When I say, "It would appear that might does make right" that should not be taken as an endorsement. I heartily disapprove of "Might Makes Right" thinking. But it isn't wise to think that just because the noble unarmed occupy the highest moral ground that they stand much of a chance against the lowlifes down in the valley who are armed to the teeth and are not burdened by a sickly inability to use force.

Sometimes the noble bearers of goodness, truth, and light have arranged to be well armed, and manage to vanquish the forces of darkness, falsehoods, and evil. At other times the nobles end up in a gulag somewhere, or worse. Ecclesiastes says, "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Whether we are right or wrong, strong or weak, we can't be altogether sure of how we will fare in the conflicts to come.

There are clearly advantages to being mighty, and having the prerogative to write history, at least for a while. We have to decide whether we'd rather be right (whether we win or not). Personally, I'd rather be right, even if it means a trip to the gulag.

Fair trade, not free trade. Nos vies pas leurs profits. Our lives, not your profits. (Votez Philippe Poutou NPA New Anticapitalist Party - France). ┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘

In which case, was it a just act for the nazis to kill the jews in Germany under the nazi regime? — Samuel Lacrampe

Of course it was not just. However...

The Nazis, born into a nation noted for its thorough systematic methods, were careful to establish a judicial cover in accordance with their racial hatreds. What they were doing was "authorized" and "legal" and for "the good of Germany". Whether individuals fell into the hands of the Gestapo for being pessimistic about the war, whether they were Jews discovered in a cellar, or whether they were an entire Jewish ghetto, procedures were followed, more or less.

Had the Nazis prevailed (they could have, had everything gone according to plan) the might of the Third Reich would have validated the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, Jehovahs Witnesses, homosexuals, Slavs, criminals, asocials, etc. We would not now, 70+ years later, be debating this--just like Turkey is not debating the Armenian genocide a century ago. Just like Americans are not debating the American Indian exterminations which were concluded around 125 years ago.

Regardless of who wins, though, people are free to judge others by their own standards. Israelis feel imminently justified in the establishment of Israel. The Palestinians are not obliged to agree with them. We are not obliged to agree with the Turkish people that there was no Armenian genocide. No one had to approve of the apartheid regime of South Africa. The white rulers of South Africa thought it was appropriate. Lots of people didn't.

Most communities follow a a double standard: The winners generally get away with their crimes. The losers are punished for theirs. No one has punished the United States for exterminating Indians. We won. The Germans were punished for killing the Jews because they lost.

Communities usually give themselves moral cover. Americans did not (many do not) generally think that we were exterminating Indians. We were defending ourselves from the Indians, or moving the Indians out of the way of progress, or just killing a lot of buffalo for the hides, or just clearing the land. We certainly weren't committing a crime against humanity.

Really? No racism anywhere except that started by Christianity?

How did Christianity do that? Are there any other factors in Western Civ that might have a leading role?

If the Greeks or Romans were not racist, what kept them from it?

5% to 1% would have to scrounge and scrap much like the rest of us animals do nowadays in order to survive — dclements

"The living will envy the dead." Even a limited nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States, or Pakistan and India, or Iran and Israel--let alone an unlimited nuclear exchange everywhere--would reduce humans to scavenger status. It is difficult to describe just how utterly changed the terms of existence would be.

All of the infrastructure on which we depend for survival (given life as we know it) would collapse. Thanks to EMP, transportation and electronic communication would be gone. Any internal combustion` motor depending on microchips (most of them) would not work. Most electronic equipment would not work, even if one could supply it with electricity. Cities are very dependent on pumps to move water up and move sewage out. These would not be working. Refrigeration and heating would mostly disappear. There would be no lights after sundown. Factories would be silent--including factories that make pharmaceuticals.

it was the religious who gave the colonists the 'right' to treat blacks and natives as subhuman — Cavacava

Who are these religious who granted the colonists the right to treat blacks and natives as subhuman? Good Christians didn't need permission to engage in slavery. Slavery, after all, was an acknowledged condition in the New Testament, it had existed in England in post Roman times, and it existed elsewhere in the world.

