Auntie Mame (in the musical by that name) says "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death."

You, schop, are kind of the "anti-mame". "Life is a starvation diet and why are those poor suckers waiting for a banquet?" But they also served who tended the bucket of dirty gray slush to dump on the party, and you do your job well.

You don't have to believe everything Sartre said. I've noticed that John Paul had the highly inauthentic behavior of always looking his same mousey self--smoking, nicotine-stained fingers, ugly hair, rumpled clothing, palpable stale clothing and body odor, writing consistently depressing books, and hanging around with that woman, Simone.

I'll grant you that our lives contain inauthentic elements, though I would raise the bar for consideration way above getting one's haircut at the same place all the time and having to do laundry regularly. (And, in any case, you do freely choose to get your hair cut and do your laundry, right?) Let's worry about major inauthenticity.

The labor of everyday life (the 9-5 job) is loaded with inauthenticity with far more consequence than getting your hair cut short once or twice a month. Politics is infested with inauthenticities, as is religious endeavor, artistic enterprises, and lots of other stuff. We might be capable of authentically and freely choosing each and every options in our lives, but a necessary part of being human is limiting the occasions when deliberation is required. Habits are part of successful and authentic life. Habits enable us to use our limited resources to make important decisions when they arise.

Are you aware that watching an excessive number of TED talks will cause your dick to fall off?

Look TED talks are not the equivalent of a peer-reviewed journal, or even just serious science journalism. The presenters may be experts in their field, but they are presenting a combination of "speech to inform" and "speech to persuade". So all of these fairly brief, quite punchy, slick, fast-talking lecturers are all over the Internet, and the lion's share of what they have to say is being taken at face value.

One of my favorite Ted talks, A STROKE OF INSIGHT by Jill Bolte Taylor is really informative and inspiring. BUT, a paragraph of fine print is missing from the talk. After her massive stroke, Ms. Bolte Taylor couldn't tell shit from shinola. It took her something like 8 to 10 years of intense therapy to recover her mental skills. She did not remember the stroke that she is talking about. Rather, the experience was reconstructed. All this is explained in her book.

The point isn't to knock Bolte-Taylor; the point is to suggest caution about swallowing everything in a TED talk, hook, line, and sinker.

Maybe there is less there than one thinks there is.

Porn has long-standing effects on the brain, which have been neuro-biologically studied. — Agustino

It is the case that Porn has effects on the brain, but -- quite seriously -- so does everything else. Learning French, driving a car in heavy traffic, walking in the forest, swimming in a lake, arguing with your boss, feeding a baby, writing a book, singing, studying music -- it all has an effect -- and quite possibly an enduring effect. "And all these effects have been neuro-biologically studied"

Not only that, but everything you have ever done so far had a significant effect on the brain, and THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The brain contains a record of our lives so far.

So, porn having an effect on the brain is saying no more than riding a bike for 2 hours has an effect on the brain,.

I heard a good example of degrading commentary on a recent radio news program. The announcer/reporter was discussing budget negotiations between the legislators and the governor and, because the process was slow, suggested that the state legislators were behaving "like children playing in the sandbox".

This comment was made on a different frequency than references to the legs of political leaders, but has the same effect of 'taking them down a few pegs'.

I think this points again to the need for a centralized and large scale approach. — Mongrel

I agree. The transition away from petroleum and coal is a very large scale process involving individual actions--yes, but millions and millions of individual actions--and very large macro-economic actions. Amory Lovins, co-founder and chief scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute, notes that industrial change can occur very rapidly because investors will shift from old industries to new industries before the rank-and-file consumer does.

The impression one would get from some media is that nothing is happening. Not true. In the state of Minnesota, for instance (and we are not an outlier) renewable energy now produces from 20% - 25% of electricity used in the state--mostly wind, some solar. That's up from a little over zero maybe 15 years ago

Granted, we are no further along than any other state in diminishing private auto use. Most heat is produced by fossil fuels (gas and coal). Agriculture practices in corn, soybeans, and canned crops (corn, peas, tomatoes, squash, etc.) could be substantially improved.

Small is beautiful (small car rather than a land barge) and more efficient is even better -- mass transit over the small, individually owned, individually driven car, no matter how small better still. car sharing and more car-on-demand services could help end the gross over-production of vehicles. Far fewer cars, more intensively and efficiently used...

