[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.

It would be weird to say that you go to Heaven or Hell, or some other variation of either. — RepThatMerch22

Of course, it wouldn't be weird to say that IF you grew up believing that one went to heaven or hell after one died.

I think the truth is the truth — RepThatMerch22

The truth is the truth if we can determine what the truth is. 2 + 2 = 4 is true. It's provable. That there is no existence of any kind after we die is simply not provable -- just as the assertion that there IS existence after death is not provable. Either one could be true or false, but we have no way of proving it. We can't even get an inkling of what happens after we die. Zero clues.

I agree with you that "existence after death" is the same as "existence before birth" but I have no evidence that such is the case, therefore I can not say that there is any truth in the claim.

The fact that more people support the former and not the latter, in and of itself, is not sufficient. — RepThatMerch22

If gay marriage is put to a vote, and more people support it than reject it -- for whatever reasons -- then that is sufficient. It is sufficient because that is the way up or down voting works.

Utah became an American state and was required to legislate against the Mormon practice of Polygamy. Since then (well over a century ago) some people have continued to practice polygamy, sometimes with no interference, sometimes with considerable interference by the law.

So far, Mormons have not sought to re-legalize multiple marriage. They could, but they have not. (Marriage is a state matter, not a federal matter. But, if other states don't recognize multiple marriages, then it would only be effective in Utah.)

If there are Australians that wish to marry multiple partners, then they will have to do what other people have done, campaign vigorously for the right to do so. If your fellow Australians are willing, then it could happen. Nattering on about it here, however, isn't going to get you closer to the goal.

I don't usually quote Schopenhauer, but this quote is pertinent:

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

The limitation on our freedom to will whatever we would will is pretty straightforward:

Long before we are mature enough to make a serious choice, genetics, prenatal environment, upbringing, influence of peers, and so on have shaped us. These limiting factors impose severe limitations on our freedom to "will whatever we want to will".

Socrates' view that no one intentionally does evil. — Mitchell

I think humans are perfectly capable of intentionally doing evil.

One can always find a way of packaging an evil act as "intending to do good" even though one would be very, very hard pressed to find anyone who would describe it as "good".

Take the mass murderer in Las Vegas: As far as I can tell, the murderer intended to do something evil and was quite successful. Oh yes, I suppose one could come with something like "he was actually trying to discourage people from gambling" so he was actually intending to do good. Bogus. Specious. Bullshit

Some people thought that killing 6 million Jews and starving the Slavs to death was something that was supposed to be good for Germany. So, Hitler & Co. actually intended to good.

Such reasoning is foul.

These are not all high quality results:

Query: "Science damages the environment"

http://www.debate.org/opinions/does-science-really-help-improve-the-environment-or-is-it-more-destructive-than-helpful-to-it

https://sciencing.com/technological-advancement-effect-ecosystem-23107.html

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/european-studies/technology-has-bad-effects-on-environment.php

https://sciencestruck.com/negative-impacts-of-science

https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31392/title/Opinion--The-Dark-Side-of-Science/

I am assuming a negative effect of science would be the large quantities of hormones, antibiotics, antidepressants, and other pharmaceuticals being pissed or just flushed into the waterways of the world, having god-knows-what consequences on the creatures who live there, not to mention all the other chemicals being dumped. (Like caffeine: There is a lot of caffeine in the Mississippi River by the time it gets to New Orleans. Consequences? Fish with insomnia? Who the hell knows? Naproxen and some other OTC drugs have been found in rainwater and snow!

Google can be both so helpful and so NOT. Sometimes a frontal assault on the question at hand just doesn't work.

A Google search for "environmental costs of science" yields nothing... "Ecological costs of science" also yields nothing.

One problem is the way search prioritizes the words in a query. "costs", "environmental", and "science" is likely to be interpreted as a query about the science of environmental costs, rather than the environmental costs of science.

Have you tried taking the title of a good result (or authors names) and used it as a search term?

Have you tried using scholar.google?