Slavery existed in England before the North American colonies were established (prior to 1600). English ships began the African slave trade -- again before 1600. Aside from outright slavery, labor as punishment for criminal convictions came very close to slavery. Indentured or 'transported' workers could be bought and sold. They did have some minimal rights, while slaves had zero rights

Slavery made good business sense, as long as slaves were the cheapest most malleable labor one could get. It didn't need a religious cover. My guess is that few slave owners actually believed that their slaves were not pretty much human. They needed to distance themselves from the people they owned and (fairly often) with whom they interacted sexually. One could argue that their hatred of blacks after the civil war might stemmed in part from the guilt they bore as slave owners.

I'm not trying to let religious people in the North American colonies off the hook. They were not just complicit, they were actively involved, in northern colonies like Massachusetts and Rhode Island as well as in the south. The Bible is long enough to provide cover for all sorts of things--like the liberation of slaves, as well as enslavement.

The memory of where you left your keys accurate? — Wosret

God Himself loses His keys.

there is great strength in weakness — Cavacava

I won't take anything away from any of the leaders and marchers who strove mightily to overcome southern resistance to the legitimate demands of very disadvantage blacks, but the civil rights campaign won to a large extent because the Federal Government finally decided to use federal power to force the south to accept change.

Federal power was exercised through Supreme Court Decisions (not just decisions to rule segregation illegal, but court orders to integrate, or else), armed federal or national guard troops lined up at the entrances to high schools, FBI investigation of murders and bombings, federal civil rights law, and so on. The same thing happened in the north - Boston, for instance, would never have agreed to various busing schemes to achieve integration if they hadn't been forced by the Supreme Court to do so. [Busing was a very cumbersome solution.]

That being said, if it hadn't been for King, the Southern Christian Leadership Committee, and various other groups, the federal government (like, during the Kennedy administration) probably wouldn't have done much.

When the laws allowed for slavery and apartheid, they were unjust laws. — Samuel Lacrampe

To whom were they unjust? The owners of slaves? No. The slaves? Since when do slaves have rights? Slavery is just if the slave society defines it as just. Apartheid is just if the apartheid regime says it is just. And they did.

What changed the "justice" of slavery and apartheid in slave and apartheid regimes was either overwhelming opposition to slavery and apartheid in other regimes, expressed through legislation, trade embargoes, or armed resistance. In all cases, those who had the most might were able to define what was right.

Might deciding what is right often results in an expansion of liberty (emancipation, desegregation, integration) and a redefinition of what had been deemed morally wrong. Gays can't be discriminated against in hiring and housing, (if such rules are locally in effect), and marriage between gays is now legal in some countries. "Physically weak and defective persons" have been granted protection by the might of the state, such that buildings must install elevators, ramps, and wider doors so that people in wheelchairs can have access. Were these changes brought about by the might of wheelchair users? Hardly.

Hardly, but cripples, the blind, the retarded, the deformed, etc. have another sort of power: the ability to place a claim on the attention of the fit and able-bodied. This hasn't always existed, of course: Per Dickens...

"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge, ... it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?"
"Plenty of prisons..."
"And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"Both very busy, sir..."
"Those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

If everyone were only out for their own self interest, then culture & society could not exist (one of Socrates responses to Thrasymachus). Honor among thieves is required in order for society to cohere, which is why we have laws (the might) to suppress those nogoodniks. — Cavacava

True, society could not exist without at least minimal cooperation among the members. But that is neither right or wrong: it's just a requirement. Coherence and non-coherence have to be approximately in balance for the society to go on. Many little, sub-societies come and go as these two factors swing too far out of balance.

When do right, might, strong, and wrong become issues? When we get past the minimal requirements of coherence and non-coherence.

So, the honorable band of thieves preying on caravans settles down into a small village (because the caravan-robbing business dried up) and starts growing non-GMO kale, organic quinoa, and unmedicated free range chickens. The necessity for cooperation is now much higher; the old regime of honor among thieves was too anarchic.

Early settlement is roughly the moment when people begin to need organization that is more complicated than honor among thieves. It's possible that the former thieves will democratically coordinate the kale, quinoa, and chickens, divide up the proceeds in a completely proportional manner, and allocate left-over resources for research and development. It's also possible that a strongman will emerge who will provide the new community with a system of organization that suits him and his clique. The kale, quinoa, and chicken operation will be about the same either way.

