I think it was a lot of things, including freedom and fairness. — RepThatMerch22

Yes.

I've been out since 1971. Immediately after Stonewall, and in the years following for... maybe 20 years, at least in Fly Over Land where I live, marriage was not a pressing issue. By the early 90s, the whole gay movement had achieved a lot of its goals. For activists, this is a significant problem: Nobody really tries to work themselves out of a job (or a cause) and when you run out of cause, it's time to expand the franchise.

Marriage was the obvious next place to go. So that is where the leadership of political activism took it. They took it that way along with a generally assimilationist program: "Gay people are just like straights", with the possible exception of what they do in bed. AIDS had somewhat narrowed the options for the well-informed, so what we all were doing in bed may or may not have been much different than your average tired heterosexuals were doing.

Why, then, should there not be at least a right to suicide? — RepThatMerch22

Who needs the right when anyone can bring about their own death?

The individual himself never chooses to be born. He is simply born, and he has no say over what his upbringing is, what his environment is and what to make of his life. He is a consciousness that has entered into existence, through no action of his own.

Why should he not be entitled to put that life to an end if he is of sound mind?

The individual has an instinct for survival, and finds the thought of suicide repulsive. He cannot think of any means by which to commit suicide efficiently, painlessly, quickly and humanely. — RepThatMerch22

I'm not sure that someone who wants to kill themselves because they didn't ask to be born, or weren't consulted about life first really is of sound mind, but...

What's stopping this person from killing themselves? You say "he cannot think of any means by which to commit suicide efficiently, painlessly, quickly, and """humanely""" whatever that means.

I would guess he just isn't trying very hard.

Men generally shoot themselves. It's efficient, quick, painless when done properly, and as humane as any other method, whatever that means. If you can't get ahold of a gun, there are other possibilities. Women often use less effective methods. Sometimes "less effective" is much worse than nothing at all. One might wake up quite damaged, on top of everything else. Are there no bridges to jump off of? Are there no bridge abutments to drive into? Has all the rope been confiscated? Are there no poisons left? Are there no opiates to OD on? Come on -- there are a variety of unsafe and effective methods of ending a life. You would think people who are so dissatisfied with life would be better at coming up with methods for getting the hell out.

You can only help people so far.

We evolved or were designed for a certain kind of environment; a hunter gatherer lifestyle, and for sake of argument, I say that is how we ought to be as it means to be more "human", "one with nature". (not going to try back that up, just an idea) — ehnicma

The way we play this game, you can't just make a claim and then say you are not going to back it up.

Ok, so we evolved into hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherers are modern humans. The hunter-gatherers are the ones who developed the new technology of agriculture, city-building (Jericho, for example), domestication of animals, and so on. They are us. We are as one with nature as they were--which is to say, they, like us, operated ON nature, and operated WITHIN nature.

it's a sort of process which alters society fundamentally and allows for progress; technological or otherwise. — ehnicma

Very true. The kinds of machinery, methods, power, and all that technology which a society has (or doesn't have) determines not only how people will live, but it determines to a large degree what kind of culture they will have.

ought we to have knowledge or ought we to be ignorant as to be more "human", primal, and so on. — ehnicma

Ignorance is not more 'human' than knowledge. It has been a very very long time since we (homo sapiens) were at a point in our evolution that we could choose between the innocence of ignorance and the fallen state of having knowledge. We chose knowledge, and it is very fortunate that we did.

Innocence and ignorance is an over-rated state.

The history of our evolution as a species, and the history of our species as it very slowly accumulated technology, knowledge, culture, language, art, and all that, might be the story you want to read. We became "modern people" many thousands of years ago, and it took us a long time to work our way up to agriculture, domestication of traction animals like horses, wheeled vehicles (like the chariot), writing, building techniques, and so on and so forth.

There are a lot of very good books about all this.

For instance, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond explains how geography benefitted some people more than others, and led to some groups (like Europeans) having more advanced technology than Aztecs, for instance. There is a PBS program on the book, too.

There are good books about hunter-gatherers. Look under ANTHROPOLOGY

There are good books about early civilization, Greek civilization, Chinese/Roman/Amerindian/European/African... Look under HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION.

There are interesting books about the history of technology.

I can't give you a nice list of books because I have been reading about this stuff for 50 years, now and there isn't any 2 or 3 books into which all of this is condensed. You will just have to do what other people do (it's really quite pleasant) read and study history.

I disagree, people in my experience are either 9-5 zombies on a treadmill that's increasingly delivering less real prosperity for the average person, or they're retreating into fantasy worlds of various sorts (sucking the teat of various kinds of consumerism).

We are tremendously advanced in terms of technology, and that's keeping our heads above water, but the morale situation is pretty dire - consider suicide rates (particularly among men). — gurugeorge

You make some valid observations here.

I don't know how old you are, but age makes a difference. I'm over 70 and a lot of the people I interact with are also. Somewhere along the line, age tends to change the way one looks at things. It isn't a choice, it's a given. Going into old age with a really negative attitude is likely to lead to one dying sooner, rather than later.

I know that for many younger people, the satisfactions obtainable in whatever jobs are available are likely to be few and far between. A lot of the jobs I had were shit holes, and working in them did not contribute to a positive disposition.

Excessive technology is not helping anyone. The fact is, smart phones, smart tablets, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest, quickly train people to expect frequent stimulation and satisfaction. People thus get sort of addicted to their media and gadgets, and end up interacting with the real world through virtual contact. Bad idea.

