there are 540 plunderers and extortionists worth more than s billion dollars--$2.399 trillion in all--in the United States. Whether they were self made, crawled out of a sewer, or were suckled on a 24 caret gold teat is of no concern to me. There is no reason for us proles to stare in wonder, jaws agape, at Mark Zuckerberg or Andrew Carnegie.

If you are awestruck by their net worth, and you think that Jesus approves, then drool on at the wonder of their wealth.

Good point. There are a lot of weeds that grow in the middle of the road. The best description of things is usually not dead center.

T Capitalism hasn't failed, actually. It has succeeded admirably. Whether it will continue to succeed forever is a foolish question, of course. Who the hell knows. That some people have done so poorly under capitalism isn't a sign of failure, it's a sign of capitalist control.

Take black people, for instance. Why are so many black people poor? Poorly educated? Jobless? Sickly? It's not an accident. A central cause of black poverty today is the history of the Federal Housing Administration which, between 1930 and 1980, deliberately, competently, and thoroughly prevented black people from benefitting from the federal housing programs, the post WWII housing boom, and more recent advances in housing value. White people, on the other hand -- the ones who were well enough employed in the metropolitan areas of the country in 1946 to benefit, received a huge financial boost by being let into good, newly built mass housing which would hold its value and appreciate over the decades, up to the present. At least two generations of whites, numbering in the millions, benefitted from FHA programs. Not blacks. They were explicitly excluded from the programs. This is all described and documented in an excellent book, THE COLOR OF LAW by Richard Rothstein, 2017.

Education is largely organized around housing, and poor people tend to live together in cheaper, poorer or public housing. Poverty and less education isn't a good combination and when opportunities are closed off, people can't readily bootstrap their way up. They are stuck. At the bottom.

Now, not all white people benefitted from the FHA program. Poor whites, rural whites, and low paid whites, or whites with large families (which tended to keep them poorer) were not able to afford these programs, or they weren't available in their part of the country. That's maybe slightly less true now than in the past, but not by much.

I won't give you another chart, but note that some material has been added to the post where the chart was.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg provides detail about how the earliest colonies were riven by deliberate deep class divides, and not just the divide between free and slave. There were wealthy white elites imported directly from England; what would later be called 'bourgeois whites' (businessmen, entrepreneurs, speculators); white farmers (small landowners), and then riff raff -- working people, in other words. So 4 classes. Working people were kept at the bottom of the class structure--not just relatively poor, but absolutely poor. Not until "disruptive" industrialism got underway, and created more routes to advancement, were working people able to make some advances -- not into the classes above them, but at least greater financial well-being within their own class of workers.

The westward movement of Europeans (led, spurred and facilitated by land speculators, railroads, etc.) created more opportunities for working people to get a slightly larger piece of their smaller share of the pie, but westward movement also involved a lot of financial and mortal risk for 'pioneers'. In the late 19th century the workers, still the bottom class relatively and absolutely, began to agitate against long work weeks, long days, unsafe conditions, low pay, and so forth by organizing unions. The resistance from the upper classes was fierce, and has remained fierce to the present. Which, by the way, is why the union movement is so weak in the United States. As the saying goes, the labor movement didn't get sick and die, it was murdered.

So here we are, 21st century; working people are as much at the bottom as ever, with no place to go. The small entrepreneurs, bourgeoisie, rich, and super rich are all still there too, richer and stronger than ever.

"The American Dream" isn't very old. Here is a Google Ngram chart that shows the history of the expression in print:


See? 1930, the beginning of the worst crisis in capitalism and writers started talking about this American Dream.

Unfortunately I do not have a chart that reveals whether the American Dream has succeeded, failed, or never existed in the first place. We do have history, however, and it is clear that capitalism was developed in England and was exported to the colonies. I can't say whether it was the British Empire or the United States that most fulfilled capitalism's potential. Let's call it a draw. And let's not forget Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa. Capitalism is alive and well all over, for good or for ill.

Capitalism = "The American Dream"? Maybe? Probably? Obviously? I don't know.

The American Dream was bought with credit. It was bought with resources borrowed (or taken) from ecosystems, non-renewable energy, indigenous peoples, etc., not just money borrowed from banks. This borrowing was wreckless. A lot of consumption more than investing. Externalities not included in the prices of that consumption. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I think you will find that this is a pattern which is far older than the United States. There is no way for any organism to exist without using resources from ecosystems. As for the rest, sure: non-renewable energy, seizure of indigenous resources through genocide, reckless, costs externalized, etc. All true.

Capitalism is not sustainable--anywhere. To the extent that capitalism = the American Dream, then neither is sustainable.

This next comments will seem like they are totally off-topic, but it actually are not:

I've been reading the Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg worked for the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and '60s as a national defense analyst and strategist. He became well acquainted with American nuclear war strategies at the time. He was appalled to discover that the US had a first-strike strategy; Command and Control was sloppy at best; authority to launch nuclear weapons was delegated by Eisenhower and subsequently followed by several presidents; the plan was all out attack on both the Soviet Union and China -- regardless of whether China was involved in whatever threat the USSR was thought to pose. The plan called for the destruction of every significant city in the USSR and China.