It's more likely that strong-man rule will emerge because democratic decision making is less efficient (if not less effective), requires sophisticated thinking among all the participants, and is time consuming. Strongman rule is faster (if less effective), requires sophistication among only a few participants, and for the community, takes no time at all--just the time it takes to hear their marching orders.

The interests of the strong man and his clique, and their ability to enforce their decisions, are the kernel of autocratic "might makes right". If democratic decision making prevails, then the basis of rightness will rest in the might of the whole group. Democratic or autocratic might will define what is right, and as many have discovered, democratic might can be as unfavorable to outliers as autocratic might can be.

When was it the case that might was not in a position to define what is right?

At least since Machiavelli's time and earlier, [May 3, 1469 - June 21, 1527 -- an opportunity to celebrate his birth or death is coming up] several mighty groups have been in a position to define what is right for themselves and for us: property owners (especially those with a lot of property), the rulers put in place or supported in place by property owners (lords, kings, bishops, presidents, prime ministers, Hauptfuhrers, etc.), money lenders (to whom do we lend and to whom do we not lend), capitalists, factory owners, legal departments, and so on.

The Rights of The People are protected in principle, and in some areas in fact, but are often undermined by the same mechanisms (legislatures, legal systems, etc.) that protect the people's rights.

Were "The Revolution" to succeed, the might of The People would be turned against the might of property and wealth, stripping them of wealth and power and with no more right than the proles once had. It seems right, does it not, that if The People can overcome their oppressors, they should dispossess the wealthy of their power to oppress?

It would appear that might does make right.

I don't know if it is crazy to think that since history shows nearly an endless list of psychos ending up in power — dclements

Lunatics end up in power because sometimes only crazy people can stand to do what it takes to get to the top. If only the psychopaths survive the struggle, that's who will end up ruling. Nazi Germany, for example, favored the promotion of bright, loyal, psychopathic personalities. Heil Hitler himself, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, Frank, Goring, ‎Ernst Röhm, etc. etc. etc.

On the other hand, it would appear that quite sane people are in charge of places like Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom and maybe France. At least, "quite normal people" are in charge IF, and only IF, the societies over which Putin, Trump, May, and maybe Le Pen rule are sane.

Erich Fromm (The Sane Society) argues that many societies (possibly yours) are actually insane, and that there is a reverse diagnosis system: People who can get along in a crazy society are deemed sane, and people who can not get along in a crazy system are deemed insane. If not insane, then at least redundant.

Europe and North America do not have a monopoly on crazy societies and crazy leaders. They are all over the place. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan...

Nations seek to maximize their interests and advantages. As we have seen, pursuing security, dominance, favorable trade agreements, access to resources, and so on have resulted in "killing lots of other people in another country" on a number of occasions. Because the winners are well rewarded, it has been worth the risk.

We may or may not use atomic weapons in the future. But atomic weapons are only the most powerful-per-pound weapons. Conventional weapons and good organization coupled with determination can reek enormous havoc on any country that is in somebody else's way. The firebombing of Tokyo, for instance, was about as bad as a nuclear explosion. The Nazis managed to mount an enormously successful war effort without nuclear weapons.

It's unreasonable to expect that in the future we will all be nice to one another, and war, of some sort, won't happen. If we are lucky, we will establish the means to conduct wars without using the nuclear option. (How likely is that? I wouldn't bank everything on it.)

How's your French, Hanover?

Simplicitude is French for simplicity.

Charlie est l'auteur de plusieurs chansons qu'il a interprétées et chantées au sein du groupe Les Silver D'argent où il jouait également de la batterie. En voici quelques-unes extraites des albums "Simpicitude" (ed. Rififi) et "Laver les Saucisses" (ed. Sarah).

Charlie is the author of several songs that he interpreted and sung within the group Silver Silver where he also played the drums. Here are a few extracts from the albums " Simpicitude " (ed Rififi) and "Laver les Sausages" (Saravah ed.).

What risqué meaning "Laver les Sausages" (Wash the Sausages) might have would require a field trip to Paris.