I don't care about the exploited workers at McDonald's.... so, why would I care about exploitation in the porn industry?" — anonymous66

Honestly, anonymous66, I've tried very, very hard to get off watching industry films of exploited McDonald's workers, and try as I might, I didn't get even a tingle in my dick. I didn't get a tingle in my conscience either, because it isn't the case that McDonald's employees are necessarily exploited. They are doing relatively skinless work for (usually) less than an 8 hour shift less than 5 days a week and their wages are often quite adequate for that kind of work.

A parent may not be able to support themselves and a child on McDonald's wage and hourly arrangement, but that is becoming increasingly true of many low-skilled jobs. Under capitalism, one should keep one's expectations low. If you want to pursue great expectations, then you should become a socialist like me.

Wouldn't the world be a better place without them? [edit: the seven deadly sins] — anonymous66

It would certainly be a better place without some of them, at least. Any chance of getting rid of them?

(a) Do we think these losses are better described as losses of ability or losses of knowledge. — Srap Tasmaner

Probably more as a loss of ability. Injury or stroke may deprive someone of speech. They can't talk to old friends, but they can respond non-verbally, nodding confirmation that they understand (as long as their language-reception circuits are functioning). Interestingly, people who are aphasic (can't speak) can usually swear fluently. Cursing happens to be handled outside of the main speech area. Intelligence (the ability to solve problems, way finding, carry out tasks, etc.) is not usually impaired by aphasia.

I know that the issue has been studied--I don't know the upshot--how do you assess someone's state of knowledge if they can't speak? If received language is disrupted, then it would be even more difficult to distinguish ability from knowledge.

(b) Do we have other reasons for thinking, whatever we think of the descriptions, that what we're talking about here must be knowledge, or must be an ability. (I'm thinking of how it might fit with other parts of a model, other theories, that sort of thing.) — Srap Tasmaner

It's not either/or, it's 'and'. People who have received poor nurturing as children and little formal education generally will not have much verbal knowledge. They may have small vocabularies (relative to other people) and may have very poor ability at formulating expression. They just sound stupid. Here, it's clearly a lack of knowledge and underdeveloped ability.

People who have received good nurturing as children and poor education may demonstrate very skilled ability, and not too much knowledge. They won't sound stupid, just uninformed. Well nurtured and at least adequately educated children have the whole package: ability and knowledge, wrapped up together.

If you were to map out the various human abilities and fields of knowledge just with respect to communication (like, words) you would end up with a complex chart -- before you started bringing in other matters (like personality, memory, intelligence, etc.) Spatial relationships, mathematic ability, linear thinking, blah blah blah -- would require still bigger, even more complicated maps.

BTW, I have no idea where in my head written speech is generated. I am sitting here, fingers moving, but I am not consciously generating this content. Somewhere upstairs it's getting put together and then dropped into the chute and out it comes.

"I" don't very often consciously sweat over a text. Usually I just open the spigot and out it comes. Were I to write something in French, it would be all sweat, all conscious deliberation every inch of the way.

But what about understanding? — Srap Tasmaner

The ability to hear or read speech and interpret it accurately -- and vividly -- is huge. It takes time and practice to achieve it. High schools students, or college students, even English majors god forbid like me 50 years ago, may not be skilled in reading vividly -- that is, animating the emotive and symbolic content of written speech. (It took me a long time to develop)

We have distinct, and separate, verbal (word) skills. Among those are...

hearing words and understanding the sound and the meaning
reading words and understanding the shape and the meaning
the facility to generate written language
the facility to generate spoken language
the facility to think verbally
Some of these skills are resident in specific brain locations. Damage that specific part of the brain and
-- might not be able to understand language
-- might not be able to generate language
-- might not be able to think verbally

Even without damage, some of the word skills are fixed to one communication channel. There are words that I can understand (written and verbal) that I never use myself. There are words that I think with that I can't readily transfer into spoken language. There are also styles of composition that I can't generate (like long passages of rhymed iambic pentameter.).

Some people don't understand written, or don't understand spoken language as well as they might like. Fortunately, these skills can be improved, however difficult it might be.