I'm not against good gadgets and nice sites, but we need to realize that these things are benefitting Apple, Samsung, FaceBook, Twitter, et al far more than you and me.

I am afraid you are right -- a lot of people are escaping into fantasies, or (in the case of middle-aged men in the rust belt, killing themselves). A lot of male farmers in India are killing themselves too for similar reasons -- they just don't see a future for themselves or their families.

without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away — darthbarracuda

A nice paradox.

If you stop feeding people, they stop shitting in their pants.

Just joking.

BTW, it has been found in states where assisted suicide is legal, that terminal patients who are approved for suicide assistance experience an easier unassisted death. That is, the relief knowing that they could end their suffering at any time makes the suffering much more bearable. That doesn't mean that no one goes forward with the assisted death, of course.

the case for a right to State-assisted suicide — RepThatMerch22

I don't think this is an entirely serious proposal, but for a provocative post it's reasonably well thought out.

I have two objections right away:

First, the grounds on which you consider suicide permissible are extremely broad. The gate is "wide open." There are cases where suicide may be appropriate, but I would prefer to limit it to cases of painful and/or severely debilitating illness, coupled with some counseling, and requiring more than one physician's approval (and maybe an ethicist's approval too).

Is there a screening process at the door of the suicide facilities, or is it first come first served? If there is a screening process, on how many grounds can a potential suicide be rejected (or accepted)? Are staff going to be in a position to argue with, cajole, encourage, discourage... suicide cases on the grounds that they think the person should or should not keep living?

IF the grounds for suicide are too inclusive ("life is a drag, I think I'll kill myself), the screening is minimal or suicide affirmative, then "state assisted suicide" gets closer to "state encouraged suicide". State encouraged suicide is a step towards state-sponsored murder.

There is a slippery slope. I don't think a tightly controlled program greases the skids to mass murder, but a very liberal approach might.

In your example, you seem to be giving and edge in favor of poor people committing suicide. Maybe if something were done about their poverty, they would feel less like killing themselves.

True enough, nobody asked to be born, and the circumstances into which one was born may be unwholesome and unpleasant in myriad ways. I am against antinatalism, nihilism, and (to add another one) a generously defined right to state assisted suicide.

I am not against abortion, I am not against the earliest possible abortion of a child with severe biologica/mental defects, I am not altogether in favor of heroic efforts to save very premature babies, and I am not against assisted suicide -- though I prefer the state be NOT involved. Indeed, I don't know that there need to be facilities and lots of staff. It seems to me that there are sedatives, poisons, paralytics, and so forth that can be taken by the individual at home (or somewhere else) and bring about their death. On the other hand, of course some people would need help.

It doesn't NEED to be expanded to more people. — schopenhauer1

Of course, it doesn't NEED to be expanded to more people. I thought we agreed on that. Is our main difference that I think more people get added the same way more squirrels keep getting added, and you think people are going out of their way to reproduce for some sort of reason?

The reproductive urge operates whether anybody (squirrel or human) wants it to operate or not. It just does.

I say no, it doesn't matter what the philosopher intended to say or how he felt about something, what matters is what meaning is derived from his work by the consumer. In literary studies there is this idea called the Death of Author, which essentially says that the intent of the author, and the context in which he wrote isn't relevant to interpreting his work, that whoever wrote a text isn't an author as much as he is a scribe, who came into existence with the text, does not exist outside of writing the text, and ceases to exist with the completion of the text and it's subsequent dissemination — who and what he is doesn't matter, he was nothing more than a vehicle for the transcription of the text, which should be interpreted in isolation, as if we don't know who wrote it or anything about him. — Bacchus

This takes me back a ways. I remember this idea from college days back in the late 1960s.

It is possible to put too much emphasis on the author, his or her particulars, his or her motivation, his or her intention, and so on. The author's biography may not explain anything about the author's work. Or it may explain a great deal.

Divorcing the author from the text, on the other hand, strikes me as... what, stupid? Ill advised? Out of touch with reality? An act of "consumer" hubris to suppose that the reader can know more about the author's book than the author? It is one thing to read a book and say to one's self, "I don't care when, where, what, why, or how about the author--this was a great book" or "This book is just trash". Quite often we don't know anything about the author (usually because we didn't look for any information) and quite often it doesn't matter. It's a different thing to pick up a given book and say, "Hell, I don't need to know anything about the author. He was just the typist. Whatever he thought he was saying, he was deluded anyway, so... screw it. I'll just decide what this means, and it will be right as rain.

So, let me bring the average elevation of this discussion down to earth. The typical pulp porn title (like the "In Hand" series of cheap paperbacks from the 1950s) actually works in the manner that Barthes proposes. The text has no significant relationship to the author. Indeed, there may not even be an "author". The text may have been written by a series of temporary typists who were following formulas such as Use words "Levis", "zipper", "cock", "bulging basket", "throbbing", "hot" ... 3 times per page, and so forth.

The series of gay novels by Phil Andros, on the other hand, were not written by temporary typists. They were written in the 1970s-1980s by Samuel Steward, a gay professor of English in Chicago, aficionado of extremely rough S&M sex (he the slave), and a famous tattoo artist and tattoo innovator who became the "official" tattoo artist of the Hells Angels in Oakland--their choice, not his.

Had one graduated from one-handed reading matter or text (you can guess what the other hand was doing) to Phil Andros, it would have added depth and perspective to know something about the author. Same thing with John Rechy who wrote of gay hustlers in Los Angeles.