English was inseminated with so much French by William the Conqueror, (1066) that I think we need not flinch so much when we see a French noun picked up by a modern English writer. You can say "Quisinart" can't you? Cafe? Merde?

we have created a means of instant mass destruction of humans and does that immediately devalue life? — Andrew4Handel

Life was devalued when "they" decided to build devices of mass destruction, be that means an extermination facility (Sobibor, Auschwitz...) chemical/biological weapons, or atomic bombs. Using these devices simply follows the logic of their invention. Life isn't devalued by death, life is devalued by determining that some people have no value at all, or not enough value, and that they may be destroyed.

All atomic powers (USA, Russia, China, UK, France, Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea) have made a life-devaluing decision when they commenced to make atomic bombs.

Self-defense? Self defense between Russia (USSR) and USA is nonsensical. In their offensive and defensive use of atomic weapons (no matter who starts it) these two countries will have devalued the lives of what... 100,000,000 people? A billion? More? A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan of 10 or 20 bombs each (both have a good many more than that) could result in many millions of deaths.

Life is also devalued when systems remain in place which kill people by the scores of thousands year after year. The auto industry is one such. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in automobiles which were never built to be even close to safe.

For a good read, try Richard Rhodes‎' The Making of the Atomic Bomb. If you have any interest in industrial history (and making the atomic bomb required a huge new industry built from scratch over night) it's a great story, ethics and all that aside.

Also very good is The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan. There were many of thousands of women working in this huge plant producing fissionable material. None of them knew what it was they were making. For instance, a large class of workers controlled the huge pieces of equipment that were separating isotopes magnetically. Their job was to "turn knobs to keep dials centered". When the war was over, the workers of Oak Ridge National Laboratory were shocked to learn what it was they had produced.

Also good, and much closer to the present, is Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iverson. Rocky Flats is the now-decommissioned plant near Denver where thousands of atomic bombs were manufactured from plutonium. If the business of making thousands of atomic weapons is unethical, the way the plant was run was just as unethical. The plant was "dirty" - meaning that exposure to plutonium and various noxious chemicals was likely for workers, and during several accidents related to poor maintenance, Denver was showered with quite a bit (pounds, not ounces) of fine plutonium dust. The toxic plant and surroundings was buried and/or covered up with soil and turned into a "nature preserve" (!)

Someone said Jewish scientists helped create them because of their fear of the anihilation of theJews. But I pointed out that they were actually used on the Japanese and not the Germans. — Andrew4Handel

At least where Germans could get their hands on them, Jewish atomic scientists went to the gas chambers along with everybody else.

Prior to WWII (which began in Europe in September, 1939) physics journals received articles from Germans, Italians, English, American, etc. physicists and were published and shared in university libraries all over the industrialized world. It wasn't, at the time, loaded with military value. Around Christmas of 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, Lise Meitner and her nephew, Otto Frisch (all Germans) reached an understanding: A controlled self-sustaining reaction could make it possible to generate a large amount of energy for heat and power, while an unchecked reaction could create an explosion of huge force. Niels Bohr of Denmark checked over Meitner's and Frisch's calculations on his way to a physics conference in Washington, DC in January 1939.

American physicists recognized the importance of what Bohr communicated, and over the next 2 years year did research into uranium, particularly the two isotopes U235 and U238. Once the US was attacked by Japan, President Roosevelt (as per requested by Vanavar Bush (not related to the presidentish Bush family) authorized what became the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb.

The initial intended target of the prospective bomb was Germany. Judging by what they read in the physics journals, the German scientists were in as good a position as anyone else to investigate and build a nuclear weapon. As it turned out (post war findings) the German bomb effort hadn't gotten very far. Hitler had received an atomic bomb proposal and not unlike other people, thought that it might be a wild goose chase. But some research was nonetheless funded. It is possible, some think, that Heisenberg deliberately avoided directing the research along the most fruitful lines.

After the German invasion of Poland, atomic physics journals became much more cautious about what kind of information they published. Once the US entered the war, American atomic physicists were ordered to not publish anything at all about their subject matter.

As it happened, Germany was defeated before Japan, and Japan became the honored recipient of the first two atomic weapons.