Here's a bit of verse by George Herbert which I like; it demonstrates word skill. It's quite simple English. The English speaking world had gone / would go through periods of disdaining this kind of plain English and would prefer as multi-syllabic as possible. Writers of complex English had word skill too -- it isn't just the simpler language writers that demonstrate it.

BY GEORGE HERBERT 1593–1633

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
...

Interesting questions.

Great writers know what to do with words. First-rate writers don't need "great words" -- exotic, rare words that occur about once in every 100 million words uttered by speakers of the language, and have very, very specific meanings. Great writers generally tell compelling stories with run-of-the-mill words: words that compose the heart of the corpus of English (don't know about word usage in other languages).

Run-of-the mill writers reach for too many words, too many different words, and too many rare words--because their word-skill confuses glitter with real gold.

Of course, we need more than words:. If of words not organized our properly strings are, they don't mean much. Sentences have to be structured well too, then paragraphs, then chapters, and there's the book.

Glad it was false.

I read that Corbyn has never voted for an anti-terrorism bill. True? False? If true, why?

What, hung like a pony or a horse?

However, I intuit a very nicely formed universe. Things are very nicely and well put together – too well for it to be a coincidence. — Thinker

How many universes have you experienced? Only one? Same here. Of course it's "nicely and well put together", but not too well or not too nice for it to be a coincidence. It just is what it is, and as long as we feel good, it seems nice. When we get sick and start to die, however, it is the same universe but then we experience more of its features--like dying and death.

in addition, we have this great facility called consciousness. Very convenient to have consciousness — Thinker

... consciousnes - and - emotion... — Thinker

I like consciousness and emotion -- great stuff, they are. But many animals aside from us animals have emotions, and a few (so very few) have consciousness. Were it a blessing, wouldn't it be more broadly distributed?

There is a divine hand – somewhere. I tell you – after I have had a prolonged still mind – I feel the presence of God. Can I prove God exists – NO — Thinker

I have no desire to rattle the stillness of your mind. If you feel the presence of god after stilling your mind for a prolonged period of time, fine. But it could be that the presence you feel is the consequence of a thoroughly and deeply stilled mind.

I am now ready to be crucified. — Thinker

You are not!

For one thing, you haven't stated anything that is likely to get you crucified -- not around here, anyway. You have to threaten the powers that be, to start with, you know -- shake the foundations. And make people very uncomfortable. Plus you need more than the average charisma.

BTW, what do you think happened to god in the incarnation?

We can define and discuss the divine with precision as long as two conditions are met:

First that we are defining the real gods of our own creation (which are all the real gods there are) and
second, that we are informed and think carefully about these gods

Such gods that we did not make up, can not see, hear, touch, smell, taste, or know anything about--those gods are entirely beyond our reach.

You want the Aged Patriarch? Hairy thunderer? Cosmic muffin? Take your pick -- but make it consistent.

The reason the real, made up gods can be discussed and understood is that they are our own creation, and the reason we need to be informed and think carefully is that our made up gods have significant flaws. For instance, a god described as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent is not really understandable. We made it up, but we can't understand our own creation. The god that is all good but allows evil to occur is another problematic matter. Why would an all good god allow truly appalling evil to exist? That is just another example of how we have not worked through the logic of our own creation. What happened to god when he became incarnate in Jesus? Did he leave heaven? Did some of him leave heaven? Did he stay in heaven? But then, how could he be Jesus here and god in heaven at the same time?

These problems can be resolved to our satisfaction if we have the nerve to stand up and say, "This doesn't make sense!" Clarify god as you wish, then prepare to be crucified.

As for the other gods -- the ones we know nothing about and didn't create -- I agree with you 100%. There is nothing we can say about them because we know nothing about them.

So potentially, if we could tackle every single cause of death, the human body should have no expiry date. — AXF

It's not just a matter of fixing the various causes of death. In order to live without death the body would not only have to "not die", it would also have to continually renew -- rejuvenate -- itself. This goes beyond replacing cells. Even the agéd, teetering on the edge of the grave, continue to replace cells until they fall in and life stops. As far as I know, no organism on earth has managed to do this. While there are some trees that are a couple of thousand years old, one would not call them vigorous specimens.

Rejuvenation is more complicated than mere longevity. Just take the skin, for example. Young skin is very elastic. As we age, it loses elasticity--a small piece of what happens throughout the body, and starts happening long before we become "agéd".