"Ecological costs of science" is not something that is going to be the topic of a lot of leading scientists or leading science journal articles (science might be shooting itself in the foot). Remember also that Google returns results on the basis of site visit frequency. So, if there is one web site that precisely answers your question and gets a hundred hits a year, it will be buried very deeply in the results page.

The kind of results you want won't be plentiful, and you will have to hunt in the margins, consulting science dissident sites, cantankerous authors suspicious of science, and so on. Radicals troublemakers or renegades in other words.

It isn't clear whether you are talking about pure science (CERN) or technology (Silicon Valley). I did come across an article about the environmental consequences of an Indian Neutrino project in a trial search, but it was inaccessible.

Good luck.

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Yes, Merry Christmas, Glad Yule, Joyeux Noël...

So the schism in the Christian church were really socio-political matters, not religious ones. Even Martin Luther, he mostly disagreed with the way the Church was behaving as a socio-politicial organisation, not otherwise. — Agustino

The difference between Lutheran theology and liturgy isn't all that different from Roman Catholic. Some Lutherans take pride in their Catholicity, others not. It depends which social group in Europe their tradition originated in, and then what happened when it was transplanted to the United States. And those changes were often more clearly social or political, and only somewhat religious.

It isn't just nouveau atheists that fail to understand the "religious, social and political aspects of organized religion." Both ardent and wishy-washy Christians get confused about this too (here speaking of the American religious experience). To compose a figure of speech, the church is located in an inter-tidal swamp between God on the one hand and society on the other. Twice a day the swamp is swept back and forth by tides and drainage off the land. God and society are thoroughly mixed up in the church.

In his sermon this morning Pastor mentioned a Pew Research study that was in the news about the change in percentages of people who believed in several aspects of the Christmas story:
A) angels appearing to the shepherds
B) the virgin birth
C) the star leading the 3 kings, or 3 wisemen
D) the manger scene

Belief was surprisingly high (in the 40-55% range), but falling slightly since the last survey. Pastor H. pointed out that these elements of the story were not central to the meaning of the Incarnation, which is what Jesus' birth is about. (The reading for today was from John, "In the beginning was the Word...) Christians have difficulty sorting out the significance of mangers, mysterious wisemen, angels & shepherds, frankincense, immaculate conceptions, and a woman who is still virginal after delivered a baby. The idea that the author of a gospel had good reasons to embroider the Incarnation story sounds like either an attack on the truth (for those who take it literally) or proof that the whole thing is a crock, for those looking for an exit.

The change from the priest facing the cross and a wall during the eucharistic ritual to facing the congregation didn't go down well with some, and those people are still unhappy about it, decades later. Everything is supposed to stay the way it was 50 years ago, or the foundations begin to shake.

Most Christians don't recognize that for their individual church operation, the tail of real estate (upkeep of the church building) is wagging the dog of their religious mission--especially when a congregation shrinks in size, and isn't using the building very much. Give up the holy white elephant building?

N-O-T -A- C-H-A-N-C-E!

The existence of a building with a congregation's name on it is proof that they are a real church.

Though December 25 marks the beginning of Christmas in the church calendar, the secular calendar marks midnight 12/24 as its end. Christmas Day is just a rest up for the year end post-Christmas sales drive. And reports, of course. Lots of people have reports to turn in by 12/31--or worse in years like this, 12/29.

I'm not stimulated in the direction of righteous indignation by your argument. It strikes me as baiting. But...

Gay marriage requires adjustments to other laws besides those regulating who gets a license to marry. In the US, at least, tax law needs to be adjusted.

I may or may not have theoretical objections to more than two people marrying. A dozen people can marry (for purposes of discussion) BUT group marriage requires a lot more legal adjustment (should a legislature care to legalize group marriage). Who in the group marriage is legally responsible for a given child's welfare? Are there legally designated parents in group marriages? Let's say you have 5 men and 5 women in a marriage, all with equal conjugal rights and responsibilities. Is everyone considered the parent, or just the biologically proven parents? Who is legally responsible for children? What are the legal rights of group marriage partners who are not the parents of a child? If one member of the marriage is negligent in some aspect of the law, are they all negligent? Are all of them protected against testifying against their spouse--what a great way to run a criminal conspiracy--?

