vulnerable individuals who can be grouped into a common cause. Take physically handicapped people. It wasn't that long ago (within the lifetimes of living people) that people with physical handicaps were not recognized as people who faced real barriers: like millions of buildings that could not be accessed without inconvenient and visible assistance. Like millions of people with sensory deficits (varying degrees of deafness and blindness) who could not access large parts of the culture because there were no assistive devices.

In response to agitation, there are now many buildings entrances without stairs, equipped with elevators. There are assistive devices at many intersections that verbally announce a walk sign and a countdown to "don't walk". Many public bathrooms now have doors which allow access to wheelchairs. Braille markings have been added to visual symbols in buildings (like elevators). Closed captions allow the deaf to follow television programs. And more, besides.

That is all to the good.

We're NOT computers, I agree. But are we machines, just of a higher order? That's what I want to know. — TheMadFool

We are not machines, either. We are organisms, and more, beings. We are born, not manufactured. Our biological design incorporates a billion years of evolution. Life exists without any designing agent: no owners, no designers, no factories, etc. Life is internally directed; machines are made, and have no properties of beings or organisms.

Machines are our human creations; we like our machines, and identify with the cleverness of their design and operation. Our relationship to the things we make was the subject of myth for the ancient Greeks: Pygmalion from Greek mythology, A king of Cyprus who carved and then fell in love with a statue of a woman, which Aphrodite brought to life as Galatea; (the name of a play by George Bernard Shaw, the name of a musical, My Fair Lady--the same theme). We pour our thoughts into our computers, they deliver interesting viewing material to us -- none of it comprehended or created by our machine computers.

That there are "biological mechanisms" like DNA replication, respiration, oxidation, etc. doesn't in any way make us "machines" because "biological mechanisms" is itself a metaphor of a machine mechanism. We're victims of our language here. Because we call the body a machine, (levers, pulleys, engines, etc.) it's an easy leap to body status in things like office copiers and computers, ships, cars, etc.

So... No, we are not machines, not computers, not manufactured, not hardware, not software.

Thank you. Do you think we should have a thread on male prostitution? I'd be happy to start one. (Maybe I already have?)

He/she is new to this kind of activity; Qope will get much more social involvement with short posts than long posts. Too long and too little. Like, "Hey, what do you all think about male prostitutes?" End of post. Too short.

Not enough information. It depends--a talented male prostitute or a klutz? Good looking or should have a bag over his head? What -- you want more or fewer? Should it be legal or not? What's your angle?

Hello. Wrote this in the past hours. New to sharing my written thoughts socially, so looking for some feedback/criticism/support/whatever - anything social. 3 A4's. Self-help/philosophy-stuff.

Writing with free association (just letting the thought flow) — qope

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

I want to encourage you to participate in the forum, so please don't take what I say here as a "get lost" response.

a) Your post is too long and too diffuse.
b) Focus on a specific point in your opening post.
c) Take a position, offer an argument in favor of your position, then wait for a response.

If your main point is "without self-discipline you’re just a wild dog running around chasing food and sex" then start with that. Tell us why you think being self-disciplined is better than being a wild dog. Why does it matter?

Don't unload your whole armory of ideas all at once. Free association is useful in places (like on a psychoanalyst's couch) but not so much in a philosophical discussion.

So, are we more like computers or are we very near to, in terms of awareness, to an entity that is completely self-aware? — TheMadFool

We are not like computers, at all.