The other problem is existential, and it's as huge, if not more so, than the problem of biology. Even if it only took one fix to cause one to live a healthy perpetual life (and not frequent treatment), one would face not just an eternity of novelty, but one would also face an eternity of perpetually fresh losses. Novelties would arise, again and again and again, but would cease to be novelties. Everyone else who was not "fixed" would die, again, and again, and again.

I suspect the suicide rate for the 'fixed' immortals would be rather high.

This is a great example of junk science.

Here is an example of bad science from today's Guardian (June 6, 2017): Is white bread better for you than brown sourdough?​ It depends on your gut

10 subjects ate factory made white bread for 1 week, while 10 other subjects ate sourdough whole wheat bread for one week. Then they switched for a second week. Meanwhile, the subjects' blood was checked for several markers.

On average, it didn't make any difference, but individually, there were varying responses.

What does this tell us?

Nothing.

One would expect that what one eats would have an effect on one's biome, one's blood profile, and so on. Bread supposedly made up 20% of the subjects' calories, but no effort was made to track what else the subjects had been eating, aside from bread.

1 week on factory bread then 1 week on the sourdough bread? Way too fast to detect significant differences. No effort was made to determine what differences in the individual resulted from either no response or some response to the different bread diets.

Science is essentially an umbrella marketing term for fundraising and shielding against criticism — Rich

Rubbish. But there is a range of quality in science from base to solid gold.

When someone does a retrospective survey of 500 people and asks them what they ate for breakfast for the last 5 years and whether they have had a heart attack, and then claims in a journal article that eating oatmeal reduces cholesterol, that's bad science. It's not even science. It's a subterfuge of the oatmeal conspiracy.

On the other hand, if you conduct a tightly controlled double blind study on 500 people of the effects of a compound over a period of 2 years to determine whether it lowers cholesterol by a certain percentage without causing untoward consequences, that's better science. The work done in bio-molecular labs that shows how the molecules in the compound reduce the production of cholesterol in humans is better still.

That real science is done in the service of Pfizer and Glaxo Smith Kline does not detract from its quality, any more than writing novels for Random House detracts from the quality of the books. (And, of course, science is done without profit in mind, too. But somebody has to pay for it.)

I don't have a problem with the term, science -- or philosophy either. They aren't precise terms, but they don't have to be, either. People in the "arts" actually do specific, technical work -- not "art in general" and the same goes for philosophy, science, literature, and so on. Scientists don't do "science" they do fresh water biology or QM physics.

In case I forget it, happy birthday.

My, you have an unappetizing problem on your hands. Brothers and sisters trying to establish the role of parent over their younger siblings is the stuff of unpleasant Grimm faerie tales. "And then the wicked child summoned a witch who turned her older brother into a chicken which the wretched brat promptly beheaded with an axe."

If at 15, your sister doesn't recognize you as some sort of parent, it probably isn't going to happen.

You being the potwalloper (owner of a hearth on which to boil pots -- a householder) do not have to put up with more crap from you teen-age sister than you want to put up with. However, it won't be at all easy or simple to change your sister's behavior.

You are entitled to lay down certain rules. I would recommend rules which your sister is capable of actually following. Like, "You have to speak respectfully to me." "You have to tell me the truth about important things."

What's your leverage? Not too much. At 15 she could, if she wanted to, walk out the door and not come back. That would make you feel much worse, and would be bad for her. So... there will be major limits on how much of an affect you can have on her.

If her behavior is dangerous to herself, (I can't tell from what you say) you might have to call on expert assistance. I don't know what they call it in Canada, but in the US it's called "child protection". Or maybe a mental health facility could be helpful. She is still a child legally. However, at 15 it is getting late for any agency to step in and fix things up.

Children her age are notorious for being difficult to put up with. Adolescent brains aren't adult brains. Imagine having 3 or 4 teenagers to put up with! Be patient. Trust, but verify. Be kind, but not a doormat.

Does "Philosophy" refer to anything? Is it useful?

It does not refer to anything but a loose federation of people of various fields, investigating different things that sometimes overlap in subject matter, methodology or equipment. There is no essential feature that makes a field "philosophical", and there is no such thing as a "philosophic method".