Back to the mountain top:

We don't know anything about the authors of Gilgamesh or Genesis, and that's the way it's going to stay, for better or worse. Some people are pretty sure Shakespeare was not the author of the plays ascribed to William Shakespeare, and maybe it just doesn't matter who the author was. There was a definite author, however, and the author of Shakespeare's plays had intentions that shaped his work, especially the historical plays. Was Richard III a villain, or not? Shakespeare had reasons for the role he was given in his namesake play. There was authorial intent and understanding the text requires some background.

This poem can be enjoyed without knowing who the author was, or what his concerns were. It isn't necessary to know what literary references are contained in the lines (like, "I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had with drawen himself") but it helps IF one understand the author's intent, and his method.

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

If philosophy is not quite the same as pornographic texts or 16th and 17th century poets, it isn't entirely different. Antecedents and relationships need to be considered, especially if you think of philosophy as a long conversation. Who is the author talking to? Himself? Probably not.

The Marshall McLuhan scene from Woody Allen's Annie Hall in which pontificating poops are punctured...

So yeah, I'm all butt hurt and I'm leaving. Laterz. — Wosret

Wait a few hours, see how you feel. Then wait another day or two, see you feel. I would much prefer that you stay on with the rest of us. On the other hand, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I've walked out of some organization on a couple of occasions. It felt good. It didn't make any difference to THEM, just me.

"I run away and hide the shame
I render you weak and lame
Numb your hands, numb your face
Insensitive to my disgrace

Poison you with every breath
worship falsity, worship death
Paranoia, distrust
Fear lust, and disgust.

Perhaps uncreated, but it can still be destroyed. — Baden

Philosophy can be packaged in poetic form. It's an accessible statement. I don't see a problem.

So, you agree. — TheMadFool

No. I just cited the doctrine of original sin. Our alleged affliction with original sin removes the element of choice, which is convenient. All the bad things that people do is explainable under that doctrine.

We could assert that man is good, doesn't have the cancer of evil, and everything is for the best. That's way too saccharine.

What I like better is to say that we are a conflicted animal. We have both selfish and altruistic urges, both of which we encourage in ourselves and each other: different urges at different times, depending... Which is ascendent?

We could say that:
1. Even in the presence of encouragement to do good and the law not barring such activities we find so few good people.
2. Even in the presence of laws preventing bad actions and the discouraging of evil we find so many bad people. — TheMadFool

We could say that, or not. Which of these we would say depends on preference, not evidence, because the evidence will always be overwhelmingly mixed, and one can pick out the pattern that one likes.

But we still haven't gotten to rock bottom yet: What determines our preference for thinking that people are either evil, good, or merely severely conflicted? Probably genes. NO, there isn't an "original sin" gene, a "basically good" gene, or a "severely conflicted animal" gene. What there is are genes that orient us towards a more or less sanguine view of life, and then there is personal experience (which includes education, reading, sermons, human interactions, and so on).

There isn't anything "wrong" with the three preferences, but they do produce different "affect" in people. People inclined towards a more pessimistic view will frequently align themselves with the original sin view. Those who have a more optimistic view will head for the basically good camp. Chronic fence sitters like myself will head for the conflicted animal corral. And these preferences aren't unchanging or unchangeable.

No matter what one thinks about human behavior, we throw up conflicting evidence. We continually do good, bad, and indifferent acts.

So, doesn't that mean that people are inherently bad? — TheMadFool

That is the general idea behind Original Sin -- man is prone to sin.

Doing good is not attractive; it's not flashy and it doesn't grab attention, generally. — Noble Dust

Borne out in the biography and letters of Dorothy Day. Helping homeless and destitute people, especially through close enough contact to effectively affirm their human value, is very low profile work. People don't like looking at the really poor. We look away.

I rent, but I am sure that the landlord's property taxes are passed on to me in my monthly rent. I don't have any children, let alone any children in public schools. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, they absolutely are passing property taxes on. Does the state where you live offer property tax relief to renters?

How is it good economics? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

When the chattering classes are on camera talking about good economics, they aren't thinking of people like you or me. they are thinking of people more like themselves, people who have made it well enough to be in the chattering lasses. Professional people, people who have good jobs, nice solid incomes that allow for travel, meals at better restaurants, a nicer car, better clothing--you know, up market stuff. The lives of us riff raff are not interesting, unless we fit into the preferred class of Victims Du Jour (fill in your preferred VDJ here).

I am supposed to believe that it is all just, fair, part of "progress", etc. Prove that it is! — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Au contraire, mon bon ami. Life was not fair in the past, is not fair now, and in all probability, won't be fair in the future. I don't like that, but that's the way it is. Oh, I see below this text box that Noble Dust just scooped me. Unfair, Dust Nob. The nerve!

I have made the statement several times here in the last few weeks that wages, economic security, purchasing power, etc. of the working class has been declining since 1975. Still, on the surface it doesn't look like people are 50% poorer now than they were 40 years ago. That's because both spouses are working at least 1 job, and if they have them, older children also work part time, quite often. Credit card debt, not thrift, is covering the gaps. Does the credit card get paid off every month? No, of course not. Another method people who own a home are using to cover over gaps is home equity loans--they're borrowing against their one major asset, quite often reducing the value of the house to zero.

Your perspective just isn't part of the official narrative. Sorry, you're just not quite pathetic enough. Plus, you are a gay white male (just guessing) and everybody knows that GWMs are a privileged group again, especially now that we aren't dying of AIDS, left and right.