Most of the 100,000+ people who worked in the Manhattan Project literally did not know what they were doing. Jobs were segmented and kept opaque so that most workers could not make sense of the tasks they were carrying out. Secrecy rules were in force. (of course, a few workers did figure it out by putting 2+2+2+2...together.) At the highest levels of the Manhattan Project, scientists, of course, were acutely aware of what they were working on, and there were definitely some qualms about the whole thing. But... it was fascinating work, we were at war with a dangerous enemy, victory wasn't guaranteed, and so the job was done expeditiously.

Imagine there was a genuine, immediate threat that North Korea were going to send a bomb into America.

Should America use a pre-emptive Nuclear strike? — Andrew4Handel

I will assume that on one fine day, a real NK nuclear-tipped missile will be launched at Japan, the US, or Seoul--a city of 25 million people--and maybe all three. An appropriate response is problematic.

If Seoul were to receive a nuclear bomb first, there would be much less of South Korea to protect, and nuclear bombs could be more appropriately applied to NK's remaining conventional weapons (lined up across the DMZ from SK). On the other hand, if Japan or the US were struck first, then it becomes harder to defend using nuclear weapons near Seoul. Pyongyang is the seat of government and around 3.3 million people. Is killing 3 million civilians to get rid of 100,000 (max) government leaders a worthwhile trade off?

Using conventional methods to attack NK's missile and bomb-making facilities seems like it would invite an attack (nuclear or non) on Seoul. We are not in a position to immediately defend Seoul against a concerted attack, conventional or nuclear.

I don't know whether South Korea is capable of successfully defending itself against North Korea. SK has substantial military resources. On it's own SK doesn't have nuclear weapons, and I don't think the US has positioned any of its own nuclear weapons there.

If we want to minimize risk to ourselves, Japan, and South Korea, a preemptive strike on NK's missile and bomb facilities, and possibly Pyongyang would be a possibility.

We might begin intercepting all missile launches from NK--assuming our antimissile technology is good enough to hit most of the NK launches. We could destroy any submarines they have that might be capable of launching a missile. This might demonstrate to NK leaders the futility of attempting a missile attack.

Were NK successful in striking US territory with a nuclear weapon, i'm pretty sure overwhelming retaliation in kind would result. The same would apply for an attack on Japan.

All in all, there are no good possibilities here.

The most vulnerable place is Seoul; Japan is next, and for now the least vulnerable place is the US (assuming NK does not have submarine missile launch capability). The Korean peninsula is not a big place, and nuclear warfare in the north would have consequences for South Korea, Japan, and China. Don't forget China.

The West provides a lot of aid to poor countries. — Andrew4Handel

What is "a lot of aid"?

The US spends around $29 billion on foreign aid. This is a very small fraction of a multi-trillion dollar budget--less than 1%. A number of countries donate a larger share of their GDP or central government budget than does the USA.

Americans privately donate about as much to international needs as the Federal Government spends. So the US donates around $55 billion, altogether.

It's not "a lot of aid".

But the Aid can be exploited and misdirected. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, it can be exploited, misdirected, administered inefficiently, applied to problems which the donor agency does not understand sufficiently well, stolen by corrupt employees, or programs fall apart after the agency ceases to support it (which all agencies should eventually).

Wasn't a lot of the aid to NK food and energy aid. and not a lot of assistance for capacity building, health improvement, food production, and the like?

The mental functioning of an intelligent person can be significantly impaired by difficulties with concentrating, memory problems, attention to detail, and so on. Concentration, memory, attention to detail, reading and computational ability, and so on are skills in their own right, but they are also manifestations of properly working intelligence in literate people.

Mental illness, anxiety, depression, fear, and so on can and do interfere with mental functioning.

I can't tell if you're being coy with me or not. — Thorongil

I'm being a bit coy. When I said that about the Fall, what I mean was that people have amply demonstrated their capacity to be terrible. We are terrible, and we didn't get that capacity from God, or not from God. We are just that way. The best role I can give to God in all this is that of appalled by-stander. Man didn't come from God; it's the other way around. In God we have projected our most superlative selves, something that we have not been, are not now, and likely never will be.

Alas.