Continuing to use the term "philosophy" adds no value to discussion. In conclusion, then, "philosophy" has become an honorific term that is exploited and abused, including "philosophers" themselves (to promote their social status image as a modern priest of knowledge of sorts, something some will not easily let go of), when in fact this term cannot be uncontroversially defined and has no practical use. It is time to transition away from this term and embrace a more anarchistic and nominalistic conception of inquiry. (A better term for a "philosopher" is a "parasite").

He knows more than you do. He has a masters degree -- in PHILOSOPHY!

How I found God

How did God find you?

I understand the idea that people are exploited and suppressed because the economy is organized as a system for exploiting and suppressing people. This applies to most people under capitalism: the workers are meant to be exploited, and most people are workers (that is, they depend on a wage whether they lecture in philosophy or dig ditches).

The idea of encouraging home ownership during the depression wasn't entirely benevolent. The people who did the thinking for the rich and powerful understood that renting wage earners without families were loose cannons. They could afford to blow up the system. Load them down with a mortgage and family and they would be afraid to blow up the system, since they now had a piece of it to which they were firmly riveted.

Home ownership did pacify the masses to some degree.

That blacks were left out of this system wasn't because they were trusted to stay meek. "They" didn't want blacks and whites on friendly terms or (they didn't say this at the FHA) sexual terms. Poverty and exclusion were the lot of blacks. Then, and later (like, now) there were police and prisons to control blacks. Poverty, police, and prisons.

IF all this is true, we can't then blame white people for being racist and oppressing black people. The oppressors are the scheming rich folk, who can oppress because they are rich. White folk were separated out from blacks early in the game and the two groups were subjected to separate exploitation systems, and they still are.

Prejudice is the affective result of concrete oppression.

these SJW types don't get the difference between, say, the inter-generational effects of past racism, and the on-going contemporary forces which might be perpetuating the statistical inequalities they aim to affect. — VagabondSpectre

Well, as university students they are likely to be quite young and from fairly comfortable, largely segregated white backgrounds. I'm guessing that the problems of poverty and raw racism are something they've learned about through books, speeches, and TV programs, and not face to face experience. Black youth that sound as sophisticated as some of these young university blacks do didn't grow up in the ghetto, either.

Because they are young and live unexamined lives they probably can't account for their own quirks, let alone other people's. This isn't unique to the current crop of SJWs.

Once they get out of college (if they ever do) and get jobs and live in far less rarified precincts than campus dorms, they'll eventually get this naiveté ground off by abrasion.

The greatest misfortune for these young volk would be to sound like they do now--for the rest of their lives.

Part II



The Second Great Migration of blacks from the south to the north began in the latter years of the Great Depression when manufacturing finally began to expand, both from modest economic recovery and from the beginning of arms manufacturing for WWII. Hundreds of thousands of black workers went north and found a still severe shortage of housing.

In Chicago only a few neighborhoods were open to blacks purchasing homes or renting. Because of the severe shortage of housing, black were willing to pay premium prices for housing, but to no avail.

A second form of discrimination in housing was organized to capitalize on black housing needs. Speculators (generally real estate operators or lawyers) bought physically distressed properties in either black or mixed neighborhoods in South and West Chicago and sold or rented them at inflated prices to black workers through a contract for deed. Substantial downpayment and higher-than-average monthly payments were required. If the buyer missed a month's payment, the seller could repossess the property and evict the buyer. The repossessed building could then be sold to somebody else.

Rental property was over-loaded with tenants. Larger apartments were subdivided by tenants (often by DIY efforts) in order to cover their high rent. Black people buying a building did the same thing -- subdivided maybe twice over, so that they could pay off the building and not miss payments, thus losing their whole investment.

Over time, this predatory system extracted a tremendous amount of wealth from the black community in Chicago (just one community among many). Mark Satter -- a bona fide Jewish Social Justice Warrior lawyer who fought to end this system of systematic exploitation in the 1950s (unsuccessfully), calculated that the large black community of Chicago was losing about a million dollars a day through this property predation.

In the meantime, white home owners were accumulating value in their houses. They were not becoming rich, they were only gaining a margin of security. It was generally their only asset. Their future security depending on its preservation. They worried intensely about blacks moving into their neighborhood, because they had been assured many times (it was in their loan agreement) that they could not sell to blacks, and if their property value dropped (as a result of blacks moving in) then they would lose whatever value they had accumulated.