I've been in the workforce since 1971. I have been both professionally employed, and have worked at temporary jobs or short term, white collar jobs. The most I made per hour was about 14.5, and that for only a year. Otherwise, I've made ends meet through frugality. I've seem the value of wages decline slowly, but pretty much continuously. I didn't have children, I didn't support my partner (we both worked, until he had to go on disability). I've never made enough in 40 years to raise my 'standard of living' more than a notch or two.

Is this fair? No. People who have done much better than me (education, experience, etc. being equal) were not necessarily more intelligent, more creative, or harder working than I was, but they were much more focused on the methods by which one advances. They had much, much more social intelligence than me. (I'm kind of a moron in that department, plus my aspirations didn't start out very high.)

Life is not fair, but at least it isn't singling you out for special treatment. A lot of people are getting crapped on.

Strange that we haven't heard of any philosophers chiming in on why there were so many fires in California, just recently, or why there are sun spots.

Popper has been upgraded from "useless" to "not useless".

Scientists get paid more and are, in general, more useful than most philosophers. There are more people calling themselves "philosopher" now than in all the previous centuries of philosophical activity. Hey, I'm a philosopher! Someone working on new antibiotics for Pfizer is NOT more useful than Heraclitus or Aristotle or Hume or ,,,take your pick. But the scientist investigating bacterial genes Bayer is more useful than the slew of recently decanted philosophers running around university hallways.

Aside from that, why do you want to know?

From the New York Times 12 28 17:

Do Australians Need a Sugar Intervention?

Since 1990, the number of obese adults in Australia has tripled. Can a region built on the sugar industry turn down the sweets? Our documentary explores that question. — NYT

Rats! All those great looking svelte guys on the beach in their minimal Speedos are now lard asses, and have switched to gawd-awful looking floppy swim pants. Quelled horreurs! Cancel the beach vacation in Oz.

Assume that the person I had taken it from has died and it can't be returned to its original owner. — czahar

Possibly your act of taking their stereo killed them. After all, how will they survive without the soundtrack of their life playing in the background?

Just joking. I agree. We don't want people carrying out DIY justice. I should not break into your house and reclaim my stereo--though if I knew it was in there and you were definitely not going to be back soon, I would be sorely tempted. And what else have you got? Maybe some other good stuff, even better than my old stereo you stole. (Somebody once stole an old vacuum cleaner from my basement during a break in. WTF?)

You didn't mention the social contract theory which says that as a member of a society receiving social benefits of various kinds, we have an obligation to pay taxes, as part of the 'social contract'.

The rich do get richer but the cake also gets bigger over time. — BlueBanana

Unfortunately, the cake does not get bigger for everyone, and the share of the cake that the rich get increases faster than the expansion of the cake. See Piketty (économiste français).

One of Marx's quotes from the Manifesto is that "The state is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie." In other words, the state is the servant of the capitalists, or bourgeoisie. It serves their interests. This is more and less true at various times, but right now it is much more true.

The state can be good, even now--defining the state as any level of government above the village level: county, metropolitan, state, federal government, international quasi-governmental organizations like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, or UN. Big states, like the Federal Government, can do a lot of good, or a lot of bad, just because of their size.

if you look at the condition of the public schools in poor neighborhoods, you see that it's not working. — fishfry

Indeed. Since you have a hard-on for the US Government, you will enjoy reading the book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of how our Government Segregated America -- published 2017. I was shocked to find that de jure (by law) segregation of housing and cities was Federal policy from at least 1935 when the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was established, and earlier, in other agencies. The rules were explicit: blacks and whites are not to live in the same communities (defined in detail to all white blocks, mixed blocks, and all black blocks).

The FHA rules were struck down in the 1960s by courts and Johnson's housing initiative, but it wasn't until the 1980s that things were really changed, Unfortunately for blacks, it was too late to benefit from the changes. Housing priced had risen out of reach of blacks. They were, to use the technical term, totally screwed,

The effect was enduring impoverishment of blacks, enduring advantages for whites. One of the latter day consequences of this now-abandoned, unconstitutional policy is that blacks and whites remain pretty rigidly segregated, and poverty is concentrated in black communities. Because schools are ultimately organized around housing patterns, the poorest schools receive the poorest children with the most disadvantages, and no surprise, they don't do well.

There isn't any easy or inexpensive way to undo the damage long-term segregation caused. I'm not sure we even know what to do that would be effective. At any rate, it was our government that did it. Was it Roosevelt's idea? Roosevelt was liberal, but the congress was controlled by southern segregationists who were very committed to maintaining segregation. The only way a housing program could be legislated and funded was by excluding blacks. (It wasn't just helping blacks and whites separately, it was more like not helping blacks at all.)

Similarly, most blacks in the south (domestic workers and agricultural workers--about 75-80% of the black workforce in the south) were excluded from Social Security until after WWII.

Anyway, the Color of Law is good -- punchy, well written, good documentation, well edited.

...are you a classical Marxist? — fishfry

This sounds a bit like the line of questioning in the House Unamerican Activities Committee..."Are you now, or were you ever a member of the Communist Party?"

I suppose so. I think Marx was right when he described the method by which wealth is extracted from workers -- surplus value. (Workers produce more value than they receive in wages. The difference between the wages they are paid and the value of the goods they produce is expropriated by the bourgeoisie owners. [Reality is more elaborate than that, but that's close enough for our purposes here.]