Group marriage is more problematic. I haven't seen very many ménage à trots work, let alone 4, 5, 8, or a dozen-way relationship. It's just plain difficult for us to manage a ménage. Hell, a one night stand 3 way can get complicated. There might be equality before the law, but equality in relationships is difficult to achieve and maintain -- and that's just with two people. 3? 5? 7? 11? All unimaginably complicated.

The mirror test tests self-recognition, not consciousness, and even that based solely on the visuality. A robot has been built that passed it, even. — BlueBanana

Could the elephant succeed in the self-recognition test, if it had no self-consciousness?

Regarding the test-passing robot... Who and how was it programmed?

Just a small point on English... Don't forget to put the article "the" in front nouns, such as the brain, the product, the instant, the content... Now, I wish I could think of one simple rule that would cover all the possible placements of "the", "a", and "an" in front of nouns, but I can not.

Not supplying the article where it belongs usually doesn't change meaning a great deal, but it is slightly jarring to read text where "the", "a", and "an" are missing.

There is still a problem even if I agree with your interpretation, that there is an "I". — bahman

There is someone (you, bahman) who is speaking as an "I". If there is no "I" speaking as bahman, then who is speaking?

Our brain in reality should simply feed "I" with what it perceives or process. The problem is how the brain could perceive "I" in order to feed "I" so "I" can watch "I" doing things. — bahman

Right. This is complicated. We could, as the expression goes, "quickly get lost in the weeds" with this. But... There is the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. Both of them "are you" 100% but one function of the conscious mind is to project a person--"I"--to the rest of the world. The unconscious mind (not the Freudian unconscious, but the unconscious part of the brain that does the work) does not represent itself directly. It provides the "I" with a steady flow of organized data. The conscious mind doesn't see or hear "raw" sensory information, because it doesn't mean anything until it is processed by the hearing, vision, language, and memory centers, etc.

The problem in talking about "I" and "you" is that we just don't know where in the brain the "conscious representation of self" is located, or how it is created by the brain.

I'm currently beginning to question whether many of my own problems stem from my lack of a concrete belief system. — JustSomeGuy6

—

This is interesting to me, because I believe many of my own problems stem from the fact that I grew up with a concrete belief system. — anonymous66

I do not see how it is possible to NOT receive and build some kind of concrete belief system. A child may or may not have received religious or philosophical instruction, but adults and peers exude concrete belief systems, like pine trees exude sticky pitch. Besides the influence of others, the experience of the concrete world contributes much to a belief system.

Later in life (by which time it is too late) we begin to criticize our belief systems. We can chisel off some parts, but the removal will show. we can patch in new material, but the additions will show against the old surface. We can try to start over with a whole new system, but the old one won't go away. All this doesn't mean we can't change; it just means we always have to build on what we received at the beginning -- for better or worse.

I have lots of complaints about the concrete belief system I grew up with. I sometimes imagine I would have been better off having been born among liberal Jews in New York City, rather than among Methodists in Minnesota. But... that's only because of the editing that I've done on my original concrete belief system. "Oofta" as the locals say -- very messy.

So, when do you suppose this very long discussion which I have only noticed getting longer but haven't followed, will move on to the Immaculate Conception and the virgin birth (not the same thing), the proper method of baptism, the closure of divine testimony, and other matters?

Isn't "experiencing experience" just consciousness of self--the "I" watching itself do things? I observe myself sitting at a table, coffee to the right, screen to the front, reading your question. Earlier I experienced the experience of making the coffee.

Consciousness of self happens to us, whether it has any use or not. We do not make it happen, and we are not responsible for it, and we didn't have use in mind. Be that as it may, being able to experience experience, being conscious of what is happening to us and what we are doing, is the means by which we guide further experiences, and is one of the keys to the difference between ourselves and other animals.