Kennedy wanted to know what the human cost would be -- assuming that all of our bombs reached their targets and no weapons were launched from the USSR. The military had a ready answer: around 700 million in Europe and Asia. The military planners, however, had not included deaths from fire storms, which they should have because they knew all about firestorms from Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. A quite reasonable estimation of total deaths would be closer to 1 billion -- then 1/3 of the world's population.

The assumption was that the USA would survive the fallout from this massive attack with little or no cost. At the time, the concept of nuclear winter had not been developed. Ellsberg notes that the US still has enough missiles (about 400) and nuclear-armed submarines to bring about nuclear winter, even if we were the only ones to fire off our atomic weapons--because of the fire storms boosting massive tonnage of soot into the high atmosphere where it would remain for years--blocking a lot of sunlight and chilling the planet significantly -- causing a massive kill off of many species, including humans.

One might hope that America and the American military are not one and the same thing. At the very least, the ideas of Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism are ticking away in their heads, and in the heads of a lot of civilians too.

One should never underestimate the capacity of the determined to find futility where others find purpose. The radiant beams of a super nova might not penetrate the Stygian shadows wreathed about you in terminal gloom.

Use a shovel, schopenhauer1.

That was Henry David Thoreau — Andrew4Handel

Yes, my mistake. I store all the New England Transcendentalists in the same memory cell. I suppose I could afford to give Thoreau and Emerson each their own cell.

Maybe it's soothing; it is at least a relief to know that one's private desperate hell hole isn't all that unique.

This is an interesting observation. Do depressed people have a low self esteem due to prior experience?

Is there an internal desire for perfection or is it something assimilated from society with pressures on us to socialise well and achieve things or due to experiences of constant criticism? — Andrew4Handel

It's surprising that some people have any self-esteem at all.

If you think that depression has purely biological origins (it could), then the feeling of worthlessness is probably owing to a deficiency of certain brain hormones, neurotransmitters. If you think depression is socially engendered, then sure, social experiences and expectations would play a role. Most likely both play a role, in varying amounts in different people.

I don't know where this perfectionism comes from. When I was more severely depressed I was a chronic failed perfectionist. I can imagine completing a complex project perfectly, but in fact I don't have the kind of detail oriented mind to do such a thing. I'm a "big picture" type of thinker; I hate dealing with details.

As I look back over the last 71 years, I think a lot of our psychological problems stem from not really understanding ourselves. There is much about myself that I was very late in coming to understand well. Maybe "perfectionism" is the result of trying to conform to an ideal one thinks one should match. People who don't understand themselves don't understand that they can not be perfect--maybe not even be mediocre--at some tasks.

Are there any practical ways by which the study of philosophy can be used to overcome issues with depression, self esteem etc.? — LSDC

IF the study of philosophy leads you to a more realistic view of yourself, the world, and your relationship to the world, it can help. People (whether they are depressed, stark raving mad, or the very models of modern mental health) entertain various erroneous ideas about life, some of which make life more difficult. For instance, many depressed people have perfectionist tendencies--I don't know why, it just seems that way. Of course, they aren't perfect and quite often fall far short of perfection, and this reinforces their negative views of themselves.

Any drunk in a bar can tell you "nobody is perfect" but you might want a little exegesis with your cocktail. Perfection, after all, is the enemy of the merely good, and merely good is decidedly worth achieving. Why should you be perfect? Why do you have this hubristic tendency to excel in all matters? Do you think everyone else is achieving perfection? (Clue: They are not.) Are you comparing yourself with some fictional superman or superwoman?

So you think your drab, wretched life is uniquely miserable? Ralph W. Emerson said that "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." If most people's lives are exercises in futility, why would yours be any different? But hello! I don't think life is futile, but some things definitely are. We just have to know when we are shoveling sand with a pitchfork. Philosophy (the kind you can do yourself) can help you decide what is worth shoveling and what is not.

I think a philosopher is someone who attempts primarily to cut through nonsense, — tim wood

And lots of people who aren't all that educated still have effective bullshit detectors, and some educated people can't tell shit from shinola.

It is possible to derive this from observation. Creativity and individual expression are pretty much suppressed from the time one first enters into the educational system right through their career. The great thing about retirement is that it becomes less so a challenge to experiment with self-expression and creativity - as long as one isn't seeking admiration or acceptance. — Rich

This is all true, but it is also true that certain velcro-coated ideas are floating around just waiting to glom onto a receptive surface. That "people are a herd and don't think" is one of them and is neither entirely true nor entirely false.

Yes, yes, yes, I know all too well how much creativity, or even slight innovation, is guarded against in most schools and work places. #Itoowasscrewedoutofadecenteducation.