I would like to write a snappy little birthday boy greetings, but you know, of those things which one can not speak, one must remain silent.

I picture them being quite smug people — schopenhauer1

7 billion smug Type A sons of bitches. Great.

I will comply,, but your instructions are unclear. Do you want me to go back and mention to God all those horrible things, or do you want me to attribute to God all those horrible things? And which horrible things are you referencing?

I don't like the common interpretation of The Fall (I understand why the church interpreted the Eden story that way, but Jews, for instance, didn't interpret it that way, apparently). However, there are few Christian doctrines that are as validated with as much historical, statistical, and anecdotal evidence for the human condition as Our Fall from Grace.

OK, I'm persuaded. I'd say more, but I've got stuff to do and best get at them.

Thanks for the link. Young Dillon Bowen is a very clear, articulate thinker. I enjoyed reading the piece--and being introduced to Quintette--Damn -- another interesting forum.

I don't know -- are Americans really any more pre-programmed to think about value in fiscal terms than others? Thinking in fiscal terms about value isn't second nature to me. My moral compass was pre- and re- programmed by Christian (both Protestant and Catholic) theology, even if I am no longer a paid up subscriber to its formal creed.

Yes, Ford really was a watershed. I just started reading a book about Janesville, Wisconsin and the closure of the GM assembly plant there--it operated from around 1920 to 2010. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan grew up in, and represents, Janesville as part of his district. In the late '60s the plant was given the honor of making the auto that would bring GM's total up to 100 million -- and that's just GM. Ford, American Motors, Chrysler, Studebaker, and Packard add how many million more.

It would be very difficult to over-estimate the social, moral, psychological, demographic, geographic, and economic consequences of the automobile industry. We did have an alternative to the 300 million+, more than the 1-car-per-person, approach. Pretty good Intra-urban, inter-urban, and trans-continental ground transportation was in place at the time the auto industry was hatched and reared. This is all familiar news.

Well... I have a big medical appointment in 2 hours and all sorts of things to do before I leave, that I should have been doing now, but this is more interesting.

Why do people seize on some small feature of other member's posts the way you just did, and ignore the main point? When I responded to your post, I only offered a "maybe not" suggestion (with census information), and I didn't slam you for speaking for all women in the world. I've learned that women tend to not like it when men speak for them.

I'm sorry you felt slighted, misrepresented, or stereotyped by what I said. I was speaking of the United States; I do not know why you supposed I was speaking for you, and all women in the world.

There are quite a few countries where the birth rates are very low -- the US isn't the only such country. I think it is quite reasonable for me to think that there may be practical reasons why women might forego the (alleged) self-realization of having children. It's also fair for me to limit these observations to my own country about which I know a little, rather than speculate on what women are thinking in many countries about which I know nothing.

There are also countries where the birth rate is quite high. Whether (often poor) women bearing 4-9 children in countries with lethargic economies feel self fulfilled, I can not say. Can you? I know that birth rates rise and fall with respect to other social factors. You probably know that too.

So being pregnant, giving birth, breast-feeding - at least half the population might count that as a natural completion of the self in terms of actualising — apokrisis

Well, according to the Census Bureau, maybe not.

2014, 47.6 percent of women between age 15 and 44 had never had children, up from 46.5 percent in 2012, the highest child's rate in 40 years.
...for women between 25 and 29 — 49.6 percent of women in that age group don’t have kids. Unsurprisingly, after age 30 those numbers drop and more women become mothers. The survey found that 28.9 percent of women ages 30-34 are childfree.
The census data is backed up by data from the National Center for Health Statistics. According to a recent report, in 2013 there were just 62.9 births for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the U.S. — an all-time low.
As Sezin Koehler wrote for The Huffington Post in September: “I don’t need to push a child out of my vagina to be a real woman.” — Emma Gray, The Huffington Post

My guess is that all these women aren't so much against having children, as they are against having children under the circumstances that would apply to their having children. Like, not having any free time for several years; like having a vastly increased burden of domestic work; like committing to an extremely expensive proposition -- and that assumes she has an employed partner. Why women choose to have children on their own (especially when they are not independently wealthy) is beyond me -- no matter how fulfilling it might be.