Maybe other animals have some limited self-consciousness, but "it is thought by some people" that they don't have a lot, if they have any. Personally, I think some animals have at least a glimmer of self-consciousness. For instance, some animals (like elephants) pass the "self - mirror test". (An elephant is familiarized with its image in a mirror; later, a mark is applied to its forehead. Will the elephant notice the mark when it next looks into the mirror? Yes. Most animals don't.)

I can't address the whole tree, but Baptists didn't come from Anglicans, Mormons and pentecostals didn't come from Methodists, and Presbyterians didn't come from Lutherans.

For the record, I do support gay marriage, but I also support polygamy and bigamy. — RepThatMerch22

For the record, I'm gay, am not very enthusiastic about gay marriage, and haven't decided whether polygamy is a good idea or not.

Whenever some heavily freighted issue comes before the public (like assisted suicide, forced vaccination, legalizing gay marriage, and so on, most people will most likely decide to vote on the basis of their personal values, prejudices, predilections, habits, and so on. That method of deciding how to vote doesn't mean that people are stupid. It just means that people do not consider each moral issue by starting from scratch, building a philosophy, and then deciding on what they will do. No, we follow familiar paths, I'm in favor of freedom, of course, but I also have a strong prejudice IN FAVOR of public health measures, like universal vaccination. If somebody doesn't want to get their children vaccinated against measles mumps, chickenpox, rubella, whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus, well... too bad. We'll force you to do it. Contradictory? Sure, but that's life. I value freedom and I value public health. The parent is losing a little freedom and getting a much healthier child.

1. If people support gay marriage in Australia on the ground that it promotes freedom, why don't they support polygamous marriage? — RepThatMerch22

Well, ONE reason is that those who are campaigning for legalized gay marriage are not campaigning for polygamous marriage. If someone wants to put polygamous marriage before the voting public, then they can do that. Just like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is mostly interested in issues around killing animals for their fur, experimenting on animals, mistreating animals, and so on. Automobile gas milage isn't their issue. If you are interested in gas milage, don't bother PETA.

To some extent, it depends on the setting. If it's a class, you have to read what is assigned,. If it's this forum, you really should read the opening post, get a feel where the discussion is going, and then comment. On your own, read what you want. If you don't like it, read something else.

For personal reading, it is my belief that somewhere in between 15 years and 25 years of age, most people have established their personal point of view about the world--whether they have articulated it or not. That doesn't mean their POV will never change, but it will take real effort to change it.

So, most people are going to read philosophy (and other literature) to help them articulate their inchoate beliefs, and to compare their more formulated beliefs to someone else's. To the degree that a philosophy book helps you uncover your unspoken ideas, beliefs, POV, good. If it doesn't seem to speak to you at all, read something else.

Thus, the State should implement means by which to end one's life. — RepThatMerch22

Let's all think long and hard before we ask the state to "implement means by which to end one's life".

Is psychology a real science? — RepThatMerch22

Is this a big political issue in Australia?

Sure, psychology is a real science, but it has mixed terrain. Some areas are soft and spongy, even squishy, and other areas are hard.

The soft, spongy, squishy parts of psychology owe something to studies involving small numbers of subjects used as a spring board for leaping to conclusions. Some studies are poorly designed, methods are not rigorous, and so on. But then, we would not be at all happy if researchers did to people what they routinely do to rats. A large problem of psychology is the inherent cussedness of the subject of study -- homo sapiens -- one of the more cussed species around.

When psychologists study learning, for example, or memory, reaction time--all that sort of thing--they can turn out good results that are perfectly respectable. Personality research is much more difficult. For one thing, humans develop slowly. It takes a long time (25 years) for a brain to mature, to have a fully developed personality, and even then it's not the end of development. Longitudinal studies are very, very expensive and difficult.