The thing is though, that even the creativity-suppressed, thinking-discouraged masses have to account for their individual existences one way or another. Some people don't need any help; some people are too stupid to benefit from help; but the masses can benefit from all the help and encouragement thinking people can give them. That's why it is a bad idea to dismiss them as dull-witted cud-chewing bovines. (I don't mean to disparage cud-chewing bovines, of course. I have the utmost respect for cattle. Of course, we don't know what they are thinking about while they lie in the shade chewing away. Maybe they have exquisitely perceptive thoughts. Probably not, but who knows?)

Most people simply follow the herd, and allow others to think for them. — Jonathan AB

You are no doubt aware that your idea of people being a herd and allow others to do their thinking for them is an idea (maybe a 'meme') YOU picked up from a different herd.

There are several kinds of philosopher: The main thing in my definition is that it doesn't belong to only professionals. There are people who...

A read, study, research, and teach philosophy as an academic career. Professionals
B read and study philosophy as students who will not teach it in the future.
C read some philosophy, study it a little either on their own or in school.
D do not read philosophy as such, but who think about the nature of reality in a general way, their own being, and some conundrums like "How do I know I am not the only person?"
E do not read philosophy, and whose thinking about the nature of reality is seated in a religious context they believe in. (Their religious thinking might be quite vigorous.)
F do not know much of anything about philosophy or religion. They may be well educated about other matters.

So, there is a range from "professional" to "innocent of philosophy". Most people are either "c", "d", or "e". Here there are some who are "b", and perhaps 1 who is an "a". But even people who are "f" may think about philosophical questions such as "What am I here for".

I view philosophy as something that many people do very inexactly, informally, and only occasionally. The same can be said of people and music, people and literature, people and science, and so on.

Are mathematicians/scientists/philosophers dumber than the average person you walk into on the streets? — TheMadFool

Why are you walking into all these people?

Why are you obsessed with finding a flaw in rationality?

Was it something that happened in early childhood? Were you bullied in a high school philosophy class? Did a philosopher make unwanted sexual overtures to you (which was OK as far as you were concerned, except it was not the philosopher from whom you were hoping for unwanted sexual overtures)? What? Why? How? Where? When did it all go so wrong?

I'm not a medical doctor or an athletic trainer, but if we want everybody to have an active lifestyle it seems to me that it is already available to everybody: step outside and start walking. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Walking is a good exercise, absolutely. it is important to develop habits, and in the case of young people, to give them the opportunity to develop self-confidence in their own physical abilities. Organized sports does that for a small number of students. What I would like to see in schools is a Physical education program that focuses on activities that people can do over their lifetime--like walking, jogging, running, calisthenics, yoga, weight lifting, swimming, and the like.

When I was in high school (back in the late 50s, early 60s) researchers had found that a lot of students were in poor physical condition and that a minority were in great condition. I'm sure it's gotten worse since then.

Competition is good for those who like it, but students also need to practice measuring individual progress.

I got interested in physical fitness in my mid 20s, and I found I knew very little about how to go about it. Over time I learned, but I also made some major mistakes, like discounting the value of decent running shoes.

Fargo, ND — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Speaking of Fargo, one can run in northern winters -- I liked running in cold Minnesota weather. Ice is a risk, for sure.

I think you are right about how sports were developed and played, on an ad hoc basis, by people who wanted a social and physically activity. People in small towns (at least) used to have softball teams. It was extremely informal, but people liked doing it. I don't know if they still do it.

Of course women's sport teams are not going to perform the way men's teams perform. Men's athletics, standards of performance, levels of fan enthusiasm, money spent on men's athletics, etc. has a long history.

Major women's athletics is a fairly new thing. Large numbers of women athletes have not been celebrated, fussed over, had money lavished on their needs and so forth, over the last century. Given equivalent funding, institutional support, fan-base development, and all that, women's sport will eventually be more like men's sport -- not the same sized bodies, or testosterone driven athletes--but well funded athletes who have been working on their skills since they were in kindergarten.

I don't think professional sports is worth the amount of money expended on it, but if people like it, money will get spent. But be careful what you pray for.

Professional men's athletics do absolutely nothing for the health of 99.9% of fans. Professional women's athletics are going to do absolutely nothing for the health of 99.9% of fans, either. What is more important -- much more important -- is that athletic activity be democratized in grade school, high school, college, and in adult life so that more people participate in active life styles.

Focusing a lot of money and attention on 1/10th of 1 percent of the population to play professional sports and neglecting the other 99.9% just isn't a good idea. Better that millions of girls and boys have programs to help them find ways to be active and physically fit than always grooming the cream of the crop from little league on up to the major leagues.

By the way, the folderol going on in Minneapolis for the 52nd Super Bowl is a COLOSSAL pain in the ass. Massive traffic and transit disruptions not just on Sunday, but for the 10 days preceding the #$*&@#(@Q)$( thing. Security checks (backpacks, purses, open your coat please...) as one walks down the street.

How seriously do people take the inability to cope with life? — Andrew4Handel

I would take an "inability to cope with life" as a perhaps serious, but vaguely described chronic, rather than acute, problem. People usually have the intellectual and emotional capacity to cope with the problems with which life has always presented people. There are various ways of coping with life--too many to list.