Marx died 30+ years before the Russian Revolution. What happened in Russia depended far more on Lenin and Stalin than it did on Marx. I suppose it depended on 300 years of Romanov despotism, too.

I have been a member of a Marxist political party. Our program was based on the work of Daniel DeLeon (1852 – 1914) and his American interpretation of Marxism. That is, in countries with a strong democratic tradition, workers should (must) use the tools of democracy to achieve a radical restructuring of society. This can be accomplished through industrial union organizing (not trade unionism), intensive political education, extensive political action, and elections. Revolution can be carried out peacefully within a democratic society.

Theoretically, DeLeon was right, but it turned out that the State, Capitol, and Corporations were quite capable of frustrating unions with radical social change in mind. The labor movement faced more concerted and continuous opposition in the United States than in most countries, maybe with the exception of Nazi Germany. The USSR and PRC just banned unionism outright.

The various American Marxist political parties -- from the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers, Socialist Labor, on to the New Union Party and a few others -- have pretty much subsided. Unionism isn't at an all-time low but it is not far from it. Capitol is triumphant. Working people -- the vast majority of Americans (80% at least) -- have experienced a continual slide in wages and purchasing power since the mid 1970s. Automation, globalism, deskilling jobs, etc. have reshaped the world's workforce including us Americans. There are some winners, a lot of losers in all of the change.

Nothing that has happened, or is happening, invalidates Karl Marx's basic understanding of capitalism. Marx didn't claim that the victory of the working class was inevitable, only that extreme conflict was certain.

What do you, or I, or anyone want to see in a future society? What I'd like to see looks much more like Europe than China; more like Cuba than Central America; more like Vietnam than North Korea...

I'd like to see democratic socialism around the world, and the demise of capitalism. Does that mean the end of creative labor, entrepreneurial type work, a drab, gray world with flat cultures? Hell, no. It does mean that most people come much closer to having there basic+ needs met. Not "middle class" but more than enough to survive on.

First you say that the law is only as good as the people behind it, then you say a tyrannical law is worse than tyrannical dictator, and that law legitimizes tyranny,,,

There never was a golden age of good law, good people, good rulers, good outcomes, of course. But still, most civilized countries manage to have fairly good law, reasonably good people, adequate rulers, and more or less satisfactory outcomes. The Nazi period in Germany was an extreme breakdown in the area of good law, good people... Other countries have had far less extreme breakdowns, but periodically just plain bad people get the upper hand, until they can be beaten back.

Good law represents a consensus by good people of what a good society should be like. The consensus of good law is important.

Will that justice be enforced? At least with a despot you have an enemy, you can go after him. But with the law, who can you go after? That's why the law was invented - nobody is responsible anymore - the law is blamed. The law orders the Nazi officer to yank the Jews out of their homes and to the gas chambers they go... So he knocks on the door "Sorry ma'am. It's the law, I'm forced to now yank you from your home and put you on this train. My apologies, I'm just obeying the law. If you want, you can file a complaint on the train later". — Agustino

What, exactly, are you intending to be for and against here? Why would you counterpose the Holocaust against law? The nazis made a sham of the law, replacing it with the rule of persons like Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, et al.

It's impossible for a sceptical, materialist-minded person to go back to a religious point of view, and yet it's also psychologically impossible to face nihilism naked and unadorned. — gurugeorge

It isn't necessary to face nihilism stark naked and "unadorned". (Did you mistype "unarmored" but auto-correction decided it liked "unadorned" better?)

First, it isn't impossible for a skeptical materialist-minded person to go back to a religious point of view. I'm not suggesting that a skeptical materialist should, but it clearly isn't impossible. Difficult yes -- very conflictual, for sure.

All you need is the willingness to affirm some basic humanist principles, like #8 of the Humanist Manifesto:

EIGHTH: Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man’s life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist’s social passion.

The Humanists strive to be "good without god". ADVOCATING PROGRESSIVE VALUES AND EQUALITY FOR HUMANISTS, ATHEISTS, AND FREETHINKERS is their motto.

Secular Humanist has the same kind of chilly quality that Unitarianism has, as far as I am concerned, but that's just me. It could do with a little smoke and bells. Check it out.

last fading tatter of Christian morality in the West — gurugeorge

egalitarianism über alles that characterizes modern liberalism — gurugeorge

Everything is devolving to "might makes right," — gurugeorge

Christian morality is intact (it's a system; it's based on certain documents and models; these sorts of things, whether it be Christian or Égalité über allies (to mix language and slogans) isn't that tied to Christian morality. There is a connection, sure. "Might makes right" is hardly a new idea.

Adherence to Christian morality, or Confucianism, or Sufism or socialism or democracy--pick an ism, any ism--is what makes it vital, Neglect it, and it is the practitioners morality that is in tatters. Practice it, and it is as solid as ever.

There is a lot about any moral system to which one can object, certainly, but billions--not just millions--of people, including people in the West--are practicing workable moral systems that serve them well. There is, most likely, a strata of people within the 7.3 billion humans, who have lapsed into nihilistic, dead-end a-morality. My guess is that a lot of them are occupying corporate suites and high government positions and social elites. These people's influence is outsized. They have real power, but they also have symbolic power, and it is possible to get confused and suppose that everybody is like them.

The ordinary folk that I rub shoulders with every day don't seem to have lapsed into a nihilistic funk (not that they are all happy, robustly and athletically moral, or anything like that).