There was a series of films done in England, 7-up, 14-up, 21-up... I can't remember what the last one was, 49-up or 56-up? It started with a group of 7 year olds who were interviewed. Then the filmmakers returned every 7 years and did another set of interviews with the same individuals. The point was t show how people's lives unfolded, but it wasn't a psychological research program--as I remember, it was more of a humanities project. This sort of thing is rarely done, but is essential to developing the science of psychology. Very expensive, again. And then the research has to be passed on to a second or third generation of researchers without losing the focus or continuity of the project.

Another problem of psychology is "researching behavior without the research affecting the behavior". Let's say you are interested in sexual behavior. Laud Humphries did a landmark study of public sex behavior in the late 1960s by becoming a "participant observer". He used the cover of marketing research to get objective information about the subjects he had observed in the field. Then he put it all together, and produced a very useful piece of research on sexual behavior.

He was dumped on rather thoroughly for all sorts of ethical violations, though in his defense, no subject identity was ever revealed, no subjects were interfered with in any way, and he did not personally engage in sex with the subjects. The subjects would not have known they were even involved in research had not the kerfuffle arisen over his methods.

I've been involved in surveys of sexual behavior, and the results were pretty worthless, because the people taking the surveys were volunteers. Obviously, or at least probably, their claimed behavior and opinions were different than those who would have refused to answer questions about their sex behavior. I tried doing the participant observer approach -- once -- and found that approach can get compromised pretty quickly. Like, one's subjects can sort of... turn the tables on you.

Well, sexual behavior is just one of many areas of behavior that are hard to observe or measure without the act of observation affecting the behavior of the subject. If you knew you were being observed in a study of reading habits, wouldn't this affect what you read?

What is the meaning of this? Obviously some sort of coded message...

I agree right and wrong aren't the same think as like and dislike. My point is that we claim to say something is right or wrong based off of our preferences. — SonJnana

You keep saying the same thing over and over again. But we (the collectivity of society and its various institutions) don't care what your preferences are. Further more, we teach people from childhood on up that we expect them to prefer what we (collectively) have defined as legal, right and good. Finally, whatever your preferences, you will be held to society's standards, whether that matches your preferences or not.

You think that might makes right? You're damn right. And we have the might, and you do not. Therefore, you will prefer what is right, or you will be severely punished.

As for your possibly felonious preferences, where do you think your preferences come from? Do you think you just make them up? Do you think your preferences are under your control? For the most part, no. You mostly prefer what you are allowed to prefer, and there isn't much you can do about it.

Consider chocolate cake and blueberry pie. Which do you prefer? Where did that preference come from? If you lived in France in 1500, you could not have a preference for either one of these, because they didn't exist in Europe at the time. Social realities have something to do with your preferences.

What you prefer depends on your genetics, the time and place in which you live, your pre-natal experiences, your early childhood, and later experiences. None of these things are under your control, and your preferences aren't freely chosen. Parents and society strongly discourage preferences that are not compatible with the prevailing morality. Society goes to considerable inconvenience to make sure that children prefer what we wish for them to prefer.

Like their very small size and 8 legs, aside from Octopi and spiders. And they are much more primitive than spiders. They don't fossilize well (too small), but the two eras where a fossil was recovered was the Cambrian period (541–485.4 million years ago) and an amber fossil from the Cretaceous period.

You'll remember that there were a lot of fairly weird looking species in the Cambrian: either cooked up here, or brought here by the panspermatic delivery service.

The possibility of earth-contamination (or seeding) from Mars is plausible, because rocks from Mars are sitting on Antarctic ice, for instance, and elsewhere on earth. So we know, for sure, that rocks can get from Mars to earth (in time no less than 6 months). Of course, life would have to be very well established on Mars before rocks were ejected and became earth-bound.

The problem with Tardigrades is not that they are too flimsy. Rather, thinking they could make it in the vacuum and cosmic radiation bath of space for a long time (6 months, say) is quite a leap. Not all of the Tardigrades in the orbital experiment survived, and that was only after 10 days. It could be that some might have survived for 180 days, but it's quite a leap -- 10 days survival to 180 day (minimum) survival.