I don't think that those who can not successfully cope have encountered novel problems. What has happened is that their capacity to cope with "life as we know it" has been reduced. There are various ways that can happen: ordinary depression, of course; excessive, chronic alcohol or drug use; major mental illnesses like schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, bi-polar disorder, and so on. Social isolation is a factor. Poor sleep habits, fatigue, physical illnesses, and so on all contribute. "Bad ideas" are a contributing factor, by which which I mean fatalistic thinking, self-fulfilling negative expectations, and so on.

If I were to give an armchair treatment plan, I would suggest this: FIRST, get engaged with people that you like being around--somehow, somewhere. Right, easier said than done; but social isolation is a very negative factor in an individual's life. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 -- however many people you can find that you like to spend time with.

Second, if you can find it, if you can afford it, try talk therapy oriented towards building up the strength of your coping ability. If you can't find it, if you can't afford it, then seek out books that can give you develop better life-coping strategies.

Third, if you can, find work that offers you the kind of psychological rewards that you want. Right, again easier said than done. If you work in a very, very bad job, at least try to find work that is merely bad and not very, very bad; maybe even work that is somewhat tolerable.

Engage yourself in positive feedback thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know: this can sound like self-help bullshit, but there are positive things going on in your life, and there are problems you are successfully coping with. Make a list of these positive aspects. No, you don't have to make the whole list all at once. Add to it over time. LOOK for positive things. List problems in life that you have solved. Yes, of course you have solved problems. You are not a basket case.

Say out loud to yourself true and positive statements such as "I am an intelligent person". Andrew4Handel, you are an intelligent person. You have good features, indifferent features, and most likely some bad features -- like everybody else does. Accept yourself (practice it) as a capable person.

Will all this work? I don't know why it wouldn't. It won't work over night, and you may need some coaching from somebody you like and who can give you positive coaching -- it doesn't have to be a therapist. As the song says, "Latch on to the affirmative".

Good luck.

but when you're born, you're still born alone — Agustino

What if you and your twin sibling were joined at the hip. Then you wouldn't be born alone. Unfortunately, having someone attached to one's hip is extremely inconvenient.

So, it does look like rationality serves evil better than good. — TheMadFool

Rationality serves whoever wields it, and far more people are good than evil. We know this because the world, by and large, is a fairly pleasant place most of the time in most places for most people. If rationality and evil were such a good match, life would be ruined most of the time just about everywhere for everyone almost all the time. That isn't the case.

Rationality doesn't cause evil. It's a tool. Rationality doesn't seek out evil people to get them to be better at being evil. It can't. It's a process, not a thing with volition. We can just be thankful that there are not more bright wicked people out there applying rationality to their evil deeds. And we can be thankful that there are so many good people out there applying rationality to the good stuff they do.

You are stumbling over the bias which makes the bad act seem more common than the good act because we remember bad acts more. Evil acts stand out against the background of much more common good.

For some weird reason you want to hang evil around the neck of rationality. I don't understand why you want to do this, but it is very annoying. STOP IT or I will have to think of a fiendishly creative and a perversely wicked means of making you want to cease and desist (since good arguments clearly are not good enough for you).

there's always a danger in an infallible authority — TheMadFool

True, but rationality isn't an authority and it isn't infallible. If it was, then we would only need one rational person around at any given time. We have found that several people applying reason is better than depending on 1 person alone.

everything has pros AND cons — TheMadFool

B U L L S H I T ! ! !

No, everything doesn't have a pro and a con, and it's not rational to think there is. There was no "pro" side to the Holocaust. There is no "pro" side to the various mass murders we have witnessed. There is mo "pro" side to nuclear war. Would you say, "Ok, 6 million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust. Now let's look at the positive aspects of genocide." ???

So, what could this flaw be — TheMadFool

The flaw in rationality is when people don't try very hard to do it.

Look at how good and evil are depicted in media and literature. I don't want to use stereotypes of people but I also believe in the wisdom of the masses. Evil is associated with genius and I think this rightly so. One has to be intelligent to be fool/trick people - something that is necessary to be evil. — TheMadFool

Do you really believe in the wisdom of the masses? What, exactly, is the wisdom of the masses? How do masses of people with various opinions -- all over the place, up one side and down the other, manage to have "wisdom"?

Well, evil is associated with genius in some literature (literature which features evil geniuses) but geniuses are not always evil and evil isn't always operating at the genius level. Quite often evil is as stupid as it can get.

One might have to be intelligent to fool or trick people, but being intelligent doesn't lead to fooling and tricking people. Lots of very intelligent people, geniuses even, don't attempt to fool or trick people.

On the other hand one doesn't have to think much to be good. One might even have to be a fool to be good - disregard personal safety for instance. — TheMadFool

You say this as if no one had demonstrated to you that doing good requires intelligence, wisdom, and insight. Consider the people who discovered the various drugs which are successful in controlling diabetes, a number of cancers, AIDS, infections and so on. These people did immense good, and it required immense rationality, careful thinking, and so on -- not by a few people, but by scores of thousands of people who worked on the various drug development programs.