That seems like an improbably positive interpretation to apply to the Africa, S. Asia, SE Asia, and south America all at once.

universal basic income — Purple Pond

Even Milton Friedman though a universal basic income was a good idea. How expensive would it be? Maybe not as much as one would think. Those who receive, and really need a basic income are going to spend all the money they get. It will flow back into the economy very rapidly. One of the purposes of the UBI is to enable ordinary people to afford taking risks which they might otherwise not take, to get a better job, earn a better income, get more training, etc.

Yes, some people will use the money to stay at home and spend all day on The Philosophy Forum. That's OK, because they will still have to buy food, clothing, shelter, etc. and that stimulates the economy.

Besides spending, other benefit programs would no longer continue--like unemployment, disability, and the like. The critical factor would be setting the UBI at the appropriate level. It can't be too high or too low. If it's too low, it won't allow people to benefit; if it's too high, the cost-benefit ratio would probably become unfavorable.

Marx? Perhaps we'd have to agree to disagree. Marxism has been a disaster everywhere it's been tried. Seen Venezuela lately? — fishfry

Venezuela is a basket case because of grossly bad management. Bad management doesn't work well in any economic system.

Just the regular rich. The silicon valley CEO married to the Palo Alto physician. Their kids go to good schools and learn to start businesses in their teens. Those are the people I'm talking about. — fishfry

"Entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk—they come from families with money" -- Quartz

I don't know any of these people. I have some information (various reading over the years) on what makes the children of Silicon Valley productive entrepreneurs. The matter has been studied: Parents with lots of money have the means to facilitate their children's success.

Inc. and Fortune cited a study in Quartz to the effect...

What really sets entrepreneurs apart from everyone else? It's not their resourcefulness, imagination, ability to foresee trends, or their belief in their own ideas, according to a recent piece on Quartz. It's the mouthful of silver spoon they were born with. "The most common trait among entrepreneurs is access to financial capital," the piece notes, citing a wide range of research.

Cash parentage is the critical factor: parents who have, for good reasons or not, succeeded and accumulated a lot of wealth (rich, but not super-rich, by any means) are in possession of certain characteristics:

1. They have a lot of connections
2. They have a lot of cash
3. They themselves received, and can afford excellent educational experiences for their children
4. They model how financial success operates.

It isn't that Silicon Valley clones are all brilliant people who can hardly fail at whatever they set their minds to. They got in on the ground floor of a new industry and most of them went to colleges and universities (like Stanford) that prepared them to succeed in this kind of industry.

The point is, if you take your average kid from anywhere USA, give him an excellent education, show him how the world works, provide cash to experiment with (a grant, not a loan), and help him accumulate the contacts that privileged people have, HE TOO will be a great success.

Why doesn't Any Kid, USA succeed? People who don't have extra money tend not to take risks. They don't know people with loads of money (especially on equal terms) so they do not learn how to hobnob among this layer of society. They don't have the money to send their children to community colleges, let alone Princeton or Stanford.

It boils down to silver spoons, not gold plated talent.

You know this is true. — fishfry

No, I do not know that that is true. There was a time within my memory (maybe yours too) when college tuition at major universities was quite affordable. In 1980 a mid-level course in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota was $80. Fees were a little extra--not much. Now they are several hundred dollars. Why? Because state and federal support of University education was cut by legislators and congress. Government support of higher education dropped from around 75% in the early 70s to 25%. Why? To redirect more revenue to the rich. remember, the 1980s was the reign of Ronald Reagan and dubious supply-side economics.

[this] solution is nothing more than a government grab of the assets of productive citizens that does nothing to solve the underlying problem of growing inequality. — fishfry

Well, actually it is the quintessential step to solving growing inequality. The biggest underlying problem is the regressive tax system which allows great fortunes to be built on the backs of workers and by using publicly owned or subsidized infrastructure--railroads, highways, the internet, locks and dams, nationally defended international trade, etc.

The last step is to distribute the tax revenue among the workers in the form of inexpensive college costs, excellent trade school programs, guaranteed government loans for tuition where needed, supplementation of local school budgets, infrastructure, solid public health programs, research programs into major diseases, social security, and so forth

This won't kill off the rich, and it won't kill off industry. I am not proposing socialism here, just a progressive tax system that enables the government to carry out tasks which guarantee a brighter future for everyone, not just the spoiled brats of rich folk. (Seizure of the assets of the rich, socialism, and the dictatorship by the proletariat has been proposed elsewhere.

PS. Since you are protesting so loudly, we can only assume you are sitting on a significant stash of ill-gotten gains. We'll be coming for your wealth later. If you don't mind, stack it up neatly in boxes. It will make the seizure go faster, and be less inconvenient for you.)

This only makes sense if you think the government should be allowed to confiscate the work of someone's lifetime. — fishfry

In fact, it is the rich that are confiscating the work of someone else's lifetime -- their employees. Labor creates all wealth. Capitalists get rich by expropriating for themselves a significant portion of the wealth the workers create. They do this by paying the workers significantly less than the value of the goods they produce.

The offspring aren't only getting money from their parents. They're getting the best education, the best work ethic and values, and so forth. — fishfry

I think you will find that a lot of children of the super rich are not all that productive--and after all, with their predecessor's wealth, there isn't any need for them to be very productive. Most super rich families are happy if their scions don't piss it all down the drain. There are exceptions, of course.