Banks, real estate agents, and the FHA itself wanted to make sure home values didn't drop. Again, local real estate agents provided a workforce for maintaining segregation. They made it clear to white home owners that selling to blacks would be a personal economic disaster for them. Real estate agents were in a position to make value drop by stampeding white people out of a neighborhood. "Sell right now! The niggers are coming, and your property value will fall into the basement." So, people did sell, and moved to more distant, more secure suburbs.

Were blacks actually a threat to property value?

Yes and no. No, in that they were often willing and able to pay a premium to get housing at all, and decent housing even more. (Many of the southern black people in Chicago were hard working and thrifty.)

Yes, in that the housing density in black neighborhoods was extremely high, and the housing stock (mostly owned by absentee landlords--slum lords, quite often) were poorly maintained. High density and a lack of maintenance is a bad combination for any demographic group. The black neighborhoods became physically degraded.

Crime existed in the white neighborhoods before the presence of blacks could be a significant consideration (say, 1935). People produce their own anti-social elements who then engage in the usual sort of crime -- burglary, theft, knifings, vandalism, public drunkenness, disorderly behavior, a quite rare killing or two, and so on.

Why did the black neighborhoods produced much more crime?

Several factors. A major factor in crime generation is parental supervision. Because of the unusually high cost of housing in black neighborhoods, both parents needed to work at least 1 job to produce enough income to make ends meet. Because the parents were working, the children were unsupervised after school. Unsupervised children generally get into trouble of one kind or another whatever their race or socio-economic background.

Chicago's public schools could not handle the very high census of students in a small area that segregation caused. The schools went to two shifts --AM and PM. The quality of education provided was thus degraded, and children were left unsupervised not for an hour or two after school, but all morning or all afternoon (in families where both parents worked).

Many blacks were unable to achieve economic stability and ended up on welfare -- then the Aid For Dependent Children program (AFDC) which excluded males from benefits, pretty much. AFDC was support at a poverty level.

So, the black community deteriorated, crime became worse (we haven't reached the 1970s, yet), education was inadequate, social services was inadequate, and so on. Bad.

None of this was the result of racism on the part of the white workers who bought houses on the FHA program. They didn't keep blacks from doing the same thing. It was governmental, banking, and real estate sales institutions that instituted and enforced the rigid segregation. Of course, there was a certain amount of native racism among white working people -- much of it probably xenophobia as much as racism. But official policy bolstered, aggravated, and shaped native racism or xenophobia as a part of its segregation objectives.

Part I

They have to rely on

crap like "the intersection of oppression of an individual belonging to two separate but equally oppressed groups highlights the post-modern social need for complex de-colonialization..." — VagabondSpectre

because the actual history of systematic oppression is not so easily simplified. For instance, SJW should know that in 2017 many blacks are economically disadvantaged because they have been systematically denied mortgages by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) rules since 1934--when the FHA program was conceived.

The FHA (established by FDR) eased the critical housing shortage and stimulated the economy in the bottom of the depression by guaranteeing mortgages to purchase homes. Without something like FHA, banks had lent money to buy housing to only the most credit worthy, but with short payback periods.

All well and good. But the FHA explicitly excluded black people from its services. Blacks were ineligible for FHA mortgages, as was any house located on a block where even 1 or 2 blacks lived. Further, FHA required covenants attached to the deed which stated that the house would not in the future be sold to blacks (and Jews, sometimes, and sometimes asians).

Everyone involved in the administration of the FHA loan program (government, banking, and real estate) pretty much agreed: black and white people should not live close-by each other. They should remain segregated. They should live in separate communities. Further, they all pretty much agreed that black people (despite the adequate incomes and savings they might have) were bad credit risks.

The average white worker who sought a loan with an FHA guarantee had no choice about the racial mix of the neighborhood he could buy into. It had to be an all white neighborhood. Period. In the future he would have no choice about the race of a buyer to whom he might sell his house. It had to be a white buyer.

The FHA loan program enabled white workers to accumulate more wealth than they could have accumulated by any other method. Over the long run, most houses appreciate in value, and a 30 year mortgage assures the home buyer of a small enough payment that they will be unlikely to default.