Consider therapists who provide therapy for the victims of torture: This is a very complex kind of therapy that requires great intelligence, enormous sensitivity, perceptiveness, and so on. Your average dull-normal do-gooder can't begin to help.

Consider the managers of projects like The Big Dig in Boston, or the people at NASA. They did/are doing great good, and it requires an extraordinary intelligence. the list of great works which need great intelligence is a long, long one.

In fact, you have been surrounded all your life by people doing good things very intelligently. You aren't aware of much of this because a) they are good at it, and b) because they are good at it things don't go wrong most of the time. This past year there were no crashes of large planes -- the first time in a very long time. Why? Because the people who design, fly, and manage all the planes in the air are good at it. And it's a very good thing that they are.

Evil is quite often very stupid, stumbles over itself on its way to perform wicked deeds, and in the end is quite frequently too stupid to escape capture and punishment.

stop being such a queen — charleton

I resemble that comment.

Winning the lottery is an achievement which is 99.9999999% luck (or chance). The .000000001% part that isn't luck is deciding to buy a lottery ticket. What luck brings 99.9999999% of people who play the lottery is losing.

Some luck was involved in the perfect attendance record--no sickness, no injury--but still, the boy had to make some effort to show up. It sounds like the boy has a rather controlling mother, and maybe she had a lot to do with his perfect attendance record.

Luck, though, is usually not such a controlling factor that an individual (or group) can't screw it up through diligent effort. The gifted student may not have to exert much effort to learn, but she should still be encouraged and rewarded for effort. And so should the other students in the class who don't learn as easily -- which is also a matter of luck, or chance.

Interesting article.

One always has to be cautious about the glib generalizations of journalists who, more often than not, do not accurately represent the groups they are covering. The idea of the various generations (whether it be "the greatest generation, the baby boom generation, their children, their grand children the millennials, and generation X) having these very unique characteristics seems to me to have the ring of baloney.

Sure, there are generational differences because economics and culture change, but watching TV on the internet instead of over-the-air broadcasting is not a revolutionary act. Or not driving a car and owning a home because you can't afford it isn't a radical act of rebellion.

In general, people tend to strongly resemble their parents. They cluster with their peers. People who grew up in the suburbs are likely in the long run to return to live there. People move to urban cores for various reasons, among which are being possible to live without a car, rental housing is easier to find, services are closer, and there is more anonymity and diversity in the urban core which makes it easier for odd balls to fit in.

Some cities, and some parts of cities, are too expensive for any but the well established to live. It isn't a choice, it's economics. That goes for suburbs too; some suburbs and exurbs are just very expensive, and intend to stay that way.

Millennials aren't the first generation to have difficulty getting established in their 20s. I don't think it has ever been easy to get established in one's 20s. If one married at 18 or 20, had children, took the kind of jobs that were available in one's given time and place, had the usual good and bad experiences typical of being alive, then life was going to be tough sometimes for the first 15 to 20 years, until the children grew up and went out on their own. Later, one's income would be greater and expenses would be lessened and one could enjoy life more. Only the lucky few can start out in life with plentiful money.

All that being said, many people in the post-baby-boom generations haven't done as well as previous generations -- not because their values were different, but because of changes in the economic operation of the country. Ordinary people in the middle of the working class have experienced less favorable economic conditions that began around 40 years ago. It became more difficult to get ahead. Certain groups like professionals, entrepreneurs (if they were successful), the very well educated and highly skilled have done very well, but that is not a huge slice of the population.

First do no harm is a well known maxim of morality, am I right? — TheMadFool

"Primum non nocere, first do no harm" is a maxim in bioethics and a good one. But in medicine and and in many other settings, not doing harm is more difficult than it appears. For instance, prescribing too many antibiotics, too many addictive pain medicines, or doing too many invasive procedures has resulted in bad consequences rather than good ones. The bad results stemming from good intentions and doctor's desires to cure, reduce pain, or remove very slow growing cancers has resulted in less effective antibiotics, addiction, and unnecessary consequences from surgery. At first, these actions looked good and benign.

Examples of the difficulty of "first, do no harm" being difficult to fulfill can be heaped up from all sorts of settings--caught in the phrase, "If it's not broken, don't fix it." Most energetic well-intentioned people have screwed things up at one time or another (I certainly have) by "fixing" things that "weren't broke".

due process — prothero

proportionality — prothero

I doubt if there was ever a wish for due process by the #me2 phenomena. Due process is slow and might be quite public. The court doesn't reliably find all of the accused guilty. Cases may be thrown out. I doubt also that there was any wish for proportional claims. If there is proportionality, where does one draw the line among rude and/or tasteless behavior, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault? What happens to solidarity if women who have been raped outrank, in an aristocracy of suffering, those who have been subjected only to repeated requests to have sex?