John D. Rockefeller Junior inherited a huge fortune from his father, JDR, Senior. Junior wasn't interested in the oil business which wasn't the free for all that it had been when his father made his many millions, by hook and crook (quite a bit of crook, actually). Junior did feel obligated to increase the family fortune, and decided real estate was the best bet. He bought up, or signed long-term leases on a batch of land (and run of the mill buildings, mostly) and built Rockefeller Center, in New York. It didn't earn much money right away (the depression, WWII) but after the war it started to yield a profit and still does. (I don't know what it's ownership status is today -- it was a very large multi-block development.)

Nelson Rockefeller, son of JD Junior, went into politics. None of the other Rockefeller children or grandchildren became tycoons of any sort.

the gilded age of the 1920's — fishfry

There was a depression around 1893, and a few years later the beginning of the Progressive Era which was about as welcome by the rich as an infestation of their august persons by lice and bed bugs.

The gilded age ended around 1900, give or take a few minutes, thanks to the Progressive Era and Theadore Roosevelt, which instituted controls on industrial giants, banks, brokerages, and the activities of the very, very rich. The 1920s saw waste fraud and abuse under the Harding administration (Teapot Dome scandal--oil and government lands), and there was rampant stock speculation in the late 1920s, ending in the Great Depression. The rampant stock speculation didn't produce a lot of millionaires and it wiped out most of them on October 24, 1929, Black Tuesday. A lot of people were speculating with borrowed money, and when the slide began in the morning, all the speculators suddenly discovered that their stock were worth less than they owed, then it just got worse, and worse and worse.

The economy really didn't recover until 1942, when industrial production was mobilized for WWII.

So yes, the rich get richer because the poor get poorer.

There is no question that material resources are limited, and that their distribution is severely uneven. The distribution is neither fair nor equal. In fact, it is counterproductive. The maldistribution of wealth puts too much wealth in too few hands to produce the benefits that wealth is capable of. A lot of the super-super-rich's wealth is the product of unproductive manipulation of markets. It's rewarding to participants, but it doesn't increase the supply of goods and services.

The distribution of wealth may be worse than you suggest. The 8 richest billionaires control as much wealth as 50% of the world's population (according to Oxfam).

With 8.3 7.3 billion people (and rising) it is difficult to work out what an equal share of wealth would be, and it would be even more difficult to work out the means by which the world's resources could be evenly distributed. Besides which, the needs of individuals are not equal. A person living in Saskatchewan needs a more substantial shelter, more energy and warmer clothes in the winter than someone living equally well in Uganda, where the climate is very mild all year round.

Still, everybody needs a minimum number of calories, clean fresh water, shelter, clothing, access to cultural goods, and the means to obtain these goods. The first three--food, clean water, and shelter, require the most energy input, and are likely to become scarce as the climate heats up, cost effective resources are exhausted, and the population increases. (The population growth rate is slowing, but it is still increasing). Education (access to cultural resources) is already out of reach for large percentages of the world's population.

A redistribution of wealth into regions most in need of assistance to adjust to change (the poorer countries, of course) could be arranged. Will it? Don't hold your breath.

Yes, affirming life as good is a deliberate act of engagement, just as asserting the meaninglessness of life is a deliberate act of engagement.

I didn't read "life is inherently good" in a tweet from the universe. The universe doesn't hand out meaning or meaninglessness. That's our business.

"Just wondering if you had a response to last post here:"

I do.

You mentioned our relation with other animals in a previous post. Other animals do not self-reflect. ... Other animals do their business without a secondary level thinking on top of it. ... We have anchoring mechanisms, distracting mechanisms, isolating mechanisms, and sublimation mechanisms. ... — schopenhauer1

I think you are probably right that other animals do not self-reflect--at least most of them. But we can't be 100% sure there is no sense of self, no self-reflection, because they can't answer our questions of them. If you watch people in silence, they don't seem all that self-reflective a good share of the time, either.

Are these people engaged in self reflection? Anything but. Naked apes addicted to the latest distraction.



Our brains have the complexity (we think) to support this higher level of selfhood. I like to point out that our brain structure is genetically governed, and some parts of brain structure have been the same since fish were invented. Since then--a few hundred million years--brains have become more and more complex. It doesn't seem altogether reasonably that only in this last iteration of brain structure did all our capacities spring forth for the first time. Some of them probably did.

Of course, being the self-reflective creature we are, we can then ask the why. Breeding all of a sudden is broken asunder — schopenhauer1

Not really. The drive to reproduce does not depend on self-reflection. Animals (including us) are wired to become aroused, copulate, and reproduce. Is human reproduction a self-reflective decision? One can hope, but clearly it is not always the result of self-reflection, or reflection on the goodness of the species' prospects, or the prospects of a specific child.

Not broken asunder, because what bonds baby to mama and papa is pretty much the same mechanism across mammals (at least -- not sure about birds). Various stress-suppressing hormones are issued during labor, and then at the critical moment, oxytocin, and that seals the deal. We don't like thinking that our cozy gauzy scenes of maternal bliss are shared with apes, dogs, and god knows what else.

Humans also have instincts. To suppose that all the creatures up to us are governed by instinct, but not us--oh, no!--is absurd. In us, instinct is buried underneath layers of learned behavior more so than among most other animals, but instinct is still operating. And then there is language and culture, which are pretty compelling forces in themselves.