You might be interested in where Tardigrades fit into the classifications:

Excellent cartoon joke. Now, over in the Relief Theory of Humor thread the question is, "Is this relief humor, superiority humor, play humor, or incongruity humor. This strikes me as "incongruity humor"--which a lot of the Far Side cartoons incorporated. The incongruity is of course the "normal" domesticity of aliens + holiday meal + the horrifying scene in Alien.

A Catholic priest and a rabbi were traveling together with President Trump, when their car broke down. The three men went up to a near-by farm house and asked about shelter for the night.
The humble farmer said, "I am happy to give you shelter, but I have room in the house for only two of you. One of you will have to sleep in the barn.

The Catholic priest immediately volunteered to sleep in the barn. "I grew up on a farm, and sleeping on a bed of hay in the barn will not be a problem." So everyone went to bed. An hour later there was a knock on the door. The priest came in and said, "I am sorry, but there are rats crawling around in the hay, and I just can't sleep with rats. Can someone else sleep in the barn?" The Rabbi said, "I come from poor people in New York and have spent many a night with rats crawling around." Everybody went back to bed. An hour later, there was a knock on the door. The Rabbi said, "I am sorry, but there are pigs in the barn -- an animal I find totally unclean. I just can't sleep with pigs." President Trump now stepped forward and said, "there is nothing I can't do. I'll sleep wonderfully with the rats and the pigs. It will be truly great." Everybody went back to bed.

An hour later there was a knock on the door. It was the rats and the pigs.

It can be related to the Superiority Theory of humor, but I think there is "Schadenfreude humor", amusement gained at the significant expense of other people -- ideally, people we don't like all that much. Mel Brooks once said, "if I have a hangnail, that's tragedy, If you fall into a sewer, that's hilarious" -- assuming one is not fond of the falling-into-the-sewer person.

Schadenfreude humor relies on the edge of certain kinds of jokes--the cruel, unkind, cut. Wicked jokes about the president (whoever the president is, not just Trump) are made by people who heartily dislike the 1600 Pennsylvania resident. Racist, sexist, homophobic, or crip jokes are made against classes of people one doesn't especially like, or (as per the Superiority Theory) one feels superior to. In these times, of course, one is not supposed to feel superior to anyone, and certainly one is not supposed to repeat jokes which highlight any race's/gender's/orientation's/state of ability's deficiencies.

All of which eliminates a lot of great jokes, and encourages us to overlook everyone's manifold deficiencies.

I tasted some raw octopus once. More than sufficient.

I am doing a subject on astrobiology — TimeLine

There is some astrogeology going on that we know about. What are you going to learn/say/write about astrobiology, of which there is zero evidence, so far. (Or does growing asparagus on a space ship count as astrobiology?)

I remember a panel discussion of this topic on public radio--way back in the 70s when SETI was still being thought about; something along the lines of "what is the likelihood of us encountering extra-terrestrial species"... anthropologist Ashley Montague said that "we will do what we always do when we [wicked westerners] come across a new civilization -- we'll wipe them out."

I would really like to know how earthlings would respond psychologically to an alien visitation. Let's assume that the aliens landed in the middle of New York or Shanghai, so that the event could not be denied by the military and/or civilian authorities. There it is, the somehow indisputably alien thing sitting there.

Even if aliens didn't land, let's say that SETI hits the jackpot and receives clear, unambiguous messages from a civilization somewhere. People suddenly have process several questions: A. we are, in fact, not alone. We are not as unique as we thought. What territory do earth-bound religious cover? Does the God of Israel (or whatever gods one follows) have jurisdiction over a planet 10 light years away? What do we think their real intentions are -- never mind what they say.

Would it be better if the aliens looked very much like us, or would it be better if they looked weird (unconditionally alien, no similarities)?

What sort of gift might they give us (using your imagination) that would lead us to think that maybe this would work out OK, or contrariwise, who sort of event or threat might they offer that would suggest our days were numbered in fairly low digits.

I saw that video clip; remarkable, especially given it's provenance.