Besides, if offending men get fired on the basis of reports alone, why bother with due process? Who cares about proportionality if one can get results by making accusations which are likely to result in a firing or costly resignation? It's an all women for every woman free for all.

Does it then become impossible to steal? — Lone Wolf

Unfortunately, we are quite capable of doing what we know damn well is wrong, and we go ahead and do it anyway. Then we feel guilty, and guilt may help us mend our ways. Have I done those things I ought not to have done? You bet. Have I left things undone that I ought to have done? Absolutely. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turnéd, everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Here, George Frederich Handel wrote a little ditty about it. I'm including the words, because to some people it sounds like, "Oh, we like sheep!" which sends their minds in unfortunate directions.

Why is inequality a problem? Was equality in the USSR any better, for example? — Coldlight

I have not idea what conditions in the USSR were with respect to pay rates, though soviet women were far more commonly employed in professional and technical fields than in the United States, at least.

One reason that pay inequality is a problem is that people don't like getting the short end of the stick, whether they are male, female, black, white, or what have you. Another reason it is a problem is that western societies SAY that everyone should be treated equally, and unequal pay for equal work flies in the face of that ideal. Pay inequality adds to the amount of social friction (which is the reason you are hearing so much about this).

IF women are as productive as men in a given job, everything else being equal (like time on the job) then they should be rewarded in the same way that men are.

As a university student, it is the case that someone's constantly trying to convince me that there is an ongoing issue with discrimination against any and all minorities. — Coldlight

Coldlight, as a university student you are in a milieu of maximum exposure to the various ideological debates going on in society. Once you leave university and get a job in business, read the newspaper (or website) of your choice, associate mostly with people like yourself, you will hear less about all of this discrimination and pay equity stuff.

Pay rates have not been equalized across the board in the U.S. but it is far better than it was 50 years ago, before inequality began to be challenged. Pay in public employment covered by civil service rules achieves better equality because pay rates are public. In private employment they are not public, so there is greater inequality, even if it is less than it used to be.

Over the last 50 years the reason for women being in the workforce has changed as well. In the post WWII boom it was possible for a head-of-household to work one job and support his or her family--at least if he or she was working full time in a reasonably well paid job. Once the boom ended, it became necessary for both partners to work to maintain a given lifestyle (whatever that was). But women entered the workforce later than men, and this is one piece o the inequality picture.

The boom ended in the 1970s, and with it came inflation, slower wage growth, or for many people, no wage growth. Some areas of employment (managerial, technical, highly skilled labor, etc.) did very well, and continue to do very well.

It's quite possible (don't have a data set to reference) that women who were entering the labor force out of necessity after the 1970s missed the gravy boat of the post-war boom. It was difficult, if not impossible for them to catch up, just because they hadn't been in the work force earlier.

All that is water over the dam at this point, but the problem of inequality still exist, even if they aren't as extreme as they were in the past.

What constructs the essence of one's being? — Lone Wolf

Existence comes before essence. You have already existed a long time before you began to contemplate you essence. Much is given to you when you are conceived, and much is given to you, and you take much, after you are born. In our earliest years of formation, there is nothing or very little that we can do to achieve any "essence". Much later, when you pause to ask yourself, "What am I, essentially?" you find that you are what you have become. Is all then lost? Have you no choices? Not all is lost, you have choices, but you can't undo what has already happened in your life.

You can call yourself lazy and stupid. Perhaps you have a streak of self-hatred; perhaps you are actually brilliant and hard working. Or, maybe you are lazy and stupid. Lazy, stupid, self-loathing, smart, industrious, self-accepting, or whatever you are, determining what your "essence" is requires more than a quick glance in the mirror.

What is required to find your essence is self-investigation -- knowing yourself. It's a long-term assessment. What you did yesterday isn't your essence. Maybe you are a good and honest person year in, year out. Just because you robbed a bank yesterday doesn't make you the "essential bank robber". If you had been rolling drunks, sticking up convenience stores, robbing banks, breaking into cash machines, and yes, robbing banks, then maybe your essence would be closer to Tony Soprano and farther from Mother Theresa. On the other hand, people might like you more as Tony Soprano of North Caldwell, NJ than as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Saint Teresa of Calcutta seemed kind of a bitch, at least in the hands of Christopher Hitchens' essay, Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Of course, Tony had plenty to talk about with his psychiatrist, and he should definitely have gone to confession about every 15 minutes and performed infinite acts of contrition. I'd still rather spend a weekend with Tony than Teresa.

I did not say he want to give more power to anyone but himself. — charleton

Soros is, of course, a member of a very tiny super-elite, that few dozen people who possess more wealth than better than half of the world's population has. I don't think they have a lot to fear, at this point, from social media. Were social media formed from the ground up--rather than from the elite down--it might represent a real decentralized force for the people to express their will.

As it is, social media only seems decentralized: the server farms and backbone connections that house and distribute FaceBook, YouTube, Google, Amazon, et al are owned and overseen by a handful of corporations. Control is highly centralized. Were a revolution to be proposed on social media and get traction, it would be a simple matter to unplug that social media platform. Yes, it would cost the companies their revenue, but a disruption in revenue vs. dissolution in a revolution makes it a simple choice for the elite.