What is it that it is not enough for just the already-living to endure/experience, why must it be expanded. If you say it is because of some experiment, that these new people will bring something novel, it would be using them for the hope of some novel outcome. If you just want new people to "experience" life, then you must ask what it is about enduring life, overcoming challenges, and experiencing harm, that is an imperative to be experienced by yet another person. It is not so easy as other animals, you see. — schopenhauer1

The impulse to keep expanding, to add another generation, was not invented by us bipedal opposable thumbs-bearing homo sapiens sapiens. It has been an installed feature of life from the get go. It is hundreds of millions of years too late to complain. That window was closed... how many hundred million years ago? We are, for better or worse, stuck with it.

If we already-living smart asses were completely language-shaped, philosophizing cultural creatures -- no genes, no instincts, no drives, no hormones, no fit-together-pleasure-producing-baby-hatching parts--then your big WHY? would be of some use: We could rationally decide to pull the plug on one more iteration of our species. We can't.

Children don't have to be planned, they just happen. Yes, I realize they don't just appear like magic--they are the result of fucking. And people like to fuck, and fairly often sperm will meet egg, and another generation will result. To always and everywhere prevent eggs and sperm from meeting, so that no more generations would occur, would require a persistent resolution quite unfamiliar to us. Neither language, culture, genes, habits, biology, nor instincts are in support of such resolution.

it doesn't matter how well reasoned antinatalist objections are. It doesn't matter how much suffering the next generation will have to endure, (or, not incidentally, how much pleasure they would have to forego by not being born). Reproduction isn't the result of culture, language, literature, ideas, philosophy, or anything else that humans have cooked up. When it comes to biological matters (like life) humans are the objects of processes, not the subjects.

That we are the objects of life, and not the subjects, is a singularly inconvenient truth for a smart assed species like ourselves. We are borne aloft, and forward, by mechanisms we have nothing to do with. We are also extinguished by the same biological forces. We are born, flourish for a time, then get old or sick, and die. Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that -- but that's the way it is.

People read statements like mine, and they object that it is all too reductionist, depressing, mechanistic, and so forth. Much the way people (me too) respond to your antinatalist statements. The difference between your view and mine is that you think people can help it, I think people can't help it. Yes, we could cease to reproduce -- but the commitment and prolonged concentration that universal, species-ending non-reproduction requires is not one of our features -- and it isn't going to happen.

But nature isn't reductionist. It's tremendously expansive, inventive, and energetic. We are one of its products, after all.

We probably will become extinct at some point in the future. Our demise will probably owe much to a lack of insight into the consequences of our standard operating procedures. But the capacity to benefit from insight into the medium term and long term consequences of our behavior is something that neither biology or culture has provided. We know we are spoiling the environment on which our existence depends, but... we are what we are -- a reckless resource-gobbling species that can see no further than the short term.

"Hmmm, I'm going to run out milk tomorrow--better get some more." Or "You know what, I should fix the roof before it starts raining again."

But, "Gee whiz, I'm already 30 years old, and retirement is only 45 years away. I'd better start saving for retirement!" Non monsieur.

"Oh dear, we're already past peak oil! Better replace the petroleum based economy!" No way, y'all. Gotta keep pumping."

"God help us, CO2 will ruin the climate, not to mention methane and CFCs." Don't worry, dear, some future generation will jump off that bridge when they get to it.

As for the long term, we don't get it. And if we did get it, we wouldn't be able to get ourselves together to do anything about it. We are what we are, after all.

Isn't logic something provable?

Let's switch topics for a while.

But the discipline is very poorly defined and it allows unscrupulous individuals (such as practising psychologists) to say almost anything about anybody, and as long as it is plausible not many people will question it. — RepThatMerch22

Well, unscrupulous individuals do lots of bad things in every field, from warehouse management to the priesthood. Why would psychology be any different?

But let's pass over that, just right now.

As a discipline, psychology grew out of philosophy. A lot of philosophical concerns issues we now classify as psychological. An example of this are discussions about consciousness, and whether one can experience having experiences. What about dreams? Will? emotions? All this stuff is fair game in philosophy. Do you think philosophers handle it so much better?

There are several sub-fields in psychology that philosophy didn't develop:

Abnormal Psychology. ...
Biological Psychology. ...
Child Psychology. ...
Clinical Psychology. ...
Cognitive Psychology. ...
Comparative Psychology. ...
Community Psychology. ...
Counseling Psychology...

I trained in counseling psychology at the masters level, so I have a small vested interest in psychology as a field--that was 45 years ago. Was it a creditable program? Some of it was, some of it wasn't. The program trained high school counselors. One of the first readings in the program was about the various people in a high school from whom a troubled student would seek out help. Counselors were last on the list, janitors were first. I should have taken a cue from that and moved on, but I didn't.

The best classes in the program dealt with personality theory and group psychology (IMHO). True enough, there are widely discordant theories of personalities, but there are themes that are common to all of them, like the importance of childhood experiences and learning. We know more about the genetic influences on personality, intelligence, and behavior now than we did in 1971. We know much more about brains structure, thanks to PET scans, MRIs, fMRIs, CT scans, portable EEGs, and so on.

Despite the individual uniqueness people display, people are really quite similar. Not that everyone is alike, but rather, people are consistently similar in the kinds of things they do, and the kinds of thoughts they have. That is why we can understand each other. We are members of the same species, and like other species, we tend to behave similarly among ourselves.

There are a lot of things we don't know about human behavior, like... how do people develop sexual fetishes? Why do some people experience alienation, anomie, and isolation, while their peers (similar backgrounds, similar experiences, similar influences) do not? What are the short, medium, and long term effects of technology like smartphones, Facebook, or twitter?

Tell us more about your objections to psychology as a field.