Had the FHA, banking system, and real estate industry not forced white and blacks into segregated housing, many blacks would have also benefitted from accumulated wealth, and many white-only neighborhoods would have been integrated from the very beginning, since a lot of FHA housing was in newly created communities.

Frank Bruni's opinion piece in today's New York Times (June 4, '17) is about your topic. He says, "But we’re never going to make the progress that we need to if they hurl the word “racist” as reflexively and indiscriminately as some of them do, in a frenzy of righteousness aimed at gagging speakers and strangling debate." then he gives some egregious examples you can add to your collection.

Are these real examples? — Noble Dust

You can't make up stuff this stupid.

The thing I dislike about on- and off-campus social justice warrior types is this: We have numerous, real, tangible, non-symbolic problems that need real, tangible, non-symbolic efforts applied to them. These problems -- economic, environmental, etc. provide real opportunities for 'enterprising' young social justice warriors to do battle. They have the disadvantage of being a bit gritty and a lot ambiguous at times. The living wage drives (pay people a minimum -living- wage, something like $15 an hour) need soldiers in the field. Work on causes like that, instead of nattering on about racism to one's fellow campus residents.

I have a few social justice warrior genes. It didn't manifest itself when I was in college. (Backwater State College in the mid 1960s just wasn't the time or place, yet.) It isn't a dominant trait, so mostly it came out in middle age in an awkward way. I'd rather not provide embarrassing details. But feeling all social justice superior is pleasant, and I'm sure our campus 'radicals' like that rush.

Gerrymandering, institutional barriers laid in the way of voters are not new, and not good. If both parties are doing it, then it's worse.

140 million voters for national office, millions for senators and reps, hundreds of thousands for state officials, etc. means that direct democracy is out of the question. I agree it is probably undesirable.

California has passed some good law by Initiative and Referendum (thousands of propositions have been put before the electorate) but they have also passed some counter-productive legislation. Property taxes were lowered and the rate of increase given a very low ceiling by the 1978 Proposition 8. The resulting drop in revenue, and the inability to increase taxes at the local level (which is where education funds mostly come from) has caused serious harm to California's cultural infrastructure.

"In what sense has it fallen?" he asks. #()%*&#()@%*&!

1. The Communist Party and government structure existing in the USSR ended. (Not saying the communist party ended, just that it's structural overlap with the government ended.)

2. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan are not longer part of the successor state, Kaputistan.

3. There were extremely significant changes in economic policy by the successor states (Russia, et al.

4. The rest of the world recognized that the USSR had ended. Russia and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan are now (more or less) all independent national states.

What would a reconstituted Communist Party be like? I would think that for many people in Russia, going back to the Communist party would be on par with a dog returning to its vomit. I doubt that the 14 ex-USSR states would willingly become part of a renewed USSR type arrangement. (Of course, they don't have to be given a choice, but I don't know if the Russians have the stomach to force them.)

I can't quite imagine what a reborn Communist Party would be like. It would probably be very odd.

BLM DEMANDS HBO FIRE MAHER!"...

Something about this phenomenon disturbs me beyond words and to no end, and it's happening everywhere right now; it goes like this:

- Someone does or says something that is perceived by some to be possibly offensive...

-Passionate calls for retribution immediately ensue (they start online and on the basis that someone possibly got offended)...

-Truth is exchanged for the feelings of the righteous/offended (which in the environment of emotional outrage accusations become amplified into their most extreme versions. I.E: insensitivity morphs into racism, and racism morphs into violent fascism). — VagabondSpectre

You got it.

x = statement valued at 1
a = multiplies statement by 10
b = multiplies a by 10
c = multiplies b by 10

1 innocuous statement ("house nigger")
a torques out and declares an offense against themselves, or worse, somebody else
b torques out and declares racist assault
c torques out and declares a fascist conspiracy

1 = 1000.

Through this multiplication process one can have nothing at all happen to them, yet claim to feel enslaved, raped, lynched, etc. A light breeze from a butterfly's wing turns into a hurricane of accusations, ending with their feeling totally vindicated that they spoke truth to power.

It's nonsensical. But then... it isn't as if that is the only non-sensical thing that happens in these times.