The elites, whether they be liberal or conservative, first of all look after the material basis of their elite status. Their material interests will always put them on the opposite side of The People, that is, the many "you and me"s of the world.

Men can be beautiful too — Akanthinos

Of course men can be beautiful. Men, women, young, old, thin, fat, healthy, sick, rich, poor, black, white, red, yellow -- all can be, but not everyone is. What is the difference between being beautiful and being not beautiful, and more explicitly, being homely, ugly?

Some of this is taste, of course. De gustibus non disputandum est, and all that. But it seems to me there are certain requirements for someone to be recognized as beautiful or handsome (by strangers: lovers, best friends, fathers, and mothers are all too biased).

1. Proportion: a pleasing midrange balance in height, weight, musculature;
2. Fair degree of facial symmetry: No one is perfectly symmetrical
3. Physical grace
4. Generous endowment of hair on head, or clear balding (no hair) rather than patchy hair
5. Clear exposed skin: relatively free of scars, infection, birth marks, moles, keratoses, sores, etc.
6. If clothed, wearing flattering garb

Others?

The meat and potatoes of a life is what one accomplishes, what one attempts, how one behaves. Beauty is gravy, and without accomplishments is just nice to have around. It isn't "important". That said, in reality people who are beautiful tend to get more breaks.

Rosa Parks is beautiful because she represents something more than just this fleeting appearance, but that honour, courage, compassion elevate her to something more than just our desires, to something eternal. — TimeLine

We should not confuse "distinguished accomplishments" with "beauty". Rosa Parks had a distinguished career as a civil rights worker, capped by her act of claiming a seat at the front of a bus in the segregated south. She was prepared and she was courageous. Whether she was "beautiful" is irrelevant to her accomplishments.

Question: Can an obese person be "beautiful"? ("Obesity" generally means grossly fat, not just a little over-weight.) 40 to 60 extra pounds generally lands one in or close to obese territory. It'd be very unusual for the average person to carry 50 extra pounds so well distributed that there wouldn't be rolls and bagging, which is generally not considered lovely. Rubenesque is luscious and voluptuous. Obese is just lard-assesque.

The old media and the rich with their corporation have been in control since the dawn of time — charleton

Calm down, charleton; the old media haven't been around since the dawn of time. No doubt the NYT would liked to have covered the Big Bang, but they missed the event by 13.4 billion years.

Anyone who has read Chomsky's Manufacture of Consent will agree with you about the negative aspects of old media. Old media, and their rich owners did, do, and will continue to skew the news in their own favor, by and large. However, so will new media do that. The Golden Rule says that them with the Gold make the Rules, and Mark Zuckerberg is no different the the Ochs-Sulzburger clan of the New York Times.

Please don't labor under the delusion that Facebook, Amazon, Google, et al don't plan on manufacturing and manipulating your consent even more than it was manipulated in the past.

Google are not making you behave differently. — charleton

Sure they are. People use Google to find information which was heretofore difficult, or very time consuming to locate. That's a change, and as far as I can tell, a positive one. Google serves as a crutch for people's memory. It's easy to find spellings, for instance, or definitions using Google. Of course there are other applications (and print dictionaries haven't disappeared) but... Google is quick. No need to memorize spellings, meanings.

On the other hand, Google is principally in the advertising business--that's how they actually make most of their money. There is no profit, not even income, in our asking Google how to spell antidisestablishmentarianism. Advertising revenue comes in when you click on a commercial site (any site that carries advertising messages) and you see a banner ad, or a (usually short) video placed in-between you and the content you were looking for, and so on.

Google isn't the only advertising company working on the Internet, and there is nothing unusual about it's methods.

Where Google is in a position to manipulate your attention is demonstrated on YouTube. A while back, when a video was complete, it just stopped. Now YouTube presents you with maybe 4 choices of what to watch next, and sometimes a video just starts running, selected or not. This isn't the end of free will, of course, BUT it tends to keep your eyeballs on the screen for a longer period of time, during which more advertising can be sent your way.

Finally, Google and a lot of other companies, mine personal information which is a valuable commodity when massed together. Your internet activity leaves a trail which can be analyzed to determine what you are interested in, and what you might be willing to look at, and perhaps buy. Opinions can be determined by this sort of analysis too. Alone we aren't worth much, but together we are.

The Internet is providing a platform for forums like this and a multitude of grass roots political movements which have the potential to completely change the status quo — charleton

Remember, Google and the Internet are not one and the same thing. True enough, the Internet does provide a platform from which political movements can operate -- think about the Bernie Sanders campaign. There are all sorts of anarchist, socialist, libertarian, and fascist alt-right groups on the Internet, plus all the other mainstream political organizations.