"'What is "self-actualization'" and how would you know you had it?

When should one expect to achieve "self-actualization": Any day, now? Before one is 25? 25-50 years? Over 50?

Is "self-actualization" like circumcision or baptism--once done, it can't--or need not--be repeated?

Is one supposed to be "self-actualized" all day every day? Or is it a fleeting event? Is "self-actualization" like a 'peak experience' -- the glow lasts a long time?

Can one die happy and have never achieved "self-actualization"? What kind of people fail to achieve "self-actualization"?

Can the world stand 7 billion "self-actualized people"?

I suspect that it takes a concerted effort to become fully actualize; maybe Type A personalities are more likely to persist than Type B people.

Are "self-actualized people" different than people who are not "self-actualized"?

If a rock (the very model of modern unconscious matter) is falling towards the earth and you will presently occupy the same space as the rock, does that mean that the rock intends, or could intend, to crush you (assuming some imminently conscious agent from TPF didn't urge the rock off a ledge)?

A bull does not intend to get a cow pregnant. It only has to get aroused by the cow's female pheromones. Perhaps, maybe, possibly, it could then intend to mount the cow. Or the teenage boy on the couch probably does not intend to get the teenage girl on the same couch pregnant. He might intend to have intercourse, but he certainly intends (needs, wants) to ejaculate, somehow, somewhere. The girl probably doesn't intend to get pregnant, either, but if push comes to shove... she might get knocked up, intent or not.

You'd be surprised at all the situations where no intention is posited and untoward outcomes happen anyway.

the realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone. — schopenhauer1

That is a good starting point. I don't disagree with it, but there might be other definitions of self-actualization, and certainly there are elaborations.

I do not like the idea that reproduction is a primary means to the self-actualization end. Reproduction probably has short-circuited more self-actualization than it has enabled. Animals (including us) reproduce because sexual pleasure results in sperm and eggs finding each other. Intention isn't required (but is often enough there, for us, anyway).

Are you talking to me?

Never mind the viruses.

Meanwhile on Mars we are looking for "signs of life". IF we can not decide what life is here, THEN how will we know that we have, or have not found life on Mars -- or on one of the moons of Saturn, or anywhere else?

All, or most all life on earth does, but MUST all life on earth utilize RNA and/or DNA? Suppose we found "something" that didn't seem to be a machine (it's soft and squishy) moving around and, after taking it apart, we discover it doesn't have RNA and/or DNA? Could it be life? How would we recognize "life" without DNA or RNA?

Or, back on Mars let's say it's not moving, is hard and kind of dry, does seem to have a lot of organic compounds (like proteins), and seems to have a particular shape (like, there are a dozen of them and they all look alike). The objects seem to be annoyingly and persistently indifferent to us.

How would NASA go about deciding that they were or were not "life"?

Or, let's say that on one of the wet moons of Saturn a nano-probe finds some stringy fibrous stuff in the liquid (whatever the liquid is) that seems to be slightly reactive (it twitches when a light passes through it). There's no DNA or RNA in it. Does that mean it's just some sort of mineralized fiber floating around?

It seems like NASA is looking for what we have here (don't know how they could do otherwise).

Well, since we're putting out songs... THE POWER AND THE GLORY by Phil Ochs

why isn't childbirth by extension torture? Why would God make it painful? Why does stillbirth occur in 1 out of 160 pregnancies? — Maw

If you want God to be responsible for the details of life and the pain of childbirth, It's mostly about bad design. Big head, narrow pelvis: pain. Short of slicing the womb open through the abdomen (a la caesar) there is only one doorway out of the womb. God should have taken a design course. Or better, majored in design.

There are examples of bad design all over. Why don't we regrow teeth throughout our lives? Some species do? Why was the urinary line routed through the prostate which swells up with age, choking off the outlet from the bladder? Why doesn't every man have abundant, great looking hair all the way to the grave in old age? One damned bad design after another!

If you want Nature to be responsible, well... nature just stumbles into solutions and reproduction works well enough. Nature says, you are here; it worked well enough in your case, so stop complaining.