So, I've been one of those people who always thought that Russia is one of the few countries that bona fide ought to be the richest. It has resources in abundance and a decent population. T — Question

You have to look at the history of Russia / USSR / Russia-again.

What was it about centuries of Tzarist autocracy that would have encouraged a highly innovative enterprising economy? What was it about the Revolution of 1917 that would have unleashed the eager forces of uninhibited production? What was it about WWI and WWII that might have made a difference? What was it about Joseph Stalin that would have encouraged paradigm-busting social developments (hint: a bullet in the head)?

True, Russia / USSR / Russia-again had and has resources and decent people but they haven't been fortunate in their rulers who at times were lavishly indecent -- appalling monsters in some cases.

Force always has the last say. The West is failing to realise this. — Agustino

Or, maybe the West is trying to be a little more civilized than they have been in the past. The West has had plenty of practice in the exercise of force.

In the Marx Archives there are extensive writings on the Godzilla of Capitalism -- it's strangely an unexploited area of study.

Poor Poseidon lost his grand regalia
Naughty Neptune ain't showin' genitalia.

Impertinent. I'm biting my tongue. — Mongrel

Just to be clear, it was the decision of whoever put the statue there that was impertinent -- or rude. Isn't that what the dispute in NYC is about? Was it rude or clever to add the girl statue to the platform on which the bull rested?

I've discovered your wealth of contradiction. — Mongrel

I contain multitudes and it seems to be getting worse.

Sponsored, paid for, contracted, commissioned... art should meet the requirements of the sponsor, if the artist wants more work in the future. Work that is created without a sponsor, but which the artist would like to be well received, should certainly touch the interests of the public that will be looking at it.

But... if an artist wants to make art that is irrelevant to the public, (let's say a depiction of Poseidon and earthquakes) more power to him, but the public might not know what the statue is about. Poseidon doesn't figure very large in the public imagination, these days.

I thought that placing the girl figure in front of the bull figure was impertinent. On its own, the girl figure has much less aesthetic and symbolic value than the bull figure. The girl figure was enhanced merely because of the juxtaposition, and the bull was devalued for the same reason.

The bull is an old symbol of a confident up-market. It isn't about male-female interaction or women's progress in Corporate America. (The opposite symbol of a bull market isn't a cow market, it's an equally powerful bear market.) If the artist wished to affirm that womanhood in the corporate suites is powerful, then the girl figure would have best been placed facing a doorway into a corporate palace--of which New York City has a few thousand.

The leg-lifting-dog, which I would have made larger and more anatomically articulated, does to the girl what the girl does to the bull: It gets something for nothing.

That Trump is hiding a good deal seems far more compelling than a theory that he is merely stupid or petulant.

If he has high crimes and misdemeanors to hide (acts which he had to have committed very early in the game) it was because he was too arrogant to listen to institutional advisors about what a president can and can not do. As an independent business operator, he could make contacts with whoever he wanted -- like Vlad the Schemer, for instance. As an elected official, (and the top one at that) he no longer had so much freedom of action.

Because he had opted to use family members (like his son-in-law Kushner) it would appear he might have thought he could still operating the family racket, just make the racket bigger.

It's public art, so it should reflect the contemporary story. — Mongrel

I don't see why the "publicness" of an art work should reflect "this", rather than "that" kind of story. The public has many points of view, and if the art work is made of durable stuff, the public might have quite different opinions over time.

Post 2008-2009, the Bull is a symbol of something dangerous not only to the US, but to the global economy. It's not American strength (in this art viewer's eyes), but the force behind a speculative bubble whose popping ends up hurting the people at the bottom. The girl represents the spirit of youngsters who want regulations to be put in place. — Mongrel

Bulls aren't about bubbles, they are about confidence in the future. Besides, the 2007 debacle was not a typical bubble, anyway. The Tech Bubble that burst in the last part of the 20th century didn't run any risk of freezing up economic activity. The collapse in 1929 was a more typical bubble -- built on gross over-extension of credit in stock speculation. Wasn't the major problem of 2007 the presence of so much rubbish in the system--the bogus mortgages, the dubious credit default swaps, etc? Banks were leery of lending for fear their borrower (other banks, corporations, etc.) had taken on too much of this garbage and would default.

The Bull more accurately represents the confidence that "the rising tide will lift all yachts". Of course, one has to have a yacht to start with.