Facebook is, I think, worse than Google in a number of ways, in terms of it's capacity to capture the eyeballs of people who like to watch things that move. Facebook creates the fiction that one has a window on the world. It may be a place where some people can make connections with others, but let's face it: FaceBook is not a real place. It's a virtual place where people can project whatever virtual image of themselves they want. It feeds on itself.

In real life, the presence of real bodies impedes this virtual game playing.

I just have this vague doubt concerning rationality. — TheMadFool

You are absolutely honest here: you have a vague doubt.

We can be good without rationality but we can't be bad without being rational. Murder needs a strategy but to make someone happy all you need to do is smile. See? — TheMadFool

No to both sides. "All you need to do is smile" is, in a word, imbecilic.

I readily agree that rationality is limited, in that it can devise plans, design parts, and lay out elaborate proposals. In itself, rationality tends neither to goodness nor evil. The mainspring of behavior isn't the pre-frontal cortex, it's the limbic system -- the emotions. Wishes, wants, desires, urges, rages, love, hate, hot, cold, and all that are not opposed to rationality, they drive rationality.

Performing 'good' requires as much rationality as performing evil. As Jesus put it, be as subtle as serpents but as gentle as doves. Good ideas badly executed will at least result in waste, fraud, and abuse. To do good well requires rationality.

The flaw in "rational human" isn't that rationality produces evil, it's that alone it doesn't produce much of anything. Again: emotion, not rationality, is the mainspring of behavior.

Well organized hate as opposed to badly organized love, is a cliché--which may be true in some instances, but in general isn't true. International aid programs, social service programs, and all sorts of good works require the same high level organization that wickedness requires.

BTW, my dentist and I were discussing a picture of 200,000 year old homo sapiens teeth, the oldest modern human teeth found. He said they look like Chinese teeth--the fissures in their teeth are like those in the picture, deeper than other people's teeth. Similarly, he said, European/American teeth and bone structure is different than black teeth and bone structure, and yet again Asian teeth and bone structure is different. Japanese teeth are different than Chinese teeth.

Just a dental reflection on race differences.

It is not "producer versus consumer". It is "frugality versus consumption ".

And it is an integral component of capitalism, not a latent effect of industrialization. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, how independent was industrialization and capitalism in Europe and North America? Pretty much synonymous.

Look, I'm a pretty thrifty fellow, most of the time. I've never been in debt except for a mortgage I paid off in 10 years, and not because I had so much money. I've always been relatively poor -- certainly at the bottom of income expectation for a guy with a masters degree. But... never mind that. The point is, buying objects that one needs like food, clothing, shelter; objects that one wants like books, newspapers, dog food (I don't want it, but the dog certainly does), a gadget or two..., and services like an occasional and inexpensive lunch in a restaurant with friends are not crimes against nature, Wisdom.

People have been consuming necessities, luxuries, and services ever since hunter-gatherers settled down to grow barley and wheat 12,000 years ago. Chemical analysis of containers indicate that they were brewing beer and wine. They gathered to share feasts. They engaged in decorative practices. It's in our nature to produce and consume. It isn't dehumanizing, it isn't unclean, it isn't wrong.

We manipulate things: that's part of our nature, and in order to obtain things and experiences to manipulate in our hands and in our heads we have to work to earn money for these things. Maybe people who go to Disneyland are not living up to your expectations (not mine, either) but everyone isn't going to study philosophy and wear a barrel (Diogenes).

Don't sneer too much at consumers, Wiz. If everybody reduced their consumption by 25%, and eliminated a lot of the superfluous stuff, the world economy would crash and people like us would lose what little we have. It would be globally catastrophic.

Generally, I think this is true. Freud put it this way: "We are not masters of our own houses." As Un noted above (per Hume, rationality is the servant of the passions.

I know some people have claimed that they have perfectly good reasons for mass murder, or human trafficking or what have you, but the reasons they have are always poor arguments. — PossibleAaran

One can certainly build a rational foundation for mass murder, mass sterilization, etc. either prescriptively or retroactively. If, for instance, one understood that people with heritable diseases, a rational program could be devised to make sure they did not pass those abnormal genes on. They could be executed or sterilized.

IF one thought that the very nature of Jewishness, racially and religiously, was to practice ethics inimical to the interests of the German people, and IF one thought that communism was a natural outcome of Jewish ethics (communism also being inimical to the interests of the German people), or IF one thought that Jews were inherently racially inferior, THEN it would be rational to just kill them all.

The National Socialists of Germany went about murdering the Jews in a very well organized and rational manner.

There were physicists who were quite certain that developing an atomic bomb was most definitely a bad idea, not because 1 bomb would destroy the world, but because no one would ever stop with 1 bomb: Whoever could build atomic bombs would make sure they had as many as might be needed. Which, as it happens, is the way things worked out.

You might say, "well! Those are all bad arguments for doing anything. Sure, those are bad arguments, but people are flawed and bad arguments are good enough.

Narrow rationality leads to bad results, such as when someone is focused purely on his or her own narrow perspective, their own very specific wants, needs, emotions. A wider rationality considers others' perspectives, others' wants, needs, and emotions.