Peer review and acceptance by a panel of independent scientists, not chosen by the Vatican, conducting investigations under terms set by them, not by the Vatican. — andrewk

Do you think many independent scientists would care to add peer-reviewing of Vatican evidence to their already busy schedules -- not to mention the likely bad PR that they would generate, no matter what they found?

OK, now you are talking about something else altogether.

I agree with you 110% that the American oligarchy has a wretched record in just about every respect. They are, as far as I am concerned, scum, filth, and dirt. So, you won't get any argument from me about how bad they are.

I wasn't aware that Venezuela was interested in joining the union as a state.

While I am impressed by a concrete extruder that can 'print' a 4 room house in 24 hours, I'm not sure how much of an advantage such a device is. Whatever has been keeping 4 room concrete houses from being built isn't the lack of a 3D printer. Still, if the printer can do it and in the process use less energy, less material, and still produce a strong wall, that is a worthwhile advance.

Just an aside, did you know the world may have passed "peak sand"? [Quelles horreurs!] The kind of sand that is required to make excellent concrete isn't all that common, and zillions of tons of it have already been dug up and used. Most sand doesn't work well in concrete--the particles are either too big, too small, are laced with salt, or have some other problem. So, maybe the concrete extruder solves that problem in some way.

Now, getting back to growth.

But that's ONLY true if you interpret 'growth' as the American rich and power mongers want you to define it. What America COULD have done was expand its idealism by accepting more other nations as states, and export education and science instead of weapons and war. — ernestm

Whether we exported education and science or weapons of war wouldn't have made any difference in the analysis I was drawing from. (It would have made all the difference in the world MORALLY.) All the industrialized nations experienced a tremendous boost from steam power, railroads, internal combustion, electrical generation, lighting, radio, telecommunication, airplanes, and so on. They all followed a similar trajectory of benefits, and eventually, diminishing returns (in terms of economic growth).

What we (and others) didn't do was distribute these good technologies to less developed economies. East Africa, for instance (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania...) had very little telephone service in 1995, especially outside of a handful of large cities (like Nairobi), and most people in the cities didn't have telephone service either. The arrival of the cell phone (relatively inexpensive and needing radio transmission towers rather than extensive wiring) solved that problem, but that wasn't America's doing, for the most part. Africans developed sophisticated services for the (now primitive) hand sets they were holding--like financial services, crop price information, and (of course) just plain communication.

Solar panels are bringing electricity, and some electrical devices, to places that were using kerosine lamps in 1995. That means children, for instance, can read in the evening, or curl up next to the radio and list to the BBC World Service. Again, that wasn't our doing.

Mostly what some countries like Nigeria or Venezuela got was oil drilling and oil pumping technology which didn't help them all that much. The people there are mostly getting ripped off by everybody (locals and outsiders) in a position to do so.

I had checked a graph showing their GDP growth. Yes, it's much, much better now than it was in 2000.

China's economic growth has far outstripped that of the USA for decades — ernestm

This is true. The US economy and society completed what in retrospect was a century long cycle in 1970. We had tremendous growth in population, output, innovation, invention, development, etc. between 1870 and 1920, and then a reprise of growth, but with mature technologies from 1920 to 1970. From 1970 to the present, we have seen all sorts of changes in the economy -- particularly the shift of mass-production from our country to places like China.

One of the reasons we stopped growing (more than our piddling 2%) was that all of the growth gains that could be extracted from the technological innovations of the previous century had been extracted. Steam power, gasoline power, electrical power, atomic power, telephone, radio, television, computers, automation, aviation, infrastructure construction, etc. were done. Certainly there were innovations: the smartphone, the personal computer, the internet, the microwave, and all that. But these were not huge-industry spawning innovations like railroads in 1890, telephone and telegraph, and electrical generation; like autos were in 1920, or television was in 1950, or aviation. Nothing like them has appeared in the last 50 years. And, many analysts think, won't in the foreseeable future, either.

So we are going to be surpassed in growth by other nations: China, hopefully India (for their sake), Africa, and maybe Russia. They have a lot of catching up to do -- lots of growth potential.

(Just to wet blanket all this, Some countries will see delightful growth, unless climate change creates so many problems that everybody will be racing to stay afloat economically, let alone soar.)